eBay SEO: How to Become a Top Seller

There’s potential to make significant revenue as an eBay seller — if you can figure out how to optimize for eBay search engine optimization (SEO). Making money and becoming a top seller on the site comes down to making listings more appealing not only to visitors but also to the site’s unique algorithms. You may be wondering: What is eBay SEO? How can I optimize my shop with eBay SEO? How can I use eBay SEO in my listings? What are some helpful tips for using eBay SEO.

Although it may seem confusing, understanding the basics and learning a few tips for how to use SEO for your eBay listings can help you become a top seller that beats out competitors.

What is eBay SEO?‌

SEO for eBay listings works a bit differently from Google SEO. The site has its own distinct characteristics. While you want to know what words people are typing into a Google search engine, with eBay you want to know what people are already buying and selling.

Gathering and harnessing that data on a real-time basis is key to successfully using SEO on eBay. You can also use that data to develop in-depth analytics. These analytics give marketers the knowledge base to create the most successful listings. 

Many eBay marketers know proxies are essential for data gathering and web scraping. Here’s a bit more information on how that process works and how you can improve eBay SEO with the right proxy solution. 

How Proxies Help You to Improve eBay Store SEO

eBay SEO tools rely on one key thing: data. That data includes anything that’s on the eBay site at any given time. Data-driven insights allow eBay sellers to customize product listings that are designed to generate sales. 

But eBay is a massive website — every seller has potentially thousands if not millions of competitors offering similar products. To stand out from the pack, listings must have an advantage on a variety of elements — including price, shipping time, and seller reputation just to name a few. Listings also have to tell the eBay algorithm what it’s about through relevant keywords, just like Google SEO.

By utilizing proxies that will conduct web scraping, you can successfully gather data about eBay listings. This data can then be compiled and turned into information that you can use to optimize your listings for eBay SEO — helping you rank among the top sellers and beat out your competitors.

What is Web Scraping?

Web scraping is a method to gather that data. Scraping involves visiting eBay and extracting its data. Since this is too labor-intensive to accomplish manually, marketers typically perform web scraping through an automated process. Bots visit web pages and download data continually, transforming the data in those pages into usable information. 

Website owners typically resist web scraping. It increases traffic to the site and can slow down its response time. Since web scraping bots are not purchasing items — and therefore have no value to the website — site managers routinely discourage web scraping. They do this by blacklisting or blocking IP addresses with a suspiciously high volume of traffic. That’s where proxies come in. 

What are Proxies Used for?‌

A proxy is an intermediary between the target website and the user. In this case, it’s a go-between from the eBay marketer and the eBay site. The proxy has its own IP address, so with several proxies in use, it is possible to scrape the website without exceeding traffic limits that result in an IP address getting blocked.

Proxies lead to efficient web scraping. Optimal web scraping — which offers the potential for high-volume, real-time data — leads to optimal eBay listings.

If you’re wondering exactly how to improve your eBay SEO: 

• Ensure you have the technology to maximize your data gathering capability.
• Turn that data into listings that get traffic that converts. 

‌After understanding what proxies are used for, then comes the next question: Are all proxies the same? There are two distinct groups of proxies, each with benefits and drawbacks for eBay marketers. These are data center proxies and residential proxies. 

What Are Data Center Proxies?

Data center proxies are contained in a warehouse or data center. They are not linked to an internet service provider. Some websites use that fact to detect proxy IP addresses and block them —  but many do not, however. Data center proxies are an affordable way to perform web scraping while ensuring efficiency and anonymity.

Rayobyte can get you started with data center proxies to optimize your eBay SEO. Learn more about what Rayobyte has to offer, including options and pricing. 

There are at least three different options for data center proxies, tailored to specific use cases:

Semi-dedicated proxies: These proxies are shared with other users. The pool is quite small, with around three to six other users. However, the effectiveness of this option depends on assurance from other members of the pool that they will not abuse the proxies and therefore result in being banned by target websites. 

Dedicated proxies: These proxies are for your sole use or the use of your organization alone. This gives you an element of control over the process. It poses less risk of abuse. It also ensures the anonymity you expect with a data center proxy. 

Rotating proxies: These automatically swap out IP addresses as they take a specific action. Typically these are considered the ideal data center proxy product. They offer the greatest assurance of appearing to simulate human visitor behavior, particularly when a bot is repeating an action successive times and risks being flagged by the target website. 

Data center proxies are a cost-effective way to optimize your web scraping efforts. They offer an easy way to constantly revise IP addresses to continue the flow of data collection without interruption. The other option is residential proxies. 

What Are Residential Proxies?

Residential proxies, unlike data center proxies, have a connection with an internet service provider (ISP). In the world of web traffic, real human users — the ones that websites want to encourage — connect through ISPs. Therefore an IP address coming through this source doesn’t automatically send up red flags in the same way that a data center proxy might. For that reason, residential proxies are ideal for web scraping.

Rayobyte wants you to have the ideal proxy solution for your data collection needs. That’s why we offer residential proxies as well as data center proxies. Learn more about our residential proxy solutions, including pricing, today.  

Data center proxies can face delays when a website detects one address is a proxy and bans all addresses in the same subnet, assuming they are all coming from a data center. Even if your IP address is not the one that sends up the flag, because it’s another one in the same subnet, your data collection can still face delays while you swap out the address or wait for the original one to become unblocked.

Residential proxies do not face this issue. The reason for this is quite simple: A residential proxy IP is indistinguishable from a legitimate website visitor using their home internet access. Even if a website suspects a residential IP is working on behalf of a data collector, banning an entire group of related IPs at once runs the risk of blocking legitimate website traffic. This means the website could lose a significant amount of real revenue and in the process, frustrate and alienate legitimate customers. 

How to Increase eBay SEO by Applying Proxies

As an eBay SEO tool, a proxy is a facilitator of data collection. To make the best use of this tool, target your data collection to get as much information from eBay as possible. Do this on an ongoing basis, since you know your competitors are doing the same. As items are bought and sold, listings are being updated — and therefore data is always changing.

Some key eBay SEO tips include:

• Focus on target keywords
• Constantly monitor pricing and bid volume
• ‌Update listings accordingly

Final Thoughts

If you found yourself asking: “What is eBay SEO?” and “How can I use eBay SEO to optimize my listings?” the answer is really a matter of looking at the data. It is about making your eBay listings optimal to be visible to the right kind of traffic in real-time. To tailor your listings for eBay SEO, think about the benefits of web scraping. Gathering this data through proxies means you have access to all you need to know about what’s on eBay at a given point in time.

Rayobyte helps you ensure you have the data center proxies and residential proxies that make your eBay selling experience a profitable one. Talk to us today about the ways that we can help you make your web scraping endeavors more conflict-free and efficient.