You should be able to find several indispensable facts about eBay in the following paragraphs. If there's at least one fact you didn't know before, imagine the difference it might make.
The information about eBay auctions presented here will do one of two things: either it will reinforce what you know about eBay or it will teach you something new. Both are good outcomes.
Many first time eBay sellers have one thing in common – their eBay auctions flop. Many of them flop time and time again, with the seller never understanding what is going wrong. The seller ends up doing hours of research looking for the perfect item to sell, gets the auction set up, and waits for the bidding to begin. Hours go by and no bids are placed. Days go by, and there are still no bids – or there are very low bids. Finally the auction ends, and it turns out to be a total failure. Considering the huge number of sellers who run eBay auctions, there are specific things you must do, and specific things you must not do if you are to be successful.
There are many reasons why eBay auctions fail to produce. The most common reason is that the item is not in high demand. This problem can be avoided by doing the necessary research to determine which items sell well, and which items should be avoided. This research takes a great deal of time – but in the end, you will find that it is time well spent.
Another reason for eBay auction failure is pricing. No matter what your reserve price is, your opening bid price should never be more than $50. A low starting price is how you will attract potential bidders to your auction. If you set that opening bid too high, most people won’t even click the link to read the description for your item. Another pricing problem is lack of research. Before you set your reserve price, you must determine what your item is really worth, and the price of similar items that have sold in past eBay auctions.
Poorly written descriptions are another cause of failed eBay auctions. Poor grammar and misspelled words drive people away. Failing to post a picture of the item will also keep people from visiting your auction page. Pictures show the buyer exactly what he or she will be getting and give them an idea of the true condition of the item. Make sure that your item description is well written. A well written description with enough detail about your item is essentially your sales copy.
Exorbitantly high shipping prices scare people away from eBay auctions too. Find the lowest shipping prices that you can find and consider paying for the shipping yourself if it won’t cut into your profits too much. Do not charge handling fees.
Offer great customer service for all of your eBay auctions, and ask your buyers to give you feedback. If the items that you sell are everything that you said they would be, and you offer great customer service, you can expect wonderful feedback – and this feedback will help a great deal in your future auctions.
Those who only know one or two facts about eBay auctions can be confused by misleading information. The best way to help those who are misled is to gently correct them with the truths you're learning here.
Greg Lietz is an internet businessman and frequent eBay user. To make a recurring passive income with eBay auction items, Adsense and Clickbank combined visit
The Ideal Auction Site.
Article Source: http://www.earticlesonline.com
RSS Tools by S. Housley
Considering the ever-increasing support for RSS in online communities, we have compiled a list of resources and products that will benefit webmasters, web surfers and publishers in their quest to understand the power of RSS. RSS has rapidly become an alternative communication venue. In order to understand the full benefits, consider utilizing some of the following tools and resources.
1.) RSS Tools - RSS feeds bring automatically updated information straight to your desktop. You can monitor or promote news, job listings, personals, and classifieds using RSS. The following tools assist webmasters in using RSS to maximize their time.
RSS Readers - RSS readers are designed as tools to view RSS feeds, making it easier for users to view and manage the content of a feed. Feed readers make it easy to mark feeds as read or flag items that are important. The following are some of our favorite RSS readers:
FeedDemon - FeedDemon is a client that can retrieve and organize RSS feeds from the Internet. It comes pre-configured with several news feeds, and you can easily add your own by adding the URL for an RSS feed of your choice. FeedDemon offers an attractive and easy-to-use interface with integrated web browsing. http://www.feeddemon.com
FeedScout - Feed Scout is a RSS/ATOM/RDF reader that can be used directly from Internet Explorer. Feed Scout enables you to view RSS/ATOM feeds from different sites directly in Internet Explorer. You can even set your Home Page to show your favorite feeds. http://www.feedscout.com
2.) RSS Creation Tools - As RSS feeds have increased in popularity and breadth publishers and webmasters have struggled to find a solution to create RSS feeds. The following tools will assist webmasters in creating RSS feeds:
FeedForAll - Desktop software used to create, edit, manage and publish RSS feeds. New RSS feeds can be quickly and easily created with FeedForAll. Advanced features enable you to create professional-looking RSS feeds quickly. Existing RSS feeds can be repaired and enhanced with FeedForAll. RSS feeds generated by other means can be automatically repaired, so that they conform to the RSS 2.0 specification. Existing feeds can be enhanced to contain advanced feed properties, and give them a more professional look. http://www.feedforall.com
3.) RSS Articles and Tutorials - Articles and tutorials based on RSS and designed to demystify Really Simple Syndication for users and publishers. RSS Specifications - RSS Specifications contains a collection of articles related to RSS and news feeds that assist both publishers and users in deciphering Really Simple Syndication.
