Set Up Your “About Me Page”

In the section on “Residual Income Method – The New Way to Work” you’ll remember that we talked about ways to generate residual income. One additional way that is very important to your success is eBay’s “About Me Page”. Why is the About Me Page so important? Basically because it provides another avenue to drive prospective customers (bidding or non-bidding) to your website. 

Can’t I just provide a website link from my auctions to my website? Nope. eBay policy won’t allow you to link directly to your website from an auction page. This, in the minds of eBay, causes people to sell more stuff directly on eBay’s auctions. eBay does allow you to link to your website from your About Me Page, however, with some limitations. The limitations (found at http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-aboutme.html) state:

“The About Me Page may not promote outside-of-eBay sales or prohibited items, nor may it contain links to commercial Web sites where goods from multiple sellers are aggregated by a common search engine.

You may link to your own Web store or Web site. However, you may not directly offer any non-eBay merchandise on the About Me Page itself.

eBay does not permit its users to place the following types of links on your About Me Pages:

• Links that directly offer any non-eBay listing or merchandise on the About Me Page itself.
• Links to other online trading sites or pages, including auctions and fixed-price formats.
• Links to sites offering the same merchandise for the same or lower price (including the Buy It Now price).
• Links to sites offering merchandise or information not permitted on eBay 

On your About Me Page, you may link to your own Web site or individual Internet store where you are offering to trade, sell or purchase your goods or services. However, you may not link to any page within online trading sites that offer goods from multiple sellers either in a fixed price or auction format.”

So we still haven’t covered why the About Me Page is so important. How does the About Me Page generate residual income? Here are a few thoughts for consideration:

• Your About Me Page provides a close-up of “who” prospective bidders are dealing with. You’ve probably visited hundreds of auctions or websites where you wish you knew whether or not the seller was trustworthy. Think of your About Me Page as a way of letting potential bidders get to know you better. While an About Me Page does not guarantee trustworthiness to potential bidders, it makes a good first impression, and we all know about first impressions.
• The About Me Page can illustrate to potential bidders the professionalism of big business for businesses of any size. Structured correctly, my grandmother could be seen as a large company specializing in just about any product.
• The About Me Page provides a convenient place to list the business expectations for your auctions. By providing links from each auction page to your About Me Page, you can state all terms, conditions, warranty and payment expectations. Once there, you have the opportunity to entice visitors to check out your website for additional free information on a topic of your choosing, or newsletter signups.
• The About Me Page provides you with the opportunity to demonstrate why you are better than the leading competitor. It’s amazing that only a handful of the Power Sellers have an eBay About Me Page. That gives me the feeling of “they’re probably too busy to bother with it” and it makes you wonder what type of service you can expect when something goes wrong.

When you create an About Me Page, the little symbol appears next to your Seller ID in the Seller Information area. While this is the primary way people use to find their way to your About Me Page, you should provide other avenues (links) at the top and bottom of your auctions to take visitor to your About Me Page.