Drive Yourself to More eBay Auction Money
|
 |
| Big ticket items are increasingly popular on eBay. Cars are probably one of the best examples of this. In fact, eBay is the largest dealer of used cars in the USA. And eBay's car sales in the UK is also growing significantly. Every 16 seconds, a car is sold on eBay! If you're an eBay seller, here's an idea you might like to consider to make extra cash. The vast majority of car dealers don't use eBay. They advertise in the press, usually locally, and their customers likewise usually live within reach of the car dealer. What eBay Motors has successfully proved is that people will bid on cars from owners hundreds or even thousands of miles away. Why not take your eBay selling expertise, and offer your services to car dealers in your area? You know how to create auctions, take and upload photos, and manage auctions. The dealers have vehicles which are getting a tiny fraction of the exposure which eBay could offer. You might decide to offer this to dealers on a no-cost basis. In other words, you bear the cost of eBay's listing and selling fees. The benefit here is that there is no reason why the dealer shouldn't give you the go-ahead. They could get a sale without cost to them and no extra effort on their behalf. That's what I call a no-brainer! Alternatively, you could pass on the fees to the dealer on the basis that they would be spending money anyway on press advertising. The other commercial arrangements are simple. You could work on a commission, where you get a percentage of the sale price. Or you could agree a price which the dealer will accept for the sale of the car, and anything you can get above that price is your profit. This would work particularly well if the dealer has had a vehicle for some time, and has no interest in it. The best types of cars to sell on eBay are those that are unusual for one reason or another. It might be vintage or classic vehicles, sports cars or high value models. You're best to avoid what might be termed "normal" cars. It also depends on the kind of dealers you have in your area. One of the major potential problems is easily handled. You can't expect the dealer to cease trying to sell a vehicle which you have on eBay auction. In every auction you run for a car, you state that the vehicle is also on sale in other ways, and that you reserve the right to withdraw it before the end of the auction period. You will see such statements on many eBay car auctions. This idea doesn't have to be limited to cars. There are big ticket item opportunities in several categories. You're looking for retail outlets which tend to concentrate on local advertising and local trade. Examples of this would be jewelers, antique traders and real estate operations. With big ticket items, just one or two sales per week could make a significant difference to you. Worth thinking about! |
Friday, October 12, 2018
Do Marketers Really Need RSS?
| |||
The recent Forrester Research study, which claims that only 2% of online households in North America use RSS, took the internet marketing world by storm. Does this data really mean that marketers can still afford to ignore this channel? Soon after the Forrrester study became public, I received a press enquiery asking whether marketers should be interested in RSS now that so few online adults use it. Is this the correct question to ask? Let’s take a look at the bigger picture … 1. THE FORRESTER STUDY VALIDITY The Forrester study is just one of those available and cannot be considered as the only relevant study, although it was conducted on a sample of 68,000 households. Jupiter Research estimates RSS penetration at 12% of the American online population, while the latest report from PEW shows that 9% of the American online population has a good idea of what RSS is. An October 2004 PEW study actually estimated RSS penetration at 5%. It is also important to understand that Forrester data does not include those that might not even be aware they are using RSS, especially through services such as My.Yahoo, which is actually the most popular RSS reader. Also, at the same time, Forrester Vice President Henry Harteveldt says that »RSS is critical for any organization that wants to reach out to people under the age of 30«. 2. THE FUTURE GROWTH OF RSS Regardless of the numbers we put our faith in, the future growth of RSS is without question. Microsoft just recently announced full RSS support in the next edition of their Internet Explorer browser and full RSS integration in the next edition of their operating system, the Windows Vista. Once RSS becomes easily available to most internet users out-of-the-box and becomes as widely spread as bookmarks, its adoption will grow at an incredible rate. Microsoft has now made sure this in fact will happen. Consequently, the time for marketers to not only become interested in RSS but also master it is now. Those that test and discover the best possible ways of using RSS for marketing will be ahead of their competition once everyone starts using RSS. Furthermore, since RSS implementation can actually be free of any charge, there’s no reason not to start providing your content in RSS feeds now. 3. GOOGLE SHOWS THE WAY Microsoft and Yahoo! aren’t the only big players to show support for RSS. Google recently launched RSS advertising as part of their Google AdSense program, giving publishers reason to start their own RSS feeds to generate direct revenues. Those that depend on Google AdSense for part or all of their online revenues actually need to provide RSS feeds, or stand to lose some of those revenues due to their visitors switching to sites and feeds from their competitors. Face it, today many users are already starting to request publishers provide them with RSS to subscribe to their content. This trend will only continue, with many users selecting RSS as their primary channel of receiving and reading online content. 4. THE QUESTIONABLE RELIABILITY OF E-MAIL All marketers today are experiencing e-mail delivery problems, constantly wondering whether their messages are getting through or not. Simply put, e-mail can no longer be relied on. For one, offering your content via RSS as a supplement to e-mail will help you make certain that at least a portion of your visitors, those that decide for the RSS option, will be receiving all of your content without any doubt. Lockergnome.com decided to start pushing RSS instead of e-mail some time ago, and as a result saw that their RSS feeds are outperforming e-mail when it comes to clickthrough rates for about 500%. Also an interesting fact, they today have 5 times more RSS subscribers than e-mail subscribers. And two, for your most important content updates, RSS really is becoming a must, especially if you need to be in contact with your existing customers, partners and other key audiences. If you want to be 100% certain that your messages reach your audience, RSS is the way to go. 5. OTHER BENEFITS OF RSS But all of the above don’t even touch all the reasons why marketers should start using RSS today … a) RSS will help you generate additional traffic and reach new audiences. Considering the low cost of RSS implementation, this is reason enough to get started with RSS today. b) RSS helps you to easily get your content published on other sites, thus generating you more credibility and visitors. c) As a publisher you can use RSS to display content from other sources, thus making your site more relevant and interesting to your existing visitors. And the list goes on and on. RSS may not be mainstream yet, but it provides enough advantages even today to make it a must-choice for marketers. |
Creating A Blog To Promote An Existing Business
|
by: Mal Keenan
|
