Well … it’s that time … time to post my earnings for my eBay EPN (BANS – “Build a Niche Store”) niche stores for March and April 2010.

Not amazing … not horrible. LOL. Again, I still haven’t taken the time to try to figure out what they (eBay) is looking for in this affiliate program. I haven’t done anything at all to my stores. I did however do a small amount of advertising on some free classified sites in April and I can see it probably helped a little bit.

Here are the numbers:

March 2010 = 533.86

April 2010 = 672.78

Looks like I’m going to have to do some work on these sites here soon. My buddy, Mark, over at Niche Store Builder posted: ePN Users Pay Attention – Significant Update for You! Yep … EPN making changes for us again. *sigh*

I’ve been very busy working on my SEO/Google Positioning business for offline local businesses and that’s going pretty well. I’ve also started my new site about Fitness at 40 and that’s been a really fun distraction. LOL I’m working out and eating healthy and I’m fully committed to losing all of my extra fat and to being healthy and strong.

Hope you are all doing well with your online businesses. Let me know if you need some help and I’ll do what I can. Also, do let me know if there’s something specific you’d like me to blog about and I’ll do my best to get it up here on the blog. *SmiLes* Suzanne

So … you still a niche store person? Are you still using BANS? How about EPN? Amazon? Let us know what you’re up to and how your stores are performing ok?

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The last time I did an update on my BANS stores (EPN – eBay Partner Network – eBay’s affiliate program) here on the blog was for September and October 2009. Since I’m well overdue I’ll go ahead and update you on my earnings for the past four months.

Here are the numbers:

November $327.72

December $668.21

January $298.49

February $482.24

As you can see there has not been any real consistency in my EPN numbers. Truthfully, I have not yet spent any time researching the way eBay is now paying us for our referrals/clicks. One month my clicks for one of my stores is $.22 (22 cents) per click and the next month it might be $.06 (6 cents) per click. *sigh* It’s a bit frustrating!

If you are an eBay affiliate who understands this “new” payout method, please comment and let me know how it works (or if you’ve written about it send me the link so I can include it here).

Let us hear from you. Are you still sending eBay traffic? Have you changed your business model since the new payout? If so, who are you now using (i.e. Amazon, PepperJam, etc.). We’d love to hear from you on this. *SmiLes* Suzanne

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As you may or may not have heard, EPN (eBay’s affiliate program) has recently changed the way they pay their affiliates and most people I know have not been too happy about the changes. Although some affiliates are making more money on this new payout the vast majority are not. Not only that, people are concerned that they can’t seem to pinpoint exactly how we’re paid so that’s a bit of a concern.

My earnings from September were $528.06 and my earnings for October were a mere $298.38.

I’ve finally set out to do some maintenance on my niche stores. I’ve been slacking and I’m ready to get back into the niche store “game” and I’m willing to put in the time and energy to get the stores performing and possibly add some more stores.

I’ve written out each store I have now (there are five) and I’m in the process of evaluating their status: what I need to update/fix, what promoting would work best, and I’m trying to get an overall feeling for how each store is performing and what I could do to each to make it perform better.

I’m looking to make sure all software is updated and running the latest version (including BANS, WP, WP plugins, etc.) and I’m adding some plugins to each as well (there are various plugins designed for adding affiliate products to a WP blog). For instance, on my first three BANS stores (Build a Niche Store) I used a free theme designed for BANS stores but these stores don’t have blogs on them. I don’t want to redo the entire stores and lose my search engine positioning and/or backlinks so I’ve decided to add WordPress blogs to the “backend” of them (installed in a subfolder). The other two stores were built on a theme that was designed specifically for BANS but it’s a WP theme that integrates the BANS store on the blog. I’m upgrading everything and I’m also planning on updating the “look and feel” of some of them too. It’s also a good idea to go through each store page and make sure everything is in working order. If eBay changes a category number it can destroy your site and if you’re not monitoring the sites and/or stats you won’t know about it.

