How to Make Money Online with eBay, Yahoo!, and GoogleA Step-by-Step Guide to Using Three Online

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.How to Make Money Online with eBay, Yahoo!, and Google A Step-by-Step Guide to Using Three Online Services to Make One Successful Business .This page intentionally left blank .How to Make Money Online with eBay, Yahoo!, and Google A Step-by-Step Guide to Using Three Online Services to Make One Successful Business Peter Kent Jill K. Finlayson McGraw-Hill New York Chicago San Francisco Lisbon London Madrid Mexico City Milan New Delhi San Juan Seoul Singapore Sydney Toronto .Copyright © 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Manufactured in the United States of America. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this...

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How to Make Money Online with eBay, Yahoo!, and Google A Step-by-Step Guide to Using Three Online Services to Make One Successful Business
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How to Make Money Online with eBay, Yahoo!, and Google A Step-by-Step Guide to Using Three Online Services to Make One Successful Business Peter Kent Jill K. Finlayson McGraw-Hill New York Chicago San Francisco Lisbon London Madrid Mexico City Milan New Delhi San Juan Seoul Singapore Sydney Toronto
Copyright © 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Manufactured in the United States of America. Except as permit- ted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. 0-07-226444-6 The material in this eBook also appears in the print version of this title: 0-07-226261-3. All trademarks are trademarks of their respective owners. Rather than put a trademark symbol after every occurrence of a trademarked name, we use names in an editorial fashion only, and to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of infringement of the trade- mark. Where such designations appear in this book, they have been printed with initial caps. McGraw-Hill eBooks are available at special quantity discounts to use as premiums and sales promotions, or for use in corporate training programs. For more information, please contact George Hoare, Special Sales, at george_hoare@mcgraw-hill.com or (212) 904-4069. TERMS OF USE This is a copyrighted work and The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. (“McGraw-Hill”) and its licensors reserve all rights in and to the work. Use of this work is subject to these terms. Except as permitted under the Copyright Act of 1976 and the right to store and retrieve one copy of the work, you may not decompile, disassemble, reverse engineer, reproduce, modify, create derivative works based upon, transmit, distribute, disseminate, sell, publish or sublicense the work or any part of it without McGraw-Hill’s prior consent. You may use the work for your own noncommercial and personal use; any other use of the work is strictly prohibited. Your right to use the work may be termi- nated if you fail to comply with these terms. THE WORK IS PROVIDED “AS IS.” McGRAW-HILL AND ITS LICENSORS MAKE NO GUARANTEES OR WARRANTIES AS TO THE ACCURACY, ADEQUACY OR COMPLETENESS OF OR RESULTS TO BE OBTAINED FROM USING THE WORK, INCLUD- ING ANY INFORMATION THAT CAN BE ACCESSED THROUGH THE WORK VIA HYPERLINK OR OTHERWISE, AND EXPRESSLY DISCLAIM ANY WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MECHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. McGraw-Hill and its licensors do not war- rant or guarantee that the functions contained in the work will meet your requirements or that its operation will be uninterrupted or error free.Neither McGraw-Hill nor its licensors shall be liable to you or anyone else for any inaccuracy, error or omission, regardless of cause, in the work or for any damages resulting therefrom. McGraw-Hill has no responsibility for the content of any information accessed through the work. Under no circumstances shall McGraw-Hill and/or its licensors be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, punitive, conse- quential or similar damages that result from the use of or inability to use the work, even if any of them has been advised of the possibili- ty of such damages. This limitation of liability shall apply to any claim or cause whatsoever whether such claim or cause arises in contract, tort or otherwise. DOI: 10.1036/0072262613
Professional Want to learn more? We hope you enjoy this McGraw-Hill eBook! If you’d like more information about this book, its author, or related books and websites, please click here.
About the Authors Peter Kent is the author of more books about the Internet than any other writer. His titles include Search Engine Optimization for Dummies, the bestselling Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Internet, and the most widely reviewed and praised title in computer-book history, Poor Richard’s Web Site: Geek Free, Commonsense Advice on Building a Low-Cost Web Site. In all, he is the author of around 50 books and hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles. Kent has worked in e-commerce and online marketing for over a decade. He set up his first web-based store in 1997, and in 1999 he founded an e-Business Service Provider funded by one of the world’s largest VC firms. Kent currently consults with businesses about their Internet marketing strategies, helping them to avoid the pitfalls and to leap the hurdles they’ll encounter online. For more information, visit http://www.PeterKentConsulting.com/. Jill K. Finlayson is one of the founders of M Networks, a media company that provides training seminars, books, and distance learning on online retailing, in addition to hosting the Small eBusiness World Conference and Expo designed for small business owners and entrepreneurs. Finlayson worked at eBay from 1998 to 2003 as Senior Category Manager in charge of the Toys, Dolls, Hobbies, and Crafts businesses, a segment that generates more than $1.5 billion in transactions annually. Finlayson is co-author of Fundraising on eBay (McGraw-Hill), and she writes much of the curriculum and training materials for eKnowledge Institute’s Academy and Business School courses in eBay. Finlayson also worked for The Learning Company, an educational software company. She lives in Fremont, California, and is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley. Copyright © 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies. Click here for terms of use.
