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A New Way To Make Money With eBay
When you hear “eBay” and “money” in the same sentence
your probably think of becoming an eBay seller.
You place product listings in the eBay marketplace, buyers bid, you pay your
eBay seller fees and what you have left is your profit margin.
There is, however, another way to build a business which still revolves around
eBay but which doesn’t involve you selling a single thing in the eBay
marketplace.
This “other way” opportunity is based on the eBay affiliate program
and a great tool which makes entry into this opportunity not only
possible but also super easy. This tool is called “Build
A Niche Store“.
Now if you don’t know – an affiliate program enables you as an
individual internet entrepreneur to promote the products of a company in exchange
for a commission on all sales that you refer.
You are basically operating as an internet middleman and connecting internet
browsers to particular products and companies through you own network of websites
and marketing methods.
If we return to the eBay affiliate program, eBay actually invites you to
promote all of the product listings in the eBay marketplace and in exchange
for your efforts will pay you up to 75% of the revenue they make from each
sale you refer plus up to $35 for each new active eBay member you refer.
You can have a read about the eBay.com
affiliate program here
What this means is that you can earn up to three quarters of eBay’s
revenue simply for connecting people to the products listed in the eBay marketplace.
Not only do you get to partner with the best branded marketplace in the world,
you also get access to and control over ALL of the products listed in this
marketplace. The eBay product inventory becomes YOUR product inventory and
yet you do NOT have to stock items, deal with customers, organize shipping
or process refunds.
You are no longer limited to selling only those products which you can buy
and sell for a profit margin. You can choose ANY niche market and promote
those eBay products relevant to your chosen niche outside of the eBay marketplace,
funnelling targeted traffic through to eBay and into your own affiliate commissions.
Golf clubs, sewing kits, laptops, dog collars, diamond rings, Florida real
estate…
If you know eBay you know how BIG it is – there are NO limits.
At this point you might be thinking - well this sounds interesting but in
reality is there any money in it? Well, here’s the shocker – eBay’s
top affiliates make over 1 million dollars a month. That’s right –
8 figures a year without stocking, selling or shipping a single thing!
Now eBay does provide some basic free tools to help you succeed as an eBay
affiliate and build an affiliate business BUT it has been the development
of a tool outside of eBay that has really opened this up as a legitimate business
opportunity.
The tool, as I mentioned earlier, is called “Build
A Niche Store” and what it enables you to do is build eBay affiliate
websites targeted to any eBay niche you want. These act as the medium through
which you funnel targeted visitors to eBay.
Here are a couple of examples, one targeting Race Cars and the other Golf
Equipment:
Race Car eBay Affiliate Website
Golf eBay Affiliate Website
As you can see, these are professional looking websites that contain all
of those eBay products related to their target niche inside a searchable store
format, each of which automatically contains your eBay affiliate id.
These stores then automatically update as new products are listed for sale
and old listing expire from the eBay marketplace and the software has built
in development features which enable you to create new store pages, add content
to these pages, create content pages, modify your template etc etc.
Basically, in the space of about 10 minutes (once you are familiar with how
the software works) you can create a fully functional eBay affiliate website
targeted to the niche market of your choice.
Your store content is all search engine friendly which will provide the foundation
for attracting targeted traffic from the search engines and you can then use
the development features to attract more targeted visitors which will in turn
mean more eBay affiliate commissions.
It really is a brilliant concept and I’ve been hearing great things
about the guys behind the project and the member forum which you get lifetime
access to when you purchase the product.
Build A Niche Store comes with a step by step user manual which will walk
even the most technically inexperienced through setting up their eBay affiliate
website, 9 professional template layouts which can be customized (from inside
your admin panel) to match your target niche, lifetime member forum access,
comprehensive product support and possibly most importantly – an UNLIMITED
domain license which means you can build as many of these niche websites as
you want for the small one time fee.
Think about how many niches eBay caters to!
How big could your eBay affiliate business be?!
This product gets my full recommendation – check it out today…
Click
Here To Read More About Build A Niche Store
1. Social marketing and web 2.0 properties
This is all the latest buzz. The idea is that you
use web 2.0 sites like Propeller, Tumblr, Squidoo
and others to create mini sites that target key
words.
If the Google gods smile on you, they spider your
site, list it at the top under your key word and
all is well.
