Category Archives: How To

eBay – How Much We Owe You

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ebay_logo
My Favorite Site
My favorite site happens to be eBay, whether I admit it or not. Let me explain, some people may believe one thing about themselves but then do another. It is their actions that show true behaviour. I just realized after logging into my eBay account that I have been a member since 1999.

A Member Since 1999
Wow, I knew I had used eBay for a while but after looking at my profile I did not recall having signed up on June 24, 1999. Over the last 10 years I have bought and sold 129 items. Now that is not a lot however I do not utilize eBay as a business but I do use it to buy and sell items. More buying than selling.

So let us analyze me as a typical customer. I have been a member for 10 years and bought or sold a total of over 129 items. That is more than 12 items a year, or at least one item per month. That is one good customer to come back and interact every month for the past 10 years. Let’s just say we wish every site we operated or company we worked for had that kind of customer loyalty and lifetime value.

I have bought so many different items I cannot even begin to recall, and sold a couple items from cameras to cars. I sold two cars on eBay, amazing eCommerce platform when you think about it.

Are They a Success?
eBay is a huge success in my opinion. Their site and service have grown over the years and I am sure they have modified their customer outreach and site look and feel, but done it with such grace that I never had a reason to complain or notice their constant upgrades.

As a business they are worldwide, and as a company they own some of the top online properties such as Skype, StubHub and many many others. Not only did they perfect the online auctions and have one of the best, if not the best, eCommerce online platforms, but they also pioneered corporate communications online. Follow the eBay Ink Blog, my personal favorite and Mr. Brewer-Hay as he keeps everyone apprised of the goings on at eBay corporate. You can also follow him on twitter @ebayinkblog. He is a good friend and under the weather as of the writing of this article so wish him well.

Model Yourself
If ever there was a business case to review and study, this is the one. If ever there was a site communication strategy, look and feel, and overall user experience to imitate, this is the one. Model yourself after the best.

Roam and Study
I suggest you roam around the eBay site and study how they do what they do. Enjoy!

Huge Domain Portfolios and the Account Executive Role

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Domain Management
I had never thought about this feature and option for domain management before. The idea that you have so many domains in your portfolio you do not have the time to manage them all. Of course, there are many they keep large domain portfolios. There are those that have portfolios of domains simply to sell them in the future and there are those that have many for their business.

What to do with the domains?
While some people use all of your domains, many of us purchase them (and by the way you can use a GoDaddy promo code for a domain discount) randomly in never use them. We may want to create a website in just not have the time. We may want to create it and hold it for while possibly for someone else such as maybe a family member, or a potential new business that we have come up with.

Now typically if the domain is not used it is parked somewhere, usually at the registrar where you purchase the domain. What this means is that when someone types in that URL they will go to a page that the domain registrar has put up. Therefore you do not have to worry that you are not using the domain, except for potential squatter issues. But that is more of a trademark issue and not something to discuss here.

Another popular thing to do is to find a company that will park the domain for you and help you make a little revenue. Revenue is made whenever advertisements placed on the page and someone goes to the page, your domains, and that page has been been created by the company that parked it for you. now typically this only works for the domains they already have inherent traffic. If you have thought of a brand-new name and registered it for the first time and no one ever owned it before you probably will not have that traffic. So while some people do claim to make a lot of money doing this and they may a brand-new domain may not be what make much. However if you are able to cover the cost of the domain that’s great.
Now let’s talk about the interesting account executive.

What is an account executive?
When it comes to domains, has created what they call an account executive. What I mean is that they have created an account executive role. Let’s say for example that you have a couple hundred domains. You will have to worry about where they are parked, are they renewed in time, or the name servers correct, is the contact information up-to-date, and many other issues around the domains themselves.

By creating the role of account executive Go Daddy has now allowed you to assign certain roles and responsibilities to another individual. You enter their e-mail address and give them rights to your account. You will still own the domains and control them however certain things can be done by this executive on your behalf. Now I can only see this being useful if you have a lot of domains, or potentially a company may have the domain owned by their attorney or a founder. These individuals may not want to make changes that someone in the IT group may have to.

