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August 18, 2004

In this issue:
* Market Research Wizard = New Bonus For Our Next Live Auction Genius Course
* Deep Analysis Loses Out To The Market Research Wizard!
* Are You Entitled To A $Zero Class?
* Will “Stomp The Search Engines” Go Out Of Date?
* New eBay Picture Service
* Something To Think About
* Online Auction Blog

MARKET RESEARCH WIZARD =
New Bonus For Our Next Live Auction Genius Course

The next “live” Auction Genius Course begins September 11 and we are proud to announce that all members will get the Market Research Wizard as part of their package. We've been circling around Deep Analysis and The Wizard for quite some time now, but have settled on the Wizard for strong reasons (see next story).

Our live classes are 16 hours, over eight weeks, of personal teaching and attention. Each one is somewhat different from the one before, and this time we are going to spend more time on how to figure out demand. To quote a famous marketer,

“Find out where the money is and throw yourself in front of it.”

I really love that phrase. It's so descriptive, isn't it? So, if you want to figure out how to throw yourself in the path of some money, check out the details here:

http://auction-genius-course.com

And if you're wondering whether you should start your online career with eBay or with your own website, you might want to read a new blog entry on this subject:

http://auction-genius-course.com/blog

Deep Analysis Loses Out To The Market Research Wizard!

Deep Analysis has been an incredibly valuable tool for my business for quite some time now. More recently, the Market Research Wizard has appeared and it has become so valuable that I use it several times each week. You can read about them here:

http://auction-genius-course.com/market-research-wizard.shtml

http://auction-genius-course.com/deep-analysis.shtml

But ... and it's a big but ... recent developments they have gone in different directions recently.

Deep Analysis was advertised as software with a one-time purchase fee of $117. The price has slowly gone up to its current version of $179 (August, 2004). No surprise there.

But another development is unfortunate: there is now a $49.95/year renewal fee. Many sellers bought the original software as a one-time purchase, but they have decidedly not been 'grandfathered' in. If the company owners need to add renewal fees that is their business. But they are NOT abiding by the original promise made to purchasers who bought in good faith. My estimation of their company has dropped considerably.

The Market Research Wizard, on the other hand, has gone in the opposite direction!
The WorldWide Brands products were originally sold with the understanding of a renewal fee. These products are:

* The Market Research Wizard: http://wizard.auctionknowhow.com

* Dropship Source Directory: http://dropship.auctionknowhow.com

* Lightbulk Wholesale Directory: http://lbwholesale.auctionknowhow.com

The company owner, Chris Malta, has made a big-hearted decision to drop renewal fees entirely. This means that all buyers now own a permanent membership in their directories at no extra charge so a membership will never expire.

Further, “We have added even more people to our in-house Research Team, and are now researching thousands of wholesale suppliers every month. We're also traveling the country to Wholesale Trade Shows, to form personal relationships with the biggest and best Wholesale Drop Shippers out there.” I know this is true, because one of the owners is in Las Vegas this week, attending a wholesale show.

Deep Analysis: BZZZZZZZZZZZZZ! WRONG ANSWER!

Are You Entitled To A $Zero Class?

Response to the Stomp The Search Engines! course has been phenomenal! So many of you have the wisdom to see the value of this outstanding course by Brad Fallon and Andy Jenkins.

Everyone who bought through my affiliate link is entitled to a free search engine class.

For details, see here:

http://auctionknowhow.com/AG/57.shtml

There are several buyers who have not forwarded their receipt. If this is you, please forward it ASAP so that we can set up this class. I have lots of exciting information to share with you.

Will “Stomp The Search Engines” Go Out Of Date?

A couple of ezine readers wrote to ask me if “Stomp The Search Engines” will become dated?

Yes, certainly the search engines will change. E-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g changes. Especially in the cyberworld. Here is what I can tell you about this very valid question:

1. Brad and Andy are aware of this problem and in the course give ways for you to stay aware of the changes. I don't know about you, but in the past I have found search engines to be very intimidating. All I have to do is read about 'algorithms' or 'vector analysis' and my eyes start rolling back in my head.

But you know what? I really don't have to understand that kind of stuff, and neither do you.

Let me give you a concrete example ... the hardest page to optimize on most sites is the home page. I have chosen, based on very careful keyword research, to focus my Auction Genius homepage on the keywords, “how to sell on eBay”. But it's a really tough job because that page is written for people not search engines. You won't find that particular keyword phrase plastered all over that page.