There are also clever bookmarking methods using services
like onlywire.com that tag your site in a number of the
sites.
Bottom line? All of these methods are designed to get
you organic seo positioning. “Organic seo” is a term
used to distinguish between the non-paid listings on
left side of your Google search results and the paid
listings at the very top and the right side of your
results.
So you have organic or non-paid listings. And you
have the pay-per-click listings.
Methods, secrets, tricks and techniques for getting
top positions in Google have been around since day one.
I have dozens of pieces of software on my box that
originally were supposed to be the “magic bullet” of
seo.
Now, they’re not worth the space they take up on my
hard drive.
These methods DO work. But they also go out of style
quicker than fashion. If you have the money and time
to muck around with a method that may only get you a
year of results, or less, go for it.
I tried creating a bunch of these sites and links and
nothing happened. That means there’s a substantial
learning curve.
On the other hand, creating the sites is free. So
your main cost is the cost of buying the know how
and the time to implement the methods.
The best approach is to take the articles you create
for article marketing and spin web 2.0 properties from
them.
Opinion: If you build these web 2.0 properties
or sites with quality, unique content — your sites
will have staying power.
If you outsource your content creation to the lowest
cost bidder, well, keep your fingers crossed.
2. Article marketing
Article marketing in one form or the other has been
working for years.
It’s still an organic seo game.
The current vogue is to write articles and submit
them to a small set of directories that get a lot
of Google love.
The downside is that tomorrow Google could change
its mind. Google is like the proverbial sailor
joke:
“You number one sailor. You number one.”
Then the next day…
“You number ten sailor. You number ten.”
You have no control over fickle Google love.
Having said that, article marketing has worked for
years and will continue to work. For a person on a
limited budget marketing on a national or global
basis, it’s a good choice.
If you’re marketing locally, I would think local
pay-per-click ads would be a better choice.
A lot of marketers are hiring others to write articles
for them. I have mixed feelings about this.
My guess is that in the long run, unique, valuable
content will get Google love. And run-of-the-mill
content won’t.
The current vogue is article spinning where you use
software or services to write variations of your
articles, so you don’t submit duplicate articles to
the different directories.
It’s a constant cat and mouse game between Google
and marketers. Google started penalizing duplicate
content, so marketers started spinning articles to
avoid the penalty.
The next move is Google’s.
I’m not really on board with the article spinning idea
in that it isn’t evergreen. However, some view it as
whatever gets traffic this month.
They’ll worry next month about what it takes to get
traffic then.
Opinion: Stick to evergreen article marketing methods
and provide the Google gods the unique, valuable content
they request.
If you outsource articles, go for higher quality writers
and vendors who use a brain when they write. My opinion
is that over time, Google will find a way to weed out
mindless, low quality content.
Opinion: If you have little or no budget, use article
marketing.
3. Viral marketing
Viral marketing is good traffic when you can get it.
But can you get it steadily and consistently? That’s the
million dollar question.
Of course, the best and brightest minds can. But what
about people who are less than marketing gurus?
The best method of viral marketing I know of is still
Mike Filsaime’s Butterfly marketing concept.
That means you create high quality content that is
given away by others to their list for free. And you
make money from an immediate upsell, or as Mike calls
it “the OTO” or one time offer.
The reason this works is a lot of people will email
valuable content to their list where they might not
email a pitch or offer.
As you’ll notice, article marketing and viral marketing
come down to the ability to provide quality content.
The good news is that with Elance and other freelancing
sites, you CAN have content created. The issue becomes
the QUALITY of the content.
The least talented and laziest people will have content
created by the lowest cost bidder. And you don’t have
to be a rocket scientist to figure out others may not
want to email low quality, rehashed, brainless content
to their list.
Opinion: Either hire writers who have a brain and use
it or develop some expertise on a specific topic yourself.
If you zero in on a specific topic, it doesn’t take long
to learn more about it than most others.
Opinion: Viral marketing has a higher skill level than
article marketing because you have to find people willing
to email your content to their list.
If you have your OWN list, and the content is compelling
enough that your own members will spread the word, then
you’ve reached the ultimate scenario.
Maybe easier said than done in the days of over-marketed,
over-communicated, over-saturated markets. Still, it’s
doable.
Opinion: Getting the software set up and running correctly
isn’t a piece of cake. Do you use a stand alone installation?
