Making money with the Auction2Post Plugin

Auction2Post is a Wordpress plugin that allows you to add eBay listings to your blog. It is currently my favorite plugin as I'm a big fan of WP and eBay alike. So, this combines two of my favorite platforms (blogging platform and ecommerce platform) into one easy to use plugin.

What you will need (not yet, finish reading first):

• Auction2Post - $99
  • Use coupon code: 789FB24704 to save $20 instantly!
• Auction2Post Theme Pack - $29
• Membership to Terapeak - $31.90 per month
  • MUST add "Hot Search Reporting"
• Wordtracker - Free
• Domain - approx $10
  • Use SWITCH2NC for 10% off .com, .net and .org TLDs
  • Free Whois protection
• Latest Wordpress release - Free
• The following FREE plugins:
• Amazon Machine Tags
• WP Auto Tagger
• WP Super Cache
• Short Post URLs
• Signup for eBay Partner Network
• Signup for Amazon Associates
• Signup for Google Adsense

Yep. That's all you need. ...for now. It may look a little overwhelming, but by the time I'm finished with you, you'll know the how and why for each piece of the puzzle.

If you add up the costs, your initial cost to get started is about $150. So, this is something that should be affordable to anyone out there. Are you going to make your money back in your first month? Unlikely, but possible. Depends on how hard you want to work. With very little work, you can probably recoup your investment in just a couple months.

Like most things in life you get out what you put in. Put in little work, expect little returns. Put in more work, and the returns go up. Simple math.

Okay let's get started.

First, read through this article before you go spending any money or time on this. You need to understand the how and why's of things before jumping in with both feet. Granted, this isn't rocket science, but it's still a good idea to know what you're getting into first.


Getting Started

The whole point behind Auction2Post is to integrate eBay auctions into you blog. Pretty simple, right?

The real question is: What type of listings do you want to focus on? If you simply want to add eBay listings to a category in an existing blog, then go ahead and stop reading. Buy Auction2Post, add it, create your category and add the listings you want.

I have to assume that if you are reading this, what you really want to do is create entire sites / blogs around specific niches and make money, right? Right. Okay, so you need to figure out what sells on eBay and what gets searches in Google.

What niche?

You can try to figure out what's hot for free by going to eBay Pulse. The problem with this method is the limited data you get.

Let's say you want to see what's hot in antiques...



From the main eBay Pulse page, you would click on See More eBay Pulse Categories and then click on the top level category Antiques.

Now, you can see what the popular searches are for that category. You can do this for as many or as few categories as you like. Unfortunately, that's the end of your data. If you click on the hyperlinked search title, it will take you to the results of the search. So, while you know that "sterling" is the most popular search under antiques, you have no idea how it compares to other searches. It doesn't show you volume, sell through data, anything, just the searched keyword and it's relative popularity in that category. This is where Terapeak comes in.


Terapeak

Terapeak used to be known as eBay Market Research (years ago) and was hosted on eBay's site. Since then they have broken off and are now Terapeak. Terapeak is the best eBay research tool - IMO. Long, long ago, eBay used to have Hot Lists. No longer. Terapeak has that data now.

Forget about using eBay Pulse, you'll just pull your hair out. Let's take a look at Terapeak.

When you login, this is the screen you should see:



On the left side of the screen, look for Hot Research and click it. I like to start with Hot Products. This is the list of products sold, what their Sell Through rate was (what percentage of products sold), average selling price and how many sold. It defaults to one week. So the data you're looking at is from the last seven days. Nice!



Start by scanning through the product list and find some items that interest you. Once you do, start clicking on the Category for that item. When you click on the category it will bring up all the related items with their sell through rates, average price and items sold.

I like to look for categories that have a large list of items sold with a high average sell through rate. To figure that out, I'll highlight the list and paste it into an Open Office spreadsheet (Excel for most of you) then use the following formula to figure out the overall average sell through:

This works in Excel and Open Office.

Also, I'll sum up and average the selling price column and sum up the items sold column. This gives me an idea of how well the searches do as a category and not just on an individual basis. This is important because in some cases there will be a couple items that do very well, while the rest of the items in that category don't.