| Copyright 2005 Mal Keenan If you belong to any of the following groups, then this article is for you. * You already have a business and a website that serves as the official hub for your online sales. The website may be serving as an online store for your enterprise. * You need a venue wherein you can promote your affiliate links. * Your already have a website, which may not necessarily be a commercial one, and it is enrolled with a Pay Per Click (PPC) program, like Google AdSense. Success in these fields depends on one essential principle which you might have already realized: traffic is the key to your online business thriving. You may have in your digital inventory the best products in the world, but they won’t mean squat if no one would get to see them. This is why each and every online businessman will fight tooth and nail just to have a piece of the Internet traffic. After all, the more visitors who get to visit your site, the more potential clients you have. And blogs can most definitely help you drive visitors to your pages. Here is how you could use them to achieve such a purpose: 1. Download the Wordpress blogging software, which is available for free at www.wordpress.com . An alternative is to go with blogger.com. I have posted instructions for setting up a Blogger blog at your own server in this PDF file: http://www.pluginprofitstraining.com/blogsetup.pdf 2. Remember that good content is always at the heart of a progressive online traffic stream. People are always looking for information, and if you will give them that, they would read what you have to offer. Dedicate your blog to the subject of your main website. Publish informative entries that would hook your readers and make them come back for updates. In between purely educational entries, strategically include a link to your site by suggesting their importance to your readers. 3. Using the above mentioned strategy, you could also include your affiliate links to pre-sell your affiliate products. The more traffic you drive to your affiliate merchant’s site or sales page, the more chances you will have of effectuating a successful sale and bigger commissions. 4. Links from blogs are unilateral, meaning, they are one way links to your websites. The more traffic a unilateral link generates, the more it becomes prominent in online searches. Avoid reciprocal links at all costs! Do not include a link to your blog from your website. Search engines abhor reciprocal linking. 5. 80% of your traffic will come from the search engines. You have to tweak your blog to attract the attention of the search engine spiders. Now, blogs are already search engine friendly. However, there is a very big possibility that you would be competing with other blogs on the same subject. You have to make sure that once you upload your blog, it is able to outperform its competitors in the search engine rankings. One way you can do this is by using the title of your post to match the keyword phrases you are targeting, plus put a sprinkling of your keyword phrase in the post itself. I am doing this with great results. 6. Check your blog offline. It should be as readable and as navigable as possible for your prospective readers. Make appropriate adjustments if necessary. 7. Upload your blog to a reliable server that has enough bandwidth to accommodate many viewers. 8. Constantly update your blog. Search engines love regularly updated content, so publishing new entries will greatly increase your blog’s page rank, and consequently, your main website’s traffic. 9. Accepting links from other related blogs will also bring to your site some traffic from sources other then search engines. The way that a blog is designed fosters the building of a community of blog sites, and this will provide for an added stream of visitors for you. 10. You could also decide to enroll your blog site in the Google AdSense advertising program. This will give you an additional income stream. We will discuss this in future articles. Blogs are excellent promotional tools for your existing business. Use them well and you will harvest the rewards in a matter of weeks. |
Contextual Ad Networks...The Baby Boom Is Upon Us
Contextual Ad Networks...The Baby Boom Is Upon Us
|
 |
| No, this baby boom will certainly not swamp the Social Security system (sort of a bad joke for those that live in the United States, but many other countries...most notably Japan...have an even more acute problem), but this baby boom is revolutionizing the way that pay per click advertising is being spread across the Internet. One of the early participants in this pay per click baby boom was Google, with its AdSense program. With this program, Google shares pay per click revenue with a huge number of individual partner websites that carry a few pay per click ads that are distributed by Google. In essence, this creates a whole bunch of little pay per click locations (websites) throughout the Internet and hence the term "pay per click baby boom". Conceptually, programs like AdSense are similar to what the computer hardware folks refer to a distributed processing. Instead of trying to draw everyone to a large pay per click search engine site, little groups of pay per click ads are spread widely across thousands of locations (websites) all over the Internet. Actually, this distributed processing or propagation technique is not limited to pay per click advertising. For example, Amazon uses a similar arrangement (called Amazon Associates) to sell the products it carries on amazon.com and ClickBank has a sales program called CBAdwords which operates in a similar fashion. According my trusty Ouija board, it seems likely that most commercial hubs on the Internet will be shifting to this propagation concept as time progresses...all of those individual partner websites that carry the message/proposition will constitute the vast army of worker ants that keep the queen ant alive and healthy. From a pay per click marketing perspective, these programs make brilliant use of leverage while providing highly targeted prospects for the paying advertiser. There are, of course, some interesting things that occur as a result of all of this stuff. For example, consider what I call the "cross fertilization effect": Suppose a person goes to yahoo.com and performs a search that leads them to one of my websites that happens carry Google AdSense ads and that visitor then clicks on one of those ads...the net result is that Yahoo natural search provided Google pay per click with some revenue! Aren't these fun times that we're living in? As these programs continue to proliferate, the individual webmaster needs to exercise a little restraint and avoid the temptation to go overboard by plastering these ads all over your website and thereby diluting your own primary message/proposition and confusing your hard earned visitor. When properly used, these ads are just ancillary or complementary content that you are providing to enhance the information and opportunities that you are providing to your visitor...if something happens to strike a responsive chord with your visitor, you might make a little pay per click money. If properly used, these propagation programs can result in the classical "win-win" situation. However, if you over do it, this can quickly turn into a loss for you (the individual webmaster) and a win for your pay per click partners that are distributing the ads. As in many things, moderation is important. The dynamic search engine marketing industry continues to evolve as users began to take advantage of the steady stream of new features, tools and innovations provided by the ever increasing number of search engines offering quality search results (it's not all about Google anymore). The evolutionary time line for Internet marketing continues to run at warp speed. An example of previous evolutionary periods (which by now may almost seem prehistoric) would be the emergence of pay-per-click advertising and the cooresponding rise of search-marketing firms specializing in AdWords and Overture. As long as there are methods for finding and retrieving information in digital databases by using keywords or similar attributes, there will be a search-marketing industry. How that industry operates in the future depends on how the search engines operate and how consumer tendencies evolve. It's a constant sea of change, but the good things just keep on getting better! Stay alert, and light on your feet, and the opportunities will just keep on coming your way. The above are just some observations from "the peanut gallery", but I don't think I'm far off the mark about where things are heading. With that, I'm off the soapbox and wishing you success in whatever you do online! |
Concentrate on what's important...
