Sites Like Etsy, But Free

www.driftwoodmall.com

In an attempt to look for sites like Etsy, but free, I had an inspiration. I love Etsy, and I still continue to sell successfully on the site, but like many people, I was looking to find alternatives. When you have handmade goods and interesting supplies to sell, there's no harm in listing them in more than one place, especially when they are selling on a regular basis.

I couldn't find any sites like Etsy that were free and suited my needs. I tried Bonanza and never had any luck. I do make handcrafted items, but I also like to sell natural supplies, like driftwood, shells and various cool and interesting things from the woods. So many other people are more creative than I am, and I like to provide supplies to those people and see what is created with them. I've had success in the past selling items like this, and I've often had people approach me to find out how they could become sellers of similar items.

This is how Driftwood Mall was born. The site is an online marketplace, very much like Etsy. It offers FREE listings, which is great since you never really know whether something is going to sell, until you list it and people come flocking. If you are a seller of handmade items, natural supplies, creative art or recyclable materials, you are invited to apply for a shop.

How Driftwood Mall is Like Etsy:

• online marketplace for buying and selling handmade goods
• seller payment goes to straight through Paypal upon confirmation of sale
• users can favorite items and share via Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter and more
• offers a blog (small at the moment) with related tips for buyers and sellers

How Driftwood Mall is NOT Like Etsy (but better...shhhh):

• no listing fees!
• seller payment is sent to Paypal immediately, and commission comes out of that payment. This means no monthly bills and no waiting for payment to be deposited based on certain conditions
• no added site shipping fees. This means that customers know exactly what they will be paying without being surprised by added shipping costs upon checkout.
• no vintage items that aren't handmade. I love vintage, but these items get in the way of the true spirit of creativity. 
• more specific categories that open up brand new markets and inspiration. Some of these include recyclable materials, natural supplies and half-finished projects.
• available sister blog where you can request one of your products for a feature post
• a small site at the moment (but we're open to changing that fast!) Smaller means customer service right now is fast and personal. If you have questions, we've got fast answers.
• viral contests available. Donate an item and watch traffic flood to your shop as people share your items on Facebook and Twitter to gain entries in the contest. (Email shop (at) driftwoodmall (dot) com to inquire now about donating an item for the contest...or contact us from the site.)
• sellers are encouraged to share links to their Etsy shops, as well as their personal websites. We believe in abundance. There's enough to go around and everyone deserves a piece.

How Driftwood Mall is NOT Like Etsy (and maybe not so good ways):
we are a growing site that launched in May of 2012. Started by one person in a living room, this was an enormous project that spawned entirely from drive and passion. We don't have as many cool bells and whistles in place yet, but if you join and help us spread the word, all that is listed in this section may fall right into place.

• Etsy just added cool functionality to accept credit card payments without using Paypal. Currently, Paypal is the only payment option available at Driftwood Mall
• No forum (yet!)
• Not as well known yet, but you can help fix that as well.

Guaranteed Way To Generate Web Traffic With Backlinks

This morning I found a really cool way to generate web traffic through backlinks. This is a free service (with potential for upgrade if you so desire). It's called the Free Traffic System and after some research I found that it gets fairly good reviews.

From what I can see so far, there are a few ways to generate guaranteed web traffic using backlinks and one way links from quality and targeted niche pages. They offer some pretty good beginner videos on each page to get you started, but I'll try to explain a little of how it works here.

The first way to generate up to 30 quality backlinks to bring quality web traffic is by submitting one of your articles into the system. There's even an option to spin your article and in about 5 minutes time you can have several versions of your article, to avoid duplicate content on 30 blogs. Basically, people who own blogs are looking for quality content to post, and your article will be published on those targeted blogs.

If you don't care to write articles, you can submit your blog to the site. Give it AUTHOR permission and others can submit articles to your site. You'll earn backlinks and generate web traffic to your own blog while offering your readers additional content.

Free Traffic System has an affiliate program as well. Ok, so we all know how affiliate programs work, right? You sign up people and hope they opt in for the pro upgrade so you can get paid. That's nothing new. But with this affiliate program, even when you sign up free members, you'll earn even more backlinks for those referrals and their referrals. It's a 2-tier program for generating web traffic to your blog. And if someone does decide to go pro, you get the bonus.

So, I'm pretty excited about seeing results and generating my own guaranteed web traffic with this program. I plan to take advantage of ALL the free tools and hope to see tons of backlinks to my favorite pages. Google pagerank 10 here I come! Ok, so that's wishful thinking, but increasing my pages even one pagerank and/or generating dozens of backlinks would be ok with me. Especially since this is a free system.

If you're using Free Traffic System already, I'd love to hear from you. As always, I'd love to hear from you even if you aren't using it. Say hello, leave some feedback!

Free Advertising for Your $1 Paypal Donation

The Internet Begging Experiment has just launched today. This is a really neat concept based upon the art of giving and receiving. At first glance, it may seem like your average internet begging website, but upon more careful review, you'll find that in exchange for 1 million people each donating $1.00, half will be donated to a selected charity, and anything above and beyond the one million dollar goal will be used to form a non-profit organization with the intention to help individuals in financial crisis.

If you look carefully, you'll also notice that for your participation in the Internet Begging Experiment, you have the option of getting a free 125x50 advertisement on the advertising page. Donate your $1, get involved in changing the world, and get free advertising for your business, your blog, your website, or just props for yourself!

So whether you want free advertising, you want to be involved in something HUGE with great potential for impacting the world in a positive way, or you just want to laugh at the gutsy request of $1 each from 1 million people, hop on over to the Internet Begging Experiment.

Help spread the word by using Twitter, Facebook or Tell a Friend.

