3 Interesting Ideas to Make Money on ebay

1) Sell Used Cell Phones on ebay
The demands for used cell phones with brand names like Nokia, Motorola, Kyocera, Alltel, Ericsson, Sprint, etc in ebay are pretty high. Many of the used cell phones auctions in ebay usually attract bids.

So how to find used cell phones to profit on ebay?
Many people change their cell phones every year. If you are one of them, probably you already have 2 or 3 used cell phones kept at home that can sell on ebay. Your friends may also keep a few of old phones left unused. You can buy from them and resell on ebay.

To get a consistent supply of cell phones, you may think about placing classified ads in newspaper states that you pay money for used cell phone. You shouldn't pay much when buying used cell phones. Do a little research on ebay to find out how much used cell phones are generally selling. If a used cell phone sell at a price of $50 in ebay, you should pay not more than 30% of the price to buy it. If the phone is a recent model you can pay little more and cut a little if it is old and nothing special.

2) Sell Used How-to Books
Used how-to books are quite easy to find and inexpensive to buy. They can be bought at $1.00 or less. You can buy how-to books from thrift shops, estate sales, used book stores, yard sales, etc and sell them in ebay for high profit margin. You can also get how-to books from Book Sale Finder. Here are the type of books you should look for:

Hobbies
Photography, blacksmithing, clock building & repair, woodworking, magic, treasure hunting, iron work, pipe smoking, dog training, antiques, coins, buttons, medals, drawing, painting, craft making, dolls, pottery, etc.

Home and Garden
Home decorating, home remodelling, garden trellis, etc.

Misc
How to repair (watch repair, door repair, pipe repair), how to play, lost treasure, eary aviation, etc.

When you list your books in ebay, you can either list them in the "Book" category of ebay or in the subject specific category of ebay. For instance, If you are selling a book related to home decorating, you may be making more profit if you list the book under the "Home Deco" within the "Home & Garden" category of ebay campare to listing the book under "Book"

3) Sell Gift Cards
Gift card is another profitable market in ebay. There are many people possess gift cards but not everyone of them will use their gift cards. If you can offer to buy these unused gift cards for a price at 20% or less of the value of the gift certificates, they will sell to you. You can advertise your offer in local newspaper, penny shop and trading post. You are looking for gift cards that are still valid (not yet expire). Most gift cards have a toll-free number on the back you can dial to check whether the cards are still valid.

When determining the buy and sell price of a gift card, you should do some research on ebay. Try to look for auction that sell the similar card. See how much the card sells in the auction and set you buying price at 40% to 50% of the selling price of the auction. The starting bid and winning bid of the auction can also give you an idea on how much your card can sell on ebay.

5 Tips to Boost Your Adsense Revenue

Google AdSense program has made it easier for webmasters to make money through a website. Webmasters who run an AdSense campaign will display Google's contextual Ads relevant to the content of their sites and thus encouraging visitors to click the ads and earn money for each ad click.

However you will earn very little AdSense revenue if you don't know how to optimize your AdSense ads on your website. Here are some tips to increase your AdSense earning:

1. Focus on one Adsense ad format. The Large Rectangle (336X280) ad format seems to work better than other ad formats because this format tends to result in higher click through rates (CTR). Another reason is that the ads will look like normal web links that visitors use to click on them. It doesn't matter whether the visitors know that they are clicking AdSense ads or not, as long as there are clicking, you earn AdSense commission.

2. Create a custom palette for your ads. Select a color that matches your website's background. If your site's background is white both, the color of ad border and background should set to be white too. Also the color of the ad title should be similar to coloe of the links in your website. This is to make your AdSense ads look like it is part of the web pages. Again, this will boost AdSense CTR.

3. Don't place your AdSense ads at the bottom of your webpages because it is proven to be less effective. Displaying your AdSense ads at the bottom is like hiding your AdSense and thus leads to low CTR and AdSense revenue. Try to put them in the place where people can see them quickly. You will be amazed how the difference between AdSense locations can make when you see your earnings.

4. Try to place your AdSense ads near rich content as visitors main focus usually are your content. There are several ways to insert AdSense ads into your content and one of the ways is place your AdSense just after the end of your content.

5. Try to automate the insertion of your AdSense code into the webpages using SSI (or server side included). Ask your web administrator if your server supports SSI or not. How do you do it? Just save your AdSense code in a text file, name it as “AdSense text”, and upload it to the root directory of the web server. Then use SSI, call the code on other pages. This tip is a time saver especially for those who are using automatic page generators to generate pages on their website.

