Earn Money on eBay Even Without Stuff to Sell

Copyright © 2005 James Dillehay Craftmarketer http://www.craftmarketer.com/ Although most people know eBay as the online marketplace for buying and selling all kinds of goods, eBay also provides a backdoor income opportunity for website owners ready to monetize their site traffic. Even if you don't have an item or sources of products of your own to sell on eBay, you can earn money through eBay's affiliate program by serving pages with auction listings specifically organized around any eBay category, according to James Dillehay, author of Sell Your Crafts on eBay. An affiliate is an independent contractor who agrees to send traffic to a merchant who sells a product or service and pays the affiliate a commission of each sale. eBay developed a sophisticated affiliate tool called the eBay Editor Kit that allows you to build highly targeted interactive graphic banners which list specific types or categories of items for sale. Which Categories to Target Let's say you have a family oriented web site with an article page(s) on wedding-related topics. As an eBay affiliate, you can insert code they provide through an easy-to-use toolkit online that allows you to serve up current auctions on wedding dresses, wedding favors, wedding supplies, or any other category you choose. Another example would be a site providing visitors with facts of interest on actor, John Wayne. At the bottom of a page about John Wayne's movies, the site owner/eBay affiliate can place code which serves up all current eBay listings for John Wayne movie DVDs or video tapes. If this sounds too complex, relax. You don't have to be a programmer or a geek to get this to work. The eBay Editor Kit is an interactive form available to affiliates which allows for quickly entering in your affiliate ID code, product category(s) you want to serve listings for, and a few other details. Using the affiliate interface, I've created code to generate targeted eBay listings and placed it on my web pages, all in less than two minutes. How Much Does It Pay The program pays affiliates between 40% and 70% of eBay's revenue (not item sale price) on all winning bids or Buy-It-Nows within 7 days of an affiliate action and up to $20 for each new active registered user who arrives from your affiliate links. These rates may change at any time but were current as of this writing. Why Would Anyone Click The more targeted your site traffic, the more likely people will click-through to specific auctions. Studies show ads related to your page content get higher response rates. Since using the eBay Editor Kit and placing graphics displaying targeted auctions, my recorded click-through rate has averaged between 50% and 70%. This compares to a typical click-through rate on my other affiliate links of between 2% to 15%. The Ultimate Market Research Tool The beauty and ease of the above system is you can serve your customers great deals on items they are specifically searching for and earn money in the process. But that could just be the beginning of profits for you. With the sophisticated tracking statistics available to you as an affiliate, you can track which types of eBay listings get higher click-throughs, higher closing bids, and learn about items that sell best throughout the year. You can then pick and choose best-selling items for your site's traffic, find inventory at wholesale or closeout sources, and then list your own eBay auctions which you already have evidence of sales history. You'll earn lots more than you would have just as an affiliate. You should note that it is against eBay's affiliate policies for you to use eBay Editor Kit to link to your own eBay auctions. To become an affiliate for eBay, your web site must be approved. Your site must get steady traffic, look good and all the links should function. Typically, eBay is interested in well designed, high traffic sites to partner with. To apply, go to http://www.cj.com, Commission Junction and search for eBay. --------------------------------------------------------------------- James Dillehay is author of eight books including Sell Your Crafts on eBay, Over 200 Tactics, Tips and Tricks to Profit with Your Arts and Crafts Items from eBay's Millions of Buyers. His books have been recommended in The Chicago Tribune, Family Circle, Better Homes & Gardens, Country Almanac, Working Mothers, The Crafts Report, Sunshine Artist, and many other magazines and on HGTV. James serves on the advisory boards to the National Craft Association and ArtisanStreet.com. For more information, see http://www.craftmarketer.com.

