Using Tag (Keyword) Clouds For Visual Sales and Information Directories

I have been working on an interesting way of displaying content by word density called Tag Clouds. They have been around a while but Im slow to catch on. Of course I do think of new ways to use them. LOL

Ok now just so you know what I am talking about you will need to look over to the left hand side of my blog <-----over there and scroll down.

There are two tag clouds there. The first one is for the blog, people can click on anything and find those posts. The second is for my eBay store. People can click on a word and find matching items.

Both these "clouds" as they are called are put together using a formula which makes fonts bigger for higher mentions of words and phrases etc. They both will update automatically as well as items come and go (supposedly).

It is running off the eBay RSS feed (which up until tonight was pumping out only the word "Wednesday" which is why I couldnt get it to work LOL)

Keep in mind I do need to refine this some I can adjust colors and size and also exclude words etc. But give the basic store visualization would you agree that it might give you a very quick idea of what is in the store if you were a new buyer or someone just looking at that list from a blog?

I felt that this was true, but I wanted your thoughts -Please post your comments!!

One seller on eBay posts about making lists and posting them everywhere. I know it sounds basic but I have heard about this very basic game plan working but thought the list was good but not good enough as it was hard to navigate. A clickable tag cloud however might be appealing in this sense that they suggested to broadcast.

Here are some advantages I see here.

1- It adds tons of clickables to blogs (couldnt get it to work on the Squid lens yet still working on that)

2- I can use Vflyer.com (check them out) to create a flier that is free and can go to all the free classifieds sites.

3- The list is always updated so wherever it is, there it will change.

4-It appears Zoom renders their own pre-page before the customer gets to the eBay page which nicely lists all the items that match the click.

I am working on ways to bring people in that dont involve them having to know what they are searching for.

I wanted to integrate it on a custom page in the store but dont think it will work there due to the scripting but there are plenty of places to use it.

So how did I come across this? Well first I noticed Squidoo had a tag cloud, but more importantly I saw a site where people listed what they would like to do with their lives and I learned almost everyone wanted See the Northern Lights and of course lose weight , quit smoking etc etc. It was interesting to see the density of the thoughts of 900,000 people all interested in many of the same things.

In any case please offer your thoughts.

How being a Trading Assistant Can help Your eBay Store Sales..

A Trading Assistant is the term eBay uses to describe people that sell for others on a commission basis. How could this make sense for you? Well first it is a source of income for which you do not have to come up with money for inventory. Next , the items you list to auction for you clients you are selling for will promote your own store items for free! The clients pay the costs of auctioning their items, but any items out on auction promote your store items! So you get some free promotion. Also some slower moving client items can be put in your eBay store where you can charge more than eBay charges you! (rent). Lots of good ways to make money in the trading assistant program. We will be writing more about this in coming posts.

I am a Trading Assistant - I can sell items for you!

Grow your eBay Store Squidoo Lens hits #1 In Business #2 overall!!!!

Big news to report tonight! Our Squidoo lens located here

http://www.squidoo.com/growyourebaystoresales

Has soared to the #1 position in the Business category! It is also an astounding #2 overall out of over 90,000 lenses! Squidoo is like a socially rated website content area. I could not have moved up without the help of many great eBay store sellers. Plus who doesnt want to make money on eBay these days?

In any case I am really excited about it and hope that if there are any Squidooers out there they can stop by and say hello on my lens and vote for me! I will keep providing the very best eBay information !

Marty

Train & Railroad Collectibles/ Items are always good to sell on eBay!

One theme that seems to never go out of style is peoples love of Trains! There are so many train and railway collectors out there! . People collect everything! From model trains to the real trains themselves! They collect bells from train stations, read books on trains, kids read books on trains, and almost everything with a train them is usually better than something without it! After selling out of nearly every train related item we had in our first year of selling we finally have a few more listed. Just to give you an idea of the variety of items . We have train belt buckles and books listed now so Ill post a few pictures -Marty

Huge Star Trek LOT /Outer Limits - What to do about titles for Cool Auctions

Well we have a cool auction running. Its for a huge lot of Star Trek Spaceships and a few other items.