After analyzing the data from Terapeak, I'll open up Wordtracker's free keyword tool and see if related search terms get any traffic. If they do, then I'll open up Google, Yahoo and Bing and see what the competition looks like. I'm not going to get into any deep competition analysis here, and for the most part I don't do it when I'm researching niches either. Just a cursory glance over the top 10 or top 20 results to get an idea. What I'm looking for are niches where the top results are either relatively unrelated sites or really deep links to sites. What I don't want to see are a bunch of top level domains in the top SERPs. Deep links and unrelated sites generally mean I have a better chance to rank for the term. This isn't always true, but like I said, I'm not going into any deep competition analysis, just a glance through.

At this point, if the Terapeak data looks good, Wordtracker shows enough searches and the SERPs look fairly open, I'll go find a domain to buy.

Domains

When I buy a domain for my A2P sites, ideally I want to buy one that coincides with the most searched term related to the products I want to push. Sometimes, that's not always best though. If the search term contains a trademarked term, I don't buy a domain with the term in it.

Why not?

Simply because eBay's Partner Network Terms prohibits it.

Under section F - "Restricted Activities" - subsection 3 "Infringement" it states:

Infringement. You may not use Promotional Methods or engage in any activity - in connection with your participation in the Network or a Program - that violates intellectual property or proprietary rights of third parties. This includes, but is not limited to, incorporating a third party's trademark (or a term confusingly similar to it) into your URL.
So, to avoid problems with EPN, I do not buy domains with trademarked terms in them.

Click to expand...

As to where I buy domains, I like to use Namecheap. They are relatively cheap (imagine that) and include free whois privacy protection. Bonus! If you use the code SWITCH2NC you'll get 10% off any .com, .net or .org domain.

Ideally, if the .com is available that's what I buy. I like .com's simply because the average person is programmed to remember domain names with .com at the end. Theoretically, this should help traffic. If someone visits your site and they want to revisit it, they'll remember SiteName.com usually. If your site is actually .net, then you just gave up traffic to the guy that owns the .com. The other reason why I like .com's is because I am programmed to remember .com. Most of my domains are .com's and inevitably when I buy something other than a .com I have a heck of a time remembering what the TLD is. For example, I purchased buyproductname.net and I kept typing in buyproductname.com in the address bar. When the site came up it wasn't mine and I would get confused and have to look it up. After about a week of this, I got used to my domain name and didn't have the problem anymore.

Dot coms work best for me because I'm stupid and most visitors are stupid.

continued....

continued

Setting Up Your Site

I'm going to assume that you know how to use FTP clients and setup your hosting accounts. If you don't, then stop reading and go learn how.

I like Filezilla (free) but it doesn't work with Vista 64bit so I use Smart FTP (paid).

Really quick tutorial on installing Wordpress and plugins:

1. Before installing anything, create a new MySQL database and user. Add the user to the database and give that use full permissions.
2. Open the wp-config-sample.php file with a text editor like Notepad, Notepad ++ or Textpad and edit the fields for user, database and password. Save as wp-config.php
3. Upload all files to your server
4. Change the file / folder permissions on the WP Content folder to 777 and make it recursive, meaning you want that folder and everything under it to have the same permissions (777)
5. Change the permissions on your .htaccess file to 777 as well. If you don't have a .htaccess file create one by opening a blank text file with Notepad and saving the blank file as “.htaccess”. Include the quotes if you have Save As .txt File chosen, or change it to All Files and drop the quotes. Upload the blank file to your site's root (/public_html or /www depending on if you have cPanel or Plesk) and change permissions as stated above.
6. Next, navigate to your site. Assuming you created the wp-config.php file correctly and it can connect to the MySQL database, you'll be able to enter the name of you site and email address here. Then once you click Continue, you'll get your WP admin login information. Save this somewhere. Roboform – Password Manager, Form Filler, Password Management | RoboForm – is a great way to save passwords securely. I've been using Roboform since 2004 and it still rocks! Recently I purchased an Ironkey, but it doesn't hold a candle to Roboform for password management.
7. You're done, login and let's get dirty.

It's Time To Create The Site!

Now that you have Wordpress installed and configured, it's time to login and start playing with the bubble wrap. To begin, go to your settings and change whatever you feel is necessary. Here's the list of what I like to change:

• General Settings
  • Tagline – Make it descriptive and include your primary keyword(s)
  • Wordpress Address – I just add “www” to the URL
  • Blog Address – same as WP address
• Skip Writing and Reading
• Discussion Settings
  • Uncheck the “Email Me Whenever” boxes
  • Check “An administrator must always approve...” this works better than Askimet or any other spam tool out there.
  • Uncheck “Comment author must have a previously approved comment” otherwise a spammer just has to make one benign comment to get everything else through
• Skip Media and Privacy
• Under Permalinks I change it to /%category%/%postname%/ and save. If your .htaccess file isn't writeable (666 or 777) then you'll have to copy the code given and upload it yourself.
• Skip Misc.

