Saturday, November 29, 2008

How To Increase eBay Sales and Conversions - Make Money

By Thomas Griffin

Long term I always recommend dropshipping from your own website rather than auction and classified websites, mainly because of profit margins. However using auction sites is a great way to build up a customer database and get used to running an online business. eBay is the website of choice for the majority of dropshippers due to the amount of shoppers on eBay, here are 5 really simple ways to increase your conversions (auction listing visitors becoming buyers).

1. Have at least 1 image, and it must be top quality. You must have at least 1 image of your product, this goes without saying. The higher the quality of the image the better, and also the larger the better, this allows potential customers to see the product clearly. If the photo provided by your dropshipper isn't very good you should buy the product and take your own photos (use a bedsheet to create blank background for photos). Taking your own photos can also give you a competitive edge.

2. Make your sales copy well laid out and clearly show each section. Using graphic headers for different sections is a great way to lay out your listing. Sections may include 'Product Description', 'Delivery', 'Returns', 'Guarantees', 'Previous Customer Feedback', 'Payments'. You can create these graphics with free software like Serif PhotoPlus.

3. Offer a wide range of payment options. Always offer paypal, but try and offer as many others as possible. It may be annoying taking cheques to the bank, but it is another transaction for the cashbook and another customer in the database who may buy again!

4. Tell the customer why to buy with you. The visitor doesn't want to know about you personally, they want to know how you can help them and they need to trust you if they are going to buy. So if your postage is '1st class recorded' and dispatched next day then clearly state it! Clearly state your '100% refund if unhappy' promise and also clearly show your positive feedback.

5. Pay attention to the little things. Pay close to attention to the small things and it will remove your listings rough edges and give you a professional listing. Spelling mistakes, bad grammar, ugly font, bad quality graphics and no information on returns all make your listing/business look unprofessional and the visitor will soon be clicking the 'back' button to see what others are selling.

These aren't the sort of tips you need to test and monitor to see if they are having an effect, if you have hundreds of listings running at any one time they WILL increase sales (unless there is something categorically wrong like a bad product/ridiculous price).

Benefits of Being an Affiliate Marketer

By Cynthia Stewart

Affiliate marketing has become one of the most effective ways to advertise online. It is also one of the easiest ways for anyone with a website to make a profit online. Affiliate Marketing is an agreement between a merchant and a website owner. The website owner, or the affiliate, allows the use of their site for the promotion of the merchant's products by linking to the merchant's website. In exchange, the merchant pays a commission to the affiliate on all sales generated by the affiliate. Every time someone clicks on the link on the affiliate website and proceeds to make a purchase, the affiliate gets a commission. The merchant will pay the affiliate only when a customer clicks on the product link and makes a purchase.

Affiliate marketing programs are described as a win-win situation for both the merchant and the affiliate because of the pay-for-performance scheme. Both the merchant and the affiliate enjoy some benefits in affiliate marketing. There are many benefits on the merchant's side. It gives the merchant a wider market in which to advertise a product or service. Affiliate marketing will give the product or service the maximum exposure that it may not get with other traditional advertising techniques. The more affiliate sites a merchant has, the higher the traffic, which can convert to sales. Affiliate marketing is the equivalent of having an army of sales people who will do the advertising and will only get a commission if a customer purchases.

Meanwhile, since an affiliate marketing relationship is a win-win situation, the affiliate also enjoys many benefits. Foremost among these is the easy way to make a profit. The affiliate can earn by having an ad or link to the merchant's website, which prospective customers will hopefully click and proceed to make a purchase. As soon as the customer clicks on the ad on the affiliate's site, is redirected to the merchant's website and goes on to buy that particular product, the affiliate earns a commission. The more referrals there are the more profit for the affiliate.

Affiliate marketing is an excellent way to earn money while at home. There are virtually no production costs. The product is already developed and proven by the merchant, and all you have to do to find, as many prospects as you can that will bring in the profit for both the merchant and the affiliate. Affiliate programs are usually free to join, so affiliates do not have to worry about start-up costs. There are thousands of products and services you can choose from. You can find affiliate programs for every product under the sun. Surely, there is a product or service out there that is relevant to your website.

