Category Archives: Guest Posts

Why Moving From eBay to Etsy Was The Best Thing I Ever Did

My name is Stuart Turnbull and today I’d like to share my story of how and why I switched my eBay business to Etsy.

I started selling on eBay way back in 2004 and found it to be an exciting and lucrative income stream. I loved connecting with buyers from around the world and watching my auctions fly to unbelievable prices as the bidders fought over my items!

I’m sure you remember how much fun it was selling on eBay back then before they decided they needed to move towards the Amazon business model and in doing so they alienated small sellers like you and me.

A gradual decline in my sales followed as eBay became dominated by the big retailers.

Never ending rule changes and fee increases plus the introduction of the Cassini search engine which tended to hide small seller’s listings led to my decision to look for an alternative platform to sell my items. (BTW I sell vintage book prints – you can read more about my business here).

At the back end of 2013 I decided to open a shop on Etsy and I began by listing my items simultaneously on eBay and on Etsy.

The results of this experiment shocked me – my new Etsy listings began to sell almost immediately and soon outpaced my eBay sales by 10 to 1 – my decision was a simple one – I closed down my eBay business and moved it lock, stock and barrel to Etsy!

You may have considered Etsy yourself but been put off thinking the platform is exclusively for handmade goods – this is absolutely NOT the case.

Etsy is indeed the world leading platform for handmade but it is also a vibrant and rapidly growing marketplace for vintage (anything 20+ years old) and craft supplies (anything that can be used to create handmade items).

In fact, Etsy has a buzzing marketplace for digital products – they even host your digital products free of charge! – do you remember the good old days on eBay before they banned digital goods?

Etsy is so much SIMPLER than eBay – with no selling restrictions on new sellers and just one site providing world-wide exposure. There is just one set of selling fees regardless of what you sell and these fees work out 80% CHEAPER than eBay’s!!

Today I make multiple daily sales and the great buyer/seller interaction makes it feel like eBay did a decade ago!

If you have yet to try Etsy for yourself (or you have opened your Etsy shop with limited success) I am more than happy to hold your hand and teach you the ropes – I have learned lots of tricks and techniques for growing a successful Etsy business over the last few years and I’d love to share them all with you – CLICK HERE to find out how you too can put the fun AND profit back into your online sales – and as a special ‘THANK YOU!’ for reading this post I have created a limited time coupon code to give you HALF OFF my course!

Please use the code – ‘halfprice’ at checkout.

Here’s to a successful online future for us all!

Stuart Turnbull

This is a guest post written by Stuart Turnbull. If you’d like to be considered for a guest post contact me.

[Guest Post] Great Advice From Sherry Hamilton!

My Favorite Darth Vader Quote…
“When I left you I was but the learner. Now I am the master.”

6 years ago, these words would have left me feeling reluctantly incapable. I had never touched a computer or been on the internet and I definitely knew nothing about Internet Marketing! Then I put on my research hat and decided that not knowing just was not good enough for me, anymore. Today, I feel that the learner in me can qualify to advance to teacher. This is what I feel any Internet Marketer should know…

First and foremost, if you want to work online, take yourself seriously. Work for you better and harder than you would for any other employer. Make a schedule, put in the hours and hold yourself accountable. Set some goals and don’t let anything get in the way of completing each task towards those goals. Find a mentor or a coach who can guide you through the steps to success.

Secondly, expect to invest into your business and education for your chosen niche. Be serious and become as competent in the field as you can be. Learn from others and pass on what you learn. Pay it forward, helping everyone along the way.Buy tools and software that can make your work easier or time-saving, and even learn how to outsource jobs that can be done by someone else.

Most importantly, do not be scared to fail! This is how you become stronger and more knowledgeable in many other areas that help you succeed. Do not compare yourself to anyone you perceive to be better than yourself. You have your own skill set which will be valuable to someone. The best qualification you can have as an employee of your very own business is to never ever quit. Success is always right around the corner…lol.

In order to master your business you must create a step by step system that you can complete over and over again, creating success modules that walk you up each level of achievement. Before you know it, you are successful…earning an income…and teaching others. When you have enough time and money on your hands that you can affect the world for the better, this is when you know you have accomplished Mastery!

Sherry Hamilton
http://videostock.io/bestvideos/

Marketing and Traffic with Pinterest!

marketing-pinterestWhen a new social media platform emerges, it can leave Internet users awestruck and create a buzz with people wondering how they managed without it.

With Facebook people can connect with friends and stay updated; with Twitter people receive regular news updates, and with YouTube people find videos that go viral extremely fast.
The ability to share information found on the Internet enables users to plan, set goals, and recommend interesting products. It should come as no surprise, then, that Pinterest is fast becoming a top social networking tool. Launched in 2010, Pinterest is a service that allows users to bookmark or “pin” links of interest and categorize them onto custom “boards” on a person’s account. Pinterest users can follow other accounts and comment on entries, like them in the same way as a Facebook page, and “repin” entries to any of their own boards. One can also shift Pinterest activity to Twitter and Facebook profiles for extra exposure.

