eBay SEO for card sellers

This guide covers getting seen and clicked, the second of the three levers for selling more cards. If your listings get clicks but few sales, the problem is more often price.

How eBay search works

eBay's default sort, Best Match, ranks listings for each search. eBay's own guidance says it looks at how well a listing matches what the buyer typed, how popular the listing is (sales, watchers and clicks), its price including shipping, and the seller's terms and track record. eBay doesn't publish how much each one counts. These are the parts you control:

Titles

Card buyers search with specifics. Someone looking for a particular card types the year, the set, the player and often the card number, then a parallel or grade. A title with all of those matches more of those searches.

A good order for most cards:

• Sports: year, brand and set, player, card number, parallel or serial number, RC, grader and grade. For example, “2003 Topps Chrome LeBron James #111 RC Rookie PSA 9”.
• Pokémon and other card games: set, card name, card number as printed, rarity, language if not English, grader and grade. For example, “Pokemon 151 Charizard ex 199/165 Special Illustration Rare PSA 10”.
• Lots: what's in it and how many: player or team, years, “lot of 25”, and any stars or rookies by name.

Then:

• Use the 80 characters. Add the terms buyers use for that card: RC, SP, SSP, Auto, the print run (/99), the team.
• Drop filler. L@@K, WOW, HOT, MINT? and emoji match nothing a buyer types.
• Don't list players or sets the card isn't. “Not Jordan” or a list of other players to catch their searches breaks eBay's rules and annoys the buyers it reaches.

In our study of live eBay card listings, 55% of single-card titles left out the card number, and 44% of titles left more than 15 characters unused.

Paste a title into the title checker to see what it's missing.

Item specifics

The filters down the side of eBay's search results (player, team, set, graded, grader, grade, autographed, year) come from item specifics, not from titles. A buyer who narrows a search to PSA 10, or to one player, only sees listings with those fields filled in. A blank field means the card drops out of every filtered search.

0% of single cards in our study of live eBay card listings had no item specifics at all, and 4% had item specifics that contradict their own title, such as a different card number or grade.

For a single card, fill in at least:

• Player or character, team, sport or game
• Manufacturer, set, season or year, card number
• Parallel or variety, print run, features such as rookie or short print
• Autographed, and who signed it
• Graded or ungraded; for graded cards the grader, grade and cert number; for raw cards the card condition

Make them agree with the title. If the title says #111 and the item specifics say #11, a buyer filtering by card number either misses the card or finds the wrong one.

Category and condition

List singles in the single-card category for the sport or game, and lots and sealed products in theirs. Set the condition properly. eBay asks graded cards for the grader, grade and certification number, and raw cards for a condition. These feed the same filters as item specifics.

The first photo

In search results, a buyer sees your first photo, title, price and shipping, and little else. Make the first photo the front of the card, straight, sharp and filling most of the frame, on a plain background. Take it out of the top loader, or at least avoid glare. For slabs, the label should be readable in the thumbnail.

Price and shipping

Buyers can sort by price plus shipping and filter for free shipping, and eBay counts price in Best Match. A card $3 above the same card from other sellers sits lower in results and gets fewer clicks when it does show. Price from recent sold prices, and read free shipping vs charging for shipping before switching.

Seller terms

A short handling time, a returns policy and a clean defect record help listings rank and convert. Set a one-day handling time if you can ship that fast; eBay then shows buyers an earlier delivery date.

Promoted Listings

Promoted Listings pay eBay a share of the sale for a better spot in search. See Promoted Listings for card sellers for ad rates that make sense on cards.

Store categories

Store categories don't change where you rank in eBay search, but they decide whether a buyer who likes one card can find the rest of that player, team or set in your store. Organize them by sport, then team or set, then player, and keep graded cards and rookies easy to find.

Myths

• Ending and relisting to “refresh” a listing. eBay hasn't said it helps, and you lose the listing's watchers.
• A best time of day to list. For fixed-price listings that run until sold, the listing time barely matters. It matters for when an auction ends.
• Repeating keywords. Saying “rookie” three times doesn't match more searches than saying it once.

Check whether it worked

In Seller Hub, open Performance, then Traffic, and note impressions and click-through rate for a group of listings. Fix the titles, item specifics and main photos on 20 of them, leave 20 similar ones alone, and compare after two or three weeks. Or grade your whole store now and start with the listings it flags: