Popular Posts
Recent Posts
Tools for Niche Site Success Hostgator Unlimited HostingWordtracker Free Trial

Build a Niche Store Review - www.CactusJax.com

May 6, 2008

Build a Niche Store Site Review of Cactus Jax May 2008 Featured BANS Site Review for the Cactus Products for Sale website.
Site: http://www.CactusJax.com/
Target Niche: Cactus, Cacti and Succulents
Date Reviewed: 05/02/2008
By: Mark Hansen

Overall Score: 3.2 out of 10 (10 being the best)

  • Domain Name: 9 (Has target words in domain name)
  • Domain Age: 1  (Active for  1 month)
  • Niche Specific Site: 9
  • Site Indexing and Spider Revisit Frequency: N/A
  • Use of Unique Meta-Titles: 1
  • Use of Unique Meta-Keyword Tags: 1
  • Use of Unique Meta-Description Meta tags: 1
  • Public and xml Sitemaps: 5
  • Use of Targeted Articles and Information: 2
  • BANS Default Menu Optimization: 0

In addition to the measures above, the site has a total of 23 inbound links to the domain. While this factor is important, it is not measured in the overall score of the site.

Lets get into the review and reasons for the scoring of the Cactus Plant Store.

…Read more about Build a Niche Store Review - www.CactusJax.com

Popularity: 4% [?]

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Build a Niche Store with a Blog Update!

May 5, 2008

Well - 30 days ago, I wrote a post about my Custom BANS Template with the Build a Niche Store entry and a Blog incorporated into the backside. In the post, I promised I would provide follow up for the next few months so we can see how the combination works together. I am very happy to say… it has been wonderful thus far!

First 30 Day Report of the Fine Designer Shoes site

Just to refresh everyones memory, the site in question is the Fine Designer Shoe site I used as one of my 12 week empire stores. The site uses a custom template I put together along with several code modifications to eliminate any footprint of the BANS code to search engines and makes use of several basic SEO strategies that were built in to take advantage of the page titles. Not counting the 8-12 hours I put into the template itself, I have a total of about 3 hours into this site! I installed it, built the first group of main store categories, installed the blog and template and walked away!

Today, being day 30 of the site… I am revisiting the site and adding a group of subcategory pages, focusing on one of the brands in the main store menu. Along with adding more store pages, I am going to start manually posting to the blog from here forward. 3-5 posts a week, related to the new store pages and the niche in general, should help this store with more traffic and higher rankings over the next 30 days!

Key Metrics
Combined CJ/EPN Earnings: $44.90

Traffic:

  • 2283 Unique visitors (includes referred visitors)
  • 11,222 pages (4.89 pages/visitor)
  • Average 66 unique visitors a day (Growing daily)
  • 1009 Search Engine referred visitors!
  • More than 100 pages indexed in Google
  • More than 50 pages in both Yahoo and MSN
  • More than 30 Indexed, Inbound Links from other sites!

Total Costs: $31.86

  • Domain Name $0.66 ($7.95 divided by 12)
  • Hosting: $0.25 ($24.95 divided by the 100 sites we have on this specific hosting account)
  • SubmitEdge Directory Submission: $15.00
  • Custom Article: $16.00

30 Day Net Gain: $13.04

While it is still too early to know much for sure, the first 30 days of metrics on this site tell me it should be a high performing site within the next few months! It has seen a high rate of indexing already and the spiders seem to come several times each day. The site ranks well (top 20) for several of the terms I am targeting, and has a wide range of words I can use to form custom categories.

My short term goal for the next 30 days is to increase sales by 50% to $70.00. Along with the earning increase, I want to increase my visitors from 66/day to 100/day. I will do that by:

  • Finding the TOP Selling eBay stores and replacing some of my current ads to their store banners.
  • Focus specific store categories on the search traffic already coming in to feed the engines and visitors MORE of what they already like!
  • Write my own blog posts surrounding the same terms as above.
  • Submit the new site pages to directories and other popular shoe websites.