Therefore the control can remain in the hands of one individual, and someone in the IT group can make the changes they need to make. I say IT group but obviously it could be operations or anyone else is responsible for the management of the domains. I have been in the position, many times, of being a startup that I started or was involved in very early and I registered all of the domains. Even putting them into a new account isn’t enough, as people will come to you constantly telling you you need to change a name server or something else. I would have loved this feature years ago so I could have easily given control to someone else of the daily management of the domains while not actually giving up the ownership. More importantly not worrying about the company losing ownership.

So take a look at the account executive feature if you want someone else to manage the domains on a daily basis particularly in a company.

Lifetime Value

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Lifetime Value of a customer is and will continue to be more important. Everyone is familiar with customer acquisition. Customer acquisition is essentially obtaining a new customer. The cost of obtaining a new customer is called the Cost Per Acquisition (CPA).

If you spend $100 and you obtain 10 customers your cost per acquisition is $10 per customer. Determining the right cost per acquisition is obviously assuring you have made a profit. If you are an affiliate marketer and you are paid $30 per customer and it costs you $10 to get a new customer then you have profited $20. However it is not always the case that the initial cost per acquisition is less than the initial profit on a sale. It is possible to have an initial cost per acquisition of $20 on a $10 product. Why would you do this?

This is due to the fact that while the initial cost of acquiring that customer was $20 and you only made a $10 profit, the customer’s lifetime value is enough to cover your initial cost per acquisition and make a profit. That customer over time may make you an additional $50 in profit and therefore the higher cost per acquisition in the long run make sense. This is why you need to know the lifetime value of your customers.

Obviously is easier said than done, but it is possible and we do it for client’s everyday. More important than comparing the lifetime value to the initial cost per acquisition is being able to tie the lifetime value to the initial marketing campaign.

Here is why. in the example of customer acquisition if one marketing campaign was costing you $2 per customer and the other marketing campaign was costing you $1 per person you would obviously turn off the $2 dollar campaign and continue the $1 campaign.

However, now add the lifetime value of a customer and your decision-making process may change completely. If the $1 customers had a lifetime value of only $.50 and the $2 customers have a lifetime value of $8, then your decision is the exact opposite. You would turn off the $1 customers, potentially, and continue the campaigns yielding $2 customers, as it is worth the extra $1 per customer due to the huge disparity in lifetime value and overall profit per customer.

The key is tracking the lifetime value and even more importantly associating it to an initial marketing campaign to be able to make the best decision and obtain the best return on investment for your marketing dollars.

Consolidate Domains so You Do Not Forget

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If you are like me you have slowly acquired domains over time. First you buy a couple, then you have 10 or 20, next thing you know you have 100. You may even have multiple accounts and never took the time to consolidate. With hundreds of domains, or even tens, you now need to be sure not to lose any. There are two options that GoDaddy has, one you are probably familiar with, one is a lesser known but convenient option.

Automatic Renewal
You may already be familiar with the automatic renewal option for domain names where you simply choose to automatically renew every year. Assuming you choose the 1 year option to keep costs down as opposed to purchasing 2,3,4,5 or more years in advance. Just be careful if you use a credit card that the card can expire. You may want to consider using your paypal account and therefore you only need to keep your paypal up to date.

godaddy promo code
Consolidating Domains
Consolidating Domains is the most interesting and less familiar option. In the past you would pay annually on the anniversary date of your domain registration. Therefore if you purchased a domain on June 13th, you pay every June 13th. After you purchase tens or hundreds of domains you may have domains that need to be renewed every month. This can become a full time job. The domain consolidation allows you to choose the date you want to renew your domains.

You could have all your scattered renewal dates consolidated into one day every year. So you may pick Jan 1 to be the day, as an example, that you always renew all your domains. Now you only have to renew once a year. However the downside is that you now have one large bill every year if you have a lot of domains.

A second option is to spread your domains over the entire year and choose the first of each month for 1/12 of your domains. This way you spread out your domain renewal expenses proportionally over the year and know that the bill is paid on the same day every month.

How to Consolidate
Simple quick and just $1 per domain per month, a one time fee per domain depending on how far out you extend each domain. Simply log into your GoDaddy account and choose to consolidate as they will walk you through the steps. Also if you are renewing or buying new domains use the code FPT3 at check out for a domain discount on every domain and the godaddy hosting promo code of FPT1 will get you 10% off every hosting package.

Try not to lose your domains, either auto-renew, or consolidate, or do both for ease of domain management.

Google AdWords Editor WARNING

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If you use AdWords and use the desktop AdWords Editor application you may need to double check the settings. I have noticed recently that some of the settings for a campaign within the Editor do not update my AdWords account. For example a new campaign created in the Editor was set for the content network and Relevant pages across the entire network, after multiple uploads of changes it was never sent to AdWords. When I looked in the campaign settings it was set to Relevant pages only on the placements I target. Obviously these are two completely different settings.

Double Check AdWords in the Browser
I strongly suggest you double check campaigns and campaign settings. I only noticed the discrepancy after a particular campaign was not yielding any impressions. At first I assumed it was just my fault, however that exact same issue has happened multiple times. Be sure to double check your settings and other campaign components.

Google AdWords Editor
If you do not use the editor I highly suggest you give it a try. The AdWords Editor is a software application you download for free from Google. It is very powerful, allowing you to set up campaigns, make editors, copy, paste and provides more management functionality than using AdWords through the browser. It also allows you to manage multiple accounts and manage accounts offline, you can make edits to campaigns and upload whenever you like. Get your free copy of the AdWords Editor from Google.

Homepage Redesign Done Right by GeniusRocket

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Originally I wrote about the GeniusRocket service (Get Superbowl Quality Videos at Genius Rocket) as a great new service and place to get high quality videos, banners, logos and more by choosing from multiple submissions. You receive multiple submissions to choose from.

Today, I see their site has been redesigned. The first time I visited their site I was confused as to what they were offering. While their service has always been nothing short of amazing, their homepage did not convey why I was there or what they offered. We all know about landing pages and squeeze pages which typically have one purpose and that one page is focused on that one goal, a sale or registration etc. But what about a business with multiple product and service offerings, and what if it is also a new method of buying or simply a new business model that no one is familiar with? How in the world do you convey that on a homepage, very difficult. I should say, easy to articulate, difficult to actually create. So here is GeniusRocket as an example.

Unfortunately I do not have a screen shot of their original home page, however take a look at this new image, and more importantly the entire homepage of GeniusRocket here.

homepage_genius_rocket

Above is a screen shot, it is only a small portion but the area of the home page that grabs your attention. When you look at the homepage do not click into the site. Look to see if you can determine what they offer and why you would use them. Next look to see if they have the copy and links to answer your next question. I will not say what your next question would be after viewing the homepage, but I feel confident they have anticipated it.

Bookmark their site so you can revisit it once you need to redesign an homepage. In my opinion and excellent example.

I wrote a Profiting Online eBook and it is Free

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I decided to write an eBook about Profiting Online. It took a while and is 40 pages, meant to be an easy read and instructional. Why an eBook and not just posts on a site? While blogs are a great tool to easily publish information, they typically list the posts and articles in order of the most recent to the oldest, which does not convey information in a step by step instructional method.

Making Money Online eBook
I wrote this book for many reasons. Online technology, websites, services, tools, social media tools, social media sites, however you want to categorize the latest site or service you have seen changes almost daily. It can seem overwhelming. However if you peel the layers off of any web product or service and look at the business model, how they make money, they are all very similar.

Whether you are starting from scratch and do not have your own site, or have an existing site and looking or new marketing methods or ways to make money online, I hope you find this very useful.

Download your copy for free here

Background
You will see from my background that I have been involved with online businesses in many ways, from starting my own online businesses to assisting others. I spend a lot of time merely analyzing business models and I have learned, as will you, that every business needs to make money, period. I have heard many tell me about the great “idea” that they have, many of which are amazing, however the bottom line is the answer to the question “how are you going to make money?”.

If you have ever walked through and viewed the paper copies of patents in the Patent & Trademark Office you will be amazed at what you see and many times wonder “why is that not being marketed or sold today?” and in many cases the answer is that there is either no demand or it cannot be made and sold for a profit. However, all of them are very cool and amazing, but if they cannot make money they will typically not see the light of day. Let’s discuss money making.