Once I have these five stores under control and performing smoothly I’ll be adding a handful of stores. I’m still deciding if I’ll be using a BANS format or if I’ll use a WordPress blog with some of the various plugins available for pulling affiliate products into the site.

My favorites are: phpBay and ReviewAzon ( and you can even integrate the two by using ReviewAzon) and I’m also beta testing two more affiliate plugins so I’ll have more information on those too.

So, although my store earnings are down with the new payment methods I still plan on working hard on my sites and hope to up my income by remaining flexible and adding some other affiliate product sources too. I’ve written before about how important it is to diversify! I’ll be looking at some other options (besides eBay) and I’ll keep you posted here on the blog as to what I find, what I try and how it works out.

Do you have any niche sites? What tools do you use and which are your favorites? Have you wanted to get started with some niche sites but don’t know where to start? Let us hear from you! *SmiLes* Suzanne

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Yep … It’s that time … time for me to update you on my BANS (Build a Niche Store) and EPN (eBay Partner Network – eBay’s affiliate program) profits. I last shared my earnings for May and June of 2009 so let’s take a look at July and August of 2009.

My July earnings were $543.28 and my August earnings were $753.46. Once again my ACRUs (commissions for bringing in new eBay registered users) were only at $28/per … so that was a bit disappointing … but I still had decent commissions.

I know I say this on most of these BANS updates but I’ve been very busy and distracted by other things so I haven’t done any work on my sites in several months (actually over a year now) … so the beauty of these stores is that if you do the “work” in the beginning and build a solid foundation with choosing a good niche, good SEO, and content for the site they can provide you with a consistent income for years to come.

If you follow EPN at all I’m sure you’re aware of the changes that are coming down with the new way they are going to figure out commissions and so far I’m not terribly excited about it. For August instead of $753.46 I would’ve earned $304.96 YIKES!!! (you can use your reports to see what it would be based on the new model).

As of this writing I’m at just over $300.00 for September and based on the new commission model I’d be at about $220.00 so not quite as bad but still frustrating none the less.

I won’t jump ship on EPN that’s for sure but I’m sure many others will here soon. Remember to always diversify your income! This is quite possibly my number one rule for making a living online! *SmiLes* Suzanne

Do you build niche stores? What kind? Are you making any money? What are your biggest challenges? Do you have any advice? Do you have any questions for me? Let us hear from you below in the comments.

P.S. I recently purchased the new guide, “The Number 1 Way to Make Money Online,” and it’s got a lot of great information in it on how to build eBay niche stores from start to finish. I will be going back and revisiting all of my existing stores and making some changes and then I will be adding at least 5 new stores to my portfolio over the next couple of months.

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BANS Earnings May and June 2009

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It’s that time … time for me to update you on my BANS (Build a Niche Store) and EPN (eBay Partner Network – eBay’s affiliate program) profits. I last shared my earnings for February, March and April so let’s take a look at May and June of 2009.

(Click image to see larger image)

My May earnings were $480.64 and my June earnings were $530.64. During both of those months my ACRU (commissions for bringing in new eBay registered users) were only at $28/per … so that was disappointing … but I’m back up to $40/per this month so hopefully I’ll have a good month. I just want to restate that I have not done any work on my sites in several months (possibly a year) … so the beauty of these stores is that if you do the “work” in the beginning and build a solid foundation with choosing a good niche, good SEO, and content for the site they can provide you with a consistent income for years to come.

I also went back and checked my stats and my average income for this year has been right around $530 per month.

I know I could be making much more with my EPN earnings but I’ve been very distracted this year planning our destination wedding and I just wasn’t as money motivated as I could be. LOL. But I will say that I now have the “travel bug” and I’m much more money motivated and look forward to ramping up my niche store earnings. *SmiLes* Suzanne

Do you build niche stores? What kind? Are you making any money? What are your biggest challenges? Do you have any advice? Do you have any questions for me? Let us hear from you below in the comments.

