Selling an item on eBay should be simple but it is surprising how many people make some very silly mistakes.

As a buyer this is fantastic, you can pick up some absolute bargains by finding poorly listed items. However, if you are a seller you need to ensure that every item you put on eBay will be found and therefore have a better chance of commanding a high price.

Your auction title is really the most important part of your auction, after all, it is this feature which attracts buyers to view your description.

You have 55 characters to use to attract the bidders, try and use all of them - it is free and the more relevant keywords you can add, the more search results your auction will end up in.

For example:

A listing with the title:"Band of Brothers Region 2 - 6 DVDs - UK Version - Mint"

is likely to receive a great deal more interest than one with the following title:

"band of brothers dvd"

Also, try and avoid writing the entire title in capitals or using unrelated words like "L@@K" and "W@W". This simply annoys other eBay users and is not good netiquette.

Never keyword spam either. You see this all of the time on eBay, sellers add unrelated keywords to the title so their auction lands in more search results.

The problem is that these keywords won't attract more bids but simply attract users who are searching for something else entirely.

If you list an auction for a Playstation 2 but use the title "Playstation 2 not Xbox not Nintendo" it will attract people who are not looking for a Playstation 2. Quite simply, people who are not looking for a PS2 will not buy one.

Your time would be better served adding more relevant keywords to the title. "Sony Playstation 2 (PS2) - Mint in Box - No Reserve" is a much better title.

Where possible, try and include descriptive keywords to attract bidders. Some good examples are the following:

Rare, Mint, OOP (Out of Print), Low P&P, No Reserve or NR, Low Starting Price, 1p Starting Bid, Brand New etc

Ensure you spell check your title before you list it. This is easy to do if you write the title in Microsoft Word first. If you spell an important keyword incorrectly you will miss out on a lot of potential bidders.

To make the title look more attractive, add a capital to the front of every major keyword.

"Microsoft Xbox - Mint in Box with 4 Games - No Reserve"

looks more attractive and stands out more than

"microsoft xbox - mint in box with 4 games - no reserve"

If you are unsure of the best way to write your title, try searching for the same item under Completed Listings and see how others have done it before.

If their auctions have commanded high winning bids then their titles have worked.

Don't be afraid to copy them.

Ben Catt is an active eBay buyer and seller and runs an eBay Tips and Tricks website found at http://www.BenCatt.com. He also runs a business opportunity information site - http://www.BizOppsUK.com