When outfitting your listings for SEO purposes, there are two types of factors to take into account:

* On Page Factors
* Off Page Factors

First let’s discuss…

On Page Factors

When search engines assign a ranking to a particular website, this ranking is based in part upon the frequency of certain keywords on that website. This same principle applies to eBay product listings. You can use the “Google Keyword Tool” in order to find a list of keywords which are relevant to your product listing. Once you have done this, you merely need to apply these keywords in a few predictable ways to your product listing in order to improve your standing on search rankings. Heres how to start:

Put keywords in your listing titles.
Make sure to include your primary keyword and a few secondary keywords as well. Just make sure that you don’t overdo it. The best practice is to include as many keywords as you can while still maintaining attractive and natural wording.

Put keywords in your descriptions.
Follow the same guidelines for your descriptions as you do for your titles. Put a lot of keywords in the first paragraph and sprinkle more throughout the text. Try to make your descriptions at least 400 words long. The more content you have on a page, the better your ranking. If you don’t feel up to the task of writing 400-500 words, try outsourcing this work through Elance.com.

Include keywords in your links.
As a rule of thumb you should take every possible opportunity to provide links from your listings to your “About Me” page and your eBay Shop. These links should also contain a moderate amount of keywords.

Start writing blog posts and reviews.
eBay gives you additional opportunities to add content to your eBay site through its Blog and Review tools. By posting through these media, you can add even more opportunities for search engines to find your listings. As always, make sure to link to your other pages and include relevant keywords.

Keep flash content to a minimum.
Flash can be a fun way to improve the appearance of your listings. However, you should always use it sparingly. Excess flash tends to displace your regular text. The more text you have on your listing, the better your chances for high search engine rankings.

Off Page Factors

In addition to the methods discussed above, you can also try to improve your search engine visibility as regards off page factors, the most important of which is external links. The more links that exist from other websites to your eBay listings and eBay shop, the better your search engine rankings.

While, you can’t force any third party website to link to your eBay shop, you can take the initiative of posting original articles on websites such as  Ezinearticles.com, Blogger.com, Squidoo.com, and HubPages.com. If you include keywords in these articles and link them back to your eBay shop, many search engines will use this as a means to awarding you a higher search ranking. As you know, higher search rankings mean more traffic, and this in turn means MORE BUSINESS. And who doesn’t want more business?

If you think that search engine optimization is only for stand alone websites, you’re wrong. SEO can be just as effective in boosting traffic for individual eBay listings. And you know what increased traffic means right? Increase sales! And as a result, more profit.

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Here’s how it works:
Keyword saturation is one of many ways in which search engines rate the relevance of a given website. If common search keywords are highly concentrated in a web page, this page is more likely to turn up in the top ten of a search engine’s results. If you can improve this concentration of keywords, this may mean that you will be able to increase your traffic and thereby, your sales.

How to Do It:
First of all, head over to Google’s Keyword Tool and allow it to generate a preliminary list of key search terms which people looking for your products might use. Once you get to the correct page follow these steps:

1. Tell the search tool which country you would like to collect information from. If you are planning to sell products only within the UK, then select this option. Otherwise, you may select as many different countries as you like.

2. Select the options “Use synonyms” and “Descriptive words and phrases.”

3. Now, type in your primary keyword. This should be the name of the product or class of products which you sell. (At this point you could also decide to simply type in the URL of another website or eBay listing which sells products which are similar to yours. It might be best to try both methods just in order to get as many keywords as possible.)

4. Click on “Get keyword ideas.”

Once you have done this, Google will create a list of keywords which might be relevant. Your job is to now sift through these keywords and find the twenty or so very most relevant and effective. First of all, you can eliminate any keywords which are obviously extraneous to the type of products which you are selling. For example, if you are selling dental supplies and you use the keyword “teeth” as your primary keyword, it is possible that a keyword such as “Jagged-Teeth Metal Saw” may come up. This is obviously irrelevant to your product line and should be eliminated from the list.

Once you have narrowed down your list thus, it is time to start analyzing the competitiveness of the suggested keywords. The Keyword Tool will show you how many searches are conducted monthly for each suggested keyword. In addition, you can find out how many listings are attached to each keyword by performing a regular Google search on that term. If a keyword has few results, but a high monthly volume of searches, this is probably a good one to choose. When in doubt, err on the side of less competition in general.

Once this is complete, you will have a list of keywords which will form the basis for the search engine optimization of your eBay listings, a significant step towards higher profits.