| Are you passionate about antiques and collecting, not Internet marketing? Need some creative ideas to improve the results from your website? Here you will discover all the resources you need. Make the most of your online investment!I provide collectors information they need to create successful websites. |
This is really me! Let’s work together!
Trying to figure out this whole web thing can be overwhelming. There are so many websites, so many options. Learning about html, graphics, optimization and promotion takes a lot of effort and time - time collectors would rather spend buying, selling and shipping. Let me help. It's what I do!
Jim Crawford
I’m online everyday, reading about marketing, design and promotion. Let me show you how it applies to our industry and how you can make it work for you. My website is a collection of links and articles that help you design an effective website. I also show you the resources you need to make sure people will find it.
My goal is not to develop your website for you, but provide you with the information you need to do it yourself. However, if you need any help deciding what to include on your site, want some assistance in creatively presenting your ideas or have any questions about Internet marketing, send me an email. Expect a quick response!Join us in the AuctionBytes Online Marketing Forum. Wanna share your website marketing ideas with other online sellers? Join us in the AuctionBytes Online Marketing Forum. I’m the humble moderator.
I write a new article about once a month or so. Stop back to see if I have a new one.
Don’t be a Monkey
Have you fallen into a comfortable routine of doing business?
It's pretty easy to do. Once you develop a process that works, it's easy to become complacent and just keep doing things the same way. The problem is that we're part of a constantly evolving marketplace. If we don't change to keep up, we'll soon be left behind.
It's a good idea to regularly evaluate what you're doing to be sure it still makes sense. Let me tell you a little story about monkeys (stay with me)…
In a laboratory somewhere near Omaha, some scientists placed three monkeys in a room. In the center of the room they placed a short staircase. At the top, the scientists hung a bunch of bananas from the ceiling.
Whenever a monkey tried to climb the stairs to get the bananas, the scientists sprayed the other two with a fire hose, much to their dislike. After many repeated dousings, the monkeys took to beating the monkey that tried to climb the stairs. Eventually, the monkeys stopped trying to get the bananas, and the scientists put away the hose.
After a while the scientists replaced one of the monkeys with a new one. The original two monkeys violently protested any attempts by the newcomer to climb the stairs, and she quickly quit trying. One by one, the scientists replaced the other two monkeys, leaving no original participants.
As new monkeys were introduced, they in turn were beaten and learned the rules. Although they had never been sprayed or even seen the hose, the monkeys continued beating each other for climbing the stairs. Why? Because that's the way they'd always done things.
What are you doing that no longer make sense?
Examine your selling process and shake things up a little. Measure what happens. Get a new website template, register a new domain and publicize your new site with some well placed overture ads. Make a new banner and trade some links. Optimize your pages and submit them again.
The Internet is the ultimate source for innovation. New web sites, new software and new opportunities are created every day. Investigate them. People are discussing fresh ideas all over the place. Join us. Read all you can, take some risks and develop new relationships.
There's a quote I like to try and remember. It goes something like this...
There are no guarantees that things will improve if you change them, but without change, there can be no improvement.
Don't let yourself turn into a monkey.
Do you use a hit counter in your online auctions? Knowing how many pageviews you have is important, but now there is an easy way to learn a whole lot more about your visitors. Check out ViewTracker Auction Tracking System from Sellathon.com.
They will let you try it free for a month to test it out, which is nice. All you have to do is copy-and-paste a snippet of code into the item description of any eBay auction you want to track. That's it! ViewTracker does the rest.
You won't believe all the stats they provide, all in "real time." You can monitor the most popular day (and time-of-day) for your auctions, the most popular keywords used to find your auctions (ranked highest to lowest) and even the most common methods used by auction visitors to find you.
Sounds pretty cool to me.