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Archive for the ‘Affiliate Programs’ Category
Hi everyone, I hope everything is good. I would like to thank everyone for entering my contest the other day. I would also like to congratulate Staci from New York. She is the winner of my contest. I will do my best to have this contest at least once a month. Sorry about springing the contest at the last minute. I want to give my readers the best chance to win and 24 hour contests (without notice) will make the odds better for you all. So, keep coming back if you want a chance for me to teach you how to work at home.
Today, I want to tell you about the importance and advantages of making multiple streams of income. The best thing about having multiple streams of income is: you always have money coming in from somewhere. Having a steady stream of income produced by multiple sources can really keep you afloat. Especially, if you are just starting out. Everyone knows how discouraging it can be to make no money.
Don’t count on making a million dollars overnight. Try to concentrate on building one thing at a time. Another words, take baby steps towards your multiple streams of income. Build each empire and get it going. Then start another empire, build it, and get it going. Start again. It’s a very simple formula that works great.
Even if your multiple stream incomes right now are your 9-5 job and 1 small source online. That’s a great start. Most people don’t even have that much to start. That’s a perfect foundation to build on. That shows that you already have online experience and are willing to take on extra. If you don’t have any online experience in making money yet, your journey will be a bit longer. That should be pretty obvious. But you wouldn’t believe how many people get a computer and think they can make a million dollars overnight.
A great advantage to having multiple streams of income is; You can help supply money to new projects from your other income sources. You don’t have to take money out of your own pocket to start a business that might fail. Get it yet? In the business world, you want to always put money back into the business. So, as you make money and get used to your daily tasks; as with anything else, things become easier. You will probably want to take in more money and have the extra time. Your daily tasks are easier because they have become a habit. Your previous source of income should help to fund the new project you want to take on. If you keep this system going, you can have dozens of projects making money for you while one project pays for a new project.
Let’s say you want to start a new project to start affiliate marketing now. You also have a full time job and ebay on the side. So, let your ebay income help the new project get going. When that new project starts bringing in money; Start using your ebay money as profit again, and make the new project fund another new project. Keep this cycle going to produce multiple streams of income.
You have to put money in to your business if you want it to grow. Most people just keep dumping money into the same business. The sad part is, the business is dead or close to dying. Spread yourself out. Some things that you wouldn’t even guess bring in more money than others. You have to experiment and find out what works with you.
Try this little system out and expand your business in to multiple streams of income. If you have any questions let me know. I would love to help.
LP@thehomedropshipguide.com
Hi everyone, I hope you are doing well. Recently, someone asked me if they should have their own website. They went on to me that they didn’t see the benefits of having a website, since they already have an ebay store. I am not going to tell anyone not to have an ebay store. But never limit yourself to that ebay store. You are at a disadvantage by having a store on some else’s domain.
If you own your own website and domain name you will be under control of everything you can do. There will be no limitations to what you can do on your own website. As long as you stay within your host’s rules, you can do virtually anything with your own website. You are not allowed to advertise or make money with affiliate marketing on your ebay store. But, with your own website you can advertise, use affiliate marketing, ad paid links, anything you want. You can make some great money on your own website, without just selling the merchandise you offer.
If you have your own website, you can choose your domain name. If your business is called Joes donuts; You can see if joesdonuts.com is available. If it’s not available, you have lots of other choices (joedonuts.net, .org, .us, .biz, lots more). Some people even get creative and add a 0 to all the letter o’s. It’s always a good idea to get the same domain name as your business name. This way, if someone wants to find your business; tell them joesdonuts.com & “replace the o’s with zeros”. It’s a new trend that has caught on in the Ebonics era.
You can change the look and feel with your own domain. You can have the freedom to use a website template or build your own website. If you don’t know how to build a website, you can find free website templates all around the internet. Or you can find a good web designer to build you a customer website to fit your business. You don’t have to worry about auction fees. You can list as many items on your website as you want for free. Most hosts charge you by the month. The average monthly fee is $4.99 for bottom end. About $49.99 a month for really good service.
I recommend using godaddy or yahoo for your host. Godaddy is my favorite because they are cheaper. I pay $52.00 for the entire year on each of my websites. You need some ftp uploading experience to use godaddy. I would say you have to be a novice to advanced to go with godaddy as your host. If you have ever uploaded anything you should be okay. Godaddy offers some great customer service if you get stuck. Plus they have some good tutorials if you are unsure about anything. Another thing I like about godaddy is; you can choose a Linux or Windows based host. I have been using godaddy for a while now and couldn’t be happier with them. Believe me; I have tried just about everyone out there.
Another host I recommend is yahoo. Yahoo is $29.00 and up per month for web hosting. Every once and a while you can catch a discounted price. When I used yahoo, they gave me the first 3 months for $19.99 and $39.99 each month after that. They have a beginner based system. You don’t need any web design experience to have a yahoo merchant account. They make it pretty easy to create your own customer website. They even give you a yahoo web builder tool that lets you build websites with Photoshop quality. The customer service was okay. I seemed to get bounced around if I called or emailed them about a question or problem I had. I am a bugger about customer service. And yahoo didn’t impress me much in that department. But, all in all they offer a great service and better than most of the competition out there.
