Step 1. Pick The Right Keywords

Put yourself in the buyer's shoes. Use keywords that you'd use to find your item if you were looking to buy it. For instance, "Mario Kart Wii". Keep it simple and accurate.

Step 2. Narrow The Results

Using the category filters on the left side of the screen, along with other options (New vs. Used) will help ensure you're comparing your item with items as relevant as possible. For instance, if you're selling a cell phone, make sure you're just browsing the phones category and not the accessories category.

Step 3. Sort The Results

Using the sort selection box, choose "Price + Shipping, Lowest First". This will display the cheapest items at the top of the search results. On the left side of your screen, select "Buy It Now". This will filter out items without a fixed asking price. If you're selling with Buy It Now, you want to beat all of these prices if you can! Always include the shipping cost when determining the lowest price since the customer will be taking it into consideration.

Step 4. Check Completed Listings

Use the links at the top of the search results to browse through Sold and Completed listings. These will show what people actually paid for the item you're researching or selling. If your asking price is too much higher than these prices – even if you're the lowest available – you may need to lower your price to attract a buyer.

Step 5. Throw Out Useless Data

Not all items that come up in your search will be valid for comparison. Learn to spot these items and ignore them when doing price research. Make sure the items you're using for a point of comparison are similar to what you're selling. Also make sure the prices are in line with the item's value. Just because only one or two of an item is available doesn't mean a buyer will necessarily pay the lowest price available if it's ridiculously overpriced!

Feedback Score and Satisfaction Rating

When choosing an eBay trading assistant to work with, it probably goes without saying that you want someone who's experienced and has a lot of feedback under their belt. Quantity of feedback is important, but the quality of feedback is also important. How many negative feedback marks do they have? What is their customer satisfaction percentage? Are they a Top Rated Seller according to eBay's standards? These are all important considerations to make. Do your homework by checking out their feedback profile.

Full Time vs. Part Time

Always ask your trading assistant if they are doing this as a hobby or as a business. While eBay can be a profitable hobby, there are enough people who do it full-time that you shouldn't settle for less. It's important that they will be there to answer your questions and communicate with you (and your buyers) in a timely fashion. The bottom line is you want someone who has enough time available to meet your needs as a client.

Trading Assistant Commissions and Fees

While this shouldn't be the main consideration for choosing a TA, it's still important. Make sure the rates your TA is charging you are in line with the going rates in your area. Standard TA rates vary by area, but usually amount to 60% of the bid price or 70% of the net price after fees. Ask the seller if there is a discount for higher value items. If you're looking to use upgrades such as bold and premium listings, make sure you're on the same page about who will be covering those fees.

Personability and People Skills

When browsing the TA directory, read each TA's profile carefully. Does this sound like someone who wants your business? Does the TA make a laundry list of demands for their clients? Your trading assistant experience doesn't have to be unpalatable. Pick someone who sounds friendly and wants to work with you. (I have seen TA profiles containing messages to the extent of "please don't drop off your crap, I'm not a garbage dump!" While that sentiment is shared among most sellers, there's a positive and negative way to get this message across. Which one would you prefer to work with?)

Areas of Expertise

Take the time to see what kind of items your potential trading assistant is experienced listing on eBay. You can do this by viewing their feedback profile and looking at items they currently have listed for sale or auction. For instance, if you're trying to sell farm equipment, you probably wouldn't use a TA who specializes in children's clothing. Most TA profiles list the types of goods that they specialize in selling. While this list is not exhaustive by any means, you should be able to get a feel if they are a good fit to sell your items. If you're not sure, you can always ask!

Selling Advertising Yourself

Often the most reliable way to make money with your e-zine is by selling the advertising space yourself. The most difficult part of doing this is finding a sponsor. The first place to promote yourself should always be your e-zine! Let your readers know that you accept advertisements and to contact you if interested. Post advertising and contact information on your website for prospective clients to find. Look for websites that complement your topic and send them an e-mail asking them if they would like to advertise. You never know until you ask!

Affiliate Programs & Networks

Affiliate networks like Max Bounty provide an opportunity for you to make money on a cost-per-action basis. This can be as simple as referring a visitor who signs up for a free subscription or downloads a game. Pay-per-sale affiliate programs such as Amazon will reward you with a portion of each sale you refer. The key to successful affiliate marketing is finding affiliate programs and/or products that are targeted to your audience. For instance, if your e-zine contains tips for stay at home moms, you should find an affiliate program that contains a product or service targeted toward moms. There are plenty of affiliate programs to pick from, and internet forums (such as the Warrior Forum) are a good place to research and discuss which affiliate programs give the best results.

