Ebay phpbay site ranking front page of google was a fluke, boo.
Google 1 - Cheep Baseball Tickets 0
Ahh, how nice it was for those fleeting moments to find out that the phpbay ebay site we built was already ranking #3 overall in google for our targeted phrase of cheap baseball tickets, but as I expected it didn’t last.
Those sweet rankings didn’t even last the entire day! I screen grabbed the google results because I had a feeling it was some random shuffle up to the front and then quickly weed it back down.
As I was writing this, I just checked and found us at the bottom of page two so, it looks like we are establishing a baseline and see who are real competitors are for the front page rankings. It will be fun to see if we can compete in a 6 month time frame to be on the front page of google and by next baseball season be ready to really rock and roll.
Indeed there are some big sites above me like ticketsnow, cheap tickets and the powerhouse of my niche seems to be cheapmlbtickets.com dominating the first listing. It should be fun seeing if we can move up in the rankings.
Google has been sending almost all of the traffic so far but now we are down to the bottom of page two for ‘cheap baseball’ tickets. Better than nothing but #3 overall would have been nice. Time to get to work!
Stats and updates on our first phpbay ebay site
It’s been just about a month now since we first launched CheepBaseballtickets.com, which is a wordpress site using a plugin called phpbay to integrate ebay listings professionally on your website. It makes affiliating for ebay through their ebay partner network very simple and even novice users can quickly eand easily become an ebay affiliate and have professional looking ebay listings displayed on your site.
Ebay Phpbay Stats
Stats so far are nothing crazy impressive, although this morning I just checked to see how well we were ranking for one of our major keywords and I was welcomed to a nice result, to say the least. Check out this Screenshot of google results 7/15 for cheap baseball tickets broad keyword search in the google. I’m hoping that this gives us a nice boost in organic traffic on the ole stat counte as according to google keyword data (new) there was around 4400 searches per month r. Traffic has barely peaked over 50 unique visitors per day so far, so hopefully this new ranking will help us out.
This months phpbay site earnings.
While we won’t normally share all of our earnings results, this project is different and full disclosure because we believe that even the newest of internet marketing can follow some basic steps and create sites that can drive targeted traffic to ebay listings and give you real insight into realistic earnings potential, in the short term by creating a wordpress phpbay site.
Ebay partner network stats
We’ve been lucky so far and converted one ACRU for a $25 bonus and we had one large ticket purchase with over a third of our commission earned. One cool thing about working with the ebay affiliate network is that you can get someone to click on something as simple as a cheap NY yankee tickets listing but they end up buying a $5000 freezer. You earn a commission on the freezer even if they didn’t happen to click on the freezer link from your page. Cool, huh?
Sure the overall earnings aren’t anything that means we can stop working tomorrow, but we created a nice little income stream that adds to the overall bottom line, it’s paying for itself as well as our cell phone bills this month. If we scale this out and create 10 of these sites, or even 100 of these sites then the earnings potential goes up.
We’ll add more details as we see the results from the new rankings from google and see how long the search results lasts. Knowing google, we will be back down on deeper pages come tomorrow or maybe even later today, but hey… #3 out of 1.5 million results in less than a month isn’t bad and we’ll ride it for what it’s worth and see how long we can maintain those rankings.
How to use Wordtracker Keyword Universe
This is a down and dirty how to use wordtracker for the quick round of initial keyword research.
Log in to Wordtracker (click that link for a free 7 day trial, full use).
Click on use keyword universe once logged in.
Once clicking that, type in a broad search phrase. I think of this as the master phrase, where you can then choose from hundreds of variations and add them to your keyword basket.
Let’s type in Sleeping Bags, why sleeping bags? Because I’m working on setting up a phpbay wordpress site that allows me to affiliate for all types of sleeping bags.
and click ‘proceed’
Then that pulls up a whole list of related keywordswords underneath, left hand column, it will look like this..
Then click a phrase on the left hand column (down near the bottom there).
That slaps up a list of phrases on the right.
Click the itty bitty white link at the top of those words that says ‘click here to add all of these to the basket’
look down at the bottom middle of the screen, you’ll see those keywords in the basket.
If I had clicked ‘add keywords’ prior to taking the screenshot the “0″ would have been “157 as all of the keywords related to ’sleeping bags’ would have been added to my basket.
Keep clicking on words on the left hand column and then clicking ‘add all of these words to the basket’ on the right until you have somewhere around 100-300 words to start.
This is just a broad search to get a broad look at what is out there and available.
Then click ’step 3′
Then just click the ‘competition search’ button (don’t worry about clicking on the words down below at all, just check em all).
then click the ‘google checkbox’
I stick with just selecting google for this example, but you can pick two if you’d prefer. Then click the ‘proceed’ button at the bottom right.
Now it begins running results, this is the step that will reveal competitive information on your phrases.
Give it a min or so to query the google.
Results are ranked by KEI which is a comparison of volume of searches (more the better) compared to the # of competing sites (less the better).
Let’s take a look at our keyword results from the sleeping bag keyphrase search.
Disclaimer about these keyword search results - they aren’t always accurate.
When you find something promising you always need to do a quick double check and check results yourself as well, and there is no way to tell if the results are on the money or not, I have had instances of them being wrong and estimates way off. Best advice I have is to first use your brain and secondly use wordtracker results to make sure you aren’t missing anything easy to snag.
Understanding the Keyword Results
I work from the top down, right to left when analyzing the results.
- Competing - The column on the far right is the competing websites, or other sites that google has indexed for that keyword. The lower the better in terms of pure “rankability”.
- 24Hrs - How many estimated searches per day for the specific phrase
- Count - How often the phrase appears in their specific database in the past 110 days from ‘major metacrawlers)
- KEI Analysis - keyword effectiveness index, developed by 1stearchranking.net
Ok, so about these results: It looks like “teenage sleeping bags”, listed there at #2 could be a no brainer piece of content to create. That’s a great keyword to target. There are only 5 competing sites in the results meaning that if your page gets indexed then it will most likely rank for a phrase match search for that phrase.
Now just because a word has a high kei doesn’t mean it is worth ranking for. You’ll have to use your brain power to determine whether or not that phrase would be worth ranking for.
If you don’t get a lot of results early on, right after you click on keyword universe, use a more broad keyphrase. “Sleeping Bags” will always get more results than “Brown Sleeping Bags” but in competitive niches you might need to delve down that deep to find a niche within a niche that has potential. Know what i’m saying?
Use common sense - if there is some random phrase that gets tons of searches it will be up to you to decide whether or not you could benefit your site in some way for ranking for that phrase.
Free Wordtracker 7 Day Trial
Visit Wordtracker through our links and you can access a free seven day full version trial. You can get a serious amount of keyword research done in seven days, enough to earn your next months payment for continued keyword research service.
Domain Names
How to choose a quality domain name
Your domain name is your .com or .net or .whatever to have. MyFamousWebsite.com is our domain name.
Things to think about when choosing a domain name is to either use descriptive keywords in your name or find a highly brandable domain name. Google seems to like keywords in the domain name in their ranking algo… we have one domain that only has 3 pieces of content, and has only been live for three days and already ranked 5th for a very competitive term that has three figure CPA’s for every conversion.
Domain Name Tools
- Godaddy - Register your domains here, although there are other options like NameCheap, Register or just google it.
- Domain Name Finder - BustaName - Very cool tool for finding domain name combo’s you might not have thought of, props to the Toronto SEO for the tip.
- Expiring Domains - Lots of places to choose from depending on how bad you want it.
Setup Ebay Niche Site with phpBay Pro & Wordpress
How To Set Up A Wordpress Ebay Niche Site Using phpBay Pro
If you want to create niche sites, one of the easiest and most effective ways to monetize them is by adding ebay listings to your site. If you already have a wordpress site you can quickly and easily add dynamic ebay listings to your site with a plugin that integrates directly into the ebay affiliate program and displays listings beautifully within your site. If anyone clicks your links and wins an auction at ebay then you earn a %. If the visitor is new you can even earn a one time $25 payment for bringing a new client to ebay.
