| Home Newsletters Training Products Free Articles Tools & Resources Web Wholesale Search Testimonials Blog |
|
|
||
|
|||
How To Set up A Web Store on FacebookThe Online Seller's News, July 7, 2010, Volume 10, No. 12 Tips, Tools, News and Resources for eBay, Amazon and independent Online Sellers
eBay’s new automated Unpaid Item Dispute (UID) system went live and immediately screwed up by sending out inaccurate UID notices –some to people within just seconds of the listing ending. Ina Steiner at AuctionBytes Blog, has the full scoop on this. This is very interesting and worth reading. Click here to read Ina’s blog. While you are at it, you should go to the AuctionBytes main page and subscribe to Ina’s free newsletter eBay coach, Suzanne Wells has a pretty neat Facebook group dedicated to Stay at Home Moms who sell on eBay. The group has 1690 members who are all eBay sellers. Suzanne told me that: “Although the name of the group is Stay at Home Moms Selling on eBay, we welcome any seller who wishes to learn. Our group not only has moms, but dads, retirees, college students, and everyone in between. The group has a no drama policy. We are all about learning, sharing, thinking positive, and paying it forward to help others.” Here is a very important announcement from eBay that every seller should pay attention to. We have written about all of these points over the past few months, but they are now live: Attention sellers! These summer seller updates, originally announced on April 27, are now live or coming soon:
Earlier this week I found a new service called Live Chime that is designed for online sellers. It’s sort of a private chat service. Rather than those annoying chat boxes that pop up, Live Chime sends you an email and/or a text message to your phone, telling you there is a customer waiting to chat. IF you are busy, you can ignore it and Live Chime will take a message. But if you are available you can chat with the person right online. One of our readers has a very interesting product for sellers. It’s a Priority Mail Reference Poster that you can hang on the wall near your shipping area that shows you the cheapest way to ship via Priority Mail. She sells them on eBay and they are really cool. A few months ago I wrote about a new form of debt resolution for those of you who may be too deep into debt with the current economy. We had about 20 people take advantage of it and all of the reports I got back from readers were from folks who were pretty satisfied. However I also got email from readers who were skeptical as this area is fraught with a lot of scams. So I asked the owners to put on a webinar that explains the program. This way you can ask questions and get more detail before deciding it this is for you or not. Click here to sign up for the webinar if this interests you. This system can eliminate up to 60% of unsecured debt without ruining your credit. [top] 1. How To Set up A Web Store on Facebook There is a new service called Payvment (that’s not a misspelling –it’s really called Payvment) that allows Facebook users to set up a fan page that is essentially an online store. And it only takes about 15 minutes to set up your page complete with shopping cart. This is a really cool system. Here are some of the features and benefits of the system –and best of all you can get a free demo –try before you buy. Facebook Sales & Discovery
[top] 2. Making Money as A Social Media Manager I sent this out last week as a special issue, but only about 5000 people opened it and I wanted to make sure everyone saw this. Social media is hot. Even though it’s been around several years now, the business potential for social media sites like Facebook and Twitter is still where eBay and Amazon were ten years ago. A couple of weeks ago, I came across a great program by Ryan Deiss that was just what I was looking for to make some money and expand my business via social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. I have read every book about Twitter and Facebook that I could buy on Amazon –and purchased three different training programs on Clickbank. None of them worked for me. I have only known Ryan for about a year, but he is one of the Internet marketing good guys. (He has a “A” rating on Internet Marketing Report Card). Ryan stands behind everything he sells and gives great customer support and quick refunds if you are not happy. Ryan has discovered a woman in his hometown that is banking over $2500 a week - They set up Facebook and Twitter Accounts for businesses such as hairdressers, restaurants, retail stores, fitness clubs and so on. When they do this they charge a one-time fee that can range anywhere from $500 to $2000 depending on how large the business is and how complex the site. - They provide a maintenance service for these same accounts. This can earn monthly fees on an ongoing basis of $100 to $300 month. The lady who Ryan discovered who is doing this is Kate and what she’s doing is so brain dead simple a 10 year old could do it. She has NO product She had NO website She is NOT an affiliate… …and all her traffic is FREE! Click here to see how she does it. If the link doesn’t work, you can copy/paste it: http://budurl.com/wuee I am about 75% through the program myself and really liking it. The training material consists of ten modules, each one with audio (MP3 files), step-by-step training videos and printed reference material. This is a link to a 37 minute video. That sounds like a long video, but it is really interesting. Even if you decide it’s not for you, you will learn a lot and it won’t be a waste of your time. There is one problem with the video in that it doesn’t appear to have any
