Linking To Other eBay Stores

I recently had one niche store that simply did not have a long list of listings on eBay. The niche is in heavy demand and a few eBay store owners had it covered very well. I simply created links in my sidebar and resource pages to those eBay stores with my campaign id code inserted in the link via the ebay tools. This one store does very well for me and has very little products listed. So before giving up on a niche too soon, see if there are stores that match what you are trying to sell and send your surfers there.

Long Versus Short Articles as Content Strategy

Well it is Friday and I wanted to give you this read before the week is out. This is a great article on long versus short articles. get yourself in the right frame of mind before reading it. Another message along this same line is when to add something as a blog post or as a page of content on your Build A Niche Store. Personally on blogs I have attached to BANS stores, I usually only make a paragraph or two post. If you have some info or lengthy content, I highly suggest adding it as a page of content on your store. Blog post are really feel are daily feedings for the SERPS. Also I think the perfect lenghth for an article or page of content is 350 words or better. Personally, I do not think I have written anything over 550 words. But if it takes you more words to increase the number of keyword phrases, by all means do not let a word count hold you back. As you go into the weekend remember, ORIGINAL KEYWORD DRIVEN CONTENT IS KING. Make it a plan to write at least one page of content or one free article this weekend. Most of you fear it more than you should. It is in your head, so put it down on paper or in notepad.

eBay Search Commands In Your BANS Stores

One of the most under utilized features in the Build A Niche Store software is the feature that allows you to filter out items you do not want showing on your store pages. You are doing yourself and your niche store surfers a disservice by not giving them EXACTLY what they are looking for and what you are advertising as being able to give them. Surfers are getting more and more time crunched and want to find exactly what they are searching for in the shortest amount of time.

Lets say you sale blue widgets for example. A default set up in your niche store might show blue widgets, wheels for blue widgets, blue widget cup holders and blue widget accessories. Get my drift? I know you have seen it before. One of the best search term operators is the minus sign. Lets look below:
























you see we have the search term blue widgets and then -(cup), this will throw out anything with cup in the title. Now you can use multiple words separated by a comma and no spaces like this...

blue widgets -(cup,cups,wheel,wheels,red)

This will effectively weed out most of the junk out of the items showing on your store pages. Here is a complete list of eBay search commands to play around with. Start giving your surfers exactly what they are looking for and you likely get them back as a repeat customer as well.

Are You Fighting A 900lb Gorilla?

Plain and simple a 900lb Gorilla is a term used for a website or sites for a specific search term that will close to impossible to unseat in the SERPS. Notice I did not say impossible, but I like to choose my battles wisely and if you are new to SEO and Build A Niche Stores, there is no reason to battle the 900lb Gorilla.

Some good free tools to see if you are against a 900lb Gorilla starts with a simple search of Goggle, Yahoo and Live for a keyword phrase you are competing for. Lets go with the post yesterday and "collectible cameras". Do a search on all 3 engines and take note of the top 3 sites in each.

Google:

www.collectiblecameras.com
www.manfredschmidt.com
www.photolinks.com/Vintage_Cameras_Photography_Equipment.html

Yahoo:

www.collectiblecameras.com
www.collectiblecameras.com/catalog/index.php?category_id=230
www.manfredschmidt.com

Live:

www.collectiblecameras.com
www.greencamera.com
stores.ebay.com/Cupog-Collectible-Cameras

as you can see...

www.collectiblecameras.com & www.manfredschmidt.com have pretty good showings. Now lets see how good. We can use this free link popularity tool to research collectiblecameras.com for starters against 3 of the other sites.

Here is what I filled in below:












Here is the result page:
















As you can see www.collectiblecameras.com has 90 Google links and 1833 Yahoo links. While this is not a 900lb Gorilla it certainly is a 400lb one and will be quite tough to overtake as #1. However www.manfredschmidt.com and www.greencamera.com are definitely in reach according to that data. You can drill down each top 10 from each search engine this way as well. In addition you can use this free tool to see most of the anchor text used as well and the backlinks pointing to these sites as well.