This plugin is called phpBay Pro. It is does have a cost of $49 $79,(price went up on 8/2/08) but it is easily worth that and after you read this page you might want to grab it at this price before it goes up again. What phpBay pro does is it allows you to integrating current ebay listings on your wordpress site super easy and very professional looking. All you have to do is in html view, click the ‘phpbay’ button and it inserts a line of code in. You modify the keywords results and it can be as simple as that. Those keyword listings on ebay will now appear where that line of code is. It can be as simple as pushing a button and typing in your keywords, although it is way more flexible than that! You can really lazer target down to very specific search results to give the most relevant listings to your traffic which in theory will increase your clicks and conversions.
What phpbay pro really does though is open up the entire marketplace of ebay to you. If people are buying it on ebay, then you have a potential niche market to profit from. Even more useful is if you already have a hobby wordpress site or blog you can monetize it with ebay listings. Let’s say you love etch-a-sketch doodles and have a wordpress site showing off your best doodles ever. You could with the push of a button add etch-a-sketches for sale on ebay to your site and make money if someone wins an auction after clicking your link.
This page documents the step-by-step process of how to set up phpBay Pro software on a Wordpress site. phpBay Pro costs $79 but if you are serious about trying this out it is well worth it and you can use it on multiple sites.
We are always looking for new and innovative ways to attack niche websites, and when we saw the eureka diary’s tutorial from the boys at wickedfire, and rgordon’s phpbay tips site, we knew that we had to give this phpbay site a shot. If you’re looking for a great way to make more (or any) money online, then phpbay pro lets you create niche websites on anything that you can buy on ebay.com.
Tools used to setup a phpBay Pro Wordpress niche website:
- domain name - we use GoDaddy but there are plenty
- hosting - we use DownTownHost Reseller Account ($14.95/month) but there are plenty.
- Wordpress (free) - use our Wordpress Setup Guide which covers the down and dirty process for getting wordpress set up, if you want a really robust wordpress kit you can check out wordpress goldmine which really goes in detail through exactly how to maximize wordpress and even the newest of newbies can use it.
- eBay Partner Network
- FTP Client - we use Ipswitch ws_ftp ($0.00) but also recommend Filezilla (free).
- Image editing software - Fireworks, Photoshop, MS Paint, etc.
These tools are the bare essentials you’ll need to set up a phpbay niche site on wordpress. This list doesn’t cover all of the tools, such as wordtracker and keyworddiscovery, which we use for extensive keyword research to help gauge niche potential. If you’re looking for a niche to pursue, here is a good video for using wordtracker to find keywords for competitive niches and there are some excellent free keyword research tools available at SEOBook. We also wrote a down and dirty guide to using wordtracker for keyword research.
If you already have a niche in mind or just want to get going, then proceed…
How to set up phpBay Pro on Wordpress:
- Purchase your domain, setup your hosting, setup your ftp client, then set up your Wordpress site. Use our Wordpress setup guide if you need help with this step.
- Get your copy of phpBay Pro ($49 one time fee with this link). Your copy of phpBay Pro allows you to make unlimited money making websites.
- Log in to your phpBay Pro members account.
- Click the download link then unzip contents of the phpBay Pro download to your computer.
- Open phpBayProManual.pdf and follow “Installation - Steps 1 and 2″.
- Login to your Wordpress admin and activate the phpBay plugin.
- Go back to phpBayProManual.pdf and follow “Setting up phpBay Pro in Wordpress - Steps 1-5″.
- Copy entire ——LICENSE FILE DATA—— text, including the top line i’ve typed in here, and paste it into a new notepad doc. Save it as license.key and upload to the /wp-content/plugins/phpBay folder.This step was removed in the latest upgrade, all you have to do now is put in your license key in the Wordpress Settings once you activate the plugin.
- Log into your ebay network and enter your campaign ID and a Custom ID #. (log in, click Campaigns, click Create Campaign if you don’t have one already).
- Select your phpBaypro settings. Use the manual you get w/ phpbay pro for figuring out which settings to select and this demo video they provide that goes over the basic settings. Here is what I clicked: Use SEO URL’s, Display Items with Images Onlye, Use mod_rewrite, Search Titles AND Desc, Display Sort Options, Display a Hover, Display Listings in Columns, and “2″ for # of columns, Use paging and set the max at 10, I removed the phpbay link for the time being.