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For Nick and Chris
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Contents at a Glance Building an eBay Business PART I 1 How Your Business Fits Online . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2 Creating Your eBay Presence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 3 Preparing to Sell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 4 Planning Your Shipping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 5 Listing Your Items Effectively . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 6 Monitoring, Modifying, and Managing Sales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 7 Payment, Shipping, and Feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 8 Automating and Scaling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 9 Opening an eBay Store . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 10 Marketing, Keywords, and Promotions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 11 Power Selling, Consignment Selling, and Analyzing Your Business . . . . 127 Building Your Yahoo! Store PART II 12 Getting Started with Yahoo! Merchant Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 13 Adding and Importing Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 14 Working in Store Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 15 Creating the Home and Section Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 16 Modifying Page Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 17 Customizing the Site Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 18 Defining Payment Methods and Your Checkout Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 19 Configuring Shipping, Taxes, and Inventory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243 20 Processing Orders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261 21 Promotion Strategies and Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273 ix
x How to Make Money Online with eBay, Yahoo!, and Google Using Google Pay Per Click and More to Grow Traffic PART III 22 Google AdWords and Other Pay Per Click Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289 23 Setting Up a Google PPC Campaign . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303 24 Managing Your PPC Campaigns and Measuring Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319 25 Selling Through Shopping Directories: Froogle, Yahoo! Shopping, and More . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333 26 Improving Natural Search Engine Ranking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339 27 Using Affiliate Programs and Other Marketing Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . 355 28 Selling Through Amazon and Other Merchant Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365 29 Cross-site Merchandising and Promotions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375 Index ..................................................... 383
For more information about this title, click here Contents Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxi Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxiii PART I Building an eBay Business CHAPTER 1 How Your Business Fits Online ............................ 3 Why Three Services? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 What Makes a Good Online Product? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 The Perfect Online Product . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Understanding the Price Sensitivity of the Online Buyer . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 To Ship or Not to Ship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 CHAPTER 2 Creating Your eBay Presence .............................. 13 Why Sell Through eBay? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Registering as an eBay Member . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Setting Up a PayPal Account . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Using My eBay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Creating an About Me Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Using ID Verify . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Getting Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 CHAPTER 3 Preparing to Sell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Learning How to Buy on eBay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Understanding the Selling Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Using Buy It Now—BIN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Different Quantity Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 eBay Fees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Selling Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Timing Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Setting Your Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 CHAPTER 4 Planning Your Shipping .................................. 39 The Internet Shipping Revolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Picking Packing Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Packaging “Best Practices” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 xi
xii How to Make Money Online with eBay, Yahoo!, and Google Who Will You Ship With? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Estimating Shipping Costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Calculating a Packaging and Handling Fee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Considering “Shipping Strategies” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Shipping Overseas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 CHAPTER 5 Listing Your Items Effectively .............................. 51 Creating Your Photographs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Taking Great Photographs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 The Selling Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 Choosing a Selling Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Selecting a Listing Category . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Creating a Title and Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Entering Pricing Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Specifying When the Item Will Sell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Specifying Item Quantity and Location . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Adding Photographs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Hosting Your Own Pictures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Specifying the Listing Layout and Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Providing Payment, Shipping, and Returns Details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 Entering Your Shipping Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Reviewing and Submitting Your Listing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 CHAPTER 6 Monitoring, Modifying, and Managing Sales .................. 71 Checking on Your Listings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Changing a Listing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 Canceling and Rescheduling Listings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Reviewing the Auction Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Canceling a Member’s Bid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Blocking Bidders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 CHAPTER 7 Payment, Shipping, and Feedback .......................... 79 Viewing Your Sales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Completing a Sale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 Calculating the Final Charge and Asking for Payment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 Receiving Payment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Shipping the Product and Sending a Notification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Leaving Feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Handling Nonpaying Bidders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 Using the Unpaid Item Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 Relisting the Item . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 Doing a Second Chance Sale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 CHAPTER 8 Automating and Scaling .................................. 93 The Different eBay Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 Using Turbo Lister . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
