The New eBay?

Hey All,

Its March 31st down under and eBay's new policy of no downloadable items is about to come into affect, lucky for me all my items are now available over at my website www.ausjunk.com, but what about those eBay store ower's who only use eBay to sell there digital goods and don't have a website to fall back on? Well an alternative has arrived and it's name is "Wagglepop".

So what is Wagglepop?

Wagglepop is an auction site just like eBay, you can buy and sell your items the same way you did on eBay and you can even setup your very own store just like on eBay. But the best thing about Wagglepop is it allows you to sell your digital items the same way eBay used to let you. Now at the moment only people living in the US, UK and Canada can sell items on Wagglepop with the rest of us allowed to buy, but I expect that to change very soon once word about this auction site gets out.

Wagglepop is a great site to start selling your digital items on now that eBay no longer allows you to, if you open a store and I would suggest you do then there are no insertion fees, thats right no insertion fees, you only pay a monthly fee of about $10US and a commission on anything you sell. At the moment everything is in US dollars but most people who sold digital items used US dollars anyway. This great alternative to eBay I think will really take off this year as eBay continues to piss there sellers off more and more people will be turning to Wagglepop and sites just like it.

Wagglepop is a very exciting site and is slowing making its self know and I feel a Wagglepop vs eBay fight coming on and its a good thing as well because it provides competition to eBay and thats good news for us sellers because it will give us choice and eBay will have to think about how they treat the people that made there site what it is.

To find out more about wagglepop head to www.wagglepop.com

Till Next Time

P.S. Any comments from people who have used Wagglepop and would like to share there experiences would be greatly appreciated

Digital Items No More On eBay

Hello All

Today I found out some pretty devastating news, after March 31st 2008 digital items can no longer be sold on eBay. That means no ebooks, software, lists of any kind or anything that is downloaded after purchase can be sold on eBay, you can use the classified ads option but what good is that at $9 a pop. Click the link below to read the new policy.

http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200803.shtml#2008-03-24125416

This new policy will be a big blow to eBay in my opinion, think of all the stores and sellers this will put out of business, people make a living out of selling digital items on eBay did they think of that? I sell digital items on eBay but I also sell other items as well but for others this is all they sell now its going to be taken away from them. What legal options can people take once this new policy comes into affect? Can eBay be sued by sellers over loss of business? I'm sure store owners and sellers of digital items will fight this policy and so they should.

eBay was a great site for someone who wanted to start a small online business for not much money selling digital items, now if you want to make a living off eBay you either need heaps of junk lying around the house or you need loads of money to buy bulk loads of stock to sell. Taking away digital items from eBay will only take sellers away from eBay and will be a massive blow to the site in the long run, with all the new changes eBay keeps making people will look away from selling on eBay and look else where. Eventually, hopefully a site similar to eBay will emerge and create competition, just look at Facebook vs Myspace.

For now the digital item age on eBay is over, people looking for digital items will have to go else where and there are plenty of places on the net to get your digital items fix. eBay in my opinion has done the wrong thing with this new policy and only time will tell if this road they have decided to go down will be for better or for worse

Till Next Time

P.S. If your looking for great digital items ebooks etc, head to www.ausjunk.com

Hey There,

Today I received an email about how to use new traffic development techniques and thought I would share it with you guys, enjoy.

Out With the Old (Link Development), In With
the New (Traffic Development)

by Jerry West

I'm not sure when it started, but sometime years ago webmasters
started to focus on things OTHER than traffic to boost their sites.
They would write their content for search engines instead of their
visitors. They would target links on pages not for referral traffic but
for "link juice".

It is time to stop the madness.

Stop aiming for the engines and aim for real, live human beings. Aim
for obtaining traffic and not just the backlinks. Aim for obtaining
authority and not PageRank. Stop aiming for the affections of a
mathematical computation and aim for commendations from
actual breathing individuals.

I feel like Robin Williams, Reality: What a Concept.

Let's discuss the "old methods" and I'll share with you the "new
methods".

Old:

Send out hundreds of reciprocal link emails each day with an
automated program explaining to webmasters how SEO works
and how linking to your brand new website can help "them" in
the search engines. Oh, and it's okay to email them three times
on the same day due to the scraper tool you used gathered
multiple email addresses from one site.

New:

Find sites that are about your topic in general but are missing
pertinent information that you can provide. Think "Outside the Box"
and look to either include your information on their site with a
reference link back to you, or they can refer directly to your site for
more information. Either way, you are getting a link in their content,
instead of a link on a "mile long" links page which benefits no one.

Example:

If you own a site selling photography film, write an in-depth article on
getting the best low light results with examples. Post the article on
your site or on your Blog. Then contact photography clubs explaining
that you have an article on your site that their members might find
useful and you were hoping they would consider including it in their
resources/favorite sites/information section, or they could post a
snippet on their site with a link to your full article. Get enough
camera clubs linking to you and you'll start to see a nice trickle of
visitors from the links, not to mention the windfall of traffic from the
higher placement you'll achieve in Google. After all, that is what we
are after here isn't it? Visitors? Of course it is.