- Edit your .htaccess code with what they provide you. (just pull down your .htaccess code and paste that information above anything else… you don’t have to paste the lines that start with the #.
- phpBay pro is now ready to pull and display ebay results with your affiliate code automatically added in. Use the manual to see how to fine tune your results to match exactly what you want. One of the most important thing is only searching in specific categories. You can get a numerical list of ebay’s categories here:
Once phpBay is set up, you are good to go. Go to your page and or post within wordpress and you will see the phpBay tag, where you can click it to start pulling in ebay results and if your users click and purchase on ebay, then you earn a commission. If we skimmed over some of the basics is because there are different processes for each different step. We do provide a more detailed guide to setting up wordpress on a site but the shortest answer is find a host who has a program called ‘Fantastico’ and ‘cpanel’ and setting up wordpress seriously will take just a few minutes. For each and every step to get themes loaded to trouble shooting, to the best seo optimization tips you can read through a great ebook called wordpress goldmine.
Our first phpBay Pro WP website:
Visit our first phpBay Wordpress site to see how a little work, mixed with some great online tools can reap great rewards. This Cheep Baseball Tickets site made money after being active for less than a week. Are your planning on going to a baseball game? If so, I know where you can find cheap baseball tickets!
Click the image to check it out for yourself.
Some other examples of phpBay websites:
Of course you want to see one the phpbay sites we created eh? Check out the best place on the web to find Cheap Baseball Tickets. There you have it, that took about 4-5 hours and it was the first one we set up. To maximize the site we probably have another 10 to 15 hours of work (depending on when you are reading this) to do for some marketing on the back end for better marketing and SEO reasons.
We were inspired to try phpbay by seeing some other examples, so I’m going to give them a shamless plug right here, as these are pretty quality phpbay sites. There are some pretty good examples of quality looking sites out there that integrate the phpbay plugin into their site to make affiliate money online. First site I saw that I really liked was this site that that lets you buy golfballs at a discount and this one that has a totally different look to sell blues fender amps. Both sites that utilize phpbay pro to monetize their sites.
Next up we will share the first months earnings results and some ideas on what we are doing to market the site and see about even more monetization.
Wordpress Themes
Free WP Themes
Downtown Java‘. I used Bob’s Limau Orange
Turn Your Passion Into Profits
Learn how to turn your passion into a profitable web business!
When I talk to people who are interested in starting an online business, one thing I ask them is, “What are you passionate about, what are your hobbies and what do you like to do in your spare time?”. When I get an answer, I say “that is your online business”. Of course, most people give me that look that says, ‘what the heck are you talking about?’.
I explain…
See, most people don’t have the time, discipline or energy (or so they think) to run their own online business and still take care of everything else in their lives. But what if you could turn what you are most passionate about or something you already enjoy doing, into your online business. That’s what we do:
- We are passionate about web design, online business & internet marketing…
- We are passionate about poker…
- We enjoy tattoos…
Therefore, we have turned each of these topics into online businesses.
So, how about you?
What’s your passion?
Do you enjoy playing video games, knitting, collecting coins, playing poker, cats, drinking beer, finger painting, sports cars, watching mma, shopping, your kids, car parts, etc? It might sound crazy, but no matter what you enjoy doing, whatever you are passionate about, you can turn it into a profitable online business.
Think about answers to the following:
- What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?
- If you could choose your own job, what would you do?
- Do you have any hobbies?
- If you had no bills, no debts and money was no limit, what would you do?
This should start to give you some ideas. Jot down all of your potential topics and start to think about ways you might be able to make money online with your topics and ideas. If you need some help, please review how to generate revenue online.
This should help you choose your TOPIC.
Once you understand the different ways in which it is possible to make money online with your chosen topic, you can then begin exploring the market to decide where your ideas would fit in.
This is your NICHE.
Is there something missing from the market, are there good ideas that could be improved upon or do you have a completely original idea that you think other people would stand to benefit from, if you would bring it to the market? Once you spot a void in the market, you need to fill it.