P.S. I just purchased the new guide, “The Number 1 Way to Make Money Online,” and it’s got a lot of great information in it on how to build eBay niche stores from start to finish. I will be going back and revisiting all of my existing stores and making some changes and then I will be adding at least 5 new stores to my portfolio over the next couple of months.

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Wow! I’m reading “The Number 1 Way to Make Money Online“ which was written by the guys who developed the BANS (Build a Niche Store) software and I must say I’m impressed.

I’m an avid reader and I usually refer to most of the stuff I find as “fluff” without any real guidance but this guide is truly a step-by-step guide on how to use eBay’s affiliate program (EPN) to make money. It focuses on using BANS and phpBay which are both products I use and highly recommend.

They are offering the guide at a discount of only $24.95 until Monday, July 20, 2009 at 5:00 EDT so if you’re considering it … get it now! The price will go up to $44.95 … which truthfully is still a great price for the amount of information given (I’m sure it’s more comprehensive than most of the $97 stuff out there to be honest).

UPDATE: They have decided to make the price $24.95 until further notice! That’s awesome … Check it out!

As I’ve mentioned here on the blog I make about $500-$600 per month with my BANS stores and I’ve been very lazy (OK … busy and totally distracted with my wedding LOL) this year and haven’t done any work on them at all. Armed with the new information I’m learning I will be revisiting and tweaking each of my stores and then I’ll also be adding at least 5 new stores to my portfolio (hopefully more). I’ll keep you posted over the next couple months on how it’s going but I hope to at least double my income from this revenue stream.

Go check out “The Number 1 Way to Make Money Online” now and let me know what you think … and let’s make a ton of money this year (I’ll need to just to support my new addiction to traveling LOL). *SmiLes* Suzanne (Franco) Land <—– new last name hee hee

Have you read this guide? What did you think of it? Are you considering this purchase? Do you have any questions I can answer? Do you currently make money through EPN? If not, what’s holding you back – what do you need help with? Let me hear from you …

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(*Click image to view larger image*)

As you may or may not know I’ve been helping my son, Austin, with his own BANS site (Build a Niche Store) since October (his site was his birthday present LOL).

We worked hard on the keyword research and I taught him how to check out his competition and gave him some pointers in online promotion.

He did a great job setting up the blog and store and he has put up some decent content. He built a Squidoo lens and he spends some of his time participating on niche related forums (it’s a corn snake site).

After using as many promotion ideas as he could come up with he felt frustrated that he could never get the site to page 1 of Google (he could usually be found on page 2 somewhere).

Well, a couple of weeks ago I was using the 30 Minute Backlinks method on all of my sites and Austin and I decided to use it on his site too.

Here’s the text I got from Austin yesterday, “Yes! Mom!!! I’m num 2 in google for corn snakes as pets!!!” His traffic from yesterday was three to four times his normal traffic and so are his click throughs to eBay. As you can imagine he’s pretty stoked! (Today he’s actually #1).

I can honestly say this product works! All three of us (Ken, Austin and I) have had great success on each of our sites after using the 30 Minute Backlinks. And truthfully, we’ve only used one of the five methods outlined in the instructions.

If you have a site and you want to see better results in the SERPS what have you got to lose? Michelle offers a money back guarantee so I think you should do yourself a favor and give it a shot.

Check Out 30 Minute Backlinks Now!

UPDATE: I just checked this site for the first time in several weeks and I’m now #2 for Money Making Ideas (the term I optimized for … this really works guys!)

P.S. I’ll tell you what … if you purchase 30 Minute Backlinks through my link and you’re not satisfied with the results … I’ll personally help you promote your site! *SmiLes* Suzanne

Have you tried 30 Minute Backlinks? Have you been wanting to try it but haven’t yet? What’s stopping you from trying this? Let us hear from you!

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My “Sticktoitiveness” Interview!

