It's been a while since I last posted about the BANS site build experiment so I wanted to write a post to let you all know how it's coming along.

For those of you who haven't been following then I will quickly bring you up to date; I wanted to look at and answer the question of 'Is BANS Really Dead?', this has basically involved me researching and building a BANS website from scratch over the last month and so far here's what's happened.

Updates Since I Last Posted

Slight Change of Direction

The site has come on quite a bit since I last posted, I have actually been a little delayed in getting the site completed mainly because I took a slightly different direction with it and so I had to do some additional research into the niche in order to get the site how I really wanted it. My change of direction basically came at the same time as the release of the 'Number 1 Way to Make Money Online Guide' from the creators of Build A Niche Store, I figured that if BANS really does still work then surely who better than the creators of BANS themselves to dictate how the site should be built. From that premise I decided to follow the guide whilst
building my new BANS site and I have to say that it's been a totally fun and refreshing experience.

The Structure of the Site

After researching the niche I felt it would fit very nicely into the 'model' which 'N1Way' guide follows and for that reason the site is a review/guide site with over 50 well written product reviews and 3 guides, with an additional 4 being added at the moment. I also chose to incorporate average product prices as well as average web ratings, so it really is a well built and purposeful affiliate site and not just a basic template with duplicate content and affiliate links. This site will add 'value' to the internet and supply the 'demand' on the net.

The above has been done with a well structured and well thought out layout which is easily navigable for both visitors and search engine spiders. In addition to that long paragraphs of text are broken up with images, with each review page only having a maximum of 6 listings on a page with around 300 words of unique content.

Promotion of the Site

As per the guide, I haven't 'pushed' the marketing of the site by any means and I have taken it through a steady introduction to the internet which has involved:

Forward Marketing - By setting up an auto notification of new web pages/ blog posts posted to the internet related to my chosen keywords I can quickly, easily and efficiently begin to steadily build back links to my new website. I have already built up around 30 new back links in the last week alone with some simple blog commenting on 5 related blogs of my choice, which I will continue to post on and become part of that blog 'community'.

Backward Marketing - I have begun building links to websites and blog posts which already exist on the internet by searching the internet for my specific search keywords and finding potential sites to build back links from. Again this has started to slowly build back links to my site. In addition to this I have become part of 3 community forums in which I am an active member which will serve to drive traffic back to the site.

In both cases I have been linking back to internal pages as well as the home page, this is a mistake a lot of people often make by linking just to the home page, they simply neglect all the other pages on the site.

Traffic to the Site

Overall the site has well over 100 pages indexed in Google at the moment. Traffic is beginning to appear, both from organic searches and from
back links built on blogs, forums and web 2.0 sites like some of my Hubs on Hub pages and Squidoo etc. I will hope to see a continuation of the traffic increase over the next two months as it moves around the SE's and establishes it's position for relevant search terms.

Affiliate Earnings

None so far, but that's no surprise. I hope to get the first sale in the next 4 weeks or so.

Time to Develop

It hasn't been a quick development by any means but it's been worth it:

• Researching/Planning - 5hours
• BANS Install/Template Configuration - 2hours
• Content Creation - Outsourced
• Adding of Main Page and Site Structure - 3hours
• Adding of Content including images, reviews and guides - 3hours
• Marketing so Far - 10 minutes every other day totaling around 1.5hours

Total Time: 14.5 - Around 1 Long Day

Is it Worth it?

Absolutely, even though the site hasn't earned a penny yet I am thoroughly happy with the site and have every confidence it will more than return the time put in in the form of income.

Over the next couple of months I will keep you updated on the site's progress, especially when it makes it's first sale.

Similar Posts Which May Be Of Interest:

• The BANS Experiment: Site Build Update
• Is BANS Really Dead? Lets Experiment!
• Starting Your phpBay Site Build
• The New BANS Guide: My Review
• Build A Niche Store Guide Release Date Set PLUS My Bonuses