Concentrate on what's important...
|
 |
| This is only my second letter in seven or eight weeks. Sorry about that, but at first I had no Internet connection when things went wrong with my satellite service (I'm now on wireless broadband) and then I developed a quite serious illness which I'm slowly getting over. If you want to, you can read more on my forum I reckon you should go there anyway, it's a great community. Incidentally the forum posts are being indexed by Google, which makes it a good place to get links to your websites - as long as you've got something useful/interesting to say that is :) Ok, I'll keep this relatively short because I'm still not feeling too good. But I hope that normal "service" has now resumed. 1. Concentrate on what's important... First of all, it looks like I'm missed seeing a lot of new products since I've been offline. When I visited my forum I saw a number of programs/software being talked about that I'd never even heard of. And, do you know what? I didn't really care that I'd missed the products being announced. There's probably nothing wrong with them. They're most likely useful. They're probably worth investigating. But... remember this. It's IMPORTANT to not get distracted with new things all the time. You could spend all your limited web time learning how to use new tools, when really you should be focusing on improving your sites and your skills and your own business. I remember David Garfinkel and Mark Joyner saying to me in Vegas that I should focus on what I'm good at (in my case writing). And that's what you should be doing too. Play to your strengths. Work out what you're good at/what your main interests are and give them most of your attention and time. Don't get sidetracked by everything new that comes along. Write down your "online business" plan, even if it's only on one piece of paper. And work out the steps you need to take to achieve success with it. Doing this will help you focus on what matters, and it will clear your head so that you know where you should be spending your time. Once you've mapped out your action steps you need to follow them. Don't make a plan and then not stick to it. Don't let anyone or anything put you off. Go for it. Don't sign up for every crappy new scheme that comes along. Don't buy every new piece of software or every ebook. Do what works for YOU and use the tools that works for YOU. And just go for it. 2. One of the smartest brains around... I'm not sure if you've heard of him, but James Maduk is one of the smartest business brains around. He's been working online since 1995, writes monthly articles for Entrepreneur Magazine, and he's an expert at online selling. Plus he's got more products on the market than anyone I know, even beating the prolific Marlon Sanders. So why he's not amazingly well known in this field I'll never know. I'm a big fan, especially of his member only site If you'd like an introduction to his style and knowledge have a look at one of his free weekly webcasts, where he uses "internet whiteboard" technology to get his messages across. And when you've finished watching and listening you might fancy signing up for his affiliate program which is looks like turning into one of the best around. 3. Free Amazon Tools... If you're promoting Amazon's affiliate program here are a couple of useful sites which help you automate the process. http://www.associatesshop.com/ and http://www.addassociate.com/add_register.php Associatesshop lets you add an Amazon store to your site and sell products of your choice, while Addassociates provides you with code which works much the same way as Google Adsense - meaning it "reads" the content of your webpage and displays context related products. Of the two I prefer Addassociate, but you can't use it on pages where you're running Google Adsense ads. Anyway, they're both free and could be a useful addition to your sites. 4. Beginners Bit... I get heaps of letters about how difficult it is to build a good looking website. But I get even more letters about the complexities of getting a webhost and uploading pages to it. One simple way around this is to use Site Build It! (SBI) because it offers an all-in-one solution. The mastermind behind SBI, Ken Evoy, has been really busy with SBI over the past few months, constantly adding new features and making it easier to use. I've owned SBI for a few years now and it's now a far, far better site building tool than when I started using it. And it was good then. One thing SBI is ideal for is displaying Google Adsense ads. To really make big profits from Adsense you need a lot of content pages. Using SBI for these sites makes sense because once you've got over the learning curve it leaves you totally free to concentrate on providing that content. So you can quickly put out a lot more pages. Plus the in-built tools help you keep that content on topic, which means that Adsense can read that your pages correctly and display relevant ads. In fact Ken has put together a very good info site about using SBI with Adsense. You should spend a bit of time reading through it. http://salesnow.sitesell.com/adsense/ 5. Stuck for ideas what to build a site about? Try reading Michael Holland's Strike it Niche. It's a great place to begin. Michael's done a great research job, giving you ideas for 70 different sites, and explaining just what you need to do to profit from each of them. Reading this ebook should leave you dancing with enthusiasm. 6. As a follow on to the stuff higher up... Do you ever feel like you're drowning in a sea of data? Well you're not the only one. I just checked out the online edition of The Guardian, one of the best UK daily papers, and found this report: "There's a lot of data on our hard disks, and there's more accumulating by the day. The University of Berkeley School of Information Management and Systems has just updated its "How Much Information?" study. In 2002 we created over five exabytes of data, in the form of video, print, magnetic and optical media — an increase of over 30% a year since 1999. That's equivalent to half a million new collections the size of the US Library of Congress — 92% of which was on magnetic media, and most of that was on hard disk." |
Can You Really Make Money Selling New Release CD's & DVD's On eBay?
Can You Really Make Money Selling New Release CD's & DVD's On eBay?
