One of the types of sites I am going to start making is through BANS. If you haven’t heard of that yet then its basically a eBay affiliate store script. Its simple to install and customizable just like wordpress.
The first site I made is Login/Register to view. The reason I choose the site is due to its searches per day, competition, and the item sells on eBay. Let me cover how I determined that real quick.
Here are the steps to finding a niche
1. Go to eBay are start browsing through the categories. What your looking for are items that are not that common and when you sort by “Time: Ending Soonest” the items actually have bids. Really, who cares if you drive a bunch of traffic to eBay for products no one buys.
2. After you found one then head to your favorite keyword research tool. Mine is Keyword Discovery (the paid version). Now what you are obviously checking for is searches per day and checking to see if there are other related keywords with a bunch of searches.
3. When you found a good one ALWAYS back it up with another tool. You want to make sure you get consistent results. The tool at DigitalPoint is probably your best place to check next.
4. At this step you should have a good keyword that will receive good traffic. If you don’t start over at step 1!
5. Who cares if you have a great keyword if your never going to get any traffic for it. This is where we check the competition. There are a few ways to do this and Ill show you them. Just head to google and do the following searches.
“keywords”
allintitle:”keywords”
allinanchor:”keywords”
Where the qoutes are you actually type them in. What the first one does is check the number of web pages on the internet that contain that exact phrase. I would shoot for under 50,000 if you don’t want to do a bunch of work. The lower the number the better. Allintitle looks for those keywords that are just in the title tags and allinanchor looks for it in anchor texts. If you find one below 5,000 then it will be very easy to rank for those keywords with some SEO.
6. Next step is getting the domain. Just pick something with the keywords and then something at the end. I always try to just to the keyword then a 3 letter word. The shorter it is the more easy it is to remember.
After you go through all those steps then you are good to go and you can start building your BANS.
Then of course many smaller ones. If you look on my site on the right column you will see the main keywords I am targeting that I added special searches for. Below are some of them.
Login/Register to view
Login/Register to view
Login/Register to view
Login/Register to view
Login/Register to view
Login/Register to view
Login/Register to view
Login/Register to view
Login/Register to view
My next step is start building links!
By jballard on Apr 8, 2008 | Reply
Interesting niche. Surprised at the selling value of these items!
Jeff
By reallykool on Apr 19, 2008 | Reply
good luck. let me know how it goes.
By pauld29 on Apr 19, 2008 | Reply
Good advice that everyone new to BANS should follow.
I have done something similar to the ‘Popular Searches’ on one of my sites, though instead of creating a link with a search query I made a new page. I guess the advantage to your method is that it’s much quicker to do, while my method takes longer but allows me to target the keyword more by adding content etc.
Paul
By Bud L on Apr 19, 2008 | Reply
Thanks for the advice. I am new to BANS and wish I had heard of it a year ago. I’ve read some of your blogs and have to admit I don’t have a clue what you are talking about. As far as the niche thing goes … I do understand finding and keyword and then applying it to a niche so I guess I’ll be ok there. If you don’t mind I’ll let you know how I make out.
Bud L
By codythebest on Apr 29, 2008 | Reply
The niche is interesting. However, isn’t it better, moneywise, to focus on a niche that attract more people?
Of course, there is a scale where, on one side, more people interested, more competition and on the other side, less competition with less potential bidders. Am I wrong?
By codythebest on Apr 29, 2008 | Reply
You may add the : after allintitle and allinanchor. You won’t get the good search without. Also regarding the 3 letters, it’s a good idea. Personally, I try a “my” in the beginning. MyBayonetCollection, MyVideoGames, etc…But it can be anything else…
By Aaron Nimocks on May 1, 2008 | Reply
Cody,
Nice catch with the colon. Didn’t notice I had that typo in there.
As for focusing on a nice that attracts more people it is better to do that if you want to only focus on a few sites and spend a bunch of time on them.
My motto is work on a ton of less competitive ones than 1 competitive one.
By George B on Jun 3, 2008 | Reply
Oh! Perfect job!
Very interesting and actual post.
I add your interesting blog in my Netvibes page!
By website for sale on Jul 22, 2008 | Reply
i am new here and i am new to buying and selling website. Right now just trying to get as much information as I can. But good info.