Incidentally, if you are already astutely “BANS-ified”, check out Mark’s Top 100 Niche Blogs.

I have to give kudos to the develpers of BANS as they have implemented a number of marked improvements to their already well-suited site development platform for affiliate marketers. This of course, supports eBay Affiliates who are on board with BANS and who will atest that the software and support systems work remarkably well.

Should you decide to start developing your own portfolio of niche stores with eBay, I would highly recommend BANS as the most efficient means to earn affiliate commissions.

Meantime, I continue to build Tomato Basics albeit at a gradual pace; adding content and such. Time being of the essence and considering other projects, this at some point may have to be outsourced. If that’s what it takes, no problem. My ego is the last thing that needs to satisfied.

For example, I found a great ClickBank product that is ideal for my Tomato Basics store.  It’s called How To Grow Juicy Tasty Tomatoes and tell you the truth, I could never find anything that targeted elsewhere. For illustrative purposes, I’ve linked to the actual content page on my store. I have already received several hops on the page without even trying; no sales yet but not really in any hurry as far as this project is concerned.

My objective is to use the Tomato Basics concept not only to create a successful niche store, but as a pilot program for future BANS sites I build with the software license. I must say however, after viewing some examples of advanced BANS sites using specially developed Wordpress themes, my future stores will most likely incorporate these as well. But first things first.

These specialized blogs along with an excellent BANS member forum will keep you in a solid learning mode. That in fact, is one of the the things I like most about BANS. You’ll pick up some valuable skills just by following some step by step instructions from other users willing to share their knowledge.

Last week I talked about adding color to the barren BANS template. This week the focus is on fresh content and no matter what you hear out there in website-building land, content is always king. Admittedly, there’s not much content to speak of right now on this basic tomato emporium, but that is about to change. By the way, if you’re wondering “Why Tomatoes?”, I did cover that in an introductory post here. There is another reason however and, let’s just say that tomatoes are deep rooted in my family’s history. We’ll perhaps cover that story in a future edition.

For the record, today I published what I will refer to as ‘Tomato Basics Briefings’ on two pages of the new BANS store; Beefsteak and Brandywine. I also figured out how to use HostGator to upload images to my BANS site — it’s a snap!

Oh yes, and don’t forget to check your tomatoes for real — all the more reason to grow your own.

So the theme is obviously tomatoes and thus we want to add some tomato-ey color. No problem. All I did was log onto the BANS member forum where there is a handy Template Guide. I found the tutorials on backgrounds and sidebar modifications, got my color-picker code and modified the template. Done.

Back in the early days of my sales training, we’re talking way back, I recall sales guru, Brian Tracy reciting a line that somehow stuck with me all these years. It goes like this: “The basics are boring, but the results are beautiful.” I’m sticking with that mantra for now as I build my first BANS site.

The first bit of advice I can give you if your building an eBay Affiliate Store using BANS is by all means, follow the installation and user manuals. Read through them entirely prior to taking your first steps. Unless of course, you are a professional website developer, in which case, you wouldn’t be reading this. Suffice to say, any deviation from these well-organized BANS manuals and you will find yourself in head-scratcher mode.

Yesterday was a good day on the store-building front. Referring to Lesson 3, Page 9 of the user manual, ‘Setting Up Your Store’, I successfully integrated my eBay categories and listings for Tomato Basics. I had accomplished this task previously however, this required some tweaking. I also added several content pages (no actual content yet), as well as some content for the home page.

I know the store still looks very bland and I make no apologies for this. I could say that I’m sticking with my ‘basic’ theme and get away with that. However, I am looking at different template options and will decide at some point whether to outsource or build that part of the store in-house.

The domain at http://tomatobasics.com was available and we thought the name was rather catchy plus, I’ve gotten good feedback from people. For the record, I’m using GoDaddy domains, HostGator hosting and CuteFTP as recommended by the BANS developers. I also registered a cheap .info domain; TomatoBasics.info which links to the store at the .com.

Admittedly, the Tomato Basics store doesn’t have any content pages written yet. This will change. All you’ll see currently are the eBay listings that BANS inserts once hosting and FTP are set up. Once that is accomplished, BANS is as advertised, “easy to use” and I do highly recommend the software for those who want capitalize on the eBay Partner Network.

The store itself is the brainchild of my girlfriend and I as we were tossing domain names around just on a whim. Not giving any regard to the niche per se, I think it’ll make a good pilot program for testing the functionality of the BANS software.

First on the agenda, we’ll get a couple of acronyms defined for you so you’ll know what I’m raving about here. BANS stands for Build A Niche Store. Now ask me if I get stoked up about it and I’ll you absolutely, yes!! Not only is BANS amazing software – My friends, this could be the vehicle that carries us into a new stratosphere of Internet marketing, and I’ll tell you why.

You see, BANS has already created a paradigm shift for many marketers. The reason for this is quite simple. BANS is a website-building system that is 100% centered around the eBay affiliate opportunity, a.k.a. ePN, the eBay Partner Network. Okay, if you’re interested in following me on this project, you’re going to hear a lot about ePN and why you should position yourself to capitalize on new developments. More on that later.

What makes the BANS software (and license) so special is the fact that you can create unlimited niche stores once purchased and installed. Wow, that’s cool, I’m in! What’s the price? Glad you asked; under $100 bucks. Plus, it’s one of the hottest affiliate programs out their right now and managed by ClickBank — Even better.

Segue to the objective of the BANSlog blog; we’re gonna chart the progress of niche stores built with BANS. Hence the name BANSlog. That’s right, it’s me, Chuck, just a regular guy without a lot of website development experience here to show you how to get started building these incredibly useful, monetized, targeted niche stores. 

Well, that’s it in a nutshell. Is there more? Sure thing. Check back here often as I’ll be posting on a frequent basis regarding project status. Meantime, if you are so inclined, head on over to my Build A Niche Store link and see for yourself. Don’t worry, there’s no ridiculously long sales letters, just a straight forward explanation.

Best Regards,