RSS Specifications - RSS Specifications contains a collection of articles related to RSS and news feeds that assist both publishers and users in deciphering really simple syndication. http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-articles.htm or the articles can be read in an RSS feed. http://www.rss-specifications.com/article-feed.xml
Make RSS Feeds - Step by step instructional tutorial detailing how to manually create an RSS feed. http://www.make-rss-feeds.com
4.) Ebay Monitoring Using RSS - Monitor online auctions for specific items of interest. As eBay has grown it has become difficult to discern and locate specific auction items. By using RSS tools users can easily recieve instant notification when a specific item is being auctioned.
Free Bidding Tools - FMonitor online auctions for specific items of interest. As eBay has grown it has become difficult to discern and locate specific auction items. By using RSS tools users can easily receive instant notification when a specific item is being auctioned. http://www.freebiddingtools.com/
5.) Web Monitoring - Monitor the Internet for specific news items or blog topics of interest. A number of free online RSS tools make web monitoring very easy.
PubSub - Monitor the Internet for specific news items or blog topics of interest. A number of free online RSS tools make web monitoring very easy. PubSub - Every day, PubSub's matching engine performs billions of matches of new items against user subscriptions. The instant a match is made, PubSub alerts the user via RSS. PubSub monitors more than 6.5 million blogs, as well as 50,000 USENET newsgroups, all SEC/EDGAR filings, press releases from major wire services, and FAA airport delay alerts. http://www.pubsub.com
Google News Monitoring Using RSS - This free online tool turns a Google news search into an RSS feed. http://www.justinpfister.com/gnewsfeed.php
6.) Other RSS Tools - Alternative tools for creative webmasters.
RSS2Wap - The RSS2Wap site is meant for online conversions of RSS feeds into WML for access on WAP devices (RSS2WML, RSS WAP or RSS-to-WAP). It's free and you can make a link on your web site. http://www.rss2wap.com
7.) RSS Graphic Tool - Websites that have RSS feeds available use colorful graphics as flags to indicate to web surfers that RSS feeds are available for specific content.
RSS Graphic Tool - Websites that have RSS feeds available use colorful graphics as flags to indicate to web surfers that RSS feeds are available for specific content. RSS Graphic Tool - Customize RSS buttons. If you have limited time and lack artistic abilities, use this free online RSS graphic tool to create an RSS button. The button's color and text can be customized to suit the look and feel of your website. http://www.feedforall.com/public/rss-graphic-tool.htm
8.) Displaying RSS - Many webmasters display the contents of RSS feeds on their web pages as a fresh source of content and information that changes on a regular basis.
Javascript Options - Using Javascript to display RSS feeds is a very easy way to provide dynamic content with very little effort. Unfortunately, when you use Javascript to display RSS feeds, search engines do not see the feed's content, so the content is not spidered and ultimately will not help with search engine optimization.