These are some of the tips that have worked well for some who want to generate hundreds and even thousands on their websites. There are other ways to optimize your AdSense that produce high CTR also. You can learn more tricks by reading in AdSense and webmaster forums.

The Official Launch of Money Maker Info Blog

KAJANG, MALAYSIA, November 25, 2007 - The Money Maker Info Blog has today celebrated its official launch, and is set to become one of the main sources of information for anyone looking to make money from the Internet, or boost the online presence of their existing business.

The Money Maker Info blog, which is authored by Alan Liew, provides a range of free services to help people take the next step in boosting their online income with a selection of useful tools, tutorials, and helpful articles that cover all aspects of the many methods of making money online.

Visitors to http://moneymakerinfo.blogspot.com will find access to a range of eBooks, reports and expert tools that can help to promote an online business, as well as providing almost anyone with the expertise that they need to run a successful website.

The free to access Getting Started guide can offer initial tips to help people start making money with AdSense and affiliate programs; finding the best paid freelance jobs; and a comprehensive guide that acts as a road map through the potential pitfalls of private label rights products, HYIP programmes and more.

More experienced internet based entrepreneurs will also find plenty to interest them at the Money Maker Info Blog, including the latest news on hot search engine optimisation techniques that are helpful to boost traffic; links to great value pay per click programmes that provide websites with traffic that really converts; and a number of handy tools that will allow thorough analysis of their website and show them where they can make changes to boost conversions.

The Money Maker Info blog is a resource that is set to keep growing, with regular contributions from acknowledged experts in the internet marketing field. By accessing the articles and tutorials available on the site, even experts will be able to learn new techniques that will boost their online earnings while minimising the often expensive cost of driving traffic to a website in order to make that all important sale.

With the staggering growth of online spending showing no sign of letting up, making effective use of the Internet to drive sales is the most important aspect of business today, and thanks to the information provided on the Money Maker Info Blog, anyone who wants to take their business to the next level will be able to get access to the tools and up-to-date information that they need to succeed.

The availability of all the right business tools and information resources for making money online in one place makes the Money Maker Info Blog an essential resource for anyone who is serious about their online business. Visit http://moneymakerinfo.blogspot.com now for all the news, tools, and tutorials that are needed for success online, and start boosting your business today!

Money Maker Info blog is specialize in providing free resources and tips for profiting online with Internet marketing.

What is a Blog?

So what is a Blog anyway? This is a question I am asked every week via emails, conversation and Instant Messaging chats. If you’re reading this you may well be asking the same question.

There are a number of ways I could answer this question ranging from the broad to the highly technical.

Before I share my answer to the ‘what is a blog’ question - here are a few definitions from other much wiser people to get us started:

‘A weblog is a hierarchy of text, images, media objects and data, arranged chronologically, that can be viewed in an HTML browser.’ Source

‘A frequent, chronological publication of personal thoughts and Web links.’ Source

‘From “Web log.” A blog is basically a journal that is available on the web. The activity of updating a blog is “blogging” and someone who keeps a blog is a “blogger.”‘ Source

‘A weblog is kind of a continual tour, with a human guide who you get to know. There are many guides to choose from, each develops an audience, and there’s also comraderie and politics between the people who run weblogs, they point to each other, in all kinds of structures, graphs, loops, etc.’ Source

‘A blog is basically a journal that is available on the web. The activity of updating a blog is “blogging” and someone who keeps a blog is a “blogger.” Blogs are typically updated daily using software that allows people with little or no technical background to update and maintain the blog. Postings on a blog are almost always arranged in cronological order with the most recent additions featured most prominantly.’ Source

‘A blog is a website in which items are posted on a regular basis and displayed in reverse chronological order. The term blog is a shortened form of weblog or web log. Authoring a blog, maintaining a blog or adding an article to an existing blog is called “blogging”. Individual articles on a blog are called “blog posts,” “posts” or “entries”. A person who posts these entries is called a “blogger”. A blog comprises text, hypertext, images, and links (to other web pages and to video, audio and other files). Blogs use a conversational style of documentation. Often blogs focus on a particular “area of interest”, such as Washington, D.C.’s political goings-on. Some blogs discuss personal experiences.’ Source. >>more

Digital World: How to really make money on the Net

For years now, we've been giving to the Internet - whether we've been shopping, uploading stuff to sites, sending e-mails to public forums or talkback pages to protest this or that - and of course, giving out real money to the phone or cable company in order to pay for our connections to the virtual world.

