February 18, 2008
The video below talks about a quick and easy way to set a sitewide search query into your Build a Niche Store database. The reason we want to do this, is to avoid unrelated products showing on our site from day 1. During the category building process, this will also allow us to see instant results on all pages, with relevant niche related products.
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25 Responses to “Build a Niche Store Empire - Setting a Sitewide Search Query”
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Great video. I never thought about changing the query in the db. Now is there a way to do something similar to query a specific seller??
I’m setting up a site for a power seller and I’d like to limit it to just their products. (>2000)
Thank you
Mark,
Can you please explain what this is all about? What is a site wide query? A query for what? And why did you use “hybrid” as your default term instead of something golf-related?
Thanks.
Cindy
Not sure what is happening but the last two videos I tried to watch had very poor audio. I could not hear either of them. I turned my volume to the top and all I could hear was static, well until an email arrived and blew my ear drums.
Not sure what is happening but the last two videos I tried to watch had very poor audio. I could not hear either of them. I turned my volume to the top and all I could hear was static, well until an email arrived and blew my ear drums.
I have listened to a few other videos today and they all seem fine.
Hi All -
Sorry for the video issue - My microphone was a bit sensitive so I turned down the gain. I can hear the sound fine on my end, have to turn it up a bit, bt it OK. I will turn the gain back up for future segments to bring the loudness back.
@ Cindy -
When you build your niche store… the software does not know what items you are tergeting until you tell it so. After you have added a few eBay categories to your site, it will pull in ALL PRODUCTS in those specific categories, regardless of whether they are niche related or not!
In my case, I am targeting “Hybrid Golf Equipment”, the key word being “Hybrid” as opposed to graphite, steel, aluminum, etc. When I added my eBay categories to build the store, it pulled in ALL ITEMS in the golf categories I chose, so there was no need to use the word Golf as a search term, it was my category. In order to narrow the golf items down to the “Hybrid” products, I added the term hybrid into my database so it will only show auctions with that term.
Categories I chose, Golf, Clubs, Accessories.
Keyword (query) Hybrid
Now the site only shows auctions in the golf, clubs, accessories, categories, with hybrid in the title or description, thus it is VERY niche focused!
Mark
@ Brian
V3 has a field where you can enter Sellers ID/ User name. It will be out in a week or two ?. There should be a update for V2 stores with it. We just received a Email update saying they where finishing up some issues.
Volume issue:
I used headphones and was able to hear audio ok. Helped me concentrate too.
Mark
When you add the update query do you remove whats in the field. When I get the area where you say to add the update query command there is this-
SELECT * FROM `categories` WHERE 1
Do you remove this 1st or add under it.
Thanks
Thanks for the update. I’ll be watching for v3 with eager fingers ready to create my next (or first) million.
@ Bill -
You would have to remove the default text and type:
UPDATE categories SET query = ‘yournichephrase’
Then press go.
NOTE / WARNING: DO NOT DO THIS IF YOU ALREADY BUILT YOUR ENTIRE STORE - IT WILL WIPE OUT ANY CUSTOM PAGE QUERIES YOU MAY HAVE IN PLACE.
Hi Mark,
I have only one category that needs this option in my store. Is there a way to do this in phpmyadmin?
Thanks,
Angelo
Hello Mark,
a very useful tip, thank you. What do you mean by “IT WILL WIPE OUT ANY CUSTOM PAGE QUERIES YOU MAY HAVE IN PLACE.”?? Does it mean that it will delete my queries on individual store pages in the admin area of BANS?
Hi Mark, this evening I….
1) Built my category structure and my store displayed fine.
2) Next I updated MySQL for the query per your instructions. (Didn’t check my store after I performed that change)
3) Lastly I followed the video on setting main page properties.
When I went to view my store, it was gone and something else was in its place. Can you take a look at the site and let me know what I did wrong? It displayed fine when I built my category structure earlier.
Hi Pat…
Have you selected a template yet?
In your main page meta-description, you have: sizes of televisions up to 50″
The quote (inch sign) is causing the template to screw up.
Hi again Mark, It’s just my home page that I created that is displaying something weird. When I click on the other categories, they display fine. I went back through the instructions and don’t believe I left anything out.
Any help is appreciated.
Thanks,
Pat
Hi Mark, I edited the page and saved it, but it still won’t dislay. Messed up big time I think. Where to go from here, hmmm ?
Doing this is especially helpful if you create a BANS site based on keywords instead of eBay categories. Sometimes eBay doesn’t have categories for the niche you want and this will help quite a bit in narrowing down results.
Rochelle
[…] the Basics of your Main Categories Setting a Sitewide Search Term to Narrow Products to your Niche Market Keyword and long tail phrase research for search optimization of the main categories in your first […]
Hi Mark
This series is excellent stuff, thank you very much for the work you are putting in.
I have hit my first problem and have no idea how to diagnose it myself - a sitewide search term would be very useful to me but I get the following error message:
= = = = = =
Error
SQL query:
UPDATE categories SET query = ‘searchterm’
MySQL said: Documentation
#1054 - Unknown column ‘‘searchterm’’ in ‘field list’
= = = = = =
I hope you’ll excuse me being secretive over the actual term used! ;-)
Any ideas what I am doing wrong?
Thanks in advance,
Marc.
Hello Mark,
A very nice tip. It will not work for your search option though, will it? I mean if I type “club” in the search box, it will return ALL clubs, not only hybrid, won’t it? Do you know how to setup search that it’s bound to any particular keyword?
Thank you,
Mik
@ Mik -
You are absolutely correct! The search term will ONLY limit the number of natural results showing on the pages I have created.
If a user types into the search box, BANS will return results based n the term THEY are searching for, in the predetermined categories the store is setup to search.
Im unsure about stringing terms together in this case.
Mark
Hi Mark, I’m following your course as best I can but I think I’ve probably done what loads before me have and started reading your course after doing the initial work. 1. My first error is not having purhcased a domain that has a niche in the name = http://www.homelecs.co.uk. (Home electrical appliances) 2. the niche I’ve chosen felt good to me but on doing some research the UK site does not seem to have enough listings or sales unless I leave in all the related catagories. Even then I’m not sure that running a querie (if I had one) would help. Can you please give me a little bit of encouragement if possible?
Cheers
Trevor
@ Trevor -
The domain name is “Really” not as important as making your site unique and very specific to the search terms being used to locate your niche customers.
Build out your store just like it would appear in a physical appliance store. In other words, you walk in and see the different aisles (categories) of appliances, and within each aisle, you have different types / brands / features of appliances.
Base your products off what you find in keyword research…
I will have another video posted shortly on category creation based on my backlog of work. Watch for it soon…
Mark
Trevor, one of my latest stores may help you get what Mark is saying.. I kinda of struggled with the Domain name idea that you are talking about.. Hopefully this store will do ok and maybe what you are talking about.. Not completely optimized yet but getting there.
http://www.HelpMeLift.com
Thanks Mark and Jeff,
Mark - I look forward to your video and you’ve given me an idea of what i need to do. This is all like going back to when I first sat down in front of a computer - mind boggling and many errors ever since but none the less i’ve improved day by day - thanks to many helpfull folks like yourselves.
Jeff, i went to your site and was very impressed. I’m going to have a go at changing the layout and colour scheme of mine a little bit at a time. I’ve just added some google ads but they’re not showing yet.
Thanks again
Trevor
Mark, my item is all over the places in the different categories. How can I get rid of unrelated items from the category leaving just what I need? Would this method help?
Thanks,
Meg