Ebay won’t be around forever. If they aren’t around anymore, you will need an immediate back-up plan. But if you already have a well established website, you won’t need to worry. It can take 6 months to a year in order to receive consistent traffic and sales to your website. If you start building now, you won’t have to worry about rushing in to building a website in a frenzied panic later. Don’t put all your eggs in to one basket. Expand your business all over the net, not just on ebay. The more places you sell, the more sales you will make. Don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise.
I recommend having your own website domain over some free website also. If you have a free website, you will be stuck with unwanted advertisements and limitations to what you can do. You may be stuck with a web domain name that has nothing to do with your business name (joeshmoesfreewebsitehosting.joesdonuts.com). Another problem with a free website is the size of your domain name. Chances are your domain will be too big for anyone to remember and re-visit. Free websites bring little to no sales because they look very unprofessional.
The only down side to having a website is; all the time you have to dedicate to bring traffic. Advertising is very important when you have a website. You can find out how to advertise your website on a blog post I made here. Those techniques are the same ways that any marketing company would market your business for money. It’s very time consuming to launch an advertising campaign for your website. It’s really easy, but takes a ton of time out of your life. You could hire someone to market your website. But, that can cost thousands of dollars. I look at it this way; I know what those companies are going to do in order to market my website. So, I use those techniques and save myself thousands of dollars.
If anyone has any questions at all, feel free to email me. Thanks for reading and see you all tomorrow.
Happy Monday everyone! Today, I will be answering a question someone asked me over the weekend. They asked me if affiliate programs work. You know, the ones that claim you can make thousands a day. The answer is; yes, these programs work. But, only for some people. People that are experienced at bringing large amounts of targeted traffic to websites usually prosper in this type of work. For every one affiliate that succeeds, one thousand others fail. Affiliate programs are not for everyone.
Although a majority of affiliate programs are legit, most of these programs are very misleading. They claim you can make thousands of dollars a month for doing absolutely nothing. This may be true, if you can place that affiliate program link on a website that gets thousands of hits everyday. If you don’t have a website that gets thousands of hits everyday all ready, then you would have to build one. It could take months or years to drive a marketing campaign and get thousands of visitors a day.
They make it sound very easy. You place the affiliate link onto your website. Someone visits your website and clicks onto the affiliate link. If they buy something, you get an affiliate commission for each sale. No inventory, no overhead, no boss, no storage space needed. It sounds very easy. And it is very easy. Only if you know how to market and advertise your affiliate website with the affiliate links. Or, if you have a website that already gets thousands of hits everyday.
Some programs even say you don’t need any customer service. WHAT? No matter what you do in the business world folks; you will always need customer service. Most programs go out of their way to hook you in to the program with big dollar amounts and fancy slogans. I tend to stay clear from these types of programs, as they are usually bad news.
Stay away from all the sketchy or questionable programs. If you feel uneasy about the program, don’t sign up for it. There are thousands of others out there that are very good programs. Try and sign up for major name affiliate programs. People tend to trust these programs more for obvious reasons. Try and find affiliate programs that you know will pay you well. You are not doing this for free. Lots or programs out there reward you with a very reasonable commission. Don’t be forced into small affiliate commission pay outs.
Make sure the program is suitable for your customers. Does the affiliate program offer them a good deal for a reasonable price? Remember, they clicked onto the affiliate program from your website. So you can be held accountable in your customer’s eyes. They may never return to your website if they get ripped off. Have you ever tried the product or program? Would you buy it? Scams are everywhere. Although something may seem legit, try and do extensive research on each of your affiliate programs you advertise. You don’t want to give your website a bad name by advertising scams to your customers.
Try not to combine other ad programs and affiliate advertisements on one website. Blending other ad programs onto an affiliate website never seems to blend in right. It usually makes the website look jumbled together with advertisements. I am still learning how to make a website look pretty with advertisements. All in all, it makes a great trial and error experiment. From my experiences, you get a very poor turn around rate if you combine other advertisement programs with affiliate programs on one webpage.
If you know how to drive traffic or have a website that already gets lots of traffic, you can be a big affiliate success. If you don’t know how to advertise or market, here is a post I made to bring targeted traffic to your website. Check it out here.
Having lots and lots of traffic coming to your affiliate webpages is very important. You won’t succeed in the affiliate world without lots of traffic. This is the heart of the operation when you are an affiliate marketer. Some people go to college for years to learn how to market or advertise. Other people have picked up on how to advertise and market right out of their homes. There are many different ways to market and advertise. My suggestion to you is; change with the times. Find out what is new and working right now. Because, what worked 5 years ago to market and advertise wouldn’t work as well today.
Related content is another important factor on your affiliate website. Make sure the content on your website is somehow related to the affiliate programs you offer. If your website is about home business, you shouldn’t offer recipe or cooking affiliate programs. If your website is about home business, offer legit programs that help people make money. Offer some good e-book affiliate programs. Whatever the case may be; don’t steer away from the related content on your website.
Make your affiliate links blend in as much as you can. You want your affiliate program advertisements right in your customers face. But don’t over-do it. Sometimes less is more. You can put a picture link affiliate advertisement on your website. Or you can place just text link advertisement on the website. Sometimes text links have a better turn around.
If you are still interested in affiliate marketing, do your homework. Do lots of research. There are lots of programs out there. Take them for a test drive and see what works for you and your website. Everyone is different. Don’t expect to get the same results as the guy making thousands of dollars a month from affiliate marketing. But it is very possible if you keep working hard at it. Or you can ask me any questions you might have.
Thanks for reading. See you tomorrow.
Okay, now that you know what I mean about writing articles we can move on. Now, you are probably thinking, how do I combine clickbank and writing articles? Here is how you do it. Clickbank lets you promote any product they offer as long as you are a clickbank member. Just a reminder, it is absolutely free to become a clickbank member and promote clickbank products to get paid. All it costs is your time promoting the products.
Go to Clickbank marketplace and choose the products you would like to promote. Assuming you have signed up(free) for clickbank already, make sure you are signed in. Notice next to each product in the marketplace, you can see your designated affiliate link to promote the product with. Copy the link and save it somewhere. I will tell you why later.
Okay, now the writing part. Now go to one of the products homepages that you want to promote. Read about the product and get to know it. You are about to write an interesting article about this product. Do you think you can do it? It’s really easy once you start, believe me. Writing an article about someone else’s product is very easy. Just take information they give and tell everyone about it in your article. If you have tried the product, that is even better. You can be like me and only promote good products and services you have tried and recommend. If you can spice up your article without misrepresenting the product, then go for it(but you don’t need to). Simple is always better.
Now, remember that affiliate link you got on the Clickbank marketplace? You want to place the affiliate link at the bottom of your article. Now, post that article in as many places that will let you post your articles. The three places I told you about (ezine, goarticles, and idealmarketers)should be sufficient enough. They all get tons of traffic. But don’t let me stop you from posting it anywhere else.
The more places you post this article the more sales you will make. Clickbank gives you a commission for each product you sell for them. Try and sell the products that offer a 50% or higher commission per sale. Since most products sell for $50-$100 you should make some decent money.
Now, combine what I have told you and use it. Write articles for as many clickbank products as you can. Then post all your articles in every article submission website you want. If you advertise your articles you will make even more money. Advertise them everyday and you will be a professional affiliate in no time. It’s very possible and very easy to do. Working at home doesn’t feel so far away right now does it?
You can even send articles through social networks in an all out advertising campaign. You can find out how to advertise and market your articles in this blog post I made. http://thehomedropshipguide.com/blog/advertising-your-business-is-the-important-part/
Just remember, I tried to make this a brief post. If I didn’t explain something thoroughly enough, don’t be afraid to ask me. I have been doing very well with clickbank lately. I wouldn’t recommend it if it wasn’t working. And I don’t mind helping any of you. I know how tough it is to make extra money these days.
Thanks for reading my blog everyone. See you tomorrow.
Hi everyone, I hope you had a good weekend. Today, I am going to tell you how to make money with clickbank. Unless you have been asleep, I am sure you have heard of clickbank. Clickbank is a place where publishers can sell their books. It is also a place that you can make money from being an affiliate to promote ebooks of your choice. As you know, affiliate products are great to bring extra money into your website.
Clickbank.com is the worlds leading marketplace for digital products. Almost every ebook sold online has been sold through clickbank. It you have ever written an ebook, you could sell it on clickbank. I have 2 ebooks I have written, both which I sell through clickbank. All you do is sign up at clickbank.com and become a publisher. List your ebook landing page and thank you pages on clickbank. Every time someone purchases your ebook, they are brought to clickbanks checkout page. From there you can choose to pay by credit card, paypal, or echeck. Clickbank is a great way for anyone who likes to write ebooks to make money.
Publishers list all kinds of ebooks for sale on clickbank. All kinds of ebooks, from cooking books to how to make money ebooks. Clickbank is a great place to learn the ropes of being your own publisher and boss. Clickbank’s marketplace of ebooks has been known to help people retire and make a living at home. Everyone buys ebooks at one time or another. Information is like gold online. Especially if it is helping someone make money.
That’s fine, if you don’t like to write ebooks. You can make money on clickbank by becoming an affiliate to promote ebooks. You can actually sell the ebooks on on your own website for commission. Most sales on clickbank ebooks offer a 75% commission from each sale! Not bad for just being the middleman for a sale. Clickbank affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to make money on the web.
All you do is browse through clickbanks marketplace to find ebooks you would like to sell on your website. When you find the ebooks you want to sell, you list them on your website. Just put your affiliate link from the clickbank products onto your webpage. Then, when someone clicks the affiliate link on your website and purchases the ebook, you get a commission. Most ebooks on clickbank sell for $50-$100. At a seventy five percent commission on each book sold, you can see how much money there is to be made.
Clickbank is probably the best kept secret in the affiliate marketing world. Lots of affiliates know about clickbank. But, not many regular Joe’s know about clickbank. Clickbank is probably the best way to make money with your website by referring traffic. What can be better than making money from being a middleman and doing nothing except collecting checks? Signing up to be a clickbank affiliate is absolutely free. But, if you want to become a clickbank publisher also, you have to pay a one-time publisher fee of $49.95.
I have been using clickbank for about 5 months. They are a great service to sell your ebooks. And they are an even better service to make money from affiliate marketing. Give them a try if you are thinking about affiliate marketing on your website/s.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask me. Thanks for reading. See you all tomorrow.
There is too much bogus information about home business on the internet from people that just copy and paste BS on their blog or website. They have no experience and just believe anything somebody says on a web page. So i figured, in my free time I can blog and help people.
But mainly, my goal with this blog is to steer people away from scams and bogus content. And at the same time I want to answer questions and help people. I hate get rich quick scams around the internet. Lots of people fall prey to them everyday and I am really sick of it. The thing I really hate about scams online are the ebooks that come along and say you can be rich overnight. That will never happen.
I have written a couple of ebooks to help people, just because of all the scams with ebooks out there. My ebooks do well, as they are special. I do not just sell an ebook to you. I back it up with my experience by helping along the way. That’s something nobody else is doing. Most people have never even used the information they sell as ebooks. It is usually just information they found online somewhere. I do charge money for my ebooks, as my customers get VIP service and work I can’t do for free. I do go the extra mile for people that buy my ebooks. When someone purchases an ebook they get 3(more if needed) months of tutoring from me. I offer unconditional help with things like researching and finding wholesalers you want, to showing you step by step anything you can’t figure out. I won’t advertise my ebooks on this post, as they do well already.
Who knows, maybe I can start a trend and experienced people will start writing ebooks and sell them along with experienced tutoring. Offer a money back guarantee and all the scam artists will be forced to do something else for a living. If you can’t help someone with questions about your ebook or how to do the subject in your ebook, you shouldn’t be allowed to sell it.
I do have a couple on blogs. Two blogs are for fun. I do use one blog to make money. I have advertisements and took some advice from the great John Chow among others. I don’t make much with the blog but that’s fine. It’s a learning experience and I am not in it for the money anyway. I want to help people learn how to make money at home. Even part time, anything extra helps. I know how it is to be scratching your head at home saying “how can I make money at home or online?” I was that person ten years ago.
I have been using ebay for about ten years. I met this great guy in 1998 who was always telling me how much money he made on ebay. He was nice enough to show me the ropes and get started on ebay. Maybe I got wanting to help people from him. Ebay was how I started making money from home online. I have expanded to many other marketplaces as auction marketplaces are my specialty. As you know, I do not list my auction marketplace ID’s anymore for sabatage reasons. Sad to say but, almost as soon as I started showing my auction id’s on my blogs(especially ebay) I noticed frantic fraud bidding and an avalanche of scam artists. So I don’t advertise my auctions or stores on my blogs anymore. They get enough exposure already on those marketplaces anyway. As you can tell, from the tips and information I give people on my blog; it’s not like I need the help when it comes to making money online.
For the past six months I have been teaching myself affiliate marketing. My goal is to get away from selling and live off of affiliate marketing instead (Don’t worry, I will always have my home business blogs. I think teaching people correct ways to bring in a little extra money at home is very important). I am finding out there is less work and stress involved with affiliate marketing. All you do is list a company link on one of your websites and when customers click that link you get paid in different ways; depending what that person does on that companies website. There are all kinds of tricks and tips to learn to be an affiliate marketing master. But that’s just like anything else. Practice makes perfect.
I would like to thank my friends around the net who have been kind enough to give me advice on how to market and advertise my websites. I get lots of great advice on young entreprenuer, a forum I visit to get and give home business advice. You see, I am using this kind of A&M knowledge to build experience of making and bringing traffic to my dream business website someday. Marketing and advertising is the most important part of having a website. If nobody knows you have a website, how can they visit it? Over the past six months I have become an advertising and marketing genius.
I think overall I will probaby stick with ebay through thick and thin until something else comes along better. Right now ebay has all marketplaces cornered. Ebay is pretty much the monopoly of auction marketplaces right now. There is too much money to be lost by taking ebay out of the equasion. History always repeats though. Someday something will come along bigger and better than ebay.
But I will always be here for my readers, I love to help people. I have developed quite a following with this blog and I thank you. Now I have found a new love for blogging. Helping people go hand and hand on my blogs. Anyone with questions about making money at home will not be ignored on my blog. In my years of helping people only one person has not been successful. And to tell you the truth, I don’t think they tried.
I do my best to post on my blogs everyday for you, although sometimes it’s just not possible. When I do post, it is usually answering someones question or giving information they asked about. I find answering my readers questions is most useful to everyone. I have been answering questions along with any tips or tricks I can give in a blog post. So, if you have any questions about making money at home, feel free to ask me. It doesn’t cost anything to ask me questions, don’t be shy:) I really am just someone who cares and wants to help you. Times are tough enough without trying to avoid scams too. I would hate to see anyone make a costly mistake they could have avoided. I have helped people from all around the world make money at home.
Thanks for reading my blog everyone. Have a great day!
I have been wanting to talk about Build a Niche Store for a while, but I wanted to test it out first. Today I am going to review the famous Build a Niche Store, otherwise known as BANS. For a couple of months I had a little team of people testing this product. It claims you can build an ebay business without selling anything yourself. In my personal opinion, this is a great setup for beginners or expert ebayers. You don’t even need to be an ebay member. You just have to sign up as an ebay affiliate.
Bans works like an affiliate. You build a store that automatically contains ebay items of your choice. Every time you make a sale, you get an affiliate commission for being an ebay affiliate. BANS is genius and I am surprised nobody else has come up with this idea to make money. You will earn 20% to 75% commission on each item you promote and sell.
All you have to do is select what country you live in. Or you can choose what country you want to focus your sales. They let you choose .com(USA), .ca(Canada), .uk(United Kingdom), or .au(Australia) country codes. Now you will be promoting products on the ebay marketplace in the country you choose.
Then you pick what products/niche you want to sell. What I like best about this is, you can choose categories like; video games, cell phones, DVDs, or clothing. As you know, these products are very impossible to get at wholesale prices if you are a home business. So why not promote the stuff you can’t buy wholesale. You can pick any category/niche that ebay marketplace has to offer. That’s the best part. You don’t ever have to look for a wholesale distributor ever again. Just choose a niche and it will list some great products from ebay that WILL SELL on to your BANS website. Including all those low priced goods you couldn’t compete with even if you tried.
Next, they let you develop your BANS website. You can go into the admin control panel and pick what options you want your website to have. You can change the way your website will look. I like how you can customize the website to fit whatever theme you have. You can actually transform your website theme in to a professional website with great items for sale very easily.
They tell you to do the obvious next. Promote your website to the online world. They give some great tips to promote your website if you don’t know how. You can learn how to market your website on a post I made here also. Aren’t you sick of not being able to promote your website on ebay? This is the next best thing. You can promote a website that has ebay items.
When you are familiar with the BANS system you can build yourself a store for any niche/category. We got 5 stores up and running. Every one of them are making money for us. Not many of the goods offered on your BANS store is high priced. You get all of ebays products for each category, so there is a wide vary of competitive pricing for each item as well.
When a visitor clicks on to an item on your website, it puts a cookie on their computer for 30 days. If that visitor decides to purchase the item within 30 days, you get credit for the sale and get a commission of 20% to 75% of the revenue ebay makes from the sale. If you had a BANS store with vehicles from ebay, your commission for each sale would be huge.
The themes you can choose with BANS are very professional and very easy to use. The stores can be customized by a beginner user just as easy as an advanced user. That’s the best part about BANS; it is universal for beginner and expert web builders. There is even a member forum to help anyone with anything they need help with. You can find everything there from building your store to tips and secrets to help you make more money with your BANS website.
You can choose from over 60 thousand products through out ebay to sell. YOU CAN GET COMMISSION ON ANY ITEM LISTED ON EBAY!! How can you beat that? BANS is by far, the best tool out there to promote ebay products. Because you can make money for selling products you don’t have to touch. Transactions are made and you do nothing except sit back and promote the store. You don’t have to ship anything or buy any products to sell ever again. You don’t have to list thousands of products on ebay or your website every night. Products are put on your website automatically when you choose your niche.
I highly recommend BANS to everyone. I have put it to the test and it passes with flying colors. BANS is an automatic money maker. You can make more money doing less with a BANS store. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me.
Thanks for reading my blog everyone.
It’s the weekend, so I figured I would tell about a great learning environment, you could visit in your spare time. Youngentrepreneur.com is a great website, if you are looking for some ideas to get a business started. Even if you have some ideas or projects set in motion already, but would like to get opinions from experts. Have you built your business website and need a second opinion? Have you ever needed a place, that could answer any business question you might have? Young Entrepreneur has a huge membership base that can help you. They have members that range in a wide spectrum of expertise areas. Best of all, Youngentrepreneur.com is free to be a member.
I have been a member of youngentrepreneur.com since spring of 2007. Its a forum that you can use, to help your business grow and expand. You can gain insight on whatever you need, just ask in the forums. You can get everything, from finding a local business partner to starting your home business. If you are just starting out or if you just need advice to make things better with your business. Young Entrepreneur has a great opportunity for you to keep growing.
They just refaced the entire website and added many upgrades, to make it more user friendly. They even started a new point system for the members. Every post you make in the forum gives you points. You can exchange the points to purchase special privileges throughout the forum. From adding new avatar options, to giving someone a gift, to buying full use of the arcade. The arcade they added even has old time classics.
Youngentrepreneur.com have forum rooms that hit a wide range of audience. From home business to SEO advice. In addition to all the original YE rooms, they recently added new business forum rooms. They added a famous entrepreneurs section. They have reviews on famous entrepreneurs like Bill Gates and Donald Trump. This section is filled with some pretty inspiring stories. It’s a great read for anyone.
They have a new forum room, that will answer all your marketing or web page rank questions. They also updated the ever popular, looking for capital/biz partners. You can find biz partners locally or around the world. Its a spectacular place to meet people with ideas that may be similar to your business ideas. They added a legal room, so you can discuss about any legal advice. If you have a website for sale, you can even sell it on YE now. There are management and franchising rooms so you can discuss about big time business. Even if you’re a college student, looking for some sure fire ways to make money on the side. YE has added so many new forum rooms and upgrades, that it is virtually impossible not to get help, that will lead you in to the right business direction.
You can even start a daily blog on YE now. You can write about whatever you like. If you have never written a blog before, YE would be great for you. Because, if you have any questions about writing your blog, you just ask in the forums. They have added new entrepreneurial videos and articles. The advice you will receive at YE could save you lots of time and money.
You can even use the knowledge you have, in your expertise areas to help others. Or you can ask others, about things you don’t know about. The members in the Young Entrepreneur community are great. I have made so many friends there. There are people with young and experienced minds, so you really learn a lot. I have a made a few business partners because of young entrepreneur. Also, there are so many people I get to help with drop ship/wholesale or ebay questions.
Before this spring, I didn’t know anything about advertising or marketing a website. So I searched for a good place with answers. That’s when I found YE. Since then, I have learned so much that I would have never learned by myself. My blog would have never reached all the readers it has, without the knowledge I got at YE. I love to help people, so I am using it to my advantage. I visit YE everyday so I can keep up with all the new ideas and programs that come out.
