MasonWorld Late Night Internet Marketing » niche store

eBay TOS And The Third Slash Rule

Mark E. Mason — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 11:00:08 +0000

Internet Marketing Fortune Cookie #12

Staying Out Of eBay Jail

It's Wednesday, and you know what that means. It's time for another weekly Internet Business Fortune Cookie.

This week's Internet Business Fortune Cookie made me stop and look at something that has been bugging me in the back of my mind for a long time. When I cracked open the cookie this week, I knew right away what it meant.

Hear the cookie speak:

"Be Willing To Admit That You May Be Wrong"

So what did I think I might be wrong about?

Terms And Conditions For eBay Niche Stores

As you know, I have several eBay niche stores powered by the incredibly cool phpBay software. That software allows you to create an eBay store in any WordPress blog or other PHP-based site almost effortlessly, and it has killer SEO features not found in other tools. In fact, I just released a video a couple of weeks ago on how I use keyword tools like Micro Niche Finder to build eBay niche stores in minutes.

But something has been bothering me. When I did that video, I used the trademark term BMW in the URL. Now, this may not be a great idea for several reasons, but one reason bothered me particularly.

I have been told (and believed) that the eBay terms of service (TOS) does not allow you to use a trademark name in URL before the third slash. So, if you want to set up a BMW site using eBay tools, BMW cannot appear before the third slash.

OK: http: //www.mycarshop.com/bmw

Not OK: http://www.myBMWcarshop.com

I believed this was true -- but I don't any longer.

DISCLAIMER: I am not a lawyer and I do not offer legal advice. What follows should not be considered legal advice. If you need legal advice, you should consult an attorney. You have been warned.

My Research on the eBay TOS

I researched this "third slash" thing. I think I had it wrong. I think it is OK from eBay's point of view to have trademarks in the URL of eBay niche stores.

Here is the TOS from eBay on PepperJam's site:

You will not adopt or use any company name, trademark, trade name. brand, shop sign, domain name, or URL (specifically, any term before the third "/" of your URL) that incorporates as a part thereof any of eBay Inc.'s, or its corporate affiliates', (a) trademarks, tradenames, company names, brands, shop signs, domain names or URLs (including the translations and transliterations), or any variations thereof; or (b) any term that consists of a generic or descriptive word, followed by the term BAY. Further, you will not display your company name, branding or trademark in an uneven, staggered, multi-color format that, in ePN's sole discretion, invokes the distinctiveness of the famous multi-color eBay logo.

I believe that this says (paraphrasing) that You will not have a store name or URL that uses any reference to eBay or it's affiliates.

I do not believe this says that You cannot use brand names in the URL. Now, using the term BMW may aggravate someone in Germany, but eBay does not care.

Let's break it down:

You will not adopt or use any company name, trademark, trade name. brand, shop sign, domain name, or URL (specifically, any term before the third "/" of your URL)

Above means you cannot use anything in your store name or URL

...that incorporates as a part thereof any of eBay Inc.'s, or its corporate affiliates', (a) trademarks, tradenames, company names, brands, shop signs, domain names or URLs (including the translations and transliterations), or any variations thereof; or (b) any term that consists of a generic or descriptive word, followed by the term BAY.

Above means that uses any eBay trademark names (or those of eBay corporate affiliates)

Further, you will not display your company name, branding or trademark in an uneven, staggered, multi-color format that, in ePN's sole discretion, invokes the distinctiveness of the famous multi-color eBay logo.

Above means you cannot rip off or parody the eBay logo.

Now one open question is what are "corporate affiliates"? I think they mean other eBay companies like PayPal, but I am still researching that.

I spoke with an anonymous "legal professional" with experience in Internet Marketing. He did not offer me legal advice, and he is not offering you legal advice (neither am I). He recommends that you and I both consult our attorneys. He also said the following:

I interpret this to say that you may not use any ebay trademark in the space between the second and third slash of your URL.

I do not read it to say anything about what comes after the third slash.

I do not read it to say anything about the use of a NON-affiliated company's info between the second and third slash.

Determining what companies are "affiliates" is the art.

Again, BMW may care, but I do not think eBay does.

Remember, I am not a lawyer and I do not offer legal advice. The above should not be considered legal advice. If you need legal advice, you should consult an attorney. You have been warned twice (maybe three times).

As the cookie says, Be Willing To Admit That You May Be Wrong.

Have a great day.
Mark

Photo credit: Uploaded on July 17, 2006 by headcase

Using Micro Niche Finder and phpBay to Build eBay Stores

Mark E. Mason — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:32:55 +0000

I have written several times in the past about how Micro Niche Finder was the first keyword tool that I ever purchased, and how I still use it today because of the great user interface. I have also talked about how you can build cool eBay niche stores using WordPress and the phpBay plugin.

