Note: I will be adding video walk throughs to this post tomorrow

I noticed it isn’t there and thought perhaps you forgot to link to the video.

BTW: I am having a great time getting started and have 6 sites now. Today I am getting ready to back to them and add category pages right after I get more data from WordTracker.

The niche I may want to focus on shows 107 BANS sites with the same “general” search term when googling. TerraPeak show 230 listing with a sell rate of 30% and an average price $1300.

Google sandbox shows a lot of competition for that “general” term (full bar) and volume at half. If I add a more descriptive term (such as a brand name) I get little to no competition with volume at about 1/3 bar.

So my guess is that the target and domain I would want would include the brand but we know that could lead to disruption later. Would the volume of listings at eBay (230 per week) justify using this niche because the avg. selling price is high?

Also, one last question. I notice a keyword(s) when using the Google sandbox that is fairly short, has no competition but decent volume but really doesn’t make real sense as a domain name. Does that really matter?

I guess my next step is to get a subscrition to Wordtracker for the info I need. TIA!!!!

I enjoy hearing myself talk (or seeing myself type) so this is not a chore, but a pleasure to do!

There really is no magic number of products to qualify a niche. As long as there is demand for a related group of products and you can create a site that delivers what you want users to find, you have a good niche!

That being said – you wouldn’t want to limit yourself to a single product with very limited search demand, unless you found you were the ONLY site doing so. (see: usbhumpingdog.com) I know I am using the site as a negative, but if NOBODY ELSE ever targets his niche, he could actually have a winner. This also assumes people are searching for usb humping dogs! :-)

One of my very successful niche sites has an average selling price of $2.00 – commission is usally .25 cents or in that range. BUT – the site sells MANY items every day, which adds to the bottom line in its own way. Small change, I know, but with 10 small change niche sites generating $10-$15 each, every day, it becomes worthy very quickly!

In regard to where I am… Charlotte! Good to see another Tarheel in here!!

Mark

First off I really want to thank you for setting this up for everybody. I am sure it will be a great learning experience.

Is there any way you can give us an idea of what kind of numbers you look for in your research? i.e. live auctions (over 1000?), price ($50), etc.

Obviously golf is huge and the numbers reflect that. However, I have a niche I would like to research and I am getting 1250 for the number of auctions and the google search yields 80,000 pages versus 211 BANS sites.

Are these numbers adequate?

By the way where are you located in NC? I’m in Raleigh.

I’m thinking using images could be a good thing. It certainly makes the home page look different.

I’ll have to give it a try and see how things work out.

Great find on the site – it is actually one of the first editions of BANS, before the url rewrite function was added.

As you can see, this site was one that was put up and forgotten about… with no real focus on a niche market, just eBay as a whole. The site is indexed very well!!

in regard to the pictures on the main page… it is just like any other page of the site and can be setup within the admin fairly easily with a little html knowledge.

Mark

http://www.gordonphoto.net/store/index.php

I’m seriously hoping this is a work in progress (if it belongs to anyone on this site, I apologize!) but since the page I found was already indexed, I’m not so sure.

What I’m seeing is a domain, header and website name that don’t even go together (please don’t do this!) There is no other monetization on the site (Adsense or other affiliate products) so things look bare and the graphics on the home page are missing! And this was on page 1 for the term I was searching for (can you say “no real competition” from other BANS stores!!)

Aside from all the things wrong with this site, what I do like about it is the use of pictures (if only they were really there!) Has anybody tried this … having pictures leading to your categories from the home page? Any comments on whether it is a good idea?

Cindy

I assume the 12 week course has started.

Phil