Fun Page Exchange – Pay Per Click

Selling your own e-zine advertising space can be difficult. Obtaining leads and sales can be frustrating as well, as the results can often be very unpredictable. A unique alternative to traditional e-zine advertising is the Fun Page Exchange pay per click program. Fun Page Exchange pays on a per-click basis for promoting fun links and games. Instead of bombarding your readers with advertising, you get paid to share fun content. Since it's pay per click, you don't need to worry about converting leads or making sales. And there are always hundreds of different links available to promote in your e-mail newsletter!

Twitter for Advertising

Twitter is a two-way street. No one will follow you if all you do is post advertisements. Twitter is all about conversation. Find locals to follow. Find similarly minded people to follow. They might just follow you back — if they don’t think you’re a spambot. One way to do that is to create original content. It might sound simplistic, but tweet what you are doing and what you are working on. Make yourself real; that’s probably the best advertising you can do for yourself and your business.

Twitter for Networking

My best advice is to follow people who have similar business interests as yourself. Case in point, I have a friend who wanted to break into comic book writing. He followed some of his idols on Twitter. Some of them followed him back, and now he’s writing comic books for some very famous companies. He did Twitter right. He didn't bombard these people with messages, begging for their interest. He was himself. They could see his love for the genre in his tweets. And they gave him a shot. Your followers should see your passion as well.

Twitter for News

The President tweets, so does the Pope. It’s actually a great way to follow news. I first learned that Michael Jackson had died on Twitter. News organizations are turning to Twitter first when developing breaking news stories. Journalists seek sources. And editors know that posting a tweet has more immediate visibility than even the organization’s own website. I also appreciate the sense of humor of my Twitter feed when covering national events. Watching last year’s presidential debates was definitely more interesting with one eye on my Twitter feed. Twitter definitely helps me stay current with the news. Make sure you follow legitimate news outlets and legitimate celebrities. On a person’s profile, a real celebrity should have a verified account, which means that Twitter has confirmed the legitimacy of the account.

Explore Twitter. Go ahead. It’s easy!

Why eBay Gets You The Most

With eBay, you've got a huge market to sell to. When you list your item, you have access to millions of potential buyers all over the world (or just your own country, if you so choose.) By selling your used video game or CD, you're making more money and saving the customer money by cutting out the middleman.

It's Easy To List Your Item

eBay has a catalog of almost every video game and music title released. Listing your item is as simple as typing in the UPC number under the bar code or searching for it using the title. Picking a price for your item is simple, too – do an eBay search for your item and sort it by price plus shipping, low to high. If your price is lower, yours will usually sell first when a potential buyer comes along!

Shipping Your Items

Shipping your games and music is surprisingly easy to do. Bubble mailers, CD mailers and packing tape can be purchased at your local dollar store or other major retail store of your choosing. You can either bring your packages to the post office or buy a small scale to weigh them with; using PayPal to print your postage labels. One big advantage of printing your shipping labels online is the free Delivery Confirmation service. This normally costs over 50 cents extra when purchased at the counter and is valuable to buyers for tracking their shipments.

Sometimes Stuff Goes Wrong

Sometimes an item will get lost in the mail or damaged. Insurance can be purchased for more expensive items, though it is impractical for smaller items. (Unless you were selling an incredibly rare vintage game or music album, or an entire lot of items, insurance is not needed.) As a seller you will be responsible for issuing the customer a refund. You can request that they mail you back an item if they claim it is damaged, but if it is lost you are pretty much out of luck. This should happen very rarely and is simply the cost of doing business. No matter what happens, always treat the customer with respect.

Don't Forget To Leave Feedback

After your transaction is complete, it's courteous to leave your buyer feedback. While leaving feedback immediately after payment may put a smile on some customers' faces, you may decide it's worth waiting until you know the item has been received and there were no problems with the transaction. While you can't leave negative feedback for buyers, you can still report them to eBay if there is a problem.

You Don't Have To Do It Yourself

Busy schedule? Want to leave it to the professionals? Hiring an eBay Trading Assistant might be the way to go. A trading assistant can list your items, ship them, and deal with the customer for you in exchange for a cut of the profit of your item. You can find a trading assistant in your area on eBay's website, or find out more about our trading assistant service here.

It Doesn't Matter If You're Right

The goal of your business isn't to be correct, it's to make a profit. This doesn't mean you need to bend over backwards for a customer who's a terrible pain, but it does mean that you should treat that customer with respect. Everyone deserves to be treated like a human being, and if that particular human being has the potential to put money in your pocket, acting like a jerk isn't going to help that cause! A healthy dose of humility is more useful in business than a bad attitude.

You're Not The Soup Nazi

Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably heard of the legendary Soup Nazi from Seinfeld. If you don't order quickly and keep moving, he'll deny you service with his famous catch phrase "No Soup For You!" Perhaps he can get away with this because he's a legend, and because his attitude is what makes him famous. Unless you're the best of the best, have a line full of customers lining up the door that you can't keep up with, and have customers who like being talked down to, you probably don't have any business giving your customers the cold shoulder!

