Auction Gold Ezine: Make Money With Online Auctions

In this issue:
* NEW Auction Genius Course Begins Saturday, September 30
* Two FREE Goodies You Don't Want To Miss
1. Why I'm No Longer A Chicken-Hearted Wimp!
2. FREE Article Location Software
* An Interesting Success Tool
* How Does eBay's "Best Offer" Program Work?
* Food For Thought: I'll Never Complain Again!

NEW Auction Genius Course Begins Saturday, September 30

We just returned from England where I spoke at Yanik Silver and Peter Woodhead's "Underground Seminar". We had a wonderful time and learned lots of cool new stuff from the other speakers - not to mention doing a lot of partying and sightseeing. My favorite spot was the Tower Of London. There are buildings there that are over 1,000 years old. Amazing to us newcomer Americans whose oldest buildings are 250 or thereabouts.

And of course I talked auctions with lots of the attendees. We had numerous orders for our CDs and some of the Brits will be taking our live Auction Genius Course. The next one begins September 30 - only about 10 days from now.

One of the nice guys I met is Dave Bromley who has a UK auction site and tells me he got his start from reading Make Your Net Auction Sell! several years ago. Here is what Dave wrote about my talk:

Two FREE Goodies You Don't Want To Miss

1. Why I'm No Longer A Chicken-Hearted Wimp!

It's no secret that I abandoned the search engine game years ago as being to difficult, too confusing and just too darned much trouble for too little results. Then about a year and a half ago, my good friends Andy Jenkins & Brad Fallon basically told me I was a chicken-hearted wimp and that they could teach me how to successfully play the SEO (search engine optimization) game. I grudgingly decided to give it One Last Shot ... and am I ever glad. Our web traffic and income have skyrocketed since that point and I'm very comfortable with search engines now. In fact, I (mostly) enjoy them. It's fun to match wits with Google, Yahoo and MSN. And if you think that's a nutty statement {fun? playing the Google game? Is she nuts?} I certainly understand - there was a time I would have thought such a statement was preposterous, myself.

Andy and Brad have a new site opening next week - on Monday the 26th, as a matter of fact. It's going to be the most awesome event on the Net because not only are Brad & Andy involved, but some of the biggest names on the net. I don't want to steal their fire and I don't know if I'm supposed to talk about that part, so I'll shut up about the others. I will also candidly tell you that it's quite expensive.

BUT ... even if you never intend to join you should take advantage of some of the freebies they're giving away. There are three awesome videos with more information than most of the paid courses I've ever bought. And yesterday they came out with a $0 downloadable pdf. It has several case studies in it - one of which is mine.

In this case study they mention a couple of keyword phrases on Google in which our Auction Genius Course site has high placement. But they didn't know about the most amazing change ...

That is for the keyword phrase "ebay selling". For some weird reason, I had completely overlooked that one because according to my keyword research, it receives approximately 466 searches every 24 hours. That's an amazing number of searches, and obviously I want to be on the first page of Google for that one.

But the problem was, I was nowhere to be found! I went through page after page of results and couldn't find us anywhere. The best tools I have only go down 500 places on Google and it couldn't find us either. What to do?

About three weeks ago I was having dinner with Brad Fallon and a few other folks and Brad made a comment about a simple change that we could make. It wasn't directed to me in particular but I started thinking about it and decided to do what he said. It took me less than five minutes and then I decided to check back in a week or so to see what had happened.

To my astonishment, I was on the front page - number 9, to be exact. I don't know how long I'd been there but it was amazingly easy. This morning on Google, our site was #5 - but notice the competition ahead of me:

These are all massive, giant sites and will be tough to beat - although you never know. As Andy & Brad point out in their case study, there are keywords where I absolutely do beat eBay itself, although I wonder how that can possibly be. Still it happens. For instance, on the very important keyword phrase "what to sell on ebay", I am beating eBay, Amazon, microsoft and about.com.

* You might do well in one search engine and not in others. For instance, I'm not anywhere on the first two page of Yahoo or MSN for "ebay selling".

* The SEs change: just because I'm not on Yahoo or MSN now doesn't mean I won't be in the future.

* Some SEs provide better traffic than others. Yes, I'm sometimes annoyed with Google but our testing shows it's the best search engine for our kind of business. We get more business from Google than all the others put together.

* SEO is about numbers. Right now Google is showing that it's indexed 849 pages of our Auction Genius Course site. With that many pages, we have lots of chances for top positions on keyword phrases.

* Studies show that consumers & buyers are 3 1/2 times more likely to click on the organic searches than they are Pay Per Clicks (PPC). I'm assuming that there is more credibility. As the case study says, "Sydney's niche is one of those deadly niches where PPC traffic costs about as much as a small island in the Caribbean." That's for sure.

If you have the faintest interest in search engines, take advantage of the knowledge offered by these two multi-millionaire SEO experts:

And if you're one of the select people who joins next week, I'll see you on the inside since I'm one of their forum moderators.

2. FREE Article Location Software

I am enthusiastic about a piece of software that costs nothing ... it's called "Orwell" and it locates articles for us. Why would you want to find articles online? My reasons are:

2. I am searching for appropriate articles to build a website or webstore on a particular subject

All you need to do is type in a keyword or keyword phrase and it locates articles and press releases (which aren't as helpful) from seven major online sources. Not only does it make finding information simple but it also opens the articles in your browser, rather than forcing you to read them online.

