URGENT: Major PHPZon Wordpress Plugin Update

Wade Wells just sent out an email that there is a major update for phpZon Pro and it should be downloaded and installed as soon as possible. Per Wade, this update involves changes to the Amazon API that goes into effect on November 8th, 2010. This version of phpZon Pro complies with the new Product Advertising API version and also introduces new features (for the Wordpress version) such as caching data which is indeed a welcome feature. wade says he will be updating the API version of 1.x this evening and make a forum post when it's ready. Wade does a great job keeping all of these plugins up to date and if he says you need this, you need to heed his advice. His plugins are not free, but you get what you pay for along with great piece of mind.

20% Off Coupon Code For phpBay Pro or phpZon Pro

Wade Wells has a deal going right now where you can get 20% off either phpBay Pro or phpZon Pro by using the coupon code E907DB07EB

I have used both these great products for a long time and Wade is quick with any changes that either affiliate programs makes. Both these plugins are in my top 40 Wordpress plugins list and are a MUST in your toolbox. You can make a living off of using just these two plugins and Wordpress alone.

Most of you already own these I am sure, but you can not go wrong at this price. The forum also is top notch and worth the price of admission alone.

Critical Update For PhpBay Pro

Unless you missed it, Wade has an update ready for PHPBay to accommodate the new link structure for Ebay EPN affiliate links. Wade does a fantastic job support wise on ALL of his Wordpress plugins and if you have not yet purchased PHPBay or PHPZon, you really ought to consider it. They really are fantastic plugins that will make your money back in no time.

Below is the email Wade sent out.

Yesterday morning, EPN made a sudden announcement regarding a new link structure for Ebay affiliate links. As you can see, the information was vague at best and lacking in any details.

A group of phpBay Pro forum members and myself spent the day researching, and early this morning, came up with a fix to the new linking structure for phpBay Pro users.

The good news is, only the auction.php file is affected, so you will only need to replace this file on your sites (if using any 3.x version).

There are two ways you can obtain the new auction.php file:

1) Login to your store account and download the latest .zip file(s) for phpBay Pro for Wordpress and/or phpBay Pro API. This email is being sent from the phpBay Pro store to all phpBay Pro customers.

2) Login to the support forums using your forum account and visit the Critical Update thread.

This update, the auction.php, affects both the Wordpress and API versions of phpBay Pro. You will need to update your sites with this new auction.php in order for your affilite links/clicks to track properly with EPN.

This update nor the EPN changes affects phpBay Lite or versions of phpBay Pro prior to 3.x. If you are using those versions, there are no changes needed.

I do apologize for the inconvenience. This was a sudden and unexpected announcement from EPN with virtually no information, that threw us all into overtime mode to come up with a quick fix.

Kind regards,

Wade

Spot Check Product Filtering

Since the release of the new BANS guide, I have been asked to look at some new sites of a few of my readers. You can really tell those that finally GET IT. One common thing I have been seeing though is listings of products that do not match what the page is offering. This does indeed take some tweaking to filter out the items that you do not want. Most are properly showing 4-6 items, so you want to make good and well sure those items match what you are promising the surfer.

As thorough as I try to be in filtering out items that do not match or are not relative, they always sneak in. When I build a new site, I constantly spot check for 6-7 days in a row and multiple times throughout the day. I sort them in all types of ways from ending soonest to highest/lowest price to see if I can get an unwanted listing. Once I am satisfied, I will continue to spot check at least once a month, but for the most part they are filtered properly. For BANS you will want to of course use the eBay operators and for PHPBay, you can just use the words you want to filter out in the third spot. It really is quite simple.

Take the time to properly filter and spot check, you will be glad you did as most are missing this crucial step. Keep up the good work as well, I am seeing some fantastic looking sites that I am sure will produce.

Hunting & Attacking Hot Items With Bids

Hopefully you are visiting eBay at least once a week to see what is going on with your niches. Items can get hot really quick with no notice what so ever. I search eBay in my niches to show only items that have bids. I go broad and narrow. I look for any visible trends I can spot. Mostly it will be by a model number, sub item or brand name that gets hot and it usually is a longer tail phrase in the listing title as well. The more of this you do, the better you will get. If people are bidding on them, then there is a want for it, whatever it is.

If you use Wordpress, you can target that brand, model or sub item in a post or page and SEO up the post title and a good 100 or so words of content. Using the PHPBay plugin, you can zero right on in on that target product and show 3-5 items in that post as well. You will have a much better chance to rank and compete in a hurry if you target more SPECIFIC items within your niche, even if it is just a few. Give it a try on a few post and see how you do and always be on the look out for the low hanging fruits like this.

Not Every Surfer Knows They Really Want To Buy

People use the internet for information and entertainment just as much as they do for shopping, perhaps more. That is not a news flash, but often times surfers just do not know what they want or need until they see it. Congratulations, you just passed Advertising 101. Not rocket science by any stretch of the imagination. With television, people are shown commercials during their favorite show or sporting event. Advertisers try to match ads with the demographics for the show being shown. Congratulations, you just passed Advertising 102. You likely will not see an Ensure commercial during an episode of the Real World. Common sense, right?

So where am i going with this? Just a basic refresher of making sure you match your ads to the content of a particular page. More importantly blog post or articles. You could have BANS site focused on NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Jr., but have a blog post about what he was wearing in a commercial or an awards show. If the blog post was about what leather jacket he was wearing, it would make more sense to show ads or eBay listings about that jacket. PHPBay is fantastic for this chore by the way. If your BANS store is attached to a blog, you can always give them links in that post to the collectibles end of things. You may never make another post about that brand jacket again, but if someone was surfing for the leather jacket Earnhardt was wearing and you ranked for that in the SERPS, odds are they really like the jacket more so than Earnhardt.

