I’ve seen them, and know about them too.Â� But never in my wildest, weirdest dreams, did I think they would target Mom & Pop operations, or small start-ups like mine.Â�

They call themselves “solutions providers”, or “remotely-enabled IT”.Â� They use words like “global”, “international”, and “worldwide” in their names and slogans.Â�

They call or e-mail you out of practically nowhere. They begin by telling you Read the rest of this entry »

Many people are confused over how exactly Ebay operates. Perhaps because of Amazon’s almost instant popularity and Ebay’s ecommerce interace, people think there is an Ebay wharehouse somewhere that receives purchase invoices and sends it to a shipping department..wrong.

Ebay is a buyers’ market much like an auction (in most cases it is an auction) where buyers and sellers congregate and determine a fair price. The market is competitive and buyers can bid on a very low priced auction and watch the price go up as more and more buyers bid on the auction. The other option for a seller is to list a product with a “buy it now” sticker price.Â� Â�

The following five tips are for getting started with Ebay and being familar with it.

Â� 1. You don’t have to be a registered user of Ebay to search, Read the rest of this entry »

When you get registered with Ebay and begin selling you will notice you are stuck in the rut of millions of other listings. But how can you improve your visibility without having to pay extra? It’s simple.

1. See what your competition is doing:

Don’t look at just any competition. Start with the product your trying to sell. Let’s same is a John Lennon CD. I’m sure there are thousands of John Lennon CD’s for sale on Ebay. What you have to do when researching your market on Ebay is to see which John Lennon CD is selling the best! The listing that has several bids early on in its’ cycle of 7 to 10 days. Those auctions are the ones you need to examine.

See what words they use in their title, product description, photos (are they stock or very well taken), do they provide something the others don’t, and most importantly what is the starting price of the auction.

2. The Keywords In Your Item Description Title:

Think about it like this. The large majority of Ebay buyers use its’ basic search function which returns the results with only the keywords from the item description titles. If you list an item with an item description title with very infrequently searched keywords then you may be out of luck.

Start your item description title optimization by using a keyword tracker tool. These tools are little search boxes that you can type in what you are attempting to sell Read the rest of this entry »

You might be asking yourself, “How Do I Sell My Product or Service Online?”

The simply stated, and often confused answer is “Know Your Web Site Traffic”
Deceiving is for the pornography business on the internet and for attracting gambling addicts. That’s what made annoying pop ups so popular Read the rest of this entry »

Making a file of your listings on ebay can be essential to success for Ebay Sellers. There are many product search engines on the internet that will actually drive traffic to your web site and provide up to the minute information regarding your products information and URLs.

When you decide to make a file (the file is an XML file), Ebay will make the file of information about your listings Read the rest of this entry »

Alright, so you’ve heard of a site map and you heard that it can significantly improve your ranking on search results for Google and other major search engines earning you extra sales.But what is this new Google Sitemap and how easy is it to get a Google sitemap?

Google Sitemaps is an easy way to have a conversation with Google to keep them up to date with all of your web sites pages and images (for Google image search). Google Sitemap also lets you log in to an account and upload a new XML site map whenever you want. When you log into Google you can check the statistics of how many people searched for certain terms that your site appeared in the top 10 results and you can see if Google is having trouble finding your web pages.�

Read the rest of this entry »

How Do I create An XML Google Sitemap With Ease?

Create an XML sitemap format that can be submitted to Google to help them crawl your website better. Use the link below to fill out a short form then save and upload the .XML file to your Google Sitemap (Beta) account

http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/

Not everyone knows these things…they aren’t written in stone.Â� But avoiding the following things CAN increase the success of your web site and your visitors will thank you by visiting over and over again.

If You Build it, They Won’t Come
Hasn’t nearly every web hosting and designing company told you that the minute you get your business online you are seen by 30 million customers! Unfortunately it’s not THAT easy.Â� This isn’t Field of Dreams.

