Build a Niche Sites

When it comes to affiliate marketing and BANS, nearly every forum I go to there is a person asking whether BANS is a scam and more importantly, can you make money with BANS? Well, the answer is (in order) "no, bans isn't a scam" and "yes, you can make money with BANS". That said, there are some things you should know about BANS before you go off on a buying tangent and purchase the software.


WHAT IS BANS?

BANS is short for build a niche store. The premise behind BANS, in short, is you become an affiliate for eBay and basically the software will pick out products according to whatever keyword you choose. For example, let's say you build a site that revolves around acoustic guitars. In this case, you would purchase a domain (preferably with your keyword in it such as acoustic-guitar-store.com) and then build pages around certain models of acoustic guitars.

Pardon me while I explain it a bit further. So, you have bought your domain on acoustic guitars. The next step would be to catagorize pages. I might have a page devoted to Taylor acoustic guitars and another that is devoted to Gibson Acoustic Guitars and so on and so forth. I would plug in the keywords into the BANS interface and voila! I would get ebay listings of taylor acoustic guitars on my taylor acoustic guitar page.

What this does for you, the site owner, is a couple things....

1. It supplies you with freshly updated content constantly which means that the Google spiders will practically reside on your site.


2. It will also send you some pretty unique visitors who use very detailed long tailed keywords (and as most marketers know, the more detailed the query, the better chance of securing a buyer).

The beauty of BANS (and other software like BANS) is that you are getting the buyer in the last step of his query search right before he buys. What this yields (normally) is a higher than usual conversion rate and more money in your pocket. Some BANS sites actually convert at an astounding 50% conversion rate.


Can I make money with BANS?

The problem that most affiliate marketers come across when first dealing with a BANS site is that the biggest affiliates operate en masse, meaning that they produce a huge amount of sites. Some have as many as 500 sites and are making $500 a day with their BANS.

Others aren't making anywhere near this amount and this is due largely to the fact that they simply aren't operating enough BANS sites. The rule of thumb to remember here is Pareto's Theory......20% of all your sites will produce 80% of the income. The same applies for creating BANS sites.

As an aside, a friend of mine who operates 10 BANS sites currently complained to me that only 4 of his sites are actually producing in spite of all of his sites getting traffic. This is important to remember that most sites will likely produce little to nothing. However, if you stay on it, you will find sites that will be virtual goldmines.

Now, if you are like most and are a bit squeemish dropping $500 on domain names, then you could opt for a more pheasible strategy of building 2-3 BANS sites a week. This will actually give you plenty of time to set up your BANS site and start working on getting backlinks.

So, you are finally going to take the plunge and do what so many other affiliates are doing right now to make money...Build a niche Store. However, just know this...most people who use BANS and sells eBay products never actually optimize their sites in a way that they will make any amount of REAL money. While it is true that the stories of people making $500+ per day is a real possibility, most will never come close to reaching this point with their BANS store. Here is the difference between the ones who do make money and those that don't.

Start building Backlinks and lots of them- Let's face it. It is enough work simply to build a site and supply it with content. However, the work doesn't stop there. In fact, you have only begun. Building backlinks using article submission and directory submission tactics is an absolute must if you intend to rank for your niche's keywords and make real money. Like it or not, building backlinks should be the first consideration after you actually build the BANS site and should (unfortunately) be nearly 80% of the work you put into your site. The bottom line is if you build links, you will rank better than your competitors who don't (and people are lazy, so therefore you can assume that this won't be a great feat.)

Here are some ways you can build backlinks:

* Create A Squidoo Page
* Create A Hub Page
* Create A Zimbio Page
* Submit an article to ezinearticles or goarticles daily
* Submit to free directories.
* Submit to Search Engines (well, this won't get you backlinks but will get you indexed)
* Submit to RSS feed directories
* Comment on other people's blogs
* ect. ect.

You get the picture. Basically, you want to create as many links to your site. Now, that said, it is important that you create the right backlinks....in other words, make sure that your anchor text is targeting your keyword and not the name of your site (unless your site has the keyword in it).

Make sure your site has content in addition to the products- This sounds like a no-brainer but remember the old adage...people are lazy. Most BANS site owners will simply grab the RSS feeds and post them as pages for their site; no front page or anything.

From a visitor's viewpoint, what do you think they are thinking? Well, let's see....you go to a site and see nothing but a bunch of eBay auction ads. Given the fact that most people have seen these pages before, it is likely that they will hit the 'back' button and move on, thus reducing your conversion rate and possibly killing a prospective sale.