xiii Contents Using Selling Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 Using Seller’s Assistant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Using Third-party Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 More Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 CHAPTER 9 Opening an eBay Store ................................... 107 Why Set Up an eBay Store? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Pushing People to Your Store . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 Selecting a Store Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 eBay Store Fees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 Monthly Fees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Listing Upgrade Fees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Final Value Fees—Sales Originating Through eBay . . . . . . . . . . 111 Final Value Fees—Sales Originating Through Your Own Efforts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 Setting Up Your Store . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 Customizing Your Store . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 Listing Your Items for Sale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 CHAPTER 10 Marketing, Keywords, and Promotions ...................... 119 Using eBay Keywords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 Using Store Promotion Boxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 Setting Up Cross Promotions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 Using eBay’s E-mail Marketing Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 Looking for Ways to Differentiate Your Listings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 Using Your Store to Build Relationships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124 Selling Wholesale Lots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 CHAPTER 11 Power Selling, Consignment Selling, and Analyzing Your Business . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 Becoming a PowerSeller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 The Five PowerSeller Levels and Their Benefits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 Reviewing Your Sales Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 Consignment Selling and Becoming a Trading Assistant . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 Becoming a Trading Post . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 Building Your Trading Assistant Business . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 PART II Building Your Yahoo! Store CHAPTER 12 Getting Started with Yahoo! Merchant Solutions ............... 139 Choosing a Merchant Solutions Package . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 Do You Need a Web Site, Too? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 Deciding How to Build Your Store Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144 Making Your Decision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 Poor Man’s Site Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 And the Choice Is . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
xiv How to Make Money Online with eBay, Yahoo!, and Google Picking a Domain Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 Registering for a Yahoo! Merchant Solutions Account . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 Pointing Your Domain to Your Store . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 Pointing www to the Store . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150 Finding Your Way Around the Store Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150 Creating a Store Security Key . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150 Setting Up a Credit Card Merchant Account . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 CHAPTER 13 Adding and Importing Products ............................ 153 Understanding the Product Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 Adding an Item to the Product Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154 Working with Options—Monograms, Inscriptions, Incremental Pricing, and More . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 Modifying Items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 Publishing Your Product Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162 Viewing the Data in Your Store . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162 Exporting Product Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 Importing Product Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164 Dealing with Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 Creating Section Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 Entering Inventory Quantities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 Creating and Importing the Data File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 Publishing Your Import Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170 Importing Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 CHAPTER 14 Working in Store Editor .................................. 173 Moving Around in Store Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 Understanding Your Store Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176 Using the Contents Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178 Learning the Edit Toolbar Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 Planning Your Strategy—to HTML or Not to HTML? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 CHAPTER 15 Creating the Home and Section Pages ....................... 189 Setting Up the Home Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 Using HTML in the Message and Other Text Fields . . . . . . . . . . 193 Moving and Removing Elements on the Home Page . . . . . . . . . 194 Making a Product or Section a “Special” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195 Creating and Editing Section Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 Working with Images and HTML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200 Placing Other Products on a Section Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202 Moving Products Between Sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204 CHAPTER 16 Modifying Page Layout ................................... 205 Modifying the Section Page’s Head and Contents Layout . . . . . . . . . . . 205 Choosing Product Layout with Contents-format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 Picking Product Elements with Contents-elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
xv Contents Overriding Head and Contents Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208 Using Leaf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209 Overriding Contents Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209 Placing Products on the Section Page Only . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211 Creating and Editing Product Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212 Creating a “Link” Information Blurb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 Creating a Product Accessory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214 Associating One Product with Another . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 Modifying Product Page Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216 CHAPTER 17 Customizing the Site Design .............................. 217 Modifying the Store’s Graphic Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 Quickly Selecting a Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218 Modifying the Navbar Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218 Switching to a Horizontal Button Bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218 Adding, Removing, and Moving Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219 Changing the Order of the Contents Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221 Changing Button Designs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221 Changing Button Labels and Using Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222 Changing the Function of the Y! Shopping Button . . . . . . . . . . . 222 Adding More Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223 Using the Design Variables Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223 Adding Ancillary Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228 Creating a Feedback or Catalog-request Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229 Creating More Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230 Publishing Your Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230 CHAPTER 18 Defining Payment Methods and Your Checkout Process ......... 231 Setting Up a Credit-card Merchant Account . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 Credit-card Transactions Explained . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 Already Got a Merchant Account? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232 Merchant Account Fees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233 Setting Up Credit-card Transactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234 Configuring Credit-card Verification (Risk) Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235 Understanding Address Verification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236 Understanding Card Verification Value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 Selecting Risk Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 Selecting Payment Methods: Credit Cards, PayPal, and More . . . . . . . . 238 Setting Up Your Order Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238 Setting Up Notification and Feedback Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241 CHAPTER 19 Configuring Shipping, Taxes, and Inventory .................. 243 Specifying Where You Ship—Foreign Orders .................... 243
