Ebay + YouTube = Profitable Posts
What I don't like about other blogs When I read other blogs online, I hate that they don't always tell you the ways they "make money online".
I think of the web as an appreticeship of web marketing.
I mean come on - I'm going to figure your "secrets" out sooner or later anyway, if not from you than from someone else.
I'm always more fascinated by people that describe how they get things done than those that plastically recite the same old garbage stories.
I used to be one of those "news parrots" that posted something as soon as I read about it on the A-List blogger's sites.
Now, I kind of prefer to write strictly about thing I myself do.
Rather than be "pete and repeat" about the news, I'm just going to wait and post about it when I'm actually able to login and use it.
Then I'll show you experiences with it and how I'm using it.
I always value reviews like that instead of "headline" type news.
Online Marketing is Selling Yourself I own quite a few web sites, and I monetize them with adsense, eBay, and amazon - amongst other affiliate programs.
I'm in a classic rock cover band, I like to cook, and I love funny jokes.
I also have quite a bit of sales experience.
All kinds of sales too, like retail sales, direct sales, insurance sales, telemarketing, and more.
I apply that sales knowledge on the web whenever I get the chance, because let's face it - online marketing is just another form of sales.
Any experience you have in any other line of sales can be applied online.
I've been applying my previous sales experience online for 13 years now.
I have learned to take things I love and have experience in and use them to "sell myself" online.
In business the easiest sale you can make is by "selling someone" without them even knowing it.
I've always been quite good at sales, and I've sold shoes, food, vacuum cleaners, hurricane survival kits, insurance, lawn care, and lots of other things.
When you're "selling someone" the first thing you have to do is gain their trust.
You do this by starting a conversation with them that has nothing to do with the sale itself.
Instead of talking about something stupid like the weather you key in on something about them and make it personal.
It could be the car they drive, something they wear that tells you about where they work, something that clues you in about their family, and the conversation that ensues builds their trust.
The best salesman do this without you even having a clue, and while they're putting you at ease and gaining your trust they are "selling you" and you don't even know it.
But the main part of this process is the fact that the salesman is "selling himself" to you.
No one likes to feel like they've "been taken for a ride".
That's why the salesman wants you to feel like he truly cares about you, and that he's going to "help you", and he's an honest person.
Blogging is Selling Yourself When you blog, you are that salesman.
It's your job to be engaging and write as if you were having a normal conversation with the reader in person.
Use "sales techniques" but don't talk like a salesman.
This should be pretty easy if you use your own experiences, make a "story" out of how you do things, and blog about things you already know about.
I've read lots of posts in webmaster forums where people are trying to figure out what "niche" is for them.
You already have a "niche", and it's all the things in life you love and know about already.
Nearly all those can be turned into some kind of blog or web site.
When you truly know what you are talking about it shows, and the "game" of selling yourself is more natural.
This is the vein where you will make the most sales of all.
That's why I mentioned some of the things earlier that I love to do - because it makes sense that I have blogs about playing guitar, cooking, jokes, and earning money by blogging.
Turn Your Blog Posts to Conversational Sales Now that I've taught you a slight bit about sales, let me tell you how to put these sales skills into action in your blog.
I'm sure you're already blogging if you're reading this, and you're trying to figure out how to make more money doing it.
All you have to do is find something to conversationally sell in each post.
Then - the key to making sales is making sure that you have lots of sales "pitches".
For instance, when I sold insurance "door to door" years ago we always tried to make sure that we gave 20 "sales pitches" per day.
You were guaranteed to sell something each and every day with that many pitches.
Somedays more, and sometimes less - but you always sold.
You can't complain about not making enough money online if you haven't been consisently "trying to sell".
If you tried to sell something each and every day, that would be 30 "pitches" per month.
You would have to make a sale or two that month.
But the online world is so unlike traditional sales, because when I sold insurance if I failed to sell on one "pitch", I still had 19 more to do that day.
The next day, 20 more, and the next day..
..
over time I was only as good as my last sale.
If I was sick or didn't sell one week becauseof vacation, then for that week I didn't get a paycheck.
Online, once you make a post or "pitch" it remains online selling itself for years.
If you posted a pitch every day for a year, you would eventually reach a "critical mass" point with over 300 pitches online selling 24 hours a day!This is something that many people never understand, the fact that you may not make any money at all for many, many months.
You may not see much traffic until you get 100+ posts.
But keep posting, and posting, and posting - and IT WILL pay off.
OK - I've explained why constant posts or "pitching" is important.
It's time I gave you an example.
I play guitar in a band, so it would figure that I have blog about what I know about - guitars and music.
Riding home from work I heard one of my favorite songs on the radio "Still got the Blues" by blues guitarist Gary Moore.
