I’m sure when you first started your eBay business, expanding into selling on Amazon or creating your own website were probably the last things on your mind. But once your eBay business is running like clockwork and you’ve started listing on Amazon too, then it is time to consider branching out…
Of course eBay offers a place for you to create auctions and fixed price listings and even to create your own shop where buyers can head to find your other items, but this simply doesn’t provide the freedom you gain by creating your own website.
Now, don’t panic! You don’t need to be a computer expert for this to work; I’m not and yet I run some very successful websites alongside my eBay listings.
The Benefits of Creating your Own Website…
Benefit one – A memorable domain name
If at all possible the domain name for your website should match that of your eBay user ID, and both should be memorable enough for a previous buyer to remember. This increases the likelihood that they will come back to your store in the future. If they enter your ID into eBay they will find your eBay store, and if they enter the same ID into Google they will find your website.
Benefit two – Newsletter signup
Wouldn’t it be really useful to have a list of email addresses of people that are specifically interested in the type of products that you sell? Of course it would! You could send out emails offering advice about your products, and every so often drop in a link to one of your products to that targeted group.
Keeping a connection like this with your shoppers will drastically increase your sales.
With your own website you’ll have the ability to place a newsletter signup box on any page so that your visitors can sign up quickly and easily. What’s more, as you can link to your website from your eBay About Me page and even via emails informing your successful buyers of their orders, you’ll soon see lots of your previous customers sign up too.
Benefit three – Additional traffic
I often read reviews of things before I actually buy them! Call me paranoid but I like to hear that a product isn’t going to fall apart in my hands as soon as I open the box. And I know that I’m not the only person in the world who wants to read reviews – so creating a website that actually offers reviews of your products will also send people in the direction of your products.
As I mentioned in my previous newsletter, if you do decide to write reviews of your products please make sure that you are totally honest as it will increase your credibility and the likelihood that visitors will tell their friends and family about your website.
Make sure you also include a link to the relevant product or eBay listing after your review. The last thing you want to do is convince someone that they want to buy what you are offering and then inadvertently send them straight in the direction of your competitors!
Benefit four – Additional moneymaking schemes
Remember that eBay isn’t the only way to make money online! You can advertise products for sale on Amazon through your website with their affiliate marketing programme and you’ll earn 5-10% commission on each sale. Or you could even take advantage of Google AdSense to earn a little extra pocket money each time someone clicks on an advertisement found on your website.
Your own website grants you the freedom to take advantage of these other moneymaking opportunities alongside your eBay income and, as I’ve said before, it’s always a good idea to diversify your income streams and maximise your profits.
Benefit five – A lasting marketing method
It can take time to build traffic to a website; any expert will admit that and I know from experience that it’s not necessarily easy to get your website up to page one in the Google search results for the products that you are selling. There are many methods that you can use to raise the profile of your website such as linking to it from the signature of your email, posting in forums or on blogs that are related to your niche market and writing informative articles on the topic that can be posted to article directories with a link back to your website.
So what I’m saying is that you will need to put in some effort to make your website a success – that’s just the way things on the web work. But the good news is that once people are searching for and finding the pages on your website they will provide you with a continual stream of visitors.
Creating your own website needn’t be a difficult task
Once upon a time it was almost impossible for someone without a whole heap of technical knowhow to create a website. It’s not the same these days as there are a multitude of different tools that you can take advantage of to help you along your way! A range of different content management systems such as WordPress mean that you can have a website set up and ready to go literally within minutes, so please don’t be put off by the thought that you don’t know enough about it all to give it a go. I’ll be offering further help with this in the near future, so keep an eye on my newsletters!
Remember that sometimes it’s good to step outside your comfort zone and embark on a new challenge!