Making eBay Money with BANS

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A couple of weeks ago I was browsing the Sitepoint Marketplace to see what web sites were selling.  I was trying to do some research on whether there were people gaming the Dominiche newbs, building junk websites and selling them with fake traffic numbers, for instance.  While I wasn’t able to find any real indication that was going on, I did find one website sale that made my eyes pop.  What I found was n eBay affiliate, featuring one of the most boring looks possible, was generating around $400 a month.  As a cash flow guy, that was exciting.  Even better was that the web site sold on Sitepoint, very shortly after it was listed, for $1000. 

This website, I thought, probably took less than an hour to create.  A little Adsense advertising, and the guy had an asset worth $1000?  I had to try to replicate that!

Unfortunately, I spent far more than an hour on it, and was not at all happy with the results.  Additionally, I realized there was no quick way to make new sites, featuring new niches,  using the same method, without putting it on top of some sort of CMS (Content Management System).  So I wasted an entire afternoon researching small CMS programs to see which was most suitable.  Eventually I gave up.  I decided the site I had seen was not nearly as easy as I assumed it was, and I was making no progress toward successfully imitating it.

Fortunately, it appears I am not the only one interested in that type of built-it-once affiliate site. 

Build a Niche Site is that CMS tool I was hoping to find.  BANS is a specialized CMS which does nothing but build eBay affiliate sites.  In less than five minutes, you can have a plain layout with all the data you need to make money as an eBay affiliate.  With a little more effort you can customize your theme and images to match your niche.  You can also add text for additional keywords and content to draw traffic.  In short, this is everything you need to build a niche site based around eBay.

Why Become an eBay Affiliate?

The affiliate commission for sales is nothing special on small sales, 50% of the money eBay receives if your referral customer wins the auction.  On a larger sale it might add up to a higher amount.  Where the eBay affiliate program really shines, however, is the $25 payout for new customer signups.  If someone signs up for eBay through your link, then bids on an auction, you get $25.  Both of these amounts increase as you send more traffic and more sales their way.

This is a great affiliate program for a few reasons.  First of all, $25 for a new customer signup is pretty good money.  eBay is one of the most famous sites on the Internet, so no who’s interested in signing up will be scared away by the idea of doing business with a tiny business they’ve never heard of.  Eventually nearly everyone is going to have an account at eBay, whether they really use it or not.  They only have to be interested once for you to get paid.

This looks like one of the best ways to monetize a product blog that is not brand name specific.  How much time would it take you to to put together a page about brass instruments and generate a huge variety of affiliate links?  If you can even find an affiliate program for a store that sells musical instruments, it might take you a few hours.  With BANS, it took me three minutes last night.  Now, it’s been 22 years or so since I was first trumpet in junior high, but I remember enough to write a page or two of text about selecting and buying brass instruments.  A little bit of research, and I could have a page which might actually rank well in Google.  It’s the 30-Day Challenge strategy all over again.

I’m going to do some keyword research this week and put up a few more BANS sites.  This weekend I’ll work on making them look presentable.  I’ll let you know how that goes.  After that comes marketing…. if I can create just a few niche sites that generate even $100 in positive cash flow each month, that’s a big step toward financial independence.