I’m starting to have fun with making these Build a Niche Store sites and themes. The latest site I created is focused on The Incredible Hulk comics and collectibles. My first design based on IronMan, was already is a success which is showing earnings from no paid advertising. With the new Incredible Hulk movie coming out next month, we just might see another big success story for Marvel.
Still using Ian’s BANS Themes, I created the Incredible Hulk Comics site using his “baby theme“. When I first looked at his three themes, I wasn’t too thrilled about this one, but I’m actually pretty happy with how it came out. If you are already a BANS user, I recommend picking up Ian’s themes. I’m also hoping he has the time to create a new set.
I made a long screenshot and break down of the BANS Incredible Hulk Comics site and what each section of the page is made up of. The main ebay auctions are all powered and updated live from ebay, and if you select any of the links in the ebay categories section on top, it will produce results for that category within your BANS site. The navigation and content pages links on top are for pages that you create for your site visitors. The search box on the right will search through all ebay auctions and display the results on your page. Along the right hand column you can load your site up with affiliate banners or other methods of advertising. Ad spots available are 120×600, 160×600, 300×250 and a 468×60 along the bottom. Using Ian’s BANS themes, you can easily modify your design to make it however you want.
There is still one more theme in the Ian BANS theme set. I’ll be sure to create my next Build a Niche Store with that theme and will keep you updated. Look for the new theme post and site early next week.
These BANS websites are a great concept but do they actually work?
What about from an SEO perspective? I see you have a sitemap.xml file for this site, but most pages have are 100% ads. won't this hurt your quality score if you try to launch a adwords campaign or try to rank in the organic search?
Keep posting about this, I'd like to see how it works out for you.
I'm seeing some decent traffic from search engines for being new sites. I like to try and add a few content pages to the sites, to show real content.
As for running your own adwords campaign, just make sure your site is relevant and provide quality pages and service and you should be fine. I'm testing a bit with this now and will keep you updated.
I currentl have 9 BANS stores and am working at picking proper keywords after finding out that my concept of keywords differed broadly from those doing the searching. I subscribed to Wordtracker and it is helping a lot.
Interesting blog.
How do you get around trademark, licensing, and royalty issues without being sued in Federal court?
I received an email fropm the founders of BANS, Kelvin and Adam. In it they mentioned there will be a version of BANS that will work with Ebay through the Pepperjam network. They said Stage 1 would be forthcoming this week. Has anyone else heard anything regarding this?
Zac. I have a suggestion that you don't post your next site. Show that this method actually works without posting it to a site with 2800 RSS readers. Then maybe give a review of this BANS site in 3 months … and you could even do a comparison between the three sites.
This would be much more useful to the skeptics
Definitely, I have no intentions in listing all of my bans sites. The purpose is to the show different themes available and how to make money off each set.
As for promoting the bans site off my blog, it really isn't that influential… besides being an example to others. People coming to ZJ aren't looking to bid and buy Hulk/IronMan products.
I have found that bans stores do index themselves pretty fast and well in the search engines. Of course this also depends on how well you create them and write up pages.
I agree to this comment. Not everyone will have that much success, so you should really test a BANs site purely by itself.
-Mike
Zac, I think it's cool that you're showing your results. But it's be a better case study (imo) if you did not display the site you were using until after you've had 30 days with it or so.
Because how do you not know that people that have come to the Ironman site (and now this one) didn't just buy something when they saw you post it on your blog here?
Is there a way to tell how much you've actually made from the search engine and not as a result of the post on your blog here?
This will be a case study, expect results (post) withing 30-45 days.
Ok but does that mean you will be posting results from stores you haven't posted here though?
Yes.
I have no intentions in listing all of my bans sites
for all those that are eager and asking about if BANS will work, how would you know if you do not try it? I have had success with my first bans in early December and did great with it for the electronics niche.
creating a website and expecting it to work and make money is false, there has to be some work in it. also what would be the definite definition "does it work" if it makes 1$ would it be considered a wroking viable source of income? or if it makes 100$? it is a source of income other and outside of zacs other traditional income.
I find the BANS system works if you want to be on a per sale basis with aff marketing andpromotinon. but asking if it wokr is sucha a poor answer for you to see if something is worth purchasing and testing – simply test it out and market it, jut do not expect a BANS or any other site will 'work' because you bought a dot com
I couldn't agree with you more Ian. "Does xxx work?" is such a poor question to ask. I understand wanting to have an overview of a method or product, but asking another marketer whether it works or not does not help you. Why rely on another persons experience? That person may have failed to produce any positive results for reasons that may have zilch to do with the product or method. The only way you can know for sure is to get off the fence and test the product or method for yourself.
How much have you made with BANS sites, if you don’t mind me asking?
That's a great idea….I wonder if those BANS site thingies will catch on?