xvi How to Make Money Online with eBay, Yahoo!, and Google Setting Up Shipping Methods and Rates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244 Using UPS OnLineTM Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244 Creating Shipping Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245 Defining Shipping Rates and Creating Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246 Configuring Shipping Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250 Defining Shipping Confirmation Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251 Managing Sales Tax Rates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251 Setting Up Sales Tax in Merchant Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253 Using the Shipping & Tax Test Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256 Configuring Inventory Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256 Configuring Database Inventory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257 Entering Inventory Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259 Opening for Business . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259 CHAPTER 20 Processing Orders ...................................... 261 Reviewing Your Orders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261 Checking Flagged Orders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265 Processing Credit-card Payments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267 Modifying Charges and Canceling Orders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268 Processing Fax, Phone, and Mail Orders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268 Processing PayPal and Other Forms of Payment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269 Shipping Your Order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270 Shipping via UPS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270 Blocking Fraudulent Orders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271 CHAPTER 21 Promotion Strategies and Tools ............................ 273 Submitting Data to Yahoo! Shopping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273 Preparing Product Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274 Adding Data Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276 Categorizing Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276 Creating the Product-url Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277 Importing and Publishing Your Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277 Using Coupons and Discounts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278 Creating Affiliate, Discount, and Tracking Links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279 Using E-mail Marketing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282 Setting Up Cross-sell Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282 PART III Using Google Pay Per Click and More to Grow Traffic CHAPTER 22 Google AdWords and Other Pay Per Click Programs ............ 289 What Is PPC? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289 The PPC Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291 Understanding the PPC Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
xvii Contents Understanding Conversion Ratio, Click Value, and ROI . . . . . . . . . . . . 292 Calculating Click Value and ROI with No Background . . . . . . . . 293 Calculating Gross Profit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293 Calculating Breakeven Click Value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294 What’s the ROI? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294 Calculating Click Value and ROI Later . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294 So, Can You Make Money? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296 Understanding Keywords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297 Broad vs. Narrow Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298 Doing a Keyword Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298 Checking Bid Prices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300 CHAPTER 23 Setting Up a Google PPC Campaign ......................... 303 Getting Started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303 Selecting a Location for Your Ads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304 Selecting the World or Specific Countries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305 Selecting a Region or City . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305 Selecting a Very Precise Region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305 Creating Your Ads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306 Entering Keywords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307 Bidding on Keywords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307 Specifying Your Daily Budget . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310 Entering Your Account Info . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310 Modifying Keyword Characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310 Changing Bid Prices for Specific Keywords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311 Changing Target URLs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313 Keyword Matching Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313 Understanding Expanded Matches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314 Creating New Ads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315 Turning Off “Content” Placement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315 Writing Effective Ads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316 Google’s Editorial Guidelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317 Going “Live” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318 CHAPTER 24 Managing Your PPC Campaigns and Measuring Results ......... 319 Viewing PPC Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319 Managing Bad CTRs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323 Why Does Google Do This? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323 How to “Fix” Low CTRs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323 Tracking Conversions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324 Entering Conversion Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328 Placing the Conversion-tracking Code into Your Site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328 Using Trackable Links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
xviii How to Make Money Online with eBay, Yahoo!, and Google Using Other Tracking Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329 Using the Conversion Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330 Watching for Click Fraud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331 CHAPTER 25 Selling Through Shopping Directories: Froogle, Yahoo! Shopping, and More . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333 How to Work with the Shopping Directories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333 Using Froogle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337 Using Yahoo! Shopping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338 Other Shopping Directories to Work With . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338 CHAPTER 26 Improving Natural Search Engine Ranking ................... 339 Why You Must Understand the Search Engines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339 Understanding Search Engines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340 Understanding the Keywords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343 Making Sure Search Engines Can Index Your Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344 Avoiding the Basic Mistakes Before You Start . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345 Frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345 Invisible Navigation Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345 Images and an Absence of Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347 Macromedia Flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348 File and Directory Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348 Optimizing Pages for Particular Keywords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349 Understanding the Role of Links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351 Getting Links to Your Site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353 Registering with the Search Engines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353 CHAPTER 27 Using Affiliate Programs and Other Marketing Techniques ...... 355 Using Affiliate Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355 Using Coupon and Discount Sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358 Promoting Through Newsletters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359 Creating Your Own Newsletter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360 Content Syndication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361 Marketing Through Discussion Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362 Creating Your Own Discussion Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363 CHAPTER 28 Selling Through Amazon and Other Merchant Programs ........ 365 Selling on Amazon.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365 Different Ways to Sell Through Amazon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366 Becoming an Amazon.com Marketplace Pro Merchant . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368 Using PriceGrabber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369 Using Half.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369 Using Overstock.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370 Using uBid.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371 Using SmartBargains.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372 Using Other Merchant Sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373