BANS Today

Build a Niche Store Update - It All Gets Too Much!

Written by mbpage on April 30, 2008

Wow, I can’t believe it’s so long since my last post.  I’ve been working so hard I’ve lost all track of time.  My BANS store tally now stands at 25!  I’ve got my eyes on more domains and I have set a target to reach 75 stores by the end of the year.  Right now this post is acting as a brake to enable me to think about what I have learned and the mistakes I’ve made on my journey so far.

Since my last post I’ve been catching some very interesting views on BANS over at BloggerUnleased.  Really interesting stuff and very different from Marks approach at thenichestorebuilder.  Which is the better method?  Well, that’s an interesting question and what I will say is that there are many ways to skin a cat.  You will learn a lot from both of these guys so I recommend taking there RSS feeds through Google Reader to keep an eye on what they are up to.  I have also run through Marks entire BANS Empire series again and found it made more sense this time.  I also grasped a couple of concepts that blew straight past me the first time which shows the benefit of practice and experience.

My biggest learning point so far has to be niche selection and keyword selection which I’m finally getting my head around.  You can enter a saturated market if you can find high demand low competition keywords and rank well for those phrases.  Probably half of my stores have been built on high demand and high competition keywords so it isn’t too surprising sales have been low.  As I add additional categories and pages for more longtail keywords I expect traffic to rise.

I am very aware that I need to do more to generate traffic as I’ll go broke waiting to rank in the SERPS.  Because of the success contacts I know have had with BANS I hoped to be doing a bit better than I am in terms of earnings and I guess I just haven’t found a great niche yet so I am considering nichebot and another niche tool to see if they can help me get great focus on markets with potential.

As for traffic generation for existing stores I’m going to work on putting up USfreeads next week 2-4 per store so that should keep me busy!  For the first week since I started I will not be putting up a new store (unless I change my mind of course - lol).

I still have concerns with the Ebay Partner Network.  Yesterday my stats showed a big jump nearly all attributed to one store which, until that point, had only had a dozen or so hits.  Sorry guys but I’m not buying that there were 500 hits to that store yesterday.

Disapearing Traffic - Build A Niche Store Update

Written by mbpage on April 24, 2008

After seeing steady growth in traffic and sales I was surprised to see that I had no clicks and no sales yesterday.  I find this difficult to comprehend and like many others I am starting to believe there is a bug in the ebay partner network tracking systems - it makes no sense.  My stats show increased numbers of visitors for Wednesday and I can’t believe no one clicked through to ebay.

I also discovered I had a total of 8 stores in various stages of phase 1 development - a couple have even made sales!  How has this happened?  Well, truth be told some stores just take longer to put together than others and I get bored and move on to another job.   Of course, this is not a trend that could have been allowed to continue so I completed 3 and now have 5 remaining.

Temptation also gets in the way.  I do a bit of niche research every day and I’ve identified 10 new niches 3 or 4 of which I’m very excited about.  Being human, the first thing I want to do is buy these domains and start building the stores immediately putting the others to one side.  This is not good and I am attempting to put off buying more domains until I have finished the current batch of developments.

On the tool front, yesterday I came across Article Submitter & Directory Submitter from Brad Callen.  I already own Keyword Elite but I hadn’t seen these other two products.  What’s more they can be downloaded for FREE.  I’m sure they’ll have limited feature sets and that there is bound to be a pro version but I will check them out and feedback to you guys in the near future.  If you’d like to check them out for yourself you’ll find more information here.

Build A Niche Store - Earnings Update

Written by mbpage on April 22, 2008

One of the most important aspects to building BANS stores is establishing a routine.  You can just stick up a store and leave it there, but, truth be told you’re unlikely to make any decent money.  As of today I have 17 stores either in Phase 1 or Phase 2 Development (see previous posts for definition).  These have been developed in 4 weeks so I’m moving pretty fast although I do this pretty much full time.

Moving so quickly I have had to develop a routine which goes something like this:

• Update BANS today Blog

• Spend 1 hour per day per store on a maximum of 4 stores in Phase 2 Development.  Tasks include optimizing pages, creating new pages, adding graphics, checking logs, identifying keywords, creating content, writing content for supporting blogs, creating ads, building  backlinks etc.