Old:

Buy links on any site with PageRank hoping the engines will see the
links and think "Wow, your site must be great to be linked from such
a popular site." Even better if you can get on the bottom footer on a
large site and get 5,000 links for the price of one. Just find a big
network with a stable of link sellers and buy, buy, buy.

New:

Buying links is fine as long as you do it for the right reasons: traffic.
Ensure that link is placed somewhere on the page where visitors will
actually see it. And if you're going to buy a link, make private deals
with site owners or use brokers who do the same with a very limited
clientele of purchasers. Link brokers who advertise how buying links
from them increases your Google ranking should be avoided.

Example:

If you wouldn't purchase a link if it was "nofollowed", then you have
no business purchasing the link. Buy traffic, not "green pixels". Links
"age" and in order to get the full benefit from links, they must remain
for a long period of time. Many webmasters make the mistake of
jumping from link broker to link broker. This is not a smart approach.
You need consistency. This is also true with off-line advertising. You
just can't do it once and forget it. You have to be consistent in your
advertising so your target audience sees you again and again and
again. Advertising is an investment and you need to treat it as such.

Old:

Write 300 word articles of average to good quality and submit them
to as many article directories as your outsourced staff can manage.
Wash, rinse and repeat over and over and over using the same sig
file in all of the submissions.

New:

Write 800 word articles for sites that accept submissions that publish
based on merit and quality. Just because you know how to fill out a
form shouldn't give you the right to be published. Find out where the
"conversations" are taking place in your market and strive to get in the
middle with your content. Be heard.

Example:

If you own a site that caters to business owners, get an article
published on a site like entrepreneur.com is going to be worth far more
than submitting an article to 30 free article directories. Sure it takes
more time, more effort and is less certain, but the rewards of success
are also much greater. Be sure to ask about linking guidelines within
the article. Most sites are ok with you linking from within an article
provided it isn't biased, repetitive and makes sense.

Old:

Find the top 50 keywords for your sector and write a "thrown
together" article aimed at each one. Don't focus on quality or originality,
just regurgitate the same information available on every other site.
Headline: 'How to find online deals on discount widgets.' Yawn.

New:

Find the top 50 keywords for your sector and write an interesting
piece that relates to the topic in an unusual fashion that won't bore
people to death if they bother to read past the first paragraph. Give
something of value, something people can relate to and that they will
notice you by.

Example:

If you have a content site focusing on widgets, contact the big
companies who make them and ask what their media policies are for
an interview about their newest product or their company in general.
You get new, unique content no one else has (because you've
created the questions) and people are far more likely to link to a
page showing an interview with ABC Widgets talking about their new
widget development techniques than a page talking about how great
(yawn) ABC Widgets are.

Old:

Submitting press releases for no reason aside from getting your site
another inbound link from the press release distribution network of
sites.

New:

Waiting until you have a newsworthy topic (or creating one) and
submitting a carefully crafted press release focused on getting media
attention and making sure it is viewable in all the big news engines.

Example:

If you have a site selling 16 different brands of the same widget,
create a comparison engine that allows users to select four widget
brands and see a comparison between them. Then create a press
release that mentions how your site developed this 'propriety
technology' to help consumers of widgets and how your site is the
only site in the industry offering such a service. Cross your fingers
and hope a reporter gets interested. At worst, you get a ton of traffic
when people search your topic at a news engine.

Old:

Submitting your site to 200 free directories and a handful of paid
directories with decent PageRank in an effort to increase your link
count.

New:

Not wasting your time unless the directory itself has a large following
or page view tallies (meaning it will send traffic).

Example:

Submit a test site (or simply take a look at the logs of a website
following the tired tradition) and after six months, take a look at the
total referrals from your logs. Anything that doesn't produce a valued
amount of traffic or sales (depending on your objective) should be cut
from the list. You'd be better off during those 2 days of submitting to
those directories to put that time to good use on another method that
will actually bring you visitors with disposable income. Sound
familiar? It should. I have been pushing this for a long time. It isn't
about PageRank, it's all about referral traffic. That is how you become
great, and if a site isn't giving it to you, then why are you still in bed
with them?

Old:

Deciding on ten keyword phrases and developing links to fit within
that mold (having all of your links using one of your top ten phrases).
Contacting webmasters who don't link exactly how you asked and
demanding they change it immediately.

New:

Encouraging extreme variety in anchor text of your inbound links and
letting people link to you using whatever anchors they feel necessary.
Remove the "constraints" and focus more on the relationship with the
webmaster for possible future dealings.

Example:

Stop sending out pre-written anchor text in requests for links. Let the
site owner know about your site and if they choose to link to you, do
so using whatever anchor text they feel necessary. There is no better
way to accrue *natural* anchor text than by letting people label your
anchor with whatever they deem fit. Site owners know how to speak
to their readers and how to make them interested.

Old:

Making "hit and run" forum posts to get a handful of backlinks apiece
from 50 different domains.

