"Choose Your Words Wisely...For They May Be Your Last"

One of my favorite movies is Ever After with Drew Barrymore and Anjelica Huston. If you've not seen it, it is an adaptation of the Cinderella story, sans Fairy Godmother (unless you count Leonardo DaVinci!) Towards the end of the movie, the Queen speaks sternly to the step-mother (Anjelica Huston). She advises, "Choose your words wisely for they may be your last." This is advice well-taken concerning your listing title as well, although admittedly the consequences will not be as dire if you fail to do so!

The number one most important part of your listing is your title! You may have created the most clever, comprehensive, beautiful listing ever, with crystal clear photos and all the information any buyer could ever need but if you fail to write a good title, all your hard work will be for nothing. Yes, the item description is important, but the title is more important. Spend a few serious minutes thinking about how you can best use the 55 spaces allotted by eBay to draw bidders to your listing.

Here are a few tips to consider as you do so:

Use all the space provided - failing to do this is like getting for a full page ad but using only 1/4 of it. Fill as many of those 55 spaces with as many pertinent keywords as you possibly can.

Think about the terms your buyers are likely to use and use them in the title. You can decide between certain words by doing searches on them to see how many listings are returned in the results. This isn't indicative of how buyers search, of course, but of how sellers list so it isn't a definitive way to decide, but might help.

Don't use words that won't be searched - that, too, is wasted space. These would include "WOW" "NICE" "LOVELY" or my all-time favorite "L@@K!". Sometimes you will have used all the pertinent keywords you can think of. Then you can perhaps include a meaningful word about condition or another element that might appeal to your potential buyer.

Don't use punctuation marks like quotations and exclamation points. People don't use them in searches and again, they take up space that could possibly be used for searchable keywords.

Don't use multiples of the same word. If listing an item with a title, duplicate words can be eliminated. Use " Cat in the Hat" instead of "The Cat in the Hat" and free up space for additional keywords. The results of a person searching the first title will be identical to the results of searching the second title.

Spell-check your title! If your keywords are misspelled, it is very likely that your item will either not sell or will sell for far less than its potential. Be aware that there are tools available on the web that will run searches for people of common misspellings of words and then return eBay searches on those misspellings. Buyers use the tools to find items that will otherwise be overlooked by searches and then they buy them cheaply, often for the starting bid. (Thanks, Rob for reminding me of this! This is an important tip I overlooked.)

DON'T USE ALL CAPS FOR EVERY WORD IN YOUR TITLE Many people dislike this immensely. They may think your entire listing will be that way and choose to pass before ever seeing it. You can use caps to cause certain keywords to stand out in your title but be judicious in doing so.

Although choosing your words wisely may not be as important for you as it was for Anjelica Huston, you will still reap the rewards of more hits and hopefully more bids and higher final values by doing so!