• Spend 1 hour per day browsing the BANS forum and reading BANS related blogs (see my blogroll links) although I use Google Reader for this purpose as you can just subscribe to the RSS Feed.  Side note - if you don’t have an RSS feed for your own blog learn how to set one up immediately.  Google Reader is a brilliant tool.   Learning new stuff is crucial and this has been invaluable to me in acclerating my progress.  Yesterday, for example, I learned that all sites should have a privacy policy and how to easily add one to your store - thanks again to Rochelle.  Writing that has reminded me to post a request in the BANS forum that this be automatically included in the next release.
• On an adhoc basis Jot down ideas for new stores and carry out research on suitability for new stores.  I have identified at least 10 additional stores this way and it takes away the pain of concentrated research which I dislike.

Earnings Update

So have I broken the bank?  Well I’ve already reported some numbers but today I’ll give exact figures by broad niche.  My first store went live a couple of days before the release of BANS 3.0 EPN and the changes caused set me back a couple of days although I purchased BANS 18 March according to my receipt.  I said yesterday that my one month anniversary was approaching but it had actually passed so as an act of compromise  I’m going to give my one month update today.

So here we go (nos are rounded):

Womens Fashion $48.00
Outdoor Sport $14.00
Electrical $5.00
Garden $5.00
Crystal $4.00
Fishing $4.00
Fitness $3.00
Audio $1.50
Gardening $0.50

Giving a total to date of $85.00

I have 6 sites yet to make a sale and a couple of others yet to generate any traffic.  My biggest disappointment is a store in the home appliance area which after nearly a month has had 209 click thrus to ebay but no sales.

So I don’t know what your expectations are for earnings after one month but I am pretty pleased.  I have done very little to drive traffic at this stage all of these sales have come from SERPS.  As I start promotions under Phase 2 I hope to see these numbers start to increase

Build A Niche Store Update - Categories - Are Yours Still Correct?

Written by mbpage on April 21, 2008

I don’t tend to post to my blogs much at weekends but that doesn’t mean to say I haven’t been working. When developing an existing store I tend to do this in 1 to 2 hour blocks. If you’ve followed my posts you’ll know I am at a phase 2 development stage with a number of stores. That is, the store is built, link building outsourced and I am looking to add store pages, content and pretty things up a little.

Well following the recent ebay category changes a number of my stores were not displaying sub-categories correctly. For example, changes have been made to electric guitars which no longer display by brand e.g. gibson, fender etc. This meant each sub category displayed the same instruments which means I have to make changes and add search filters.

Have you reviewed your stores to make sure all sub-category pages display properly still? If not you’re store will look half complete or abandoned. I easily identified half a dozen other BANS stores (not mine) that have this problem and easily confuse visitors.

On another note, I notice I am rapidly approaching my first month anniversary as a BANS member and I will prepare a detailed post to summarize progress including earnings. I had a slow couple of days with no sales coming into the weekend but my earnings currently stand at $65. Will BANS pay for itself in a month? Stay tuned to find out.

BANS Update - Success & Misfortune - Build A Niche Store

Written by mbpage on April 18, 2008

Yesterday I wrote about keeping a focus on your daily tasks and trying to minimize distractions.  So I wrote my list and allocated a time against each.  The net result?  Success.  I sorted an outstanding issue with ezinearticles.com (love to hate those guys), updated the blogs, checked out one of my Adsense sites and spent an hour each on two of my stores.

The misfortune came when I realized I had a problem with searches on my BANS site which prompted Mark at thenichestorebuilder to release a video (what capacity Mark has for work - a round of applause sir) and some of my stores had gone wild following ebay category changes (now that was a learning experience).

Those issues ate the rest of my day apart from the bit where I got distracted again.  The problem with this whole darn internet marketing industry is that it moves so fast.  No sooner one next generation product is launched then along comes the next.

I have a Google Alert set to feed me Build A Niche Store related posts and yesterday I got one which mentioned another store building application called Datafeedr.  If you would like more information on Datafeedr you can check at my other blog or click on the link.

