The weather is finally heating up around here. I can't say the same for the store sales. Because of that, and because it's been a few weeks I'm starting to think about another newsletter. I'll get one out in the next week or so. Haven't been doing much with the store in the last week or so. I wonder if that's why I haven't had many sales or because we're getting into summer full swing.

I've also started sending out coupon codes in the form of a flyer and attached business cards to everyone on my mailing list. Hopefully that will bring in repeat business and hopefully people will refer friends.

I've started to try entering more comments in blogs to see if I can get a higher ranking with my blog through google. I've actually found a few very interesting blogs in the process.

Speaking of search engines... Microsoft has come out with a new search engine called Bing.com so I've submitted my site there. We'll see if that increases my traffic. After a week or two of submission I don't see many people coming from there at all. As far as visibility of Bing.com... I've seen commercials for it. I had to be told by someone what it was though. Not really a good sign when you don't know what something is after seeing a commercial AND visiting the website. I haven't defaulted to using bing.com for myself but Bill Gates does know how to market and produce a great product so who knows where bing.com will be in 6 months.

This blog post brought to you by

It's been almost a week since my last post so I thought I'd better post. I've been very busy with tools for my journey. My goal this week was to get more products into my store on buyitsellit.com but in the process I learned so much. I've read about niche stores before and that it's good to have one, but I guess I didn't take it seriously. Now I'm sitting up and listening. I decided to start a new store with exclusively dog dishes on buyitsellit. It's called Dog Dish Store. I'm excited about it! I have about 23 listings on there right now. I'm working on getting many more. I'm getting a fare amount of viewings as well.

I visit the community boards on buy it sell it daily and I'm so jealous of these people ... in an admiring way though. It's almost comical to see so many people talk about how well there stores are doing or even how average their stores are doing when I've had a store on the site for a year with NO sales. To the site's credit I haven't done much to promote my items on there. It's not a huge site like Ebay so you have to bring people to your store. Google, word of mouth, ways like that.

I have also joined a Sight Engine Optimization free online class. It's to start within the next day and I'm so exciting. You join Yahoo groups to get the classes. There is a $20 book to follow along with the class, but you don't have to get it. People have been found to be more successful WITH it. I haven't bought it yet, but I think I will. It's an online book so you don't have to wait for shipping. You can get the book mailed to you as far as I understand. Click here for the SEO training class. Make sure you sign up for the class AND the Yahoo groups or you won't get into the class. ALSO you have to sign up for the Website Marketing Training Class at the same time as the SEO Training Class. What do you have to lose? ... It's FREE. :-) I can't wait to get the first lesson and put some of it to great use. Someone on buyitsellit that used the program just had a $300 day the other day. Can you believe it? That was enough for me to sign up!

In case you're wondering where I'm getting the dog dishes from, they are from the dropshipper that I belong to with my website DNAETC.com. They really give you so much to work with if you want to take it to another site to sell in addition to selling on your own site. Click on DropShipDirect to the left to check it out.

Getting late. Better get to bed. We go to see Santa in the morning. Then to a friend's Christmas Party. Then Santa again on Sunday. VERY full weekend!!!

Discouraged

Today I’m a little discouraged. On mylot.com I asked:

So I'm a member of a couple PTC sites, but not for the money as much as getting traffic to my website. Is that the best way to get traffic to my site? If so, are you a member of more that one PTC site? Which site is your preferred site?

I was told that that’s not the best way to get quality traffic to your site. I need to make my site “search engine friendly.” My thought “that’s not as easy as clicking on websites so people come to my website.” That’s why I got discouraged during the last run at making money on the internet. I just couldn’t get my site map to submit to Google correctly. I just need someone to look at the code because I had to create it on my own and I’m not technically savy when it comes to writing code so I don’t know. It could just be that I have a dash where it shouldn’t be.

So I may have mentioned before that there are so many routes to take with these businesses online. Here is a perfect example of being pulled in different directions en route to a successful online business. I need 48 more hours in the day.

I've posted another question on mylot asking

"So I'm a member of a couple PTC sites, but not for the money as much as getting traffic to my website. Is that the best way to get traffic to my site? If so, are you a member of more that one PTC site? Which site is your preferred site?" ... I just posted it a few minutes ago so no responses yet. I'll post any helpful information here as I get it.

Clickthru

I've been spending so much time addicted to trying to get this business up and running that I'm feeling a little guilty that I'm not showing 100% attention to the kids. I mean they are 3 and 4 and can entertain themselves but when I'm here all day on the weekends I should really be devoting all time to them. I feel like I've been checking my visitor number and doing research a little too much. I don't want my kids to grow up and have only memories of mommy on the computer. I sometimes make it ok in my mind by saying if I can pull this off, the kids will benefit in the future. Then in the back of my mind I think what if I DON'T make this work? Then all the time with my attentions away from them have been in vein. It's such a struggle.

Well, in the research I've done this weekend I came across a site called clickthru. I want to add their add to my blog, but right now I'm having problems with the html getting the button to work. I have an email into them for advice. In the mean time I'll still do a write up on them because I like their concept and think it will help me once I can get a button in here.

Clickthru is a traffic exchange site where you can earn money that turns into visitors to your website.

Quick overview:

• You register your website with them and they will put it in their database with other user's websites.
  
• You browse that database and earn money for viewing and raiting sites.
  
• Those sites in turn are shown your site and your hope is that someone looking at your site will want to be a customer of yours.
  
• The cash you recieve for viewing adds can be used to buy yourself a higher presence on the site.
  
