I have a short ebook that I’ve been selling for a little over a year now.  I started out selling it on eBay, but after a while I decided that wasn’t working — in addition to how time consuming it was to list the ebook, answer questions, and deal with individual sales, "feeBay" was taking almost 40 percent of the income I got from it, once you considered listing fees, final value fees, and PayPal fees.

So I decided to go it on my own.  I set up a subdomain on my regular website and created a sales page for my ebook.  I also created a PayPal payment button and a way to download the book after payment had been made.  Now the only bite out of my profit was PayPal’s fees, but there was no way around that.

The problem, however, was how to sell the ebook now that I didn’t have hundreds of eBayers browsing my listings every day.  Because there wasn’t much online on the subject, my job should be pretty easy.  Still, to get a higher search engine ranking I decided to try some article marketing.

Article marketing is where you write and submit free expert articles on subjects related to your business.  Although you don’t get paid for the articles, they help your business by establishing you as an expert, funneling referral traffic your way, and boosting your search engine ranking.  Because they build link popularity by creating many URL and contextual links back to your website, they are also an important part of many link building campaigns.  In fact, many a search engine marketing company uses this approach.

Unfortunately, article marketing is also very time consuming, which is why it’s not uncommon for a small business owner to find an Internet marketing service to do this kind of thing for them.  I found this out the hard way: I finished only eight marketing articles before giving up, and haven’t written any since.

Technorati Tags: article marketing, higher search engine ranking, link building campaigns, contextual links, search engine marketing company, Internet marketing service

You’ve started a new job that requires you to do an NSN part search. You really want to impress your boss but you’re not sure how to complete the task at hand. You aren’t even sure what an NSN part is! Here are the steps that you’ll need to take to get the job done:

1. Ask specifically what the part is that you are going to be trying to find. You might know the difference between bearings and fasteners but do you know the difference between sleeve bearings and needle bearings? You want to make sure that you know what you’re getting before you even try to look for it.
2. Ask if the part number is already available. Most places order standard parts and so there is probably a form with the number on it already. If not, you’re going to need to look it up.
3. Find the website that you’re going to use to do the search. Different places order from different companies.
4. Enter the part information that you have. You may have a part number, an NSN number or just your keywords. Use what you have to get to the product.
5. Print out the information so that you can clear it with the boss before ordering or moving ahead. No company likes wasted money!

Remember to save the information that you’ve obtained so that future ordering for this new job will go more smoothly!

Technorati Tags: NSN part search, bearings, fasteners

The hours that you spend in the car probably don’t feel very productive, especially if you have a long commute. Perhaps you get your hands-free headset in place and fire off a few phone calls,but for the most part you’re concentrated on your driving. As more people recognize that working in the car causes accidents, they’re turning away from using their commutes for completing business.

But car time doesn’t have to be downtime. You can use your car itself as a vehicle for getting more work done while all you do is drive to and from the office. The way to do this is to turn your car into an advertising machine. Place magnetic car signs with a witty slogan and your website addess on the side of your car so that anyone passing you sees what you do. Add window decals and get custom license plates so that the people sitting behind you at stop lights can spend those minutes absorbing your message.

When you know that your car’s doing business for you, you’ll be able to relax a little bit more while driving. You can turn on the radio and tune out, allowing commutes to really be a transition between work and home. Just remember to wave and smile at people that you notice are noticing your car’s advertising. This shows great customer service even to people who aren’t yet customers.

Technorati Tags: magnetic car signs, window decals, custom license plates