If you need some help, please review how to find your niche. Once you’ve found your niche, you must now decide on how to best present your product, service or information to your clients.
This is your WEB PRESENCE
We use the following to establish web presences for our chosen topics and niches. Each is unique, but all follow the same principles.
- Blog or Website (sub-domain)
- Blog or Website (hosted)
- Community Weblog Portal (hosted)
For more information, please review our website design techniques.
Start your online business, one step at a time…
- Choose your business topic.
- Choose your niche.
- Choose your web presence.
You’ll learn there are thousands of ways to make money online and your topic will fit in somewhere and fulfill a niche. You don’t necessarily have to pick something you enjoy, maybe choose a topic where you could potentially make more money, but if you can make money online using any topic, why not pick something you’re going to enjoy.
It’s Like Having Your Own Virtual Money Tree…
We show you how to setup, run and manage your own profitable online businesses. We liken this process to that of a money tree. There is no such thing as a money tree, but if there were, how would you make one grow?
You’d find a money tree seed and plant it in the soil. Then you would give it the things it needed to grow - like water, sunlight, nurturing…and, if you continued this simple process, someday that little seed would turn into a mighty money tree, so big you’d need to hire help to harvest your cash.
It’s the same for your online business.
You start with a simple, free blog to establish your online presence. Then you give it the things it needs to grow - like seo, traffic, revenue, web tools, etc….and, if you continue this simple process, someday that little website will turn into a mighty money vacuum, sucking dollars in from every corner of the internet. And just like a tree that’s established it’s roots, your online business will continue to grow with the proper care and maintenance.
It’s a process that can be learned and if you can devote 15 minutes a day for a few months, you can have a successful online business.
And remember to have fun!
Wordpress Plugins
Favorite WP Plugins
Wordpress is a dynamic web design tool and one the main reasons is because of the Wordpress Plugins. WP Plugins are folders, files or pieces of code that have been developed by software engineers, nerds, techies and the like, to enhance your Wordpress experience (and we thank them!) They’ve made it so easy, you just upload and activate and your plugin is ready to go.
Wordpress Plugins Directory
Check the readme file contained in the plugin download for installation instructions.
- Akismet - protect your blog from spam
- All In One SEO - Search Engine Optimization for your Wordpress Blog
- Flexi Pages Widget - allows for different sidebars for different pages
- Google Analytics - track traffic with google analytics
- Google Sitemap - create a google sitemap
- Hit Tail - insert Hit Tail code directly into post or page
- Privacy Policy - google friendly privacy policy
- phpBay Pro - insert ebay listings into post or page, use w/ ebay partners
- Show/Hide Elements - click to show or hide specific sections of content
- WP Members - restrict user access
If you have a favorite Wordpress Plugin, please leave a link in the comments and tell us why you like it. We’ll try it and if we like it too, we’ll feature it here.
Plugins to try:
Additional tools we use:
Later!
Setup A Wordpress Website
How to setup a Wordpress site in cPanel
Wordpress allows you to use the Wordpress Website Publishing Software on your own server or on server space you are renting from your web hosting company. This tutorial outlines the steps to setup a WP site on your own server with cPanel and also how to setup a Wordpress site manually:
Pre-Wordpress setup steps
- Register your domain name with your favorite domain name registrar.
- Setup a web hosting account. To find a web host that is right for you, read about choosing the right web host.
- Point your Domain Name Servers (DNS) to the appropriate addresses. If you’re not sure about DNS, consult your webhost.
Setup Wordpress using cPanel (Reseller Web Hosting)
cPanel is the back-end admin control panel you use to set up all the different aspects of your website including email, mysql databases, Wordpress and hundreds of other options. A quality web host should have a cPanel or other admin interface that makes setting up your website a snap.
This example is step-by-step instructions to setup a Wordpress site using cPanel on the DownTownHost UNIX reseller hosting service. (steps may be slightly different for other reseller web hosts)
- Login to your user Web Host Manager website.