Back to the main focus of this post though. They may just be curious of what he wore and not so much about buying it.... that is until they see it in their face. Get the drift? Now you do not want to create a whole BANS store page for a type jacket that you only will likely dedicate one post to, but you gave the surfer the opportunity to instantly react on impulse in a niche that you overall are not targeting and in just one click. Plus the post is likely timely and relative.

Get creative in your content page and blog post and start micro marketing within. One finally example in closing, If Earnhardt was to show up in a commercial for a new electric razor and you posted a link to the commercial or found a Youtube video of it, what do suppose your PHPBay listings in that post would be? You guessed it...that electric razor. Congratulations, you now have your internet degree in Advertising.

Use PHPBay For Those Longer Tail Keyword Phrases

If you have incorporated BANS into a Wordpress blog and haven't tried PHPBay, you might want to start. PHPBay is great for those quick and easy blog post centered around longer keyword tail phrases. I usually like to make a post of around 150-200 words with the long tail I am chasing in the blog post title and then display 3-5 product listings along with it. The click throughs are great on these and you usually can dominate those longer tail phrases very easily. Make sure to use a separate CAMP ID as well so you can track the effectiveness. Wade has done a great job on this plugin and I use it daily.

PHPZon Plugin Producing Amazon Sales

Amazon has always been hit or miss for me, but since installing the PHPZon Amazon Wordpress Plugin I mentioned a couple weeks back, I am seeing conversions on a more regular basis. Wade, who created the PHPBay plugin, is really progressing this plugin and it works great on BANS/Wordpress conversions and straight Wordpress blogs as well. The price will be raised soon, so I highly suggest buying this plugin ASAP, before that happens. Currently it is $30.00 for owners of PHPBay and will cost $49.00 once released to non PHPBay owners. You get free updates as well and it is more than work it's current price.

Adding Dynamic PHP To Header Or Footer

If you are wanting to pull in some dynamic PHP content on a certain page, perhaps in the header or footer section, this can be done very easily. often times I like certain text to show up in the header on a certain page. Often times maybe in the h2 tag. First copy the code below into the header.php section before the last </head> tag.

<?php
function curPageURL() {
$pageURL = 'http';
if ($_SERVER["HTTPS"] == "on") {$pageURL .= "s";}
$pageURL .= "://";
if ($_SERVER["SERVER_PORT"] != "80") {
$pageURL .= $_SERVER["SERVER_NAME"].":".$_SERVER["SERVER_PORT"].$_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"];
} else {
$pageURL .= $_SERVER["SERVER_NAME"].$_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"];
}
return $pageURL;
}
?>

Next if pulling text you may want to open notepad and try this test file. Copy below code and paste it in notepad and save as test.php on your harddrive. Then upload test.php to your website in the root section of your directory.

<h2>This is a test!</h2>

Next in the header section you can place the code below where you want the text to show. Perhaps up top in the header or underneath the search or wherever. The below example we will make the text show only on the homepage.

<?php
if($mainCat==""){
include("test.php");
}
?>

You can also tell it to display on another content page as well. Lets say you have a content page named history. The code would be like this below.

<?php
if($mainCat=="history"){
include("test.php");
}
?>

You can even display it on a certain store page using the curPageURL function. Lets say the location of a store page was http://www.yourdomain.com/store/coolstuff

You would have a command below in your header.

<?php
if (curPageURL()=="http://www.yourdomain.com/store/coolstuff"){
include("php/test.php");
}
?>

This would make that text show on that page.

You can also set it up to pull different php files for different pages. Say you created 3 different php files of different text and wanted each one to show on a different page. Lets say you named these test.php test1.php and test2.php

You want test.php to show on the home page, test1.php to show on the history page and test2.php to show on the store page namedcoolstuff. You can put all of the code together like below.

<?php
if($mainCat==""){
include("test.php");
}
?>
<?php
if($mainCat=="history"){
include("test1.php");
}
?>
<?php
if (curPageURL()=="http://www.yourdomain.com/store/coolstuff"){
include("php/test2.php");
}
?>

Wherever you place the code above in the header is where the text will show. This is a broad brush stroke on how to do this. It will take some playing around on your part and I highly advise you back up your header and footer files before playing around with it in case you mess something up. I use this feature in almost every BANS site I build. It is very easy to do once you play around with it.

eBay Wordpress Plugin PHPBay Comparison

I have received a few emails concerning the PHPBay Wordpress plugin and wanted to expand on it. Yes it is a great plugin. Yes it is very easy to set up and integrate into your Wordpress blog. I have been asked if it is better than Build A Niche Store and I can only tell you it is an unfair comparison. Both do the same thing, they deliver product listings of eBay listings via the EPN network. You can use the PHP ebay plugin to either add listings to a certain blog post or build a content/store page as well. It is just a different basket to put your eggs into, especially if you are very comfortable with Wordpress. An even better use of it is attaching a blog to your BANS store and posting to it at least once or twice a week with listings in the blog post. I am asked if I am dumping BANS for PHPBay all together and the answer is no. I just use it as a separate tool. I still use BANS and PHPeBay both, sometimes separate, sometimes together. If you are still a newbie learning the whole system, I would say continue on with just BANS until you see how the whole process works. If you are very comfortable with BANS then you might want to venture into PHPBay to give you a little more broadness. Thanks for all of the emails and I hope this clarifies my views on both a little better.