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.

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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.)

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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):

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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.

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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.

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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

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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

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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:

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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

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BANS User Forum

Until this moment, I would have said nothing but positive things about the BANS user forum. I really have learned a ton there, and it’s a huge bonus that’s included with the Build a Niche Store software. Unfortunately, I just had my first bad experience there…

Now some may think this is ticky-tacky on my part, but someone wrote a long post about a recession and whatnot, and they had to throw in some jabs about the war in Iraq. I responded in a not-so-subtle manner that there were better places to talk about that stuff than the BANS forum. As expected, the response back was how it was posted in the “general discussion” board, and they had the right to talk about it.

I’m sure they’re probably correct that they have the “right” to talk about the Iraq war there, however having a “right” to do something isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be. I mean, I have the right to be a jerk, but if I exercise that right… well that just means I’m being a jerk. See what I mean?

Enough digressing…

Maybe I overreacted, but I really don’t want to talk about politics or anything like that at a place like the BANS forum. I checked, and there are over 19 million forums that show up on Google that deal with politics. Certainly these would be better places to talk about such divisive topics. And I realize it was just one comment in one post, but where does the slippery slope end? Should we talk about Democrats versus Republicans, religion, abortion, class warfare… where would it end?

So I wrote back and basically said “goodbye.”

Did I overreact? I don’t know, maybe… probably… But the thread also made me realize that I was spending way too much time posting to that forum… time I should have been spending developing my affiliate marketing business. Time I could have used to build new BANS sites, optimizing and promoting them. Time I could have used to build up this blog (where I can truly help people).

So I think it’s a good thing this happened, because it made me realize I was spending too much time posting to the forum, and not enough time taking action on my business. Which leads me to a valuable lesson I’ve already learned in the past, but apparently keep forgetting…

Take action!

It’s so easy to get caught up watching another “how to” video… or participating in the “affiliate marketing forums”… or “learning” or “experimenting”…

Let me say unequivocally that there is nothing wrong with any of those activities. However if all you do is watch, post, learn, experiment, then you’re not taking action to further your business. There always comes a point where the learning has to stop, and the doing has to begin.

That time has come–yet again–for me.

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