If you want to add the articles to a website, it even formats them for you in HTML. All you need do is copy them directly from Orwell and put them on a webpage. Very cool.

One more great thing about this article location tool ... I am very, very cautious about installing unknown software on my computer. Lots of software is either poorly programmed or the owners have deliberately added in malicious or snooping features. My company has multiple computers networked together but we have one isolated baby that isn't connected to anything. We use it to test out new software before we introduce it to our network. It's our "just-in-case" computer. Naturally, I tested Orwell on it and had no problems whatsoever so I'm now using it on my main computer with no worries.

If you have any use for this cool tool, (and the price is right! :-), check it our here:

An Interesting Success Tool

I'm sure you know that most people on the Internet fail. In fact, almost everybody who tries to be an entrepreneur, whether offline or online, fails. That is, they might make a few dollars or quid (you can tell I just returned from London :-), but they fall far short or where they want to be.

I've been fascinated with this question for decades. I know that a lot of it is because of the way we think. We're programmed for failure, in so many ways. We're engulfed in an ocean of negativity or disaster - just turn on the evening news if you doubt that. One horror story after another. No wonder we all feel so powerless.

And in many ways we're programmed not to believe in ourselves and our capabilities. Hollywood is the epitome of a shallow set of values that says if you aren't the best looking and the richest, you aren't going to succeed.

It takes a strong will to overcome all the garbage and just <deciding> to change how we think isn't enough. So any tool that can help us is welcome.

Shortly before I left for England I bought an interesting program that runs all day long as I sit at my monitor. It "sends safe and unobtrusive "mental commands" to your screen, at speeds that are absorbed directly by your subconscious mind ... and "activated" automatically by your brain". cells. It is good for:

* Learn new skills at lightning speeds
* Expand your capacity for thought
* Develop a "super glue" memory
* Ramp your creativity up to the highest notch
* Dissolve stress, melt away tension
* Destroy bad habits in a flash!
* Banish negative behavior patterns, for good!
* Control your emotions with ease

But what does it actually DO? It flashes up to 28,000 affirmations a day on your computer screen. You can choose the statements from a pre-programmed list or write your own. The affirmations you choose flash by so fast that they bypass the conscious mind. Why is that good? Because you don't have time to set up any mental resistance.

For example, one of the preprogrammed ones is "My memory is razor sharp". Let's supposed that flashes on your screen and you have time to think about it. What would you say?

If you didn't want to improve your memory you wouldn't have chosen that particular affirmation, right? So there's a conscious thought that your memory isn't as good as it used to be or as good as you wish it were. So it your conscious mind thinks about a razor sharp memory it will definitely not believe.

However, your subconscious mind doesn't have all those notions and will accept that affirmation uncritically.

1. This program is inexpensive
2. It's easy to install
3. And, most importantly, it can only <<help>> me to see these kinds of positive statements all day long.

How Does eBay's "Best Offer" Program Work?

It appears that relatively few sellers take advantage of eBay's "Best Offer" program. There are some sellers, though, who use this feature:

This auction is for a 'Pirates Of The Caribbean' hat that was supposedly given to Johnny Depp. The seller is asking $199 through his Buy It Now (and insisting on immediate payment) or is seeking a Best Offer. A Best Offer is only available with a fixed-price listing. This means that if you list your merchandise with an auction format, you cannot extend the Best Offer option.

* Accept the Best Offer and close the listing.
* Decline the Best Offer and tell the buyer why the offer was rejected.
* Allow the offer to expire on its own in 48 hours (the offer will also expire when the listing ends).
* Respond with a counteroffer

The rules have recently been amended. Buyers can now make up to three offers per item whereas previously there could only be one. This increases the chances that you and the buyer can come to an agreement.

Also, sellers can set a minimum Best Offer price that they will consider. All offers below that price will be declined automatically. This relieves sellers of responding to truly ridiculous offers. For instance, the Buy It Now for this hat auction is $199. If someone offered $10, we can assume that the seller would decline the offer as being ridiculously low - and if he has set a minimum, he won't have to bother to respond.

This is like a Reserve auction in the sense that we don't know the minimum Best Offer unless the seller chooses to tell us.

In addition, sellers can respond directly to a Best Offer by either accepting the offer or making a counter-offer.

When would this option be appropriate? It seems that it would be best for a one-of-a-kind item. A seller offering the same merchandise in multiple quantities, for repeated sales, will have a history with her merchandise and will know what the market is willing to pay. With a unique item, this probably won't be the case.

If you decide to experiment with the Best Offer option, be sure to have a minimum price in mind. It's a interesting option - sort of a cross between Buy It Now and an auction.

Food For Thought: I'll Never Complain Again!

Back in the mid-1970s, a man was driving through Arizona and stopped at a gas station in the middle of a torrential downpour. This was in the days of "full-service" gas stations. He sat inside his dry car while a man, who whistled cheerfully while he worked, filled up his tank in that awful rain.As the customer was leaving, he said apologetically, "I'm sorry to get you out in this weather."

The attendant replied, "It doesn't bother me a bit. When I was fighting in Vietnam I made up my mind in a foxhole one day that if I ever got out of this place alive, I would be so grateful I'd never complain about anything again. And I haven't."