In addition, there is absolutely no sales experience necessary. Most affiliate programs offer excellent support when it comes to providing marketing material. The simplicity of affiliate marketing allows you to be an affiliate marketer at the least cost and the most comfort. You can even build a successful affiliate marketing business right in the convenience of your own home. In affiliate marketing, your responsibility is simply to find prospects for the merchant; you do not have to worry about inventory, order processing, and product shipping. These, along with customer service support are the duties of the merchant.

Because of the global reach of the internet, you can easily find thousands of prospects. You can intensify your advertising campaign by exploiting more aggressive and productive strategies such as viral marketing. By attracting more prospects, you also maximize your potential to earn. Another benefit of an affiliate marketer is the minimal risk involved. If the product you are advertising is not making money then you can dump it and choose another. There are no long-term binding contracts tying you to products that are not making enough money.

All the same, the best benefit of being an affiliate marketer is the opportunity to increase your income; and you can make a profit even if affiliate marketing is only a sideline business. With your own affiliate business, you can earn easily earn extra income, although you do have to exert effort and use your imagination to maximize your earning potential. Indeed, affiliate marketing is one of the simplest and most effective business opportunities on the web today.

Info - How to Monetize Your Traffic

By Marc Foster

Establish your own e-commerce site is not like what it was. There is thousands of competition that is all too ready to take a greater share of the cake. Each plan and you can find a way to increase revenue would be very beneficial. We must admit to ourselves. We are not going to waste our time and effort just for fun. Many sites would not wait until hell freezes over just to see their profits. Although there are some who takes things lightly, there are always those who would prefer to see the benefit of a given day.

It is common knowledge that without traffic we have no business. Like any business, without any customers you don't get sales. Traffic represents all the people that get a chance to see what you have to offer. The more people who see your products the more people there would be to buy them. Nobody puts up an E-commerce site that doesn't expect profit. We have a start-up capital that needs to be regained. With a consistent traffic, we at least have a fighting chance to achieve that probability. Monetizing your traffic would optimize your chances of making the best out of it.

The best and most proven method of making a profit from their traffic is the use of advertising. Internet brings hundreds of thousands and hundreds of thousands of traffic every day. Most of them are looking for something. While some are just looking for information there is a good percentage that is looking for something they need.

The Internet has proved a very reliable source in the search for what was seen as a very unfathomable. The Internet has made the world smaller, you can advertise a product from the depths of Istanbul, and still find a buyer from downtown Philadelphia. Driving Traffic is not an easy task. You must contend with a large number of sites to generate a lot of traffic flow. But if it is successful could open a Pandora's Box of possibilities. One of the advantages is monetizing your circulation.

So, to get to the core of it the more traffic you generate the more likely you are considered as a desirable, desirable, in a sense that a good traffic flowing site is easily convertible to profit. Basically traffic equals profit. Advertising is the name of the game; with the good advertising scheme you can use your traffic flow to your advantage.

When you have good traffic you have a good number of potential customers, customers that are willing to pour money into your coffers. Other than that these are also traffic that can be redirected to sponsored links that are willing to pay you for a sizeable portion of the traffic that you have generated.

This scheme is called "pay-per-click". With every click a visitor of your site makes on an advertised link you will be paid. The more traffic you generate and the more clicks that happen would spell to more profits. Another method of monetizing your traffic is affiliate programs. You can link up with other tried and tested sites and online companies and monetize your traffic by having a percentage of sales generated by traffic coming from your site.

The basic idea is the traffic generated by your site will go to another place that can offer a product that will not load. Many programs can record and make records of the transactions that were made possible due to the linking site. Affiliates Programs give him the benefit of monetize their traffic without requiring actual performance or promotion of a certain product.

There are many ways and methods to monetize their traffic. All it takes is a little hard work and a desire to launch a successful profit-bearing site. The Internet is a rich source of information, advice and guides many around the world offered in the form of economic benefits of its traffic to your site and make a good source of revenue for profit.

Online marketing: Slaving Away

By Larry Leisure

These days, lots of people are searching for a good quality home based career. A quality home based business could be a potent second income, or an opportunity that could bring you happiness. We will show you some of the choices that can be right for you.

Some of the more outstanding work from home opportunities that you can find are internet opportunities. An internet based job has a lot of good features when compared to different kinds of home based business opportunities. Making your business an online opportunity, you will get many advantages that you won't get in different industries.

I think the most beneficial thing about a well designed online company is that it will work for you all day, all year. That one advantage, alone, makes an online business a fantastic answer when searching for a home based job. Just think about how nice it would be working a business opportunity that generates cash as you're out of the office.

