Niche Super-Site: Making Money with phpBay
So far on our journey to build the Niche Super-Site we have discussed:
- Definition of the Niche Super-Site case study
- List of Niche Super-Site design goals
- How to select your niche
- Choosing your keywords
- Choosing a domain name
- Setting up your niche site
- Making things look nice
- Installing Plugins
- Getting listed in Google
You’ll recall from our List of Niche Super-Site Design Goals that we are striving to create a niche site that generates $2 per day in residual income. We said that we did not want to rely only on Adsense alone to accomplish that. So, one thing that we can do to diversify our niche site income is add affiliate sales. One great affiliate program to look at is the eBay affiliate sales program.
As I reported previously, phpBay Pro is the way to go when you want to add eBay auctions to WordPress. According to the Wired Studio’s website, phpBay Pro enables web publishers to quickly and easily add keyword rich eBay auction listings to WordPress or php driven sites to generate serious affiliate revenue in a matter of minutes! Boy, can I confirm that claim personally. In our case, we need to focus on the feature rich phpBay WordPress Plugin (for more information on why, see Build Niche Sites with WordPress). There are at least two great ways to use this plugin. You can embed auction items in posts, or you can created entire pages of auction listings.
Wired Studios’ product boasts several important features:
- Simple installation takes minutes to get up and going
- Keyword rich results adds SEO value to your content
- List auctions from specific categories
- List auctions from specific vendors
- Mask outgoing Ebay links
- First Class support in case you have a question or need help
From my point of view phpBay Pro delivers all of this and more. Specifically, the support is over the top - outstanding. In fact, since I was new to WordPress, I had a couple of newbie questions that were answered by the developer himself (Wade) the same day.
You will recall that our niche site ( www.historyofelvis.com) is up and running in WordPress. When people visit there, we would like them to buy things (thus helping us make our $2/day). The great thing about phpBay Pro is that we can install the plugin and have a page up and running in just a few minutes after becoming an eBay affiliate. Generally speaking, the steps are as follows:
- Sign up with Commission Junction (www.cj.com)
- Apply to become an eBay affiliate.
- Install the phpBay Pro plugin for WordPress
- Set your affiliate sales ID in the software
- Insert one line of code in any WordPress page and see your auction come alive.
You can see an example on HistoryofElvis.com implemented in the Elvis Autographs page. The cool thing is that phpBay content is indexed by Google. If you mix in some ad copy, this can have a dramatic impact on your page SEO for your search keywords.
So, that’s it for today. Tomorrow, we’ll talk about PopShops.
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February 13th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
Interesting reading, this sounds like something worth investigating. It certainly looks good on your site!
February 13th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
HI _ I am really enjoying your series
- Thanks for taking the time to post about what you are doing. Just one thing, when I went to HistoryofElvis.com and clicked on any of the auction links instead of going to the auction I got a 404 file not found - thought you would want to know ~megan
February 13th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
@Chris — thank you very much. I am really sold on phpBay. People have told me they are making a lot of money with this product (which depends a lot on traffic). So, we’ll be working on driving traffic to the Elvis site later this month.
@megan — You are very kind. I am a little embarrassed about the 404. I was moving some files around and I made a small error. I am embarrassed because I neglected to check my work. Sorry about that. The links should work for you now. Check it out. It’s really neat — takes you straight to eBay. Thank you so much for letting me know.
March 1st, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Commission Junction is STRICT with their subscribers. If you have a website with no or very little content, you will NOT get approved. Then your phpBay purchase was useless because Commission Junction’s affiliate number only works on phpBay, which you cannot resale if you decide you don’t or can’t use phpBay anymore. phpBay is lmore expensive now — $79 if you want to be able to use both wordpress and your own website. So make sure you make a website first then get a Commission Junction accout before buying these plugins!
March 1st, 2008 at 7:07 pm
David — thanks for your comments.
As far as phpBay goes, the WP Plugin is still $49. Also, phpBay appears to support eBay through four affiliate managers (not just Commission Junction or CJ as I call them). In addition to CJ, affiliate managers Mediaflex, TradeDoubler and Afflinet are listed in the interface as supported. I personally use CJ and have not tried the other three.
With regard to people having trouble getting approved at CJ, I have never really heard that before. All I can tell you is that I had no trouble getting approved.
I am not sure what you mean when you say “Commission Junction’s affiliate number only works on phpBay” — the CJ affiliate ID you get when you sign up and are approved with CJ works with many things including phpBay, PopShops, and all the links CJ itself offers.
You are correct that you cannot sell your license to a third party (as far as I can tell). I can tell you that WiredStudios customer service is excellent — you should contact them or CJ directly for advice on dealing with CJ.
Thanks again for your comment.
Regards,
Mark