BOOMER eZINE

The Online Entrepreneur Magazine

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Table of Contents for this issue.....

1.    Authors Comments

2.    Q & A, Suggestions and Comments

3.    eBay Classified Update

4.    To eBay or not to eBay

5.    Privacy Policy

Author's Comments

Linda and I had a great time at the lake.  We are tired and sore from paddling twice a day.  Thanks to the miracle of sunscreen, we are not sunburned.

I had not seen Allison, our grand daughter, for a few months so we visited Justin and Mary in San Antonio on the way home.  Allison is 20 months and has she grown since I last saw her.  It was great fun to play with her and see how much she has developed.

We came home relaxed and exhausted.  It was worth it.

We hope you had a great weekend too.  

Q & A, Suggestions and Comments  

If you have anything for this section or you have a suggestion for a topic for an article, please send us an email with your suggestions or your input.  With your help, we can improve the Boomer Video eZine.

eBay Classified Update  

Our eBay classified ad keeps on ticking off the views and the sign ups.

As of the writing of this issue it has had 125 views.

At this point, each click (including my own) has cost $.32.  The ad has four days left to run so it should end up in the $.27 per click range.  

We will continue to update you on the results of our experiment.   The ad will expire before our next issue so we will report a wrap up of the project next week.

To eBay or not to eBay  

Some readers have asked me, “Should I have my own website or should I just use eBay”.  

My answer to this question is “Yes” meaning that you should have both.  Each one can complement the other and the two working together can be a powerful combination.  

Either eBay or your own website can be successful, but together they are a “killer” combination.  

I recommend that you start on eBay.  

You do not need to be an Internet genius to start on eBay.  You do not need to know HTML or have deep Internet skills to set up an auction on eBay.  eBay has the easy to use tools to lead you  through the process of setting up an auction.  

You can get started making money on eBay quickly.  You set up an auction and you are in business.  As contrasted to building your own website which takes a lot of time.  

You do not need a large front end investment to get started.  eBay charges per auction.  You pay a listing fee and a fee if your item sells.  You know the insertion fee from the eBay fee schedule.  The final value fee is a percentage of the selling price which you pay only if the item sells. This adds up to very low financial exposure to post auctions on eBay.  

eBay’s reputation as the “world’s marketplace” attracts its own traffic and you do not have to worry about your website ranking on the search engines.  This protects you from the whims of the search engine algorithms.  This makes eBay a stable, predictable traffic environment.  

Setting up and managing auctions on eBay does not take a tremendous amount of time, but it does take some time on a regular schedule.  If you plan to spend a couple of hours per day on eBay, you can build a successful eBay business.  

You do not have to know how to build a website if you start with eBay.  When you are learning how to write an effective description on eBay, you can use a little HTML to enhance the listing and you can gradually learn some HTML basics.  

If eBay is working so well, why have your own website?  

eBay does not build equity for you.  You do not own your eBay auction, eBay does.  As long as you post auctions, you can make money.  Stop posting auctions and the cash flow stops.  

You can build your own website and you own it.  It can be designed to continue to generate cash automatically.  

eBay is a traffic generator as well as an auction site.  If you use eBay correctly, you can make money from your auctions and drive traffic to your website as well.  The bible on how to accomplish this is Jim Cockrum’s book, “The Silent Sales Machine Hiding on eBay”.

Jim is credited with fully developing the concept of using your eBay “About Me page” to advertise your own website and send traffic to it from your eBay auctions.  

For those who have never heard about an eBay “About Me page”, you can visit one of mine at

 http://members.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewUserPage&userid=sbi-guru.

I use this About Me page to promote my book “How to Choose The Best Web Host for YOUR Website”. This in turn brings subscribers to Boomer eZine.

Why do you need a website if you are successful on eBay?  Let me count the reasons.  

We already mentioned building equity so you can sell your business in the future.  

You can sell the same type of items on your own site that you sell on eBay.  If you attract traffic to your site and make the sale, you do not have to pay the eBay fees.  More profit for you.  

You can incorporate other types of income generation on your site.  You can set up Google Adsense ads on your site.  These ads will be targeted at the traffic that comes to your site.  If you have a theme for your site based on the auctions that you are running, the traffic that comes to your site from eBay will be interested in the items being sold by the Adsense ads and you will make money from them.  This is some of the automatic cash generation mentioned earlier.  

You can develop content about various topics for your niche and weave in links to sales pages on Clickbank.com.  If a viewer clicks on your recommendation and purchases from Clickbank.com, you get a commission for the recommendation.  Another automatic cash generation!  It is nice to get a check (yes, they still send paper checks in the mail) from Clickbank.com.  

You can join Commission Junction and find items to sell that match your site theme.  Check out Commission Junction at www.cj.com.  

Building a website can be a daunting task.  I recommend Site Build It to help you build your website.  SBI can help you build a great website to complement your eBay auctions.  In fact, SBI has a free Masters Course on how to build a Net auction site.  You can download it free at  

http://www.sbi-guru.com/Masters_Courses/mynas-masters.zip  

SBI will help you find the niche market to match your eBay auction theme.  Once you find this market, SBI will help you attract search engine traffic.  

This is a winning combination, eBay sending traffic to your site and SBI helping you attract search engine traffic to your site.  

On the Internet there is no guarantee of success, but you can stack the odds in your favor by employing two of the best traffic generators on the Net.  

Good luck with your project.  Start on eBay now and chart your course to success.  

Privacy Policy  

How many of you have a privacy link on your home page?  I must admit that I do not, but I will soon.  

I listened to an interview with a man who worked for Google and quit to become an Internet marketer.  The interview was revealing about what Google looked for on a website.  

A link to a privacy policy on the home page was one of the items mentioned.  

I have been scouting for a privacy policy and most of them cost $19 - $25 from legal advice websites.  

I found a free one at  

http://www.freedogtrainingtips.net/Privacy_Statement.html  

I am going to study examples of privacy policies in more detail and this will be the major article for next week’s issue.  

That wraps up our issue for this week.  Until next week, stay tuned.  

John and Linda Howe  

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