Writing Your Own Reviews and Guides

eBay's Reviews and Guides are not only for reading; you can also write your own Reviews and Guides for other users to read. Anyone can write a Review or Guideand the more you write, the higher your Reviews & Guides ranking becomes. (High-ranking Review and Guide writers get an icon beside their user ID.)

Tip

Writing your own Reviews and Guides is a great way for you to enhance your reputation on eBay without having to conduct hundreds of auctions to build your feedback. It's also a great way to share your opinions (via Reviews) and knowledge about particular subjects (via Guides).

Writing a Product Review

Writing a product review is easy. You don't have to bother supplying product details, such as model number or dimensions or whatever; all you have to supply is your opinion. Just follow these steps:

1.	Go to the main Reviews & Guides page (reviews.ebay.com).
2.	Use the search box at the top of the page to search for the particular product you want to review.
3.	When the list of matching products appears, click on the link for that product's review page.
4.	When the product review page appears, click the Write a Review or Be the First to Review It link.
5.	When the Write a Review page appears, as shown in Figure 4.6, enter a title for your review. The title can be up to 55 characters in length. Figure 4.6. Writing your own product review.
6.	Give the product a rating, from 1 to 5 (5 being excellent; 1 being poor).
7.	Type your full review into the Review box. The review can be up to 3,500 characters long.
8.	When you're done with your review, click the Submit Review button.

That's it; your review will now be listed among the other reviews for that particular product.

Creating a Guide

Tip

Use the formatting controls at the top of the Guide box to make your Guide more readable and visually appealing. You can also use these controls to add pictures and links to your Guide. Click the Preview button at the bottom of the page to see how your formatted Guide looks.

The process for writing a Guide is similar to writing a Review, although here it really helps if you're an expert or otherwise uniquely experienced with the topic at handthat is, if you know enough to write a useful Guide. Follow these steps:

1.	Go to the main Reviews & Guides page (reviews.ebay.com).
2.	Click the Write a Guide link.
3.	When the Write a Guide page appears, as shown in Figure 4.7, enter a title for your Guide. The title can be up to 55 characters in length. Figure 4.7. Creating a new Guide.
4.	Type the text for your Guide into the Guide box. Remember that the first 200 characters of your Guide will be all that appears when people search for Guides by topic.
5.	Enter up to five "tags" that other members can use as keywords to search for your Guide.
6.	When you're done with your Guide, click the Save and Continue button.

The Absolute Minimum

Here are the key points to remember from this chapter:

• eBay helps you research specific products by offering reviews written by other users.

• eBay's Guides provide overview information and how-tos for general categories and activities.

• You can rate any given Guide or Review for usefulness (Yes, it's useful or No, it's not); these ratings contribute to a reviewer's overall ranking.

• Any eBay user can write a Review or Guide; the more you write, the higher your Reviews & Guides ranking.

• Access all of eBay's Reviews and Guides at reviews.ebay.com.