The Niche Store Builder

6 Best Practices with Product Review Sites

Mark Hansen — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:57:03 +0000

So – I’m gonna step back in time just a bit and get back to some of the very basic things that have been working for me on product review sites over the past few months. If you recall from a few days ago, I still lack focus… and due to that haphazard way of building product review sites in volume, I have definitely seen a few things working better than others.

I confess, in the last 90-120 days – I have added more than 30 review sites. The following items are the things I’ve learned from doing them inconsistently across several sites!

Best Practices for Product Review Sites

1 – If You Start It – Finish It!

Without a doubt, the best bit of advice I can offer anyone, and proven to be true 100% of the time! The single most popular way to guarantee you won’t earn a nickel with a product review website, is by NOT finishing it!

2 – Use Your Homepage as a ShowCase for Your Site!

You need to assume that everyone coming to your website rode the short bus throughout middle school! Use your homepage to explain what your site is about, what the visitors can expect to find and how to find it, along with a way to communicate with you!

Who, What, Where, When, and Why! Answer them all on your home page!

3 – Link to Relevant Resources from Every Relevant Page!

One of the hardest things we all struggle to overcome, but carries the highest rewards! If you have a product review about the Black and Decker G-Wiz-Bang Toaster Over, link to several other places about the G-Wiz-Bang Toaster Over! B&D, the B&D product page, a few other top reviews for the same item, etc.

Listen – I know it doesn’t make sense, but having these outbound links makes YOUR PAGE, much more relevant to visitors and search engines! Being relevant to visitors means more traffic. If these were true ecommerce sites it wouldn’t matter as much as it does… but since they are non-destination sites (People don’t actually complete transactions here), you really need to do everything to make the pages relevant!

“Placement” of those links does not need to be in your visitors face… as long as they are there! I use the very bottom of the articles.

4 – If You Use Repurposed or RSS Content – Rewrite It The Best You Can!

One of the many things I love about ReviewAzon, is when I add a specific product listing and review, the text description of that content is put into a field that I can edit, and make my own, forever!

I target 8 word strings… and no 8 words in a row can remain the same! That means, I never go longer than 8 words without changing something! Whether I change “hot” to “warm” or “Large” to “Big”… no 8 words in a row remain the same!

5 – Stitch The Auto Content Together with Buying Guides!

By FAR – one of the things I am seeing the BEST return from… is stitching the fed content together within buying guides, toplists, etc.

I will Import 50 product articles and reviews to the site, rewrite them to make them unique, then add just 5-10 100% unique buying guide type articles that pull all the reviews together.

If it was a site about baseball bats for instance – 50 products imported. Then guides like,

Top 5 Aluminium Bats in 2010 (linking to 5 bats from the reviews section)
Top Rated Composite Bats (Linking to…)
A Look at 10 of the Louisville Sluggers for 2010 (Linking to…)

etc…

The buying guides are by far the most popular content on the site!

6 – Use the Auto-Generated Reviews Sparingly!

ReviewAzon will automatically pull as many reviews as you tell it to! I decided to limit mine to just ONE REVIEW, the latest that was submitted! Instead of showing 5 reviews that the visitor can read on my site… I show just 1 review, and a link that says “Read All of the Reviews on Amazon”

Whats Working for Your Product Review Sites?

Share… cmon, don’t be an info hog – share!

6 Best Practices with Product Review Sites posted from the Niche Store Builder website.

Chaos and Focus Go Hand in Hand

Mark Hansen — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 15:38:00 +0000

My name is Mark and I lack Laser and Pinpoint focus – there, I said it! Now where’s my fucking coin?

Over on the ReviewAzon forum, a newer member asked a very interesting question… that had me, once again recognizing what many people have said is my biggest area of opportunity.

“If you only had 20 hours a week for Internet Marketing, How Would You Spend it? Would you focus on ONE site, or develop MANY sites?”