I have been considering purchasing Ians templates myself so I am glad you like them. I have only bought one template so far and quite frankly it was full of bugs….I'd have one question…..does it work in all of the layouts? I tend to use Layout 4 and layout 5 but many of the aftermarket templates I have seen are not optimized for that layout. Thoughts?
all layouts does work 1-5 are all adjusted within the CSS to snug easily in the templates created
Zac, Where can I buy a BANS site ? It would be great if I could customize it. just like you did.
I went ahead and bought it just now so I could try it out. The software comes with a few free templates and instructions for setting up the store, so you don't really need anything other than what comes with it, although keyword research tools definitely help.
I am thinking of buying it.. Can You use the software more than once ?
Once you buy the software you can make as many sites as you want with it.
Yup, you can do whatever you want with it. It's really easy to use, I'd recommend it.
I've been using BANS for 8 months (or so).
This new look will be an incredible help. The original BANS is very web 1.0.This new theme gives it more of a web 2.0 feel that sizzles.
I guess you should write an ebook about building BANS sites. Not just to make money from its sales, but to help us!
Not a bad idea. I could write an ebook or just a bunch of series type posts. I will wait for more stats so I can provide you all with better figures.
Wow I love the design of the site… it really fits with the whole incredible hulk look! BANS is an easy way to make some nice commissions!!
That's a very nice design…But what will be your plan when the popularity of this movie has passed?
There will always be an interest in ironman, hulk and all other comic titles. Its a fun niche to market to with or without any movies in play. If and when sequels come out, they will also get hot again.
BANS is a waste of time and money. Believe me, I know. Google hates BANS and will nuke your site from their index. On top of that, the new eBay EPN sucks and isn't trustworthy. The only people that really cashed in were the people that created BANS and anyone with a large enough audience that was able to put an affiliate link to BANS and make money from their blog readers. Only problem with that is Clickbank sucks and cannot be trusted either.
Hi Zac, I've discovered BANS here and it looks like a very useful tool. I have a lot of work to do but probably I'll give it a chance, I hope soon
.
Hello!
I bumped into this website and looks interesting! I will be reading this blog from this point on. It looks like comics is something that really interests you. Do you think that the site can bring significant profits through the ads on the Hulk site? What ad company did you use to post them up?
- Venture Blogster
More than anything else, it's targeted marketing. The banners shown on the site are from TFAW.com (through Shareasale) and SideShowToy.com.
I must say, after reading this series I really am impressed with the BANS program. Makes making money online so simple!
As for you… top notch work as always Zac. Keep it up.
after reading this I really wanted my own BANS website.
but I wasnt going to pay 97 for the BANS and then 37 for the BANS Themes Plus Domain Name fees and Hosting fees.
and finally found a solution and I only paid $3.98 a month that includes hosting and Theme and it looks great check it out http://www.MyLAInk.com
Whats you opinion Zac ?
Nice looking site. Not sure on what alternative solution you used though.
I used the quick Blog from Godaddy.. and I just customize it and I used the Ebay Widget tools to great my affiliated code. I added some tattoo tips to increase my ranks , and I added much of neverblue ads. Hope it works.
I used photoshop to create my banner.
How do you track down which different affiliate programs to use on these sites?
I run through all the affiliate networks to find any matches. Most of the sites I make, I know of related programs right off my head.
How do you drive traffic to such as websites ?
My sites have indexed into the search engines quickly enough. Getting free traffic through there. You can also try going for some very low ppc traffic or building up the site as a blog, which will increase your chance of search traffic.
first what I did which was successful was using craigslist and it did really well – I did some ppc with my bans as well to jump start some traffic
a big flaw on BANS is that the templates suck. and i say this to the free one, because everyone wants a freebie lol. The templates from Ian, are so far the best i have seen, and they are paid. ANd it seems they are worth the money…
i have done so far a simple template for bans, to become a little different from the default ones. it is almost decent lol
BAN sites are next on my list. Right now I am testing out affiliate marketing. Once I have tested it out enough, my next step was to set up niche stores. I really like the look of your Hulk site. Maybe you could post some screen shots of your popular niche stores and the success/failure of them. Kind of like an income report for two or three of them. Amount spent, some details, and profits… There isn't too many blogs/sites covering BAN stores.
Shudogg Dot Com – Make Money Online Blogging
Your site is one of the best AM sites around as you do not hesitate to show examples of the sites you build. The only thing that I would say is that if i created a BAN site, it would be 10x difficult to ever get any organic search traffic as I do not have any high PR sites I could link with. For you it's quite easy to put up any old site and have a decent PR since I suspect you own dozens of mid to high PR sites which can provide all your new sites with some nice link juice. I still think your examples are very useful to noobs as they provide direction. That being said, It would be a very interesting case study if you built one of these sites as if you were a noob with no high PR sites providing link juice. Might make a nice blog entry.
BANS are great but I heard that google is penalizing sites using them…. is it true? I was penalized for having ebay feed!
Hi
Isnt the issue still all about building backlinks keywords and doing solid niche research? The rest is template and structure stuff?
Tom
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