Grill Auctions Update 11/02/07
November 2, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Hi All -
First and foremost, thanks to everyone for the kinds words of encouragement and prayers in regard to my fathers health! It is truly appreciated! Even though it has been a challenge to find the time to write each day, I am still deeply involved in the Grill Auction site and spend quite a bit of my free time working on making sure the contest winner has a good product and something I can be proud to award!
The site is still in the indexing process, but now shows more than 34 indexed pages, almost double that of just a couple days ago! In addition, a total of 12 of the targeted phrases now show in the top 20 SERP’s… I expect almost ALL of the category targets to be strong runners within 2 weeks.
The site has already produced both Google AdSense (4 clicks) and a CJ sale for a total revenue of $3.56. Not much I know… but in less than 2 weeks of very much part time and slow development, it is earning money! If I had pushed this site out in 1-2 days after registering the domain, it would be 1 month ahead of where it is now… The winner for this contest will not be disappointed!
I am still waiting for one of my boys to get my Grill Features article in my hands, but I think it is an issue of emails being crossed more than it not being done (Hint… Hint, Ryan)
I have had the combined contest results in my hands since yesterday morning, but have not had a chance to put it onto the screen - Here goes, results are through the end of day, October 31st.
- Ed Akehurst still holds the lead with 377 direct referrals
- Rochelle in second, is gaining significantly with 261 referrals!
- Otis still holds third with 94.
There have been two periods that the videos I uploaded have just killed my bandwidth limit and temporarily shut the site down for a few minutes… a few days, it has exceeded 5 gigs per day! That’s a big chunk of data… but I have made the proper increases to assure it does not happen again!
In case you all didn’t see, I also had a winner of my first official Build a Niche Store Review! Once each month, a new subscriber is chosen to have me go up and down their site and offer tips and suggestions for immediate improvement! In addition to the review, I provide detailed keyword and phrase reports on how they should focus their efforts in category building! At some point, I will have a chance to offer this as a paid service to anyone interested in getting it done… I just have not had the time to code the back-end stuff yet.
Happy Reading - Mark
Adding content to your Niche Store Website
November 1, 2007 | 4 Comments
We are getting very close to completing the Niche Store building series… I know I have slacked off a bit, but I am still out of state helping my father get healthy!! Challenging on several levels to say the least, but that is a whole section in itself!
The Grill Auctions site is live and already bringing in targeted traffic! In the 2 short days since my last post, the site has been visited by all three major engines and they continue to come back daily adding more pages into their respective indexes.
In addition, a few quick Google search engine result pages (SERP’s) for just a couple of our targeted terms shows we are already getting into the mix for business!
- Barbeque Smoker Kits #8 (Google SERP’s)
- Grill Auctions #1 (Google SERP’s)
- Chefmaster Indoor Barbeque Grill #14 (Google SERP’s)
I only listed a couple of the terms, but there are about 12 that are in the top 20 SERP’s with Google already. Why? Because we took the abstract terms (high KEI, long tail key phrases) people were looking for (Wordtracker search results) and created pages in our niche store to fill the void! This alone is the example of how your Niche Store will work very effectively!
So what next? Lets add some content to get MORE visitors! Read more
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
Customizing & Search Optimization of Your Niche Site
October 26, 2007 | 6 Comments
Hi Everyone - So today, I decided I would combine the next sections… I did this for no other reason than to help myself save time! I know, that’s just wrong isn’t it? Actually, I know the customization of your Niche Store is a section that could literally take me a week or two to cover and I don’t want to do it any injustice by trying to rush through it!
For now - I am going to tell you what I changed from the default template and how the look was done. I will also get into the explanation of why certain things are in different areas and their impact or effect on search results.
You ready? I’m ready… let’s go! Read more
Customizing the look of your Build a Niche Store
October 25, 2007 | 2 Comments
For the past several days - I have been hiding! Seriously, I’ve had a family emergency and needed to travel to the cold country of Springfield Massachusettes, to stay with my father for a while during a bit of a health crisis. Like any good web-based worker though, I brought computers and all my work with me, setup an office in a spare room and I have only missed a few beats!