If you follow that link you'll find the post I wrote about it using all the techniques I've explained to you so far.
I did a quick search on YouTube - and found a live performance of "Still got the blues" and then I took 10 minutes to find 3 other videos of Gary Moore performances.
It was very easy to write a paragraph of "original content" before each video about how I remembered it and when I first heard that song, in addition to why I like Gary Moore as a guitar player.
At the end of the post I slipped in some eBay auctions with hard to find Gary Moore merchandise.
I could have used Amazon or any affiliate for this, but experience has taught me that using eBay auctions increases the likelihood of making a sale.
Mainly because the auctions are live, with varied pricing, pictures, and I usually include 6-7 different ones.
This was a quick 15 minute post, but I accomplished a lot:
Visitor's love video, it's viral and engaging.
It may look really simple, and it was a quick post - but there is a lot of thought behind it.
The more you create posts like this the easier it gets.
Lots of bloggers worry about monetizing their web sites, but they worry about how to monetize the sidebars or header or footer for the entire site at once.
The technique of selling in a post is something I call "conversational monetization".
A sidebar or header ad won't always relate to all your posts.
But by monetizing your site as you write it you can ensure that your "sale item" is always related.
Now your related item is a "suggestion".
Due to the fact that's in the post, the "suggested item" is much more likely to be looked at, and read, and the conversation rate should be higher than any other type of ad you could anywhere on your site.
I've used this technique dozens and dozens of times on many different web sites, and I can attest to the fact that it pays, and in fact with some posts it can pay you back for a few years and more.
The YouTube videos attract attention, and the eBay auctions are always live showing the latest items ending soonest.
A lot of people will revisit a page over and over and over again to check the auctions over and over.
You could have a blog about just about anything and relate items to it at the end without "cheapening your blog".
Blog about it like a value added service, other things readers may like, talk about bargains you've bought in the process, etc.
Like I said, I've used all kinds of affiliate programs to do this in posts, but eBay has consistently worked for me best and paid the most (over time).
It's probably because I have the ability to put eBay auctions live in my posts with a special plugin that I use.
Every time you visit a page or post I've done this on, the latest auctions show from eBay RSS feeds, so visitors always see the latest deals.
Writing my blog posts with this formula has meant eBay + YouTube = profitable posts!
I think of the web as an appreticeship of web marketing.
I mean come on - I'm going to figure your "secrets" out sooner or later anyway, if not from you than from someone else.
I'm always more fascinated by people that describe how they get things done than those that plastically recite the same old garbage stories.
I used to be one of those "news parrots" that posted something as soon as I read about it on the A-List blogger's sites.
Now, I kind of prefer to write strictly about thing I myself do.
Rather than be "pete and repeat" about the news, I'm just going to wait and post about it when I'm actually able to login and use it.
Then I'll show you experiences with it and how I'm using it.
I always value reviews like that instead of "headline" type news.
Online Marketing is Selling Yourself I own quite a few web sites, and I monetize them with adsense, eBay, and amazon - amongst other affiliate programs.
I'm in a classic rock cover band, I like to cook, and I love funny jokes.
I also have quite a bit of sales experience.
All kinds of sales too, like retail sales, direct sales, insurance sales, telemarketing, and more.
I apply that sales knowledge on the web whenever I get the chance, because let's face it - online marketing is just another form of sales.
Any experience you have in any other line of sales can be applied online.
I've been applying my previous sales experience online for 13 years now.
I have learned to take things I love and have experience in and use them to "sell myself" online.
In business the easiest sale you can make is by "selling someone" without them even knowing it.
I've always been quite good at sales, and I've sold shoes, food, vacuum cleaners, hurricane survival kits, insurance, lawn care, and lots of other things.
When you're "selling someone" the first thing you have to do is gain their trust.
You do this by starting a conversation with them that has nothing to do with the sale itself.
Instead of talking about something stupid like the weather you key in on something about them and make it personal.
It could be the car they drive, something they wear that tells you about where they work, something that clues you in about their family, and the conversation that ensues builds their trust.
The best salesman do this without you even having a clue, and while they're putting you at ease and gaining your trust they are "selling you" and you don't even know it.
But the main part of this process is the fact that the salesman is "selling himself" to you.
No one likes to feel like they've "been taken for a ride".
That's why the salesman wants you to feel like he truly cares about you, and that he's going to "help you", and he's an honest person.
Blogging is Selling Yourself When you blog, you are that salesman.
It's your job to be engaging and write as if you were having a normal conversation with the reader in person.
Use "sales techniques" but don't talk like a salesman.
This should be pretty easy if you use your own experiences, make a "story" out of how you do things, and blog about things you already know about.
