A short time ago, eBay announced that their terms and conditions for the eBay Partner Network do not allow “302 redirects”. They require the use of 301 redirects instead. You can read about this major change on the original post at the eBay Partner Network Blog.
The latest version of WP-EasyBay is 1.90 – and it’s completely compliant with eBay Partner Network’s 302 redirect policy.
I received an email last week from a nice woman with an eBay store. She didn’t list auctions on eBay as a normal seller would, just in her store. She wanted to know if the WP-Easybay wordpress plugin would allow her to put her eBay store items on her WordPress blog. I was pretty certain that it would, but just to be safe I created a quick Baby Shower Gifts test page for her to view, and then sent her the WP-Easybay tags and headings I used to make it work. She was so impressed she bought the plugin 5 minutes later, and then wrote a note back which I placed on our testimonials page.
Yes, WP-Easybay works well with any eBay store, and you can display anything in it on a WordPress post or page with the WP-Easybay plugin. In addition – when you contact us with a question, we answer you as soon as possible, and if our plugin can’t do what you want – we’ll see if we can add that feature! That’s what makes WP-Easybay the most advanced eBay auctions plugin for WordPress in the world!
What are YOU using WP-Easybay for?
WP-EasyBay is proud to be the sponsor of a Free Mashup Script available for download at JTPratt.com. This mashup script allows you to put together a site with YouTube videos, adsense ads, ebay auctions, amazon items, and original content for a little “mini niche site”. You could install it on a domain you have nothing on by itself, or in a sub-folder of an existing successful blog or web site. You can see a live example of what the free mashup script can do at the Guitar Review Video Cafe.
Here’s a screenshot as well:
How do you setup a WordPress Theme for a Niche Store? It’s not that much different than the way you would setup any WordPress site, but there are a few little things along the way that are specific to affiliate stores that help convert and sell products.
This is the third installment in the “Create a Niche Store” series!
Best WordPress Plugins
If you’re going to setup a WordPress powered site for a niche store to sell products as an affiliate, here’s a list of plugins that will be very helpful to you:
Widgets
On most of my affiliate and niche sites I have just a single sidebar because I want the focus to be on the products. But in that sidebar I usually have some simple widgets, wordpress pages, tags, categories, links, recent posts, and recent comments.
Default Pages
One of the first things I do is write some original content on the default “about” page, and then I delete the first “Hello World” post (which removes the default comment). The next thing I do is setup a “contact” page with a contact form using the cforms II plugin.
This post is sponsored by WP-EASYBAY, the most advanced eBay Plugin for WordPress online!
Looking for the best WordPress theme for a niche store? It shouldn’t be too hard to find something suitable if you look hard enough. This is the second installment in the “Create a Niche Store” series!
The first thing you have to learn is that “Quality Design is an Indicator of Credibility” (read point #3). You are looking for a design that is professional and that complements your products – not something that makes people think “this is a guy in his basement” (lol). Appearance is EVERYTHING.
Next, the focus is on the PRODUCTS. You’re not looking for a theme with a zillion sidebars of a 12 inch footer to add all kinds of banners, links, and what-not (all distractions!). It’s ok to monetize a site in more than one way – but keep it simple! You’re looking for clean professional designs that have mostly a single sidebar and enough for a list of a half dozen top level pages.
You might well find a good free theme – but be resigned to the fact that you might have to pay for one. You can pay a high end designer upwards of $1,000 for a custom WordPress professional designed theme, but you might be surprised that you can get one for a little as $25 or $30 too.
Start your journey at the official WordPress Theme Repository and browse the designs. You may find that none of them are well suited for niche store with products (but maybe you’ll get lucky).
Next peruse some of the countless WordPress theme directories online. The best places to start is probably the WordPress Directory of WP Themes. I happenned to find a decent theme to start with at EZWPThemes. It should work great for my Thomas toys site, but it will need a little customizing before it’s ready – especially in the header images. Here’s what it looks like so far:
Wordpress Toys Theme
You can’t see it here, but it has a cute toys on a bookshelf footer too!
Now then, there is one more way to go, and it’s one that I recommend to my clients when doing WordPress Consulting for them. Visit Theme Forest. They have some of the most incredible themes you’ll ever see for WordPress, and nearly all of them are $30 or less. Look for the ones with the most ratings and downloads. I have used plenty of free WordPress themes (and still do), but some of the most incredible theme designs I have of some of my WP powered sites are ones I got from Theme Forest. In the next installment, we’ll talk about how to set up that WordPress theme for a niche store!
This post is sponsored by WP-EASYBAY, the most advanced eBay Plugin for WordPress online!
This is the first installment in the “Create a Niche Store” series! Today I’m going to teach you how to choose the best niche store domain. A good domain name contains the keywords that you’re going to target on your home page to draw traffic in to your niche store. You can certainly build a successful niche store on any domain name, but having your main keywords in the domain name itself can play a big factor in how much traffic you actually get. Rather than just supposing that you can pick the best keywords on your own (like many people do) – it’s in your best interest to actually do some keyword research on your own first. You can do this own your own (for free) by using the google Keyword Research Tool for Adwords to find out what people are searching for now.
