Using your Squidoo Lens to Earn Ebay Affiliate Dollars & Increase Your Sales

On Ebay, I post often to a discussion board where other store owner (Sellers) gather. I just posted this information which I felt was important enough to add to the blog here.. I invite all comments and or ideas on this.

A week or so ago (its hard to remember as during tax time I lose track of time) I mentioned that eBay had opened up the affiliate end to eBay sellers. What this means if you can make money driving business to your own listings AND if someone signs up for an account to buy one of your items. Have you noticed the big announcement? Of course not! It came out but not everyone got the "memo". In any case there are many affiliates out there making lots of money bringing people to eBay listings to bid, buy and sign up for accounts but now its your turn.Ok so basically people set up these websites (you have seen them) where your listings are all over the web and look like big collections of eBay listings, some even look like their own search engines or stores. This is how people make money doing this.They have some web space and do the coded endings to the listings using tools eBay gives you that do it automatically. Some people make 1 million bucks a month (no lie).In any case, this program was not open to sellers bringing traffic to their own listings before. You could bring traffic to others listings and make money but now things are way more interesting because you double benefit! (sales and $$ for bringing them in ).In any case it all sounds good, but like anything else who has endless time right? Well being the rocket scientist I am (actually stumbled into it LOL) , I figured Id check on something.As most of you know from tinkering with the Squidoo lenses they have a nice system for adding an RSS feed module easily (basically if you can cut and paste a URL and type your done!). Moreover its FREE (their webspace and their dime no hosting costs no cost whatsoever to you).PLUS they pay you if someone clicks on an ad etc from your Squid pages (nice but no real money yet).In any case the affiliate program eBay has will create an affiliate coded feed of your items to post in RSS modules on Squidoo and you can post away and post your friends items (especially if related they might help your sales too) and do it all for free. Any business coming in with these codes earns you money under the affiliate program . Here is a link to the payout page (you can click around to get more on the program)http://affiliates.ebay.com/odcs/custom.htm?template=Payout

With the Squidoo network we have , combined with the blogs and myspace pages etc , we have a web of content in place that will make these affiliate feeds more valuable.People can make money doing affiliate deals without content but we just created a huge web of content and can add lenses or modules to add RSS affiliate feeds.Lets take an example. I am not a home craft person but always like stuff that others do here.Many of these people have Squidoos and blogs now. They set up lenses with RSS affiliate coded feeds and earn money off any business coming to them AND off any new active user that signs up because of their feeds.Say Home craft person #1 is more motivated then person 2 and 3, she can put everyones stuff she likes up and earn money on all of it while her friend benefit from the sales in their store with no work.To the best of my knowledge there are few great content areas with affiliate set ups and for the most part while web space is cheap its not free. So this is my idea.Basically there are a few downsides. First I think like anything else new , eBay can always change it or take it out, and second, I worked with Commission Junction before and didnt like how they operated but it could have been just my experience. Commission Junction is running this for eBay.Also , while this isnt important to everyone when you have a business DSL or Cable package it often comes with this huge amount of space on their servers. I have some crazy amount at my office. Many of you have the same. I assume that can also be used to set up RSS feeds for no cost but Im not an expert in doing that.Anyone with any ideas? read through that section and let me know.Downsides are limited plus no costs. Upside could be some extra money.

Here are some thoughts from an affiliate blogger on the ebay change..http://www.geekbooks.com/ebay_changes_affiliate_terms_for_the_better_530.html