Make your BANS site look Unique- What I mean by this statement is that you want to make your BANS site appear to be a site with your own listings. Now I could give you an example to work with but I don't want to give away my money sites (or potential money sites). What I have found works for me is to have the home page look like a store front.

In other words, I find a couple pictures of products for my niche and paste them to the front page along with some text explaining what my site is. Usually, I say something like...."we have partnered with eBay to offer you the best prices on the web for (you niche here).

Don't stop there though. Add a bulleted list of the name brands you offer (for the search engines). My point is to make it appear like your own storefront, not just another eBay affiliate site.

Spend some time on keywords- I usually spend a week building a gameplan for a new BANS site (I am usually doing this with several at a time). What this consists of is a thorough look at the primary keywords and what my competition is doing to rank for these.

That said, you don't necessarily have to do this step. The long tail keywords that will be supplied to you via the actual listings themselves will be enough to garner some visitors. However, I have found that if you target your keywords properly and do the work to get them ranked, you will get far more traffic than the ones that you will get from just the long tail keywords (btw, the long tails convert much better but that is another story altogether).

Track Everything- This means getting some form of analytic software and installing it on your site. Let's be frank for a second....if you aren't tracking your progress, then you are in the wrong line of work and should consider something offline. Website metrics are a must and if you don't have analytics installed, you should get one immediately.

I am sure that I missed a few things but that is it.
To Build a Profitable Build a Niche Store (BANS), you should:

1. Work on getting backlinks for your site
2. Add content (other than the feeds themselves) to your site
3. Make your site unique and make it look like a storefront.
4. Spend time on keywords
5. Track your progress using metrics and analytical software.

That's it! Guys. Don't let this pass you up. BANS stores is perfect for anyone who wants to find a turnkey business where they can set it and forget it.

To get Started with Build a niche store click here.

If you have done your research in BANS, then you are probably hearing stories from other BANS owners that many of them are receiving unheard conversion rates of 50%. If you are new to affiliate marketing what this means is that if you get 2 unique visitors, 1 of them will be a buyer (and put money in your pocket).

Now this is practically unheard of in the affiliate world. Even marketers with stable and responsive lists typically get 30% conversions on products they recommend and if you are cold selling, then most marketers will feel like 3-5% is a great conversion rate.


So why do BANS sites convert so well?

To understand this, you have to take a look at how people refine their searches when they are about to buy something....

1. General research step- The first step that a potential buyer will do when they are looking to buy is to do a general research step. Perhaps they are looking at purchasing a poster. They may spend a bit of time perusing the internet for ideas on what kind of poster they want. This step is usually not met with a sale.

2. Get more specific- Now the potential buyer has gone through several different poster sites and has deduced that they are going to look for an "impressionist" reprint poster. They search using this term and find a wide range of sites with impressionist posters. They may or may not purchase something at this point.

3. Get even more specific- Now the potential buyer is going to get even more specific. They have perused the different poster sites and have decided on Van Gogh. Now they may do a search for all the reprints that they can find on Van Gogh artwork. They may do a search query for "van gogh posters" or something like that.They are more likely to purchase something at this point.

4. If they haven't purchased something at this point, they are going to look for the best prices- We will use the famous van gogh painting "starry night" as an example. The searcher will search for something like "van gogh starry night reprints". This is the most refined search that they can do. This is the most likely point where a consumer may buy.

This is also the point where it is likely that your BANS site will show (without targeting keywords). You see, google will crawl the internet looking for the best solution to a consumer's issue. If they are looking for something as specific as 'starry night reprint' or 'van gogh starry night poster' then number one, there won't be as much competition for that keyword. If you have a van gogh reprint site, your site may show up in the first page of google simply because there isn't much competition. In other words, you are getting the visitor at the last part of their refined search query for something they are looking to buy.

And that is the beauty of BANS and why the conversion rates for them are so high. With BANS, you are getting the consumer that is looking to buy...not just the curiousity seekers looking for information.

This is also the reason why many BANS owners get sales even though they don't actively work on building up their backlinks in order to rank well.

Now, think about this for second....

Let's say that you build a van gogh BANS site. And let's say that you have chosen your keyword to be Van Gogh Posters and impressionist reprints. If you target that keyword with building backlinks, you can not only potentially grab those who may buy in the beginning stages of online product research, but you can also nab a sale from the long tail keywords that the eBay RSS feeds also create for you.....Just some food for thought though.

However you look at it, BANS converts and is the closest thing to a turnkey, do little website that is currently on the web.

Aren't you ready to give BANS a try?