|
 |
| Being an active eBayer, I am often being asked about products to sell. A common question is "Where can I purchase products such as new release CD's DVD's and Video Games for Playstation and X box at a 75% to 100% discount. Well folks, this sort of discount on this type of merchandise is not available from Wholesalers or Dropshippers. The reason being, the competitive nature of the electronics industry, and simple supply and demand. Still with the tremendous popularity of these products and their ease to package and ship, people want to sell them. So where can you find these products at a great price? Liquidators! Yes that's right, Liquidators! What exactly are Liquidators? You Ask. Well, as explained in my book "eBay Marketing Wholesale SourcePak" a Liquidator is a company who buys surplus, over runs, bankruptcies, and going out of business inventory etc. They purchase this merchandise for pennies on the dollar and in turn pass this saving on to you. There are many Liquidators who would have just what you are looking for. There are General Merchandise Liquidators who basically purchase and sell all sorts of general merchandise. And, there are Liquidators who specialize and only purchase and sell merchandise in a specific niche - say electronics. An Electronics Liquidator would purchase products from music stores or department stores with an electronics dept or movie rental stores or electronic stores that are going out of business, declaring bankruptcy or who have overstock. From that inventory they would have some of the latest CD's, DVD's and Video Games. Liquidators are similar to Wholesalers and Dropshippers in that you will have to become a member to have access to their inventory. Most require no fee to become a member, while others may charge a nominal fee. However, Liquidators have a set number of units you must buy in order to get a great price. A Liquidator will purchase inventory in bulk and therefore will want to sell the merchandise in cases or lots. So, Yes You can make Good Money Selling New Release CD's, DVD's and, Video Games and the likes on your eBay auction by choosing the proper supplier. And remember that selling on eBay is all about research. You must research the product you are interested in selling. What is the best price for the item? What is the best selling price you can get for that item? Also, research that item's market to see just how many people are selling this product. Happy Selling! Joe Clare |
Can You Really Make Money From Blogging
Can You Really Make Money From Blogging
|
 |
One of the questions I see frequently asked on online discussion forums is, "Can You Really Make Money From Blogging?" People want to know if there's some way to profit from the time they spend maintaining their weblogs or personal online journals. My answer is an emphatic "YES," because I do it... everyday! Today I'll share with you how I do it. Let me begin by saying that I don't make thousands per month from MOST of my blogs. However, I do have many making hundreds. Since I don't put in a lot of time maintaining them, and I enjoy blogging, I consider the money a bonus. I blog while sitting in my yard with my laptop (on a wireless connection)... watching the clouds roll by. Another bonus I get from blogging is that it helps my regular websites that are set up as my "money machines." The search engines visit my blogs more often than they visit my regular sites, and they follow the links from my blogs pointing to other sites. Some of these links point to my sites, and some point to sites of partners. This does help the search engine rankings of these sites MASSIVELY. How Do I Monetize My Blogs? I monetize my blogs by creating blogs on topics people are searching for... and that they are spending money on. I know which niches are hot to an extent based upon what my research proves pay-per-click advertisers are willing to spend their advertising dollars on. I run Google AdSense ads on my blogs. I simply insert these ads in my menu bar and other strategic places on the webpage. I also experiment with other paid advertising on my blogs. I sell affiliate products from my blogs. I simply find affiliate products at places like PayDotCom.com and Commission Junction. I incorporate these into my blogs. I do things like product reviews, how-to articles, etc. You can also locate suitable affiliate products by typing your target keywords + "affiliate program" at any major search engine. This should point out numerous websites with suitable affiliate programs to you. How Do I Setup/Host My Blogs? I have blog hosted on some of my own domains using Moveable Type. This is just one of many great pieces of blogging software. You have other choices... my programmer recommended this one to me. I also have blogs hosted for free on Blogger.com. I have them on Blogger.com because they are incredibly easy to set up and maintain. A secondary reason I have them on Blogger.com is that Google OWNS Blogger.com and they index webpages hosted on their servers OFTEN and FAST! The secret to getting Google and Yahoo! to visit your blogs often is a technique called "blogging and pinging." It's a method of notifying all of the major search engines, and blog directories, each time that you update your blog. The search engines come to take a look and they follow links from your blog to spider other blogs/sites. It's very powerful. I won't go into too much details on blogging and pinging here. If you want more information on that topic I invite you to drop by my free, Internet marketing discussion board and ask any and all questions! It's at: http://WillieCrawford.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi Examples Of Profitable Blogs? I know, you want to see examples of profitable blogs :-) To show you how simple it can be I'll show you just ONE. It’s less than 2 months old :-) The problem is that as soon as I show a site to anyone as an example, it's instantly ripped off. So, I'm going to "sacrifice" one making me about $60 per day from affiliate product sales and about $20 per day in AdSense revenue. That site is at: http://cure-nail-fungus.blogspot.com The above site currently ranks Number 6 on Yahoo for the term "cure nail fungus." It's a small niche but one that makes me $2400 per month... just from that one blog. If you searched on the same term at Google, this site is not very highly ranked. However, THIS page is Num ber4: http://www.chitterlings.com/no-more-nail-fungus.html That happens to be one of my pages too :-) I won't tell you what ALL I'm up to on that page... that's another article. The technique involves using your own domains to promote affiliate products rather than advertising someone else's domain... so it improves your link popularity. I'm not going to show more of my blogs because that just invites competition. Instead, I'm going to answer another question you have to be wondering... "How do I find time to maintain all of these blogs, even if they are profitable?" Well, first of all, I don't really need a lot like the "sacrificial lamb" that I showed you above to keep me satisfied. I do have a number of secret weapons though. One is called AutoBlogger. You can check it out at: http://WillieCrawford.com/auto-blogger.html What AutoBlogger does is allow me to queue up a number of posts for my various blogs in advance. It lets you queue up "articles" which can really be anything you want. Then you tell the software at what frequency to make a post. My AutoBlogger account allows me to automatically post to an UNLIMITED number of blogs. WARNING: A program like AutoBlogger can get you in trouble if you misuse it! If you use it to spam or abuse the search engines, it's just going to get you banned. If you use it to abuse the blog hosts, they're just going to delete your blogs. Here's how I use AutoBlogger: I have sites where I discuss Internet marketing... as just one example. On these sites I share many of my articles and tidbits. I simply queue up these articles/tidbits to post at a given frequency. This frequency can be a set number of hours, days, weeks, or months. So theoretically, I can set up a blog, pre-schedule 50 posts, and not touch it in months, while it is automatically posted to for the next 50 intervals. AutoBlogger even lets you set it to start rotating through the posts again when they run out, if you want to. I personally wouldn't do this since you'd just be posting duplicate content. AutoBlogger allows you to insert RSS feeds right into your blog posts. So in addition to posting articles you can also auto-update by adding new RSS feeds at a set interval. Since I HATE sending my traffic to other sites (without reciprocation), these RSS feeds generally pull from MY sites. That way, my traffic is only sent to my other sites. If you don't even feel like queuing up a lot of posts, you can go to a site like Elance.com and hire someone else to do it for you... or just hired your kids to do it for you. It can be as easy as you want to make it. OK, I've just proven to you that you can make money off of blogs. In-fact, you can make more money than many people make off of their REGULAR websites. It just takes a little thinking outside the box! It also takes not being too greedy. What I just showed you works for me because I'm not doing anything that's likely to get me banned from the search engines, Google AdSense, Blogger.com, or any affiliate program. It's only when you get carried away, and do things that harm the search engines that you "shoot yourself in the foot." Set up blogs providing useful content. Make regular posts to these blogs but not in a manner that seems unnatural. By that, I mean don't auto-post twenty times in an hour, or post every hour for a month! No human can possible post to a blog at these rates for long, so the search engines detect something is "wrong." They don't generally prohibit you from using tools to make your job easier... just don't get carried away! There are actually, thousands of people earning a living doing things similar to what I just shared... but with little twists. I'm meeting up with many of them in New Orleans in September. You're invited to join us. We'll basically be sharing how we make a fortune off of niche websites and programs such as Google AdSense. You can register today at: http://WillieCrawford.com/meet-in-new-orleans.html |
BLOG…PING…OPT-IN…SIG FILE…EZINE!
