3 Interesting Ideas to Make Money on ebay

Tuesday, September 11, 2007


1) Sell Used Cell Phones on ebay
The demands for used cell phones with brand names like Nokia, Motorola, Kyocera, Alltel, Ericsson, Sprint, etc in ebay are pretty high. Many of the used cell phones auctions in ebay usually attract bids.

So how to find used cell phones to profit on ebay?
Many people change their cell phones every year. If you are one of them, probably you already have 2 or 3 used cell phones kept at home that can sell on ebay. Your friends may also keep a few of old phones left unused. You can buy from them and resell on ebay.

To get a consistent supply of cell phones, you may think about placing classified ads in newspaper states that you pay money for used cell phone. You shouldn't pay much when buying used cell phones. Do a little research on ebay to find out how much used cell phones are generally selling. If a used cell phone sell at a price of $50 in ebay, you should pay not more than 30% of the price to buy it. If the phone is a recent model you can pay little more and cut a little if it is old and nothing special.

2) Sell Used How-to Books
Used how-to books are quite easy to find and inexpensive to buy. They can be bought at $1.00 or less. You can buy how-to books from thrift shops, estate sales, used book stores, yard sales, etc and sell them in ebay for high profit margin. You can also get how-to books from Book Sale Finder. Here are the type of books you should look for:

Hobbies
Photography, blacksmithing, clock building & repair, woodworking, magic, treasure hunting, iron work, pipe smoking, dog training, antiques, coins, buttons, medals, drawing, painting, craft making, dolls, pottery, etc.

Home and Garden
Home decorating, home remodelling, garden trellis, etc.

Misc
How to repair (watch repair, door repair, pipe repair), how to play, lost treasure, eary aviation, etc.

When you list your books in ebay, you can either list them in the "Book" category of ebay or in the subject specific category of ebay. For instance, If you are selling a book related to home decorating, you may be making more profit if you list the book under the "Home Deco" within the "Home & Garden" category of ebay campare to listing the book under "Book"

3) Sell Gift Cards

Gift card is another profitable market in ebay. There are many people possess gift cards but not everyone of them will use their gift cards. If you can offer to buy these unused gift cards for a price at 20% or less of the value of the gift certificates, they will sell to you. You can advertise your offer in local newspaper, penny shop and trading post. You are looking for gift cards that are still valid (not yet expire). Most gift cards have a toll-free number on the back you can dial to check whether the cards are still valid.

When determining the buy and sell price of a gift card, you should do some research on ebay. Try to look for auction that sell the similar card. See how much the card sells in the auction and set you buying price at 40% to 50% of the selling price of the auction. The starting bid and winning bid of the auction can also give you an idea on how much your card can sell on ebay.

7 Ways to Make Money Online Without Involving Internet Marketing


There are plenty of ways of making money on the net without requiring Internet marketing knowledge and I have introduced a number of them in the previous posts of this blog. For easier searching, I decided to combine them into this post. Here are them:

Work Online for Others
Guru.com and Elance.com are freelance marketplaces with tons of online job opportunities. Getting an online job through freelance marketplace is similar to getting an offline job, it involves competitions. You search for an online job that is right for you in freelance site, then you bid for the job. If your bid is the lowest, the employer will usually award the job to you.

Another site offers online job opportunities is Clicknwork.com. Unlike freelance marketplaces, there are no bidding competitions involved. They will assign the work to you. But to become their home-based professionals or workers, you must pass a difficult test.

Submit Articles for Cash
If you are passionate about writing, you may submit your articles to the below sites for publication and earn cash for each article published:

Developershep.com/writers.php - Accept articles related to web development and Internet marketing.
Associatedcontent.com (AC) - You become their member and submit articles in wide array of topics for payment consideration. Available to US only.
Newsforge - Pay $100 to $300 for each article about Linux, open source and free software.

Try Companies Offers
The concepts are simple. You join a website that contains a list of offers you can sign up or try. For each offer completed and approved, you'll be credited an amount of money into your account. Most of the offers available to US residents only. Treasuretrooper.com is one of the programs allows you to earn by completing offers.

Submit Photos and Images to Photo Agencies
Web designers, magazines and press need new photos and images often. They will look for photo marketplaces and agencies to buy photos that fit their need. You can submit your photos and images to these agencies and they will sell the photo and images for you. Below are some of the photo agencies:

www.dreamstime.com/sell
http://submit.shutterstock.com
www.scoopt.com

Write Products Reviews
Have something to say about the products and services you have used? Send your product comment to products reviews websites. If they decide to publish your review, you'll be paid.

Softwarejudge.com - Reviews software and online games.
Reviewstream.com - Plenty of product categories to review.

