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The Secret that
Lies Hidden in Your About Me Page
There's a
basic rule that says members must not use eBay to link to other
Internet sites. The obvious reason is that unscrupulous members
would use eBay's low-cost listings to attract customers to something
they're selling elsewhere and rob the company of final selling fees.
One potentially very profitable exception to the rule which many
PowerSellers turn to great advantage is the 'About Me' page.
Let's take a few examples of how to use your 'About Me' for profit.
Ways to Profit from Your About Me Page
'Officially' your About Me page is to tell potential buyers about
yourself, your products and your trading policy, as well as to
feature feedback scores and customer testimonials. The idea is to
increase credibility and help sceptical buyers learn more about
sellers and determine who to trust and buy from.
In reality many more eBayers use their About Me page to circumvent
eBay's strict linking policies. There's a fine line between what
linking is and is not acceptable in an About Me page, but given the
following techniques are used by many of the world's biggest
PowerSellers, it's fair to conclude eBay approves of or turns a
blind eye to using the About Me page to:
1. Offer a free sample of your product. Though unsuitable for
physical products, this is a great place to grow an eBook or
Internet marketing business as these scenarios will show:
You can offer a free sample of an eBook you are selling. Inside your
listing, right at the top, say something like: 'If you're not sure
if this product's what you are looking for or you've never tried
downloading eBooks before, email me and I'll send you the first
chapter of the book. Click on my About Me page, right of the screen
and I'll send it literally within seconds'. Inside your About Me
page give the email address that people must use to request the
sample chapter, do not give the download site. The purpose is to
capture email addresses to add to your database for future offers.
Use an auto-responder to send download details automatically to
enquirers and later add their names manually to your database. There
are other ways to capture email addresses using specialist, but low
cost, mailing program providers. You'll find more details at
www.1st-in-auctions.com/capture.html. Of course you're not really
helping potential customers make an informed buying decision, and
you're not just capturing email addresses for future promotions.
You're really trying to sell people several products today and well
into the future - on or outside of eBay - by including an active
link inside the downloadable sample chapter that takes them directly
to a web site selling the full version of the book or multiple items
or featuring alternative income sources, such as ClickBank and
AdSense.
eBayers selling physical items can offer short reports about their
product, such as a guide to having fun in Cairo for eBayers selling
holidays in Egypt; a guide to getting a good night's sleep where
beds are on sale; a report showing 10 ways to make money on eBay
when the product's a seminar revealing many more secrets, or leads
to an outside site hosting hundreds of free articles about selling
on eBay where each page is packed with AdSense promotions and other
products earning commission for you.
2. Invite visitors to contact you for more information, tell them to
visit your About Me page rather than send a message through eBay's
message system. Suggest you'll answer all of their questions faster
and more professionally if they care to telephone you at the number
provided in your About Me page where you also provide your street
address (preferably a shop), Internet address (preferably featuring
more of your own or affiliate products), an email address
(preferably linked to an auto-responder inviting visitors to sign up
to your mailing list).
3. Earn regular affiliate commissions using eBooks which can be
'branded' to include your affiliate details and generate income
every time someone buys a product recommended in the back of the
book.
4. Have your web sites indexed in record time with major search
engines like Google and Yahoo. Most new sites wait about 90 days to
be indexed, unlike new and amended eBay pages which can be listed in
days. The reason is that bigger and longer existing sites receive
preferential treatment from search engine spiders and crawlers and
have additional pages and amendments picked up within days. This
also applies to active links included in your About Me page. I tried
this myself by creating two sites in one day. I registered one
domain name on Google at www.google.com/addurl/ which can take three
months to index a site, and I added an active link for the other
domain name in my About Me page. The latter was listed on Google in
less than two weeks. Today I register all my new sites using this
effective technique. The domain name must have an active link,
namely it must take people directly to the site when the link is
clicked upon. If you don't understand html and you find eBay's
instructions a little daunting, make your new domain name one of
your 'favourite sites' and it will be linked automatically.
5. Search engine optimise your eBay business. Search engine
optimisation is a technique used to help web sites rank high in
search engine listings and usually means adding content - basically
information, preferably articles - rich in words and phrases that
people key into search engines to find sites like yours. So if
you're selling autographs, films, books, postcards and photographs
relating to the late, great, gob-smackingly gorgeous Gregory Peck,
by packing your site with articles and information about Gregory
Peck your site should rank higher than other sites selling Peck
memorabilia but without the same heavy keyword presence. Which
brings me to the main point of this tip, which is not to declare my
undying love for Gregory Peck, but to show you that adding keyword
rich information about your products to your About Me page helps
your eBay listings rank high whenever someone searches for products
such as you are selling.
6. Last, and by no means least, use the About Me page for the
purpose intended, namely to build credibility and help you sell,
sell, sell. Add your photograph, write a few paragraphs about
yourself, include selected feedback comments and customer
testimonials, link to products you're selling on eBay. There's
probably no better way to turn browsers into customers, and
customers into regular buyers, today, and for many years to come.
Very Important: Get it wrong, break the rules, and you could be
expelled from eBay
The rules are well laid out by eBay but they're open to
misinterpretation and, because they're also highly subjective, if
you don't study the rules you're likely to make mistakes and have
your listings removed and your account suspended.
That's the theory, in practice there are a few exceptions to the
rule, such as where a link takes a potential customer to another
site giving vital information about the product.
In eBay's words: 'When linking to a page that further describes the
item you are selling, that page may contain links to other pages
that offer items for sale outside of eBay. This is permitted,
provided the intent of the link is to further describe your item and
the link conforms to the policy.' (Source: eBay - http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/policies/listing-links.html).
This is one of the most highly abused rules of all on eBay and
you'll find hundreds of sellers openly leading visitors to their own
sites selling the same or additional products to those they're
selling on eBay, but at much lower prices, and eliminating eBay's
final selling fees.
I'm not suggesting you do the same, what these people are doing is
legally and morally wrong and could get them expelled from eBay. So
please, before we move on to actually creating an About Me page,
take time to study eBay's rules, and get it right first time.
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