One of my online friends, Soggy Dave, interviewed me for his Build A Niche Store Blog and he posted: “Sticktoitiveness: An Interview With Suzanne Franco” this morning.

Head on over and read about my struggles and successes with my BANS (Build A Niche Store) business and be sure to look around his blog (and even subscribe to his feed) while you’re there. He’s got a ton of great information about BANS and about online promoting … and I’ve learned a great deal of what I’m doing right there on his blog.

Sticktoitiveness: An Interview With Suzanne Franco

Be sure to leave a comment and let me (us) know what you think.

Are you having any struggles or successes with your online business? Has anyone helped you along the way? Do you enjoy helping others with their online business? I’d love to hear from you! *SmiLes* Suzanne

P.S. I’ve used one of Dave’s templates for the last two stores I’ve put up and I honestly owe much of the success of these stores to this template. I have a WordPress blog on the root domain and he has integrated the BANS store into the blog … so the store navigation shows up on the right sidebar. I just LOVE it! He has several different template choices so check out what he has and he can always point you in the right direction if you need help.

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Diversify Your Online Income Streams

We’ve all heard the old saying, “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket” and when it comes to running your online business I think it’s very important to live by that and diversify your online income streams as much as possible.

I can’t tell you how many times a week I read on a blog or forum that the income stream that someone was using to rake in some great money … just went down … or worse yet … went away completely!

This could be as simple as a seasonal niche or as awful as having your site deindexed by Google or from being kicked out of an affiliate program that was paying the bills.

Not only would I suggest you diversify your business types I would even suggest that you diversify your potential income streams on each and every site … and for each business. By this I mean that instead of focusing all of your time and energy, for instance, on building and promoting BANS (Build a Niche Stores) stores I would also look at some other business models for making some money. To further break that down … if you have BANS stores I would also diversify how you make your income on each and every BANS store. I would be looking for ways to make money through other affiliate products and probably some other means as well.

Let’s use a BANS store as an example. If you have a store selling computers you might also look for affiliate products and services that would make sense to have on a computer site. There might be some software programs, protection products, extended warranties, internet service, hosting service, books and/or magazines, eBooks, gadgets, music download services, large electronic retailers, etc. If it’s your area of expertise you might even check into writing an eBook of your own. But the important thing here is to look for ways to sell these items … through someone other than eBay. But, Suzanne … this is an eBay store. Well, I think you’d be wise to put a WordPress blog (preferably on the root domain – but that’s another whole post) where you can write blog posts and integrate these other products and programs. You could probably add some other advertising there too. Weave these sales links into some content whenever possible so your site won’t be viewed as a link farm! You might also consider a forum for the site. Niche forums usually do very well in the search engines and it will also help you get recognized as an authority in your niche. You could then either sell advertising on your forum or place your own affiliate ads there too.

What would you do if you had a store that was a very good producer and you suddenly lost your relationship with eBay? You’d be out of business and the backlinks you’ve worked so hard to build and the page rank … all for what? But if you already had these other income streams in place it wouldn’t hurt nearly as much as being put out of business in a split second.

Do you diversify your income streams? Do you have any ideas or hints that you can share here to help others? What are the pros and cons of diversifying your income streams? What questions do you have about diversifying? I’d love to hear from you on this. *SmiLes* Suzanne

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BANS (Build a Niche) Profits for September 2008 -

Exceeded My Goal!

For the past few months (as promised) I’ve been posting the profits I’ve made with my BANS (Build a Niche Stores) business and my other EPN (eBay Partner Network) profits here on the blog. If you haven’t been following along you can take a look at my BANS profits for June 2008 ($203.36), my BANS profits for July 2008 ($269.41), and my BANS profits for August 2008 ($531.51).

Last month I decided to use the magic words in goal setting and to publically post my goals for my BANS profits for September 2008 … which I set at $800.00. Well, I’m proud to report that I did it! I exceeded my goal by $21.74 … earning BANS profits for September 2008 of $821.74!

