This next step can really make or break any ad that you have come up with. If you’ve looked around eBay ™ or other auction web sites, you couldn’t tell one from another. You know what that means? You probably are not inclined to buy from those ads.
You did see a few ads through, that you thought "wow that's cool." You know the ones that used different fonts, in different sizes, with bold letters, or different colors that really caught your eye. And they used a great photo of the product, and even some cool graphics, right? And, those are not only the ads that people remember; they are the ads that people BUY FROM!
If you take the extra time to make your ad look good, the people who are bidding on the item will realize that they are dealing with someone who cares about what they are selling. They are dealing with someone who will go the extra mile to make sure that they are happy with their purchase!
If you are already familiar with HTML, the language that you use to create web sites, than you can pretty much skip this section. What I’m going to show you here is how to make your ads look like a custom web page using simple HTML.
There are a lot of different programs out there that can help automate this task for you. Programs like Microsoft Front Page are a full-blown web design tool that you can use. Or you can even use the more recent browsers from Microsoft or Netscape to create a simple web page. The programs will let you work in a WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT YOU GET environment, and will let you create some awesome looking web pages without needing to know a whole lot about HTML.
The section on eBay ™ that asks you for a description of your item, the section that says that HTML code is accepted. What this basically means is that you can include any of the tags that HTML understands. These tags can do anything from make the text larger or smaller, make the text bold or italics, center the text and graphics on the page, or even link up to another website. The possibilities are endless.
BASIC HTML TAGS
What I’m going to give you here are the bare basic tags that you can add to your eBay ™ ads to make them look better. This is not a full course in HTML, but you can find a web site address later in this section that will take you to a full tutorial on HTML if you are interested in such things!
If you have placed any ads on eBay ™, you have seen the screen where you enter the ads into the system. You enter your vital information, like your e-mail address and your password. When you get down to the box where you enter your description, it says something there that you may or may not understand. It says that HTML tags are acceptable. What this is telling you is that you can use little bits of HTML tags to help your ads look batter.
Your browser, whether it is Netscape Navigator, Internet Explorer, or any of the other ones out there, reads HTML tags in a very special way. The way the browser knows that what it is reading is a tag, and not normal text is that the tag is surrounded by <>. So just typing in "b" will show up as a "b" on the web site. Typing in will tell the computer that it is to put into bold text the words that come after the and before the . What the command does is turn off the previous command. So basically what you do with HTML tags is turn special features on and off to create the look that you want. Here are some tags that I think you will find handy in sprucing up your web sites quickly and easily:
BOLD FACE:
Any words or symbols that are between the and the will be in bold face. So, if you are typing you want to stress a section with bold face here is how you would do it. Say that you are selling an item that is brand new, and you want to emphasize that. Here’s what you would type into the description box on eBay ™.
Here is the item you have been waiting for!! A Brand New whatever the item is!
When the browser reads that, it will show on your screen: A Brand New whatever the item is!
Horizontal Rule:
This command will put a line, or horizontal rule, across the screen. You replace the # after the HRSIZE= with the height of the line that you want. You replace the ## after the WIDTH= with a percentage of the screen that you want to cover with the horizontal rule. If you want to create a rule that covers half of the web page, you would type in:
Italic Text:
Works just like the bold command, but puts the text in Italics!
Underline Text:
Works like both the bold and italic commands, but this will underline the text that it surrounds.
And, yes you can get fancy. If you type in This is in bold face, italics and underlined you will get:
This is in bold face, Italics and underlined
Link to another website: TEXT TO LINK
If you want people to be able to click on some text where they will be taken to another web site, this is the command that you would use. You would replace the http://www.websiteaddress.com with your own address. And you would replace the TEXT TO LINK with whatever you want the text on the screen to say.
HREF="mailto:your name@yourisp.com"> EMAIL ME
This will make it easy for someone to send you e-mail. You simple change the your-name@yourisp.com to your full e-mail address. You now have a link that says E-MAIL ME on your ad, and when people click on it, it will automatically go into their e-mail program and start a message to you!
Load an image:
This command will load an image from any other web site to your eBay™ ad. So, all you have to do is type in the address of the image, and it will load when the eBay™ ad is loaded!
Loading a background for the page:
This command is virtually similar to the last load an image command, except that this one calls the image to be used as a background of the ad page! This can really set your ads apart if used correctly. Use an image that adds class and pizzazz to the page, but do not make it distracting for the buyer! For a background image, remember light and faded out usually works the best!
Changing the color of any text: FREE DISK BONUS OFFER
This is used anywhere in the text of your ad, simply change the #000000 to a number that represents the RGB value of a color. See below for more information on this. Anything that you type between the and the will be in the color that is specified in the #000000.