Quick RSS Feeds - Free online tool that allows you to simply enter the URL of the RSS feed, define the number of items you would like displayed, and the Javascript will be automatically generated. http://www.quickrssfeeds.com
FeedRoll -A free service for syndicating popular RSS and ATOM news feeds on your website or blog. Select a feed, customize the design, then copy and paste the code provided onto your page. http://www.feedroll.com/rssviewer/
RSS to Javascript - RSS-to-JavaScript.com was designed to easily convert any valid RSS, RDF or ATOM feed into easy-to-implement Javascript. No XML or programming experience is necessary. http://www.rss-to-javascript.com
PHP Options - The benefit to using a PHP script to display RSS on a website is that the content dynamically updates but search engines see the content as static.
FeedForAll's rss2html.php - If you are technically savvy and wish to host the script yourself, check out FeedForAll, as they have a free PHP script available that will display RSS feeds on a website. http://www.feedforall.com/free-php-script.htm
FeedRoll Pro - A fee-based professional service that tracks statistical information for publishers displaying feeds. FeedRoll Pro incorporates a number of display options for publishers wishing to syndicate their content, giving users the choice of PHP or Javascript. http://www.feedrollpro.com
RSS2HTML - Display RSS feeds by selecting layouts and color schemes on this free resource. http://www.rss2html.com
9.) RSS Blogs Stay informed about the latest RSS industry news by monitoring RSS blogs. Daily posts bring readers current news, industry announcements and general RSS information.
RSS Specifications - Everything you need to know about RSS. The RSS Specifications blog contains daily posts and RSS tidbits. http://www.rss-specifications.com/blog.htm
KbCafe - Daily posts and editorials related to RSS and new RSS products that have emerged. http://www.kbcafe.com/rss/
10.) Publishing List / RSS Newsgroups New RSS-Publishing List for publishers. The list is focused on marketing/publishing/operational issues rather than hardcore technical details of RSS, meaning that coding issues and disputes over the merits of RSS vs. Atom are not the focus. If you wish to participate in the list and receive e-mails of posts, simply subscribe by sending and e-mail to: rsspublishing-subscribe@topica.com
RSS Syndication - Collection of RSS related news feeds displayed in an easy-to-read format. http://www.rss-syndication.com/rss-news.htm
11.) RSS Related Forums - Forums can be a useful for anyone doing business online, both in terms of reading the content and actively participating in the discussions. If you want to learn more about RSS consider participating in the following online RSS communities:
2RSS - RSS forum for feed and related RSS discussions. http://forum.2rss.com/
FeedForAll Forum - RSS forum for RSS and feed creation-related discussions. http://www.feedforall.com/forum
German RSS Forum - German RSS forum for feed discussions. http://www.rss-forum.de/
12.) Locate RSS Feeds -
Syndic8 - RSS and Atom news feeds on a wide variety of topics. Designed with a directory structure and search functionality. Syndic8 also tracks statistical information related to RSS feeds. http://www.syndic8.com
Feedster's FeedFinder - Use Feedfinder to search by keyword or by URL or a combination of the two in order to find feeds on that topic or by that organization. . http://feedfinder.feedster.com/
RSS Discovery - The websites you already read may have an RSS feed. Use the BlogStreet's RSS Discovery tool and enter in a website. If there is a feed available BlogStreet will provide the URL. http://www.blogstreet.com/rssdiscovery.html
RSS Locator - Directory and search engine for RSS content including weblogs, newsfeeds, forum feeds and related content feeds. Locate topic-specific RSS feeds for syndication. RSS Locator displays feed content in an HTML format so users can preview the feed's content. http://www.rss-locator.com
12.) Submit RSS Feeds - As more and more people get involved with the Internet and as more Web sites, blogs, news services and other online resources continue to grow in number and variety, it becomes increasingly important to maintain high visibility and exposure for the content being generated by closely following the major distribution media. As a rapidly increasing number of content sources, new and old, migrate or add RSS as a key distribution channel, and as more people utilize RSS newsreaders and aggregators to keep themselves informed, the ability to maintain high exposure and visibility is gradually shifted from complete attention to major search engines and content optimization techniques to an increasing awareness of RSS feed directories and search tools.