A Little Kindness Goes A Long Way

We've all had our share of bad customer service. Whether it was a clueless retail clerk, a rude sales representative, or an online store that messed up your order, mistakes happen. When you're responsible for dealing with that mistake, going above and beyond what's necessary to correct the problem – while treating the customer with respect – can leave a lasting memory. When you give your customers a reason to remember why doing business with you was better than your competitor, they just might come back – or even recommend you to a friend.

Observation #1. The thumbnails exist to heavily maximize clickthroughs.

This should not come as a surprise, as MGID is a business and aims to maximize revenue. Their thumbnail descriptions are written by expert copywriters who aim to get as many people to click the link as possible. Thumbnail images are also carefully picked to get the viewer's attention. As a result, the actual content does not often meet the visitor's expectations. Fun Page Exchange links are never sensationalized by copywriters, they simply list the name of your content pages.

Observation #2: MGID links do not get the visitor directly to the content.

Upon clicking an MGID link, you are not taken to the content page you clicked on. Instead you are taken to their own page with several more links. This further divides up the attention of a web surfer. Instead of getting them where they expected to go, they're sending the visitor to many more places. Fun Page Exchange links always go directly to the content page being linked to.

Final Thoughts: Why Does Fun Page Exchange Result In Better Traffic?

Having content links that go where they're supposed to, and having simple, non-sensationalized text links are two important reasons why Fun Page Exchange traffic results in visitors who spend more time on your website. If you're looking for quality traffic for your arcade, humor or entertainment site, sign up for a free Fun Page Exchange account and start getting more visitors today!

1. Content Link Banners & Boxes (Website Only)

These are the bread and butter of Fun Page Exchange. These link banners contain links to content pages from other Fun Page Exchange members' websites. You can create a link box or banner with as many or as few content links as you want. You can pick the size of the banner, the color, the font size, and several other options. Several ready made links are provided, and you are free to customize any of them to your liking.

2. Newsletter Links (E-Mail or Social Media)

These links are for opt-in e-mail newsletters and social media pages. You can select several content links to promote at one time using the newsletter link generator. You can promote as many or as few links as you like. Because each individual link is not always available due to a depleted credit balance, please do not use newsletter links on your website. Please use the link banners/boxes instead, as their content is dynamically generated.

3. Content Category Links

Content category links contain links to Fun Page Exchange members' home pages. Four categories are available to pick from: Funny Jokes, Funny Pictures, Funny Videos, and Flash Arcade. You can use the images provided, or direct text links. These links can be edited so long as they are not confusing to the viewer, and can also be promoted with an e-mail newsletter or social media page.

4. More Fun Pages Link

Similar to the content category links, this page can be linked to any way you like as long as it is not misleading. This page contains up to 100 different content links, in addition to the content category links below them. In the event that you promote a newsletter link that runs out of credits, the visitor will be redirected to the More Fun Pages link.

5. Webmaster Referral Link

Every time you refer a valid member to Fun Page Exchange you will earn 1,000 bonus credits. It's our way of thanking you for helping us increase our membership! All that we ask is that you please don't use spam to obtain referrals. A good place to begin would be to place our referral link in your footer or a webmaster section on your website.

1. Social Media Links

By providing links for your viewers to share your content on Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus or other social networking sites, you can take advantage of free viral traffic. Your viewers can share your content with their friends, who can in turn share it with their friends. Here is a handy tool for generating social media links.

2. Link Exchanges With Other Websites

By exchanging links with sites of complementary themes, you can both increase traffic and possibly your search engine rankings, too. When using link exchanges with other websites, quality is more important than quantity. Make sure the sites you are trading links with are not "link farms". Periodically you will need to check that the sites you are linking with are linking back to you from their websites. Seeking out and managing link exchanges takes a fair amount of work, but when done right it can pay off very handsomely.

3. Humor & Arcade Banner Exchanges

Another popular way of getting traffic to your website is a humor/arcade banner exchange. With a banner exchange you will always receive a fixed ratio of promotion, and don't need to worry about seeking out and managing link partners individually. Pick a banner exchange that guarantees clickthroughs and not just impressions. Additionally, if you can promote your content pages instead of your home page (such as with Fun Page Exchange) this can help keep visitors on your site longer.

4. Post New Content Daily

Give visitors a reason to bookmark your site and come back tomorrow. Search engines favor sites that are updated regularly, too. By keeping your content fresh, you can build lots of repeat traffic, with the help of tip #5:

5. Have Unique & Interesting Content

Content is definitely king. Having a website full of quality content is the foundation of any traffic base. If you don't have unique content, try to give it a unique angle. Be original and find a way to stand out from the crowd.