BANS Today

Google Search Volumes

Written by mbpage on July 10, 2008

I’m sure you caught the news yesterday that Google was now making search volume information available via it’s free keyword tool. This is fantastic news and with the data seemingly verified as accurate by a number of independent experts one wonders where the future lies for the likes of nichebot and wordtracker. Not that I think they’ll go bust but they will certainly need to deliver more to their subscribers now.

I have spent a couple of hours comparing data with the above and some of the differences are marked. Mainly on the positive side I have to add with many terms having higher volume than wordtracker was estimating. The great news is that using the Google tool has been a really boon already for determining niche store categories. I think it will make all of us more money and when used in conjunction with any tool that can help analyzing competition it comes into its own. Can’t wait for a Keyword Elite update myself.

For me the area of most excitement is being able to search keywords by territory which makes it the best international keyword tool available. Think I might build my first BANS Australian store to celebrate.

Googlebot and .info domains (update)

Written by mbpage on July 9, 2008

In my earlier post Googlebot and .info names for build a niche store I discussed my challenges with getting indexed for one of my stores. After 8 weeks nothing. I’m pleased to say I found the solution. Many of you will be aware of this already but those who may have built many stores and think you’ve wasted your time the way out of the mess is as follows:

Buy a .com or .net domain, move the contents of the .info site to the new folder and then perform a permanent redirect on the .info name to help preserve any links you may have built.

Now this may sound technically complex but it is dead easy if you use HostGator (which is one of the many reasons I recommend them for Build a Niche Store users):

You make a copy the existing domain (.info) folder and rename it to whatever you called your new domain (.com) folder.

You delete the files under the old .info folder (but not the folder) and then go to cpanel add-on domains and redirect the .info to the .com. Don’t forget to back everything up first in case something goes wrong.

As a result of making this change my store was fully indexed in 5 days. Yes it’s going to cost $6.95 for a new .com but you should easily recover that in your first month if you’ve targeted a half decent niche.

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I’m a Wordpress Dummy

Written by mbpage on July 7, 2008

Over the weekend I invested many hours in Wimbledon 2008 and Wordpress - go Rafa.

I’ve wanted to get a more commerical wordpress theme for ages but every one I checked out had shortcomings.  The new theme you’re now looking at was not an exception.  Having installed it I discovered it was not widget compatitible, there were problems with paragraph formatting and the subscribe via email for the rss feed doesn’t work (due to my coding ignorance).  Not to be beaten I started searching the web and learning CSS!  Yep, I can now control paragraph fomatting and link appearence.  Haven’t cracked the problem with the rss email subscription though so if you have any tips or could offer to help let me know.

I’ve also been wading through wordpress plugins testing different solutions and looking for tools that can really help with links, monetization etc.  I’ve found some really cool stuff and I will create a separate plugin page in due course with mini reviews which I hope many of you will find useful.

June Earnings Update

Written by mbpage on July 2, 2008

Another month has passed and I have been using BANS now for 3 months.  Store building has continued and I now have a total of 34 stores.  I have another 10 domains or so to develop and a couple of stores to covert to .co.uk domains (as discussed in earlier posts).

This month has been my best yet and I have earned $600 in income from my Build a Niche Store Empire.   On the surface this appears a great result but there a lot of undercurrents which cause me some concern.  My first half dozen stores made few if any sales this month and despite much link building have slipped down the rankings and indeed show few if any backlinks in Google.  Everything I have read suggests they come back but non the less it is disconcerting.    In theory there is a Page Rank update this month so this could help.

Google also appears to be looking for content more and more and I am of the belief that 200-300 words are needed on each page of my sites.  This is a big task but I will test before I make a commitment to roll out this strategy over all my sites.

This month I need to reveiw all my stores.  Check keywords, optimization, server logs and continue link building. In amongst that lot I need to build another 4 or 5 stores and continue my experiments with Wordpress.  It’s going to be pretty busy.  I’m also hoping to crack $1000 but I think that could be a step to far at this stage and it might take a couple more months.  Still you’ve got to have a goal.

Earnings Summary

Total earnings $600

34 Stores - 26 made sales 8 did not - 5 of those 8 stores where the first I built (4 of the 5 performed well in their first month)

Actually there are too many stores for a more detailed breakdown but the bulk of the earnings came from 9 of the 34 stores the majority of these offering items that cost in excess of $1,000.

Also notable this month was the return of the ACRU.  I had 1 in April, 0 in May and 10 in June.  Looks like eBay has fixed the tracking problems.

Until next month…..

US Hosting UK Sites

Written by mbpage on July 1, 2008

This is a big lesson learned.  When I first decided to use Hostgator to manage my websites I made a number of inquiries about the likely effect on UK targeted BANS stores being hosted in the US.  Everyone assured me all would be fine (I asked questions in a number of forums).  As things have turned out it is not fine.

If you host BANS stores in the US targeting another country then you must use a local domain rather than a .com or a .net.  Why?  Because you will not get in the local google index.  Say I have golfclubs.com a UK store hosted in the US.  Google will not index it in Google.co.uk only Google.com which means more than 95% of UK searchers will never find your site.

To get around this you must either host your .com in the UK (expensive) or buy a .co.uk domain hosted in the US.  Google will then identify it as a UK site and include it in the UK index (so I have read and am about to test).  Now there is an option in Google Webmaster tools to state which country your site is targeting but in my experience this does not work.  All my UK sites are currently indexed in Google.com and not one in Google.co.uk despite setting this flag more than 8 weeks ago in some cases.

So if you want to be found in a specific variant of Googles index either host in that country or buy the correct domain name for that country.  I hope that’s clear.

Finally, the gap between this and my last post is as a result of a  well earned break.  I don’t like to announce these things before I take a vacation and I had hoped to post whilst I was away but I couldn’t get a wireless connection so in the end I decided to just let it be.