Contrast that page with one that IS written for the search engines:

http://auction-genius-course.com

http://auction-genius-course.com/ebay-sunbonnet-sue.shtml

See the difference? The keyword phrase, “ebay sunbonnet sue” is all over the place. This is written exclusively for search engines and it obviously succeeds very well because it has high placement in AOL, MSN, Overture (for free), Teoma, Yahoo and Google.

Until Brad's course, my home page was absolutely NOWHERE. However, I first started learning his techniques in only July and my results are very encouraging. Type in the phrase “how to sell on eBay”:

* Yahoo, page 2, #23 and #26, out of 7,940,000 competing pages
* MSN: twice on page 2, out of 1,566,827 competing pages

Here's an interesting tidbit: Sunday I was in Yahoo and MSN only once – now only a few days later, I have two listings on each.

Am I content with these results? No, but it's still pretty impressive. Think about it – on Yahoo, I am 23th out of almost <<eight million>> pages. My home page couldn't even be found in the search engines until I started doing what Brad taught me to do. And I'm just getting started. :-)

So, am I intimidated anymore? No way. Do I know how to keep up with changes. Yes, I do. You will, too.

2. If I spend $250 on a product, and get exactly $250 worth of sales – even though I only broke even – I consider it money well spent.

Why? Because every insight I get into the “mind” of the search engines and how they work will help me long into the future. Am I pretending that I now am an authority and expert on the engines? Not at all. But, I do see a lot more clearly into

* What they want
* How to give it to them

3. Those of you who have listened to Brad know that he isn't into “tricks” Instead, he believes in long-lasting, sound principles.

One of the things that used to mentally exhaust me about search engines was this 'trick' notion. Do you know that web owners used to build a different pages for every search engine. So, for example, you would have one page for Google, another for Yahoo, a third for MSN, a fourth for a live human being, and so on. Then you had to set it up so that your software recognized the “spider” that came to your site, so that it could give them the 'correct' page. After all you didn't want a live person seeing a page that had a keyword phrase 60 times – and not much else. Fortunately, search engines are much more sophisticated these days, and many of those tricks no longer work.

Let's think like a search engine for a moment ... what does a SE want? It wants great content when a user types in a keyword phrase. That's all. If Susie types in “designer sunglasses”, she wants real information about designer sunglasses – not stupid pages of junk. So, if we give the SEs what they want, and we understand how to let them know about it, then they will give us what we want. Traffic. Targeted traffic. And lots of it. Like Brad has done.

4. If we are already in the SEs when they make their inevitable changes, there is less chance of being thrown out. All the experts agree that longer-duration sites have an advantage over newer ones. I have many pages on my auctionknowhow.com site that have very high placement in search engines. And, those pages were written before I knew anything at all about SEs. It's just that they've been there sooooooo long.

5. Even if I get high placement for a time, and then lose it, I will still be ahead, because I will have picked up lots of new subscribers for newsletter and free course, and these folks will be customers in my database. There's just no way I can lose. How sweet it is!

So, if you want to participate in our upcoming search engine class, it's not too late:

http://auction-genius-course.com/auction/stomp-the-search-engines.shtml

At the very least, download the no cost interview between Andy and Brad.

New eBay Picture Service

I have long grumbled at eBay's per-picture charge for every image beyond the first free one. They have a new service called Picture Manager which might or might not save you some money. The costs are:

* $9.99/month - 50 MB of storage
* $19.99/month - 125 MB of storage
* $39.99/month - 300 MB of storage.

There is also a 'watermark' service which will make it more difficult for thieves to appropriate your pictures, which is kind of nice.

Currently there is an issue with their picture service and users of Windows XP. The programs aren't integrating properly and some of the picture features aren't working. eBay promises that this will shortly be solved.

http://pages.ebay.com/picture_manager

Personally, I prefer to continue uploading my own pictures as I have been doing for years. I can mark my own pictures and have as many as I choose, with no cost to myself. But for those who either don't want to bother, or don't know how to do this, it might be a good deal. Just remember to keep that overhead down as much as you can.

Something To Think About

A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into perspective in one of its releases:

* A billion seconds ago it was 1959.

* A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.

* A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.

* A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate Washington spends it.

Online Auction Blog:
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