Of course, with the advent of new social innovation comes the interest among businesses to use it as a marketing tool. Whether your intent is to promote products, travel options, or even a professional service, the potential for attracting attention via Pinterest is there. One only has to be able to use the site effectively.
With Pinterest, you are looking at specific objectives for achieving high visibility:
• Gaining followers so pins from your boards show when they log in.
• Encouraging people to re-pin your entries to their boards and creating opportunity for viral sharing.
• Encouraging click-throughs on the entries to the site of origin.
This visibility will hopefully increase leads and sales to your business. As with other social tools, it may only take one event to create viral interest.
On Pinterest you can let your creativity shine by creating boards that inspire followers. You can create multiple boards that focus on different aspects of your business.
Whether Pinterest will supercede Twitter and Facebook as the main social platform is yet to be determined. It is certainly the hot new kid on the block right now, and if you are able to build a following through Pinterest it will help you to interact with users well.

On that note, I came across this great course –  Simple Pinterest Traffic System.
This is a six module video course created to teach everything you need to know to use Pinterest effectively to get targeted traffic.
I’d highly recommend it if you’re wanting to learn all about Marketing and Traffic with Pinterest

As usual, please share your love with the social sharing to the left and below if you liked this post, and please let me know your comments too.

Regards,

Dave.

P.S. I also created another post titled Pinterest…So What’s it All About? that you may enjoy!

 

Important Tips on How to Drive Free Targeted Traffic to Your Website!

important-traffic-tips

Hey guys,

I wanted to take the time to share with you a few tips that I have learned over time regarding driving free targeted traffic to your website. These tips will enable you to save money and earn more money…which is always a good thing.

1. Get listed on the major search engines

You want to make sure that your site is listed on the Big Three search engines: Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Rather than wait for the search engine crawlers to find your site, submit it directly to the search engine yourself. Then be sure to check back a few weeks later to see whether your site appears in the search engine results.

a. Google

Google’s URL submit is very quick and easy.  Just go to Google’s web page for URL submitting, type in your URL, type in the message that ensures Google you are an individual not a software robot and click “add URL.” You can also submit your site map to Google via their Webmaster Tools.

b. Yahoo!

Since 2010, Yahoo search has been powered by Microsoft’s Bing search engine. When you submit your site to Bing you will also show up in Yahoo’s search results. See below on how to submit your site to Bing.

Yahoo! Directory also has a paid submission process.  The cost is $299 annually for each directory listing that you submit.   We recommend submitting your site to the Yahoo! Directory if you are a commercial site.  Yahoo! guarantees that your submission will be reviewed within seven business days.  If your listing is accepted, the annual fee will reoccur in subsequent years.

c. Bing

Bing allows you to submit your URL, just like Google and Yahoo!.  Go to Bing’s site submission page, type in the URL of your homepage (this is different than Google and Yahoo!).  MSNBot will follow the links from your homepage to all of the pages on your site.  Bing also requires you to identify yourself as a person, not an automated program, by typing the characters that you see in the picture.

2. Use keywords effectively – Site Optimization

It is important to optimize your site. There are cases whereby a site can be up and running effectively, but it does not enjoy much traffic. The major factor that leads to this scenario is that the site is not optimized in the right way. To have improved ranking in the search engines, it is crucial to have a site that has focused keywords and the keywords placed in the meta tags in a strategic manner. The keywords should also be placed in the headlines of the pages and placed in the first paragraph of the text.

It is also advisable to place the keywords in the names of the file. Optimization in websites is nothing but placing the keywords and other phrases in the right place. Do your homework to find keywords that fit in with the niche market you are trying to target. Then make sure that your web copy includes them. Great free resources are:

3. Include long tail keywords in your web copy

Long tail keywords are groups of words that form a phrase, as opposed to single keywords. While you should include single keywords in your web copy, you should also structure some of your web pages around longer phrases. The reason for doing so is that the more specific the search term, the more targeted the level of traffic it will drive to your site.

4. Relevant Content

Another thing that a website owner should do to increase traffic is to have as much relevant content as possible in the website. This is a strategy that many site owners tend to ignore, but is very crucial. Having a lot of content in a website helps because the inside pages of a website works like a mini-website, meaning that they act as the entry point in which many people will do their search and which the website can be viewed in search engines. Many pages that have optimized content lead to increased chances of the website being visited or found. Therefore, having much content is one of the ways to drive traffic in your website.

5. Add a news feed to your web site

Adding a news feed containing stories that are relevant to your niche market is another effective strategy that you can use to drive targeted traffic to your web site. By offering your market resources like the news feed that gives them information that they need, you can draw in exactly the kinds of people who are most interested in your products.