Be a Paid Bloggers
Here are the blog networks you can apply for a blogging position:

www.creative-weblogging.com
www.b5media.com/jobs
www.knowmoremedia.com/write-for-us.html

Upload Videos
Large video sharing websites like Metacafe and Break willing to pay people for uploading interesting videos such as funny, amazing and entertaining videos. You can earn hundreds to thousands of dollar, if your original video attracted tons of views in these video sites.

AdSense Tips That You Might Have Missed Out On

Monday, September 10, 2007

Google AdSense program is one of the best online advertising programs that are
in use today. AdSense program is beneficial to all the involved parties i.e. the
advertisers, the website owners and the website visitors. The popularity of
AdSense program seems to be the most among the second group i.e. website
owners. A number of website owners today use AdSense Ads on their websites
in order to earn good revenue on a regular basis. They use a number of tricks
and tips in order to maximize their revenues.
Besides the regular tips, there are some other AdSense tips which a number of
people miss out on unless they are very careful:
1. Use multiple ad units: Google allows you to use up to 3 ad units and one
link unit per web page. Since your revenue earnings are dependent on ad
clicks and ad impressions, a higher number of ad units can potentially
increase your AdSense earnings. However, do not go with the maximum
allowed ad units if you don’t have enough content on your web page; this
might offend the website visitors.
2. Use wider Ad format: Though Ad formats yield different results for
different websites, the wider Ad formats (like rectangles) are generally
known to be more effective than their narrower counterparts (there is a
scientific explanation for this, but we can leave that out since we are more
concerned with the results).
3. Limit the filters: Filters are useful for blocking the Ads that you don’t want
displayed on your website e.g. Ads of competitors. However, too many
filters can seriously limit your revenue earning potential from AdSense
Ads. So, limit the use of filters to minimum.

Top 4 Tips For Getting The Best Results From Your AdSense

Now we come to some of the most interesting bits about AdSense program. Here
we will talk about some tips that can help you enhance your AdSense revenue.
After all, “It’s all about money”…
The revenue that you earn from Google AdSense program is totally dependent
on you and your abilities. Here are some tips that you can use to get the best
results from your AdSense Ads:
Use channels: Channels help you in conducting a better analysis of the
performance of your AdSense Ads. You can use custom channels to
check what web pages are making more revenue and which ones are not
doing so well. In fact, custom channels can be used for conducting
analysis on multiple aspects at the same time. You can use this analysis
for making amendments to your AdSense Ads or website content in order
to get better results.
Ad customization and positioning: Shape, Size and color are the three
properties of your AdSense Ads that you can easily control and customize
in a way that the Ads don’t look out of place when served on your website.
You can either make your Ads stand-out from the rest of the content on
your webpage or you can make them blend with the overall webpage.
Moreover, you can identify the hot spots on your website and position your
Ads accordingly. Ad customization and Ad positioning are, in fact, the best
ways to attract more clicks to your AdSense Ads.
Content quality: ‘The best generally overcomes the rest’ – is a very true
saying. If you host quality content on your website and provide regular
updates to your visitors, you can expect more traffic to your website. This
will in turn lead to more ad impressions and possibly more clicks.
Use AdSense Ads on all pages: If you have multiple web pages on your
website, you should include AdSense Ads on all of them. Since the visitors
can enter your website through a number of different pages, having
AdSense Ads on all the pages will surely increase your earnings.

7 Ways to Increase Your Affiliate Commission - Part 2

Sunday, September 9, 2007

Creating a blog
How does a blog help? Having a blog on your website means fresh content on the website. Fresh content drives traffic to the website. Have reviews of the affiliate products on the blog and also your affiliate links. People will read these reviews and click on the links, thus increasing affiliate commissions through an increase in affiliate sales. You can also aim at having a separate blog, where you have fresh content and redirect visitors to your website.

Targeting the right market
You should aim at advertising your affiliate products to the right market. Advertising your acne affiliate product to an IM niche will not yield good results. The most cost effective way of getting the right people to your affiliate product is finding forums related to your affiliate product or social networking sites targeted at the correct niche. These are the places where your market is usually found. This will bring targeted traffic to your affiliate product, which will result in more sales.

Creating a list and ezine
Creating a mailing list is very crucial to being a successful affiliate. Once you have a mailing list, an ezine becomes a powerful way of promoting your affiliate program to your subscribers. Bring out an ezine that is related to the affiliate program you are promoting. You can have an ezine sent out weekly, where you will be promoting affiliate product related to the content of the ezine. Over a period of time, since these people are used to getting some good info from you, they will begin trusting you, and in turn look at products being promoted by you. This is a great way of increasing affiliate commissions.

Cloaking affiliate links
This may not be a direct way of increasing affiliate sales, but a way of ensuring that you don’t lose any sales. Yes, losing sales is common in the affiliate business. It is also considered to be very unprofessional displaying affiliate IDs. By cloaking, I mean that you do not display the affiliate ID that is used to get you commissions. If you have a website, you don’t have to worry about this, but if you don’t, then there are several ways of cloaking your affiliate IDs.