BLOG…PING…OPT-IN…SIG FILE…EZINE!
|
 |
A Guide to INTERNET MARKETING TERMS In the beginning… I recently started my own “money-making, home business” which I signed up to with the understanding that I was going to earn money for doing nothing. Others (affiliates) were going to pay me commission for referring new sign-ups to their sites. This sounded like a fantastic opportunity to make lots of money without really selling anything. No stocks holding, postage etc. My signup included (among other items) a guide which covers 30 days. I also had to sign-up to 5 online marketing sites (you receive the enrolment fee back in no time) and join a web-hosting company. Massive amounts of information are fed to you but in an absorbable manner. It was very exiting. I would liken this information to reading a suspense novel…can’t wait to see what happens next! Anyway this article is not meant to be about that…it’s meant to cover some of the terminology and their definitions, some of which I had never heard before. AdSense AdSense is a fast and easy way for website publishers of all sizes to display relevant ads on their website's content pages and earn money. Because the ads are related to what your visitors are looking for on your site — or matched to the characteristics and interests of the visitors your content attracts — you'll finally have a way to both monetise and enhance your content pages. It's also a way for website publishers to provide web and site search to their visitors, and to earn money by displaying ads on the search results pages. Adwords With AdWords you create your own ads, choose keywords to help us match your ads to your audience and pay only when someone clicks on them. Affiliate A person, organization, or establishment associated with another as a subordinate, subsidiary, or member: network affiliates. Auto-Responder This is a clever marketing tool. It automates your emails and follows-up on potential clients after they have signed up to your newsletter etc. Blog An online diary or personal chronological log of thoughts published on a Web page; also called Weblog, Web log. Typically updated daily, blogs often reflect the personality of the author. It is a shortened form of Weblog. Ezine A magazine that is published electronically, especially on the Internet. Keyword A word used as a reference point for finding other words or information. See Adwords. Off-line Marketing As an example, advertising in newspapers, radio and television. Using the phone as a off-line marketing tool has also become very popular. On-line Marketing Advertising using the internet, examples may include…email, banners, popups etc. Opt-In/Opt-out Subscribers This is when you choose you receive newsletters etc. via email. Example: By doing this you opt-in to an email mailing list. These lists are sold over the internet by various marketing companies. Most emails sent via the opt-in method also have an opt-out choice. Use this when you no longer wish to receive email from the marketer. When you have no choice it is referred to as SPAM. Ping A protocol that sends a message to another computer and waits for acknowledgment, often used to check if another computer on a network is reachable. You need to use ping your blog to get it online. (easy as pie) Sig File A block of text at the end of a message identifying the sender and providing additional information for instance, web/e-mail address. Solo Ad This is advertising via email attached to an ezine. This is only one ad (as apposed to many small ads from various companies), thus giving you maximum exposure. Viral Marketing This works similar to a virus but instead of being destructive it encourages people to pass along a marketing message. |
Blogging for Dollars
Blogging for Dollars
|
 Blogging for dollars might sound like the latest game show or some new drinking game, but it's the latest craze to hit the Internet. Bloggers began blogging for a number of reasons, but as the blog movement has increased in popularity, they have found ways to monetize their blogs and are seeing their commitment pay off. Whether a blogger's focus is to communicate with customers or just to have fun, they have begun looking at ways to earn revenue from their blogs. The most popular ways for bloggers to earn some added cash for their pet projects are: 1. ) Google Adsense in Blogs Google AdSense allows webmasters to dynamically serve content-relevant advertisements in blogs. If the visitor clicks one of the AdSense ads served to the blog, the website owner is credited for the referral. Webmasters need only to insert a Google-generated java script into the blog or blog template. Google's spider parses the AdServing blog and serves ads that relate to the blog's content. Google uses a combination of keyword matching and context analysis to determine what ads should be served. 2. ) Affiliate Programs (Product Endorsements) Affiliate Programs work when an affiliate web site receives income for generating sales, leads, or traffic to a merchant website. Generally, bloggers will mention or endorse specific products and if site visitors purchase the product, bloggers will receive a portion of the sale. 3. ) Product Promotion Businesses use blogs to detail how specific features or product add-ons can increase functionality and save time. Content-rich product promotion will help with search engine placement. 4.) Banner Ads While less popular than in the past, websites with high traffic levels can still earn decent revenue by selling banner space. As the Internet evolves bloggers will continue to seek out ways to monetize their opinions and thoughts. Daily journals and online blogs have become more than just a communication means to many. |
Beware: The Dangers of Selling on eBay 101
Beware: The Dangers of Selling on eBay 101
|
 |
It's obvious that eBay provides internet users with an online flea market where buyers and sellers from around the world meet to conduct trade. However, like most traders who are faced with an innovation of this sort, the first question will always be: It is safe? The answer is yes, but devious scammers seem to be plotting daily to forward their dastardly schemes and take advantage of eBay's power. So, what is the user's recourse? The users of eBay must learn to gather information and take meticulous care in dealing on eBay. Only then can they be less gullible to scammers. A common consensus is that bidders are often scammed by sellers. But it is possible for things to be the other way around. Here is a list of the common problems sellers encounter and the means to handle them. Fake Escrow Services A winning bidder may request that an escrow service be used to assure both parties of a fair transaction. Unfortunately, the seller is sometimes duped into using a fake escrow system. To avoid this situation, the seller must always verify the authenticity of an escrow service. eBay recommends the use of escrow.com. If the bidder insists on his or her escrow service, chances are, that person is a scammer. Victims of this fraud find it difficult to reclaim their items. They may, however, appeal to the legal system afforded by the state they live in. They must also contact eBay regarding the matter for any assistance they may be willing to offer. Deadbeat Bidders Deadbeat bidders (a winning bidder who doesn't pay for an item at the auction's close) are more common on eBay. If the winner of your auction does not pay, you may leave that person a negative feedback. As for the listing fees the seller shells out, eBay lays out a four step procedure that sellers can use to potentially recover lost selling fees. If sellers complete the process to eBay's satisfaction, they will receive a Final Value Fee credit and a