[tag]Designing eBay Listings[/tag], About Me Pages, Stores and Blogs
With millions of people "designing" [tag]About Me page[/tag]s, Listings, [tag]eBay Blogs[/tag], and [tag]eBay Stores[/tag] lets face it - there are some ugly ones. Really ugly ones out there. Not only ugly but annoying. I don't mean to be mean, but just because you can use 15 colors in one [tag]eBay listing[/tag] doesn't mean you should. At the end of this post I'll give you a couple of pretty good ways to [tag]choose a color scheme[/tag] for your pages on eBay.
One thing I try to teach in my eBay classes is to present yourself professionally if you want people to buy from you. What does professional mean to you? Well, somehow it has become this to a lot of people:
| See? This is what I mean! Arrrrgghhh! |
I have heard lots of people comparing the "sparkles" to the dancing ads for LowerMyBills.com. Distracting and (sorry) tacky. Face it, you don't see the big respectable stores online using sparkles in their designs. They spend a lot of money to find out what works, so copy them in concept.
First, the "Don'ts"
- Don't choose a bunch of fonts for your page. It is irritating to look at, and difficult to read.
- Don't use gigantic huge font-sizes. (See above.)
- Don't use red, white and blue. Unless you want your listing to look like an Arkansas license plate, or you're a fan of Wal-Mart.
- ...In fact, generally speaking don't use colors you'd find in the saltwater taffy machine at the county fair.
- Don't use sound.
- Don't use "sparkly" things, or things that bounce around.
- Don't fill your listings and About Me pages with negative sounding "Warnings" about what you'll do if people don't pay or don't leave Feedback, blah, blah, blah... Some people have more on this topic in their listings than they do describing the item they're selling.
Now, Some "Do's"
Take some tips from the pros. Inform yourself about some basic design techniques. You don't have to clutter up your listings with [tag]design templates[/tag], but if you must use them be tasteful.
Here are some amazingly helpful free sites to help you with the various aspects of designing, writing copy, and much more:
- Web Design from Scratch
- All Things Web: The Rules (I really like #5 & #6)
- W3Schools
Choosing a Pleasing [tag]Color Palette[/tag]
I used to spend a lot of time trying to come up with colors that looked nice together. I look at my sites kinda like a cocktail. Any truly classic cocktail will have no more than three ingredients. Example: The Martini - only gin, vermouth, and an olive (or my preference - lemon twist). The classics don't have to have a little of everything in the bar. Same with a website or your eBay pages. Choose one or two main colors and an accent. That's it. And if you've noticed, the days of the late 80's "BBS" sites are over. No BLACK BACKGROUNDS (unless you're some teenage goth gamer wearing a black trench-coat). Keep the look light and fresh. A white background looks clean and makes your product "pop".
Some designers use fashion magazines and choose a few colors from a fashion shoot. You'll notice they are usually colors found in nature, and naturally go together in our minds. Looking at clothes a model is wearing often gives a clue to 'modern' trends in color. Choose the colors from the model's outfit and you'll likely have a nice palette.
[tag]Sherwin Williams[/tag] (the paint company) has a tool which helps homeowners choose pleasant color palettes for their homes. The pros have put this together so you can choose your main color and it will suggest second and third colors for you. Now, how can you get the six number "hex" color to really copy those colors for your design? The way I do it is by using a FireFox browser, and an extension called "Color-picker" which lets me see the hex-color for anything I mouseover. If you don't want to use that, you can try to match the color numbers with the [tag]hex-color chart[/tag] I've provided a link to below.
Helpful color tools:
- Sherwin Williams Color Visualizer (This is cool!)
- GenuineSeller Hex Color Chart (all the numbers to make your site pop)
So, I hope we'll be seeing some more pleasing designs in the near future. I'm embarrassed to have that little sparkle bit above. Please forgive me.
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3 comments ↓
I couldn’t agree with you more. Thanks for the great resources to help us keep it simple. — (ahem) now I have to go and redo my website.
I am so glad someone is teaching this. I have alot going on in my ebay blog, it is very effective that way because of the general audience. My listings, however do not use templates or over done colors. I do use listing designer but no sparkles,music,or other hard to load or look at fluff.
Nice article, it’s efficient and shows all eBay auctions displays do and don’ts. Can’t wait for you to show all other eBay auctions articles such as this one on your next eBay auctions article.
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