Let's turn on some plugins and start configuring those.

Auction2Post Plugin

I'm not going to cover the configuration of A2P since Radio has that handled quite well in his forum. So, I'll skip this, but don't forget to turn it on now.

A2P Support

WP Auto Tagger and Short Post URLs Plugins

Just click activate and you're done. Next!!

WP Super Cache

This one is not entirely necessary, but it can save you a call from your host if you have a lot of Wordpress sites running. One downfall of Wordpress is it's very processor intensive. Everytime someone loads a page it has to parse the PHP script to present the page to the visitor. If you have a lot of visitors, this can really put a strain on the processor. So, the answer to that is to use WP Super Cache and cache the pages. That way when a visitor arrives they are shown a cached version of the page instead of forcing the server to parse the PHP again. Also, if you have a lot of low traffic Wordpress sites, that can have the same effect as one high traffic site.

Moral of the story: install and use WP Super Cache on all your Wordpress installations.

WP Super Cache is relatively simple to install and configure. You will need to make sure that your .htaccess file is writeable (666 or 777) and your wp-config.php file (just long enough to configure WP Super Cache, then change it back to 644).

After you click Activate, you'll get this message at the top of the page:

WP Super Cache is disabled. Please go to the plugin admin page to enable caching.

So, click on the link (not here, in your Wordpress installation), once you do this, you may get a message that it could not write to the wp-config.php file. If this happens, change your wp-config.php file's permissions to 666, then refresh the page.

Now you should be able to turn it on. Do it now. Then scroll down the page and click “Update Status”. Next, scroll down more and under the Mod Rewrite Rules box, click the Update button there as well.

Done with WP Super Cache. Change your wp-config.php file permissions back to 644.

PS. Ignore the warning at the top of the WP Super Cache page:

Warning! /home/xxxxxxxxxxx/public_html/wp-content is writeable!

Click to expand...

I know it's writeable, I made it writeable and it's going to stay writeable. Sheez.

Amazon Machine Tags

Actually, Radio posted a good post on adding Amazon Machine Tags to your A2P site, so I'm not going to rehash it. I will quote it here though for those that missed it:
http://www.wickedfire.com/sell-buy-...content-new-theme-pack-coupon.html#post610528

radio said:

Again... you don't need to get into ePN specifically to make money w/ auction2post (though it's a great way to do so! lol!) I need to start pitching this as a content generator ala Caffeinated Content - the difference being this plugin pulls in language that is in the sales voice for your audience that is in the buy mode.

Here's a more detailed response to using auction2post along w/ another affiliate network (specifically Amazon) to earn commissions.

First - go grab Amazon Machine Tags
Amazon Machine Tags Plugin for WordPress Learning the World

so say you're doing a site on gps watches (god i love niches!)

So one of your automated searches is going to be for the Garmin Forerunner 305 and it will return these items (you can hone your search down much more considerably in auction2post with categories and negative keywords - this is just a broad search)

garmin forerunner 305, great deals on Electronics, Sporting Goods on eBay!

Now create an automated search and use the a garmin305 template that you created which has the machine tags above in the template.

Now to be compliant with eBay Developer TOS you need to separate your ebay listing from other items... easy enough.

<hr/>

Now use the machine tags w/ the asin below (found on the page) and something like "also available at amazon"

Amazon.com: Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS Receiver With Heart Rate Monitor: Electronics
ASIN: B000CSWCQA

so your template body would look something like this:
Code:

Code:

[img[alt="Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS Watch"]]

<h4><a href="[link]">Click here to purchase [title] on eBay!</a></h4>

<p>
[description]
</p>

<h4><a href="[link]">Click here to purchase [title] on eBay!</a></h4>


<hr/>
<h3><strong>Available NEW at AMAZON</strong></h3>
[amtap amazon:asin=B000CSWCQA]
Don't want to make a template for each product, pick the top sellers and plug those in.

Top Selling GPS Watches on AMAZON

[amtap amazon:asin=B000CSWCQA]
[amtap amazon:asin=watch2]
[amtap amazon:asin=watch3]

And to really spell it out... Amazon plugins out there that create posts are creating ONE post/page per product - whereas auction2post is creating a new post with new sales copy for each item posted on eBay.