In November, James Jones from Micro Niche Finder had a contest and asked people to send in videos about how people were using his software. I completed an entry as a way to say thanks to James for all the great support that he provides, including free lifetime upgrades for his customers. As I wrote recently, James is right in the middle of a serious of major upgrades to his keyword tool.

I thought you might be interested to see my entry. My idea was simple -- think up a niche store idea and build a quick and dirty site. In the video below, I show where I got the idea for a BMW autoparts store, how I did quick and dirty keyword research using Micro Niche Finder, how I bought the domain name and set up the store in about an hour using WordPress and phpBay. It's all there.

Enjoy.

The video had to be under 10 minutes for the contest, so there is some stuff that goes by pretty quickly. For example, I wanted to talk about creating and promoting the site in Firepow -- guess that will have to wait for another video. In the mean time, I need to do some article marketing.

If you have a comment or a question, I'd love to hear from you.

Niche Super-Site: Using eZineArticles as Content

Mark E. Mason — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 04:45:17 +0000

I think my eyes are finally returning to normal, so I will be getting back to focusing on the Elvis project after a few days off. Did you miss me? I hope so.

So far on our journey to build the Niche Super-Site we have discussed:

You will recall that the purpose of this case study is to get a niche site up and running as quickly as possible in the style recommended by Caroline's eBook and then expand the site into a "Niche Super-Site" by monetizing it with other methods like Adsense search, Amazon, PopShops and phpBay. When you need to get up and running quickly, you need content. The absolute best thing to do is write some compelling original content. Content is king.

Sometimes, you might want to get started by borrowing some content. In this context I really do mean borrow with the permission of the author. I do not mean steal.

One source of content that is "designed to be borrowed" is Ezinearticles.com. EzineArticles.com is a service that tries to match the articles of content authors to the needs of publishers. Article writers can post their articles to be featured on Ezinearticles.com. They have hundreds of thousands of original articles available for use on publisher sites (you are limited to 25 articles per year per site according to their Publisher TOS). Ezinearticles.com has some social-media-like features that allow popular authors (experts) to be featured on the site. The attraction for authors is exposure to "hundreds of thousands or even millions of people" (according to their web site).

So, with the task at hand being bringing up the HistoryofElvis.com website, I searched Ezinearticles.com for "elvis" and amazingly found 921 results. I selected on that I liked based on keywords and posted it on the History of Elvis page on the historyofelvis.com site. Now, organic site traffic gets something like what it expects -- some information on the History of Elvis, and I have started a base for some great original content (to be added later perhaps in the form of blog posts).

Of course, it is well known that use of massively duplicated content is penalized by google. So, you should use this approach at your own risk.

Topics remaining on my list for this niche super-site series include the following:

Traffic strategy
eZineArticles submission
Write your own content
Set up AA404 plugin
Set up a pseudo-link-directory as pillar content
Remember to back up your data.
Comment Kahuna
Secure WordPress
Blog by email
Great podcasts
Running adwords ads
eBooks
Other marketing ideas
The 50 site checklist
Others…

Niche Super-Site: Adding a PopShop

Mark E. Mason — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 23:00:41 +0000

So far on our journey to build the Niche Super-Site we have discussed:

Yesterday, we talked about how you could diversify your niche income by taking advantage of the eBay affiliate sales program by taking advantage of phpBay Pro. Today, we'll look at our second method of nich store diversification -- PopShops.

PopShops provides tools for setting up an affiliate store inside your website. PopShops claims to be the largest searchable collection of affiliate products (said to be currently over 28 million and growing). They work with the major affiliate networks, including Commission Junction, LinkShare, ShareASale, and Performics. With the PopShops program, you keep all of your commissions. ProShops offers a Free Basic account where users can add affiliate products one page at a time using JavaScript. I use the Pro account ($5/month) because that allows you to use php instead of JavaScript. This is important because the php is SEO friendly and the JavaScript is not. This is because with the Pro account shops, the product descriptions are actually in your page, and can be inded by Google (similar to phpBay Pro). PopShops also offers an Enterprise account (at $30/month). The latter account offers better sales tracking, supporting multiple commission junction PIDs (among other things). If I am making so much money at some point that I am confused about where it is coming from, I plan to upgrade. You can read more about PopShops in PC World (good description of what they do).

To make this work really well on our nice site, we need the PopShops plugin for WordPress. As of this writing, it is still in Alpha release, but it works quite well for me. Features include (from their website):

Add products to your WP blog from any of the major affiliate networks.
Click the POP button on your WYSIWYG post editor to add affiliate product links directly into your posts.
Build affiliate stores for your sidebar, footer, static pages, under a post, or randomly after posts.
As always, keep 100% of your commissions

So, for HistoryofElvis.com, we want to add shops that Elvis fans will enjoy. You can use your imagination. For this demonstration, I have added shop pages targeted at Elvis Apparel, Elvis Auto Accessories, Elvis Pins, etc. I also created a sample Elvis t-Shirt PopShop at the end of this post for your viewing pleasure.