controls. If you decide to purchase the program, Ryan presents you with some up-sells as you go through the checkout process. I only bought the basic program, so I can’t really comment on the value of the up-sells. [top] 3. Is Article Marketing Worth Your Time? Article Marketing is the practice of writing articles on topics that people search for that contain a link to your website or blog. The article can be used to pre-sell the products you are selling and attracting traffic, and the theory goes that these articles contain inbound links and this causes Google to rank your site higher. It is true that Google uses inbound links to help rank your website in searches, but what most people don’t know is that Google also looks at the quality and relevance of those links. Also Google is familiar with all of the article marketing sites and there have been reports that Google discounts links from those sites, but that isn’t really known for sure. I do know that a link from a high traffic site is better than one from a low traffic site. This is why I do a lot of Twitter and Facebook posts with links to my site and my blog and online newsletter. I also look to partner and do link exchanges with related high-traffic sites. The other issue is duplication. People who have worked for Google and left to set up their own SEO blogs have stated clearly that Google penalizes duplicate content. So, for example: You write an article and place it on your website and submit that same article to 5 different article marketing sites. When the Google spider sees that duplicate content, they will penalize your original article and the 5 identical articles. This is another reason why you should never buy one of those formula websites like the ones sold by the drop ship companies that come loaded with products. These websites are sold by the thousands and Google looks at them as one big website and your individual site will never get indexed. You are always better setting up your own individual site. There are over twenty different article-marketing sites and there are companies that will write and submit the articles to all twenty sites for a fee. In my opinion this is a total waste of money. You would be much better off writing (or paying someone to write) ten different articles and posting each one of a different site. If you want to find Free Article Sites just Google that term and you will come up with plenty of results. The largest ones are www.articlesbase.com, www.getmyarticles.com, and www.ezinearticles.com. The conclusion is that article marketing does work if you do it correctly. So follow these tips:
Lastly, I found a very interesting article site where you can actually make money writing articles. The site is called Xomba. The way it works is you set up a free Google AdSense account. After you sign up with Xomba, you go into your profile and click on the AdSense account. Then you enter your Google AdSense account number into the box and you are good to go. Now you submit articles to Xomba. When the article appears there will be Google Ads on your article page. Then Xomba splits the earnings with you. Now you aren’t going to make thousands of dollars doing this, but it benefits you in two ways. You get articles with inbound links pointing to your site and if your article gets traction, each article could earn a few dollars a day. What you want to do is combine this information with the keyword tool mentioned in the next article. Picking good keywords in your article title will get you the hits. And the more hits you get the more money you will earn. The best deal of all is that all of this is free. There is no cost to join Xomba or Google AdSense. [top] 4. How To Find The Best Keywords for Your Auctions & Websites Finding the best keyword to come up in searches is critical for eBay sellers and those of you who sell from small websites or blogs. There are several keyword tools on the market such as Wordtracker and Keyword Analyzer, but there is a new free tool from Google, that is simply amazing. It is called Google AdWords Public Keywords Tool. Here is what the dashboard looks like: 
You have a choice of typing in a keyword that you already know or if you have a website you can type in the website URL. I have a website where I sell the same firepit grills that I sell on eBay, so I typed that into the website search box, www.firepit-grills.com. Here is the result I got (only took about 10 seconds): 
