Making Money Online, Google Adsense & Online Auctions

Hurricane Katrina Donations

Posted on 21st November 2009

Yesterday I saw a mention in someone's email ezine about a kind person who had an eBay auction with the proceeds going 100% to help victims of the horrible Hurricane Katrina.

It struck a chord with me because I had wanted to set up something similar, but found that the ''eBay Giving Works'' charity program seems to be terribly flawed for us small sellers. I had researched it the day before, eBay goes through Mission Fish to handle the administrative tasks and distribution.

Here in a nutshell is how I understand it works. You set up an eBay auction and pledge a percentage of the proceeds to go to a charity. You pick the one you like. If the auction sells, the buyer pays you, and Mission Fish charges your credit card, taking out $3.00 per transaction for their fees, plus 3% to cover credit card fees. That's reasonable, they need to cover their overhead and payroll expenses. Then Mission Fish sends the balance to the charity.

The minimum donation per item has to be $10.00. Again, so far so good, I can understand that.

Now, I noticed in the auction that I visited that the seller had set up a dutch auction, with 1000 ''lots'' available, each for $1.00 each, with the proceeds going 100% to her favorite charity that would get food to the Katrina victims. I was about to place a bid for several $1.00 lots (a dutch auction lets you ''win'' as many of the item as you like, all at the same price).

Then it hit me, why couldn't I do the same kind of dutch auction, maybe she had found the way to get around the $10.00 per item restriction, and found that it was a minimum $10.00 per auction. It would only make sense that it would work that way, since Mission Fish charges the seller's credit card, if all 1000 lots sold, that would be $1000 for the charity, Mission Fish would take $3.00 plus 3%, the seller would collect (hopefully) the $1000 from the buyers, and all she would be on the hook for would be the eBay fees. Those fees, plus her hard work, would be her personal contribution.

So I went back to eBay and Mission Fish and researched the deal again. I found out that sure enough, in a multiple item auction, Mission Fish requires a $10.00 donation from the seller for EVERY ITEM that sells in a multiple-item auction (dutch auction).

So, if the seller had 1000 lots at $1.00 each, and they all sold, Mission Fish would have charged her credit card on file for $10.00 for each lot, a total of $10,000.00! And they would have taken their $3.00 + 3% fee for each of those 1000 lots, more than $3,000.00 for their trouble!

At that point, I realized the seller either had deep pockets and was matching contributions 10 to 1, or she misunderstood what would happen to her. I sent her an email, and to end a long story, she indeed misunderstood, was obviously fairly upset at the prospect of paying $10,000, and ended the auction early.

Now, I’d like my readers to do one of two things. If you think that eBay and Mission Fish are mishandling the charity program, as I do, please contact one or both and point them to this blog entry, or just write your own letter with your thoughts.

You can contact Mission Fish here:
http://www.missionfish.org/Help/contactus.jsp

eBay is always more difficult to contact, but you can try starting here:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/contact_us/_base/index.html

The other thing you could do is support the eBay seller's cause, she had to end the auction but she took the trouble to set up a web page for donations, you can access and support it here:
http://www.flipidy.com/secondharvest.htm

Perhaps with enough pressure on Mission Fish, they’ll get together with eBay and allow dutch auctions to be counted as a single donation, instead of multiple individual items, and encourage more charity in the future.

For those with homes, families, relatives or friends in the devasted area, my hearts and prayers go out to you. I hope this information will in some small way help someone somewhere.

About the author:
Dennis Becker is author of a regular blog about different ways of earning money on the Internet, titled appropriately enough "Success On The Internet". You can find it at:
http://www.fantastic-ebooks.com/index.php

A Niche Marketing Model

Posted on 21st November 2009

In this article we will review how you can put together a powerful three
step an action plan to attack a niche market.


Step I. - You Must Research A Niche Market.

First and most importantly you will have to research a market. I have
already done this and below the keyword example is -

Storage Sheds

Here are the top four keyword phrases on this list for this niche topic. The
full keyword list for this example was provided from this website -
http://www.findhotniches.com

NOTE: The full keyword list for contains over 250 phrases.


KEYWORD PHRASE 24 Hr Count 24 Hr Prediction

------------- ------------ ---------------

storage sheds 1345 1151

storage shed 631 540

outdoor storage sheds 445 381

storage shed plans 409 350

Now that we know that there is an actual demand for storage sheds we
can move on to step two.


Step II. - You Must Determine What The Surfer Really Wants.

This one is glaringly obvious that the surfer is looking for storage sheds
which is a physical product. They obviously need or want to have extra
storage space on their property or nearby.

More than likely the surfer wants to find the cheapest and easiest way to
get the best and most suitable storage shed for their needs.

So we need to move to step three.


Step III. - Put Together Your Profit Strategy.