Suffice to say I had to check it out and was somewhat blown away by what I saw.  So much so that I signed up.  Is this a good thing?  Well I gotta tell you if your full time in this business, yes, because I think this could be the future for affiliate and internet marketing.

If you’re part time no.  BANS needs constant input if you are going to be successful and taking Datafeedr in addition will not leave you with enough time to do either justice.  It’s also a bit pricey so wait until you’re making money and can afford to go full time before you give it a go.

There is of course a third option which is to recognize Datafeedr as the future and to move across to that platform.  I’m not going to recommend that because chopping and changing strategies, models and programs every couple of months is a sure fire way to guarantee you’ll never make any money in this game.

And once again the circle is complete.  Focus - Distraction - Focus. With luck my next report will read Focus - Focus - Focus.

Keeping a Focus - Build a Niche Store Progress Review

Written by mbpage on April 17, 2008

I not quite sure what happened yesterday.  I did a lot of work but it seems to have been a bit random and hence the title of the post.  Success comes from having a plan and working on it consistently day after day.  Yesterday I worked but was it on the plan?  Truth be told I don’t know because I let my record keeping and my focus slip.  No need to beat myself over it but I do need to try to minimize the number of times this happens.

For today I have written a list of the sites I will be working on and for how long.

I did come across one very interesting program which searches for related blogs to my stores and ranks them according to PR.  You can then leave genuine comments which create almost immediate back links to your stores.  This seems to have potential and I’ll provide an update at some stage next week.  If I feel it’s worth recommending I will reveal the name of the product.

BANS Cooking On Gas

Written by mbpage on April 15, 2008

Phase 2 Developments have kicked off but first a quick summary. I have developed 12 sites 1 is making good sales another 5 have had 1 sale each and 6 no sales. Given that the oldest site went officially live on 4 April that isn’t too surprising. Total sales stand at approx $46.00

My plan going forward is to develop 1 new site per week with the remaining time allocated to optimizing the existing sites. I intend to spend 1 hour per week on each site. Optimization will consist of creating meta titles, meta descriptions and meta keywords for EACH page of my BANS site and the addition of new store pages based on keyword data extracted from the Free Wordtracker and the store logfiles. This should position all the sites to take maximum advantage of any organic searches.

I have also started work on some template customization putting graphics into the logo banner and coloring sympathetically. This is secondary in some respects but I can’t stand looking at plain grey sites so I am sneaking a bit of color in now and again if I get bored of what I’m working on. I am also adding adsense and some complimentary affiliate programs to the sites as and when I identify them.

Of course the big thing now is traffic and attempting to ramp up the number of visitors to the store. Based on what I read this is the biggest challenge we all face so how do I intend to get traffic to my sites? Well, I’m no expert so it really is a question of trial and error. So for the Coach Store I am following one of Kent’s over at Wealthy Affiliate strategies. I have set up four blogs all linked and linked to the coach store and I have added an article to each. I will add up to four articles to each over the next week. I will then take a further 4 articles and submit them to the article directories to create backlinks. If this works I would hope to start seeing sales of $3-$5 per day from that site.

I am also experimenting with USFreeads and have set up a couple of ads to link to a store page. This seems to work for some sites and not for others based on BANS Forum feedback. I also have an Ad running on Craigs List. I’ll update on these results next week.

So its busy busy busy. It’s still early days and the phsycology of this whole IM business is interesting. Because I have one site that has got off to a great start I’m disappointed that my other site that went live on the same day has had few visitors and no sales. Truth be told search volume is probably key here. There are much fewer daily keyword searches for that site than the Coach site so that is something to bear in mind for the future.

Oh and one last thing please sign up to get the feed it’s much better than visiting the blog daily. I’ve just discovered Google Reader which is an absolutely fabulous tool for managing blog subscriptions. I told you I was new!

Make Money With Build a Niche Store (BANS) - Update

Written by mbpage on April 13, 2008

How have things been progressing over here at BANS today? Well I got my 12 sites developed with inbound links outsourced to SubmitEdge who provide an excellent service which I recommend to one and all. They will submit your site to 100 directories for just $15.00. At that price there is no way you should do it yourself.

