I have been in the automotive advice business for quite some time, and one of the most misunderstood topics has been car insurance.  I am compiling a page over at AutoEducation.com with tons of car insurance tips.  I think I will start off with a definition of all the terms like, premium, tort, comprehensive, collision, deductable etc.  Then I will take a look at a common sense approach to comparing car insurance quotes.  This should be very valuable information for you folks wanting to get the best policy and price on your car insurance.

I am working at a new company, LuggageOnline.com and enjoying my responsibilities as Director of Internet Marketing.  I have even started checking out luggage when I am in a store or an airport !  Why not give Mom something unique for Mother’s Day like luggage or a designer purse?  Check out other Mother’s Day Gift Ideas on LuggageOnline.com

- Kevin Schappell

Just starting work on a few new sites…

LosAngelescarquote.com
NewYorkcarquote.com
Philadelphiacarquote.com
Phoenixcarquote.com
SanDiegocarquote.com

I have been running ClassicJunkyard.com with Dave Lehr for almost 5 years now.  It’s been a great place for classic car nuts to find parts or sell their vehicles.  It’s just gotten better with a new look which should make things easier to find on the site and just be a little more pleasing to the eyes.  On the site you can…

• List your classic car for sale
• Read our classic car blog
• Find a Junkyard in your area
• Find a classic car restoration company
• Get a factory service manual for your classic car

It’s always free to list your vehicle or parts, and you can even add pictures to your ad for free !  Dave is a full-time parts dealer who sells on Ebay.  He knows his stuff, and if you are in the Eastern PA area and have some parts or complete junk cars to sell, give him a call.

As most of you know, I am a motorhead and have had way to many vehicles in my past !  I typically use my insurance provider that I have my daily drivers insured with.  ( State Farm )  But… for the best protection you need agreed coverage where you and the insurance company agree on a replacement value of your vehicle and if something happens to total your street rod, classic car or antique vehicle… you get that amount paid out by the insurance company.

They great thing is that these policies are generally cheaper than your daily driven car since the mileage is usually lower per year and the vehicle is typically garage kept.  Expect to pay between $100 and $500 per year depending on replacement value agreed upon.

I have been dealing with a company for years on my general automotive sites, and they have helped out many of my visitors get the best insurance coverage at the best prices.

Check Out InsureMe for a classic car insurance quote today.

.

.

.

Do you need to fill a CNC position at your company?  Are you a CNC Programmer, Machinist, Operator or Manufacturing Engineer and looking to make a move?  Check out the CNC Headhunter.   After years in manufacturing I have developed a keen sense of what makes an excellent CNC professional.  Use my skills to help you compnay hire smarter !

I have been online since 1998 marketing mostly automotive websites. A successful part of any internet marketing endevor is building a mailing list. Through the school of hard knocks I have learned what to do and what NOT TO DO to build an effective mailing list. Here is a quick list of some of basics…

• Use a professional service to manage your mailing list ! Do not think for a minute you can run a successful mailing list from your Outlook email software or a mailing list program run from your computer. Making sure your email messages are delivered is a full time job, let a professional service manage the major ISP’s white lists and worry about delivery rates. I use Aweber.com and recommend it to all my clients.
• Build a DOUBLE-OPT-IN list. Do not be tempted to take short cuts and build a list based on a single-opt-in strategy. You can be squeaky clean and the most ethical business person, and I can guarantee you will be accused of Spamming some time in your online efforts. By insisting on Double-Opt-In you force the subscriber to confirm their subscription and provide a digital/paper trail of their signup. When the SPAM accusation comes, and it will, you can simply look up the email address and provide PROOF that the person signed up and confirmed their subscription. If you use a service like Aweber.com this is handled automatically for you.
• Prune Your List Frequently. Having bounced emails creates problems with ISPs and can get your black listed. Make sure that whatever email service/program you use can prune your list when emails bounce back the first time. Keeping your list up to date will make the difference in credibility with ISPs and will make sure you message is delivered.

If you have a home grown mailing list that is growing too big, or want to integrate a mailing list into your marketing efforts, contact me today for a consultation. I can build a comprehensive email marketing strategy for you today that will get you results !

Kevin Schappell
kevin@schappell.com
610-914-5002

After search online for the past few weeks for a way to create a CSV file from the Amazon Web Service API I finally gave up and created my own. Check out http://www.cyberfoundry.com/software for the details. I am using the program to generate CSV files for www.speedshoppers.com I am using the Price Tapestry software as well as Web Merge on occasion to create sites from database information.

Kevin

As many of you know, for the last 10 years I have been participating in Affiliate Marketing in my spare time.  It has been very lucrative at times, other times it just helps pay the bills.  I recently joined the Ebay EPN affiliate program.  EPN stands for Ebay Partner Network, which is ironic because they are not treating their affiliates like partners.

After joining the EPN I began using a program called BANS, (Build A Niche Store) Which allows you to integrate the EPN links and auction listings into a site.  It saves you time by allowing you to select a niche, it builds the categories and all navigation for the site.  You then go in and add custom content and other ads to monetize the site.

After one month of building a BANS section to SpeedShoppers.com and ClassicJunkYard.com theEPN was making a profit.  I was averaging $20.00 EPC (earning per 100 clicks) and had made a whopping $80.  This almost paid for my purchase of the BANS software.

Then came August 7th…  I could not log into my account, the system said my password or user name was invalid.  I contacted technical support and found out that my account was “EXPIRED” due to poor quality traffic.  I then appealed, and a week later was reinstated with an apology from customer service.  Many others in the EPN community had a similar experience and were reinstated.  No public explaination from Ebay on their forum, or blog, just reinstatement for those who bothered to contact customer support.

Fast forward to August 20th, many long time affiliates are being thrown out of the EPN due to visitors who are not engaged once they click over to Ebay… this is another way of stating poor traffic quality.  Now I have been around for 10 years, and have never seen an affiliate program toss out affiliates in such a manner.  I have been told that traffic is of low quality and have been asked to try to improve it, or risk having a reduced pay-out imposed.  To date I have not been thrown out but I am just waiting.  I will not be developing any more sites or optimizing pages for the EPN.

To read Ebays response to the issue click here.

So the moral of this story…  Ebay has committed affiliate suicide and has cut the hand that feeds them.  Hundreds of angry affiliates are already blogging about this and getting the word out to stay away from the EPN.  As affiliates we try to build residual streams of income from the sites we build.  With minimal upkeep most sites produce trickles of income for years to come.  How can anyone invest time in a system that simply cuts off their affiliates with no chance to improve quality?

To read some of the stories from affiliates that have invested many many hours building sites around the EPN click here.

Click Here to read one of the best sites I have found that describes the issues many of us have faced… Bravo to the author of this page…  I wish I would have had the time to put into this issue.

I have been pouring myself into www.speedshoppers.com for the past week or so. An experiment in crowd power, the site attempts to create a community of deal seekers for car parts. I have been using online deal sites such as SlickDeals.net and love some of the savings I have found over the years for computers and other household items. So I thought, why not do a site dedicated to car parts? It the other love in my life, and I can never resist a deal, so why not share the deals I find with other like-minded car nuts.

The other exciting part of the site is a comparison price search engine like Shopping.com but for car parts. In the past it took hours researching online speed shops to find the best deals online. There is no one place to compare prices… until now. Try it out and let me know what you think.