I have learned some really great ways to make extra money on the side with YE forums. You all know I don’t recommend anything I don’t use myself. I highly recommend Youngentrepreneur.com for any beginner or advanced business personality!
Thanks for stopping by everyone!
Lisa
Ebay seller research increases sales and lets you know how the competition does it. Have you ever heard of ebay’s “seller central”? It’s a great place to find out current hot items on ebay. Its right on ebay’s website, just look for seller central. I use it all the time. There is so much useful information here. I am surprised how many people just ignore this part of ebays website.
You can’t just put items on ebay, if you haven’t done your homework. You have to know what is selling. The “Hot Selling Items” on ebay, are the ones you want to be selling. The best powersellers around are selling what is hot. The hot list always changes about every 1-3 months. Fads come and go. Newer models get made in the older models place. Your job is to always know what the hot items are at the time.
You can find correct ebay hot lists all over the internet for free. Ebay even has a current hot list in their seller central. They update the list about once every 1-3 months. The list tells you what is hot, very hot, and super hot. This list is very useful. I use it like a bible. It is always changing. If you don’t like the ebay hot list, check out some other list around the internet. There are lots of hotlists you can find online for free. Ebay might be the only accurate one though.
Check the merchandising calendar on ebay. It is also located in ebays “seller central”. It tells you all the upcomming events or holidays. You can basically sell by holiday or season with the calendar. It recently reminded us about back to school & fall fashion. It sounds simple and it is simple. It’s a seller reminder calendar, so sellers can sell what is in season. I suggest you get your self familiar with it. It’s a great guide.
Ebay Pulse, is also located in ebay’s seller central. This is a great place to search for category to see what is hot. Most searched or most watched items. You can also find out the most popular products selling. Its an easy to use source and takes a few minutes to learn. I suggest this for any beginner.
Ebay also just added a marketplace research tool. It lets you search for sold items in the last 90 days. The only downfall is, they charge you for this. There are so many other ways to search this information for free. I don’t think it’s worth paying. But, if you are not very good at doing online research, this tool is for you. Check it out, it’s also located in seller central.
You can also do an advanced search to find what is selling.
*Just goto the ebay homepage.
*Look at the search bar on top. Next to it is advanced search, click onto advanced search.
*Now click onto the completed items box.
*Now type in what you are looking for and the list will show you all the correct auctions that have ended. You can see what sold and what didn’t for up to 3 days I believe. You can find out what times of the day this item sells best. You can find out what day the item sells best. It’s a great little trick to find out what is selling. Check it out.
I hope I helped some of understand how to do research to sell on ebay. It’s very important if you want to be a consistent powerseller on ebay.
See you tomorrow.
Thank you,
There are tons of tricks you can use on ebay, to save money and make more. Everyone knows different tricks, some people know all the tricks. I happen to be one of those people that can say they know it all about ebay. I am going to show you some very important basic tips to sell more on ebay.
Be Professional-It’s very important to keep that professional image going. Don’t make in-mature or childish decisions. Make sure you treat customers with respect. Everything from your ebay name to the way your auctions look, should professional. If your ebay name is “jsmith”; that won’t catch someones eye like “TheIpodStore” would. Your ebay name should be related to what you are selling.
Feedback- Build your feedback to about 10-20, before you go crazy selling things. People don’t start to trust you on ebay, until your have about 20 feedbacks. Just list single items until you build your feedback to a trust-able level. Then sell multiple lots and big money items. There are tons of ebooks you can buy on ebay for 99 cents. Buy a bunch of them and build your feedback up. Remember don’t screw your feedback up. You are bound to never have perfect feedback. A good seller will average 100 positive feedbacks to every negative. You can’t make everyone happy, but you can try. Your feedback is gold, it tells everyone what kind of reputation you have on ebay.
Know What You Are Selling-This is a common mistake, that many ebayers make. They try and sell something they have no clue about. Someone who is familiar with that item will know, and might not buy from you. They might figure; if they don’t know what they are selling, How do I even know I am getting the item I want? Many things could run through their head. But the one thing they won’t do, is buy from you. Do some research on the item your are selling. Or if you know about what you are selling, put your expertise to work. Know what you are selling.
Pictures- As simple as this sounds, some people still don’t put pictures in their auction. Pictures will sell your auction. It will show the condition of the item. It will reassure the customer that they are getting what they want. Pictures in your auctions will boost sales by 50+ percent! It’s a huge mistake, not putting pictures in your auction. You may figure, if they know what they are buying, they don’t need pictures. You are wrong, the human brain is automatically attracted to pictures. It is so important for the buyer to see a picture. Even if they do know what it looks like already. Make sure the pictures are quality and not over-sized or blurry. Get yourself a good digital camera or scanner, you will need it. Put pictures in your auctions, it really makes a difference.
Ebay Description and Title- Make sure you dedicate a lot of time to thinking of a catchy title and description. The title needs to be the one thing, that lures the customer there. Maybe use a gallery picture as well. It needs to be original and eye catching.
Your description should grab them as soon as they click onto the Auction. Don’t make it too long. Make it short and to the point. Remember to keep originality, don’t steal someone elses work. Use html and pictures to make your description more professional.