Check out the simple alt tag above in the template, along w/ an image slug that you can create for every eBay image - you are able to better SEO the auction listing on your website than it appears on eBay.

If you see what I did there it's clear that while the Amazon Machine Tags plugin makes it nice - a2p is certainly not limiting you to only that plugin or Amazon - create images / links for other network products via CJ for example and stick them in your templates. Multiple templates supported and multiple automated searches supported. Check it out!

Click to expand...

more to come...

The Fun Part

Now that you have everything set up and configured, it's time to get some traffic. Since this thread is basically about keeping things simple and cheap, I suggest the SEO route. Here's where you can go nuts, if you want.

Backing up...

Before you throw traffic at your site, you'll want to make sure that everything is working correctly. I usually go through several themes (I've got about 40 in my "custom" Wordpress folder) before I find one that I like. Make sure you have a couple A2P posts already published so you can see what it looks like with content. Viewing a theme without content is not the best idea because they generally look completely different with content than they do without.

Once you've settled on your theme. Start looking at the posts themselves. This will help you fine tune your A2P template. I use the one that radio posted in his sales thread slightly modified.

Feel free to copy and paste that, just don't forget to change the X's in the Amazon tag to the ASIN number

That's where you can find it in the Amazon URL's.

Okay, so you got a theme and the template looks good. Let's populate some content. I like to add 5 - 10 items per category to start.

This also helps you figure out what terms pull the items you want and not random stuff. Also, don't be afraid to add negative terms so you don't get unwanted stuff. Oh yeah, and narrowing the search by eBay category also helps.



Play around with the options and find the best combo possible. You can preview the listings before you post.

Once you know what the best search terms are for your items, go to Automation and create an automated posting.

When you create your automated posting, be sure to name it something descriptive. I like to use the category name, since my automations are created based on categories. Also, I like to limit them to 1 post per hour, unless I have a bunch of categories, then I might make it 2 - 5 posts per day.

Now, where were we...

Oh yeah! Traffic. SEO. Whatever.

Here's my Super Simple SEO System (SSSS - trademark pending ) that I use:

• Create a Zimbio account and submit RSS feed.
• Create Squidoo lens (or lenses)
  • Don't forget to add the "RSS: Add you blog" module. Limit the number of posts shown to something reasonable like 5 - 10 posts.
• Ping them both through Pingler

Yep, that's about it. So, when you hear me say "I did light SEO on the site" that's about all I did. Those simple things have actually gotten me ranked for some obscure terms and as such generated a little traffic.

Obviously, I don't recommend you stop there, that's just the bare simple minimum. If you really want to go wild, read Eli's blog, particularly his SEO Empire post. Eli does an amazing job spelling out how to build your SEO Empire and get good rankings, even for competitive terms.

If you want to go automated-SEO (black hat to some) talk to BoFu2u. He's got that covered in spades.

That's it for now. I'll add more as I think of it.

Instrumentalist said:

...already I'm pulling in $200+ a month from both ePN and CJ, with a majority of that income coming from ePN. The big difference with my setup is that I'm simply using eBay's RSS generator with the feed getting parsed by WP-o-Matic (free). The eBay RSS feeds are as basic as can be, and don't include anything like a description or a big fancy picture, just a title of the eBay listing, a small pic, and rover links for people to Bid/Buy. Since it looks like auction2post pulls up big pretty pictures and full descriptions, OMG, I might just have to invest in it...

Click to expand...

Okay, so that's where the Rover links come from. I saw a site that had rover.ebay.com and I couldn't figure out where those were from. Switch your site to A2P now! I know this is going to sound like a sales pitch, but you won't regret it.

LazyHippy said:

Great post mate. Not used Terapeak for years, sounds like it's come on a lot... nice tip. (BTW their aff prog is with CJ)

Click to expand...

Whose affiliate program is with CJ? Terapeak? Did not know they had one. No biggie, I didn't write this to make money off of. Just wanted to share with the group. Like my little note says at the bottom of the first post, the affiliate links for the A2P plugin is just for tracking. I told Radio not to pay me on any sales generated by them. The rest of the links are just straight links.

Great idea on the Related Posts plugin! See guys, even with my little "how to" there is still massive room to improve on it.

I'm off to get that plugin and play around with it.

BTW, I use Feedwordpress, since WP Autoblog doesn't appear to be supported anymore by the author.