Is the New Bans Guide for You?

The long awaited launch of the new BansGuide entitled The Number 1 Way to Make Money Online launched earlier today and the reviews are very positive.  I got my copy and I have quickly skimmed the high points.  From what I’ve seen so far, I am looking forward to exploring it in depth and setting up a new niche site following the 9 steps.

The price for the guide is $24.95 until 11:00 AM EDT on July 17th when the price increases to $44. 95.  If you are new to affiliate marketing, you will learn step by step how to build product driven affiliate niche sites and eliminate many of the pitfalls and frustrations.  If you are experienced in building successful BANS and Wordpress niche sites, you will probably find new tips as well.  Either way, it is well worth the price for the guide, especially if you get it before the price increase.

Check it out for yourself – The Number 1 Way to Make Money Online.

Tags: affiliate marketing, affiliate niche sites, bans, bans guide, niche, The Number 1 Way to Make Money Online

How Not to Launch a New Product

I posted a couple of weeks ago about a new guide from Kelvin and Adam, the creators of BANS, that was supposed to be available within a week or so.  Since then, there have been several notifications about a delay in the launch.  These delays have caused a stir on the Build a Niche Store forum and most people posting seem to have lost excitement and confidence in the guide and it’s creators.  But that is not unusual for the forum lately.

Are they really working on a new launch platform, are they playing with us and trying to create excitement with their teasers?  I don’t know, and personally I really don’t care.  With all the changes in affiliate marketing, including the use of BANS to create affiliate websites, I have lost my momentum and ability to even come up with a idea for a new niche site and need something to help me change that.

There is a lot of FREE information out there, but I have found that it usually only provides a shell without much structure.  In other words, you can find out what to do, but no guidance for how to do it – unless you buy something or pay a monthly membership fee.  There are some exceptions to this including The Niche Store Builder and Build a Niche Store Blog.

The paid membership sites provide information and tools as long as you are a member.  I have tried a few and some are really good – Crowd Mountain being one.  However, you are fed information in increments to keep you paying the monthly membership fee to get the installment and keep using the tools.  Nothing wrong with that especially if you are new to niche marketing and want to take it really slow.

However, I need a step-by-step, all encompassing and easy to follow guide that I can buy once for an affordable price, and refer back to whenever I need it.  My hope is that the guide Kelvin and Adam are launching will be that guide and more.  Do I plan to buy it?  I think so.  I’m not committing to a “yes” until I know what I’m buying.

Here is an excerpt from the last email update for the guide from July 12th:

According to an update email this morning, the guide will be launched later today – tic-tock, tic-tock…

What will you do?  Is this tease and delay launch tactic building excitement or making you skeptical?

Tags: bans, Build a Niche Store, The Number 1 Way to Make Money Online

Google Page Rank Update

If you have been following my Affiliate Niche Stores blog, I apologize for the lack of posts for the past 6 weeks or so.  I have had a lot of things going on tha tI won’t get into, but hopefully will be able to settle down and get back to building niche stores and keeping you updated.

In case you haven’t read it somewhere else already, Google has been updating page rank this weekend.  Be sure to check yours to see what changes have been made.  Hopefully, they will all be good.  I’ve had some including this site lose rank completely, some go down and others receive ranking for the first time.  If you have sites that have completely lost rank, you might want to check Google to see if you have been deindexed.

To check, go to the Google search bar and type in site:yourdomain.com, then search.  If nothing turns up, Google has deindexed your site.  Also check site:http://www.yourdomain.com.

I’m following some great instructions on adding Popshops to your Bans/Wordpress site.  As soon as I have a chance to actually install and set up a Popshops store, I’ll post more.

Tags: bans, Build a Niche Store, google, popshops, Wordpress

BANS Will be Closed Monday and Tuesday Next Week

I received an email from Kelvin and Adam today letting us know that BANS will be closed on Monday and Tuesday next week while they make some changes. Looks like we may be in for some cool new changes. You can read the full email below in case you’re not signed up to receive updates by email:

We wanted to let you know that we will be closing the whole of the
BANS website (forum and support centre included) on Monday 11th
August at 9am BST (UK time) and will be re-opening on Wednesday
13th August.

We have been working on making structural improvements to BANS (of
which the new support centre was the first) and this down time is
happening to enable us to implement these changes.

Comprehensive details will be sent out early next week but below is
a summary of the things that will be changing:

1. New site design.
2. New presentation of BANS on the main website.
3. New affiliate centre.
4. A re-work of the member area.
5. The inclusion of new templates.
6. The conversion of the forum from phpBB to vBulletin.
7. New forum sections.
8. A forum clean up including the deletion and moving of posts.
9. The introduction of forum rules.
10. An expansion of the technical knowledgebase contained inside
the support centre.

We have run tests converting the forum from phpBB to vBulletin and
the “carrying over” of both the forum threads and the registration
details is not a problem. Thus when BANS re-opens on Wednesday 13th
you will be able to log in to the new forum using your existing
username and password.

Until then enjoy your weekend and keep your eye out for further
details early next week.

Things are changing…

Kelvin and Adam

Tags: bans

Why Add a Blog to BANS

In the last couple of posts I have been talking about integrating our BANS stores with a Wordpress blog. Some of you may be wondering why this is so exciting and important. There are really two reasons for this and both are related to being able to rank better in the search engines, particularly Google.

First, and the the most evident reason is it allows BANS users to build websites that are not cookie cutter copies of every other BANS store out there. By having the ability to add variety to our stores by using a Wordpress template, most of which are free, will change the footprint of the BANS store making it unique.

Secondly, using a blog with your BANS website allows you to easily add unique content in the form of your blog posts. I subscribe to an Online Marketing Blog, and this morning there is an article on the importance of providing information to your visitors that they will want to link to rather than submitting your site to link directories and social networking sites.

You can read the article using the link above, then start adding unique articles to your BANS stores whether you decide to use a blog with your BANS sites or not.

Tags: articles, bans, link directories, social networking, Wordpress