Niche Builders Network

The Key to Success With BANS - Build a Niche Store

Dave — Sun, 11 May 2008 21:18:38 +0000

Backlinks!

Lets face it without backlinks you are going nowhere fast. The best looking store or the store with the most content will not win the race, you have to get backlinks. The more backlinks your BANS store has the more you are going to make. To get your anchored backlinks you should be doing directory submissions, article submissions and social bookmarking. Do it by hand or get some tools either way you need to get started now.

Here are a few tools to make your backlink building a little less tedious.

Pick up some backlinks using Bookmarking Demon.

Speed up your directory submissions with Directory Submitter.

Get great anchor links with article submissions using Article Submitter.

Desktop ePN Report Reader

Dave — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 20:10:25 +0000

Here is the new version of the “Desktop Report Reader”. It will work with the new reporting at the eBay Partner Network. It is not fancy, but will let you take a look at your transaction details and give you a link to the item sold.

ePN Desktop Reader

To get your transaction details go to ePN Reports>Transaction Download>Download Text File

If you have any questions please feel free to ask.

If you are looking for something web based to read your reports, I suggest you check this out:

ePN Report Tracker

eBay Partner Network Forum

Dave — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 16:25:25 +0000

We have added a new section to our forum for the eBay Partner network. Please join sign up and join in, we hope to have a very busy and useful forum in the near future. To do this we need your help, if you find any information on our site useful do us a favor and sign up to the forum and help get it started. Thanks

eBay Partner Network Forum

Add PHP to Build a Niche Store Content Pages

Dave — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 18:32:32 +0000

If you are using BANS then you know that you can not add php into the content areas in your admin panel. All is not lost though, you can easily add a couple of lines of code to call php files. We will get to that in a moment.

Lets talk about why we might want to use php on our content pages. If you use PopShops then you know that using the php option gives you the benefit of having the content visible to the search engines. What about using a php script to add a nice contact form to your site, no problem. Check the baby site in my previous post for a nice contact script. If you are customizing your header, like in the previous post, then you could use php to call navigation or banners. This allows your template file to remain clean and easy to work with. If you need to swap out a banner or change a link in the custom nav you only need open that file, not the template, thus reducing the risk of breaking your site.

OK, we can all see the benefits of using php. Head on over to the forum to see some examples of code. Forum

Customizing Your BANS Header

Dave — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 18:22:01 +0000

There are lots of questions on the BANS forum about customizing your template, one of them that I have been active in and trying to help with is customizing the header. First lets talk about that big area on your site. Most people just make up some type of graphic to fill in the whole area and that is fine. But why not take advantage of all that real estate by adding banners, navigation, Adsense(if you are using it) and a smaller logo. You are not limited to the size of the header either, you can make it larger or smaller if you so desire.

It is a lot more work than just throwing in a graphic to fill the entire space, but I feel customizing the header makes the site look more professional. Take a look at some of the top stores in your niche to get some ideas to improve your header.

Here is my current project: Diaper Bags

You can take a look at the code over in the forum.

Desktop CJ Report Reader

Dave — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 21:44:58 +0000

The day I got this back from the programmer I got the email from Ebay about the new Ebay Partner Network. Bad timing and luck on my part, but here it is anyway.

CJ Report Reader

Please stop by our new forum and say hello/thanks, it needs your help(its a ghost town).

You are free to use it until the big change and then I am sure it will be useless.

I am not going to go into detailed instructions. Download it, click on the icon, click open to upload your CJ csv report and that is about it. It has a few basic features- it will give you a link to the auction, give you the numerical user id of the buyer and so on. Oh, it is completely offline so no need to worry about someone getting your information.

New Forum Dedicated to phpBay, Build a Niche Store and PopShops

Dave — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 18:15:06 +0000

We have finally set up our new forum dedicated to phpBay, Build a Niche Store(BANS) and PopShops. It is just a default install of vBulletin, no fancy skins or headers. Having just set it up, it is of course a ghost town, but I hope with the popularity of the 3 programs that it will become a hub for users to share information and services.

Registration is free and I hope to see you there.

Ebay Affiliate Program Moving In House - Is It a Good Move?

Dave — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 14:20:18 +0000

Cutting the middleman out of the Ebay affiliate program is a great move for Ebay, in my opinion. The cost of having the program at CJ must have been tremendous.

This is also great news for affiliates. Moving the program in house tells me that Ebay is committed to keeping the program going and to improve the experience for their affiliates. Why bother with a move this big if you are not committed!

I do hope that some of the money saved will be put back into the program.

Here is my wish list for the new program:

Better communications with affiliates
More reliable tracking
Real time reporting
More in depth reporting

Please comment if you would like to add to the wish list.

Check Your BANS Stores in Multiple Browsers

Dave — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 01:59:27 +0000

When you start tweaking your BANS templates to get the perfect layout you need to check them in multiple browsers. The two most popular being Internet Explorer and Firefox. I would at, the very least, make sure the site looks good across both IE and FF. You may only get 10% of your visitors using FF, but that could lead to a 10% loss in commission and that adds up. I have run into some topics on the BANS forum from some members who are having issues and have tried to help them resolve the problem. Remember, just because your site looks good on your computer using your browser does not mean it will look right to the rest of the world. How many of your customers are going to be using your computer?

Think about it.

Need a tool to check out multiple browsers?

Check our Browser Shots

It can take some time to get all your screen shots or you can opt to pay $15 for one month of access that allows you to get to the front of the line.

Ebay Category Changes - Build a Niche Store and phpBay

Dave — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 03:25:34 +0000

You have your niche affiliate empire up and running on auto pilot, right? Well not exactly, my 2 favorite programs(Build a Niche Store and phpBay) use Ebay category numbers to pull in products. When Ebay rolls out category changes this can alter your store if you are using the category number that has been affected by the changes. Keep in mind this will not affect your pages that are using search queries instead of category numbers. The creators of BANS will typically put out an update when needed to keep things running smoothly. If you are using phpBay with category numbers you will need to keep a closer eye on what changes are coming and update your code as required.

I was going through one of my phpBay stores last night and discovered a couple of pages that were only displaying 2 or 3 items instead of the 25 I had selected. Checked into it and found that the categories had been merged with another, requiring a quick settings change. So keep your sites looking good and full of product with a little housekeeping.

Here is the link to the Ebay category change page: Ebay