re-list credit. Filing out an Unpaid Item dispute is the first step toward eBay reimbursing such fees. A person can report an unpaid item up to 45 days after an auction's close. Trade Dispute This occurs when the seller and bidder disagree on some terms of the sale. This may also happen if there is a purported violation of any of these agreements. If communication between both parties does not help, they may consider availing of a third-party dispute resolution outfit to help. SquareTrade.com is one of these outfits that eBay recommends. An Ounce of Prevention is Worth a Pound of Cure A seller's life may be made terrible because of the constant scamming attacks unscrupulous individuals undertake. But, with proper information and care, he or she can continue trading on eBay with relative safety. Payment Methods on eBay Gone are the days when only cash (or cattle in some cases) was the only accepted mode of payment for trades. As the concept of trading evolved, so did the means of paying for items. Today's electronic world pushes the envelop further. With the advent of online trading systems such as eBay, many new forms of payment have flourished. First of all, on eBay, the mode of payment depends on the agreement between the buyer and the seller. Most often, the seller will specify his or her desired payment method. In these cases, the seller often has primacy in the decisions regarding payment modes. However, the buyer may still communicate with the seller regarding a viable alternative if it suits both parties. The following is a list of common eBay payment modes. Cash On Delivery Cash is, after all, still cash. This payment method can be done through a third party courier system or by the buyer and seller meeting each other at an agreed place. The advantage of a cash transaction is that the exchange of the item for payment is done in the presence of the buyer and the seller (or the seller's representative). However, some people will not accept the risk present when two strangers meet. Personal Check One popular method of payment is personal check. Writing checks is easy and safe. However, many sellers do not like accepting check because they are easy to cancel. PayPal PayPal is the payment of choice on eBay. In fact, eBay owns PayPal. Using PayPal is easy, convenient, and relatively safe. PayPal acts as like an internet 'wire transfer.' After signing-up for PayPal, one may send cash to anyone with an email address using the PayPal system. PayPal also has security features that safeguard against fraud in case there is a dispute between the seller and the buyer. This system is best for transactions up to $1000. Escrow.com Escrow.com is the payment of choice for purchases over $500. Escrow.com holds the buyer's money from the seller until the seller delivers the item. Only then will the funds be released to the seller. This system makes for a very safe, although highly procedural transaction. Wire Transfer This is the payment of choice for countries that do not carry the PayPal service. Wire transfers are risky because the buyer usually has to wire over the funds before the seller sends the items. The chance for non-delivery of items is high. Other Payment Systems The number of third party payment services is steadily on the rise. Their systems for payment vary. However, to be successful they must be convenient to use and safe as well. |
Be realistic when selling on eBay....
Be realistic when selling on eBay....
|
 As some of you know, I spent many years buying and selling both on and offline and several of my products are based upon my own experience in this area. I know that the vast majority of my customers and subscribers have an interest in trading whether it be on eBay or at the local market but more and more I am seeing people with completely unrealistic expectations of what they will be able to do. Most commonly these unrealistic expectations are in respect of how much it actually costs to purchase specific products and what they can then be sold on for. I regularly get emails from people who want to know where they can purchase products such as mobile (cell) phones, new release DVDs, Playstation games and similar at, say, a 50% discount to resell on eBay. The fact is that such a thing is not available - it is a simple case of supply and demand and competition. Take DVDs for example, most people think that these are excellent products to resell on eBay because they are very popular, not particularly expensive and easy to package and ship. Unfortunately, they could not be more wrong. The DVD market is one of the most competitive that there is - take a look for yourself and see how many auctions there are on eBay for DVDs at any one time. I have just looked and counted almost 300,000! At any one time there will only be a certain number of buyers wanting to purchase a particular DVD and if you take into account the numerous different places there are that each buyer could purchase from, it is likely that in general, there will be more copies of an individual DVD available than there are buyers to purchase them. This situation causes prices to fall. The other factor that forces prices down is the fact that one DVD is the same as another. By this I mean that from a buyers point of view, there is no difference to a new DVD purchased on eBay to one which is purchased from their local DVD store. Often the only way to differentiate is on price and of course, the only way to make the price more attractive to a buyer is to lower it. The above reasons help to explain why the wholesale discount on a new release DVD is just £1 or £2 at most ($2 or $3 roughly in the US). When you take into account the fact that the large retail chains can purchase thousands of DVDs at a time and receive a bigger discount than individual traders, you soon see why it is very difficult for a small business to compete in such a competitive industry. You simply cannot purchase new release DVDs at 50% discount and even if you could, it wouldn't be long before prices were forced down as there is always someone willing to sell a little bit cheaper than the next man. It isn't just DVDs that fall into this category. Take mobile (cell) phones. Here in the UK you can walk down just about any high street and get the latest phones either free or for a minimal token payment. The stores are relying on making their money from the line rental contract that you will have to sign in order to get the phone. Of course, the actual cost of the phone is not free - most new mobiles are actually worth £200 or £300 which means that if you want to buy a batch of phones at wholesale, you are going to be looking at a pretty high unit cost. As with most electrical products, the market is competitive and prices have been forced down which means that the difference between your wholesale buying price and your retail selling price is minimal. There are numerous products that suffer from the same market conditions as DVDs and phones and new/small traders really should avoid trying to sell such items at all costs because it will usually be frustrating and ultimately not financially rewarding. When trying to decide what products to sell, you need to be thinking about the type of market that a particular product is sold in. If there are already numerous sellers and many large companies selling at considerable discounts this is far from ideal. The exception to the rule is if you are able to add value in some way to make your 'offering' more unique. I wrote about adding value last year in one of my newsletters - you can read it here: http://www.thetraderonline.com/jul2204.html At the end of the day, it is all about research, being realistic and having an understanding of the market that you want to operate in. Whilst it would be great to be able to buy and sell new release DVDs (or whatever) all day long, doubling your money every time, I am afraid that this is just not going to happen. |