There are a couple of classic types of businesses that one can pick from to earn an income on the world wide web. We will split the list of potential choices into a couple of definitive groups. The categories are 1, being hired by someone, and 2, working for your self.

The initial category will involve the sort of occupation that you get a job, and get paid by, an employer. You will see that there are many types of online based, stay at home, jobs out there for you. Some of the jobs on this list would definitely include, accounting, telemarketing, and consulting.

There is very little required to get just about all of these home based jobs. Obviously, you have to be qualified, or willing to be taught, to accomplish the deeds desired. You certainly will be required to have a phone for the majority of these kinds of online employment opportunities.

The last, and most obvious, thing all workers need is your own computer. If you perform well, most employers like a work from home arrangement. The company is aided not only from your production, and your equipment, but also saves office space.

The second category shows the opportunities that should be for those of you who hope to work for themselves. The list of these careers that are out there are composed of, consulting work affiliate selling, and marketing. This list is only a small sample of the endless variety of choices that can be created.

Choosing any of these opportunities, you will find that you are working for yourself. You will make your own work schedule, and you will be wearing all the hats in your new business. The upside is huge, as are the required efforts, in running your online company.

In most cases, it is advisable to start your new venture as a secondary income. The effect of this will be to ease the pressure while you develop this new opportunity. Afterwards, if you are happy with the results, you will decide if you prefer to change to your new career as your future career.

Home based work opportunities seem to be a great choice to make. Run an investigation, and study all the options that are out there. If you do things right, you will find financial success.

Don't Make These Common 4 Affiliate Mistakes!

By Amy Stewart

Myths concerning affiliate marketing are appealing and attractive. People who do not know the entire system the wrong way round are prone to believing that it is something capable of giving them great fortune overnight. Stories concerning affiliates who earn tremendous amounts of money swim in their heads, and while these stories are as true as they can be, there are those who believe that they are going to have the same fortune once they indulge in this particular business.

It is true enough that affiliate marketing is financially rewarding. People who have gone through everything to be able to succeed in this business are reaping the seeds that they untiringly sowed. Many of them enjoy the kind of existence that was not possible for them to have had under ordinary circumstances. Having gone through the A-Z of affiliate marketing, however, these people are the ones who know that while such business is lucrative, there is absolutely no easy money in it.

Ignorance of this fact is one of the main reasons why there are people who fail miserably in the internet business. There are those who believe in myths concerning the easy money involved in systems such as affiliate marketing. They do not know that there are those who have wasted time, effort and too many resources in trying to pursue the life of ease that they believe this business will give them. And so they go into affiliate marketing armed with nothing but myths and fantastical notions of wealth swimming in their consciousness, never realizing that they bound to make mistakes that would prove to be their downfall.

What may be the reason why in businesses such as affiliate marketing, many are called but few are chosen? Perhaps the answer lies on the fact that many affiliates make mistakes that result from their ignorance of facts concerning how the entire business runs. Affiliate marketing is not as simple as an affiliate promoting a merchant's wares through his website and getting paid for it. It is also about knowing the market and the customers at hand.

Discovering what the most common mistakes affiliates make can perhaps dispel the gloom about myths surrounding affiliate marketing by correcting some wrong notions about it. It might also be able to make those concerned understand that like any other business, there are dos and donts involved in this one if they want to make each of their steps count. The first common mistake affiliates make is their lack of knowledge concerning principles involved in their business. This refers to the affiliate's knowledge of search engines in particular.

Affiliate marketing involves advertising, and advertising through the internet could not have been better without the existence of search engines. What every affiliate has to do is to make these search engines his best friend through studying search engine optimization closely. This way, he is able to know what to do in connection with building a better website to ultimately use for his business.

The second is that affiliates make the mistake of stuffing their sites with banners that do not provide enough information about the product at hand. The best way to battle this mistake is to provide good content hand-in-hand with such banners. It is important for customers to know and understand the features of a product, and good content will be able to help them realize this goal.

The third is that there are affiliates who make the mistake of promoting only one product. Consequently, customers are not given enough options to choose from. There is also the risk of generating fewer sales as compared to having more options for customers ponder about. It is always better to give them a few better alternatives than to give them only one.