My reply, which I will get later, was prompted by one of those rare moments when I looked at my own efforts, and acknowledge that I just run too chaotic into new sites, jump around a little in this niche market, a little in that one, etc, instead of just FOCUSING on my BEST SITES and dominating the entire market!

Now, before you read too far into that and make the assumption that I waste time and earn pennies at this wonderful game of Internet Marketing… it’s not that.

If I focused MORE of my effort into the sites that ARE successful, the rewards would be astounding… So… WHY don’t I?

The 80/20 Rule is More Like 90/10

You have probably heard this before… 80% of the Results come from 20% of the Efforts. For myself, it’s more like 90/10! In total, I think I have about 70-75 active sites… yet the majority of earnings come from only a handful of them! If I listened to my own advice more often, I would scrap ALL but those higher earning sites and focus ALL my time on only them… but I don’t… and I won’t… because working on the other 90% is what helps me learn more about what works and doesn’t, as well as advance my skills, individually!

The day you stop learning, testing, and walking on the edges (sometimes bleeding edge) of what you do in Internet Marketing… is the day you get bored with it, and the day someone else walks right past you! A lot of things I try on newer sites are those that I would NEVER think of doing on an established, high earning site!

My Answer to The Question

When I answered the question on the ReviewAzon forum – I said that:

“IF I only had 20 hours a week to focus on Internet Marketing, I would push it ALL into one single site, and make that ONE site the absolute best it could possibly be!”

Of course… it may take you a year or two, and burning through 75-100 other feeler sites, to get to the point that you FIND that single site to focus on. :-)

Chaos and Focus Go Hand in Hand posted from the Niche Store Builder website.

25 Reasons ShoeMoney Thinks You Will Fail at Internet Marketing

4 Things You Should Do on The First Day of the Month

Mark Hansen — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 15:10:03 +0000

Two of my favorite times during each month, are the first and last days. It’s during these days that you can really gain the most from your general site statistics, and act on what you see to get the most from either the following month, or the rest of the month. In this post, I want to talk about 3-4 quick and easy thing you can do at the beginning of the month, today for instance, that will benefit you throughout the month, sometimes, longer.

Find and Fix 404 Errors!

A 404 error is a status code returned by your web server, when a file cannot be found. They can be anything from images that no longer exist, to incorrect file names, to references within your style sheet that you knew nothing about. The bottom line though, is that you should fix them since at minimum, they are hogging up space in your log files, and for some web browsers, they are sending your visitors away!

I find it easiest to fix these errors EARLIER in the month, since they are fewer, and easier to track down. Over the course of a couple months, you will find that all have been eliminated! Even though I check them now, I also revisit 404’s around mid-month, to see which are still showing up in volume (More than a few times), and correcting them as well!

Discover and Take Advantage of the Top Commenter Blogs!

Before someone gets all worked up, I’m not talking about spam… I’m talking about finding related blogs that use the Top Commentator, or some sort of commenter reward plugin and engaging in meaningful conversation with site owners and other members of that blog.

In most cases, you will accomplish several things, like, becoming a regular reader… revisiting the site every day to read new opinion in the same niche, and most importantly, adding a new feed or 12 to your rss reader, to learn more about the market!

As a side benefit of your new discoveries, you can also grab some GREAT search spider love, by getting listed in sitewide sidebars… for being a regular contributor. If you do it at the beginning of the month, the payoff is much sooner! :-)

Review Site Metrics and Eliminate the Distraction Sites

If ANYONE tells you they hit a homerun on more than 25% of their efforts, they are either lying, or have never built more than 3 niche sites! Most of us who aren’t afraid to admit it, fail much more often than we succeed!

I use an “Aging” method to review my own sites… and base what I do next, on the results and age of the site.

Is it +30/60/90/120 days old?
Is it Getting 50/100/300 daily pageviews?
Is it earning $25 or more per month?

You really have to set your own guidelines… but for me its as simple as a set of …..