Your website, as I’ve mentioned before, can be a virtual office, an online store that is open 24/7, handling requests for info, providing company information as well as customer service.Â� The fact is, however, you Read the rest of this entry »

Has this ever happened to you?You are a small business owner who has asked someone to send you and your colleagues something by e-mail and, you either find it in your Bulk items folder, or worse, you never got it?

Chances are high that your email program thought it was spam, and that is why. Spam is any mail that’s unsolicited, period. Whether it’s a bulk message or not. makes no difference. Just thought I’d make it clear, since creepy advertisers and spammers tend to confuse the two.

It’s not just annoying, it’s against the law…isn’t that kind of harsh though?

Yes, I know what you’re thinking… “I’ve already requested to be added!” OK. But confirming your request in this process is required as part of the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. This act was a ruling of the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) which was recently enacted as a federal law. It deals with electronic mail communications and Read the rest of this entry »

“We are updating our records. We need you to login to your account immediately to update your personal information. If you do not log into your PayPal account and update your information, your PayPal account will be deleted.”

Have you received emails like this? How do you know it’s really from PayPal, or your bank? Chances are you are being scammed.

It’s called “phishing”–Internet scammers sending messages claiming to be from your Internet service provider (ISP), bank, online payment service, or even government agency. They may ask you to “update”, “validate”, or “confirm” personal info (credit card & bank accounts, Social Security number, passwords, etc.).

These messages might direct you to a website that looks likeyour bank or ISP or Read the rest of this entry »

When looking at a web designer’s portfolio, once in a while you may notice some designs are not very unique, or that a few of them look similar.

Read the rest of this entry »

Is your web site a reflection of your company?

Is it everything you want it to be and possibly more? It should be.�

The feeling I get when I look at some web designers’ web sites and portfolios, is that web sites are “disposable”.Â�

If you get your site designed right the first time, this is something that won’t happen to you.Â�

Your web site. Take a look at it. Is it just a pretty, electronic business card? Is that all you see? I have said this before, that a web site should make you more money. But how? It shouldn’t Read the rest of this entry »

The industry I work in is chock-full of good web designers, don’t get me wrong. But there are a lot of those who could star in a reality TV show called “Good Web Designers Gone Bad”.Â�

There are two types of web designer who have “Gone Bad”, that you will hear me mention in my articles. But the kind of web designer that I abhorr most is–affectionally referred to by me–as the one that works for Read the rest of this entry »

Every business, whether large or small, local or international, can greatly benefit from these key things that can occur when you put up a web site:�

Shave time off your workday.

Having your web site readily available for the public saves time for you because it acts like a virtual office/store 24 hours a day, and therefore you do not have to sit down and make up mailings and take unnecessary phone calls.

All you have to do is give them the web site address and let them view the pertinent section of the site which they are calling about.Â� Let Their Fingers Do the Walking, then Surfing.Web sites can increase the response rate of your existing advertising efforts. A study was recently done by Verizon and Quest, which showed that response to Yellow Page ads increases by 30-40% when Read the rest of this entry »

Have you ever encountered a web site that is just annoying?

Colors for the text and/or background in such a combination that plays tricks with your eyes or makes you squint? Such horrible web site techniques can make a perfectly good web site a bad one. Scrolling this way and that, images and objects that flash and jump, or pop-up windows, frames, and silly music that freezes up your computer, are all the makings of a web bomb and can totally ruin your visitor’s experience. The following will help you identify things not to do on your web site, things will really annoy your site’s visitors, or get them to leave altogether.Â�

1. Aaaah - Flash! Not Gordon
What I can stand the least, is when I have to wait 5 minutes for a Flash effect intro screen to load when I first encounter your web site. I can’t even bear to think how the experience is heightened (not) for a person on a dial-up connection! No one wants sit through your fancy Flash movie or silly cartoon, just to get inside to Read the rest of this entry »