Offer Lots of Payment Methods- Remember, I talked about this earlier in the month. Always offer as many ways to pay as possible. This will drive all customers to buy from you. The guy with the same auction for 5 dollars cheaper doesn’t accept paypal, but you do. You would get the sale. The first thing most people that shop on ebay look for, are the payment types accepted. So, do yourself a favor; Accept all payments types possible and you will steal the competitions business away.
Customer Service and Shipping- Remember to keep your customer service professional. Make it fair and always gear it towards the customers benefit, not yours. Follow up all your sales with emails to update and thank the customer.
Make your shipping clearly posted into your auction in several areas. Dedicate a small portion of your description to tell about shipping options. Also list the shipping price on the auction lister. You can also choose to calculate shipping for certain areas.
That’s it. Several basics to remember about ebay sales. Use these guidelines and your sales will be consistent and plentiful.
Thanks for stopping by, see you tomorrow.
We all know, that online marketing and advertising for your business can be tricky. Have you ever thought of making some business cards for your business? Or handing out flyer’s around town? Local advertising is very easy to do. You don’t have to know any marketing ploys online. Local advertising can bring in 40% of your business, if you do it right. I have been really successful doing local advertising. You could even post your business card onto that board at your local supermarket. How bout the local restaurants, everyone leaves there business card at? You could put yours there also. People really do look at the business cards posted.
Business cards can be done for very little money. You could have 500 quality business cards made for about $20.00. The $20.00 you spend on business cards will pay for it self. Hand them out to all your friends. Give them to your family, let everyone know that you are in business. Put the website address to your online store on the business card.
Make it a professional business card. Make your business card original, so it stands out among the rest. Put some quality into your business card. It doesn’t cost much for the better paper. The better the quality of the card, the more people will gaze at your card first. If you can afford video business cards, go for it, they are very effective. Put your company logo on the business card. Pictures speak louder than words. Don’t make the logo too big, remember professional. Gear the colors on the business card to your logo colors. But don’t go too bright with the colors, it doesn’t look good. Try and match the business card up, so the logo matches it. The logo is very important, it is how people will remember you.
Handing out flyer’s is very effective. The one thing you don’t want to do is, litter.Most towns or cities frown upon flyer’s that are all over the ground. Make sure wherever you put your flyer’s, they won’t end up all over the ground. Never put your flyer’s under the windshield wiper of cars. The owner will probably throw it on the ground after reading it. Then you can get in trouble for littering. Use places that the public is around a lot. You can always post your flyer’s at the subway station. The subway station always has a place, you can post your flyer’s to the public. Supermarkets, restaurants, malls, bus stops, tons of places. Just make sure you get permission, if you are posting your flyer’s in a business. If you are posting them in public you can put them all over. But always remember to secure your flyer’s, so they wont go anywhere.
Make the information in your flyer, eye catching and straight to the point. Gear it the same way as your business card. Include your info, so they can visit your website. You can print some really good flyer’s right off your computer. Distributing flyer’s is probably the most effective way you could advertise your business. Its free if you have a printer. All you need to do, is take the time to distribute them everywhere.
Even if you don’t have a website. Advertise your ebay store. GOODLUCK!
Thanks for stopping by. I appreciate all the feedback on my blog.
Thanks,
Lisa
We all have one thing in common as everyday business people. We all accept money for our service and/or product. Having the convenience of accepting many different payments types, can raise your web sales by 25 percent. Try and accept every payment type possible, from paypal, to American express, to e-checks. You can easily accept credit cards on your web business nowadays. There are hundreds of reputable credit card, processing merchants, that want your business.
Paypal is probably the most used payment method over the web. Even if you don’t like paypal, you will lose out, if you don’t offer it as a payment method. Google checkout is said to be better than paypal. Google checkout is making a big hit in the marketplace. They are trying to reach the goal to be an equal to paypal. Google offers better security and great customer service. Google is trying to be geared more towards preventing fraud. Where paypal seems to go along with fraud and the people who are committing the fraud. Google may change the face of web payment processors. After all, customers do want to feel secure, as they give their credit card numbers or other personal information away.
Security of different payments types is also important. Today’s identity theft, cautious customers, want to have a safe and easy transaction. Make sure you have hackersafe or other logos on your website. There is all kinds of coding that you can put into your website to prevent hackers. Most host providers include some safety features like hacksafe. If you have hacksafe features on your website, advertise it. Even though you know you have a secure website, let the customer know also. It really does help your sales.
If you are an ebay merchant, make sure you accept every payment method also. You will notice, the more payment options you give; the more your sales will increase. Think about it; if you wanted to buy something, but you only pay with paypal online, the website you are on only accepts credit cards, now that web site doesn’t make a sale. They lose out because you were going to buy something. But since they don’t accept paypal, you go to someone else’s website. The customer is going to buy it anyway. Why not give them the option to buy it from you?
If you want to learn more come back tomorrow.
Thanks,
Lisa
Having a great title and description is probably the most important thing, to drive customers to your ebay auction. You have to have a title that reaches out to grab someone. Your title is what will draw your customers, so make it great. You can also add sub titles to ebay auctions. This is so your can use as much as you can, to draw the customers in.
Ebay has made it so easy to drive customers to your auctions. They have many tools to help you drive traffic. They give you the option to have an ebay store. With meta tags to be search engine friendly. But nothing works as good as a great title to draw a customers curiosity. Try capitalizing every word in your title. Try phrases like Brand new, Guaranteed, or Hot in your sub title. Even though someone else might be selling the same thing you are for the same price. If your auction seems to offer more,even though it doesn’t, that customer might be drawn to your auction instead.
