THEMES SITES WITH eBAY LISTINGS SAVE TIME AND MONEY

By: Matthew Ryan

If you have searched for something to buy online, chances are you have come across a “niche site” streaming listings from eBay. These sites can help you find what you are looking for and all while removing the hassle of searching eBay and other sites yourself.

A few years back, eBay launched a program where webmasters could put eBay listings directly on their web site. This spawned a new generation of so-called “niche” web sites, where a webmaster would create a web site themed around a certain product. The product listings on eBay are streamed directly to the web site. Even categories and subcategories are transferred to the web site, making it easy to navigate and find what you are looking for. If the webmaster did a good job designing the web site, then finding what you are looking for is much easier than going directly to eBay doing a search for what you want.

For example, let us take a look at the web site www.transformersnation.com. The web site is themed around the “Transformers” niche. You can see in the left sidebar all the categories for the different Transformers products. Searching for products that can be found in multiple categories spread across eBay can be a pain. The niche site transformersnation.com relieves this pain as every category that Transformers products fall in are right there on the side of the page.

The competition on eBay tends to keep prices low compared to other web sites selling their product directly from their stock. This adds even more value for the customer when using a niche site with eBay listings as you will be saving time and money. This makes the experience of using one of these niche web sites second to none.

As you can see, niche sites with eBay listings can be very helpful to anyone performing a search looking to buy something online.

HOW TO MAKE MONEY FROM BLOGGING

By: Scott Brooks

Blogs are a great way to share facts, ideas and opinions directly between people, but also, they are a viable way to earn money. In fact, earning money with blogs is something just about anyone can do. Making money with blogs is completely dependent on your audience and you’re ability to attract people to click on the advertisements. Blogs are simple to set up, and relatively easy to update. As many as 75,000 blogs are created every day—almost one per second!

If you are looking to start making money on the internet and you have a budget that is very small or zero, blogging is a great way to get started. You can set-up a free blog and join advertisement programs for free. The only cost involved in setting up a blog is your time.

Although there are many factors involved in making money with your blog, there are a few vital keys to remember when setting up, maintaining and promoting your blog in order to achieve success.

1. Your blog needs to have the right layout in order for your adsense ads to be “clickable” by visitors. Choosing an advertisement’s location, size and color is very important and is something you will need to constantly test and tweak to determine which formats produce the most clicks. It’s amazing how one small change can produce monumental results. There are also many other ways to make money with your blog than with adsense alone. You could promote affiliate products and implement contextual advertising such as Kontera.

2. Your blog will need lots and lots of traffic. This is really a no-brainer, yet it’s the greatest challenge of any website owner. The encouraging reality is that there are more ways to generate traffic for your blog than ever before. This is due to the emergence of Web 2.0 sites like YouTube and social bookmarking sites. Many of these sites provide great sources for one-way links to your blog. Getting hundreds, even thousands of quality links is a must if you expect significant traffic to your blog. There are also many SEO tools on the market now such as directory and article submitters that will help you get thousands of backlinks to your blog quickly and save lots of valuable time.

3. Your blog will need to be updated frequently. You cannot expect return visitors if your blog is not a source of fresh information. You can use RSS feeds to provide your blog with relative information, however you will need to add personal posts as well at least once or twice per week. This will increase your blog’s search engine rankings and also help brand you as an expert in your niche.

Blogging is a great way to share your thoughts and ideas online, but it’s also a powerful money-making tool. Making money with blogs is fairly simple if you know what to do and if you’re willing to invest the time and effort necessary to make it profitable.

SAVING MONEY ON YOUR MORTGAGE

By: Peter Spyr

Shopping around for mortgages is so popular these days that many people can be excused for thinking that switching lenders is the only way to save money on your home loan. But there is a much easier way that does not require phone calls, computers connected to the internet, or trips to your bank or building society.

Did you know, for instance, that making overpayments on your mortgage can slash thousands of pounds off your interest bill? Additionally, it will cut the length of time taken to repay your home loan so you get to own your home sooner.

Imagine, say, that you have a £100,000 repayment mortgage, with a 25-year term and an interest rate of 6%. Your monthly payments will be £644, and after 25 years you will have paid back a total of £193,290. In other words you will have paid back £1.93 for every pound borrowed.

If, however, you were to overpay your mortgage by just £50 each month, your total payment would be reduced to £177,279 -- a saving of over sixteen grand in interest. Furthermore, this overpayment shortens the length of the mortgage by 45 months, which means almost four extra years of bliss.

Its is worth being prudent though and ensuring that your will not be penalised by your lender for changing your standing order or making overpayment. In the main, most flexible mortgage lenders will allow you to make overpayments of up to 10% each year. But if your lender doesn't allow this, you have another trick up your sleeve!

Lessening the term of your mortgage from 25 years to 21 years would increase your payments in exactly the same way as overpaying by £50 each month. Mind you, this is a much harsher way to do it because payments are fixed. However, it doesn't prevent you from increasing your term again, should you need to, by simply writing to your provider.

At the end of the day, paying off your mortgage early is simply the best and least risky ways of saving money. By making overpayments to your mortgage of around 6%, your money would be working harder than if you had invested it into a savings account with 7% earnings.5% for a basic-rate taxpayer. For a higher-rate taxpayer, this risk-free and tax-free rate is equivalent to 10%, which is practically unbeatable!

Many people forget that even though we sign up for a 25-year mortgage term there is no earthly reason why we have to stick to this. If you have any extra cash each month, using it against your mortgage can make a huge difference and it can save you thousands of pounds in interest each year.

Good luck on removing that mortgage millstone from around your neck!