My long term goal for this site is to achieve $1000/month in earnings within 12 months. If I follow this plan, success will follow… I’m sure you have all noticed that my goals are very small and very achievable at this point! This is done on purpose and meant to increase the site popularity and earnings slowly. Just like a solid foundation on a building, one step at a time is the best methods for growing your Build a Niche Store Empire!

On a completely separate note - I have received more than 500 requests from people wanting the template set (BANS and Blog) I used on the site. I have tried to explain to everyone that this template is very customized and requires quite a bit of code work to function 100% the way it is designed. That said… If anyone wants this template, the cost is: $300.00I think I just heard all of the gasps out there…. so I should explain what you get with this template.

  • Limit of 15 sales - Thats it!
  • I will install the Entire template system onto One (1) Site for you. I recommend you choose a site that is already established and optimized versus a brand new site that you are still working on.
  • I will handle the installation of your site blog through your cPanel.
  • I will install the BANS Search MOD to your site if not already done.
  • I will install the needed plugins for auto-posting of blog posts and find the RSS feeds for the content.
  • I will install and configure the AutoLinks plugin and prefill the top terms associated with your developed niche site.
  • I will configure your existing BANS site to work seamlessly with the Blog and vice-versa. This is handled through a separate include file, that I will provide instructions for the times you update your BANS site.
  • I will generate 4-6 custom images for the header image rotation, linked to their corresponding store categories.
  • I will provide you with backups of your original site files if needed.
  • Anytime BANS updates, I will provide free updates to the files changed for the use of this template system.

I am limiting this to only 15 buyers so I can limit the footprint of the template on the web. As a buyer, if you choose to reconfigure this template and use it on other sites, you are welcome to do so. All I require, is that you do not resell any of the code or template anywhere else.

I truly wish I could provide this as a free template… but along with the category rotator images, the amount of coding required to make it all work seamlessly with another site is pretty indepth. If you prefer to wait for some free templates, I will have a slow trickle of BANS/Blog templates released soon.

If you are interested in purchasing the site template, customized to your niche site, send me an email via the contact page. I will send along payment information and the timeframe for the completed project. (Usually 4-7 days)

Mark

Popularity: 5% [?]

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Shifting your BANS Site into High Gear!

May 3, 2008

On Weds, I discussed a few ways to know when it was time to turn a growing store into a top performer! Over the next several days, I am going to cover many of the steps you can take to do just that! As I stated in the earlier post, before you do start making the changes, you want to be sure the site is worth the added time you are about to invest into it. Review the metrics in the earlier post to learn more… So, where do you start?

Turning your Good BANS Site into a Top Performance Machine by Adding a Blog!

All the experts say… fresh and useful Content is The King, when it comes to ranking higher in search engines! Regardless of which engine you achieve top 5 rankings in first, chances are pretty good that your site is providing something they feel is not being found elsewhere. Whether your site is about tiny green men or fine designer shoes, you need to find a way to provide fresh, non-bans content to capture more visitors that can be converted into buyers!

The quickest and possibly easiest way to start building content is by adding a wordpress blog. The wordpress platform is included with every HostGator account and can be added using the Fantastico panel, located in your main cPanel of your hosting account. When you install the blog, there is an option about the directory you want to use. If you leave this blank, it will get in a fight with BANS and neither application will work right! For almost all of my blog installations, I use “discussion” or just “blog” to install wordpress. This will leave my BANS install intact and resolve the blog platform to an url like: mydomain .com/blog or mydomain .com/discussion, and is the easiest to work with.

After you have installed wordpress, you need to set yourself a goal of 2-4 new posts each week and stick to it for the first 30-60 days in order to give the search engines fresh content every day. After the first few months have passed, you can slow your posting down to just 1-3 times a week to maintain your results.

