One of the reasons I haven’t posted so often on this site for the last 3 months is that I have been spending a lot of time trying to find a cost effective business model that will enable me to diversify my earnings stream.   Having built a good income using eBay I need to generate similar amounts from other affiliate programs so that my earnings are protected.

I have tried a number of models and failed miserably however I have dropped on a very interesting site in the last few days which is the first I’ve felt was worth writing about.  Niche Review Templates provides complete mini review sites for just $47 per month and I mean complete.  You receive 2 templates a month in a “hot” clickbank niche complete with reviews, graphics, content, autoresponder messages and articles.  This saves hours and hours of work.

You can use them as PPC landing pages/sites with minor changes.  By minor I mean add the relevant url links and and your clickbank id or, you can go after organic traffic in which case I would recommend having the content rewritten to avoid any duplicate content penalties (if you beleive it that kind of thing – I’m testing the theory at the moment).

There is even an option to upgrade to a wordpress blog version which would allow you to increase organic traffic to the sites by regularly dripping out posts.

These niches are in pretty competitive areas but it ist easy to find some good keywords with decent volume that you can target.  These phrases will be particularly easy to rank for as well if you use the 3 Way Links service I wrote about earlier in the week.

I can’t see much of a downside here if you do your homework properly and put in the work the sales will come.  Check out Niche Review Templates today and let me know what you think.

An interesting lesson today.  I have been developing a number of sites using phpBAY Pro as an alternative to BANS.  This morning I noticed none of the sites were displaying auctions.  I assumed a problem with the feed from eBay but no, BANS sites are all up and running.

I thought a visit to the phpBay forum may shed some light but, interestingly, this is offline as well.  My conclusion at this stage is that Wade’s server has gone down and as a result the phpBay license is not validating and therefore returning no listings.

This is a cautionary note and I will investigate further but I really don’t like the thought that this plugin is validated via a third party before pulling the feed of a different third party.  As things stand I cannot generate any revenue from my phpBAY sites at the busiest time of the year and I cannot find out what is going on.  Another eventful day in the life of an internet marketer.

Yep it’s finally happened I’ve hit the wall.  I think I’m on track for another record month, will I certainly am with the sterling depreciation v the dollar which I incorrectly reported last month had put downward pressure on earnings.  Can’t believe nobody pointed that out.   A sterling fall means more pounds for my dollar earnings lol.

Anyway I’m now juggling too many balls and I don’t think I’m going to get past $2,500 per month without outsourcing some of the work.  As I stated before my goal is to turn this into a $100,000 business within the next 2 years.  It seems the most sensible route is to outsource a lot of the content production so I’ve added a couple of proposal requests to Elance and I gotta say there are some dam good people out their charging very reasonable rates.

This leaves me free to focus more on building the other two or three supersites I’ve got planned, monetization and the seo and link building side of things.  In one way I’d rather write the content but I can’t see me trusting anyone enough to build links at this stage.

If you wan’t to build a business you need to outsource.  When you, or if you have hit the $2,000 per month mark I encourage you to reinvest a proportion of your proceeds to take the business to the next level.  One thing I am aware of from reading countless posts and forums is the number of people who claim not to be able to afford relatively low cost investments that would grow their business.

When  I was only earning a couple of hundred bucks a month I was still trying new scripts, tools and plugins which cost money.  Don’t be a cheapskate – remember you can make money without cost in this business e.g. montetize a squidoo lens – no cost other than your time.  There isn’t another business opportunity on earth that enables you to do that.  To try something similar on main street you would have to take huge financial risks so don’t worry about a couple of hundred bucks even if you lose it.

I bought this e-book a couple of days ago and wonder if any readers of this blog have done the same.  This product is being promoted by many super affiliates judging by the number of emails I have received.  Before I share my own thoughts and views I’d be interested in hearing from purchasers of this, or editions 1 or 2.   What do you make of Blogging to the Bank 3.0?

Well I guess I should apologize for not posting anything worthwhile for the last couple of weeks. I’ve been flat out building my first corporate website for a friends business and despite what I said in an earlier post, I’ve built another 8 or 9 stores.

August was a record month earnings wise coming in at around $800 but I can’t help feel a sense of disappointment. I have invested 5 months of 60 hour weeks in BANS and a measly $800 is not a lot to show for it.

I am in this for the long haul but I grow more nervous with each week that passes having come across a number of reports of de-indexed sites and canceled EPN accounts. The thought of 5 months, and rising, work counting for naught is not a pleasant one.

Putting the negative to one side what happens next? Well I think I’m going to set a target of completing 75 stores by the end of the year. I currently stand at 55 so that could be a big ask but I can put them up pretty quickly now.

The major change I have made this month includes a paid subscription to Terapeak. The jury is out on its value as eBay appear to offer restricted views of the data but it is a bit of an eye opener. I will provide an update on this product once the stores built as a result of the research are a month or two old.

The end of September will mark my first 6 months with BANS and I will go through my basic store building strategy then encompassing everything I have learned to date. This should be a valuable post for anyone new to BANS and a big time saver.

My main objective now is to devise a strategy to start ramping up site visitors. I’m a bit stuck here as I have optimized my site pages, submitted to directories and employed an active link building campaign. What else is there to do? Well content is an obvious one but everything I read says do more link building so rather than content for the site I’m moving to article marketing.

I’m going to use Article Marketer for this purpose. I have had mixed experience of them to date and find their editorial policies as bad, if not worse, than ezinearticles.com but the distribution is excellent and results in many backlinks per article.

I have also decided to get Stompernet’s SEO Course as I still feel I’m missing something in terms of off page activity. I have no proof for this other than unsubstantiated reports of traffic claims and earnings. I know though, that my long term success will be dependent on my keyword ranking in the serps so this is where I will focus much of my attention for the next 3 to 4 months.