New:

Finding one (or a few communities) and becoming a regular, valid and
helpful contributing member. This can turn into a larger role with the
community directory, expanding your reach and authority in the
market.

Example:

By making yourself at home at a limited number of places, you give
yourself time to really contribute and be a visible and useful member.
Rather than grabbing a few links on various identifiable forum domains,
you build up a reputation (aka trust) which gets you a good amount
of traffic through your profile or signature. This traffic will be very
targeted since you will be posting to people on a forum relating to
what you do or sell. Your post can also fuel more buzz as someone
may go post on their blog that you did a great post on widget making,
linking your name to your site and widget making to the appropriate
forum thread.

Old:

Button pushing to get thousands and tens of thousands of automated
links on blogs, guestbooks and forums.

New:

People pushing via hiring people to help out with traffic development
efforts and ideas.

Example:

Blind mass links are becoming extinct. Spend the efforts of your
programmers on developing useful tools for consumers/site visitors and
employ people to write great, quality content rather than buying cheap
links from reciprocal link farms. You can get a lot more "long term"
bang for your buck and it will get you visitors who appreciate your
content, not angry victims of comment spam looking for ways to dig
your heart out with a spoon.

Old:

Creating a blog on a free subdomain to put up nothing more than posts
about how great your products are and linking to yourself freely in
each one.

New:

Creating a blog that has real value and traffic attraction on your own
domain (or a separate domain if branding is an issue) which leads
readers into the commercial area of your site during opportunities
within posts or the blog design where it makes sense.

Example:

If you sell widgets, make an accompanying blog that acts as a review
center for ALL widgets. Be fair and include all products whether or not
you sell them. Do a writeup of each product that acts as a general
'spec' overview and allow users to leave reviews in the comments
section and link in to the products you *do* sell where appropriate.

========================

That's it for this time, and many thanks to Jerry!

Free Advertising Methods

Hey There,

In my last post I talked about using the website "Box" as a way to deliver your e-books, in todays post I'm going to give you some free methods on getting traffic to your websites or blog, so you can start selling your e-books.

Method 1. Link Referral Sites

Link referral sites are sites which allow you to put up a link in exchange for a link on your site back to the hosting site. Most of these link exchange sites are free to use but usually require you to earn credits by clicking on websites to get your site higher up in the ranks to get more potential hits. These sorts of sites are good and easy to use and can give you anywhere from 1 to 100 hits a day, but in order to achieve success with this method requires time and patients. some link exchange sites are: Linkreferral Trafficera Trafficswarm

Method 2. Safe List

Safe Lists are just email lists but are free to use. These safe lists allow you to send out emails to on average a thousand email addresses every 3 days, you can do this everyday if your willing to pay but I suggest starting with the free method to see if it works for you. The down side with this method is you may not get as many hits as say using the link exchange because of people thinking your emails are spam, also if using this method create an email address completely dedicated to it because you will receive hundreds of emails from these sites. Some safe list sites are: World Global Safelist Mad Vlad

Method 3. Pixel Advertising

Pixel advertising was invented by a guy named Alex Tew from England, he sold tiny little squares for hundreds of dollars and made millions from it, since then hundreds of these sites have popped up on the net and whats even better they provide free advertising. All these sites require is a picture, tag and email then your done, most of the free pixel sites give you around a month free advertising but once it expires you can simply renew. These ads can give you good quality traffic and really boost your sites presence on the net. Some free pixel sites are: Milliondollarbuzz Pixelzone Pixelsitelinks

Well thats it for this week I hope these methods can help in someway to get hits and potential buyers to your site

Till Next Time

Delivering Your E-books

Hey There,

Today I'm going to tell you a way to deliver your e-books without any fuss or hassles and it wont cost you anything. The method I'm talking about is by using online storage, now there are many online storage sites on the net but there's one in particular that I would like to talk about and it's called "Box". Box is an online file storage site which allows users to sign up for 1gig of free online storage to distribute there files, 1gig is more then enough to store your first lot of e-books you wish to sell or give away, and if you run out of storage space you can just open a new account, it's that easy. This method is a great way to distribute your e-books to customers its quick and simple and there's no messing around with email or auto responders

Box is the site which I store all my e-books on, for for my website and my eBay site, although you can only upload files no bigger then 10MB under a free account Box still offers a lot for someone who wants something for nothing. Features that I love with box is every file you upload on to there site comes with its own address, so if your selling e-books on eBay or your website customers only get access to what they pay for and not your entire library, which some other storage sites do not prevent.

Other great features of using Box is OpenBox Services, you can bring the power of web applications directly into your existing Box account. Edit photos and images online with Picnik, work on your Word and Excel files using Zoho, publish documents for the whole world to see through Scribd, send your documents signed with EchoSign, and much more.

In closing Box is great for online business such as mine who want to easily and quickly distribute products to customers, plus its ad free so you or your customers wont be annoyed by pop-ups and obnoxious ads. If you want to check out the Box website then click here

Till Next Time

P.S. Don't Forget To Download Your Free E-book Gift "Untold Adsense Facts"