Chapter 9: Advanced HTML Techniques
There are a couple of advanced techniques that I use in my auctions that I think you might find interesting. One allows you to change the font face, size, and colors of text outside of your item description (the part of the page that is under eBay’s control).
The other allows you to have full control over your item description, allowing you to make changes without logging in to your eBay account, and allowing you to make changes when you normally would be barred from doing so by eBay (for example, after the auction has received bids, or in the final hours of a listing).
I won’t go into great detail with these. The reason for this is because they can be dangerous if you aren’t sure what you’re doing. These techniques are strictly for those that are very experienced with HTML.
If you decide that you really really want to use these techniques with your own auctions, be sure to practice off of eBay first! The last thing you want to do is completely mess up one of your auction listings beyond repair.
Alright, now that we’ve gotten the dire warnings out of the way, let’s talk about how to change the text outside of your item description. This is done with the use of stylesheets.
Stylesheets
For the most part, you’ll only be able to change eBay’s link color and font. You can also effect their behavior when a person mousse over them (these are called “rollover” effects). To do this, you will specify a style using the style tags. Here’s an example:
<style>
a:hover {color: red; text-decoration: none;}
</style>
That code specifies a style for all anchor tags on a page. Anchor tags specify links. In other words, you’re manipulating all the text links on the page. “Hover” tells the browser what to do when a person places their mouse pointer over, or hovers on, a link. The style specifies that when a link is moused over, it should turn red, and not be underlined.
Styles should be placed at the beginning of your code.
Backgrounds
Another neat trick is changing the background for the entire page. Be careful with this. If you specify an all-black background, people won’t be able to read the text outside your item description because most of it is black too!
In addition to specifying a solid color, you can also use an image for the background. To do this, you'll need to once again define a style to manipulate the body tag:
<style>
body {background-image:url ("http://www.yourwebsite.com/some_background_image.jpg");}
</style>
To specify just a solid color as the background, do this:
<style>
body {background-color: lightblue;}
</style>
Not all color names are supported, so be sure to test it off eBay first. Another option is to use a color's hex code. Most image editing programs can tell you what the hex code is for any color. Hex codes are an alphanumeric combination of six characters using letters between "A" and "F" and the numbers "0" through "9". Defining the color with a hex code looks something like this:
<style>
body {background-color: #EFEFEF;}
</style>
The above sample would set the background to a very light-gray color.
If you don't have an image editing program that tells you hex codes of different colors, you can check out this web developer's site.
Next: Chapter 9 Summary & Takeaways
Subchapters:
Simple Text Formatting
Controlling Page Layout
Advanced HTML Techniques
Chapter 9 Summary & Takeaways
Jump to another chapter:
Chapter 1: Driving Traffic to Your Auction Listing
Chapter 2: Listing for Higher Profits
Chapter 3: Does Any of this Stuff Work?
Chapter 4: eBay Stores
Chapter 5: Auction Management
Chapter 6: Doing Market Research
Chapter 7: Finding Products to Sell on eBay
Chapter 8: Mining eBay's Traffic
Chapter 9: HTML Tutorial
Chapter 10: Acting Like a PowerSeller
Chapter 11: Final Words