6.1. It's All About You
You've probably noticed the blue-and-red word me that appears next to some eBayers' IDs. Clicking this word takes you to the eBayer's About Me page , a personal Web page within the eBay site where eBayers can talk about their families, interests, and hobbies; display photos; link to their eBay auctions, eBay Store (Section 7.3), and outside Web sites; and pretty much present whatever they want to about themselves to the rest of the eBay community.
Smart sellers use their About Me page as a marketing tool, and you can, too. When you're first starting to sell and you don't yet have a lot of feedback as a seller, a good About Me page puts a human face on your eBay ID, making buyers feel more confident about bidding on your auctions. As you build your eBay business, use your About Me page to create a professional presence on the site: direct buyers to your eBay store or your own Web site, state your auction and return policies, quote happy customers, offer a way to sign up for your newsletter, and more.
Before you start designing your About Me page, find a few sellers you admire for the volume of their sales or the way they do business. If these sellers have About Me pages, study them. What appeals to you? What doesn't work? Learn from the pros.
Tip: Because eBayers come in all sizes, shapes , and colors (not to mention nationalities, religions, belief systems, and political leanings), it's a good idea to avoid discussing contentious issues on your About Me pageunless you'd rather get into arguments than generate bids.You can create your page with your own HTML, or you can use eBay's forms to create your page. Either way, the process requires three steps:
Note: HTML stands for hypertext markup language, the lingua franca of the Web. Although it sounds fancy, it's really just a simple coding system for presenting text and other elements on Web pages.From the eBay home page, select services "About Me page Create Your Page .
The About Me: Choose Page Creation Option page shown in Figure 6-1 appears.
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Choose a page creation option .
If you're an HTML wizard, you may want to create your About Me page using your own custom-crafted HTML code. If that's the case, select "Enter your own HTML code." If you'd rather point-and-click your way to a nice-looking page, select "Use our easy Step-by-Step process." Click Continue.
On the page that opens, type in your page content .
If you're using your own HTML, type your text and code into the text box, and then click Continue. (You can add eBay-specific HTML tags (see http://pages.ebay.com/help/account/html-tags.html) to link to your Member Profile, display how long you've been on eBay, show recent feedback comments, etc.) If you want to use eBay's step-by-step process, fill out the form shown in Figure 6-2. You can include almost anything you want in your About Me page: a photo and description of yourself, links to other sites, information about your current auctions, recent feedbackwhatever you like. When you finish, click Continue.
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Preview and Submit .
The final step before you finish your About Me page is to preview the page to see how it looks. If you're using eBay's step-by-step process, you can gussy up your page by choosing one of three different layouts, as shown in Figure 6-3. After you select the button next to A, B, or C, a mock-up appears instantly at the bottom of the page (scroll down to see it). When you're satisfied, click Submit to create your About Me page.
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