Promoting niche stores through forums

Sometimes a missed resource for getting traffic is through message board forums related to your niche. Now I am not saying run right out and start spamming your niche store in post #1, but often times you can buy links or ads for a very minimal price and the traffic is targeted. After registering see you you can email or private message the forum owner and discuss either a link trade or an banner ad, you might be surprised with the response. Even if it was a $25.00 a month charge on a fairly busy forum, it could pay great ROI. Get active posting in that forum and see if signature links are allowed as well. To find forums related to your niche simple google "your niche name" + forum.

BANS stores with hypens or underscores

I see a lot of discussion on what people think about using hyphens or underscores in their niche stores. For the easiest answer lets just take a look at Google.

http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Webmaster_Help/web/webmaster-help-charter-and-tips-please-read-before-posting

The above url uses both.

http://buildanichestoreblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/content-seo-and-niche-stores.html

The blogger platform uses hyphens like the url above. Being as Google owns Blogger and Google owns Google, it seems that both are really acceptable. I would however be consistent throughout your store. Personally i like to use hyphens, but I really do not see either one being an advantage over the other one.

Content SEO and Niche Stores

Yep. We are talking about content yet again. Hopefully I am driving home the point to you. Came across another bookmark from one of my favorite sites. Content is KING! Ms Walker has some great free tips below:

• Why Web Writing is Different
• Web Content Writing Core Goals
• Writing Effective Marketing Copy
• Strategies to Improve Writing Style

Put a search term to the test and see how lengthy some content is in both Google and Yahoo for the top ranking sites on page one of the results.

Using the news as a niche source

As many football fans may note, Packers QB Brett Favre retired today. I immediately was curious if a BANS store existed for Brett Favre stuff. Sure enough there is one. Favre memorabilia will be hot for quite a while and blew up quickly today on eBay. This is a good lesson in watching the news and current events to discover a niche to match a store with. If I am the Favre store owner, I would be on every Packer message board under the sun, promoting that link. Also, to the store owner, you are welcome for this free plug.

BANS 3.0 Build A Niche Store Review

Well, Christmas has arrived. Build A Niche Store 3.0 has been released and it does not disappoint. The platform is very impressive and very user friendly. I had the install done in 5 minutes flat and the user manual is very well laid out. If you are new to BANS, I highly suggest using Hostgator for hosting as the manual is written with it in mind. I have been a Hostgator customer for a while and am very happy with their service. BANS 3.0 now has a feature which will let you geographically target auctions by zip code if you want to build a niche store for local level promotion. If you are new to BANS, I suggest using a main eBay category to start with. If you get into making a custom niche store, you better know exactly what you are doing. I suggest a newbie start generic and get comfortable with everything before building a custom store. The url re-write function is nice as it hides the rover.ebay urls of the past. You can turn this on or off if you like. The new 3.0 also gives the ability to add content either before or after the auction listings as well. I give the new 3.0 version a 10 out of a possible 10. If you are an experienced webmaster or even a newbie, you should be making money in no time.

Feels like Christmas Eve... BANS 3.0

Well, hopefully sometime tomorrow, BANS 3.0 will be released. I have seen several of demo sites used and am just as excited as everyone else. One word of caution. If you have sites that are performing very well with 2.0, I highly suggest not upgrading them until you get a good feel for 3.0. I do not intend on upgrading any of my highly successful sites for a while, but might play around with a few of the slower ones. I suggest you get comfortable by building a new niche store with the new version before you do anything else and let the bugs creep out for a while. Have a great night and hopefully Santa does not let us down on Christmas Day! LOL!

Google and link relationships

The great Shoemoney has a post today about Google and link relationships, which needs to be read by everyone. This is quite useful for BANS store owners who might be linking out to there Squidoo page or other related sites. He gives a great breakdown video on Social API as well.

Only 2 more days until Build A Niche Store 3.0 is released. Yippee! see you on the boards.