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Are you developing sales outside of Amazon for the long run? Are you investing time in developing content to support your products? Are you gathering those names for a real customer list? Jeff clearly has the expertise.
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Transcript: (note- this is a new tool I am trying out so it is not perfect- it does seem to be getting better)
Jeff: [00:00] The thing is, you know, you, you in Google, even if someone isn’t starting their search on Amazon, if they started in Google, there’s they could still find that Amazon listing and it Kinda goes back to we’re talking about where when you’re. If you have, if you’re on Amazon or on Ebay, you know one opportunity that people are missing is you can also get your own listings to rank very well on search engines so you can optimize your Amazon listing and I think the best place to do that is within the content. Making sure that you’re having a lot of content on your Amazon descriptions and your keyword in the content and that we can touch on this more a little later, but also with the linkedin link side. If you can get other websites to link to your Amazon listing. Your ebay listing in Google sees that that’s going to have a positive impact on your rankings. And not only can you get traffic within Amazon with an Ebay, but it can also get traffic from Google, bing, and other search engines.
Cool voice guy: [00:48] Welcome to the ECOMMERCE guys. Focus on the people, the products, and the process of incomers cylinder today. Here’s your host, Steven Peterson.
Stephen: [01:01] He just wanted to mention two sponsors today. Solutions Four, ecommerce and sellerlabs scope for step solutions, four ecommerce solutions, the number for e-commerce dot com as Karen lockers group where she manages Amazon accounts for brands and and smaller sellers like ourselves. We’ve been with her, I think it’s coming on two years now and been thrilled because she helps us with creating listings, reconciling shipments. That’s one the working on right now. I’m making sure handling refunds and things like that and making sure that we’re. We get the money that’s due. Was that more than pays for my service and you can save $50 by using the code momentum, so solutions four ecommerce.com, forward slash momentum. Use the code momentum. You’re going to save $50 a month and she’s going to do that inventory. Health reports new year. You really need to get your account in order.
Stephen: [01:53] Second up is a seller labs scope. You know I talk a lot about it because I’m a user period. That’s. That’s what makes it so worthwhile for me is that we use it for all of our private label, but even for our wholesale business and we do more bundling and stuff like that. Then then, then private label and so it allows us though to really take advantage of those key words and really get them figured out because you have to zone in on the key words and so again, you can use it for your private label business, for your wholesale business. Even if you want to improve a retail art business, sometimes you can get in there and add some keywords and if you can put the right keywords and put the ones in there for the, a number one, number two, number three sellers.
Stephen: [02:37] That’s the best part, right? So go to solar lamps.com, forward slash scope, and use the code momentum and save $50. Okay. Save the money and try some keywords and see if you see an improvement in sales. And once you see an improvement in sales USA. Hm? Let me try this on other, um, other, uh, acents that I’m selling and all of a sudden you start to build a pattern, you see the improvement, and then you understand the value of doing it. And more importantly, you’re teaching yourself, you’re learning what to look for. And I think that’s one of the best parts about scope. It just helps make you a smarter seller. Let’s get into the podcast. Welcome back to the ECOMMERCE momentum podcast. This is episode 368. Jeff Oxford. Man, I’m pumped. Uh, again, you know, um, a lot of nerd speak for Jeff, but he knows what he’s talking about and he really, he made it understandable for me.
Stephen: [03:27] I had to pause them a couple times because I had to catch up. You guys were all going to be like, ah, this is easy. I wasn’t quite as easy, but he made it so understandable and it really a couple of foundational pieces. That’s what I asked for and he gave it to us. Really do a b plan for your business. Get A, another plant. And one of the coolest parts of the conversation. And we both came to that realization that not many people are doing is creating that splash page is the phrase he used the correct phrase of versus what I use, but then driving traffic to your existing listing on Amazon, you can enhance your listing, you’re the buy box and man, he gives you some great examples and when you do that and you learn all those things, then you can start selling off of Amazon and you can start looking at other options or off Ebay too.
Stephen: [04:11] I mean it gives you those opportunities and I just think there’s some, some great information, but he gives you basic fundamental building blocks and I think that that’s so important to get started with. And this is all part of the 2019 push. I want you to start at the new year strong. I want you to make changes and enhance what you’re doing. Do more of the good stuff and less of the stuff you don’t want to do. And I think jeff has really done a great job explaining it and making it understandable. Let’s get into the podcast. All right. We’ll come back to the ECOMMERCE momentum podcast. We’re excited about today’s guest because I’m counting on, I’m hoping that he’s going to help us in this couple of weeks where I’m trying to set everyone up for success for 2019. I think he’s going to help us push through some of the stuff that’s clutter, at least to me, a part time seller.