Recently we had some Outer Limit cards with Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner episodes so we decided to toss in a few cards into the lot. Thus we were able to use the following keywords in the title

Star Trek

Huge Lot

Outer Limits

Klingon

Borg

Having multiple reasons a searcher can find your item always helps. This should be an interesting auction! Star Trek items were very popular in the early days of eBay, and the best items will always get some good prices. However , in years since those days Star Wars has been more popular at times and represents one of the biggest markets on eBay. Some support for Star Trek items can be found in Japan where great collectors just cannot get enough items!

-Marty

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

Selling and Old Favorite Educational/Science Kits

I am not sure if its because I would like to play with these or because people really want them but I buy a lot of educational/science kits to re-sell on ebay. As it turns out they sell really well. While many kids are plugged into their video games there are still people that enjoy these kits much like I did when I was a young teen 30 years ago. This weeks find? Prehistoric Animals locked in sand that you can escavate and paint yourself! I sold one within hours of posting them for sale! Always a great item! :)

Our Squidoo Lens hits #1 in Business #17 Overall! - Social Media Marketing

Within the short span of less than a week our Squidoo project jumped up to the #1 slot in the Business category and #17 overall out of 97,000 plus Squidoo lenses on the internet! For those of you that do not know what a Squidoo lens is, and for those that are hoping its just another way of looking at (or eating Calamari) LOL then let me give you a brief description of it. Its basically "Your take on a subject" . You post information , gather articles and or products and produce a lens or "your read" on a subject. Its a very cool site. You can see our lens here at

http://squidoo.com/growyourebaystoresales/

We did our lens on Growing your eBay Store! This is what our goal will be. We are there to grow our eBay store and will post ideas and strategies that we have to do just that. By creating a lens we also invite others to comment and add content and we grow a source of knowledge that helps everyone! We also have increased our sales as onlookers see our items in a soft sell environment of who were are and what we are about.

We plan on many more social media marketing strategies but the Squidoo lens is very well set up and the eBay store discussion board jumped right on the project propelling many eBay stores to the top ranks of the Squidoo especially in the Shopping and Crafts areas!

Definately check out Squidoo! Ill be back with more info! -Marty

Fairies, Mermaids, Fairykins and Mystical Creatures

One important thing we learned when selling is that the mystical and magical sells well online. People love fairies, they love mermaids they love dragons, unicorns, you name it! A while back we came across some nice items that were no longer manufactured in a closeout called Fairykins. Like many of our items we have small lots of these not an endless supply but they have been really popular. There were even Fairy Mermaid Kins but we sold out of them! Always keep the magical in mind when buying or seeking new products to sell. The fairkin pictured flaps her wings when you push her belly! I just love these things! -Marty

Using Squidoo To Tie Together your Ebay Content

Hey Everyone! Its still tax time for us CPAs but I did manage to get some work done ! I started our Squidoo lens here http://www.squidoo.com/growyourebaystoresales/ . It is just a start but it will tie together all our related eBay content. We have this blog, our store and myspace sites linked there. We have book recommendations, and hope to have our ebay listing feeds up and running to show our items for sale but I do not see it coming up as of yet. The goal here is to have a place to tie together all the content sites we are working on now. Squidoo is very highly ranked. One of my friends Sallie , worked hard on her lens and had a top 100 Squidoo lens for a while, she is my encouragement to do this project as well as my good friend Maggie the artisan who just stated I had to do it! LOL. So no challenge left undone! Its up and I hope you enjoy it. Please vote for me there if you like! I have lots of great content coming to all my sites so stay tuned! Sales are cranking for us and will be for you soon! Keep in mind always that we offer training, consulting and even tax help over the phone or even in person if you live close by where we are here in Connecticut!

Start your own Squidoo lens about your eBay Store or any topic you like by accepting this invitation http://www.squidoo.com/lensmaster/referral/OnceUponaBid !!!!

-Marty