How many of you are taking advantage of Google's relatively new Search Based Keyword tool, or SK Tool for short? Google has been releasing a lot of tools over the last year which webmasters can take advantage of to boost traffic to their websites and the best thing about them is that they are free.

The Google SK Tool basically allows you to find specific keywords based upon what people are actually entering into the search engine search field. Why is this powerful? This is powerful because the results you are seeing are exactly what people are searching for and you can leverage these results to build very specifically targeted traffic to your niche affiliate website. Read the rest of this entry »

I don't know if any of you have come across this tool yet but I found it a short while back and have been using it in conjunction with my BANS experiment, which is still ongoing, to determine product popularity during my site build.

What is Watch Count?

WhatchCount.com is basically a website which has been built from the eBay API primarily to show you the watch counts of the most popular items on eBay. Each eBay item which is currently for sale will have a watch count which, as the name suggests, is the number of people currently watching a particular item, this number can range from anywhere between 1 and a limitless number. Read the rest of this entry »

Update: The price of 'The Number 1 Way to Make Money Online' has been reduced back to $24.95 as of 25th July 2009

Well if you haven't bought the new guide from the BANS guys, Adam and Kelvin, then you have about 2 hours to go until the price goes up  from $24.95 to $44.95 so if you have been hesitating then now is the time to make your mind up if you want to save yourself nearly 50% off the price. To help you make up your mind you can read my review here which I wrote after taking a few good hours to go over it with my own fine tooth comb along with several cups of coffee.

In addition to the above price increase Adam and Kelvin have announced a new addition to the Number 1 Way to Make Money Online guide called 'Treat It Like A Business: The Necessary Perspective For Success'. It sounds like it could potentially be quite an interesting read and hopefully I'll be able to post more about it later on.

If you are pondering buying the guide for yourself but are not 100% sure of whether you will be able to stick it through, why not follow Mark Hansen who will be creating a new site using the guide right in front of your eyes over at the Build A Niche Store Guide Blog. Very generously, Mark will be giving away the site he builds in a competition to one lucky winner once it's completed. To get enter yourself into his competition you can jump on over to his new blog at Build A Niche Store Guide. Enjoy!

Well, I've finally been able to do it, at just 25 years old I am walking away from my well paid 'day job' which I have a degree in, to pursue my career in affiliate marketing. I'm sure you're thinking I must be crazy!

This is something I have wanted to do for a long while now and I have spent the last 12 months seriously building up to it, I have put in 40 hours plus each week into my online venture along side my 40 hour a week 'day job'. But why am I walking away from a guaranteed, well paid income for this? There are several reasons:

1. I love making money, I always have and I always will.
2. I love being my own boss.
3. I love being able to take holidays when I choose to take holidays.
4. I love having a performance based income, the harder I work and the more effort I put in then the better I am rewarded.
5. I'm good at it and most importantly I enjoy it! Read the rest of this entry »

Okay, so the long awaited product from the creators of Build A Niche Store is finally here and I have had chance to work my way through it over the last 24 hours and it's truly been an enjoying read.

I have been building niche product based affiliate websites online now for the last 3 years and as many of you know my first experiences were with BANS. I made a lot of mistakes with BANS but from those mistakes I was able to learn an awful lot, which has enabled me to have the success I have had with my own network of sites. So with that said I actually bought the guide more out of curiosity than through necessity, but I am very glad I did!
Read the rest of this entry »

The eBay Partner Network have again been playing around with their policies as well as other things which may affect the way some of their affiliates operate.

The news came from the ePN blog yesterday, which I frequent on a regular basis to keep ahead of things in the ePN community. The changes will bring into effect several new things which it's important you are aware of.

1)Domain Validation

Many affiliate networks require you to do this when you sign up anyway but EPN, until now, hasn't. As of the 20th of July all new affiliates signing up for the eBay partner network are now going to be required to submit a domain name for validation. This won't be mandatory for current affiliates but they (EPN) do recommend that you validate your domains; the explanation for this is as follows: Read the rest of this entry »

The release of the new 9 step guide titled 'The Number 1 Way to Make Money Online' has yet again been delayed, this time we are assured that the final release date has been set as 8am EST. I understand the marketing tactic of delaying the release date to gain more interest but you also have to be extremely careful that you don't loose interest, in this case I think they may have ruffled a few feathers but will it affect their sales? Probably not.
Read the rest of this entry »

Well it's been two weeks now since I decided to build a new BANS site to answer the question 'Is BANS really Dead?' because a lot of people have been asking it. So I just wanted to write a short post to let you know how I've been getting on.

So far I haven't been able to progress as far as I would have liked because of one distraction or another, however this weekend I have really made good progress with the site and it's starting to take shape and look the way I want it to.  Below I have detailed exactly what I have done to the site so far:

BANS Site Build: Week 1 Update

Around three days after I made my first post announcing that I was going to build a new BANS website I decided to register a completely new domain name rather than one which I had lying around, my reason for this was so that I had a domain name with no traffic and which wasn't indexed. So on the 23rd of June I registered my new domain name, the name is a one word .com domain name just six letters long and fits perfectly with my chosen niche. Read the rest of this entry »

Many of you who are current BANS users or have been BANS users in the past may have received an email from Adam and Kelvin Firminger over the last few days which had details about a new guide that they are due to release very soon...more about that in a second.

For those of you who didn't see the email then basically the comment was made that they (the Firmingers) would not be taking the BANS platform any further in it's future development. However, this may not mean the end of BANS development, Adam and Kelvin have hinted that the sale of BANS to interested parties in the near future is something they are considering and have not yet ruled out. Read the rest of this entry »

Last Month's Winner: Ian Ambler

Firstly I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who entered the competition for June, I had almost 200 entries which was fantastic, I am happy to announce that the winner of the FREE ReviewAZON plugin for WordPress and ReviewAZON101 Video course was Ian Ambler. Your FREE plugin and video course will be on it's way to you shortly, Ian.

This months competition still centers around the theme of Affiliate website development except this months prize is going to allow you to build a WordPress affiliate site in conjunction with the eBay affiliate program. This months sponsor is Wade Wells, he is the creator of the phpBay plugin and API as well as phpZON plugin and API. Up for grabs is a copy of the phpBay plugin for WordPress OR a copy of the phpBay API, all you need to do is answer this months question correctly and I will choose, at random, one winner at the end of July. Read the rest of this entry »