I've read lots of posts in webmaster forums where people are trying to figure out what "niche" is for them.
You already have a "niche", and it's all the things in life you love and know about already.
Nearly all those can be turned into some kind of blog or web site.
When you truly know what you are talking about it shows, and the "game" of selling yourself is more natural.
This is the vein where you will make the most sales of all.
That's why I mentioned some of the things earlier that I love to do - because it makes sense that I have blogs about playing guitar, cooking, jokes, and earning money by blogging.
Turn Your Blog Posts to Conversational Sales Now that I've taught you a slight bit about sales, let me tell you how to put these sales skills into action in your blog.
I'm sure you're already blogging if you're reading this, and you're trying to figure out how to make more money doing it.
All you have to do is find something to conversationally sell in each post.
Then - the key to making sales is making sure that you have lots of sales "pitches".
For instance, when I sold insurance "door to door" years ago we always tried to make sure that we gave 20 "sales pitches" per day.
You were guaranteed to sell something each and every day with that many pitches.
Somedays more, and sometimes less - but you always sold.
You can't complain about not making enough money online if you haven't been consisently "trying to sell".
If you tried to sell something each and every day, that would be 30 "pitches" per month.
You would have to make a sale or two that month.
But the online world is so unlike traditional sales, because when I sold insurance if I failed to sell on one "pitch", I still had 19 more to do that day.
The next day, 20 more, and the next day..
..
over time I was only as good as my last sale.
If I was sick or didn't sell one week becauseof vacation, then for that week I didn't get a paycheck.
Online, once you make a post or "pitch" it remains online selling itself for years.
If you posted a pitch every day for a year, you would eventually reach a "critical mass" point with over 300 pitches online selling 24 hours a day!This is something that many people never understand, the fact that you may not make any money at all for many, many months.
You may not see much traffic until you get 100+ posts.
But keep posting, and posting, and posting - and IT WILL pay off.
OK - I've explained why constant posts or "pitching" is important.
It's time I gave you an example.
I play guitar in a band, so it would figure that I have blog about what I know about - guitars and music.
Riding home from work I heard one of my favorite songs on the radio "Still got the Blues" by blues guitarist Gary Moore.
If you follow that link you'll find the post I wrote about it using all the techniques I've explained to you so far.
I did a quick search on YouTube - and found a live performance of "Still got the blues" and then I took 10 minutes to find 3 other videos of Gary Moore performances.
It was very easy to write a paragraph of "original content" before each video about how I remembered it and when I first heard that song, in addition to why I like Gary Moore as a guitar player.
At the end of the post I slipped in some eBay auctions with hard to find Gary Moore merchandise.
I could have used Amazon or any affiliate for this, but experience has taught me that using eBay auctions increases the likelihood of making a sale.
Mainly because the auctions are live, with varied pricing, pictures, and I usually include 6-7 different ones.
This was a quick 15 minute post, but I accomplished a lot:
- I used good indexable keywords and lots of original content
- I used free engaging content from YouTube
- I wrote about my personal experiences in a conversational style
- I monetized the post with relevant items from eBay as part of the converstation
Visitor's love video, it's viral and engaging.
It may look really simple, and it was a quick post - but there is a lot of thought behind it.
The more you create posts like this the easier it gets.
Lots of bloggers worry about monetizing their web sites, but they worry about how to monetize the sidebars or header or footer for the entire site at once.
The technique of selling in a post is something I call "conversational monetization".
A sidebar or header ad won't always relate to all your posts.
But by monetizing your site as you write it you can ensure that your "sale item" is always related.
Now your related item is a "suggestion".
Due to the fact that's in the post, the "suggested item" is much more likely to be looked at, and read, and the conversation rate should be higher than any other type of ad you could anywhere on your site.
I've used this technique dozens and dozens of times on many different web sites, and I can attest to the fact that it pays, and in fact with some posts it can pay you back for a few years and more.
The YouTube videos attract attention, and the eBay auctions are always live showing the latest items ending soonest.
A lot of people will revisit a page over and over and over again to check the auctions over and over.
You could have a blog about just about anything and relate items to it at the end without "cheapening your blog".
Blog about it like a value added service, other things readers may like, talk about bargains you've bought in the process, etc.
Like I said, I've used all kinds of affiliate programs to do this in posts, but eBay has consistently worked for me best and paid the most (over time).
It's probably because I have the ability to put eBay auctions live in my posts with a special plugin that I use.
Every time you visit a page or post I've done this on, the latest auctions show from eBay RSS feeds, so visitors always see the latest deals.
Writing my blog posts with this formula has meant eBay + YouTube = profitable posts!