If any of you have followed the look of the www.GrillAuctions.com site since Tuesday, you can see that the look is changing rapidly! I should have the entire site schema set into a new look by the end of today and we can then begin the process of optimizing all our categories and product pages to start getting targeted traffic!
When I have the time that is needed to explain how I have done the look of the site, I will create a sectioned video for your enjoyment. In the meantime, there is a great explaination of the functionality of the css style sheet and how it affects your Niche Store site located at: http://www.banstoolbar.com/css-colors.htm
I will also post a contest update tomorrow - there has been quite a bit of activity since my last update and the traffic has picked up considerably!
Thanks for your patience…
Mark
Creating Grill Auction Category Tree
October 18, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Since creating the categories is a key element of success with your Build a niche Store, I am going to pause the tutorial series to a small extent over the next few days as I work to not only develop all the main and subcategories for the Grill Auctions website, but also to try and explain the process just a little better to those who may be having a hard time with it.
Today - my only goal is to get all categories populated - I am not even going to optimize the categories at this point, other than a quick copy/paste of some generic keywords., and placing the sub categories below the respective main categories.
Later today, I will record another short video clip of how I have done this.
Under normal circumstances, once you have the categories created, even before you have optimized them, you can open the store for the search engines to start indexing.
It should only take about 1-2 hours to get all categories and subcategories created, then I will spend 5 minutes posting just one or two links to the store on the web.
Once the categories are live - you will be able to optimize with keywords, descriptions, and text above your listings, in less than 5 minutes per category. I will visit that process beginning again tomorrow.
Mark
Category Structure - Possibly a bit Clearer
October 18, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Hi everyone -
Just as a followup to the previous posts, I recorded a short flash video for you all to watch.
As you watch the screen - don’t get creeped out by the guy talking, thats just me! I thought it may help you understand WHY I recommend limiting your choices of categories, and using a hierarchy menu to guide your visitors where they want to be.
I am working on a second installment of this tonight that will show HOW I am creating the category tree within the admin of the store.
The file ended up being 14 megabytes in size, which is smaller than I would have thought. Let me know if you have problems viewing the file.
Thanks,
Mark
Creating a Niche Specific Category Structure - Part 2
October 16, 2007 | Leave a Comment
OK - I am fresh again! I had most of this post typed out over the weekend, which somewhat burned me out a little! Once I began finishing up yesterday I found that elimination of the non-essential categories would be a better place to start out… thus this whole post did not get done in one day!
Apologies to those of you that were on the edge of your seats… Hopefully, you settled back in and are ready to do some category building!
On that note - Lets go!
Read more
Publisher Programs to Support Build a Niche Store
October 15, 2007 | Leave a Comment
I have received a few calls and emails from people wanting to get straight to the meat and potatoes of Build a Niche Store - in other words… lets get started with the optomization and menu building already! :-) I know exactly where you are coming from and I felt the same exact way when I got started with the eBay affiliate software, I just wanted to get deep into it and begin marketing the Niche site I had in mind!
While I would love nothing more than to get to that section immediately, I think there would be voids in certain areas if you do not fully understanding the reasons for certain things… I read a message just yesterday on the BANS forum from a new user who wanted to know why the admin section has a field for a ClickBank ID and if it was needed to run the affiliate store. The main goal of this series of posts, is to help a completely new user build their own niche store and have a very good understanding of how it works. To that point… Those of you wanting to go deep only have 1-2 days left to wait!
Lets start today by talking about the affiliate programs you should to join.
Read more
Installing Build a Niche Store
October 15, 2007 | Leave a Comment
I guess this is one of the days many of you were waiting for! We have discussed the fact that you can make money with Build a Niche Store. We talked briefly about the niche discovery and demand process and we have gotten ourselves a host and the software to drive the store. Now is the day you get to install the software and get started on defining your Niche market!
I am sure that some of you have already gone through the instructions provided with Build a Niche Store, if that is the case… congratulations! For the rest of you…
Lets install Build a Niche Store! Read more