How Online Businesses Make Money
There are two ways to make money with online businesses, either make money as part of your business model or your model is to build an amazing technology and hope to sell it to another business that will either monetize it or provide it for free as a value added service. I will not be discussing the “I will build this cool thing and then sell it later” approach, which is valid but not for discussion here.

In many ways this book, these instructions and explanations, may seem simplified however I have chosen to touch on every aspect from start to finish with step by step instructions so anyone can set up a site, promote it, drive traffic to it and generate income.

The other approach I could of taken would have been to go in depth into one area, however I would prefer to get you started and then you may use many of the online sites to explore and learn more about any one particular topic in detail.

The book includes the following topics:

  • Types of Revenue
  • Money Making Online Now – the Best Programs
  • Setting up Your Site – How to Get Setup Quickly
  • Maintaing Your Site – What to Write About
  • Online Marketing – How to Obtain Visitors
  • Advertising and Free Traffic
  • Statistics – How are You Doing
  • Revenue and more….






Get Your FREE Copy of “Profiting Online“

If you are not yet a member of our newsletter you can get the free eBook by joining the newsletter on the side of this site. Once you confirm subscription you will receive the eBook.

If you are already a member of the newsletter just Direct Message me on twitter for a link, find me on twitter here http://www.twitter.com/longest.



Domain Name Stocking Stuffer for your Children

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I purchased a domain name for each of my children. I figure they may want them someday. Of course I have our surname, however for each of them I put together their first and last names as a domain, for example “John Jacobs” as “johnjacobs.com”.

Domains are only becoming more scarce and it seems that no matter how many extensions are added, the .com is still the most popular.

Here are coupons to obtain $10 domains for $7.49 or 10% off your order, got them from another site and they never expire.

Go to GoDaddy Here.

FPT3 – .COM for $7.49 – Save $2
FPT1 – 10% off any order
FPT2 – $5 off any order $30 or more

The GoDaddy Coupon is listed here.

This is an interesting gift that your children may not understand now but probably will thank you in the future.

Teaching my Twins Online Commerce through Fundraising

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My twins fundraiser is over and they raised enough to win a limousine ride. They are very excited and I am obviously very proud of them.

There are many lessons learned, I originally posted on September 28th, 2008 the article that I wanted to teach my boys blogging, e-commerce and twitter. That was one of the goals, to introduce them to online commerce, communications tools such as twitter and blogging tools such as WordPress.

We had a fundraiser update on October 7th, 2008, and the fundraiser ended on October 8th, 2008.

Thanks to everyone that sent them messages of encouragement and purchased online to assist their fundraising. The totals of their fundraiser are finally in. The twins each sold enough that they both get to participate in a special prize – a Hummer Limousine ride to a local pizza place with the principal at lunch time.

They are obviously very excited and it reinforces the lesson that hard work pays off. I say “reinforces” because they already understood that their hard work (going door to door and selling online), and working hard allowed them to obtain a large number of sales.

Another great lesson was the fact that they do not keep the profit – it is for a good cause, to raise money for their school system. Not only do they benefit, but everyone presently at the school and those to follow will benefit as well. Helping their community is a great lesson.

Now they have their own twitter, @longestbrothers, and their own blog LongestBrothers.com.

I am happy to say this experience has more than peaked their interest and jump started their curiousity.

Also, this was a great experiment of those who want are thinking about creating their own blog, twitter account, following etc. We were able to obtain a domain name, create a new WordPress site, create a twitter account and following, then create the proper messaging to drive supporters to the fundraising website to purchase items, all within a week. If my 6 year old twins and I can do it, so can you ;-)

Useful Link to Me Textbox WordPress Plugin

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I found a great new plugin from Technet News, see the article about Top WordPress SEO Tips for Top 10 Rankings, where I found a great article which discussed the Link to Me Textbox WordPress Plugin.

The page for the Link Me Textbox has a link to download it and instructions to install it. At the bottom of this article you can see it in action, the box with code to easily link to the article. This greatly assists those that would like to link to you. If they cut and paste it already has the title of your article and link, instead of leaving the title (anchor text) up to those that link. It is not that a person linking to you would make a mistake linking, it is just better to have consistent anchor tags.