How to Optimise eBay Listings for Better Visibility

eBay's Cassini does not work like Google. Applying web SEO instincts to a listing is why a lot of optimisation effort produces nothing.

Cassini weights three things: relevance to the search, seller performance, and how well the listing itself converts. The third is the one sellers under-invest in and the one that compounds.

1. Item specifics — the biggest under-used lever

More important than the title, and routinely half-empty.

A large share of buyers browse using filters in the left-hand sidebar. Those filters are driven entirely by item specifics. A blank specific removes your listing from that filter completely — no matter how good your title is.

Fill in every specific that applies, including the ones marked optional. If a specific does not have your exact value in the dropdown and free text is allowed, use the term buyers would use.

This is usually the single highest-return hour available on an existing catalogue.

2. Titles in buyer language

Eighty characters, all of it search surface.

• Lead with what the item is
• Include brand, model, size, colour, quantity, compatibility — the things people type
• Use the words buyers use, not your internal product name
• No marketing words: "L@@K", "RARE", "BARGAIN", "FAST POST" match nothing and consume characters
• No unrelated brand names, which is against policy and detectable

The test: would someone type this? If not, it is not working.

How to write better eBay product titles goes into structure.

3. Conversion — the compounding part

Cassini watches what happens after the impression. Impressions to clicks to sales.

A listing that converts gets shown more, which gives it more chances to convert. A listing that does not gets quietly buried, and no title edit rescues it.

Which means the highest-leverage optimisation is often not the listing copy at all — it is whatever is stopping people buying once they arrive:

• Photography that does not answer the obvious question
• Missing information that becomes a message instead of a purchase
• Postage cost that surprises them at checkout
• No returns accepted
• Price that is not competitive against actual sold listings

4. Seller performance

Account health influences visibility across everything you list.

A perfectly optimised listing on a struggling account is outranked by an average listing on a healthy one. Running an eBay store day to day covers the operational side.

5. Photography

• Clean background on the primary image
• Multiple angles, including whatever a buyer would want to inspect
• Honest on condition for used items — a surprise becomes a return, a return becomes a defect
• Consistent across the catalogue

What does not work

• Keyword stuffing. Against policy, detectable, and the characters are wasted.
• Relisting to "refresh". Discards accumulated performance history.
• Copying a competitor's title exactly. You inherit their targeting, not their ranking.
• Ignoring the description. It does not carry much search weight but it carries conversion weight, and conversion is what compounds.

The existing guide on how Cassini works covers the algorithm in more depth, and the eBay management service covers doing this across a catalogue.