Stephen: [04:56] Um, he can parse some of these things because he’s an expert in a lot of internet stuff, plus he was a seller so he gets what we do and that’s really, really important I think for somebody to have that background. Jeff Oxford, welcome Jeff. Great. Glad to be here. Stephen. I appreciate you coming on. You do have quite an experience, a background and, and uh, I, I want to get to, I want to get to the meat. First off that you were a seller, so a drop shipper but doesn’t matter to me. It doesn’t matter you. You bought and sold stuff, right? You saw people, you directed people are, they found your listing and they bought it and somehow it got shipped to them. And many times it didn’t get shipped to them and you had to deal with all that stuff, right?
Jeff: [05:38] Absolutely. Yeah. I’m basically what happened. So my, my first interacts with all my marketing was trying to make an ad sense site and get some evidence from banner ads, but I realized you need so much traffic to make it work. And what I saw is that these job shippers making so much money online and I was in college at the and being a college student, I was passionate about beer pong,
Stephen: [06:01] lazy, interested in girls and drank beer. And you’re like, Hey, this is easy little fountain. It’s just like a vending machine. It just keeps coming.
Jeff: [06:09] Exactly. That’s what it’s all about. Like how can I get more money for less work and a drop shipping seem like the way to go. So you know, first step, find out what your product is going to be and being in college and you know, liking to play beer pong. I’m like, you know what? I’m going to create an ecommerce site that sells beer pong tables because you can’t really get them at, at your local store, at least back then you couldn’t. So that was my first, my first ecommerce site with drop shipping, beer pong tables and that’s Kinda what got me into the game.
Stephen: [06:35] That’s hilarious. I mean, I think about a skill set, right? Wait, I’m really good at this game. It’s called. I can see the conversation with that dad. I’m really good at this game. I become kind of unknown on the circuit. Know what is it? Oh, it’s beer pong. It’s this table. It’s a specialize in. I can, I can see you trying to sell that. Um, so how much success did you have? Did you have success with it? I mean, were you able to direct people to your particular beer pong table and get them to buy?
Jeff: [07:04] Yeah. My first site, I mean neuroscience that takes longer to rank, but I was able to break into the top three for like big, big competitive terms like beer pong tables, beer pong table. I was going up against the manufacturers that had huge budgets and I was just on a shoestring budget basically doing everything myself and for free and uh, yeah, I ended up selling it and making a quick buck on it so that, that was a fun project. Can you tell us how,
Stephen: [07:30] I mean, was it out hustle? Is that how you were able to get it to that level? I mean because they, you, I would think any big competitor would have teams working on this and companies that they probably outsource to and all that kind of jazz. How could you some little college student? Probably half drunk most of the time. How did you, I mean, is that part of the sacred. I mean, did you, just because it wasn’t a job for you, it was like a thrill. I mean, what was it that did that for you?
Jeff: [07:55] So at the time I was actually working full time. So this is like, you know, I, I started the website right towards the end of my, of college. My first job after college was working in Sco for an seo company. So I, I knew how to optimize websites, I knew about link building an about page optimization. I think part of it is just really knowing that the nitty gritty of Seo and then consistency and it’s just kind of just slow gradual improvements month after month. And then after about a year I really had some strong rankings.
Stephen: [08:25] Well, it’s powerful what you just said. Consistency. Um, because my last interview, it was one or two percent the conversation. Is that still true? I mean, I know that was some time ago, but that, that consistency regardless is really critical.
Jeff: [08:39] I’d say consistency is so important for any online marketing channel, but all the more with Seo, because Seo, if you’re doing facebook ads or Google adwords, you know, you can flip the switch and you can, you can get pretty good results by the end of the week or by the end of the month with Seo and it really is a longterm play where you have to kind of make these incremental gains month after month after month and you might not see the fruits of your labor after a month or two months or even a few months, but you know, once you started doing it for three, three months or six months or even a year, that’s when you can really see some strong results.
Stephen: [09:15] Consistency is the answer. It’s the consistency seems to be the answer for almost all of our challenges. Okay, so you, you create the site, you have some success. Uh, the, you got to get a job, so are you have a job but you gotta move on, you sell it and you’re like, okay, I like this thing. That proof of concept. Was that part of a part of your resume? I mean, he was at a really important part of your resume and then if so, which I think it would be, what, what did that allow you to do that advanced you even further and you get what I’m asking?
Jeff: [09:52] Yeah, I think I see what you’re saying. Uh, it was, it was definitely exciting to see that I could create something that didn’t exist, build it and then sell it and it’s very fulfilling to me. It felt fulfilling to me and my, throughout my whole, you know, the past 10 years or so, my, I’ve always been striving to find a way to achieve passive income and it’s way easier said than done. I try, I mentioned I, I tried it with an ad sense site and that seemed almost impossible. I wanted to drop shipping. It seemed like it got me closer and my plan was always to use my consulting, whether it’s employee or freelancing to find a passion project and get that to take off. So, um, you know, my first beer pong stadium, it got me closer, but I could see it wasn’t really the market wasn’t there at the time where I could see it take me there.
Jeff: [10:38] So I thought I’d just sell out and go into my next project, which then I started a three d printing website and um, I funny story, I’ve realized I’m pretty good at marketing with...