Before you buy Build a Niche Store, please make sure you are already accepted to eBay affiliate program (managed by cj.com), VERY VERY IMPORTANT !

There are few eBay affiliate programs listed in CJ, e.g. eBay UK, eBay US, eBay Canada etc. If you are not from these countries, they disapproves you automatically when you apply. Don’t even bother to appeal as you will mostly fail, just like me and countless international affiliates. Don’t believe? just go to any webmaster forum and ask, or look at those threads at eBay forum. What can I say? The poor eBay has some clueless affiliate management staff there. Most of my traffic are from US, I have a legitimate website and advertising budget, but that don’t help.

Ok rant off. You have been warned.

P/S: You may be wonder why I earn affiliate commission while eBay affiliate program rejects me? it’s simple, I became partner with an eBay affiliate from US. I used his account to generate commission :). Alternatively, you can also set up a US forwarding address, then use that US address to apply to eBay affiliate program.

If you fit the bill, consider my BANS bonus.  

Just send your receipt to chiayee.lai[a]@gmail.com and I will get back to you ASAP.! If you have questions feel free to email me !

Once you identify the top product, create a page targeting the product brand name as keyword in following sites:

Squidoo.com
Hubpages.com
EzineArticles.com
Zimbio.com
Gather.com
Xanga.com
9rules.com
eHow.com
43things.com
Yahoo answer
answerbag.com
Usfreeads.com

Do not spam these sites. Put up some useful information on the product, including attractive features & benefits, then link to your BANS side. Write useful reviews, emphasize how the product will make the customers life better and easier; tell them they can get the best bargain from your store. Here’s a secret for writing review: if you can actually point out a minor flaw of the product, it will make your review make more credible and increase your sales!

Rinse and repeat, watch the sales coming in.

WAIT !! One last thing… very important!

As you already knew, this method is called bum marketing. Many people think that they can just throw out some articles based on long tail keywords, and make money. Sadly it doesn’t work that way. Look, you have to treat each article as a webpage, i.e. offpage SEO is equally important. You need to generate backlinks to your each article!

Many people will suggest that you submit your article page to social bookmarking site. Do that and you will find your articles deeply bury in the social sites. Here’s my secret: I look for few high PR hubpages and squidoo pages, leave some nice comments with my article URL and bang! Few quality links from authority sites. This works like gangbuster as it really helps to pull up the search engine ranking. I use a tool called Squid Hub Searcher to find these links easily; you can see how it works at the video here.

Of course you can manually find the high PR blogs or sites. It takes a lot of time, and time is your biggest asset. It’s why I use Squid Hub Searcher to automate the task.

Part 2
Here’s another way to funnel targeted traffic to your BANS store, using strategy #1 that I mentioned, but this time you will use typo and misspelling of the product names. This is because for some popular products, the product name is still quite competitive in search engine.

Here’s a free typo generator: http://www.syndk8.net/cgi-bin/mistertypo.cgi

I’ve have great success with traffic generation using typo and misspellings. You will be surprised the traffic of these misspellings and typos could bring. Sadly many people totally ignore this strategy whining that it won’t work. These keywords are gold as the competition is extremely low, but they bring ultra targeted traffic who are ready to buy. However you have to know how to make it works for you.
If you are serious with traffic generation to your site, I highly recommend Alexis Dawes’ Typo Gold.

Yeah it’s my affiliate link, if you purchase via my link I will give you a rebate of $10 instantly after your purchase (via Paypal). The purchase will be based on my trust in you, and I am very confident that you will be very pleased with the information.

Ok, the key is, finding what the hot selling products are and promote ‘em! There are tons of websites you can use to identify the trends, here we go:

1. eBay
Find out what’s hot on eBay now:
http://pages.ebay.com/sellercentral/whatshot.html

Depending on your area, you can also check the hot selling products from respective countries:
http://pulse.ebay.co.uk - UK
http://pulse.ebay.co.ca – Canada
http://pulse.ebay.com.au – Australia

At the column “Category” there’s a drop down menu where you get to select and check out the top items in each category.

2. Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/ref=pd_ts_h – List of top selling products from Amazon. There are various categories on the sidebar. You can select your niche and check out the hot items.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/bestsellers/ref=pd_ts_m_h__ldr/203-7082884-8022344 - Popular items at Amazon UK

http://www.amazon.ca/gp/bestsellers/ref=pd_ts_b_ldr/701-5398607-3228316
- Popular items at Amazon Canada

3. http://www.ciao.co.uk/ssp.html list of most searched products in UK

4. http://shopper.cnet.com/4005_9-0.html list of popular electronic products

5. http://pricegrabber.com/home_mostpop.php list of popular products at pricegrabber.com

6. http://www.sharewareplaza.com/mostpopular_1.html list of popular products at sharewareplaza.

7. Yahoo! Buzz
http://buzz.yahoo.com
-Yahoo! Buzz publishes the most searched terms on Yahoo! Search engine daily. There are 6 main categories:
http://buzz.yahoo.com/actors/
http://buzz.yahoo.com/movies/
http://buzz.yahoo.com/music/
http://buzz.yahoo.com/sports/
http://buzz.yahoo.com/tv/
http://buzz.yahoo.com/video_games/

The buzz log gives you good ideas on the current trend. How would it help you? Think about the products that the searchers might be interested in. For example, celebrities autograph/posters, video games console etc etc.

8. http://hotsearches.aol.com
Similarly, AOL.com updated their most searched terms daily. The category includes electronics, gadget, celebrity, auto, movie, music, TV programs & vacation destination.

I can go on and on with the lists, but this is enough to keep you busy for a while. Here’s a tip: find popular online store, check their top selling charts and you will get an idea of the in demand products!

Niche selection is only the beginning. You need to drive targeted traffic to your store to make money! This is where most people fail! Read here to learn how to drive traffic to BANS store!

Unlike BANS, phpBayPro requires customization from your parts. As phpBayPro uses wordpress,you need to have basic installation and coding knowledge of Wordpress to make phpBayPro works for you. If you are already familiar with Wordpress, then phpBayPro is for you. If you are a non techcie, and want something be to set up quickly and easily, then by all mean go for BANS.

Both programs are excellent for generating eBay affiliate commissions, if you select the right niche and drive targetted traffic to your store.

Buy phpBayPro => Click here!

Buy BANS => Click here

Yeah those are my affliate links, if you do buy via the links kindly email me to claim your bonuses.

In another post I gave warning on Build a Niche Store(BANS) system. Now many people are wondering, if I am really making money with BANS , why the hell am I sharing my money making secrets. To all your whinner out there, here’s my story:

As you guys know it is very hard for me to apply to eBay affiliate program. However, seeing the potential of BANS I have some ideas on how to best monetize it. I share the ideas with a friend who owns Build a Niche Store and it works like gang baster! It made him nice pocket money. I talked about the strategies a little in a webmaster forum. Soon after, a guy approached me and proposed a joint venture. After few emails exchange, we’ve decided that I would promote his BANS store and get a cut from his commissions.

We went ahead to work on the project, from niche selection to traffic generation. Weeks later, the money started to come in. We built more stores and watch more $ coming in ! If memory serves right, the few BANS store has earned up to thousands in eBay commissions, BUT…

My partner started avoiding me, so to speak. He aint answering my emails and IM messages. He was supposed to Paypal the commissions to me, but didn’t do so. He just disappeared like that.

Til today I have no idea what is happening. I am screw, I think. What a lesson…!

I went ahead to apply to eBay affiliate program with no success. The whole application and appealing process is pain in the ass. Their affiliate program is managed by some clueless corporate executive. I decided to stop whinning trying and move on to other money making venture..

Since I wont be moentizing BANS, I decided to publish my strategies online. I am very confident that my methods work, only if you put it to work.