So once you have drawn them to click on your auction with a great title; now you need them to stay and read about what you are offering. Your description is what will keep the customers there. A description can make or break your auctions final selling price. Don’t forget to add html to your auction description. Make your auction look professional. Make it friendly and straight to the point. Offer pictures to brighten up the auction.
Most ebay members click onto an auction for 5 seconds before clicking away. The ebay members that usually buy, are the ones that visit your auction page for more than 10 seconds. So keep your auction description unique and interesting all at once. Don’t copy anyone Else’s ideas, because chances are someone has already seen this same mumbo jumbo before. People get bored really easy, by seeing the same old things.
Just keep your ebay auctions unique and interesting. Your ebay sales depend on it.
Thank you for supporting my daily blog. If you want to learn more come back tomorrow.
Thanks
Lisa
If you have any questions, feel free to email me LP@thehomedropshipguide.com
Any good business person knows, that you should never count on just one option, to keep your business going. One of the most successful ways to keep your business afloat, is to have as many options open as possible. Never lock yourself into one place. It will only cause you to play by someone else’s rules. It’s like working with a pair of handcuffs. An affiliate marketer knows that the more advertisements they make, the more sales they will have. They would never be able to make a living, off of one advertisement.
If you are in sales, you should always have 3-5 different connections for the same items or product. This way, if someone is closed for the day or runs out of stock, you will have a backup plan. Its a very good idea, to have 3-5 different options open for your business.
You can always call for your backup plan, if something ever goes wrong. What happens if you are a welding shop, you run out of steel, and your supplier is out of stock? You call your back up steel guy and your covered.
There are so many things that could go wrong, by relying on one source, for anything to do with your business. If you have an ebay business, you know what I am talking about. Ebay locked my account a while back, until I mailed them proof of my ID. It took almost 3 weeks before my account was reopened. Just for a simple security check. I lost over 10 grand in sales. I didn’t have a back up plan, so I lost big time.
So, it’s a good idea to have lots of money makers going at the same time. As many options as possible will only help you, in the long run. I literally have over 12 projects going at the same time right now. Just in case, something happens to any of them: I will still have income, coming in, to survive on. Even if they are a few little projects, that together, make a good amount of money. Leave yourself, options open everywhere, it really works.
I wanted to say something about this, because you never know when something could go wrong. You will never know when you need a back up plan. But, if you have options open and available, you won’t lose as much in the pocket. Its so discouraging, when you know you can’t provide a service to your customers, because you didn’t prepare for disaster. Don’t take your big money maker for granted, ever. Help out your big money maker, by combining little money maker projects with it.
Sorry to bore you with this weeks subjects. I thought it was very important, to pick out the things we take for granted, as business people. I hope it helped some of you.
If you like to make money with Golf, I have a treat for you tomorrow. Come back and check it out.
Thanks,
Lisa
Here is an interesting subject. Tax Write offs are a sure way, to help your business make money. A tax write off, is an item or service that you used for your business and can claim on your taxes, to get a deduction. An example would be; You drive to staples to pick up a laser printer, some paper for the printer, and some pens. Did you know, that you can write off, everything you bought at staples, as a tax deduction? You can even write off the mileage on your car, you used to get there. If you bought a new computer, you could even write that off as a tax deduction.
Tax write off deductions, are probably the best way you can reassure that your business will succeed. It is crucial, for you to keep all receipts, for everything, involving your business through the year. I can’t stress this enough. When tax day comes bring the receipts. Depending on your state and how much you made; You may get to write everything off on your taxes as a deduction. That means, everything you bought for your business this year, was free. Uncle SAM paid for everything, even your brand new business car.
If you don’t have tax numbers & license for your business, you are only hurting yourself. All those boxes and packing supplies,even the tape you used, through the year. All tax write offs. You could even buy a brand new car, slap your business name on the car, and “BAM”, your car is now a tax write off. There are so many tricks and loopholes in the tax laws, that home businesses can thrive on. Its amazing how many people run a home business and don’t do it legally. Did you know, a worldwide survey showed that 70% of all online business, is done without proper business or tax id information. That means 70% of all online businesses are running illegally. No wonder the government wants to put so many restrictions on online sales.
There are so many advantages to having a legal business. The disadvantages of not having a legal business are overwhelming! Why are all these people still doing it the wrong way? If I didn’t claim taxes on my business, my business would have failed a long time ago. The IRS, actually helps a home business owner when it comes to tax time.
If you don’t claim taxes on your business and the IRS sees you making all that money. You can get in lots of trouble. The IRS can take away anything you own, to collect what is owed to them. If you made 50 grand last year and the IRS audits you. Guess what, if you don’t have the money owed to them when they audit you. You’ll probably lose your house or any and all of your cars, to the IRS. Possibly, jail time along with it. If you don’t have any collateral or money to pay them, jail time is certain. Your bank account can closely monitored by several federal branches, at any given time. All they need is reason to suspect. The IRS doesn’t take kindly to people stealing from them. You might as well commit treason. Why would you risk all that?
I hope I can change some of your minds out there, about starting your business legally. It’s really not worth it, to hide from uncle SAM.
If you want to learn more way to run a successful business, come back tomorrow.
Thanks,
Lisa