IF a site is +XX days old THEN it should be generating +XX Daily Pageviews ORELSE something is wrong!
IF a site is +XX days old THEN it should be generating +$XX/month in revenue
IF its NOT doing it THEN what should I be doing differently?
IF I am already doing all that – THEN remove it from the server – its not what I thought it was!!
IF it IS doing “all that” – THEN take it to the next level and re-evaluate in 30 days.

I posted about this last year during Spring Cleaning Week as well.

Celebrate Your Successful Efforts!

I know its easy to talk about things that need to be fixed, things that aren’t working, etc… but this is also a GREAT time to celebrate your successful efforts also!

What Else Do YOU Do On the First of Each Month?

Cmon share… :-)

4 Things You Should Do on The First Day of the Month posted from the Niche Store Builder website.

eBay Says Screw 2012 – Declares Doomsday in March 2010!

Mark Hansen — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 14:55:36 +0000

Do You Hear The Background Rumbling? That’s DROVES of eBay Sellers – Running off to the Competition! Well, like they do every time eBay has another fee reduction!

Wait… nah… forget it.

2010 Spring Seller Update

eBay is getting ready to make more changes to its system… this time however, the changes are targeted to eBay Sellers, billed as the 2010 Spring Seller Update, and according to their site… claims to be “Steps to Increase Your Profitability and Bring More Buyers!” View eBay Traffc Trends on Compete.com!

I am including this news at the Niche Store Builder for a few reasons:

Many eBay Affiliates were at some point, Dedicated eBay Sellers who left due to the crazy fee structure! Little did we know!! Kim and I ran more than $2 Million dollars a year (3 Core eBay stores) of sales through eBay from 2001-2007. The fees turned us off, and we left.
Anyone who has stuck it out with QCP model, might actually earn a bit more money! (Assuming no bots come through your site, you have red hair, green eyes and 5 legs… oh, and these features must happen on Sundays ONLY, at least I think that’s in the payout algorithm)
There have been category changes again, which may affect your site!

Looking through the different pages eBay has setup to support sellers during this newest “Profitability Increase”, it really becomes very clear – any seller who has not yet abandoned eBay, will be doing so VERY soon! The ONLY people who will be paying LOWER eBay fees, are those who sell items that have a final value fee “Less than $25, or MORE than $2000! (Yes, you read that correctly) If the final selling price is between $26-$1999 – you pay considerably more!

I swear – I couldn’t make this shit up – they are pile driving themselves right into the ground! This will make a great subject for some college grads “Epic Story of Failure“, as an exit project!

A Few Bullet Points about the New eBay Fees

Based on “Non-Store Subscriber” final value fees (The 90% majority of ebay sellers)… just look at the new “Increased Profitability” chart… (This is from the eBay forum! – and a Pink actually responded with “But we give you 12 free pictures!”)

You are reading correct – a $500 final selling price has a fee increase of +141%

Where exactly are the “Signifigant Savings and Lowest Fees Ever”?

And for those who decide to pay the $15-$300/month store fee:

I Guess I’m Just Speechless Again!

My father used to say… if you don’t have anything nice to say, say nothing at all.

That’s what I will do.

eBay Says Screw 2012 – Declares Doomsday in March 2010! posted from the Niche Store Builder website.

GoDaddy Code – .99 Cents for First Year! HOT!!

Mark Hansen — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 20:38:55 +0000

Quick and dirty post about a GoDaddy Discount Code for the first year registration of a new domain…

Just .99 Cents for the first year!

Use coupon code: BUY2010 during checkout!

This code does NOT work on renewals, and only works on ONE domain per cart! Kim and I just registered several, and you just have to do them one at a time, if you want to get more than 1 domain.

Edit: Just to clarify – this discount code only works ONCE Per Person or GD Account.

I don’t have a clue how long it will last – so jump while its hot! Go to GoDaddy and register now…

GoDaddy Code – .99 Cents for First Year! HOT!! posted from the Niche Store Builder website.

