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.
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.
How To Use Video To Promote Your Products & Services
Viral Video Marketing
Marketing via Video is a hot way to market your products and services online. Many people are visual learners so just using a text sales page may not be enough to sell some consumers, no matter how great your presentation.
But thanks to affordable high quality video cameras, video editing software and screen capture software available these days, producing your own quality sales video is a snap. Plus, if done correctly, can greatly increase your sales and profit to your bottom line.
Dealer Training - YouTube Video
We sell this online poker dealing course that teaches people how to deal poker like the casino dealers. We made a video to demonstrate the type of videos you will see in our course and to let you know, that if you’re looking to become a poker dealer you will hopefully choose our professional online course.
The video was uploaded to our You Tube account and as of this post has received 22,000 views and an overall 4 star review. Not bad for our first video.
Plus, that’s free targeted advertising folks! Watch it here:
Here is a link to the poker dealing video on youtube.
Along with having it available to the millions of You Tube users we also include this video in our email autoresponder series. Anyone who signs up for our Dealer Training newsletter is also sent a link to this video as a ‘reminder’ about the quality of our course.
How To Use Wordtracker - Revver Video
How to use wordtracker to generate a list of keywords quick and easy (and free).
If anyone was looking for a keyword research tool and watched the demo video of me going through and using just one of the features in wordtracker to generate 100+ keywords, many with virtually ZERO competition that they would be much more likely to purchase the product than if I had just said “I used this cool program to find 100 keywords that had little to no competition.”
Videos reinforce the point, and give interested users unique content that will stick with them. If they liked what they saw, then they would be much more likely to purchase membership to WordTracker right away, or at least use the free version that I link to. And yes, the link on the wordtracker page there does contain my affiliate ID. I know I’m promoting the free version but people who use the free version become people who buy the membership. The product is that good (We use it all the time).
We will add more ways to use video to market your site in the coming weeks, including an example of Viral marketing that is outside of the box… WAY outside of the box!