Remember that sometimes it is not the quantity of inbound links sometimes as much as it is quality of the sites linking to said page as well. Further analysis of www.manfredschmidt.com reveals that they have some great yahoo directory links as well as a dmoz listing which really fortifies it's stronghold. You can run a test on the top 20 overall to get a better look at the entire competition. If there are more than a few 900lb Gorillas in a search phrase you would be better off going after a longer phrase or an entirely different phrase all together. Pick your battles wisely and until you are much better at SEO and are making some good money with your Niche Stores, I would wait to battle the 900lb Gorilla. He will likely still be there waiting for you when you are ready.

Follow Up To Content Right Under Your Nose

One of my loyal blog readers asked me to go more in depth on an earlier post I made concerning content right under your nose. Basically what I was trying to convey is perhaps your Build A Niche Store is focused on collectible cameras for example. Now not having researched this niche myself (but it is a thought) I would guess that there are several types of vintage cameras one could collect. That being said, you could simply research the internet for types of vintage collectible cameras and create a checklist of sorts of some cameras that one might be interested in collecting. You could list a dozen or more by name with say model numbers and perhaps manufacturer name along with the year it was made. it doesn't have to be anything too complex or over the top. Primarily the name and model numbers will be great Google food for organic searches and bring in some traffic just on its own. I paused in writing this post to do a quick search for collectible cameras in Google and the first result is a great starting point.

We feature collectible & used equipment by:
Agfa, Alpa, Argus, Bogen, Bronica, Canon, Contaflex, Contarex, Contax, Exakta, Hasselblad, Konica, Leica, Mamiya, Minolta, Miranda, Nikon, Olympus, Pentax, Retina, Rollei, Sigma, Topcon, Voigtländer, Yashica, and Zeiss.

Now surely you could drill down, with a quick search on Google, each manufacturer. Perhaps even just list the brand name itself and build a couple of paragraphs around these manufacturers. Wiki is also a great source of info as well and the content can be put in your words very easily.

Perhaps you sell a collectible series of something, surely a nice checklist put in table format with model#s would be useful. The content is right there in front of you and you need not look far to find it and perhaps format it in a way no one else has. I hope I have cleared this up a bit for you. Any content is good content as long as it is put in your words or format.

Build A Niche Store Category Update For eBay Cat# Changes

Just got the latest email update on the new category changes for the BANS software. The email was as follows.

Thanks for your patience while we have been working through the
issues we had described in the forum.

The databases for v3.0, v2.0 and v1.3.1 have now been updated to
contain the latest eBay category structure.

For all "new builds" with v3.0 please log in to the appropriate
download area to download the latest complete version of v3.0:

1. For all ClickBank purchasers (the majority of BANS users) please
visit: - http://www.buildanichestore.com/update

2. For all special offer purchasers via PayPal (from Jim Cockrum
and Lynn Terry recommendations) please visit: -
http://www.buildanichestore.com/paypal

You will need your ClickBank receipt number for download area 1 and
your Paypal email address for download area 2.

If you have any problems downloading the updated BANS v3.0 please
submit a ticket to our download support center -
http://www.buildanichestore.com/download

To update your existing store categories please download the
relevant file from below and once downloaded please read the
"READ-ME.txt" file for further instructions:

Updating v3.0 Stores: -
http://www.buildanichestore.com/members/26th-May/BANS-v3.0-Category-Update.zip

Updating v2.0 Stores: -
http://www.buildanichestore.com/members/26th-May/BANS-v2.0-Category-Update.zip

Updating v1.3.1 Stores: -
http://www.buildanichestore.com/members/26th-May/BANS-v1.3-Category-Update.zip

Please note that v1.2 is unable to have a category update procedure
as the subsequent versions of BANS detailed above were built in a
different way.

Kelvin and Adam

Free BANS Build A Niche Store Template

Here is a very Google friendly template I just finished. Please download the file and unzip to your hard drive. Upload the Green folder to your templates folder on your Build A Niche Store server. Log in to you admin section and choose Green template.

Detailed installation instructions and how to edit the header file with your own links is in the READ ME file included in the download. Depending on feedback of this template I will likely do this one in more colors.

BY USING THIS FREE TEMPLATE YOU AGREE TO LEAVE ALL CREDIT LINKS IN TACT AND CREDIT THE CREATORS.


Download Free Green BANS Template