A Website Model That Makes Money
A Website Model That Makes Money
|
 |
| I would like to share with you one simple stratergy in creating income with your own website. This is just one method out of simply millions that you could create for yourself. Remember the internet provides no limits. This is one example that does work for me, and may give you an insight into exactly a website model, that you may like to put into action for yourself. Affiliate marketing and/or sales of any kind on the internet, requires a real commitment, as I am sure you do already realize. The internet is really one of the greatest training grounds in the world for sales. You can try and fail many times, until you find that system and approach that will work for you. But the commitment that you show in meeting this challenge, will be a lesson that you will always remember. Success is always achieved in no matter what you do, through simple hard work. There is no easy path to success, but when you achieve the success you are after, there is no greater feeling. So lets begin. In this example my website, which for the purposes of this article i will call '????'. I will give you the exact profit breakdowns. With this website I treat all my affiliate products as purely residual income, much like adsense. Adsense itself generates for me, on this website, on average around $2 per day. I also use various other companies affiliate products, which generate around $200 per month. Also within the website, I sell e-book informational products, which I own the full resale rights for, which generate around $700 per month. And here lies the answer to making money online, no matter what you sell. The products, that generate the most income, are the ones that you will own yourself. Certainly I should be making more from the affiliate info products that I sell. But I lose commissions through simple affiliate url tampering. Commissions that are stolen or lost are a real pain. You can try every method in the book to protect your affiliate codes. But after all the hard work is done, you still lose that valuable income. The people who sell the original affiliate product know this, which is mostly why a high percentage of the sales price is offered to an affiliate to begin with. Because they realize that a very high ratio of sales made on their products will give them the total profit back. The reasons why people change affiliate product codes etc, could run into pages. Lets just say it is inevitable. This is the reason why I treat all my affiliate based products as purely residual income. But as you can see in this example clearly where the highest return on investment lies. And that is in the products that you actually own. You can purchase resale rights for info products easily, and it involves not much money at all, most products are available for under $50. Or if you have the time and patience to search the internet. You can find amazing e-books that have free resell rights and the information they contain is really valuable. You will find these types of treasures occasionally, and the lights will start flashing in your eyes when you do. The information that you have just discovered is of value and that is a real key to success. This is why I, at this point, strongly emphasize the importance of this one principle. Only sell products that you feel strongly about and you know that will be of great value to the person who may purchase it. That includes products you have bought the resale rights for, or a free product, you have discovered with resale rights. If you sell strong products with real informational value consistently you will always succeed. Your customers will return, quite simply because they know where the value of the information they seek is the greatest. And that is at your website. Always remember to put yourself into your visitors shoes. Ask yourself the question? Would you buy the products you are selling? Answer this question with a Yes. And you will be really on the start too online success. |
At Home Internet Jobs, Who Said It Was Easy?
At Home Internet Jobs, Who Said It Was Easy?
|
 |
I’m sure you’ve heard it all before, build a website and people will come. But if you’ve built a money-making website, that’s not what you want to hear. After all, you picked one of these at home internet jobs, because you want to be financially independent and your own boss. Here’s one alternative from the many home internet jobs you’ve surely read on the net. Join an affiliate or partnership or referral program. Study these three alternatives, to help you maximize your profit streams. 1. Exclusive retailer. There are many online malls; they offer a comprehensive range of products and services. Concentrate on supplying the needs of a narrower market segment. You’ll be unique and sought out. 2. Join the more profitable affiliate program. Although there are literally hundreds you can join, take your time. Read the FAQ section. Check out their products. If the products and services they offer are ones you look for, there’s a good chance that you’ll earn as an affiliate. Other factors you may want to think about. Are the commissions high enough, that you’ll turn a profit? Remember you’ll need to set up your own website, and secure advertising money. Choose to join an affiliate program whose products are mid range and will sell it self with little effort. 3. Create a website that focuses on your passion. Although the focus is on the range of products that the affiliate program has, that’s not the only thing you offer. Give advice that is contextual to the products. Maybe you could write about the history of the products, or the processes involved in manufacturers. You could write about the celebrities who use this. Build a website that’s full of contents that your customers can use to better their lives. You’ll win their trust. They’ll soon become your most loyal customers. Here’s one home internet job opportunity you may not have thought of. It’s a profitable and excellent venue to a steady stream of profits. Be an online retailer of e-books with the reseller or reprint rights. Here’s one of the many ways you can do it. Offer a one time entry fee for the subscriber, it can be $20.00 a year or life time subscription fee. The subscriber will have the right to download any e-book from in your library. Some of the more successful business models target niche markets. You can be a retailer of e-books that specialize on the recipes of different countries. Wouldn’t that be fun? You can commission e-books or buy from known e-book authors. Read the e-books to be sure you’re selling the real deal. What are the benefits you received from reading that e-Book you just purchased? Right an article or review explaining the benefits and then get that article or review published and placed in front of the eyes of your best prospects. Be a dropper shipper and establish your storefront at EBay or the competitor Yahoo auctions. EBay’s traffic alone runs to approximately 800,000 visitors daily. It’s the worlds’ best online auction, and you wont’ go wrong. Now what’s a dropshipping business? It’s a business model where you put products on a website or through EBay. You take the orders they come and pass these on to the dropship supplier, who ships this to your buyers. Another way of putting it is, you’re the middleman, and you take the orders via Paypal, credit card or fax. All the home internet jobs here will net you profit. All you need is a computer, internet access and basic knowledge about your pc and the net. |