One thing that you have to watch out for with PopShops is adding products for merchants in commission junction for which you have no relationship. As far as I know, there is no way to tell PopShops what merchants have accepted you on Commission Junction. So, if you accidentally add a CafePress shirt to your PopShop page and you are not a member of the CafePress affiliate program through Comission Junction, you will not get any commission for the sale of that item.

One great thing about PopShops is the AutoFeed feature (available on Pro and Enterprise accounts). With AutoFeed you can automatically display additional pages of products similar to the ones you originally selected for your shop. The technology uses the same shop keywords and merchants you originally chose to decide what items to add. AutoFeed pages are SEO friendly when using the php code option.

So, that's about it for PopShops. Man, this blogging stuff is hard work. Phew.

Tomorrow we need to talk about Adsense. That will complete our three-pronged monetization attach (Adsense, niche store and niche auction). In the mean time, don't forget to check out the cool PopShop store below. Neat, huh?

Niche Super-Site: Adding Plugins

Mark E. Mason — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 23:00:24 +0000

I know we are making some progress, because we were mentioned on Caroline's blog and our site HistoryOfElvis.com is up and running. So far on our journey to build the Niche Super-Site we have discussed:

Today we need to spend some time installing some important plugins. If you have not done this before, I recommend that you spend a moment looking at this post about installing plugins in WordPress.

Here are the plugins I recommend for the Niche Super-Site and why I recommend them:

Adsense Manager. We will be using Adsense ads, and I like this manager. There are other managers, and you are free to choose the one that you really like. In a niche site that relies solely on Adsense, this is the bread and butter. As we discussed in our design goals, we will be trying to diversify HistoryOfElvis.com to build income streams in addition to Adsense. Still, we want a good ad manager.
Akismet. Kills blog spam. Standard with WordPress 2.3
All in One SEO Pack. Allows us to optimize on-page SEO for our blog. We will need to get organic search engine traffic on our blog, and this tool will help.
Google (XML) Sitemaps Generator for WordPress. It is really important that Google knows about all our pages and how often to visit them for fresh content. This tool will build a map for Google. I'll have another post later about how to tell Google about our map and verify our site on Google.
phpBay Pro Plugin for WordPress. This plugin will let us make money from eBAy auctions on our site. It cost $49, but you can use it on as many sites as you want (as long as they are your sites).
PopShops Plugin for WordPress. Like phpBay, this plugin lets you sell Commission Junction stuff from your blog.

That's about it to get started. This will allow us to end up with a nice looking blog with SEO potential where we can sell Adsense ads and niche merchandise.

Tomorrow we'll go get an article from eZineArticles as our very first piece of content.

Have a great day.

Niche Super-Site: Choosing Keywords

Mark E. Mason — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 23:00:21 +0000

So far on our journey to build the Niche Super-Site we have discussed:

Remember, our overall goal is to build a niche site that returns $2/day in residual income in the Elvis Presley niche.

Before we rush out and buy a domain name, we need a keyword strategy. Now that we have settled on Elvis Presley, let's hop over to Wordtracker.com and see what they have to say about The King and his Keywords.

If you sign up for the Wordtracker free trial you can access their competition search tool. If you enter the starting phrase elvis presley, you can then pick your 30 favorite phrases returned for further analysis. The 30 phrases come from analyzing the keywords from 100 other "elvis presley" webpages.

The results are very interesting.

Based on the KEI (a measure of the goodness of the keyword), people want to know about history of Elvis -- they are searching for elvis presley "history, born, death, funeral, etc.". So, for now, let's decide that our main keywords are:

elvis and elvis presley (these are implied but very competitive. We will not try to rank for these. Some day, if our page rank is high, we might make the first page for these (but not any time soon).
history of elvis and history of elvis presley
elvis born/birth/death/funeral
elvis presley born/birth/death/funeral

As a note, let's remember the other top keywords (KEI greater than one with some traffic) and try to create a page for each phrase. More on that later. Also, note the misspelling of Presley (as Presly). We are also going to want to add some keywords specific to the affiliate programs that we will be offering (like eBay through phpBay).

See you tomorrow when we'll talk about registering a domain!

Niche Super-Site: Begin With The End In Mind

Mark E. Mason — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 22:37:19 +0000

As promised yesterday, this is day 1 of my case study on building a "Niche Super-Site." I'm an engineer by training. For me that means we need to know what we are trying to do before we get started. (Note that this does not completely explain why I always need to make seven trips to Home Depot per home improvement project).

