Grill Auctions Update
October 27, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Good Morning everyone! Since I have been a slacker recently, I decided to post a quick note about the Build a Niche Store contest for the Grill Auctions site, as well as a brief overview of what I am doing on the site today.
First - in regard to the contest, I don’t want to post the current standings until I can access my office PC and get the spreadsheet I have been using to track the contest! When I left my home earlier this week to come to Massachusetts, I left some of my working files on my office computer. Normally this is not a problem as I can just remote desktop in and do what I need, but for some reason (probably the rain) I cannot access the system today. On Monday, I will have my office manager check the router and correct the issue.
So.. On to the Grill Auction status. Read more
Effectively Researching your Niche Market
October 3, 2007 | 11 Comments
In my previous post, I discussed just a few methods of Discovering a Niche Market. The sum meaning of the entire post, was to encourage you to simply look around yourself, there are niches all around us in every day life! To that point, I was cooking a little dinner last night, ok… they were hot dogs… nonetheless, I looked right in front of me and thought about my Gas Grill! I looked at the assortment of utensils I had to work on the grill, the cover I had to remove to get to the grill, and then thought about how many times, or parts I had replaced during my adult years to keep a grill running! (I like Hot Dogs :-))
I think I may have burned a few things as I ran in the house to get my notepad. As you recall.. I forget things quickly, and after all, eating was more important than anything else at that point!
During this section of the Step by Step affiliate guide, we are going to dig deep into he broad category of ”Grills” to find out:
- Is there demand for a Grill releated Niche?
- Do they sell on eBay & worth the affiliate commission?
- How competitive is the existing market?
- The value of WordTracker.
- MANY additional Niche Discovery essentials!
Lets get started!
Read more
The 10 Essentials for Build a Niche Store Success
August 21, 2007 | 2 Comments
After working with Build a Niche Store for 30 days now and having a total of 7 functional BANS stores running, I have found there are 10 essential things that you must do in order to have a remote chance at success with the product! All in all, Build a Niche Store is very easy to use and search friendly software for eBay affiliates.
So - you may ask - Mark, what qualifies YOU to tell me there are 10 essentials for Build a Niche Store?
Aside from liking to hear myself talk, or read myself talking… (does that really make sense?) this is just my own experience and observations from using the ebay affiliate software! While I have been in the search marketing and web development business for more than 10 years now, I still learn something new each and every day! I learn these things by reading posts like this, applying what works best for me, and doing my best not to procrastinate in following through with implementation of the changes… but I will talk about that later!
So lets go… The 10 Essentials for Build a Niche Store Success Read more
Choosing a Niche Market for Build a Niche Store
August 14, 2007 | 10 Comments
The other day - a reader (Jenny) asked about choosing the right niche for your Build a Niche Store website. This would apply to ANY site, not only the BANS sites you may setup. You are likely to find ALL SORTS of different opinions and strategies on the subject of choosing the right niche - the one below, is mine only… it works for me! Remarkably, some of your research in this subject will also serve as good information for your search optimization strategies!
The goal of your reasearch is to find a niche that is:
- Something YOU can be interested in!
- Search Popular, with low to moderate competition.
- Consumable - you want a product that will need to be used or replaced!
- Trends - when all else fails - follow the trends!
How do you Optimize a Build a Niche Store Website?
August 8, 2007 | 11 Comments
Alot of this will depend on the tools you have at your disposal. I like to use wordtracker to narrow down the focus of terms and phrases I want to target! My own experience tells me to start a website out with longer 3-4 word phrases in the beginning (-6 months old) and slowly narrow the focus to shorter, general terms as the site matures (+6 months). Shorter, very general terms will likely have high competition with sites that are several years old with thousands of backlinks! The goal is to get highly targeted traffic, in the shortest amount of time, that is most likely to convert to a buyer!
Lets look at the first step to optimizing a BANS Store
Step 1 - Set your Goals
July 16, 2007 | 1 Comment
If you have ever been in a field of sales or marketing.. OK any field in any industry, you know everything starts with a set of goals! Even if you are flipping burgers at the local McD’s - you have a goal of serving up 100 burgers in a typical lunch hour! Back in the day of working for Gateway Computer Corporation as a retail manager, we got to go (OK - they made us go) to this Richardson People Skills training course in Atlanta - one of the primary things we focused on was how to build up our people to succeed by setting SMART Goals!
SMART Goals - Specifc, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely