Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone! I hope that 2008 has been a good for your affiliate marketing business.

I’ve had a great month of December. So far, my earnings are 3x more than what I normally make in a month. Obviously it’s due to the Christmas season, but still impressive considering the current economic climate. Even more impressive is the fact that I really haven’t worked on my affiliate sites for the past couple months!

My Main Earnings Source

The majority of my December earnings have come from a Nintendo Wii BANS site that I setup last Spring. I can’t even remember the last time I worked on that site, but MSN decided to index it and rank it fairly well for some good terms.

The rest of my earnings are coming from a combination of BANS site and WordPress blogs running phpBay.

I’m not lazy and I put in a lot of hard work setting up my sites, but it amazes me that they can essentially run on auto-pilot for a few months or more, and my earnings still go up 3x during the Christmas season.

Sweat Equity

I credit my success to all of the “smart” hard work I invested in getting my sites setup.

I also credit my good training from Wealthy Affiliate, and the great keyword research I was able to perform using Micro Niche Finder and NicheBOT. Remember that there isn’t a software tool or training resource available that’s the silver bullet for making a profit with no work. (Trust me when I say I spent countless hours researching my niches, setting up my sites, and marketing them.) However great tools can make your hard work be more efficient, for the best results possible. I’m very pleased with the results I’ve obtained from the tools I rely on.

Happy Holidays

I’m looking forward to 2009, and wish you and your family the best this holiday season. Here’s to all of our ongoing success!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Fellow BANS Member’s Take on the ePN Firings

Yesterday I blogged about how eBay has recently fired many affiliates. Well if you use the Build a Niche Store software and participate in their member forum, you’ve no doubt seen the many posts from members who are angry and trying to figure out what to do next.

Soggy from the BANS forum has recently written a very informative post on his blog titled “Build A Niche Store Has Your Best Interest In Mind.” In the post, Soggy answers the question “what to do now?” with some practical steps.

Some of the steps Soggy listed are:

“I would take a good hard look at your stores and see which ones are viable in adding additional affiliate programs. Take an inventory of all sites and look to find matching product lines offered by other affiliate programs.”

“Stay active on the BANS forums as the dynamic shift is beginning and you do not want to miss a thing.”

I encourage you to read the full post for yourself.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Converting BANS Sites to the eBay Partner Network

I hate to admit this, but I still haven’t finished converting all of my BANS sites over to the eBay Partner Network (EPN). I meant to have all of them converted well before now, but with the death of my father and the entire family coming down with strep throat, things haven’t worked out as planned. Sadly I’ve only converted about 20% of my sites so far.

To make matters even more interesting, my top non-eBay merchant that I promote also decided to change their program provider this month, except they gave absolutely NO WARNING, so I had to quickly move to change all of my links for that campaign.

Oh well, such is life. With my father’s unexpected passing, I’m not going to let any of this ruffle my feathers too much.

So in the spirit of marching onward, the very first BANS site I ever created (that’s still running BANS 2.0 with Commission Junction) is going to get the double-whammy tonight! I’m going to apply the BANS 2.0 -> 3.0 EPN update all in one shot.

Wish me luck!

(Update: all of my sites have now been successfully converted to the ePN.)

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

How to Succeed with AdWords

A lot of people lose their shirts with AdWords. Well here is a method that can give you a much higher chance of converting into profits (although you can still lose your shirt if you spend more on advertising than you can afford):

Read more

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

BANS 3.0 Tips and Tricks

Here are some helpful tips and tricks you can employ on your sites that use the Build a Niche Store 3.0 software:

Add a Privacy Policy
Not only does Google give your site more PageRank if your site has a privacy policy, but it’s actually required under both the Google AdSense and Commission Junction terms of service. So if you use either on your sites, you have to have a privacy policy.

Read more

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Writing Ads for USFreeads

If you have an account with USFreeAds, or have been considering getting one, you’ll want to check out Rochelle’s instructions for writing ads for USFreeAds. They’re slightly focused on BANS and the eBay affiliate program, but you can easily adapt the instructions for any type of ad.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

BANS Mod - Move Sitemap to Footer

Here’s an easy mod for Build a Niche Store 3.0 that removes the Sitemap link from the left or right navigation column, and places it in your footer instead:

1. Log into your admin area and go to the Content Pages tab.
2. Select Off beside

Read more

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

BANS Mod - Default to Advanced Search

I recently developed my first mod for the Build a Niche Store 3.0 software. The mod makes the advanced search options visible by default. Here’s what I mean:

The image above shows the normal search that shows up Read more

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Getting Inbound Links to your Site

Mark from the Build a Niche Store Empire series recently posted about getting inbound links to your site, otherwise known as backlinks. In the post, Mark lists some excellent, high quality ways to get inbound links (which the search engines love). Here are a few more ideas that I’d like to add to the list:

Read more

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

February BANS Update

Here’s my Build a Niche Store status update for February:

• I just got a check in the mail from Commission Junction for $97 and change.
• My pending balance is $29.42 and climbing. At least this is over the $25 payment threshold, so I’ll be getting another check next month.
• I created another new BANS site around

Read more

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Next Page »