I post my profits here to give others who are just getting stated with their online business, or those who just aren’t making money online yet, hope and encouragement. I get email after email asking me how to make money online and all I can do is share what’s actually working for me.

This is all pretty much profit other than the $6.95 I spent on a new domain name (Go Daddy) for the newest store I put up, the $6.99 I spend for my US Free Ads account, and the $9.95 per month I pay for my hosting (HostGator). Technically, the hosting cost ($9.95) would be divided up amongst all of my online sites and businesses. Because HostGator offers me unlimited domains for that one account they all share in that expense. I don’t spend any money on advertising but rather I invest my time doing free site promotion and focus on SEO for free search engine traffic.

Before I get into my BANS stats for September I will also mention that I made an additional $333.92 from other affiliate products and programs. As that income grows I will start breaking it down further for you so you can see what else I’m doing to grow my income (AdSense and affiliate products). I also earn an income with a few other online businesses I have:

Freelance Writing Jobs – Freelance Daily ~ A job source newsletter helping freelance writers find legitimate freelance writing gigs.

WAHM 2 WAHM – Work at Home Mom’s site ~ A site where WAHMs (work at home moms) can find a direct sales company that’s just right for them … thus also being a great place for WAHMs to promote their opportunity. Free searchable database and just a great resource site for moms (and dads).

WAHMSE – Work at Home Mom’s Sales Exchange ~ Similar in nature to WAHM 2 WAHM … WAHMSE (Work at Home Mom Sales Exchange) is also an advertising and promotion site for work at home moms.

Review Mama – Honest Product Reviews – A review site where I can review and promote an eclectic mix of things I enjoy (or don’t enjoy). It’s mostly a place where I can write about things that don’t necessarily fit into any of my other sites … and I can use affiliate products to earn some extra income.

Much like August, I spent a fair amount of time in September on my marketing efforts … and it paid off. I, again, put up another new store and although it made some money … it wasn’t a superstar like the store I launched last month. I did not get the SEO done on all of the store pages like I did on the store I launched last month … hmmmm … I think I see a pattern here folks. Put in the work … and it will pay off monetarily.

Here’s the breakdown for September – Stats and Profits: 10,937 clicks, 17 CRUs, 11 ACRUs, 1,140 bids, 369 winning bids, bid revenue $546.74, and $275 for the 11 ACRUs … for a monthly grand total of $821.74 (up 65% from last month).

As mentioned, I added a new store in September – so I’m up to 5 stores. There were no real surprises in the performance of any one store. The top 3 stores performed similarly to last month … the newest store made $34.18 (launched on about the 15^th) and the same “loser” store came in last with $2.26.

Another $7 bucks came from various links and widgets I have on blogs and sites.

I’ve mentioned over and over that there are two different approaches to the BANS business building model. There’s the method of slapping up as many stores as possible … right “out of the box” without any work or customization or search engine optimization … much less marketing. And then there’s the method I prefer … quality over quantity. I do believe “Slow and steady wins the race.” I just can’t say this enough … so be ready to hear it over and over here on the blog!

With that said, I doubt I’ll be adding a new store in October since I haven’t finished doing the important SEO work on my newest store. If I get that done then I might add one but it’s more important to focus on my SEO and my marketing on the stores I do have in place.

I was thrilled that I hit (exceeded) my goal for September! I’ve thought long and hard about my goal for October and it’s time for me to commit to that number and post it here:

BANS Goal For October 2008 … I Will Earn At Least $1,000.00 … On or Before October 31, 2008!

Do you have a BANS store? How was your September? Would you like to know more about making money through BANS or eBay’s affiliate program? Post your questions and comments here! *SmiLes* Suzanne

P.S. I LOVE helping others … it’s just in my nature. If you’d like to get an online business started … shoot me an email or a comment here and let me know what I can do to help!

P.S.S. Wanna make some extra cash? Take a look at BANS (Build A Niche Store) … right now … you won’t be sorry!

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