Should You Still Build BANS Sites?

I received 2 almost duplicate emails in the last 2 hours asking whether or not BANS users should continue to build niche sites in light of Adam and Kelvin having the platform up for sale. The short answer is, yes. Why wouldn't you? If you haven't advanced to Wordpress yet or just a ton more comfortable with BANS, use it. It could be 2 weeks or 2 months until we see any new version of BANS. Even when and if it is upgraded and improved in all likelihood it will be easy to upgrade from the current platform. If not, the hardest work you would have is just rebuilding and copying over the content. Sure, depending on the amount of sites you have it will cost you some time to do this, but it will also cost you time if you sit and do nothing.

If you are truly still freaked out about all of this and want to wait, at least do something productive like planning out your next site on paper as discussed in the N1Way BANS guide and get your content written. If you still have time, head over to Wordpress.tv and start brushing up on the Wordpress platform. It is not going anywhere anytime soon that I know of.

The one thing I blogged about a little while ago is that the life of an affiliate marketer is always changing. Platforms come and go, platforms get upgraded, new affiliate programs are launched daily and current affiliate programs will always change terms sooner or later. You have to be fluid.

In closing, if you are most comfortable using BANS, then use BANS. Should any problems arise, they will be temporary ones. Do not let someone else's game plan alter yours. If you do, you are in for a long, hard road in this business. Remember, be fluid.

Build A Niche Store Platform For Sale

As you should know already, Adam & Kelvin have officially put the BANS platform up for sale on Flippa. While I have known it was going to happen for a while, I did not know when only that it would likely be soon. Adam and Kelvin as they mentioned a while ago have taken BANS as far as they want to take it. Now it is time for the right person to take it farther. I have already had a few emails asking my opinion on it and really there is not much to say. It is their baby and they are moving on to other things the last I heard. Many may think I have something to do with BANS from an employee stand point, but I merely donate my time and try to give back. Sure, I get some traffic to this blog from BANS, but this blog has never been my main stay, never will be. I build niche sites, this blog is merely an outlet to help others and keeps me conditioned to both writing and marketing.

The BANS platform is a great opportunity for someone who is well versed in PHP and affiliate product feeds. While I have considered buying it in the past, I am just not fluent enough in PHP to take that on. Also after long consideration, I it does not fit my long term goals of what I do or want to do. Whoever buys it, needs to be married to it, just like any business. Just like everyone of you should be with your niche sites. There will be a ton of bridges to get across before dime one of profit is to be made, but it is there for the taking I truly believe.

As far as me remaining a moderator, it all depends on if the new owners want to keep us. I don't know why they wouldn't, but stranger things have happened. Rest assured this does not affect me one bit. I will continue to do what I do and blog as I always have.

To Adam & Kelvin, thank you for an awesome platform. I remember the early days. BANS opened up a whole new world to me. I had been a webmaster for a long time, but rededicated my efforts to learning how to do things the CORRECT way, the MODERN way. I wish you nothing but success with all you have planned and hope I helped ease your load along the way.

Now, back to my list that I am way behind in completing today. Below is the email you should of already received.

After much deliberation BANS, N1WAY and a host of supporting domains
and project concepts have been put up for sale.

We've done as much as we can in niche site building and are looking
for an enthusiastic individual or team that wants to build on the 3
year foundation we've put together.

If you are interested in participating in the auction then you can do
so at the following url:

http://flippa.com/auctions/76177/BANS-N1WAY-Plus-Big-Bag-Of-Goodies-In-Niche-Site-Building-Market

Once the sale has been completed a final email containing details of
the new owner and any associated down time during transfer will be
sent out.

Kelvin and Adam

A Great Wordpress Template For Niche Sites

I am pretty picky when it comes to templates I use for niche sites. I have learned the cleaner the better. I do use the Arthemia theme that is suggested in the new N1WAY BANS Guide among several others. I recently found another that fits the bill as far as what I look for in a theme. The theme is called the Ads Theme and a demo can be found here. The colors are easy to change in the CSS and it has top navigation as well. It looks great with niche sites and products. Give it a try on your next site.


EDITED TO ADD: Gerry reminded me I forgot add the correct download link: http://www.eblogtemplates.com/ads-theme/

Never Be Afraid To Test New Things

I received a concerned email concerning the post I made about using the Wordpress plugin I found to move eBay listings over into the sidebar. The reader took it as giving up on EPN. That could not be the farthest from the truth. What I am doing is testing on a medium traffic site, to see if I can earn even more by putting more focus on higher paying items from another affiliate program, while not dumping eBay auctions or pushing them down past the fold. It is merely a test, something everyone should not be afraid to do. You should never be afraid to test new things as there is sometimes a better way of doing things and improving income. You do not know until you try it. If my EPN earnings drop on that site and are not replaced with MORE earnings from the other affiliate program, than the test failed and everything will be put back in it's original place. If I ever think I find a better way through the testing, I tell my readers. Many test I do, fail. which is good because I know more things that do not work.

Saturday Around The Web October 3rd

Happy Saturday everyone. I hope you had as good of week as I have had. My list is small this week as far as links go, but full of other links to keep you busy. Most of what I worked on this week was Wordpress related, thus quite a few links are related to Wordpress. Here you go.

I could just posted this one link and it would of kept you busy. Here are 69 Tools to Improve Your Website.

Wordpress security is a must and here is a great blog post on how to keep Wordpress secure.

I am always looking at great Wordpress plugins. This is the newest WordPress Plugin Releases for 10/02.

Lorelle VanFossen of Lorelle on WordPress discusses challenges and opportunities in the tag and category structure of WordPress blogs and shares some tips for keeping yours organized and effective in this video from Wordcamp Portland 2009.

Widget Context Wordpress Plugin

I am setting up some testing on a few sites in which I will be using this Widget Context Wordpress Plugin to show Ebay listings in the sidebar for each different product page. Each page will have it's own tailored product listings depending on what product is being pushed on each page. I have not set it up yet, but I do believe it will fit my needs. Regardless, the plugin has a number of uses that I will explore as well. The whole idea is to put more focus on selling higher profit items via a few other affiliate programs in the main page portion, without pushing the auctions down past the fold and losing visibility. If anyone has used this plugin, please comment below. Or you might have seen a better plugin to do the same thing. I will report back on this soon.

Here is some more on what this plugin can do.

Great Variety Of Niche Affiliates Under Two Roofs

I wanted to point you to two networks under two affiliate programs that have a wide variety of stores to market for. The first group is affiliated with Pepperjam and are run by the Hayneedle company. Hayneedle was formally called NetShops. Here is the list of Hayneedle run sites.

The second group of is affiliated with ShareASale and are run by CSN Stores. Here is the list CSN run stores.

As you can see this are just a small part of both Pepperjam and ShareASale, a very small part, but they offer a great variety of stores to sell for or do some niche research on.