One way is to buy a domain name related to the product that you are promoting and then using domain forwarding to mask the affiliate links. Alternatively, you will find software that masks the affiliate links for you. You will find plenty of such softwares if you search on Google. There are also several free cloaking sites that help you cloak your links for free.

By following the above steps for promoting your affiliate programs, you will see your commissions increase and you will start making money through affiliate programs immediately.

7 Ways to Increase Your Affiliate Commission - Part 1

Affiliate program promotion is a most rewarding and easy way of earning money online. You don’t have to be very knowledgeable or experienced, to be successful at affiliate marketing. This is a great way of earning residual income.

Many people don’t make the sort of commissions that can be made with affiliate marketing. It would help to understand the different routes one can take to earn huge affiliate commissions.

Article writing and distribution
With article writing, you can promote your affiliate programs very effectively and earn money. High quality and informative articles should be submitted to all the good article directories, like Ezine articles, which has a high PR. These articles will appear on search engines like Google, when people search for information related to your article. Writing articles and having a link to your website in the signature box helps drive huge amounts of traffic to your website, as long as you ensure your articles are attention-grabbing and your bio has a strong call to action. Just make doubly sure not to link directly to the affiliate product, as many top directories don’t allow this. It’s best to have your own website. Since you are going to be advertising your affiliate link on the website, there will be a huge increase in the number of sales and the end result is an increase in your affiliate commissions.

Multiple keywords in articles
Having multiple keywords related to your affiliate program in the articles, helps you rank higher in the search engines like Google for those keywords. If your affiliate program is related to making money online, you can have keywords like “make money from home”, “make money working online”, “make money working from home”, “earn money online” etc. When people who are looking to make money online, type any of the related key phrases, your article will show up at the top of the search engine. If you rank high for at least 3 key phrases related to your business instead of just one key phrase, your traffic will increase tremendously and so will your affiliate commissions. This is a very powerful technique that will certainly increase your affiliate commission.

Ad campaign personalization
To earn more commissions from affiliate programs, it would help to offer your visitors something more than just the affiliate program. Do not ever rely solely on your affiliate program website as a good way of promotion. Personal touch matters and will help get you more affiliate commissions in the long run. You can make a list of the particular market products and see what people are looking for. Do not refer them directly to the merchant’s website. It would do good to give something like a ‘quick start guide’ to gain the visitor’s attention. Many people may not know much about the affiliate program being promoted by you, so your guide, which will explain things will be helpful. This gives a feeling that you care. This will sky rocket the affiliate sales.

Unique Idea to Make Money On ebay (Part 2)

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Marketing Your Service
To make money you need to have customers. You are going to go out and find customers. Don’t worry, it is not very difficult. I believe you can do it. Here are 2 methods to find customers for your business.

Post Your Flyer
Look for a local shop that can prints out 500 copies of your flyer. The cost should be anywhere between $20 to $40. Then go out to post your leaflets through 500 letterboxes. You can start with your own area to post your leaflets. After you have posted all the leaflets, all you need to do is wait for calls.

Once you received your first call, you are going to arrange to meet your first customer. You will meet your customer at their home as the items usually placed at their homes. Bring your digital camera and a notebook. Be cheerful and polite with anyone you meet.

Take a few shots on the item using your digital camera. You can get good results in daylight, but using the flash. Record as much detail about the item as possible like make, serial number, model and other details. Make sure you have agreed the following things with your customer:

  • The selling price of the item
  • How much commission you’ll charge and how much money the owner will receive.
  • The item must not advertise for sell during the period you are trying to sell the item on ebay.
  • Who will pay the shipping fee? You, the owner or the buyer
  • Who will send the item once it was sold

Establish a good relationship with your customers. Make them trust you and they are likely do business with you again.

Another marketing method is to buy a copy of all your local newspapers and start checking at the ads section in all the newspapers and look for the ads that offer items for sell. You are going to contact the sellers to tell them you can sell their items for them for a fee. You can contact them using phone. Is this a sales call? Yes it is. If you don’t like to do that, there is another option. Use your leaflets. Send them to the sellers to offer your service. You may found many items for sell, but you should not contact each of the item’s seller to offer your service as not every item will make you profit. Here are some tips on what kinds of items you should pick to sell for the sellers:

  • Small items with value more than $100.
  • Jewelry and metals.
  • Collectables and antiques.

Listing You Items on ebay
After your customer agrees all the terms and conditions and let you sell the item. It is time to list the item on ebay for sale. You will be uploading a picture (pick the best picture) of the item to ebay, write an attractive title and a description.

Start with an auction listing instead of fixed price listing to allow ebay visitors to bid for your item and this can make your selling price go higher. Try not to set your starting price too high as people in ebay tend to like bargains. They prefer to bid for an item with a low starting price.