On to part two of the How to Make Money on eBay adventure.
Part 1 can be found out here.
Part 3 is here.
Please keep in mind that I’m trying to ensure this information is very easy to understand for anyone – from the greenest of newbees – folks who are new to all this talk about Google rankings. Hence I’ll discuss things in plain English almost all the time and any SEO type terms I’ll try to explain as I go along if that’s necessary for further clarity.
This is the easy part. There’s no aspect to this whole kaboodle that’s difficult. Although it may be tricky to source a product or product line that you can sell at a profit. Once that’s been decided, its all pretty much plain saling, believe it or not.
Fact of the matter is, my intentions are to aim this guide at people who have already sourced their product, and who are already selling on eBay, and want many more people to see their offerings. But this information is for anyone who has a healthy interest in making money with eBay regardless you’re already a seller or not.
So, the question is, how do we achieve the increased traffic to our eBay store by going out-with the boundaries of eBay’s search traffic alone? (i.e. the folks who are already on eBay and use eBay’s search system to locate products they are interested in).
What we do is to put our trust in Google and try to achieve rankings for relevant keywords that pertain to what we are trying to sell.
Let’s take an example here.
Say we want to sell coffee tables.
We decide to focus in (or “niche-down”) on “lift top coffee table” which has 4,400 global search volume in Google each month, and 3,600 local to US search each month.
Note: for anyone who does not know where to get these search stats, head on over to the Google AdWord Keyword Tool and insert your keyword phrase into the box near the top. Ensure you choose EXACT match phrase and not broad – have a look over on the left hand side and you’ll see check boxes for each – uncheck broad and check exact. Then just make sure you are searching in the right country – the default will be set to the US, is what I believe.
Using the Google AdWord Keyword Tool
Click on the image to make it larger
If you don’t already have an eBay store set up (the link takes you to a webpage about how to set up an eBay store for eBay dot com. Should you wish to set up an eBay store for another country, simply do a search for something like “how to set up an eBay store UK (or whichever country you prefer)), then you want to choose your eBay domain name to be something akin to your niche.
So, for example, in this case, something like www.ebay.com/coffee-table
There will be more information about how to choose your store name URL within the “how to set up your eBay store” guide mentioned in the above paragraph.
As long as you manage to get the domain name niche-focused, it doesn’t matter much about anything else. Its more about providing a tag to your store so that folks who search in Google can identify what your store is selling.
Once we’ve decided on our product and set up our eBay store, the next question is…
how do we get folks to find our eBay store in a Google search?
Obviously we need to rank highly in search for our chosen terms or else we’ll be as dead as the proverbial duck in the proverbial pond. And if this thought makes you all worried and upset, then don’t be. Its actually very easy and I’ll show you how to do it as we progress.
The “trick” about getting Google rankings is mainly about obtaining backlinks to your website.
Now I’m not going to delve under the bonnet here other than to say what I just did. If I start trying to explain the ins and the outs of ranking in Google, well – it gets complicated.
If you really want to learn about all that, then simply buy my eBook which is showing at the top right hand side of this website (click on the image of the eBook). If that’s not an out and out sales pitch, then I don’t know what is!
The beauty of trying to rank an eBay store in Google is that you can throw all sorts of links at it and yet Google will not dump your store down the rankings. You cannot do that with a fresh private domain website. If you go a little strong with the backlinking on a fresh domain, you’ll probably be dumped fast. And that would spell a big bye bye to your business in Google.
Now, I could provide some examples as to what I managed to achieve within my own experiments which I’ve been conducting over the past few months just to make sure that these methods do actually work. However, I’m not at liberty to disclose anything about the stores themselves since I don’t own the stores. They are owned and run by colleagues of mine, and I don’t think they’d be too happy if I were to divulge their niche focus.
But let’s put it this way. I achieved some top ten rankings within 2 weeks of setting out. Some of my other keyword phrases however have taken a lot longer to rank. But that’s not nearly as important as this is…
You can throw any old rubbishy backlinks and any amount of them at an eBay store and Google will still happily move your store up the rankings.
Let me say that again because this is the crux of the whole system…
You can backlink to an eBay store in any way you like (providing you use the keyword terms you want to rank for in Google as your backlinking anchor text) and Google will be happy to oblige and push your rankings upwards in the search results.
And that ladies and gents is the beauty of using this system!
At this point, I want to divulge which services I actually used to achieve the eBay store rankings I worked on in my experiment.
However, do keep in mind that in the early weeks this was all about testing the waters, so to speak. Therefore, I had to take things fairly slowly for fear that Google would choose to dump my rankings due to over-zealous backlinking. As previously mentioned however, Google did not dump the rankings – very far from it!
Just before I list the services I used, let me explain that you don’t have to bother about all this. Its a little bit fiddly keeping a record of what you’ve done in terms of backlinking and there’s a far easier way than this.
