I am wirting a news article about online shopping sites that are not well known but have excellent value.
What are some of your favorite places to shop online and how would you rate them over:
Amazon
eBay
Overstock

Thanks

Jason

I’ve found the BANS forum less than useful, and although this blog is terrific I’ve often wanted to ask a question and felt that it’s inappropriate to tack it on to the end of whatever article I’m reading – especially when I’m playing catch-up – so a blog here with such motivated, helpful people is very exciting!

I’ve found the SBI forum (SBI is a hosting company that isn’t compatible with BANS) to be the most useful forum I’ve ever been a part of – if you like, Mark, I can give you my login details and you can have a look around. It might give you some good ideas regarding structure.

Marilla

- “Stay away from…” section. I’ve spent money on software or tools that have been pure junk or nothing like the advertised products. We could share what we’ve wasted money on. Postings here would need to be very specific about why the products are poor choices, or it could become a playground for trashing products unnecessarily. But I just got a refund on a product yesterday that didn’t offer refunds (I fought it through PayPal) and would gladly share so others don’t waste their money.

Rochelle

- ‘Here’s How I Did This’ section. It would be similar to the ‘Tips and Tricks’ in the BANS section but actually detail exactly what was done and what coding was used. The BANS forum for this is more of, “Hey, I’m making $2k a month. I”m not going to tell you my niche, nor how I achieved this. But I will say you need to think outside the box.” Yeah. That’s helpful…

- Mod sharing. Some people are very clever and able to create some great mods (such as yourself). It is helpful to those of us when mod creators share their mods. I will even volunteer to help with writing instructions for those of you who may not be good at creating instructions.

- ‘I need help with…’ section. Requests for help tend to get lost in the BANS forum because there is no specific place to put them.

- “I obtained this service from…’ section. Someplace where we can share the URLs of where we have outsourcing done. For example, members can share where they got articles written and what the prices where.

- ‘Site Progress Updates’ section. This would be a continuation of the updates we have been sharing on the blog. This would allow everyone to share, including the people who aren’t guest blogging but have been following along on their own. But it would be purely voluntary.

I second (or third) what has been said about affiliate links. You’ve been kind enough to let us guest posters use them here in the blog but on forums they do get out of control. But I’m not sure you can keep them out entirely. Perhaps allow them in signatures only?

Oh, I can’t wait to see the forum : )

Rochelle

I agree with trying to keep the content focused or somehow contained when it comes to affiliate links. I usually do not trust most of them anyway.

Sherrin

Great point! Having a Q & A that is specific to certain aspects of traffic, building, customizing would avoid having random questions thrown everywhere!

I’m not too particular about what you offer. I am sure it will all be great.

I think some categories would be:
Traffic Generation
Content Creation
Link Building
Site Building Techniques

Encourage “full disclosure” type things like you’ve been doing on the 12 weeks series. I think most people lack a solid foundation because there’s so much info out there and some of it is crap. So if you say “I did this, got this much traffic, and made $X” then it proves something.

Ban affiliate links on the forum. Period. I’ve decide that all articles or posts that contain an affiliate link are crap. Do a full disclosure case study, show me that it works, then maybe I’ll buy it. Prove to me that YOU followed your 27 part plan to make a million dollars AND made a million dollars THEN I’ll buy your product.

Hmm…ranting again. Have to find a way to make money ranting.

Design & Layout – could include SEO
Picking a Niche