The hardest thing about posting to a blog is that you have to figure out how to provide fresh content with each post and the answer, is to subscribe to others! If you find 5 other blogs in your same niche, subscribe to the writers’ feeds and simply use that info as a brainstorming resource for your own topics! Always refer back to the original writer as your source of inspiration for the daily post, and never copy their post. Just put your own spin on the same bit of news…

The true benefit comes when you start linking to the items or categories for sale in your BANS store! Now you have an article post about very relevant content AND a link or two to the actual products inside your money maker! Just like your category keyword research, your post should use the terms that are likely to deliver targeted readers. Always keep your keyphrase research handy when writing on your blog and you will be rewarded with both general AND buying visitors!

Before the end of the week, I plan on testing some basic BANS/Blog templates with a few other readers. Once we have worked out the bugs, they will be available here for your site work. I should state right up front, these templates are not plug and play and will require some code work in order to function seamlessly with your BANS install. Fortunately, I will provide instructions and a video to try and ease the process.

Do you have a strategy for turning an average BANS site into a top performing authority site? Please share…

Mark

Popularity: 7% [?]

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Google Toolbar PageRank Update in Progress

April 30, 2008

Looks like it is that time again… Google is updating the toolbar PageRank! I saw it first VERY late last night over at Courtney Tuttles blog. Court’s site is another very good source of reading when you want to break into earning good money on the Internet.

If this is like any other PR update, it will likely be a 24-36 hour process of seeing some pages change immediately and others over the course of a day or two. Don’t make the mistake of checking ONLY your main page, check some of your deeper pages like your sitemap and any other pages you have linked into for ranking.

A few notables of my own thus far:

  • This site gained to PR3 on the home page
  • The HitMD .com Hit Doctor Resource Directory went from PR0 to PR3 
  • Several of my Build a Niche Store sites gained PR, including one of the newest ones, Buy Cabinets, coming out as a PR2 in less than 60 days!

PR is only one small factor, but it seems to carry so much weight in the world of optimization! Congrats to all who gained!

Did you have any notable gains? If so, post them in the comments… lets have a look!

Mark

Popularity: 9% [?]

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

When to Turn a Weak Affiliate Site into an Authority Site

April 29, 2008

In yesterday’s post about dumping some of my BANS sites, I purposely left out the complete opposite aspect of your Build a Niche Store efforts. You have to remember I am not a “visitors per day” person, but instead, I look at the pageviews/visitor as a better picture of how effective a site is working for me. For example, if I see 100 daily visitors and only 110 pageviews, that tells me real quick that these visitors are either not finding what they want, or they don’t like the site and what it has to offer! On the other hand, if the same 100 visitors return 700 pageviews, that tells me the site is not properly setup to get the visitor/cookie passed to eBay and they are browsing too much! My own preference lies somewhere in the middle… 2.5-5 pageviews per visitor is right in my sweet spot! Looking at the basic site metrics in AWStats brings up the next important question…

When Should You Take your BANS Site to the Next Level?

Let’s face it… most of us do not care about repeat visitors when we launch our niche stores. Our goal is, and always has been, to attract a search engine visitor… shake their hand and show them where they can find the item they are looking for, send them to eBay, and forget about them. Truly a middleman! I see several sites out there using social bookmarking code and a few other methods to attract repeat visitors, but what if… what if you found your niche was popular enough to turn into an authority site?  

I’m sure most of you are asking yourself… well Mark, what ISthe next level, I thought a BANS site was just an affiliate site I could build, optimize and walk away from?! Well, essentially it is… and before you decide to try and take it farther, you need to know that it also requires a bit more of your time, but the rewards will be five-fold in the longrun as your basic Build a Niche Store website makes the transition from a weak affiliate site to an authority site!

Since this is the first group of sites I am going to take to the next level, I want to outline my determining metrics and explain why. In tomorrows post, I will tell you all the changes I am going to make to those sites in order to get more “Targeted, Converting, Traffic”. It may have only taken 5-10 hours to develop the original niche store, but the next step will likely take a bit more!