Do you integrate with Amember or other systems? Which
software? Do you create separate viral sites for each
product? If you use the email feature built into the software
programs, where do you host it?
4. Video marketing
One of the latest crazes to hit the scene is creating videos
and uploading them to the video sites.
Software programs like Traffic Geyser (and others) will
handle the uploading part for you.
I know of one marketer getting 200+ opt ins per day from
video sites at no cost. Not a bad deal.
As more and more marketers all rush to use the same method,
Google will undoubtedly show less and less love to
these videos.
Part of the play is organic, meaning that Google has
shown these video sites its love. That love is likely
fleeting…”You number ten sailor.”
However, these sites get a LOT of traffic. So video
marketing is likely here to stay, although the results
will dilute over time.
Matt Bacak is turning his articles into videos and
uploading them. That’s a sound strategy that leverages
content in a rational way.
Opinion: Video marketing is here to stay but measure
the results and watch your return on time and investment.
4. Pay-per-click marketing
I hate Google. Sometimes.
They keep turning the screws on marketers tighter and tighter,
even for those PAYING for advertising.
I really wish there was someone else in the game who had
traffic and considered more the interests of marketers.
Unfortunately, Google IS the game. Well, there’s Ebay.
But they just put the clamps down on ebook marketing.
So they’re following the footsteps of Google.
The good news is the instant traffic IS there and you CAN
buy it. Until Google changes their ever loving mind
again, the game right now is about relevancy. Meaning
the more closely your ad exactly matches the search
term and the content on the landing page, the lower your
CTR (click through rate).
The WHOLE problem and issue with this is it takes away
the advantage you had in pay-per-click to freakin’ begin
with — scalability.
Now, the best and brightest minds do find ways to hack,
get around, or comply with Google’s whims and demands.
For example, one of my friends found that by selling
ebooks for $17.00 on highly specific topics, he could
get the advantages of relevancy, positive revenue and
scalability.
I think he’s onto something. This is the best strategy I’ve
heard about lately.
Opinion: You can’t trick Google in the end. So you have
to find ways to create landing pages that match the search
terms. And then figure out how to scale that.
My personal solution is to try to hire someone. My first
hire didn’t work out. I’m going to round two. If you can’t
afford to hire someone (perhaps overseas), you’ll have to
invest a lot of your personal time and keep your fingers
crossed that in an overnight Google slap your marketing
doesn’t fall apart!
Opinion: Stay away from gimmicks, do your best to give
Google what they want and keep it evergreen.
5. Affiliate marketing
The final option I’d like to discuss is affiliate marketing.
For many years, this has been my chosen method for obtaining
traffic. The landscape has changed in Internet marketing.
Nowadays, affiliates are driven by the launch of the week.
That means you aren’t likely to get the continual traffic
you did in the old days.
However, in protected niches, this isn’t so. And affiliate
marketing can still be a huge tool for you.
In the arena of Internet marketing, the competition for
affiliates to promote an offer is voracious. Mostly, it’s
built on small groups of friends and “inner circle camps”
promoting each others offers.
Opinion: Affiliate marketing is still gold in niches.
If you’re in the Internet marketing arena, you better be
ready to run with the big dogs or you won’t get much action.
Opinion: Affiliate marketing has a higher skill level than
other methods because you have to network and get others
to take action. The payoffs can be sweet but it’s a game
best played by good networkers.
The final analysis
Social marketing — Google loves these sites right now. But
how long before Google withdraws its favor? Who knows?
Article marketing has always worked and still works. Some
of the methods change. Focus on quality content.
Viral marketing — Not as simple as article marketing. But
the basic “Butterfly Marketing” strategy has legs and will
continue to work. Hey, people love free content. The key
here is to have content high enough in quality that others
will want to send it to their list.
Organic seo — The rules change frequently. Are you smart
enough and swift enough to keep Google’s love?
Video marketing — Video sites have big traffic. Watch your
roi. Turn your articles into videos and leverage your content.
Pay-per-click marketing — Focus on evergreen strategies.
Find a way to outsource or hire talent so you can scale.
Affiliate marketing — A more difficult game for newbies.
Plays to the strengths of networkers. Still works in niches.
A tough game in the Internet marketing playing field.
Marlon’s Marketing Minute is copyright 2008, Higher Response
Marketing Inc. All rights reserved.