Get your websites and links Google indexed FAST!

If you guys haven't been by Garry Conn's Forum yet, I urge you to check it out. I have learned more in 2 weeks from being a member of this forum than I did in 8 years of doing it on my own. Well, let me rephrase that a bit. I learned a lot on my own in 8 years but being a part of Garry's forum for 2 weeks has glued ALL the pieces together!

One of the little tidbits that I got by being a part of this forum is a way to get new websites and links indexed by Google; maybe a little faster than normal. I've experienced a new URL indexed in under three hours simply by posting a short blog. There are two Wordpress blogs that have been created just for this reason. Visit each blog, sign up, and create a quick post. That's it! No funny business, or they'll delete your post, but you are welcome to advertise your new website and Google should come by and pick it up asap. Here are the links:

http://www.writers-block-unblocked.com/
http://www.unique-article-database.com/

Turn your blog into a Viral Widget

If you're on the quest to make money at home, it's likely you have a blog. If you're posting away, diligently, at least 3 times per week, you're doing great! Keeping fresh content in your blog will help attract people looking for what you have to say, and people who share your common interests.

Of course, when you begin to get visitors to your blog, you'll want ways to earn money from that blog like Google Adsense ads, affiliate links, and other targeted advertising. If you've got all that, great! Now it's time to make that blog into a viral widget, that anyone can grab and post on their MySpace, Facebook, blog, or other pages. It makes it easier for people to keep track of what you're doing, saying and writing.

Widgetbox has a great little feature that is SUPER EASY to use! This feature creates a very attractive widget with your picture or logo, your headline, your most recent posts, and a GET THIS WIDGET button at the bottom. That means whoever sees your widget and likes it, can grab a copy of the code and paste it wherever is most convenient for them. Let's say JimBob 'grabs' a copy of your widget. He posts it to his MySpace. 14 of JimBob's friends notice it and really like what they see. They grab a copy as well, also to post in the most convenient place. Keep going with those numbers and suddenly you're popular!

The other great thing about Widgetbox is they have a network. You can sign up your blog to be part of that network, in your chosen category, and for the simple price of displaying the network widget on your own blog, you've got free advertising wherever someone else in that category displays the widget.

Example: you display the network widget on your blog. All blogs from your network cycle through this widget, meaning yours shows up randomly. Your blog will also show up randomly on everyone else's blog who has the network widget.

So here are the instructions to get your own viral widget from Widgetbox; called a Blidget.

1. Sign up for a free account at Widgetbox
2. At the home page, on the right side about mid-way down, there's a box that says 'Make a Blidget, turn your blog into a widget and attract more visitors'. Click there.
3. The next screen will ask for your blog URL. Example: my blog url is http://at-home-money.blogspot.com. Click continue.
4. You'll be able to see your widget already at the right hand side. From here you can customize colors, images, text, description, and other exciting details.
5. Click 'Save Blidget' at the bottom and scroll back to the top, read the guidelines and check the box. Click 'Save Blidget' again and you're done. You are now the proud owner of a fancy Blidget containing your blog!
6. A pop up window should now come up inviting you to join the Widgetbox Network. From here, if you'd like to join, and I highly suggest it, you'll click join and select a category on the next screen. Make sure to select the most appropriate category for your blog. You'll get better targeted readers that way.
7. Once you've selected the appropriate category for your blog, you'll generate your network widget and post it to your blog for the world to see. Remember! Everyone else is displaying this widget on their blogs and now your blog will show up all over!

Congratulations. You should receive more traffic now. Plus you still have that fancy Blidget of your specific blog to post at MySpace, Facebook and other places that allow this type of code. (There's a great list inside the Widgetbox code when you click to get the code for your widget. It includes places like Bebo, Wordpress, Blogger, iGoogle and more.)

Here is an example of what my Widgetbox Blidget looks like. Feel free to grab it for your page:


You will also see the Widgetbox Network Widget near the bottom at the right-hand sidebar. This is the widget that allows your blog to be displayed on hundreds of other blogs in your network.

As always, if you have any questions, leave me a comment!

Qassia, a way to make money with Adsense, and advertise your blog, website, or pages FREE!

Qassia is a site that allows you to add your own website, blogs, Squidoo links, or other personal pages to share linking opportunites, and Google Adsense ad revenue.

Sign up for Qassia. You will be taken to your user page which reveals how many Qassia dollars you've accumulated, which website links you've added, and any Intel you've added (information you've uploaded to the site). You will receive Qassia dollars for adding Intel to the Qassia site, screening (rating) Intel added by others, and referring friends to Qassia.

Use your accumulated Qassia dollars to disperse them amongst the website or blog links you've added, and rank higher within the Qassia site. Each time you create Intel, you'll be asked to 'backlink' to one of your websites. This will create an incoming (not reciprocal) link to your site. If you're at all familiar with SEO, you'll know that one-way links are more beneficial in search engine ranking. Qassia has plans to add additional ways to use your accumulated Qassia dollars in the future.

Enter your existing Google Adsense publisher ID (simply sign up for a Google Adsense account if you do not already have one) into your account profile. Qassia offers you 100% of your click-thru's for Google Ads displayed on your Intel page or user page. Most other ad revenue sharing websites split ad revenue. Qassia uses other advertising technology to make a profit, so 100% of the Google clicks are yours.

Only content that you have written, or that to which you own full publishing rights is allowed to be submitted. You earn more Qassia dollars for submitting original content, but you may also submit content that you have published elsewhere. Get signed up now and start earning revenue through Google Adsense, and get lots of traffic to your blog, website, Squidoo pages, personal website, or other favorite links. I can't see how there's any way to lose with this one!

Sign up for Qassia Now.