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About Us 2007 is when I began creating niche stores. Many kind and giving people shared their knowledge with me, making it easier to improve my sites. I have gathered much of what I've learned and put it here, on this site, as a way of giving back. It is my hope that this site will help you improve your niche stores and sites, too. ~ Rochelle
How I Create a New Niche Store
Posted by
Rochelle in When I create a new Build A Niche Site (BANS) I follow the same steps each time. I even have it written down so I can easily see what to do next. I it might help others to see what steps I take so I am sharing them here. This isn’t a ‘How To’ on how to add your URL to your hosting server or upload the BANS files so my steps will start after all files have been uploaded but nothing else has been done.
I have to admit that this post is probably more for me than anyone else. I wanted to write down the steps I take so I won’t forget anything as I create new stores. I probably do far more than most people, or I do things in an order others wouldn’t. If this helps you great. If not, that’s ok, too.
Step One | |
| Log in to my site’s Admin for the first time using the default settings. | |
| Step Two | |
| Click on the ‘Security‘ tab and change the following: | |
| |
| Save changes. Log back in to Admin using new username and password. | |
Step Three | |
| Go to Commission Junction (aka CJ) and log in to my account. | |
| Click on the ‘Account,’ ‘Web Site Settings,‘ and ‘Add A New Web Site‘ tabs. I then add my new site to my CJ account. I copy my new site’s PID (I will paste it in the next step). | |
| Step Four | |
| Go back to my site’s Admin and click on the ‘Setup‘ tab. I then fill in or change the various areas. Changes I make include: | |
| Save changes. | |
Step Five | |
| Create a header image using Photoshop. I usually add to my header something like, “The easy way to find [niche items] on eBay.” | |
| Most people probably work on their headers later but I like to create an image and then customize my site’s colors based on the header I created. It’s what works for me. | |
| If you are one who struggles to make a header then skip this until your store is done. Log in to your site’s Admin and click on the ‘Setup‘ tab. Enter a term for your site (such as “The Niche Store”) and leave it at that for the time being. This will enter a clickable link in your header area. Then, after your site is completely built, including store pages and content, you can work on a header. | |
| Step Six | |
| Click on the ‘Template‘ tab and select a template. Next I upload the header image I created in the previous step. | |
| Before I create pages or add content I tweak my store and add mods. The next steps cover changes I make to my sites. | |
Step Seven | |
| Modify site colors to match header. ColorMyBans is an excellent resource for this. I also broke down the code if you want to change a specific area yourself. | |
| I don’t know for sure but I think adding code from ColorMyBans may overwrite any mods you have added to the header, footer, or styles.css files. If this is true then you may want to use ColorMyBans before adding any mods. | |
| Step Eight | |
| Change font color for Page Content area to match site colors. | |
Step Nine | |
| Change the wording of the ‘Store Navigation’ and ‘Site Navigation’ headers. | |
| Step Ten | |
| Change the wording of the ‘Powered By Build A Niche Store‘ link. | |
| Step Eleven | |
| Change the wording of the ‘View more items on eBay‘ link. | |
| Step Twelve | |
| Change the wording of ‘Home‘ link under ‘Store Navigation’. | |
| Step Thirteen | |
| Add the How to Correct the Size of Auction Images mod. For BANS v1.x and v2.x stores only. | |
| Step Fourteen | |
| Add the How to Allow Negative Keywords mod. For BANS v1.x and v2.x stores only. | |
| Step Fifteen | |
| Add the Permalink mod. | |
| Step Sixteen | |
| Add the How to Have Your Site’s Date Automatically Update Each Year mod. For BANS v1.x and v2.x stores only. | |
| Step Seventeen | |
| Add StatCounter code. | |
| Step Eighteen | |
| Add the Bookmark this Site code. | |
| Step Nineteen | |
| Add the Refer-a-Friend code. | |
| I use the Bookmark this Site and Refer-a-Friend code combined but most people seem to have problems with this so you may find it better to add them separately. | |
| Step Twenty | |
| Add robots.txt to site. | |
| Step Twenty-One | |
| Add Mark’s Sitemap mod. For BANS v1.x and v2.x stores only. | |
| Step Twenty-Two | |
| Add WebMogul’s Dynamic Sitemap mod. For BANS v1.x and v2.x stores only. | |
| Step Twenty-Three | |
| Add a Privacy Policy. | |
| Step Twenty-Four | |
| Add RSS feed Content Pages. | |
| Step Twenty-Five | |
| Add Safety on eBay page. | |
| Step Twenty-Six | |
| Add social bookmarking widgets (instructions on how to do this will be added soon). | |
| Step Twenty-Seven | |
| Add disclaimer to footer. | |
| Step Twenty-Eight | |
| Create store pages. | |
| Step Twenty-Nine | |
| Add ads, including Amazon widgets. | |
| Step Thirty | |
| Change colors of the Buy It Now and PayPal images to match my site colors. | |
| This isn’t something I will write instructions on. If you have something like Photoshop then you probably already know how to do this. If you don’t then it is too complicated for me to write down. That’s assuming, of course, that you would even want to do this. | |
| Step Thirty-One | |
| Backup site from cPanel. | |
| Step Thirty-Two | |
| Backup up database from cPanel. | |
| Step Thirty-Three | |
| Submit site’s dynamic sitemap (the sitemap.xml created in step twenty-one) to Google’s Webmaster Tools. | |
| Step Thirty-Four | |
| Create Google Alerts for new store. | |
done | |
There are additional steps that I take after this but it is more promotional in nature. When I have a chance I will write something about how I promote my stores.