The news feed is updated regularly, which means search engine crawlers are kept busy indexing your site on a regular basis. The higher search engine rankings that this strategy will bring means that the people who want to find the kind of quality information that your site offers will be able to find it more easily.

6. Link Building

Another way to increase traffic in your website is to have a high number of inbound links in your website. This helps by ensuring that other websites in the internet have a link to your website which leads to increased traffic on the website. The increased traffic in this case occurs because those surfers who find the links end up clicking through and visiting your website. The popularity that a site is given by links makes it enjoy a higher ranking in the search engines that determines the popularity of a link. Most of the Google search results are mostly determined by the amount of inbound links used in the websites. You can add Inbounds links in your websites by searching for directories where addition url can be made using forms found on the sites.

7. Offer a product for free

On the face of it, this may seem counterproductive. You are looking for ways to increase sales, so why would you give something away? Giving away a short report is a way to create a feeling of goodwill with your prospective customers.

These are just a few tips so that you can use to drive free targeted traffic to your site.  There are many more ways that you can drive free targeted traffic to your site. My friend Joshua Mason wrote a comprehensive eBook called Website Traffic Code that reveals top internet marketing secrets that will enable you to drive tons of targeted traffic your way. The best part is you can Download Website Traffic Code For Free Here.

5 Essential WordPress Beginner Tips

5 Essential WordPress Beginner Tips

Hey guys,

I’ve got a great post from you here, it’s a guest post from Erfan Shahedi.

Check it out, there’s some GREAT content that can really help you with WordPress…

Over the last few years the popularity of using WordPress to build websites has sky rocketed.

But What Is WordPress Anyway?

WordPress started out as a simple blog creation tool, but its flexibility has meant it is now being used for creating many different types of sites. Whether you need a simple one page website, a large dynamic site, a blog, a content-based site or an ecommerce website, WordPress is a great platform choice.

If you haven’t set up a WordPress site before, start off by downloading the code (free of charge) from WordPress.org. It takes just a few minutes to install the software onto your server. To get off on the best start possible, here are 5 tips all WordPress beginners should know.

1. Powerful Plugins.
One of the greatest benefits of WordPress is the vast array of available plugins that can add countless new features to your site. Ironically this can also be one of the biggest problems with WordPress. The ease at which you can install plugins, means that it is easy to end up with duplicated functionality or simply plugins that are not being used anymore. As the WordPress software is updated over time, plugins can cause compatibility issues if they are not actively maintained. A badly written plugin can slow down your site or open up security holes.

When choosing a plugin always check that it has:

  • Lots of user – Read some reviews so you’re aware of any potential issues.
  • A good rating – Does it have a 4 star rating or higher?
  • An active developer – Check out the developer’s website.
  • Compatibility with your version of WordPress.

2. Stop Spam.
You most likely want comments enabled, so that you have another avenue to communicate with your audience. Plus it helps with SEO. Unfortunately you will soon realise comment spam is a big problem. Even on a low traffic site you will receive a lot of unwanted spam that you will have to go through to find the genuine input from your readers. Fortunately you can use the Akismet plugin to block the majority of spam comments before they hit your WordPress dashboard. If you could only have one plugin on your site this would be it.

3. SEO Strategy.
Search engine optimisation (SEO) will be important to your site especially in the long-term. Get off on the right foot by installing a SEO plugin such as All In One SEO. Think about what a reader might type in a search engine when deciding the title for a new post or page. Though always remember the actual content of your site should cater to your readers first and foremost (not the search engines).

4. Site Security.
Never leave anything to chance. Make sure you have a solid backup procedure in place in case disaster strikes. You need back all the contents of the WordPress folder on your server and the database that is linked to your site. You could use a plugin to simplify and even automate this process. BackUpWordPress is a great choice for a backup plugin. If you use Dropbox, this plugin is good alternative to consider.

Websites being hacked is increasingly becoming an issue. A good first step to keeping your site safe and secure is to always keep your version of WordPress up to date. You will automatically be notified in the dashboard when a new update is available. Also you should keep your plugins updated as well and remove them completely if they are no longer used. Better WP Security is one of the best plugins you can use to further protect your site. Though you should read the instructions very carefully and backup your site before installing it.

5. Practical Permalinks
A Permalink refers to the URL you see in the address bar of your browser (which doesn’t change over time) for a particular webpage. Google, Yahoo and Bing use the permalinks to find out what the content of a webpage is about. However, the default URLs for your WordPress blog posts and pages, are not optimised for SEO. Watch this video to learn how to change the permalink appearance, to fix this issue.

Videos are a great way of quickly learning new concepts and skills. If you would like to see more WordPress tutorial videos check out:

WPBlogHowToVideos.com

 

Erfan @ TheInfoMarket