As I only build BANS stores to on a sub folder of a wordpress blog these days it has been very interesting to observe the differences compared with the traditional BANS on the root approach to things.

My findings thus far make interesting reading:

Worpdress backed sites generally index faster and in more depth than BANS stores.  Typically just 7 days without any submission via webmaster tools or, in most cases, any backlinks.  Just ping the first post and you’re away.

Wordpress backed sites have vastly superior ranking power with Google and Yahoo.  The majority of my traditional BANS sites have struggled to break through the 100 mark on Google (even with good content) before eventually being deindexed.  With wordpress many sites rank within 100 within two weeks of being indexed and today, I have achieved my first ever no. 1 ranking in Google.  What’s more it’s in a niche so competitive I thought I was mad for trying.

For my mind there is no doubt that Build a Niche Store fronted by Wordpress is the only way forward if you want to build a sucessful niche store business using the BANS script.  Yes it’s harder work as it takes a lot longer to configure wordpress and bans to work properly together, but believe, the results are worth it.  In a way, I’m also glad its tougher because it means fewer competitors which is great news for those of us committed to generating big profits.

Want to know how to make money with Wordpress and BANS?  Check out Marks blog over at thenichestorebuilder.com.  Mark is the man.

Apologies for the lack of posts recently but I have been absolutely flat our converting my indexed stores to be fronted by Wordpress.  This has been a pretty exciting time as it has given me an opportunity to really start getting to grips with the power of Wordpress and as a result transform my boring old bans stores into something I am actually quite proud of.

Some weeks after the deindexing debacle I have to agree that the treatment Google dished out was a good thing.  Whilst I am not happy about how they go about things it forced me to take a good look at what I am doing and significantly raise the bar.

The opportunity to revisit developed stores also revealed how little I knew when I first started.  As a result I have been able to apply new keyword strategies, seo techniques and improve the aesthetics of my sites.  The potential for them to start generating even more cash is actually pretty mind blowing and I can’t wait to see how I rank for things in another 3 months.

Wordpress is great because adding new content via a blog front end is so easy.  You can also incorporate other affiliate promotions into the posts and plenty of links to other site pages.  Combined with Build a Niche store I think this is a pretty awesome strategy.  I must say I prefer building niche stores this way as opposed to using phpBay although I still use that product as well.

What do you guys think?

Well this month has had it all.  The trauma of a visit by the evil deindexing Googlebot which wreaked as much havoc as a DDOS attack.  An Italian vacation and a record month for earnings.

I could continue to harp on about the unfair treatment Google is meeting out to BANS users, but as many have written before, Google declared war on thin affiliate sites and all we can do is adapt.  The frustration for me came about because having decided to make a commitment to internet marketing at the beginning of the year I built a large number of sites to start the domain aging process.   Yes these were pretty thin sites but they were put there to test demand.  Give them 9-12 months, look at the results and then develop the profitable ones into sites with more authority.  A classic marketing strategy you may notice.  Test, find what works and then develop the most profitable niches further.

This had proven a great strategy as I will demonstrate later.  Well with Google now refusing to give a site time to develop ( I had 7 sites indexed and then deindexed that were less than 1 month old) a change in tack is required.  I had been migrating more and more towards wordpress prior to the deindexing incident and this setback means I will never develop another store with BANS on the root of a domain.  I encourage all of you to do the same.

I really do like wordpress and with plugins such as Phpbay, Popshops and others available the ease with which additional monetization strategies can be added is really cool.   The best way to get to grips with Wordpress is to set up a simple blog.  I acutally started this blog for that very reason and the experience has proved invaluable.  Remember, I knew nothing about websites, internet marketing or SEO at the beginning of the year.

With that in mind, drum roll please, I can say my earnings for this month more than doubled and I blitzed my way through the $2000 barrier.  What a welcome surprise that was $0 to £2000 in 6 months and I know I’ve only started to scratch the surface in terms of my knowledge.  So what made the difference?  Quite simply Yahoo.

A typical BANS store starts out like this.  Site gets indexed by Google, first 6-8 weeks sales come via Google then these earnings start to drop off.  There is a period of 4-8 weeks with low sales.  Arround the 4 month mark sites indexed by Yahoo start to generate increased traffic and from the 5 month mark Yahoo begins to dominate.  That’s what my stats show as happening.  In fact, 90% of my traffic and sales come as a result of searches in Yahoo – not what I was expecting.  What about MSN/Live you may ask?  Well as best as I can tell I get no traffic and I’m not ranked for keywords although all my sites are indexed.

There is another distinction that should be made and that is that throughout the period I have continued to add backlinks to each of the sites which has obviously propelled me up the Yahoo rankings.  I have 30 or so keywords that have top 10 Yahoo rankings many of these occupying positions 1-3.

Well it continue?  Who knows.  I have seen a remarkable increase in the number of ACRUS since the transition to EPN (I had 7 yesterday alone) and with the payment structure being revised I do expect ACRU earnings to fall.  As the next batch of sites built start to mature in Yahoo I think this should be enough to compensate.

So is it the end of the line for Build a Niche Store?  My answer is a resounding no.  It is however, the end of the line for thin affiliate sites (if you want to rank in Google anyway) and time to think Wordpress.  The challenge this brings is that it isn’t as easy to test as it used to be.   What I am keen to avoid is spending 2 weeks building a site only to find out it makes no money.  With BANS I could build 20 in that time frame and cull the failures at the end of a 12 month period (that was the plan).  Can you do that in Worpress?  What do you think?