That said, what I’ve done here is to highlight the single service that you need to use to rank your own eBay store in Google. You only need one backlinking service and not all those I’ve listed. This list is merely for reference.
Backlinking Services Used With Pricing
Note: Keep in mind that Fiverr.com services in particular do come and go, so if you try to use the same services that I did, they may or may not be still available. It matters not. There are plenty of Fiverr.com backlinking services that can be used for our purposes.
Service one – a Warrior Forum Service
$57.00 for each URL.
Second service – A Fiverr.com offering:
SENukeX to send 500 – 1000 backlinks
$5.00
Third service – A Fiverr.com offering:
$5.00
Fourth service – A Fiverr.com service:
$10 since I also used a Fiverr article spinning service (this spinning service is excellent value for money – best spinning service I’ve found on Fiverr by far!)
Fifth service – A Warrior Forum offering again:
$59.00
Now for the piece de resistance service. This is the only one that’s really required and you don’t need to bother about all of those above (other than the article spinning one if you need some article spins and you prefer not to do that yourself…
And here’s a review I did of Backlinks Genie in case you are not familiar with it… Backlinks Genie Review.
Now, its important to note that Backlinks Genie provides 3 different service tiers.
There’s a 10 bucks a month service, which is obviously very basic but is good to play around with and get a feel for what the tool is capable of.
Then there’s the mid-level service at 67 bucks a month. That’s perfectly adequate for our needs.
And then there’s the high end service which is very powerful stuff and that’s priced at $137 a month. This is not required unless you really want to shift your rankings very quickly in an upwards fashion.
I think it wise to leave it here for now since, if you are new to all this, the information here may be somewhat over-whelming.
If you are over-whelmed and confused by some of what I’ve discussed then here’s what I’m willing to do for you.
I don’t currently offer a coaching service although I have coached clients in the past. But for this specific purpose, I’m willing to offer my coaching services at a real knock down price of $50 for 2 hours. Coaching can be carried out on Skype or via email.
If you are interested in taking one of my eBay store ranking coaching sessions, simply email me at joseph@josepharchibald.com and we’ll sort something out which suits us both.
Tomorrow, I’ll be discussing the over-all costs involved in pursuing this money-making venture. In all, its very affordable, but you need to ensure you have a viable product to sell in the first place. That’s what ultimate success will depend on, nothing more, nothing less.
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Very interesting.
Obviously as you said this whole idea hinges on the fact you’ve got something to sell.
I don’t have anything, not even a clue on how to get something either LOL but if I ever do at least I know its plausible.
Yes, you’ve got to have a product that either you are currently selling or one that you can find a supply of and profit from. I always used to struggle with that part of the game even though I would buy information about how to locate plausible products to sell on eBay. Back in those days though the info products you bought were not nearly as glossy as they are now and they were mailed to you in the post. Its not as easy to find a viable product as “they” make it out to be. But it is possible. High price tag items that are to be found regularly in second hand shops, as one example.
There’s something else that I should point out here though. How many folks that sell on eBay know anything about this sort of thing? The vast majority of folks who sell on eBay know only about eBay and that’s why they sell on eBay because they don’t know how to build their own sites or how to rank them in Google. That’s not to say that this method is a stroll in the park – obviously there are other people using WordPress sites and what have you to sell various products online. But the great advantage we have here is that by using an eBay store, we don’t get dumped by Goog no matter how hard we try
So, is your “store” dynamic at all? Or when you procure a product you only focus on it? Lets say brown area rugs for example. You only sell them? If you run out of brown rugs, what happens to your store?
I hope you answer these questions…I don’t know anything about eBay and I’m tied up in other projects but not knowing is driving me to distraction
Yes Jim, the store is dynamic in that you can add various products as and when you want to sell em. If you run out of brown rugs (with zebra stripes, LOL) then you can add red rugs and blue rugs and white ones with images of pink little piglets too if you so desire.
I suggest you don’t let this distract you however. By all means keep it in the back of your mind because you may have a sudden “AH-HA!” moment about a particular product line you can actually make good profits from. But other than that, don’t let it sway your current line of thought or you’re in for a bout of information overload I would think.
Interesting second part.
LOL – nicely summed up in three words Cristina, thanks!
Hmmm very interesting, i’ve only ever sold a car on ebay so an ebay store could be something to consider.
Finding a product to sell is the thing though, probable a stupid question but can you market a clickbank electronic product with an affiliate link via ebay?
Trevor, your eBay store products must be tangible goods as far as I’m aware. You know, what with your regular travels to various parts of eastern Europe, I would think you’d be able to source some really good products for selling to the western world on eBay… I once sold a batch of Russian caviar – buy oh so cheap in Ulyanovsk and sell oh so expensive just prior to Christmas on eBay UK. If memory serves me well, I think we made about 600% profit (after eBay costs) on selling about 6 little jars of caviar.
Ok I understand now
Thanks for clearing that up!