The first few words are obvious and I was already using them. But look down the list and you will see other keyword phrases that were not so obvious. For example, I never thought of garden fire pit (74,000), fire pit outdoor (110,000), fire pit garden (74,000), home fire pit (49,000), garden fire pits (33,100) and so on. The number in parentheses is how many searches were conducted for those terms in the past 30 days. Further down the list that you don’t see on the screenshot were a few other interesting terms like: Outdoor wood fire pit (1,900), grills wood (18,000) and home fire pit (49,000). So how do you use this information? First of all, if people are searching for these terms on Google, then you can bet they work on eBay too. I looked at a few of my listings on eBay that are already doing pretty well. Here is one example of a title for a unit that has a high sell-through-rate: ~ WESTERN COWBOY OUTDOOR PATIO FIREPIT BARBECUE GRILL ~ So using the info I just learned, I can construct two or three new listings for the same product. I might try the following headlines: WESTERN COWBOY WOOD BURNING GARDEN FIRE PIT GRILL WESTERN COWBOY OUTDOOR GARDEN FIRE PIT WOOD GRILL WESTERN COWBOY OUTDOOR GARDEN HOME FIRE PIT GRILL By doing this I can pick up hits by people searching different terms. Now you may not want to do this with the auction format, as the listing fees would kill you. But the new listing fees for eBay store subscribers are low enough that this is still profitable. Also, now that I have this information, I plan to go into my website and update and add to my keywords. I can do this by creating different pages using those terms both in the URL and in the heads and subheads of the page. For example I might create a page with the following URL and headline: www.firepit-grills.com/Garden-home-wood-burning-fire-pit.php The headline on the page could be something like this: Selecting The Right Wood Burning Fire Pit for Your Home and Garden As I write the article I could use subheads such as: Wood Burning Fire Pit, Home Fire Pit and Garden Fire Pit. Doing this would create what I call a Google-bait page designed to get visits to my website. More visitors benefit you in two ways. The more traffic you get the more chances you have to make a sale. Second, the increased traffic causes Google to rank your website higher against your competition and that will lead to even more traffic. [top] 5. New Wholesale Sources for eBay, Amazon & Online Sellers Elms Gift Wholesaler stocks several thousand of the best selling gift products, home decor, garden decor, candles, licensed collectibles at true wholesale prices. No minimum order, No membership fees, No minimum order and a FREE drop ship program. MCS Depot is a Wholesale Dropshipper for name brand quality power tools. Skip Hop, Inc. makes a very unique line of diaper bags and other clever baby products. Click on the Wholesale link to register and get pricing. Panaria is a large wholesaler of children's and teeny-bopper novelties. I have seen many of their products selling on eBay. All Footwear carries everything related to footwear. They have wholesale pricing on many brand names of footwear and handbags. CHH Inc. is a manufacturer, importer, and distributor of quality products including Traditional Games, Time Pieces, Geographical Globe, Lead Crystals, as well as other Fine Gifts. They carry a complete line of backgammon sets, table-top pool and hockey, dominos, chess sets, poker sets and casino game layouts. Spicy World is an Importer & Distributor of Indian, British, African, and American food products. They carry everything from British tea to Indian spices, and supply throughout the United States. They also carry a wide range of health and beauty products. They have some great niche products. The website is retail, but click on the link that says Wholesale Inquiries to get wholesale info. Regal Gift is a wholesale gift company specializing in gifts for the garden. Open an account at this link to log in and see their information. The Hearthside Collection sells a wide range of country-themed gifts and accessories. Well that’s it for a couple of weeks. I hope everyone had a great 4th of July weekend. Skip McGrath P.S. If you missed the last issue, click here to read it. 
 Click Here. Double your traffic. Get Vendio Gallery - Now FREE! |
 
 
|
||
|
© 1999-
Harry McGrath, Inc., DBA Skip McGrath, Auction Seller's Resource and Vision-One Marketing. All Rights Reserved.
eBay Tools and Resources | Contact Us | Privacy Policy | Shipping & Return Policies Home |
Newsletters |
eBay Training | Free Articles |
Tools & Resources |
Web Wholesale Search | Testimonials | Blog
Visit Our Other Sites: Official Geezer Guides | Auction Seller's Resource UK | Learn How to Make Money on eBay EZcube Table Top Digital Photography Studio Light Tent | Skip McGrath Coaching | Consumer Protection Review | Firepit Grills Please Note:
Some of the products and
services mentioned in this website, in articles, banner ads and
newsletters and blog posts are for products and services for which I
earn a referral fee or commission. We always evaluate anything we
recommend very carefully and each year we turn down literally dozens
of opportunities to recommend products or services where we can earn
a commission. Even though we earn a fee on some of our
recommendations, we only recommend products and services that we
feel will deliver good value and with rare exceptions, they all come
with a money back guarantee. |