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Berryit.com, recent winner or the Cambrianhouse.com ideaqarz has been entered in another contest.
Please go here to vote for me!
http://ideablob.com/ideas/3055-Berryit-com-An-online-boycott-
Since I get so many hits on this site from people wanting to know more about Shopster I thought I’d give you the lowdown.
Shopster is great for those of you who would like to get into ecommerce easily and without a lot of website building knowledge. They allow you to have a site easily and also have a huge selection of products that you can sell.
First. Here’s the trick. choose what you sell wisely. Yes it would be cool to have a site that sold DVDs and CDs but the fact is, you have too much competition. Choose a product with not a lot of competition.
Secondly, find your niche. Most people think that the more you have to offer the more likely you will be to make a sale. That is not the case. IF you have a niche product (mine was lamps and especially Tiffany style lamps) you are more likely to rank higher in Google for specific keywords, you’re more likely to look like an expert, and you’re more likely to get repeat business.
Third. Only be an ecommerce site. Do not be an affiliate/ecommerce site. People see right through that.
Fourth. It takes time. Build slowly. Add content daily. The traffic will come. Do not buy adwords or pay for clicks. They will not give you any revenue, trust me. Go for organic search ranking for your specific keywords. When people can find you on the first page of Google then you will see sales start to roll in.
And last. This is a business. Be aware that you will be putting out money every month without any returns. That’s the way it goes. However, if you can afford to stick with it (I couldn’t and that’s the reason I’m not there right now) you will reap great rewards.
I hope this helps some of you make a decision. We had one person on this blog some months back bad-mouthing Shopster but I think you will find that most are pretty happy with the results.
Shopster offers a 7-day free trial but let me warn you, there is a learning curve and seven days is not enough to test the sites. You can however go to the forums, visit some sites, and see what you want to sell in that seven days.
I am an affiliate for Shopster as of this morning, however, I was also a customer and they treated me right. It was my financial situation that didn’t allow me to continue. I will in the future however. As for now I am content on helping others get involved with them. Hope this helps you fence riders.
I have been reading a lot lately about Google Adsense sharing. The premise is simple. Sites built on the backs of contributors and reap the rewards of the traffic generated (adsense clicks) have started sharing the adsense revenue with the contributors. Now this is nothing new. Some sites have done this for quite a while now. However, there are now a myriad of different sites and blogs jumping into the fray. There are article sites that want any and every type contributor out there. They want volume. But I think that the way to actually do this is to concentrate on quality. IF you were to get say 10 great contributors to post regularly to a blog, keep the blog focused on a niche, and have all 10 promote the blog, I think you would see PR rankings, sites linking to your site, and readership increase much more dramatically than if you were the only writer.
I have a few ideas for a blog or two and I may just try this. I do know that doing it this way will take time to build readership and this is not a get rich quick scheme. However, over time it could be a very viable business model.
Check it out. Zlio.com has a new look. Looks nice!
A PR5 ranking by Google is pretty good. I did it with very little effort and here’s how.
- I started blogging. I went to WordPress and got myself a blog.
- I had something to blog about. I started the blog to tell the story about my (now defunct) adventure with Shopster. I found that there were a lot of people who wanted information on what works and what doesn’t.
- I built incoming links. Well I didn’t build them, they came to me. Others in Shopster had blogs and so we added each other to our blogrolls. The more I blogged them more incoming links I receive.
- Squidoo. I built a Squidoo lens with a link to my blog.
- I posted two or three times a day.
- Tags and categories. Tags are what make a blog successful. By using the right tags you get found. I made sure to use Google in tags as much as possible. They really like reading about themselves.
- I answered the comments to my posts. Even if it was only a thank you for commenting.
- I helped others. If you’ll notice my blogroll you’ll see Shopster sites listed even though they are not blogs. By giving them a link from a PR5 site they were helped and in return they helped me by reading the blog and giving me a link.
- I kept focused. I focused on ecommerce, Shopster, and ways to make an ecommerce site successful.Well
Well that’s about it. You know, once I closed my Shopster site I really didn’t think much about this blog. Then, months after my last post, I got a comment from someone who found the site. I came back, checked the stats, and to my amazement found that site was still receiving hits. So, I am once again blogging and trying to give information that people are looking for. I like doing it so it’s a win-win.
How I lost it…I quit posting!
I have noticed that there are a lot of bloggers (20 or so over the past few months) and website owners who use my posts on their site. I really don’t mind, it sort of strokes the ego. What I need to try and understand is just how this helps me. I know that I have received hits to this site from their sites and so that’s a plus. About a month after I started this blog I built it into a PR5 ranked site. Then, I quit blogging after I quit Shopster and it dropped to a current PR3. However, I have a PR3 ranked site without any updates. Could this be from the links? Probably. Anyway, anyone who wants to use my posts may do it. My next post will detail how I got a PR5 ranking.
I checked out Zlio.com recently just to see what it’s all about. If you haven’t heard of Zlio.com it is a site that allows you to setup an e-commerce site absolutely free. Now, Zlio doesn’t actually have any products warehoused, it is more of a comparison shopping site. They boast over 3 million products. I set up a site in about 10 minutes. You can see it here kitchenmart.zliostore.com. The way it works is you set up your store, add products, and then promote your store. When visitors come to your site and click a product they will be shown a list of merchants. Now some of these merchants will pay you if you sell something and others will pay you if a visitor clicks on their site, much like adsense. Your visitors can select which online merchant they would like to buy from. it’s an interesting concept and since it is free I am giving it a try. I’ll let you know how it’s working.
To all my loyal readers in the past I apologize for not updating this blog. Around last July I shut down my Shopster site. It wasn’t because of anything Shopster did, I just didn’t have the time to dedicate to it and didn’t want to keep spending money every month without any sales. However, I do know that it will work if you work it.
I have made money at Constant-Content. I have sold 12 articles and cleared about $200. That is another opportunity that can reap benefits if you have the time to dedicate to it.
So for now let me say that my journey was temporarily halted but hasn’t ended. I am pursuing other opportunities and will write about them in the future.
I have dreams just like anyone else. When I started my ecommerce journey I had this lofty idea that I would be an instant success. I’m semi intelligent (I think) and I have a strong work ethic. Isn’t that all that’s needed to make it in America? Yes! You can make a success of your web ventures, but it’s not instant. That’s what all would be entrepreneurs need to understand. The American dream is attainable but you must be awake and you must have patience. It takes trial and error and what works for one person may not work for you. Stick with it. Change things that aren’t working and when you find something that works…do it over and over again.
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