LOL at the zebra reference hahaha!
This is really cool. Yet another tool for making money online. I’ll definitely have to start looking into it!
I’ve really been thinking about my options since our backlinking options have been reduced as of late. I think it’s time to start seriously considering backlink genie. I’ve saved up enough serious scratch that it’s about time to start working the 40 day challenge on overdrive =o)
This one is a bit different Brendan. But being different is a good thing as it gives you what could be argued as something of a cutting edge.
Well on that note Brendan – I’m currently doing a re-trial – if you will – using 40 days challenge stuff on a brand new site which was specifically made for this purpose. It took a while for any rankings to materialize, but now that they have, its a real nice slow move on upwards which makes me feel much “safer” than when I was seeing regular jumps of my webpages from say 15th up to 8th. No – with my current system, its more like 15th to 14th within 4 days, then up another spot 4 days later. So on so forth. I’d much prefer this than the slap dash grab what you can before Google dumps you.
It may be worth it in the long run to find a source of product to sell on eBay using this model. It’s obvious Amazon reviews and eBay stores and I suppose perhaps CPA to a certain extent are best.
Considering Spencer from nichepursuits fame got all of his adsense accounts banned by google ($13k a month), I’d have to say that Adsense is definitely not a very good long term strategy.
I have 4 adsense sites and I can tell you that I won’t be making anymore at all. I’ve slowly diversified, but now I am completely staying away from that model.
Yes Jim, I read about Spencer’s demise with regards to AdSense and that’s a very cruel blow indeed! Fact of the matter is this, however – eBay were at one time not too long ago very happy to dump tons of very high earning accounts. They seem to have settled down now but that’s (in part at least) because they make it much more difficult to join their partnership. Amazon – recently they too have been dumping accounts left right and center and they don’t even say why they dump you. Its one minute you are there and earning a great income, the next minute you are history and not even a reason to say why.
I think the only way to steer clear of this threat and risk is to create and promote your own products. Be that either via building websites and ranking them in Goog (still the threat is there for losing your rankings) or via some place like Warrior Forum or Clickbank or DigiResults or something like that. Even then, you can get your sales account banned for small infractions.
No – I think the answer is to be happy with a decent income from your online business and not keep pushing for more more MORE. The more you “need” the more risk you are at and the more you have to lose. That statement needs more clarification, but I just thought I would throw the spanner in the proverbial works for the pleasure I get from doing so
Fact is – when you hear about folks like Spencer losing a very large income like this, you really begin to wonder what its all about and is this constant push for more really what it should all be about…
Cheers, Jo. Bang on in all respects. Set out to achieve a modest goal and then don’t be greedy. Enjoy it, and stop looking to get more, more, more!
I certainly cannot criticise anyone who comes to the IM world fully intending to make a whole mass of money Jim. After all, that’s exactly why so many people are drawn to this business and lifestyle in the first place – the promise of fast and easy financial wealth.
I too was drawn by financial gain, but at the same time – many years before – I read about a guy who was “making money in his pyjamas” and there was something about that idea that really kicked in for me. The ability to stay at home and work when you want. Not necessarily to make 50 grand a month.
That lifestyle alone – stay at home and work when you want to work – that’s worth a lot more to me than the 50 grand a month part.
Hi,
yes the big ebay sellers are one who has a longer etablished company and they import products in bulk from asia. Remaining stock products they have on storage, they sell on ebay, or new import products too they have the money.
But the noob who will beginn to make money online,not has the money to import products in bulk from asia or somewhere. How he can start?
As long as you not an powerseller, you not make 100 sells or more in a month, this is a fact. It can be a long time to become an powerseller and in this time you grow up to become an powerseller perhaps no make not profit, you must invest in ebay advertising, ebay store,backlinks and buying new products after sell, so there is in the first 2-3 years not a huge profit so long as you be an powerseller, then you make huge sells and money on ebay.
Or you have niche products that others not have, there you can make little money too as beginner.
When you will make lets say 20 sales in a week, you must have minimum 50- 60 auctions (not ebay shop products) , then ebay statistics says that auctions are 30-50% more selling,also from 60 auctions products you will make perhaps 20-30 sales maximum, either 20 as a beginner (no powerseller).
And 60 auctions are not so cheap, around 2-2,50$ per productx60=min 120$ costs every week, plus ebay commission charge after selling. Does your 20 products you sell weekly make more profit than these 120$+ebay charges+ shipping????
For the most no, only for the powersellers who make 300-600 sells in a month.
That’s the problem with ebay.
best wishes
michael
Michael, in the earlier days I was intent on making a living from selling stuff on eBay. But as you’ve stated here, eBay advertising/ selling costs are pretty high and surely do cut into your over-all profits, perhaps enough to make your business model unprofitable. That’s the reason why I started to build my own websites and then rank them in Google – in order to avoid the fairly substantial eBay fees.
Thanks for sharing your insights!
Joseph