All you have to do is enter some keywords into the box to get ideas. For instance, my son is VERY into Thomas the Tank Engine and he must have 4 dozen trains (he’s 3!). I’ve paid a LOT of money for all his trains and thomas clothes and related accessories. He just LOVES to get on YouTube and watch Thomas videos for hours! A lot of the videos are other kids who make their own little thomas stories and tape them, but a lot of them are actualy advertisements for Thomas merchandise. I’ve come to the conclusion that this little Thomas cottage industry would make a GREAT niche store – and my son would love it too!
So off I go to the google keyword research tool to find out how many people actually search for Thomas the train and related items each month. To begin my search, I typed the following keywords into the box on my own that I had come up with:
“thomas the train, thomas the tank engine, thomas and friends, thomas wooden train, thomas track”
I got some good results back, but it occured to me that I left out a lot of obvious keywords, so I added following to my list:
“thomas toys, thomas video, thomas clothes, thomas dvd, thomas movie, thomas toy trains”
This generated a pretty good list of ideas in the google keyword tool:
Google Niche Store Keyword Research
As you can see in the image above, there were lots of good keyword phrases for me to use – and I wanted to choose one that wasn’t too long, that got a decent amount of searches per month, that had an available domain name – and most importantly, wasn’t blatant copyright infringement that would get me into legal troubles down the road.
I selected “thomas the tank toys” because it got a decent amount of searches per month, but for me there was one single important factor. Many of you reading this now will wonder why I didn’t choose a keyword phrase with more searches per month, like thomas trains, or thomas movie. It’s simple really. I wanted a domain name that would be available, entirely relevant, and something an adult would search for! That’s right, I wanted to choose a domain name an adult would search for when looking for children’s gifts! It’s not my goal to get a 3 year old on the site looking at Thomas videos for hours, although that’s ok and might get some business through Mommy and Daddy watching their child online. I wanted to target someone actually searching to buy Thomas toys online. Always choose keywords more closely related to “buying” rather than “browsing” or “research” whenever you can – and you’ll get better results!
So, I promptly went and registered Thomas The Tank Toys to setup my niche store on. I registered my domain name with Godaddy – which is where I register all my domain names (seems easier to manage with them all in one place). In the next installment inthis series, we’ll talk about how to find the best WordPress theme for a niche store!
This post is sponsored by WP-EASYBAY, the most advanced eBay Plugin for WordPress online!
eBay plugin WP EASYBAY has just released version 1.75! In fact – we just sent out the latest version to ALL USERS that have purchased WP EASYBAY to date, because PREMIUM UPGRADES ARE FREE! With each release of WP EASYBAY, the features just get better and better! Here’s what new in version 1.75!
Restrict auctions to specific eBay Categories: This is a feature we’re very excited about, because you can restrict to specific ebay categories in any eBay site (country). You can set a default eBay site and category from WP EASYBAY plugin admin. Then, when you add the WP EASYBAY tag to WordPress post and pages – it will only display items from the site (country) and category YOU designate!
But wait- there’s more! (lol) Really, there is! By using the advanced parameters within WP EASYBAY tags you can specify any category from any eBay site (country) on any post or page. So, you could have one page for electronics for sale in France, one for Germany, one for US, etc. Or, you could use multiple tags on one page or post and show a half dozen categories or categories from different sites (countries) all on one page! The combinations are simply endless!
Research eBay to find top selling items from WP EASYBAY Admin:
This is a feature you will ONLY find from WP EASYBAY! You can actually research eBay from the plugin admin screen to find items that have been consistently selling on eBay!
Take this example:
eBay plugin research
I wanted to research how many items with the keywords “precious moments” sold in the US in the last week. 2 secons later I had all the stats I needed. With 3,700+ sold in one week, I think that I picked a pretty popular item! You can search anywhere from 1-50 days in eBay sales history, you can change the currency – and the research eBay function will work with any eBay site! If you click the checkbox you can even get a daily breakdown of sales by day with the same details (for each day) in addition to the total for the timeframe searched.
**REMEMBER: If you buy WP EASYBAY Premium upgrades are FREE! We’re coming out with an awesome new feature soon…it’s top secret so I can’t talk about it right now, but it’s something no other eBay (or affiliate plugin) has worldwide currently!
Starting next week we’re going to be starting a brand new series here on the WP EASYBAY™ site: “How to create a Niche Store with WP EASYBAY™”! We’re going to go over absolutely everything, from researching the perfect domain name – to how to setup WordPress quickly, effectively, and securely – and addition to the best way to get your new WP site indexed in search engines! Stay tuned to our blog here for details!
That’s right, WP EASYBAY WordPress eBay affiliate plugin has official launched! Follow the links at the top of this page to compare features, join our affliate program, purchase the plugin, read our testimonials, or contact us on our about page! We have done exhaustive beta testing of this eBay affiliate WordPress plugin, and we are confident not only that it’s ROCK SOLID, but that we have features you’ll not find anywhere else (at half the price!).
Welcome to the new WP EasyBay™ web site! EasyBay is the most fully featured eBay affiliate plugin for WordPress available today! We’re currently finishing up private beta testing with selected reviewers, and the official WP EasyBay™ launch will be announced in the very near future! Please sign up for our RSS feed to keep up to date with EasyBay news!
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