Learn to Buy or Sell Websites on Flippa

Mark Hansen — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 16:00:07 +0000

Flippa is a great place to buy a prebuilt website of all levels, and also a great place to sell a site you may no longer want, or one that has great promise, and you just want to cash out early. That said, it’s no different than buying something on eBay, and you really need to use the buyer beware approach, before you enter into any binding transaction.

Soggy Dave brought this up in a post he wrote the other day about Really knowing what you are buying on Flippa. In Dave’s post, he warns:

What I see most is people falling for a “great looking” site instead of buying a site that is PROPERLY keyword focused and is full of great ORIGINAL content. Usually these sites are fluffed up with garbage traffic stats and most are barely earning any income….

Continued… People make a living turning out these sites and selling them off to unsuspecting newbies. Why? Because they can not build sites that earn good money for themselves.

Dave’s post is actually VERY timely for readers and does in fact carry a strong message that we should all be aware of. It’s truly up to you to do some research and due process, before buying on Flippa!

Learning the Ins and Outs of Flippa!

Fortunately, or Coincidentally (Both posts showed up just 1 day apart) Ben Johnson, one of the original BANS moderators, creator of Affiliate Wizard, many great BANS and WordPress themes, and the popular WordPress plugin phpOStock started a series of how-to articles last week called FlipTactics, to help both buyers and sellers, get the most from their efforts!

Ben is taking a VERY Granular approach to helping you learn the trials and errors of how to make the most of site flipping. His series just started last week as well, so there is plenty of great content still to come!

Fliptactics – The Concept!
Fliptactics – The Money Making Opportunity!
Fliptactics – What’s Hot & What’s Not! – Most Active
Fliptactics – What’s Hot & What’s Not! – Flippa Tags
Fliptactics – Building A Fliptastic Site!
Fliptactics – Auction Day – Achieving Maximum Profit!

Have You Ever Flipped a Site? What Did you Learn from it?

Ben has said that anyone who has flipped a site in the past is welcome to get in touch and add to this series! I have completed several flips of my own in the past year, both buying and selling, and plan on contributing as well!

Learn to Buy or Sell Websites on Flippa posted from the Niche Store Builder website.

3 Simple Things that Can Help You Do Better Every Day!

Mark Hansen — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 22:00:23 +0000

Are there days when you just feel like pounding your head onto a brick wall, because nothing you are doing seems to yield the results you anticipated? Yeah… me too! The worse part of hitting a roadblock, is that you immediately consume yourself with trying to figure out WHY something happened! In reality, you should just move on and try something a bit different to avoid the problem again!

Albert Einstein said it best…

Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

I have a small list of things I like to do when I get consumed by things that do nothing to truly help me reach my goals. They aren’t much, but by switching up the daily routine, it’s amazon how much new energy you can find within yourself!

Start by Shut Down Your Email!

I am a gmail user and have more than 20 or so email addresses that all route into my gmail account. After the first email browse of the morning, SHUT IT OFF and don’t open it again until lunch break!

I know it does not sound like much of a challenge… In my case, I LOVE helping people, so shutting it off is like losing an arm. But a single email reply can lead into more questions and more emails! It’s an endless cycle that can easily consume a good part of your day and distract you from the important matters.

Hold Your Own Contest – And Reward Yourself!

This one is very simple to do and I LOVE doing it myself! Pick 2-3 of your niche sites that are fairly close in traffic volume. Write down the average daily visitor numbers as a baseline, then challenge yourself to increase your average daily traffic for just 1 day! Make it easy… just use cPanel stats!

For each site you have chosen, set a different reward… and set the BEST reward for the site you struggle with the most!

Take the Most Popular Page on a Site – And Learn from it!