Now it's time to take something back. How? By getting into an on-line business, and make some money! Surely you've seen the e-mail messages (read: spam) in your inbox, and wondered whether you, too, could get in on the gravy train. Of course, you would build a legitimate model, selling a legitimate product or service; we have to much self-respect to build an on-line pharmacy selling discount Pakistani meds to Americans, or Viagra wannabe treatments (although I hear say that the money there is pretty good!).

Fortunately, though, there are plenty of legitimate ways to make money on the Net, giving you a solid side income - and maybe even a new career, if you come up with the right idea! I want to make something very clear at the outset, though: I do not claim to be a major expert on Internet marketing - but that's the rationale behind this article. If you Google "Web site promotion techniques," you'll get thousands of hits with advice on what to do, or not. But when you review the information on the sites, you realize that much of the information is very general in nature, and a lot of the sites seem to have copied concepts or whole articles one from another (in fact, a lot of them probably got the same articles from a site like http://www.articlepillar.com/, which supplies free "filler" content to sites - not that there's anything wrong with that!). Most of these sites, I have found, urge you to sign up for advanced information - which sometimes is or is not worthwhile. And many of these sites, in addition, urge you to click on various links at external sites (with which they have affiliate deals) in order to get at more information - which may or may not be helpful.

My point is that for a beginner in this space, getting proper direction can be difficult. For the forest of Web sites that purport to help you to get into "the business," there is a relative dearth of trees where you can actually get useful ideas on what to actually do in order to make money - what kind of business to build, how and where to promote it, and how to actually make money from it. While there are definitely "gems" of information out there that will help you with different aspects of getting into the Internet business, many of the sites that offer to help you with your site's SEO (search engine optimization) actually want to sell you promotion services. Again, not that there's anything wrong with that; but an educated consumer is the best customer, and if you're a beginner in the area of trying to sell on the Internet or have never tried it before, there are some basic questions you need to answer before you lay out money for Web site design and pay someone to promote the site - such as, "is this an idea I can make money from?"

What's lacking is a business model for Web success from start to finish - starting with, "where do I begin?" If you're a beginner, that would be the place to start! And so, keeping in mind that I am not, as I mentioned an "expert" in the sense that the (seemingly) millions of SEO and promotion site webmasters are - but am someone who has dabbled in "real-life" Web promotion - I bring some ideas to the table that you may or may not find useful.

Product and/or service: Should you offer a product or a service? And if so, which one? This Web page (http://tinyurl.com/oo4f2), which lists the "Top 10 Dumbest Online Business Ideas That Made It Big Time," has been dug on Digg.com over 3,000 times - a pretty respectable number of diggs, and indicative of the heavy interest in figuring out how to make money on the Web. Hard to imagine some of the sites making the big money the author says they did - as in the millions generated by, for example, "doggles" (http://doggles.com/) - but there you have it.

Unfortunately for most of us, producing a product is a full budget, full time commitment - not for folks getting their first taste of marketing of any sort. Many people in the US make good money on Ebay, selling specialty items, and if you're willing to lay out for inventory (and, if you live in Israel, you have a place to store and ship your goods - international shipping and customs will probably price you out of the market), Ebay and other auction sites could provide a good income. Of course, whatever you're selling, you can be sure that thousands of others are selling as well. And unless the item you're selling is something that people will want on a regular basis (like a food item), you have to keep searching out new customers. Still, there are people in Israel who do have successful Ebay stores, as well as successful commercial sales sites, selling stuff to Israelis and/or Americans. But that route isn't one most newbies will want to take either.

It's a lot easier, cheaper - and potentially more lucrative - to set yourself up in the information business. Meaning, that you share with the world information about which you are passionate and/or knowledgeable. With easy to use blogging software at sites like http://www.blogspot.com, you could set yourself up with a blog - which, in essence, is an information distribution service - and work from there, using it as your springboard to fame and fortune. A blog can be just a blog, of course - but many blogs make big money for their writers, in a number of ways - and yours can, too.

