July 28, 2004
In the good ole summertime ...
Things are slow on the net in the summer, so I've been redecorating my kitchen. I've learned that I don't have a future as a painter. :-)
But I had to take time out from my gruelling physical labor for two announcements.
1. Online Auction Blog
I've gotten the blogging craze lately, and am proud to announce that we now have an online auction blog:
http://auction-genius-course.com/blog
Once fall starts, I'll be writing entries most every day, and we invite you to drop by often. If you have comments you'd like to make, please feel free.
If you're a writer and would like to contribute an article, let me know and we'll be glad to consider it. Hint: search engines LOVE blogs. Go to yahoo.com and put in the keywords
online auction blog
and see who turns up. Keep in mind that this is out of 315,000 pages. Not bad. Not hard.
If you're an affiliate, or need content for a website, you can put my blog on your site, and you will get freshly updated content without any effort on your part. I have to confess, though, that I don't really know how to do that yet. Sigh. One of these
days ...
http://auction-genius-course.com/blog
Stomp The Search Engines Available, At Last
Do you find it tough to know who to believe on the net? There are zillions of self-proclaimed gurus and experts trying to convince us they are authorities on all kinds of topics.
So, when we find someone whose results are provable, we need to pay attention. And one of those verifiable guys is search engine authority, Brad Fallon.
In June, 2004, Brad made $156,037.54 in his Yahoo store. (Yep, that's one month, not year.) He sold 64,272 items with an average order of $116.36. And yes, and you can verify these astounding numbers for yourself:
http://stomper.auctionknowhow.com
Fortunately, Brad is now sharing his wisdom with the rest of us in a new product called “Stomp The Search Engines”. This exciting new series is a collaboration of Brad, owner of myweddingfavors.com, and Andy Jenkins, co-author of Yahoo Store Profits.
I know both Brad and Andy personally and they're both very cool. In fact, we're having a seminar together, here in Atlanta, on October 23 & 24, so if you'd like to meet the three of us in person, come on down to the southland. October is our most beautiful month and my favorite time of the year, so I can usually promise you a beautiful GA show, compliments of Mother Nature. (Now watch it rain the entire weekend!)
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Don't Wanna Bore You
There are so many things that Brad has taught me, but I don't think there's any point in going over a list here. You're all grownups and you can read for yourself at the the Stomper site:
http://stomper.auctionknowhow.com
It's much more valuable if I give you a concrete and personal example of how the Stomper program has helped me.
I am planning on starting my first 'dropship-only' Internet store (meaning every product will be mailed by my supplier, instead of me. Wahoo!)
But, I would be nuts if I wrote a single word on a single webpage before scouting out my competition first. So let's assume that my store product is memory cards for digital cameras (it isn't really).
Go to google.com and type in this keyword phrase:
digital camera + memory cards
and you will see that there are 4,300,000 pages listed. Kowabunga!
In my pre-Brad days I would passed on this idea, figuring the competition was too overwhelming. But, as Brad rightfully points out, it really doesn't matter how many competitors we have. The reality is that we always have only 10 or 20 because if my store isn't on the first or second page I won't be getting much search engine traffic anyway.
So, the question becomes not the NUMBER of competitors but the QUALITY of my competition.
The top 5 sites for memory cards are:
#1: www.digitaldepot.co.uk
#2: photoreview.com
#3: www.shop.bt.com/icat/dpmemorycards
#4: www.psism.com/camera.htm
#5: www.picstop.co.uk
Thanks to my Stomper training, I now know how to do my due diligence and research on these sites. My question is: could I successfully compete with these sites and get my store on the first page of google, if I wanted to?
Question: do YOU think it would be hard to get on the first or second page?
Answer: after checking out these first 5 sites, I can tell you that getting on the front page for this search term is a piece of cake! Not hard to do if you know how. Thanks, Brad!
If I were truly interested in building a store selling memory cards, I could proceed with full confidence, knowing that I could get a lot of free traffic from the search engines.
This is a simple example showing why I can't recommend the Stomper too highly (don't you just love that name? :-) So, here's the deal ...
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FREE Class
For anyone and everyone who buys “Stomp the Search Engines” through my affiliate link, I will include you in a live class (live, so that you can ask questions until everything is crystal clear). There is one thing I knew how to do before the Stomper, and that is get traffic from writing brief articles. The joy of this method is that it's totally within your control – no links, no recommendations from outsiders – only you in charge. I've included some of my articles and their URLS below (results as of July, 2004).
This summer, which is always a slow time on the net, I have been averaging 300 visitors/day with a high percentage of these signing up for our ezines or our 11 day course. In fact, this experiment has been so successful that I am expanding it. Eventually, I will be getting thousands of visitors each day, instead of hundreds.
This is NOT from Brad's class, so it's not a repetition from the Stomp The Search Engines CDs.
The price of the Stomper is going up by $50 on August 3, so if you're interested, now is the time to buy. At the very least, get a copy of the fr** interview between Brad and Andy.
If you want to attend my search engine article live class, just send me a copy of your receipt and you'll be added to the list. After we have a few class members, we'll select a convenient date.
http://stomper.auctionknowhow.com
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http://auction-genius-course.com/atv-auctions.shtml
AOL: page 2
MSN: page 2http://auction-genius-course.com/chain-saws-on-ebay.shtml
AOL: 2
Overture: 1 (I am NOT paying for Overture!)
Yahoo: 1http://auction-genius-course.com/ebay-motorcycles.shtml
AOL: 2
MSN: 2
Overture: 1http://auction-genius-course.com/ga-tech-collectibles.shtml
AOL: 1
Google: 1http://auction-genius-course.com/ebay-salvage.shtml
AOL: 2
MSN: 1
Overture: 1
Google: 1http://auction-genius-course.com/rooster-collectibles.shtml
Google: 2http://auction-genius-course.com/dept-56-on-ebay.shtml
AOL: 2
MSN: 2
Overture: 1
Yahoo: 2
Google: 1http://auction-genius-course.com/ebay-sunbonnet-sue.shtml
AOL: 1
MSN: 1
Overture: 1
Teoma: 2
Yahoo: 1
Google: 1http://auction-genius-course.com/ebay-fostoria-heirloom.shtml
AOL: 1
MSN: 1
Overture: 1
Teoma: 1
Yahoo: 1
Google: 1http://auction-genius-course.com/barber-pole-auction.shtml
AOL: 1
MSN: 1
Overture: 1
Teoma: 2
Google: 1http://auction-genius-course.com/market-research-wizard.shtml
AOL: 2http://auction-genius-course.com/m&m-collectibles.shtml
AOL: 2http://auction-genius-course.com/chain-saws-on-ebay.shtml
MSN: 1http://auction-genius-course.com/ebay-case-study.shtml
Overture: 1http://auction-genius-course.com/ebay-cars.shtml
Overture: 1http://auction-genius-course.com/light-bulk-wholesale-directory.shtml
Overture: 1
Yahoo: 2
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And as a little added bonus, I want to show you a website with a big, big mistake. You can see it here:
http://www.online-auctions-i.com/index.html
Can you see the error? It's one YOU don't want to make.