You have several options to profits from niche this niche market but here
are just a few:

1. Create A Review Website.

You could create a website reviewing different types of storage sheds that
includes information such as:

- What sizes and models do different storage sheds come in?
- What type of material different storage sheds are made of?
- How long will your storage shed last before you have to buy a new one?
- What kind of storage shed you should buy based on your areas climate?
- What is required to put together a storage shed and how long does it take?
- Which brand of storage sheds are easiest to construct?

Do you get the picture that I am trying to paint here?

This will give your surfer a real reason to stay on your site and come back
often.

You could easily get this information by interviewing different storage
shed manufacturers or suppliers by giving them a call or emailing them.

Many times product manufacturers already have this type of information
already created to better sell their product. If they do ask them if you can
you use the information to add content to your website.

Also, you can ask them if they have an affiliate program for their storage
sheds. If not ask them if you could set up one for them and negotiate a
percentage of the sales for your self.


2. You Could Create An E-book or Physical Product.

How To Easily Build A Rock-Solid Long Lasting Storage Shed
Perfect For Your Specific Needs With Just $50 Worth Of Materials.

If you cannot write e-book yourself you can outsource this writing
project to a professional writer at the following sites:

http://www.elance.com
http://www.freelance.com
http://www.guru.com


3. Generate Extra Revenue By Joining the Google Adsense program.

This is pretty simple. Jus sign up for the Adsense revenue sharing program
at http://www.google.com/adsense. Each time someone clicks on one of
the ads on you website you will get paid a percentage of what the
advertiser pays to Google.

It is really easy to get set up with Adsense and the ads are automatically
targeted to be relevant your visitors interest. All you have to do is log
into your Adsense account and copy/paste a special code into your
web pages.

Always remember, marketing your website is a game of numbers and it
is not wise to build a business around any niche topic without doing the
proper keyword research before hand.

If there are not enough people interested in what you have to offer you
will not be able to bring enough traffic to your website to turn a decent
profit.



About the author:
James Jackson is the creator of the website, Find Hot Niches, where
starting at just one dollar you can get 75-100 topic specific niche
keyword lists with daily search counts.

To learn more please visit.... http://www.findhotniches.com

A Website Model That Makes Money

Posted on 21st November 2009

I would like to share with you one simple stratergy in creating income with your own website. This is just one method out of simply millions that you could create for yourself. Remember the internet provides no limits. This is one example that does work for me, and may give you an insight into exactly a website model, that you may like to put into action for yourself. Affiliate marketing and/or sales of any kind on the internet, requires a real commitment, as I am sure you do already realize. The internet is really one of the greatest training grounds in the world for sales. You can try and fail many times, until you find that system and approach that will work for you. But the commitment that you show in meeting this challenge, will be a lesson that you will always remember. Success is always achieved in no matter what you do, through simple hard work. There is no easy path to success, but when you achieve the success you are after, there is no greater feeling. So lets begin. In this example my website, which for the purposes of this article i will call '????'. I will give you the exact profit breakdowns.

With this website I treat all my affiliate products as purely residual income, much like adsense. Adsense itself generates for me, on this website, on average around $2 per day. I also use various other companies affiliate products, which generate around $200 per month. Also within the website, I sell e-book informational products, which I own the full resale rights for, which generate around $700 per month. And here lies the answer to making money online, no matter what you sell. The products, that generate the most income, are the ones that you will own yourself. Certainly I should be making more from the affiliate info products that I sell. But I lose commissions through simple affiliate url tampering. Commissions that are stolen or lost are a real pain. You can try every method in the book to protect your affiliate codes. But after all the hard work is done, you still lose that valuable income. The people who sell the original affiliate product know this, which is mostly why a high percentage of the sales price is offered to an affiliate to begin with. Because they realize that a very high ratio of sales made on their products will give them the total profit back. The reasons why people change affiliate product codes etc, could run into pages. Lets just say it is inevitable. This is the reason why I treat all my affiliate based products as purely residual income.

But as you can see in this example clearly where the highest return on investment lies. And that is in the products that you actually own. You can purchase resale rights for info products easily, and it involves not much money at all, most products are available for under $50. Or if you have the time and patience to search the internet. You can find amazing e-books that have free resell rights and the information they contain is really valuable. You will find these types of treasures occasionally, and the lights will start flashing in your eyes when you do. The information that you have just discovered is of value and that is a real key to success. This is why I, at this point, strongly emphasize the importance of this one principle. Only sell products that you feel strongly about and you know that will be of great value to the person who may purchase it. That includes products you have bought the resale rights for, or a free product, you have discovered with resale rights.

If you sell strong products with real informational value consistently you will always succeed. Your customers will return, quite simply because they know where the value of the information they seek is the greatest. And that is at your website. Always remember to put yourself into your visitors shoes. Ask yourself the question? Would you buy the products you are selling? Answer this question with a Yes. And you will be really on the start too online success.


About the author:
Michael J. Keenan (CEO - SitePromotionNow) Worked in affiliate sales and website construction for over 5 years. email: mickyk703@hotmail.com website: http://www.sitepromotionnow.org