Changing the background color, text color and link color:
This goes at the beginning of your ad if you are going to change the background and text colors. The above examples show where the numbers are equal to the RGB value of the colors. You can find out all of the different colors and their corresponding codes by visiting the web site at: http://www.hidaho.com/colorcenter/
Again, this is by no means anywhere near a full explanation of the types of things that you can do with HTML tags. For a full tutorial on HTML, visit the NCSA web site at the following address:
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/General/Internet/WWW/HTMLPrimer.html
After looking at this site, you will have an even more advanced understanding of HTML and how to use the tags of that language. It’s really a lot of fun once you get used to it! And, it will help you make an ad that will sell your products better!
SPRUCE UP YOUR AD WITH CLIP ART
Clip art is a great way to set yourself apart from the pack at eBay™. It comes down to the simple principle that if your ad looks nicer than the rest, it will indeed sell more than the rest. This may not always make the most economic sense, but it is a fact that more people will buy from you if they like the ad! You can use clip art of various styles to get your points across, and to set your ads apart from the rest.
First find some clip art that you want to use. There is plenty out there that is free for use on your website. Go into any computer store and you will find CD-ROM's that contain 50,000 or more images of useable clip art! Or, you can find a lot of clip art on the Internet. It’s easy to find, simply go to your favorite search engine, like http://www.yahoo.com and search for clip art. The sites are too numerous to list here!!
HOW TO GRAB CLIP ART AND PHOTOS OFF ANY WEB SITE!
When you find the clip art, or any photo for that matter, that you would like to save, it’s easy. With most browsers, you simply click the right button of your mouse, and select save image. Tell the computer which directory that you want to save it in, and you’ve got it!!!
Remember that a lot of the images on the World Wide Web are copyrighted, and you should always check with the image owner if there is any doubt at all if you can copy the image for your own use!
No matter where you find the clip art, you will have to use the same steps for acquiring photos to get the clip art to your web space. You simply use the same steps that you used to get your pictures onto the web!
ADDING ANIMATION TO YOUR AD
This is no problem whatsoever. If you can follow the directions in the previous section to cut and paste clipart, you can have animated clipart and text in your ad. If you don't already have an animation library, a good place to start is the Animation Factory (http://www.animfactory.com). This site offers literally thousands of animated clipart and animated letters that will make your page come to life. They also provide simple instructions for downloading these files to your system.
FREE COUNTER
We can see how many people have actually bid on our auctions, but how do we know how many people have stopped to look at our ad for the item we're selling? You can obtain a FREE counter for your eBay™ ad from (http://www.honesty.com/cgi-bin/ebay-counter.cgi)
I’VE FOUND AN AD I REALLY LIKE, HOW CAN I USE THAT?
It’s bound to happen. You’re searching the web, or looking through ads on eBay™ and you come across an ad that looks perfect for what you want to use! How do you take that ad and simply change the text and pictures to fit your needs? It’s simple to do if you have a browser like Netscape or Internet Explorer. After the page has loaded in your browser, choose "File" from the toolbar, and then select "Save" or "Save As" and save the file to your hard disk. You can now open it in any program like Microsoft FrontPage or Netscape Composer 4.76 version (the easiest one) , or any other HTML editor that is out there, and change what you want! This is a great way to do as little work as possible formatting the ad, and working on ways to make more money!
I’VE GOT MY AD ON MY COMPUTER, HOW DO I GET IT TO EBAY?
All right, you’ve worked on your ad, and you are ready to show it to the world. If you’ve created the ad with FrontPage, Internet Explorer, or Netscape, you will have to click on something that says either show source code, or show HTML. When you see the plain text HTML code, all you have to do is cut and paste the information that you want to transfer to your ad on eBay ™ into the little box that says description on the eBay ™ add an item to auction page. You usually only want to cut and paste the HTML on the page that comes after the heading, and before the end of the page. If you’ve got the and codes at the bottom of your page, DO NOT COPY those to eBay ™. Everything else is ok! Don’t worry if you’re not sure if it worked right, you can click on preview ad and see if everything is ok before you submit the ad.
You can, of course, simply use these simple HTML tags and type them in as you place the ads. This is fine for an ad that you are only going to use once. If you are planning to use an ad more than once, save it on your hard drive first, so that you can have it the next time that you need it!
If you don’t know how to cut and paste, here’s a quick tutorial:
Step 1 Highlight the text you want
Step 2 Hit Ctrl on your keyboard at the exact same time that you hit the letter "c"
Step 3 Go to eBay auction site, specifically the description box.
Step 4 Put the mouse in the box and press the left button
Step 5 Hit Ctrl and the letter "V" at the same time
Another way to copy and paste is to use the right side mouse button.
Step 1 Highlight the text you want
Step 2 Right click on your mouse and when the box pops up, choose "copy"
Step 3 Go to eBay auction site, the description box
Step 4 Place your mouse cursor where you want the text that you copied
Step 5 Right Click on your mouse and choose "paste"
That’s all there is to the magical world of cutting/copying and pasting. It works for just about everything on your system from text to photos, so give it a try! It’ll make your life
a whole lot easier!
There are also many other useful, creative tools at this address (http://www.auctionpix.com/ebay/)
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