Self Empolyment Self Promotion Time Management

Being self-employed requires a lot of discipline especially when it comes to time scheduling and advertising

Having an eBay or any online business has obstacles that a brick and mortar business does not have. Working at home can have many distractions, all in the name of becoming more educated to enhance the business.

I have found recently that learning is great, but does not sell product. I have eliminated a lot of the excess and am concentrating on listing and listing and listing. As a result May was out best month ever and June is starting off just as good.

We reached 5.0 on all 4 stars several times during the last 6 months with the longest run being 22 days. We also received the 20% discount for the 9th consecutive month and because a lot of our listings have free shipping, we also got a 40% discount on the FVF on those items.

At least with a real store, you have certain hours you are open and know where your customers are coming from. Deciding where to advertise and how to self promote is a constant concern for online sellers .

There are all the social networks now, like Twitter and Facebook, to help promote us and offer social interaction. Truthfully, I guess I don’t know Twitter well enough to say, I get it. I sort of get Facebook but then I do not have as many followers there as I do on Twitter.

But the other venue that is becoming more popular is blogging. At first I thought of it as a personal diary and also as a way to promote my business and then as a way to share our travels with friends and acquaintances. I never really decided which one was most prevalent but do think a blog can be all of the above.

So how to write an effective blog? Great question. I can only talk from our limited experience. My biggest suggestion is to outline the blog in your mind with the tags (keywords) you want to include. Then write it, hopefully with pictures or illustrations.

If it is a lot of information divide it up into several posts. I have found that within minutes of posting a blog Google notifies me they have found it. (You can set that up on Google to be notified each time a name or term is searched including your eBay name & / or store!)

Last week after I did the Indy 500 Car race blogs, I landed on the first page of Google 2x. One search was Police Escort and the other was Balloon release. Holy smokes!! How much money is spent each year on paid per click advertising and there we were.

Someone did a search for “crafts to make with herbs”. We were number 6 on the 1st page out of over 3 million possible answers.

Then yesterday someone did a search for White Castle Hamburgers in Branson, MO. Well I had done a blog on White Castle and several weeks before that done one on a certain theater in Branson. Obviously Google remembered all those tags and out of the 14,000+ possible answers we were #1 of the free listings. Yep #1 – even above White Castle Corporate.

So my bottom line is to not be distracted or lured into activities that take me away from promoting our business and to remember those tags.