RSS Submit - Save time and automate RSS submissions with RSS Submit from K-Soft. http://www.dummysoftware.com/rsssubmit.html
RSS Specifications - Submit RSS files to the large list of RSS directories and expedite your RSS content syndication. http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-submission.htm
RSS Submission Service - A fee-based blog submission service that will submit your blog or RSS feed to more than 70 blog directories. Submissions are done manually, and this service is primarily designed for blog feeds. http://rss-submission-service.notrivia.com/
RSS Top 55 - Top websites for RSS submissions. Premium service is available for a nominal fee that will prioritize the RSS site submissions in the order of importance. http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/
Using RSS tools, publishers and webmasters can increase productivity and efficiency. RSS monitoring can often automate many of the procedures that are time-consuming and monotonous, freeing up time.
About the Author
About the Author: Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing and publishing RSS feeds and NotePage, Inc. http://www.notepage.net a wireless messaging software company.
How to Get Your Blog Noticed Quickly and Widely by Greg White
1. Submit your blog to all of the directories listed on http://pingomatic.com/. Pingomatic will ping 15 services all at once.
2. Ping your blog after every post at http://pingomatic.com/
3. Here's a real gem: Submit your blog to http://www.pingoat.com/ Pingoat will ping over fifty blog ping services all at once. So you don't have to hunt for ping services and manually ping them. Pingoat pings over fifty blog ping servers (growing) with just one click.
4. Ping your blog after every post at Pingoat at http://www.pingoat.com/
5. Sign up for a free account at BlogExplosion.com and register your blog there: http://www.blogexplosion.com/
6. Submit your blog to all of the directores listed at http://www.rss-feeds-directory.com/blog_lists.html
7. Sign up for a "My Yahoo" at http://my.yahoo.com/ and attach your blog to your own "My Yahoo" account. This will get your blog included in Yahoo very quickly. This is worth the effort to stop what you're doing right and do it, since Yahoo has a PR 9.
8. Use this code: "http://add.my.yahoo.com/content?url=http://www.yourblog.com/urblog.xml" in your blog to allow others to put your feed on their own "My Yahoo" account.
9. Sign up for a "My MSN" at http://www.my.msn.com/, and attach your blog to your own "My MSN" account. This will get your blog included in MSN very quickly. This is also invaluable because MSN has a PR 8.
10. Use this code: "http://my.msn.com/addtomymsn.armx?id=rss&ut=http://www.urblogfeedaddress.com/urblog.xml" in your blog to allow others to put your feed on their own "My MSN" account.
11. Place the link and description of your blog in your signature, so that any posts to Forums, Outgoing Emails, Autoresponder Courses, etc, will promote your blog.
12. Post a link and description of your blog on each of your sites.
13. Place your blog on all the major search engines. AddMe.com will submit your blog free to the top 14 Search engines here:
http://www.addme.com/submission.htm
SubmitExpress.com will submit your blog free to the top 20 Search engines here:
http://www.submitexpress.com/
14. Use Article Directories as a resource for articles to post on your blog. Here are a few:
http://ezinearticles.com/
http://goarticles.com/
http://www.knowledge-finder.com/
http://www.informit.com/articles/
Also check out Article Marketer at http://www.articlemarketer.com for a quick and easy way to reach article directories and ezines.
15. Locate blogs with a lot of traffic and place useful comments in their comment box. Be sure the blog and your comments are relavent to both your blog and theirs. Senseless posts won't help you, they'll hurt you.
16. Once you get around 5 to 10 posts on your blog, start a PR campaign and announce it to all relevant channels.
17. Make a blog post as often as possible. More than once a day is not really necessary. Remember, if you can't write that much, go to step # 14.
Greg White, Internet Marketer, Author, and Proj Mgr has run successful web projects since 2001.
http://www.blogmarketingtactics.blogspot.com/http://www.blogmarketingtactics.com/Article Source: http://www.earticlesonline.com