Article on the timing of events with Site Build It
Article on the timing of events with Site Build It
|
 |
| Firstly let me say that I think Site Build It, it rocks. When I started on this journey, that I am still on, I started reading everything about mail marketing, web marketing etc etc. I had already been ripped off with the developers of my first site so I was not going to let that happen again. But then I was shown SBI and I have not looked back. However, there are ways that you can make you use of SBI better, not by using something else, not by not reading the manual, which you should do about 5 times. (The devil is in the detail!!), but if this is your first site then you can maximize your SBI investment with timing. Why, well when you start you are probably going to go through stages, reading the manual, research, writing, reading, putting up pages, adding links etc etc, it is at this stage, prior to monitorising your site that timing is everything to maximize what site build it does for you and what you can do for yourself FREE. Here is the timing. Buy site build it and stop reading any other web marketing stuff Read the manual Re-read the manual Do the Brain thing Document everything Write loads of copy Start putting the copy up When you get to 40 pages Become a Zealot (See Hints and Tips at Site Central) Start doing the mini hum thing Ask for a DMOZ listing Write some articles and send them off Apply for Google Adesense Get as many links as you can Then Monitorise your site with Google Then add your newsletter stuff Then add your affiliate links. Now read all the other SBI products (keep re-reading the manual) OK, OK now you are asking why that order. Well a lot of it is covered in the manual so a lot of it I will just glance over, but the middle bit I will dwell on. Now I am supposing you want the best results for the cheapest price – right. OK If you are new to this you probably either want to put up loads of content or a sales page. If you read the manual you will see the content must come first, content, content and more content. Now I presume you have bought your site, you have done the brainstorm thing and got everything in hand, you have loads of content. OK now you have built the site to about 30 to 40 pages, make sure they are spell check, linked and look good. Now go off and become a Zealot. Details are on the tip and hint’s site build it site. Just go to the site and do the quiz, if you fail do it again, if you fail read the answers and keep going until you pass, one you do then put forward you site. Now why do things in this order, because as soon as you have put up any adds or a few links to affiliates the webmasters they deem you as a commercial website and say you have to pay. If you have no ads etc, then you get in if you have a good content site. Now do not just put up you main page, put up every page in every section you can. Try doing three pages a day until you start getting the replies back saying you have been accepted. Now do the same things with DMOZ (News just in – Value Exchange started Excellent – I got an email prior to Ken's Newsletter so I went straight in and so far I have got three ‘good’ links) Now build your E-bay page and link to your site from that – see details in MYNAS at Site Central Hints and Tip’s Now apply for Google Adsense, follow the instructions at site build it. Again if you do this in this order you will avoid not getting onto Adsense because you are already advertising one of their clients. Just one of the things that can fail you. OK now go for the mini hubs that are also in the tips and hints. OK, now that has probably taken a bit of time and during that time Site Build It, your new links and other work have probably now got you up in the Alexa rankings, now is time to add your Newsletter forms, your Google Adsense code and start the work on the affiliates site. I hope that this helps, as the man said ‘It’s all in the timing’. |
Are you using both sides of the GoogleCoin?
Are you using both sides of the GoogleCoin?
|
 |
| By now most of you realise that Google can give our websites the ability to appear within their results pages using a Pay Per Click model (PPC). This is called Google Adwords Hopefully, you will also be aware that that Google offers website owners the ability to display these PPC results on their own websites. For this privilege, Google will pay the website owner a share of the PPC revenue earnt from any click throughs on the results displayed on their website. This is called Google Adsense So there you have both sides of the Google coin. On one side, the ability to drive low cost targeted traffic and on the other side, the ability to generate revenue from your existing traffic. You'd think that was the end of it but really it is only the beginning. Heads or Tails? Heads it is…. Let's look at Adwords There are those that think… …write your ad, pays your money and away you go. Which to 80% of the people using Adwords, this seems to work OK for them. Remember I said OK! For the other 20% , these guys and gals, are testing,changing, innovating and working Google as hard as they can. One such character is Chris Carpenter , whose GoogleCash is pioneering in the way that he works Google and now lets other work Google just as hard. "Like Bruce Lee taught us the art of fighting without fighting, Chris Carpenter shows us the art of website revenue generation without a website!" Chris has shown examples of Adwords campaigns that cost cents to set up but pay dollars in commissions. None of my current investments give me such a high ROI. I have tried my hand at it and I am currently making around $4000 per month just from this one product. I am only spending $250 on Adwords to get this return. Why not have a look at Google Cash yourself. http://www.j2-squared.com/google-cash-book-review.htm Tails you win! Secondly, while most people just cut and paste Adsense code into all the pages of their site, they just leave it at that thinking job done! They don't explore the high value keywords in their market or niche. Why do that? Well if you knew what the more profitable keywords and terms are, you can write content and these words can be displayed. Google Adsense will then look at your page content and work out what to display. You could double your income by changing words on your site. Maybe Life insurance to life assurance or personal loan to loans or adverse credit to bad credit. Also sites tend to use one format and one position for the ads. Test, test, test Try different layouts and work out which ones work best for you. You may be surprised. Test, test, test There are several tools that can help you identify keywords but the best for you would be either the Google Adwords program or Overture view bids tool. Don't worry about thinking you are doing anything wrong. In fact, think about it - you will be creating relevant content for Google to display and for their users to read. Users are happy, Google are happy and you will earn more revenue from Adsense. So hopefully you'll be happy too! A Win Win situation! Again, like most things rather than reinvent the wheel there is a whole book on Adsense written my friend William Charlwood has written The Definitive Guide to Google AdSense which tells you exactly how to make money by hosting small ads on your website. It is a detailed road-map of everything you need to do to get going and then maximise your AdSense income. Once you've got it right, you can look forward to a check every month from Google. Check this out here: http://www.j2-squared.com/adsense-guide.htm So there you are, there are two sides to the Google coin. Are you using both sides! Good Luck! |
