Brand Specific Pages with Build a Niche Store

June 9, 2008

I recently had a question from John, asking how you can use BANS to generate brand specific product pages.

One of the most common fears we all have (or SHOULD have) as affiliate website owners, is that we will infringe on a “Brand” or “Trademark”! In other words… some of the manufacturers are very specific in how they allow their products to be marketed and usage of the “Brand Name” is forbidden very often! Victoria’s Secret for instance, does not even allow its wholesale warehouses to use their name in marketing of the closeouts!

Just a few Do’s and Dont’s for Brand Specific Affiliate Websites:

1. Never Use a Brand Name in your Domain!
   I have made this mistake myself on a few sites and just waiting for the letter to arrive one day! LOL  The trick to it is to use the overall market in your domain versus the brand or manufacturer. You can use a generic domain and promote a single brand all day long, as long as the visitors would not get the impression you ARE the manufacturer.
   1. Good, Less-Risky Domain Names, contain no reference or resemblance to a brand.
      1. wholesalelingerie .com
      2. lingerie4u .com
      3. mylingeriesite .com
   2.  Bad or Risky Domain names could easily be mistaken as a manufacturer or brand owner.
      1. VicSecretLingerie .com
      2. wholesalevictoriasecret .com
      3. victoria-secret .com
2. Use a Disclaimer Page!
   While I have not done this myself, I often see sites that have a link at the bottom, explaining all copyrighted and branded info on the page belong to their specific owners, and are only used on the pages of the site for informational and display purposes. You can do this by adding a new content page to your BANS site, turn it OFF in the menu, and then put a link to the page in your footer file. This will keep it from appearing in your menu, but still allow it to be indexed and accessed from every page n your site.

Showing Brand Specific Listings on your Build a Niche Store Site

In Johns question, he asked specifically about how to get brand listings for a specific niche market, which I wont discuss here. I will however use the analogy of pulling brand specific lawnmowers instead. My goal for the site will be to have 10-20 MAIN categories of riding mowers: (Based on Brand) Then several sub-categories, focused on the long tail phrases people are looking for!

WebSite Niche Market: Riding Mowers, eBay Store Category: 43560

The main Lawnmowers category is going to automatically pull in the following related categories from ebay:

1. Lawnmowers
   1. Riding Mowers
   2. Walk Behind mowers
   3. Parts & Accessories
   4. Other…

From here, I will make my OWN BANS Main Categories, using the eBay categories as a starting point for my category system. (I only used 10 for this example, but there are much more) In the example below, I used “MC” for a main category, “SC” as a sub and “SSC” as a third level category. I would use CLOSED or STAGGERED store navigation to avoid making the page run too long.  I am only going to complete the FIRST category in this example, but you would do this for EVERY store category you choose to display on your store.

The reason for the price exclusion on the main category is to limit the listings to ONLY mowers. If you leave the price fields blank, you WILL get parts as well… You can also see that I added second level subcategories to the Craftsmen category of riding mowers, based on the different types. When it comes time to narrow your SSC, or second level subcategories down to specific products, you will have to do some experimenting to get the “best case” listings from eBay, and will likely have duplicates on several pages.

1. Riding Lawn mowers for Sale (MC - Renamed the eBay category for riding mowers)
   1. Bobcat (SC - keyword: bobcat -price: $250-$50,000)
   2. Craftsman (SC - keyword: craftsmen -price: $250-$50,000)
      1. Craftsman 20hp Riding Mowers (SSC)
      2. Craftsman 22hp Riding Mowers (SSC)
      3. Craftsman 26hp Lawn Tractors (SSC)
      4. Craftsman Garden Tractors (SSC)
      5. Craftsman Lawn Tractors (SSC)
      6. Craftsman Zero Turn mowers (SSC)
      7. etc etc…
   3. Cub Cadet (SC - keyword: cadet -price: $250-$50,000)
   4. Troy Bilt (SC - keyword: troybilt, troy bilt -price: $250-$50,000)
   5. Toro Mowers (SC - keyword: toro -price: $250-$50,000)
   6. another mower brand
   7. another mower brand…
   8. etc etc…

1. Walk Behind Mowers (MC, Renamed Walk Behind)

2. Self Propelled Mowers (MC)
3. Electric Lawnmowers (MC)
4. Reel Lawn Mowers (MC)
5. Commercial Lawn mowers (MC)
6. Lawn Tractors (MC)
7. Lawnmower Repair Parts (MC)
8. Riding Mower Accessories (MC)
9. Push Mower Accessories (MC)

Using the layout scenario above, you more or less “steer” your site visitors to EXACTLY what they want to find in 2-3 clicks of a mouse! If I was a visitor came from Google, where I was looking for a Craftsman Riding Mower, I would:

1. Click on Riding Mowers
2. Click on Craftsman Mowers
3. Click on the Type or size Mower I was interested in!
4. Click on the Link and off to eBay where I just planted that 7-day cookie! 

The bottom line and one of the GREAT BENEFITS OF BANS, is that you can have your menu system be as detailed or narrow as YOU choose! If you prefer ONLY to narrow to manufacturers, you can stop at main categories! If your site will ONLY have riding mowers, then you could delete the other categories from the eBay category list (walk behind, parts & accessories, other) all together and ONLY use the main lawnmowers and riding lawnmowers as your store!

A Tip for sorting your categories!

We have all seen the sort function within our BANS stores and had the headache of changing all of them when you add a new category 3 months from now! Heres a tip… Instead of using the normal 1,2,3,4,5 etc… to sort your categories, use: 10,20,30,40,50 etc etc… 10 being your first, 20 being your second and so on. When you come back in 6 months and want to add a new store category, but you want it to display 4th, you can set the sort order at 35, or anywhere between 30-40…

John, I hope this helped a bit.

Mark

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