How To Make A Fortune From Unique 'Resistance Free' Advertising

Copyright © 2005 Scott Bywater Copywriting That SELLS http://www.copywritingthatsells.com.au The trouble with trying to sell anything to anybody... especially with ads and sales letters... is buyer resistance. So how do you completely eliminate the resistance to your offer? It's easy when you learn this secret... One of the most powerful offers you can use in your advertising is the word Free. But, you may well ask... how can I make a profit giving my products and services away without charging for them? Which is the exact reason why you need to understand the 'LVC Formula' - it stands for the Lifetime Value of a Client! Here's how it works. Let's imagine for a moment you own a beauty salon. Now if you get a new customer, they may pay you $80 for their first treatment. But how much is this $80 client really worth? After all, most clients will continue to buy off you for many years to come. For instance, let's imagine your average client returns for a beauty treatment 8 times a year... and remains a client for 2 years. $80 (price of consultation) x 8 (purchases a year) x 2 (number of years) Now if you have a calculator handy, you'll work out the value of this client as $1280.00. And if your profit margin is 40% this calculates to a $512 profit per client. Let's imagine we sent a letter to all the nearby businesses offering women a free manicure valued at $30.00 (I'm not a beauty therapist, so please forgive me if all these figures are way out). And if the manicure costs you $7 in products and 30 minutes of your time (which if you're not busy... you'd just be sitting on your butt anyway!) So effectively the $7 investment could have just made you $512 in profit. And how easy is it to give away a free manicure? Or for other industries... * A free car service * A free dancing lesson * A free consultation * A free ice cream * A free report of some sort The secret lies in giving away something which has a high perceived value, but actually costs you very little to produce. Why does it work so well? Using the word 'Free' in your advertising STOPS inertia. You see, people are happy with their current hairdresser... or their mechanic. But when they get an opportunity to trial a product or service for FREE - there's something irresistible and risk free about it, isn't there? A word of warning though. Make sure you offer the best possible service... otherwise people will not come back, and you'll get a bad name very quickly. And of course, where possible, make sure you collect a database... and measure your results. What could you offer for FREE? Write down a few ideas now... and start implementing this stuff. It could have an almost overnight effect on your sales. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Scott Bywater is a professional direct response copywriter and the author of Cash-Flow Advertising. To get a complimentary copy of his special report '7 Ways To Increase Your Turnover... No Matter What The State Of The Economy' (valued at $29.95) and a free subscription to his "Copywriting Selling Secrets" ezine where you'll discover how to write ads and sales letters that make people line up and practically beg you to do business with them visit his web site at: http://www.copywritingthatsells.com.au

Must Read: 26steps to 15k a Day

26steps to 15k a Day: Another great article on generating hits and clicks. It covers topics like: Prep Work, Domain name, Site Design, and Density, position, yada, yada, yada... Of course there is a lot more. Go and do likewise.

Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)

Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox) While simple, these ten elements are important. Be sure you understand each one and how it applies to your efforts. Good Luck.

3 Things All Affiliate Marketers Need To Survive Online

by Alan Richardson Every affiliate marketer is always looking for the successful market that gives the biggest paycheck. Sometimes they think it is a magic formula that is readily available for them. Actually, it is more complicated than that. It is just good marketing practices that have been proven over years of hard work and dedication. There are tactics that have worked before with online marketing and is continuing to work in the online affiliate marketing world of today. With these top three marketing tips, you will be able to able to increase your sales and survive in the affiliate marketing online. What are these three tactics? 1. Using unique web pages to promote each separate product you are marketing. Do not lump all of it together just to save some money on web hosting. It is best to have a site focusing on each and every product and nothing more. Always include product reviews on the website so visitors will have an initial understanding on what the product can do to those who buys them. Also include testimonials from users who have already tried the product. Be sure that these customers are more than willing to allow you to use their names and photos on the site of the specific product you are marketing. You can also write articles highlighting the uses of the product and include them on the website as an additional page. Make the pages attractive compelling and include calls to act on the information. Each headline should attract the readers to try and read more, even contact you. Highlight your special points. This will help your readers to learn what the page is about and will want to find out more. 2. Offer free reports to your readers. If possible position them at the very top side of your page so it they simply cannot be missed. Try to create autoresponder messages that will be mailed to those who input their personal information into your sign up box. According to research, a sale is closed usually on the seventh contact with a prospect. Only two things can possibly happen with the web page alone: closed sale or the prospect leaving the page and never return again. By placing useful information into their inboxes at certain specified period, you will remind them of the product they thought they want later and will find out that the sale is closed. Be sure that the content is directed toward specific reasons to buy the product. Do not make it sound like a sales pitch. Focus on important points like how your product can make life and things easier and more enjoyable. Include compelling subject lines in the email. As much as possible, avoid using the word "free" because there are still older spam filters that dumps those kind of contents into the junk before even anyone reading them first. Convince those who signed up for your free reports that they will be missing something big if they do not avail of your products and services. 3. Get the kind of traffic that is targeted to your product. Just think, if the person who visited your website has no interest whatsoever in what you are offering, they will be among those who move on and never come back. Write articles for publication in e-zines and e-reports. This way you can locate publications that is focusing on your target customers and what you have put up might just grab their interest. Try to write a minimum of 2 articles per week, with at least 300-600 words in length. By continuously writing and maintaining these articles you can generate as many as 100 targeted readers to your site in a day. Always remember that only 1 out of 100 people are likely to buy your product or get your services. If you can generate as much as 1,000 targeted hits for your website in a day, that means you can made 10 sales based on the average statistic. The tactics given above do not really sound very difficult to do, if you think about it. It just requires a little time and an action plan on your part. Try to use these tips for several affiliate marketing programs. You can end up maintaining a good source of income and surviving in this business that not all marketers can do. Besides, think of the huge paychecks you will be receiving... About the Author Alan Richardson,owner of Home Business Discovery where you can find a multitude of resources designed to achieve maximum home-business success.

Google Analytics

Google announcedGoogle Analytics in their blog. It requires you to signup and include a javascript file in your html header. I am going to try it out and see if it has anything useful. The page says it takes 12 hours before anything is available. I'll let you know.