If there is one thing that stands out on EVERY site I manage, each has one article or page that just ROCKS with the most traffic! I mean, it’s usually a 10 to 1 ratio, where the single article gets 10x the traffic of ANY other page on the site (except the home page of course)

Once you know WHY a page ranks so well – it’s easier to replicate the process on other pages you write! For instance, if you know that an exact 2-word phrase (The one that generates the search traffic to the page) is found:

8 total times within the 400 words of content
Appears in (1) H1 tag, and (3) H2 tags
Has one image, with the 2-word phrase in the alt-text
Same image is named: “2-word-phrase.jpg”
Page links out to 6 external resources that are also popular for the a vertical phrase!
(Like a RC Car review might link to the manufacturer, rc race tracks and forum posts about that specific rc car)

See – once you know WHY a page ranks well – its easier to replicate! On new articles, you can use that info as a baseline, and build your content AROUND it!

What Do YOU Do to Challenge Yourself DAILY?

3 Simple Things that Can Help You Do Better Every Day! posted from the Niche Store Builder website.

Do You Promote Amazon? If So, Clearly Tell Your Visitors!

Mark Hansen — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 22:57:21 +0000

In a somewhat non-news event, research by Millward Brown reveals Amazon was found to be the #1 TRUSTED brand in the USA!For someone like myself who is building a small network of very optimized review sites with ReviewAzon, that is GREAT news, and means that those “Buy it On Amazon” links I am plastering around my sites are not going to deter visitors, but reinforce their confidence in what is being offered!

The Not so Good News for eBay

I hate to keep harping on how bad eBay has been hurting lately, but another quick peek at the Compete Amazon versus eBay comparison, shows that eBay took a huge drop in traffic in its year over year and month over month metrics, while Amazon continues to rise!

The very few residual links I still have pushing traffic to eBay are doing what they are supposed to do I guess… but they are nothing compared to MANY thousands of visitors affiliates have turned to other programs like Amazon with. At this same time last year, I added several new sites to my arsenal… this year, almost everything has been monetized with Amazon and the ReviewAzon plugin!

Knowing that Amazon is SUCH a trusted vendor – that’s just icing on the cake! :-)

Do You Promote Amazon? If So, Clearly Tell Your Visitors! posted from the Niche Store Builder website.

Google Caffeine Update in Full Swing?

Mark Hansen — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 23:54:36 +0000

Not sure if anyone else is noticing it, and I am sure someone will see otherwise – but it looks like the Google Caffeine Update is being rolled out to more data centers. On several well established and steady traffic sites – I have noticed significant changes in the visitors being referred from the Google search engine over the past 24-48 hours.

Late last year, Matt Cutts talked more about the Caffeine Update coming after the holidays… and truthfully, I thought they had already been made! I noticed changes in mid-January… some good, some… not so good.

This week however, the traffic being referred by Google is DRAMATICALLY different, some good and some not! One site that usually sees about 750 daily unique visitors has jumped to 3500+ daily visitors! (Literally overnight on the 17th- and ALL from google search ranking it higher) Another site that has traditionally done very well in the engines search results… well, it has gone the other way from +2000 daily visitors to less than 400. Just like the other site… Overnight, 17th!

Have you noticed any fluctuations in your own Google referred traffic?

Google Caffeine Update in Full Swing? posted from the Niche Store Builder website.

Take a Break and Enjoy Life, Friends, Oh… and Alcohol!

Mark Hansen — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 16:37:24 +0000

Last year at this time… Kim and I took our annual “Let it All Hang Out” vacation and went on a cruise. This year, we are heading to Mardi Gras and by the time you read this… we are well on our way into either getting there, or thoroughly enjoying the company of friends and family going with us!

Drew Brees is the 2010 King of the Bacchus Parade – and I gotta say, after winning last weeks Superbowl – this is going to be one hell of party! We WILL take plenty of pictures and video to share when I get back! (Well… we’ll share the “Safe for Work” one’s anyhow)

The entire point of this post… Take a break, breathe… enjoy your family, and more importantly, decompress, and enjoy your life!

You only make the trip around this life once… Make the Most of it!

Take a Break and Enjoy Life, Friends, Oh… and Alcohol! posted from the Niche Store Builder website.