Do you know that I’ve had a subscription to WordTracker for at least four months and have hardly used it? I don’t know why. And I’m kicking myself now because I finally see the value in using WordTracker for building Build A Niche Store (BANS) sites.

So what finally made me see the light? Again, I don’t know. Perhaps it has been working on Mark’s 12 week series. Certainly this is the quickest I’ve created BANS sites. But whatever the reason I can honestly say it is an invaluable tool.

To illustrate how valuable I will show you the site I am currently working on. Yesterday I started building my BANS site for the new Darts Store I am creating. At least 75% of the pages came from using WordTracker.

When I first log in to my WordTracker account I have several options to choose from. I’ve found the ‘Keyword Universe’ to be the most helpful so that is the link I click:

Next I enter a term in the ‘Enter your search term below’ area and click ‘Proceed>>’:

WordTracker will search for that term. Because I have ‘Lateral’ and ‘Thesaurus’ the results will have the broadest possible terms relating to my search term (in this case I searched for ‘Darts’).

The related keyword results will be listed below on the left side. Those terms are useful but the real gems are found after clicking on any of the left-side results. For example, when I click on the term ‘darts’ the right side shows the top 300 search phrases from the last 100 days that include the term ‘darts’:

I can go through any term from the left side and dig deep into long-tail phrases on the right side. Some phrases are unrelated, such as dodge dart (a type of car that has no relation to the game of darts) but most are highly targeted phrases.

So, what is the big deal? Well, I can take these highly targeted phrases and create store pages with them. I can name a page using the phrases I have found. The best part about doing this is that I found a huge amount of phrases that I would have never come up with on my own. My Darts Store is being filled with phrases people are already searching for.

Plus, I found items to stock my store with that I would have never found without WordTracker. eBay does have a darts category that includes a few subcategories, but it is pretty basic. If I had built my store around these categories I would have a store with about four pages. But using WordTracker helped me create a highly focused store that, as of this writing, has over 50 pages. And I’m not done with it.

If you aren’t yet using WordTracker then you are losing sales. That might sound extreme but I believe that to be true. The cost is high, but if you consider the sales using it will bring then you will find the annual subscription cost will pay for itself long before your subscription expires. This is especially true it you have, or plan on having, many niche stores. Try the trial Give WordTracker 7-day free trial a try and see for yourself how valuable this tool is.

Rochelle

Today I’m working on a new Build A Niche Store site and am making the same mistakes that I’ve made on just about every store I’ve created. So, I thought I’d share these mistakes so you don’t make them, too.

Whenever you create a new store page make sure you review it before going on to the next page. This way you can catch the following mistakes:

• Spaces left between words in the page URL. This mistake will be obvious if you see strange symbols between the words of your page’s URL. For example, instead of a URL looking like mydomain.com/new-page it will look like mydomain.com/new%20page.
  • Correct this by removing the space in the ‘Page URL‘ section of your store page.
• No search terms entered. This mistake is most obvious if you use category ‘0‘ for your page because nothing will show, not even the ‘There are now results’ message that will show (this message will always show in v3 stores when there are no results, but is sporadic in earlier BANS versions). If you used a category number other than ‘0′ and intended to hone the results by adding a search phrase then checking the page will verify you did this. If there are far more results then you intended then you probably made this mistake.
  • Correct this by adding the search terms needed for the store page in the ‘Search Query‘ section of your store page.
• The wrong results are showing. This happens for many reasons, including when sellers put listings in the wrong category.
  • Correct this by using negative keywords in the ‘Search Query‘ section of your store page. You can add negative keywords by adding a - in front of the term(s) you want to eliminate. Here is an example of negative keywords:
    • -apple
    • -apple*
    • -(apple*,red apple*,green apple*)
• The store page is in the wrong category. This is obvious when you page you created isn’t where you meant it to be. For example, you created a ‘Red Apple’ page and meant to put it in the ‘Apple’ category. Instead you find it in the main ‘Store’ category.
  • Correct this in the ‘Page Location‘ section of your store page.
• Nothing shows up in the store’s content area. This happens when a strange character is used in the ‘Link Name,’ ‘Page URL,’ or ‘Search Query.’
  • Correct this by removing any unusual characters, one at a time, until you find the culprit. This can be tricky to diagnose because some characters are ok in one area (such as ‘Link Name’) but not in another (such as ‘Page URL’). I would start by removing characters from the ‘Page URL’ first, next from ‘Search Query,’ and last from ‘Link Name.’

Those are the most common mistakes that I make. By checking each page as I make it I can correct these errors before visitors see the page. Plus, if you never check your pages you will never see these mistakes. That can be costly!

If you have any common mistakes that I didn’t mention then please.

Rochelle

More than one person has asked me if I have Directory Submitter (aka DS), either publicly here on my blog, or in private via email. The answer to that is, "Yes." But the better question may be if I actually use the program. I’ve spent money on many programs that I don’t end up using. The answer to this question is also, "Yes."

I’m going to be honest about DS. There is nothing that it does that you can’t do yourself. Having said that, it was one of the better programs I’ve purchased and I highly recommend it.

So, what does it do and what makes it so great?

• DS is a database of ~3,000+ directories. This means you have just about every directory you could ever want to submit to in one place. Should there be a directory you want that isn’t included you can add it manually.
• DS tracks what directories your sites are submitted to. This means you don’t have to keep a separate log or try to remember where you submitted a site.
• DS allows you to create a profile for each web site you want to submit. This means you can submit all of your sites. As already stated, DS tracks where each site was submitted to, so the more sites you have the more valuable this program becomes.
• DS shows the PageRank for every directory. This means you will know the ranking of each directory before you submit to it. You can even have the directories listed in descending PageRank order.
• DS allows you to choose all directories, paid submissions, or free submissions only. This means you don’t need to determine if it will cost money to submit to a directory because DS has already determined this.
• DS lets you export your settings and submission history. This means you can save this information elsewhere for safe keeping. Should something catastrophic, such as a virus, wipe out your computer, you can easily restore your DS profiles and information.
• DS provides free upgrades. This means you don’t have to pay an additional fee if they upgrade from the current version (v3 as of this writing) to the next version number (such as v4). So many companies now charge for upgrades that it’s refreshing to see that some companies still do give away upgrades (as Build A Niche Store does).

I think I’ve covered the highlights of this program. Yes, it is a bit pricey. If you just have one or two sites then pass on it. If, however, you already have, or plan on having, a large number of niche stores, and are serious about building backlinks, then this program will be well worth the investment.

If you have any questions about DS that I didn’t answer here please feel free to ask. Click here to read more about DS, or to download the trial version (or demo version, as the DS people call it).

Oh, one more thing. The people who create DS seem to have changed the name from Directory Submitter to Link Directory Submitter. They are the same thing so don’t be confused by the new name.

Rochelle

I’m tired of grey. How about you? What I’m talking about is the grey in the default templates that comes with Build A Niche Stores. To combat this grey I’ve created some templates with a bit more color. The best part is you can use them, too!

My templates are free for the taking. The only thing I ask in return is that you leave footer.php code as is. Realistically there is no way I can monitor this but I hope that you will respect my efforts in creating these templates by leaving the code alone.

I will continue to add more templates as I find time to add them. You can download my templates from the ‘Free Templates‘ page.

Rochelle