  1. Site is MORE than 6 Months Old!
    This is important! If you take a newer site (less than 6 months old) and start building additions onto it, you really don’t have a “feel” for the market yet! I have had several stores that came out of the box like a freight train, only to fizzle out after 45-60 days and never really come back like it did in the beginning. My experiment on the BANS/Blog fine-designer-shoes .com site is an example of trying to jump right into a very competitive market and avoid the fizzle… so far, so good with the site, but it is still less than 2 months old!
  2. Site receives MORE than 100 daily visitors and 250 daily page views!
    I know, it does not sound like a large number, in fact its not! For an affiliate site that you only have 5-10 hours of work into though, it is substantial when you consider ALL traffic is search engine generated!
  3. Site is generating REVENUE TRAFFIC regularly!
    This is a given… if a site is not sending clicks and buyers over to the EPN tracking, why bother spending more time on it until it does? Just like the freight train / fizzle example above, I have had a few BANS sites that sent considerable traffic but still lacked revenue clicks. Before I spend more time getting more general traffic, I need to revise the site to get more converting traffic! This usually means narrowing the niche to a tighter focus first. Give the existing visitors exactly what they are looking for and get them to the checkout first! Once you increase the conversion rate, then you can increase the visitors!
  4. Focus on higher Average Selling Price stores first!
    Again, this is one of those things that we don’t always think about! Like many of you, I have several stores that only generate .50 cents of affiliate commission per sale. The WebKinz site is a very good example of a busy site, hardly worth promoting further! The site gets about 250-300 daily visitors, 800-1200 daily pageviews AND generates daily revenue 99% of the time. Some days, it will show 15-20 sales per day, but the total earnings from the site are still less than $15.00 for that busy day! On the other hand… I have a few stores in a very focused an unpopular niche market that each generate about 100-150 daily unique visitors, 300-500 page views and only 3-4 sales per week. The difference is that these sites average $40-$60 in commission on every sale! Those are the types of sites you want to build more to attract a higher volume of targeted visitors! I know someone will ask what the niche markets are… and without coming out and saying it, I will just say… focus on things you would NEVER consider buying online! (I’m not talking about cars either!) You would be shockingly surprised at the things people will spend $5000+ on through eBay!
  5. KeyPhrases Outnumber your KeyWords in awstats!
    This is one metric I have talked very little about, but provides one of the best indicators on how focused your Build a Niche Store website is! For example, if you look at your awstats and see that there are 50 keyphrases (left side) that generated visitors based on 250 keywords, (right side) it is pretty safe to assume your site has a very broad focus, and may be delivering unrelated traffic! I like to see these numbers very closely related or have the phrases outnumber the words! One of my most popular sites has a total of 1583 phrases on only 810 words! The main 4-word target phrase of the site has generated more than 1200 visitors alone! On the other hand, I have another site in a very broad market, that has 177 phrases on more than 1000 keyword combinations, which tells me the target phrases are too loosely put together. To correct this, I will take the top 10 WORDS and start building demand phrases out of them to increase my long tail traffic.

Looking at the 5 metrics above, I have a way to accurately measure my efforts to this point with a niche store. I know it has Aged beyond the Google age filter (more than 6 months old) and come out with a steady flow of visitors. (More than 100 visitors) I also know that the visitors coming to the site are actually interested in buying (mid-range number of pageviews and sending clicks to eBay) and most importantly, when they get to eBay, they are buying! Not only are they buying, they are generating higher amounts of revenue from my referral (higher average selling price) and most of them, found the exact items I created this site for! (High number of Targeted keyPhrases)

Now that I know which sites to target for further growth, tomorrow - I will outline a few simple steps you can take to attract more visitors! Between both Kim’s and my own sites, only about 15-20 (about 10-15% of our total store inventory)  are worthy of taking this next step! How many sites do you own that are worth stepping up?

Popularity: 9% [?]

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Subscribe to The Niche Store Builder Site

Subscribe to the Niche Store BuilderDon't miss a single post about Developing your Niche Store or Website! Subscribe today and start Making Money!

Featured Links and Resources

Featured Niche Store of the Month

Current Niche Projects

Top Niche Builder Commentators

Last 10 Comments

Blogroll

Niche Builder Categories