Comments on: eBay Tips 2008: Review Your Titles

By: Andy Toogood

Andy Toogood — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 22:16:51 +0000

Thanks for all your comments. Interesting that like us no-one has a particular view one way or the other.

We have tried both and it didn’t seem to make any difference either way so maybe we’ll try mixing it up a bit and see what happens.

We do capitalise SALE, NEW, BNWT, etc and that does seem to work well but maybe ‘CROCS WELLIES size 11 blue’ or something similar would work! (if only Crocs allowed sales on ebay in the first place!) )

By: Sue Bailey

Sue Bailey — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 22:11:29 +0000

Well, doing back to how is it for me – yes, of course you skip more in the mixed caps than the all caps. If it’s all caps, you have to read it all – if it’s mixed, you read the words in caps first. That’s the point: if you have a page full of all-caps titles, your eye doesn’t pick out anything, whereas if it has certain words highlighted in caps, it *will* read them.

I don’t think you can judge the result from one line: you need to read a whole stack of listings altogether to really get the effect.

By: Josordoni

Josordoni — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 18:50:44 +0000

I wrote three up in u/c and got fed up changing the caps lock, so the rest are going back to caps…

Sorry Sue!

By: northumbrian

northumbrian — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 18:05:59 +0000

I think the capital works well most times, but I have been listing in lowercase for so bloody long ,I drive myself nuts meaning to hit caps lock and forgetting

By: Josordoni

Josordoni — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 16:18:03 +0000

What I might try is to use caps for the salient words, and leave the descriptives in u/l. So for example I have:

GOUDA POTTERY HOLLAND PZH WINDMILL CLOG 1946

That would make it:

GOUDA Pottery Holland PZH Windmill CLOG 1946

Now somehow I skip more words in the 2nd than in the first one… Sue? How is it for you?

By: Sue Bailey

Sue Bailey — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 15:36:53 +0000

Whereas I think it makes for horrible readability even with gallery pix. There’s not necessarily an über-right answer to everything

By: Dan Wilson

Dan Wilson — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 15:01:32 +0000

Lynne,

I think it looks alright in your Shop when the titles are in caps… when there is a gallery pic. When a run if items that don’t have gallery, I find it a little dense.

Dan

By: Josordoni

Josordoni — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 14:49:24 +0000

But I like “impactful”…..

it has a lot of …mmmmm….. impact!

but seriously, folks, I have always used caps for titles and headlines. I have always found them easier to read than u/l for headlines, whilst I hate all caps for anything longer than a dozen words.

But now after Sue’s comment about unreadability in the shop, I am wondering… I shall have to experiment with caps mixed with u/l…

By: Dan Wilson

Dan Wilson — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 00:47:59 +0000

Correction: “…capitalising only some of your title can have greater impact.”

Thanks Sue, the woman who tought me: “embiggen”.

By: Sue Bailey

Sue Bailey — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 23:27:40 +0000

capitalising only some of your title can be more impactful

This is correct, though I’d question whether “impactful” is actually a word

Capitalised *can* help your titles stand out in search results, but it can also make them unreadable, and if you have a Shop full of all-capitals titles, it really *is* completely unreadable. Use capitals sparingly. “….. SALE!” certainly works

By: Dan Wilson

Dan Wilson — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 20:26:27 +0000

It doesn’t make any difference to the searchability, whether a title is capitalised or not. It can be a good way of helping your Titles stand out in Serach and Browse results.

Don’t forget that capitalisation is considered to be shouting online and that capitalising only some of your title can be more impactful.

By: Andy Toogood

Andy Toogood — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 20:23:12 +0000

Does anyone have a particular view on CAPITALISED or otherwise titles? Just interested…

By: Chris Dawson

Chris Dawson — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 18:26:50 +0000

On the subject of spellings in titles don't forget words that can be split into two. My favourite is "Jetdirect card" (20 listings on eBay) which can also be "Jet Direct card" (65 listings on eBay)

By: Josordoni

Josordoni — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 18:01:16 +0000

Ah, Dan, I’m sure you will think of something….:)

By: northumbrian

northumbrian — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 17:47:09 +0000

certainly I liked it, its spot on ,cant fault it,

By: Dan Wilson

Dan Wilson — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 17:18:00 +0000

Great you like that. But it doesn’t bode well for the next 29 days, if it can’t be topped. Hehe. ;O)

By: northumbrian

northumbrian — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 16:25:30 +0000

I cant think of a more useful tip, title content is the single most important selling tool on ebay, dont matter what you add or do after, if they dont find you .they cant buy it

By: Dan Wilson

Dan Wilson — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 11:44:51 +0000

Owen: hehe. My personal favourite is bakelite. So many variants to be found. Bakelite, bakerlite, bakalite, bakerlight, bakolte, bakelight….

By: Josordoni

Josordoni — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 11:43:24 +0000

The thing of course Owen, is that sometimes it helps to spell the name wrongly as well as correctly, as a lot of people don’t know how to spell and will put the wrong spelling in their searches..so if you spell it incorrectly as well as correctly, you will pick up those badly spelt searches as well. I tend to keep my title correct, but will sometimes add in an “alternative” spelling in the listing description.

Wedgwood and Wedgewood is one example… in fact eBay have it spelt wrongly in some categories (yes, I have pointed it out to them several times… no it didn’t have any effect…)

By: Owen

Owen — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 11:30:29 +0000

If you are going to use a manufacturers name in the title, I think it will be an advantage to spell it correctly.

I regularly have a little chuckle at one of my competitors who spells the manufacturer’s name incorrectly even though the name is on the front of the machine.

Apart from it not being found in searches, it doesn’t look very professional.

By: Dan Wilson

Dan Wilson — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 11:18:12 +0000

Thanks Lynne.

By: Josordoni

Josordoni — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 10:38:07 +0000

p.s. Dan, you can call me Lynne if you like….

By: Josordoni

Josordoni — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 10:37:31 +0000

I use Marketplace Research for my buying price estimations, and I am often surprised (pleasantly) at the way eBay can work out plurals and singulars!

By: Dan Wilson

Dan Wilson — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 10:35:40 +0000

Quite right. But if you lack inspiration, slam in the singular. It’s definitely worth checking on that though Josordoni, especially on irregular plurals.

By: Josordoni

Josordoni — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 10:25:36 +0000

also if you use a plural then eBay will also pull out entries using a singular, although not the other way around. So don’t waste space doubling up, you can just use the plural if it is relevant.