BANS Today

Wordpress Ranking Power

Written by mbpage on October 20, 2008

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.

Wordpress & BANS - The Perfect Combination?

Written by mbpage on October 13, 2008

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?

Build a Niche Store Earnings Update - September

Written by mbpage on September 11, 2008

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.

All in one SEO Pack - Meta Descriptions

Written by mbpage on August 25, 2008

One of the most popular wordpress plugins is the all in one seo pack.  I have been using it for a while but noticed that the meta descriptions I created were being ignored by Google.  Usually an indexed page is represented by Google as a snippet.  The snippet is a combinaiton of the meta title and meta description.  The meta description should be no more than 155 characters long and is your opportunity to include sales message to encourage a user to click on your link.  A good meta description is essential if you are going to succeed with Build a Niche Store.

Rather than showing my meta description Google was displaying a random selection of menu items and page text making the snippet look spammy and imo discouraging a potential visitor from clicking my link.  For this reason I had reservations about using wordpress in combination with BANS.

I searched long and hard for a solution to this problem posting requests for help on several forums.  I also asked fellow BANS bloggers and also contacted the plugin author but no one had any suggestions.  Frustrated, I started experimenting with the plugin settings and after two or three weeks of experimentation I have found the solution.

If you use this plugin, and every wordpress user should, and want full control over the Google snippet then you simply turn off the autogenerate descriptions option.  Doing this requires that you enter a meta title and meta description manually but the result of having a meaningful meta description makes the effort worthwhile.  The biggest advantage though is that you make more sales!

Directory Submission Optimization

Written by mbpage on August 23, 2008

It occurred to me that many times we focus on more complex strategies and become complacent over the more simple things. When using a directory submission service such as SubmitEdge or doing your own submissions via a tool such as digixmas set up is key. There are three areas on which to focus:

1. Anchor Text
2. Email address
3. Category Selection

You should choose 3 anchor text links and include them in your descriptions

You should use an email address that relates the domain.  I use HostGator and they make it very easy to set up email forwarders.

That said the main point I want to focus on is category selection.  Many times people choose the wrong category and the majority of submissions made to an incorrect category are often rejected.  You can significantly increase your chances of selecting the right category by doing a little research first.  I like to hop over to dmoz type in my keyword(s) and see what categories they appear under.  You can then mirror these categories in your SubmitEdge submission or use the category keywords in the digixmas category keyword box.

Following these simple tips should ensure a higher percentage of your submissions are accepted by the Directory Webmaster.

Niche Store Sort by Zip

Written by mbpage on August 20, 2008

With the release of the free bans templates I am finally able to achieve something I have wanted to for quite some time. I have several stores selling motor vehicles e.g. Jeeps. eBay motors offer thousands of great value deals but, obviously, America is a big country and most of us are not going to travel a couple of thousand miles to pick up a used bargain Jeep.

Previously I had to spend a lot of time customizing the ugly BANS templates to make use of the advanced search facility or searching for a customized version (which I never found). Several of the new templates include the advanced search facility in a prominent position. As soon as time allows I will swap out some of my existing templates to allow users to target vehicles within a certain radius of their of location.

If you have stores where being able to search on location is useful, and like me you’re not a coder, then you can convert existing stores in about 30 mins (including header creation). I’ve been putting it off but now I have no excuses and neither do you.

Free BANS Templates

Written by mbpage on August 19, 2008

Sometimes I’d like to post more often but I refuse to produce content just for the sake of it. I only write when I’ve got something worth saying and I hope that’s appreciated. I have kept away from the BANS forums recently due to the negative rumors that abound. I prefer to keep focused on what I’m doing rather than worry about the latest “BANS is finished” story. Thats not to say I hide my head in the sand but negative stories can consume time more than anything else I know.

Anyway I popped over and found that Kelvin and Adam have released some really classy BANS templates and what’s more they’re free. Dave (Soggy) and Mark (meetmydomains) are working on creating versions that support wordpress integration so to me the futures never seemed better.

If you haven’t checked out the new templates yet make your way over to the BANS forum and check them out.

Get the Most from SEO for Firefox

Written by mbpage on August 14, 2008

There is always something new to learn.  I’ve had the SEO for Firefox installed in my browser for some time and used it periodically but always felt it was a bit of a pain.  Why because it wasn’t set up correctly.  While going through my RSS feeds today I came across a SEO for Firefox video by none other than Aaron Wall.  Check it out, it helped me a lot.

Build a Niche Store Earnings Update

Written by mbpage on August 11, 2008

Another month gone already!  Well with my vacation last week we’re now well in to August as well.  July was my fourth month developing BANS websites.  I chose not to build many new sites as there is always a danger of leaving existing stores in a declining state.  Indeed last week I designed an audit sheet to review all my stores to make sure they were optimized in so far as possible given my experience to date.  It was an eye opening experience as it will take me the next 10 days to get them all up to the same spec!  What about you?  Do you move on to new stores too quickly?  I put this down as a lesson learned.  I can’t complain about under performing stores when I haven’t done everything I can to optimize them.

I mentioned last month that my Coach store had performed significantly better in June having made no sales at all the previous month.  Well that trend has continued and several of my earlier stores have started to come back.  There is a lot of comment that this is the way things work with Google but until you see it happening for yourself you are always skeptical.  That said, it may be due to the fact that my stores have now started to rank quite well in Yahoo.

The area I’m struggling is with MSN Live.  According to my stats I do not rank for any keywords in Live and I have checked with three different ranking tools.  Armed with this information I registered with Live webmaster tools and submitted all my sites through this mechanism.  I’ll give an update next month on the results.  Any other suggestions for getting a good ranking with MSN Live guys?

Despite all this July was a record month for earnings although still much less than I would like to see given the amount of hours invested.   I closed out with earnings of $680.

So what about August?  Given that we’re 10 days in it looks set to be very similar to July.  I don’t anticipate building many new stores and any I build are likely to be Wordpress based using PHPbay Pro.  There is a possibility of one BANS site using wordpress as I want to go through Mark’s series over at the Niche Store Builder but I do have a lot to do.

Day 1 Giveaway - The first Website | The Niche Store Builder - Succeed with Build a Niche Store

Written by mbpage on August 5, 2008

Guys I’m on hols this week but I just wanted to give you a heads up on a new series Mark is running over at the Niche Store Builder.  If you want to know how to succeed with BANS using Wordpress check out Marks series.

Day 1 Giveaway - The first Website | The Niche Store Builder - Succeed with Build a Niche Store.