Bans?

[southy]

I am an extreme newbie to all of this. I haven't written a blog, set up a website...absolutely nothing...but I have been lurking on this site for awhile and gathering good information. I just learned what BANS is today and was wondering if it was worth the cost, especially since I have never set up a site before.
Thanks!

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi southy,

Welcome to 5 Star. Glad you came out of lurk mode and joined the fun!

Well I think BANS is probably a good program. I've heard good feedback.
However I would question spending money on anything at this stage, unless you've spent lots of time trying to learn the basics and have dug deep to find a good niche.

Lots of pros have BANS stores so you'd be competing with them unless you find a cool but narrow niche. Also there are probably some issues as far as duplicate content in the search engines to be concerned with. A pro would know a little more how to get around issues like that.

Not trying to discourage you, just trying to be sure you don't spend money on something before you have all the knowledge you need to make it work.

There are some free things you could try and test that don't even require buying a domain or hosting. You could start with one of these as you are learning the ropes and figuring out which path is ultimately best for you.
(Not saying Bans is a bad choice, just saying only you can decide if it's a good choice for you and it sounds like you may not be far enough along in the process to be able to make that decision.)

A couple free and easy options to explore are Squidoo and Hub Pages.
They won't make you rich but are just free and easy ways to get your feet wet.

 

[southy]

Thank you. I have done some research but there is just SO much information, it makes my head spin. I plan on looking into those sites you mentioned....and I am sure I will have more questions!

 

[positivecarry]

I agree with Linda that you need to do some research as to how you are going to optimize this site for search engines . Because you could have a great looking site and no traffic. I think that is the biggest problem for new people , the traffic. Because you get a great looking site and then you think , "ok, now where is the money", and then you start doing some more research and see that some of these sites drive 10s of thousands of uniques a day to get these huge profits and you begin to realize , wow, that is the missing ingredient , and it is quite a big ingredient. So, you really need to work on search engine optimization. You may be able to drive some traffic with PPC , but it can cost big money, and unless you have some separate landing pages it probably won't do much. And, you can write articles until you're about to pass out, you won't get enough traffic. I saw ezine article site management say that you should expect 1 to 2 url clicks per hundred readers , on average. And most topics get, low, low views, like 40 to 50 type low.

So the biggest deal is traffic. Everyone talks about it , but when your just starting off you kind of fail to realize how big of an impact it has on your success.

If you analyze how I ended up on this site it was because someone who owns this place did some very good seo , and got this site to rank #2 in google when I typed in affiliate forums . And, I, of course, clicked it. So, I mean , you could have a site as grand as this , and if people can't find it, you will see a big goose egg in your accounts.

Additionally(haha, yeah I am going on a bit here, but I think it will help you) if your passion, hobby, joie de vivre,etc is something mainstream like collecting purses, shoes, jewelry, nfl, nhl or american idol you are going to most likely have a tough time ranking well in search engines. So, if you want to make money as fast as possible I would really get into some wacky stuff, you may not be into it, but that really doesn't matter(if your goal is to make money). Wacky is relative of course, but I am talking less obvious niches that you could use the bans with because ebay is such a powerful system. A niche like pin cushions, 1920s baseball cards, old movie posters, specific rarer animal breeds(best if you actually have one to take hundreds of pics and ramble on about ) , shoelaces, etc.

And while the bans is going to feed your site these great ebay ads you need to provide some content as well to make it unique and make users stick.

 

[southy]

Thank you both so much for your replies. I know it is a long tough road but I am willing to learn and stick it out. There is so much good information on this site and I appreciate your comments. I know I will have more newbie questions, and I apologize in advance if I ask one that has already been asked...if so just steer me to the right thread Thanks again...I'm off to do more research...research...research....

 

[Linda Buquet]

southy, you have a great attitude and
that's really at LEAST half the battle.
I think you'll do well!

 

[southy]

Linda,

Thanks again for the tip, I signed up for Hubpages and created my first Hub....wow, I realized I have alot to learn in the writing department, I am not sure still what it or they may be about but I do have some ideas.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Cool, let us know what you think about HubPages
after you get your feet wet or wetter...