I also had a dose of creative overload and identified about 20 new niches with potential. I will need to do the research to see if if they all stack up but I generally just check ebay sales volume and terapeak.com. There is competition in every sector that sells and you just have to be confident you can do a better job. With BANS 3.0 EPN I beleive we have the tools to make that happen. Phase 2 of the sites development will kick off on Monday/Tuesday bang on schedule or should I say BANS on schedule!

I spent most of Friday learning new stuff. With regards to BANS I familiarized myself with the new eBay Link Generator but haven’t cracked it yet. I’ll probably have another go later today. Also spent some time on the forums which are great but I wish comments were tagged with BANS version as you can read a lot of stuff that does not apply to BANS 3.0 EPN which is frustrating. I also produced my first USfreeads to support the CoachDesignerStore but again I haven’t quite got everything working right. The copy is also pretty crap but you’ve got to try it to master it.

I also spent some time on the blog - do you like the theme? It took me ages to find one that suited the sites purpose - I need to tweak this a bit and with no coding experience that will be interesting to say the least. I also installed the google site map and social bookmark plug ins. Still haven’t got the RSS feed as I want but it works.

I have to say I am really enjoying learning all this new stuff and acutally making some money through BANS is the icing on the cake. I have made sales through 4 stores. One of these hasn’t even been submitted to the directories yet because I didn’t think it would generate much volume following additional research. Shows what I know and how you can be surprised.

I’m still surprised that I’ve made any sales at all really given how little promotion has been undertaken. I hope that is a great sign for what is to come when I actually get the sites fully fired up.

Build A Niche Store Challenges

Written by mbpage on April 10, 2008

Yes the title says it all,  yesterday was a real challenge and full of frustration.  I completed my eleventh store to a phase 1 level but fully intended to get to 12.  Unfortuately the 12th site created nothing but problems.  I was looking at a niche of electric guitars but when the data import ran nothing was categorizing correctly.  I thought this may have been down to some of the recent BANS changes so I deleted the entire store and database and did a clean install.  It made no difference.  I puzzled over this for an hour or so did another install and still the same result.

I decided to put it to one side and move on by undertaking some research into new niches.  This was pretty time consuming but I have now purchased a further 6 domains for my next projects.  When I hit 12 stores I will slow the pace of development to 1 or 2 new stores per week and focus on building the existing ones through addition of adsense, affiliate progs, and developing the template banners.  I have bigger plans but I will outline these when the phase 2 development kicks off.

The 12th store will be completed by Friday so I’ll be kicking in to phase 2 developments on Monday if all goes to plan.

Developing BANS Templates, Adsense & Commission Junction

Written by mbpage on April 9, 2008

One of the first sites I developed has now been indexed by Google and I decided to use the opportunity to place adsense on the site, a couple of CJ banners and develop the logo and template.  As a quick aside it may be worth mentioning that I was taught not to add adsense until after the site had been indexed.  It supposedly increases the frequency of googlebot visits to your site if you do it this way and helps with your ranking.

I’m very pleased with the results which you can check out for yourself here.

I got the template from Mark at thenichestorebuilder. Mark’s generosity is quite incredible and you’ll see him mentioned a lot in this blog. If anyone is going to help me make it is Mark.

This was an interesting exercise as it was the first time I have put adsense on a page. Google makes this very easy you set up your adblock choosing size, colors etc. and paste the code block into your chosen template. I strongly advise anyone using adsense to match it with the site colors. I use a fantastic free little utility called Pixie to help me do this. It is absolutely brilliant. If anyone knows of another tool that can do the same thing with fonts please let me know.

I then added some CJ banners for a couple of stores. This was a little more complex as the formating was off. I did my first ever HTML tuturiol courtesy of w3schools and soon found out how to position the image so it displayed correctly - I surprised myself as I was pretty nervous playing with code.

This was swiftly followed by first Photoshop experience in banner building. Again I am delighted with the results. I need to learn a bit about shadow effects but that’s just being picky at the moment.

I now have a total of 9 BANS sites developed to a phase 1 level and 1 at phase 2. This being the example above. I am on target to hit 12 by the end of this week after which I will develop 1 new site a week and start to develop the others. My intention is to spend 1 hour per week on each site for the next 3 months or so.

I am only making sales on one site at the moment and my income stands at approx $30.00