Rochelle
13 Responses to “How I Create a New Niche Store”
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Hi Rochelle,
The info you provide is Great!.
How long does it take you to go thru the steps?
Randy
That’s a good question and I’m not really sure. I can probably complete the majority of the steps in under 30 minutes. The ones that take the longest are creating store categories and subcategories, creating a logo (aka header), and changing the colors of the site. Those steps can take me a few hours to a few days. It depends how deep I choose to go with categories.
Hi,
Thanks for your reply. I’ve noticed I can do some web
tasks faster as I do them more often.
I hope you write your post on how you promote your store soon,
Randy
Hi Rochelle, what a fantastic site this is! Thanks for dedicating time to help those of us that ‘don’t get it’! I’m looking for instruction or a tutorial on setting up your store for two countries i.e. I have a U.S. store but would like to have a U.K. version of the same store on the same domain. I know this is possible but I’m unsure on how to proceed. I’ve searched and searched in vain for an easy to follow step by step tutorial and wondered if you could point me in the right direction.
Warm regards,
Colin
Randy – I wrote my first post on promoting BANS sites today. You can see it at http://www.nichestorestrategie.....ans-sites/
I will write more as time allows, and as I learn more methods.
Colin – Thank you for your kind words. I’m happy to do this : )
Regarding creating stores for countries foreign to yours is something I haven’t yet done. I want to, and v3 should really open up great possibilities as we can target 14 (I think) different countries. Whenever I finally do this I’ll write up instructions but it may be a while for this one.
Rochelle
Rochelle,
Ah yes, a woman after my own heart! My kids have always called me the ‘List Queen’, ’cause if it isn’t written down, it doesn’t get done!
Thank you for the time saving list you’re sharing! I’ve bookmarked this page and anxiously await how you promote your sites!
Honey
Hi Rochelle,
I see you have a banner for Directory Submitter.
Do you use the program?
If yes, how well does it work?
Randy
Randy – I use or have every banner item I promote on this site. As to Directory Submitter, I’m actually pretty new to it. I’ve just started submitting sites with it so I don’t yet know how well it works.
The price might seem a bit steep at first site. To be honest, you can do everything this software does on your own. But I think it’s worth every penny, especially if you plan on making a lot of BANS sites.
It will save you a ton of time. The first thing you do is set up a profile. You can create a profile for every web site you plan on submitting. You then choose from the huge database of directories (over 2,700) to start submitting to (you can even add your own if there are other databases you like that aren’t included).
It shows the PageRanks of every database so you can choose to submit to the high PR ones first or low PR ones first. There are benefits to doing both and knowing the PR before you start submitting is very helpful.
One of the best features of this program is that it keeps track of where each profile has been submitted to. The more BANS sites you create the more important this will become. I think that feature alone is worth the price (well, maybe not the entire price but it IS a biggie for me).
Lastly, it seems Directory Submitter has undergone a change with their most recent version update. You may see the software called ‘Directory Submitter’ (this is what the software itself is called) but the website now calls it ‘Link Directory Submitter’. It is the same thing.
Please let me know if you have any other questions about it, or any other product I have banners to. Eventually I intend to write about how to use each of the advertised items. I will only advertise what I have used and think will benefit other users.
Rochelle
Hi Rochelle,
I just want to thank you for all the time and effort you put into these posts. I just found Mark’s site and now yours and I am just starting with BANS so I feel extremely lucky to be starting out with version 3.0 and all this in-depth information you both provide. I will definitely be checking out coffeecup and I would love to use the BANS toolbar but when I download it says that windows can’t open it because it can’t find the program that created it. Is there another download that I need?
Also, can you point me to any information on how to install a second store correctly after you have your first one up and running. I really don’t want to goof up the installation, I have been having enough trouble installing the first, I do understand it now but I have had to have Hostgator reset my account so I can start over and I don’t want that to happen on the next store too.
Thanks for all your help!
Yvette
Rochelle,
Love your site and the BANS Toolbar. Wanted to let you know that the link to find out more about BANS on thier wasn’t resolving on may 26 about 3:40pm EST. Also tried the contact us and the image didn’t come up so I couldn’t verify I wasn’t a bot and send it to you. You put in a lot of work and helped a lot of people out so I want to make sure you get something for it. Keep up the work.
Matt,
Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I need to give the toolbar some love as I’ve neglected it lately. Perhaps this weekend (but I’m not promising…).
Rochelle
Wow your site looks great Rochelle. Been skiing for 7 months.
Magpie
Hi Magpie!
Welcome back. Were you researching for a new niche store ; )
Rochelle