The fourth is that there are affiliates who make the mistake of promoting too many products. As a result, customers are confused and end up beyond making a choice. It is perhaps good to give them only the best choices. This is because it is ultimately up to them to judge which one is the best for them to patronize.

All in all, affiliates that are doomed to fail in this business are those who do not exert enough effort to understand everything involved in the industry that they are in. Knowing their path step by careful step will prove to be beneficial to them, as there is no other way to succeed than to go through any path slowly but surely.

Pave Diamond Engagement Ring

By Alice Sy

Diamond connotes beauty, wealth, and power. In ancient times as well as in the modern day setting, this precious stone is considered one of the most expensive possessions a person could ever have. It has been dubbed "a womans best friend and has indeed upheld this label.

As time goes by, diamonds become symbols of perpetuity perhaps due to its robust physical characteristic.

Nowadays, couples exchange diamond rings to show their enduring love for each other. In engagements as well as weddings, diamonds proved to be the most popular, and needless to say, the most expensive. There are many kinds of diamond rings. Each has its unique characteristic to suit a persons style and preference. They also come in different colors and designs to choose from.

Bezel, channel, flush, and burnish are just some of the many settings of a diamond ring.

Of the many decorative variations of diamond rings, pave diamond engagement ring outshines others as it has its unique cunning appearance. How it acquires its facade lies in its pattern.

Taken from a French word which literally means "paved, pave diamond engagement ring has diamonds that are set very close together, without partitions, thereby resembling a cobblestone road. The precious stones are fixed in narrow conical holes and placed in just about equal level with the surface of the ring while its surrounding metals, usually made of white gold or platinum, are mounted forming tiny beads to support and hold these pave-set stones in place.

To enhance the exterior of the pave diamond engagement ring, the metal around these precious stones is impressed with ornamental designs.

Each tiny diamonds fully cut with 58 facets and weighing just a few points, though small in size, contributes a great deal to the overall sparkle of a pave diamond engagement ring. Its intricate, clever pattern makes it look like it has a continuous diamond surface thus it appears bigger than its original size, making it even more captivating and eye catching.

Do You Wish You Could Make a Web Site?

By Phyllis Wheeler

Since the dawn of time, setting up a viable business has never been easier. Through the Internet, you can now tap the world's marketplace from your living room. But here's the problem: you don't know how to make a Web site!

There are other big changes happening as well. For example, job security isn't what it once was. Fewer companies are offering benefits, and the ones that do are charging for them. With all this considered, perhaps you'd like to start a Web site to earn some money. Perhaps you'd even like it to become your mainstay.

But you're not taking the first step. You don't know how! And you think you can't afford it.

There are plenty of tools out there on the Internet that will help you. They are template Web sites that do nearly all the work for you. But there is one problem with them: you don't learn the skills you need to know to manage the site! As a Webmaster you will need to some HTML, the formatting language for Web sites. You'll need to add affiliate links, shopping carts, and clickable ads -- three of the big tools you'll need for earning money on your site.

Learn HTML? Isn't that like learning a programming language? Isn't it hard? The answer is, no it isn't really a programming language. It's a formatting language. And it's really not hard at all. The basic principles are very simple. Here's another bonus for you: you don't need to know very much HTML at all to do what you need to for a simple Web site.

To make your Web site, you will need special software that creates the Web site and the HTML code. Here are your alternatives: Macromedia Dreamweaver, the top of the line at several hundred dollars; Microsoft Front Page, at around $100; and Nvu. Nvu is open-source software, in other words free. Open-source software is maintained by programmers or companies who donate their time, and it's available to anyone at no cost. Why would programmers work for free? Many of them want to provide us with an alternative to Microsoft.

Web hosting is something else you will need that can be costly if you are not careful. Web hosting is renting space on a server. Hosting companies offer fancy solutions for big bucks, and also simple solutions for little money. If you buy both Web hosting and domain registration from the same company, you may get a better deal. Domain registration is reserving your domain name, such as www.mywebsite.com. In fact, you can probably find companies that offer both for as little as $25 per year for a simple Web site. Open a search engine and type in "cheap domain hosting" and see what you find!

One of the products that the Internet has generated in the past couple of years is an e-book. That's information that you pay for and download immediately. It's in the form of a document that you can read from your computer or print out on your printer. In our instant-gratification culture, it's catching on. If you're budget-conscious, plan to use Nvu, and look in the search engines for an e-book on how to use it!