- Click “Create A New Account” and follow instructions. When finished…
- Click “List Accounts”. Find the newly created account, review the info for accuracy, then click the cPanel icon. (your cPanel can also found at http://www.yourwebsite.com/cpanel)
- Log into your cPanel account using the username and password created in step 2.
- Find “Software / Services” menu (scroll down towards the bottom), then click the “Fantastico De Luxe” icon.
- Find and click the “WordPress” link in the left hand column under “Blogs”.
- Click the “New Installation” link.
- Fill in the “Admin access data”, update your “Admin e-mail” then click “Install”.
- Click “Finish Installation”.
- Click “http://yourdomain.com/wp-admin/”, then use the username and password (Admin access data) created in Step 8 to login to your Wordpress admin site.
- Click “Visit Site” to see your new Wordpress website.
Customize Wordpress website
Wordpress Themes
Wordpress Plugins
- Check your domain and you should see the standard blue top wordpress default theme.
- Make initial SEO optimizations to the blog. We’re going to have a step by step process detailed to seo optimization to your wordpress blog.
- Get your theme. For this, I took the recommendations of the eurekadiary, which had a ton of insight and was my guide as I installed my first phpbay site. There are thousands of free themes out there and plenty of people offering custom ones. I’d find a nice free two or three column site that you like. Brian Gardner has a nice 3 column design called ‘ for my first site.
- Upload your theme and plugins. The minimal plugins you need are the all in one seo pack and phpbaypro.
*note, when you buy and unzip phpbay pro, be sure you find the phpBay folder to upload into your plugins folder, not the phpBay_plugins folder. If once you’ve uploaded the phpbay plugin and logged into your admin account through wordpress and don’t see it in the page to be activated then you’ve uploaded the wrong folder.
10. Activate All in one Seo.
11. Activate and Set up phpBay pro (see exact steps to set up phpbay pro here.)
Wordpress Basic / Initial SEO Optimization
Log in and click on settings > General. Fill in this information. You can change your blog title and taglines whenever, but the first few things to do is change the wordpress address (url) and Blog address (url) to contain the ‘www’s. Adding the www’s is personal preference, but which ever you choose you need to be sure to be consistent throughout all your linking, and the general consensus is to use the www’s but you can go either way, don’t let it hold you back, mmmkay? Click permalinks, select custom structure and put in /%postname%/. This makes your urls look pretty and contain keywords. This gives you some code to add to your .htaccess file. (open up notepad and copy the entire file there and save it as .htaccess (yes, include the “.”) and upload it to the root directory of your site (normally in public_html). You’re actually going to need one more bit of code to add to the .htaccess file in a later step, so just leave it open for now and you can upload it later.
WordPress
Wordpress (WP) is an easy to setup, easy to customize and easy to use all in one website publishing software.
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WordPress software is a fantastic free web tool that we use to create and run every one of our content managed websites. WP started as a simple blog software used by a few, and now has turned into an all-in-one, self-contained, content-managed, easily to use website publishing application.
When I first started designing websites in 2001, it would take me 1-2 weeks to create a fully functional website and usually a few months before I could establish consistent traffic. Now I can come up with a business idea, buy a domain name, have the website setup in about 10 minutes and have traffic by tonight.
If you take a few minutes to learn how to setup your own Word Press website, it will save you time, money and hassle in the future. I used to envision the perfect website development tool and when I found Word Press, I said “this is it! This is the perfect website creation software” And if you can follow instructions (click this button, type this here), you can use Word Press to setup, manage, and profit from your own online businesses.
Wordpress.com
Wordpress.org
mu.Wordpress.org
What’s the difference between all the Wordpress sites?
The WP software is free to use, either hosted on a Word Press server (support at wordpress.com) or hosted on your own server (support at wordpress.org). If you want to have your site hosted on a WordPress server, when you register with them they will set you up a website as a sub-domain of wordpress.com, such as http://myfamouswebsite.wordpress.com - we encourage you to do that now.
WordPress allows you to get a website online, quick, easy and free. Plus immediate exposure to the search engines. You’ll understand in further steps why it’s important to get your business online right now.
Click here to start your FREE WordPress Blog
Example: myfamouswebsite.wordpress.com is my WordPress sub-domain website