Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Selling on eBay, Online Auction, Etsy, and other such locations can rapidly improve your visibility on the Internet. Search engine optimization (SEO) improves your ranking in the results pages, when someone does a search for something online.

Shopping carts often provide a search capability. A customer can search for a product on your Web site. What do these points have in common? They all use a search "query" (question) to work with a database.

What`s a database?

A database, simply put, is a list of things. Each thing is categorized by a number of descriptive lines. So, for example, an umbrella and a giraffe are two things. When they`re listed in a database, someone has to figure out what "lines" (fields) to create that will describe all the items in the database.

Remember that game 20 questions? A common starting point asks, "Is it animal, mineral, or vegetable?" Why that question? Because it separates living from non-living things.

In the case of our umbrella and giraffe, we would have a "line" (field) in the database with a dropdown box. When we list our item, we describe it in that line. The umbrella is "non-living," and the giraffe is "living." The question is whether or not this particular field is "searchable." Is it included when the database goes out to try and find on your question?

A database is a software program, and there are many of them in existence. Not all databases are well designed, but ALL databases include some way to ask questions---to form a query. When you see anything on a computer screen that offers you "Search:" and a window, you`re dealing with a database and its query "engine."

Title fields

Not all databases are equal. Some of them search every word in every field in every record. A "record" is the whole description of the thing, but only that single thing. (The database is the group of all records.)

Google goes out and gets every word on at least the first three pages of your Web site. So if you search for a word and it`s anywhere in those pages, you`ll get a "result"---something found. On the other hand, eBay only searches the main title (not the sub-title). It appears not to search the descriptions at all.

Some databases allow "wildcard" searches. If you search for man* (with an asterisk wildcard), you`ll get results for "man, mannequin, mandible, manifest, Manchurian," and so forth.

Google uses programming for "smart searching." If you put in `man` (without quotes), Google looks for the letter M-A-N in whatever form. It also rates the letters by relevance, assuming that you mostly want to find a human being. So "man" is ranked higher than "roman," or "manifest."

Constrained or Loose searching

A good database doesn`t much care about the order in which you type words in a question (query). So if you put in "flag signal navy" it`s the same as "navy signal flag." But many online search engines and e-commerce databases do care!

That means if your product is "navy signal flags" (with an `s` on `flags`), and someone types in "navy flag" the database is "too stupid" to find your product. Some are so dumb, they differentiate between uppercase and lowercase letters as two, entirely different "things."

Summary

When you create a title for an item, then a description, think about how database programming works.

• Does the e-commerce database search allow wildcards? Most of them don`t, nowadays.

• Does the order in which words are typed matter? In many e-commerce sites, exactly that order is the only way an item can be found.

• Does the site search the rest of the description, or only the title? Many e-commerce sites only look at the title and perhaps 1 other field, usually not the description.
  

The best way to test a site is to run some searches yourself. Find a product (somehow, mabye with "Browse our Products") on that site. Look at how the description is laid out. Notice a title, sub-title, and other areas (fields) of words. Then go to the main page and try to search for that product.

Above all, think about the title for each of your products! Include as many "key" words as you can, even if it makes the title seem a little strange or repetitive.

In English -

If you have a store, put a few items on eBay or Etsy for the exposure.
Write full, complete titles that make sense in normal context and use every last character that the listing gives you.

Yah, it`s the Title. :-) Until you get too Google and the other big search engines (databases).

Actually, I was thinking some more about this. Too many people focus on the word "Title" when they`re listing an item. Almost nobody I`ve encountered focuses on the word "database."

The reason for the article is that people think they can just put a clever title into the space, and it`ll sell like crazy. No, it won`t. Even if it does sell a little bit, by understanding how to "play the game" of database searches, you gain all the visibility of SEO and so forth.

If it were just about Titles, then how come so many people have so much interest in SEO writing?

eBay listings list by title, that`s why title is important.

Your website and SEO is another issue entirely. By the time the bot gets to your eBay listing, it`s over or sold.

Now you`re just mixing up subjects.

It`s not that nobody knows that eBay lists by titles. That`s a no-brainer. It`s that there`s a way to "game the titles," and that means having a basic understanding of how a database works. EBay`s is kind of stupid, and can only find under certain constraints.

From what we`ve seen, eBay`s search engine parses the whole query and tries to find "all" words. Then it tries one or two other simpleminded attempts before giving you a "not found."

The other side of the coin is using seemingly redundant words. We sell navy signal flags, which are also known as nautical signal flags. Therefore, we get better visibility when our title is: "Navy nautical signal flags." Since we get about 50% of our Web visits through eBay, the more visibility we have there, the better it is all around.