Archive for the ‘BANS for Beginners Series’ Category
Learn to Convert Wordpress Themes into BANS Templates
I posted a couple of weeks ago about a Wordpress/BANS integrated template I bought from Mark Hansen at The Niche Store Builder. I am following a new series Mark started today called Converting WordPress Themes into a BANS Template. In this series, those who follow along, will learn how to do the conversion themselves.
Mark’s instructions are always easy to follow and most are accompanied by a step by step video walking you through the process. If you want to learn how to convert your own Wordpress themes into BANS templates, you will want to follow this new series.
Let me know if you convert a wordpress theme into a bans template and post your link if you like. I will be posting my progress as I go and will post the link to my first site as soon as its up and running.
My Best Month With BANS So Far
I don’t want to jinx anything for August, but as of today I have had my best month with my Build a Niche Store websites since I joined last November. June was really awful and I was worried it would continue through the whole summer. Or that it was a sign of what was to come from all the economy doom and gloom talk we hear on the news everyday. July has been great. I’m not up there with the big boys and girls in earning – yet, but I have paid for my BANS software and domain registrations and hosting months ago and now it is just about all profit.
To what do I owe the turn around in earnings in July. I have no absolute answer, but I did several things that any one of them could have been the answer, perhaps it was a combination of all of them, or none of them. There’s no way to tell, but I will keep doing them until something happens to tell me otherwise.
Once BANS offered us the option to cloak our links, I cloaked all of my sites, and I turned off the “now on ebay” feature, replacing it with an eBay banner instead. After reading a few posts on the BANS forums about whether to cloak or uncloak, I decided to turn the option off and at the same time, I turned on the “now on eBay” feature back on. I saw a big difference in the amount of clicks, bids, winning bids and ACRUS almost immediately. It may have been a coincidence, but I am superstitious so I’m leaving it alone!
I also took a break from building new sites in July, except for my Casual Dinnerware Sets store, I did not build any new sites. Instead, I have been going through my existing sites and adding original content, including articles and new categories based on the search terms people have been using to find my sites. I have also add a blog to a few and have been adding content through regular posts. All of this also could have, and probably did, contribute to the improvement in earnings I’ve seen in July.
I’m planning to add another store or two in August. I am anxious to use the Bans and Wordpress SimpleCSS Template I purchased from Mark Hansen at The Niche Store Builder. Its another integrated site and makes building BANS stores with blogging easy. If you haven’t done so yet, check them out. My Casual Dinnerware Sets site was built using the BANS/Flex template. Notice how the main page is the Wordpress blog with all the store categories in the right sidebar. If you click Store in the top menu, you will see that the BANS store is identical to the Blog.
While I will continue to add more stores, I will also do more work on my existing sites to make sure they stay up-to-date and earning steady income.
Tags: bans, Build a Niche Store, Casual Dinnerware Sets, eBay
Finally, BANS/Wordpress Integrated Templates
If you read the Build a Niche Store forum, you know that everyone has been wanting a way to easily integrate a BANS store with a Wordpress blog. If you are one of those people, check out these BANS-Flex Templates by Mark Hansen over at The Niche Store Builder.
He also has some FREE BANS templates if you just want an easy way to dress up your stores. You’ll find all the instructions you need for installing and setting up these templates on Mark’s blog. Mark has both written directions and videos to guide you through step by step and offers an installation service for some of the templates.
His latest Simple CSS template is designed so that you can do some template editing. I have downloaded this one, but haven’t used it, yet. However, you can see one of the BANS-Flex templates on my new Casual Dinnerware Sets website.
Tags: bans, Bans-Flex, Build a Niche Store, Casual Dinnerware Sets, Simple CSS
Summer Slump Over?
In my last posted I talked about how a summer slump seemed to be affecting not only my work on building new BANS websites and my posting regularly here. Well, I am very excited to say (and I hope I’m not jinxing myself), my sales for July are on track to be my best month ever. As of today, I have $83.95 in posted revenue for sales and ACRUs since the July 1st. I had no ACRUs in June.
I’m not sure whether I’ve talked about ACRUs, but they are the icing on the cake for eBay affiliates. An ACRU is any customer that clicks onto eBay through one of your affiliate links, registers with eBay, then places a bid on an item. For this, eBay pays $25.00!
They don’t have to place a bid at the same time they register. As long as the customer does not erase their cookies or does not click on another affiliate eBay link before they place their first bid after signing up, the cookie from your link is good for 30 days (cookie for sales from your link is good for 7 days).
If you are undecided about getting started building Build a Niche Stores, now is a good time to take the plunge. The BANS software is only $97 and you get free upgrades for life. You can sign up with eBay as an affiliate, or you can sign up as an eBay affiliate through Pepperjam Network. More about Pepperjam later.
Tags: affiliate, bans, Build a Niche Store, eBay, pepperjam partner network
Summer Slump
I have been lazy for the pat few weeks and haven’t kept up with my posts here or built any new BANS sites. One of the good things about affiliate marketing is that you can take a little break and still earn money. You don’t want to let it go for too long though. Even sites that are bringing in earnings regularly need SEO maintenance to keep ratings up.
I have recently been working on some of my older sites adding new categories and writing articles. I added some of the articles to my BANS sites and submitted some to article directories for backlinks to the sites. I have also submitted my sites to more link directories for backlinks. My next project is to write ads for USFreeads – again to increase the number of backlinks to my sites. Once I have finished all this, I’ll build a few more new BANS sites.
Why is all this important – the search engines, especially Google, look for fresh and unique content on website as well as the number of relevant backlinks to determine the importance of the site. Your goal should be to rank in the top 10 (preferably #1) in searches for particular words or phrases. When writing articles, linking in directories, or writing ads, make sure you target the phrases you want to rank for. Use your keyword tools such as Wordtracker to find the top keywords. Keywords should show a lot of searches without a lot of competition.
Tags: Affiliate Niche Stores, bans, Build a Niche Store, USFreeAds, Wordtracker
