How To Make Money Selling On Ebay - Ad Writing

In our last installment of our series on Ebay, we got you started with creating your Ebay and PayPal accounts and also worked on finding you something to sell. In this installment we're going to work on what is probably the most important part of selling on Ebay, or anywhere for that matter. I am talking about the art of ad writing. With any type of selling, if your ad doesn't captivate people, you're not going to make sales. Hopefully, these few tips will get you writing ads that will bring results.

Unfortunately, it is very easy to write a bad ad. Most people do it. Here's an example of a bad ad.

For Sale...Rolex watch...Brand new...$100 or best offer.

Sounds like something off of a Wall Street ticker tape. If you want to make sales on Ebay, you have got to write ads that jump off the page and literally bite people on the rear end. You have to make them want to read your ad, and that starts with the headline. A bland headline is a dead headline. The headline may actually be the most important part of the ad because if the headline doesn't grad them, they won't read the ad.

Here's a headline I would write if I was selling a Rolex watch.

Steal My Rolex For $xxx

The xxx is whatever price you want to sell it for, assuming that you are going to put a minimum bid on your item from the start that isn't a dollar. We'll get to minimum bids and when to use them in a future installment. The point is, this headline is going to get people reading. The keyword steal indicates that they are going to get a very good deal on this watch. The Rolex tells them what it is and the $xxx tells them how much it costs. If the minimum bid is attractive enough, trust me, they will read the rest of the ad.

Okay, what about the ad itself? Well, you want to continue the momentum that you started with your headline. Remember, a Rolex is a symbol of prestige. It's the top watch in the industry. So you want to drive that point home. Here's an example of how I would continue from the headline.

"Want to be the envy of everyone around you? Want to REALLY make an impression? Get the Rolex that you thought you could NEVER afford for the ridiculously low price of $xxx or best offer above that. Don't let somebody else take this from you because you will NEVER get this opportunity again."

And you would then continue by describing the watch, the condition it's in and so on. At the end of your ad you need to write a call to action. Something like "Get Yours TODAY" works very well. You will almost certainly sell that watch at the minimum you set and more likely than not, you will get some decent bids.

The art of ad writing for Ebay takes time, but once you get the hang of it, using this example as a guideline, you should do just fine.

To YOUR Success