Hey I posted this as a reply but I may merit a new thread...

[rmg3010]

and if not, well, I am trying:

I have added my url directly to yahoo.com, google.com, msn.com and one site that will submit it to a ton of sites. * www.freewebsumission.com

I did get emails asking to confirm the sumissions. Yes, you should let them go into your spam folder and that will happen for a day, but it is worth doing, in my opinion.
Also, I added a few of my items to oodle.com -- it's free, you just copy and paste your item and the url to it, and write up a line about it and it comes out great -- i was really pleased. The thing is, while few would have the time to add all your items to oodle.com, getting a few up there is getting store exposure.
I read up on this just yesterday so this is still new to me but I am doing each suggestion and I got half done thus far.
Other suggestions are many I've heard here: blogging. I don't have time to blog. God bless those of you who do. Bloggin and posting. I have not time to do much of either, but as it was suggested, even if you just add one thing to the blog, it freshens it up.
I, too, wish we had a better presence on google, but that is something ebid.net has to do as sellers no longer can submit items like we could when we had access to google base.
It amazes me every few days when I check here how many people post just to post with nothing to add really, and now I have learned it is part of generating traffic. Live and learn.
But I hope this suggestion helps and I will have to look up what I was reading and get that url. It worked like a charm -- instantaneous submissions and while some emails came back because you had to confirm the submission, some did asking for a fee, I didn't pay for those. I only did the freebee ones.
I am halfway thorugh my three month trial. One or two sales would recover what I spent; however, I usually do a lot better than that at *bay. I just don't have as much time as some to blog and post but I'm giving it the best shot I can before the time runs, and thought I could share some of this.
Yes at the risk of causing a plethora of posts, I am going to say I wish we had a better U.S. presence. There are no stats that show a breakdown of buyer traffic by country. Shipping is a factor in that. But I plug on!
Oodle.com is free and so is http://www.freewebsubmission.com
I created a yahoo email account to get the emails that would be generated by the sumissions. It wasn't as bad as expected, no repeats, not much spam maybe five. Just confirmations and a few trying to get you to pay to submit. Bear in mind, this sumitted to like 12 to 15 sites.
now if i can get my site in this post which I never remember:
http://us.ebid.net/stores/Bestflicks
I hope that comes out
best of luck to us all
gmt

[bluebedouin]

....
I am halfway thorugh my three month trial. One or two sales would recover what I spent....

Can I just clarify something.Is the reference to the three month trial something you've decided to do?By that I mean are you limiting yourself to three months,then if it doesn't work you'll leave?
Or have you taken out the 90 day subscription?If so,you should be aware that it isn't a trial.You will be billed every 90 days unless you stop it.

[tonyreddevil]

nearly everything that starts free soon end up to be a paying customer

[hotandvintage]

I am still no expert on this and like a lot of people I am just searching for answers but what I have found so far may help

If you do not have time to write blogs, you could add to them, by just a simple copy and paste of interesting news or articles about your products, the same with most of the P2P stuff, you can spend as much or as little time as you like.
You can get most of the news through the google alert system if you set up the auto searches for what your customers are interested in.

Sort of making your social networking sites a one stop shop for people that are interested in what you sell, or things around that. An important tool, especially if you sell collectibles

If you have a large market, add searches about popular things, which a lot of people are interested in. TV shows, News and even celebs if it fits, as well as the product news.

On some of the P2P like twitter and others, you can then quickly add a link to your item pages if you use some of the tools on firefox. This posts direct onto the followers news page.

Link to as many groups as you can find if they have them, and try and build that way, a lot of them are now coming up in google search, or have that little section to the right, that most of us ignore, but for those that use the P2P stuff, which if they are your customers, then you may need to be there.

Like I say no expert, this is just what I am observing from looking at others and the way these things are being used by others.