• You are given visits to your site just for joining then to get more viewers of your site you can add the clickthru button to your website with html language they give you. Advertising on your website in general is a great way to earn money through your website so I don't mind that I need to do that task to gain visitors.
• Even if I don't pay for traffic with this site, I think I will benefit even by people clicking from my website. And I don't expect any out of pocket expenses with this website. I plan to pay for any advertising with them to come thru my clickthru earnings.

Ways to earn cash on Clickthru:

• Visiting websites and rating them thru Clickthru
• Complete tasks like signing up for websites. They don't even have to be sites that charge you to sign up. I see that most are free and many pay out $.50 for signing up through clickthru.
• When sign up with clickthru as a referral of you. Use the referral link in your website like I am or send the link in an email. Although they do have a policy against spamming so you'll want to make sure you observe those rules.

Review:

• I've had a few visitors from it in just a day or so. I have to view more sites on their website and have people click on their link in order for me to get more visitors, but so far I really like the site and the concept. I think it will work for my needs. I love the no-cost of it. As I've mentioned in the past I don't want to pay out anymore money for this business.
  

Dropship Site

• Dropshipdesign.com is the site I use for my website dnaetc.com
  

1. One time fee and they host your website. No monthly fee. No transaction fees.
2. Dropshipdesign.com sets up the website in terms of providing photos for the merchandise and a guide for pricing. They set the price for your customer but you can change that if you think they set the price too high for your customers
3. If someone buys something directly through your website they deal with the transaction and the customer if they have problems.
   
4. If you sell through Ebay, you log into your website and purchase the item and indicate that you need the item sent directly to the customer and provide the address.
5. They accept Paypal and credit cards from you and your customers.
6. I bought my domain name from godaddy.com but you don't have to do that. They'll give you one that's something like dropshipdesign.yourcompany.com
   
7. One thing I don't like is that you have to pay a small monthly fee (I think $3 to get customer support via telephone) otherwise you can email them with questions. So far I've just used the email route. Like I've said I want to make no further investment.
8. You will have to make a concerted effort to advertise your site. You can't just set it up and hope for sales. I have only gotten sales at Ebay and I'm now trying different routes to promote my site. I won't lie... it's challenging.
   
9. There is a lot to think about when you commit to owning a website.
   

Let me know if you have any questions on this. I might be able to help.

• Another option is to use keywords Dropship Free on google.com search to find others. I'm going to post another great site as soon as I get my affiliate account set up so check back or subscribe to my blog to find out what that one is.
• I'll have to try and think of others I've used....

Dropshipping Turorial

I have noticed that a lot of people want to know more about dropshipping companies. I have experience with a few myself and have some tips. First lets go through what dropshipping is exactly:

• Company A is a large company that holds a lot of stock in various items.
• You research what items would be in demand. Check out past and current sales on Ebay if you want to sell on Ebay.
• Find something on Company A’s website that you think would sell for a profit on Ebay.
• List that item on Ebay. Don’t buy the item from Company A yet. When the item sells on Ebay, go to Company A’s website and have them ship the product directly to the customer. No investment except what you spend to post the ad on Ebay.
• Start small by listing a couple things and if they sell make sure they get to their destination and you receive positive feedback.
• To find your own dropshipper try a search of dropship free on google.com

Pros to Dropshipping:

• If you work with a good dropshipping site, they will send a replacement to the customer if they receive damaged goods or have proof the customer didn’t get the item. If the postal service says it was lost en route.
• No need to pre-buy the item you’re trying to sell

Cons to Dropshipping:

• You are at the mercy of the dropshipper: Going with Company A’s word (and receipt sent to you) that the item was shipped. It’s difficult to know for sure if the correct item was sent.
• On Ebay you have to disclose you don’t hold the item in your possession and some buyers may not be comfortable with that.
• Stiff Competition on Ebay for items you may want to dropship. You can find items to undercut them on, but profit is pretty small. You have to rely and selling a lot of something in order to make a great profit.

General Tips:

• Do not pay money to join a dropship site or for a company to sell you a list of dropship websites. Enough of them are free and you can find them if you look hard enough. I’ll even help you.
• Compare prices between dropshippers. Many of them hold the same merchandise so see who is the better company: price, delivery time, sophistication of the website, cost of delivery. For example: Site 1 is $19.99 for product + $6.99 shipping. Site 2 is $16.99 for product + $12.99. On the surface it seems like site 2 is the better buy, but you have to look at the shipping before you decide. Ultimately Site 1 is the better choice if you’re going by price. And competition is so tight over there I generally only based my decision on price. Shipping times honestly didn’t very enough in my opinion. Oh and some add a $1 processing charge that adds to what you’ll pay and should weigh on your decision to use them.
• Try to use a Dropship site that has a phone number.
• I don’t recall coming across any that were not in the United States but I would make sure the company is based in your home country.
• Ideally you want to find something on a dropshipper’s website that nobody is selling on Ebay and everyone is looking for.
• Make sure you do you research your competition before you post anything.

WARNING:

If you start posting stuff on Ebay (particularly new stuff) you might get a lot of emails from people that want to sell Lacoste shirts and other high end merchandise and they’ll drop ship them for you. Stay away!!! I was scammed by someone this way (her name is huajing zhu). Stay away! Only go through reputable websites.

I've started working with a website called mylot.com that pays you for commenting on hundreds of topics. It's only a penny or two for posting a comment, but there are benefits other than making money:

• I get the chance to practice my writing skills.
• I can talk about so many different topics that interest me.
• I can get tips on various topics
  
• I can advertise my site and my blogs on there
• Recommendations from members on other money making sites or endeavors.
• I've actually met someone on there that has given a LOT of fantastic advise on starting up this business so that has really been the most beneficial part of joining mylot.com

Even if you don't go on there to make money, if you like to chat online you might as well make money while you're doing it. There community is pretty large so there are a variety of people to interact with as well. Check it out!