Ryan T. Malone from FlippingAwesome.com had a post not too long ago where he discovered that you *might* be able to optimize your auction listings on Flippa so that when a potential buyer searched for a keyword, your listings would show up at the top of the Flippa’s search results.
He also discovered that it *appeared* keywords played a more important role than Flippa’s tags when it came to ranking in the search results. For example, if you tagged your listing as “ecommerce” but didn’t use the term in your auction listing, it might not rank as well when a search was conducted for that term. To get a better ranking and maximum exposure, you should optimize your listings for your keywords, Ryan suggested.
This was enlightening information and it seemed Ryan was on to something, but it turns out Flippa’s search engine isn’t that sophisticated. David Jenyns, Ryan’s partner over at FlippingAwesome.com, sat down with Luke Moulton, the marketing guy for Flippa, and they talked briefly about the subject.
In the interview, Luke admitted that their search engine wasn’t Google so it wasn’t as sophisticated as you might think. It turns out that if you do a search for a keyword, what will get returned are the most recent listings with that keyword. You can’t optimize for position because Flippa’s search engine is time-based. Ryan’s strategy might work but only for as long as your listing is recent relative to other auction listings using the same keywords you’re using.
Luke also touched on the use of Flippa’s tags to get exposure. I’ve always had a beef with Flippa’s tagging system for the reasons I outlined in this post but Luke didn’t mention any of the complaints I have with their tags in this interview. All he said was that the Flippa’s tags aren’t as reliable because people can spam them. You can watch the entire interview with Luke here:
So How Do I Get Maximum Exposure For My Listings?
As Luke mentioned in the interview – and as I’ve always preached from day one – getting maximum exposure comes down to having a quality website for sale. Quality websites will attract bidders, and the more bids you have, the more active your auction will be. The more active your auction, the greater the chance your listing will rise to the top of the Most Actives page on Flippa – the most popular page on Flippa.
Aside from developing a quality website, Ryan’s suggestion to optimize your auction is still a good one – despite the weaknesses of Flippa’s search engine. Choose your tags wisely as I suggested in this post and this post, and like any other web page, optimize it for your keywords. Having a listing promoting a quality website and using the best tags and optimized for your keywords, you’ll get maximum exposure for your Flippa listings.