A simple example of what I'm talking about can be seen at the site mentioned above (the one with the smart dumb business ideas) and its sister site (http://uncommonbusiness.blogspot.com/). Note how he weaves in recommendations for books related to the subject as part of his blog; if you click through on the link for the book, you'll see that you've credited his affiliate link with a click - with payment for the click through, and a commission on the book, if a referral from his site buys one. According to his Blogspot profile, the person who runs this site has a bunch of other sites sharing odd information about businesses, Web sites, and the computer business. Great idea! And while I didn't review all his sites, I would have to imagine he is actively promoting a few of them. And how would he (or you) go about promoting his "information business?" I'll give you the hard facts next time.

By DAVID SHAMAH

BLOGIT - GET PAID TO BLOG

Making Payments
To make payments, simply sign up for a Blogit subscription. For as little as $9.95 per month, you get unlimited access to all the writing on Blogit.

Half of your Blogit Basic payment is divided between the writers you actually read. The rest is used by Blogit to support the web site, marketing, customer service, and payment processing.

Payment Distribution
Every month, Blogit keeps track of the number of times you read each writer. At the end of the month, Blogit divides your writer payment between all of the writers, based on how often you read each one.

As a simple example, say you only read Jack during the month. At the end of the month, Blogit will send your entire writer payment to Jack.

Let's say you now start reading Jill half of the time, while still reading Jack the rest of the time. In that case, Blogit will send half your writer payment to Jill and the other half to Jack.

It's that easy. Since Blogit automatically does the math for you, you can be sure each writer is receiving a fair share.

Notes
Every page read is counted, so if you click on a blog and read five pages of that blog, that is counted as five pages read.
Comment pages are not counted.

7 tips to improve your alexa traffic rank.

1. Download the Alexa toolbar and use it every day to visit your own website. Alexa even gives you the ability to co-brand the toolbar with your own logo and give it away. You can download the toolbar here: http://pages.alexa.com/prod_serv/associatetoolbar.html

2. Use Alexa redirection whenever you can. No matter when or where you provide a link to your website, be sure to use the equivalent Alexa redirect URL. For example, when providing a link to my website, I use http://redirect.alexa.com/redirect?marketingscoop.com. If you copy this URL into your browser, it will take you to MarketingScoop.com. To use this technique, simply replace the name of my website (marketingscoop) with yours.

3. Encourage your website visitors to add their positive testimonials on Alexa’s detailed listings page for your website. This can be done by placing a link to the appropriate Alexa page on your website and asking visitors to “Click here to rate this website”. You can find your detailed Alexa page here: http://www.alexa.com/data/details/?url=marketingscoop.com. Again, just replace the name of my website (marketingscoop) with yours. By clicking on the URL, visitors will be able to reach your detailed rating page and write a review using the review link located on the left hand side of the page.

4. Write your own site reviews on the top 100 rated Alexa sites and include your redirect URL. The top 500 domains, according to Alexa can be found at http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_500 When you write a review, be sure to use the redirection URL we discussed in number 2 above specifically for your website [http://redirect.alexa.com/redirect?marketingscoop.com].

5. Download the Alexa ranking button, traffic history graph, info links, and other traffic counters onto the page of your website that receives the most traffic. For example, at the bottom of my home page http://www.marketingscoop.com, I’ve added the Alexa ranking box. You can do the same for your own site by visiting http://www.alexa.com/site/site_stats/signup You’ll notice that I haven’t added the traffic history graph. This is because it wouldn’t look appropriate on my home page and because Alexa is only providing detailed history on the top 100,000 sites. So if you’re not in the top 100,000, site stats would not be available.

6. Take an inexpensive advertisement out on the ExactSeek search directory for only a few dollars per month at ExactSeek.com Search engine results are directly correlated with Alexa rankings. You’ll notice that if a website is highly ranked on ExactSeek, chances are that it will be highly ranked on Alexa.

7. Get listed on as many search engines as possible by placing a free listing in DMOZ. This is the largest human edited directory on the web and is co-branded among hundreds of thousands of sites. Be patient though, it often takes up to 5 months before you see your website listed after submission. Even though it takes longer than it should, you have little say in the matter because it’s so widely used across the Internet.

These simple Alexa strategies are easy to implement and will make a huge difference in your Alexa ranking. Ultimately you want visitors to do more than visit your home page, you want them to interact with your site. Be sure to optimize your home page for SEO purposes, ease of use, and interaction. Creating a positive user experience will get visitors to return again and again.