As I mentioned, I am an engineer by training. I love my job, and I am doing this for fun (and possibly profit) in my spare time using my own resources. I will be doing this late at night (and probably missing some sleep). The fact that I am an engineer means that I am not an internet money super-guru. I am just a guy with a laptop that has never done this before. I am not doing this to make a living. So, there is no warranty expressed or implied. Your mileage may vary. Not valid in certain states. All that...

Anyway, we have a simple goal:

Goal: Build a niche site that generates $2/day.

How did I get to that figure? I've got a number in my head that an worthwhile amount of money to make online would be $3000/month. That sounds like a very aggressive goal -- but so was landing on the moon. Problem is, I have somewhat fewer resources than NASA. For example, since I am doing this part time, I am starting with the assumption that the most niche sites I could ever build and maintain are 50. In round numbers, I am thinking I could launch an average on one site per week per year. If I wanted to generate $3000 per month in residual income with those 50 sites, each site would need to generate $3000/50 = $60 per month. That's about $2 per day in round numbers. If I can figure out how to do that once -- I can do it 50 times.

As a side note, there are super-humans out there like Garry Conn -- I am told he is at times running over 100 niche sites.

So, now that we have a goal, what are the design characteristics that we want to think about? Here are a few to start with. We may add some (or take some away) as we learn about the best way to do this.

Keep it human. I am not interested in putting up sites that are not useful in at least some small way.
Maintainability is key. If there will be 50 of these sites, I need to stay away from things that require a lot of time (like daily blog updates).
Leverage existing software tools. I like to write code, but there are 100s of developers out there that are smarter than me focused on very specific tools. No reason for me to reinvent the wheel.
Stay white hat. I am not interested in black hat tricks.
Diversify. I'd like to avoid putting putting all my eggs in one basket (e.g. Adsense). There are lots of ways to make money out there -- I need to find several way to monetize my niche.
Fast deployment. I cannot afford to spend more than 7 days on the initial launch of sites subsequent to the first one. The first one will take longer due to this diary and real-time research and learning. After that, the goal is 1/week until Christmas.
Leave room for growth. If I find a niche that I want to grow into an authority site, my niche site structure should allow for this easily.
Small start-up costs. I am not interested in paying $500 for some get-rich-quick software solution. I'd like to keep the total cost for the initial site below $100 total -- with minimal costs for subsequent sites.

That is about it for now. Those are the design goals and the design constraints.

Tomorrow, we'll talk about finding a web host.

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Niche Site Case Study

Mark E. Mason — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 21:06:02 +0000

It's been almost two months since I initially got the bug to "make money on the internet." At that time, I stated my goal was to work at this part time, and that I was not interested in "black hat" money-making schemes. Just before Christmas, I published my initial plan of learning what I was doing by working on a few sites. Those sites are up, and boy have I learned a lot. Since Christmas, I have experimented with b2evolution and Joomla, and settled on WordPress as a content management system and blogging platform. I have played with Adsense, Azoogle, Commission Junction, ClickBank and other affiliate programs. I have written php code. I have purchased some software (like phpBay - affiliate link), and spent a lot of time reading. Tons of time reading.

Like everyone else, I've read John Chow and ShoeMoney, free SEO books, four million posts at DP Forums, etc. Right now, my favorite blog for this stuff is Caroline Middlebrook's site. I really like her style (she has been given the moniker "The Honest Blogger" by many of her loyal readers). Caroline is basically trying to do full time what I want to do part time. She recently released a good e-book about how to build a niche site with WordPress. It's a good read, especially if you need help with the mechanics of installing WordPress and other technical details that often get left out of other eBooks.

Inspired by Caroline's eBook and some of her postings, I am ready to integrate all of the knowledge that I have accumulated over the last 2 months in a live day-by-day demonstration. I have decided to build a niche site live as a case study on how to do this. Caroline's excellent eBook discusses building a "simple" niche site that relies on Adsense. That's an awesome place to start and perfect for the purposes of her eBook. I will be expanding Caroline's ideas to include discussions on PLR article content, news feeds, eBay auctions, backlinks, affiliate marketing, etc. The result will be a fully integrated niche site rich with content, ads and stuff to buy. I'm calling it a "Niche Super-Site." Pretty nifty, huh?

I'll post daily on my progress for a month or so, and we'll track the blog stats and progress together throughout February. I'll be accepting reader suggestions and ideas, and will grow the site live throughout the month. Along the way, I'll be handing out the "link love" posting links to all the references that I use to get the site operational.

So, stay tuned. It should be a wild ride.

Tomorrow, we'll tackle the topic of beginning with the end in mind, followed with a discussion about how to select a niche for our super-site. I will announce my choice for a niche after that and we'll subsequently register a domain name. Goal is one post/step per day (which is consistent with my part-time internet monetization strategy).

See you tomorrow.

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Niche Stores: phpBay an Excellent Choice (review)

Mark E. Mason — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 06:15:09 +0000

This is a completely unsolicited review of phpBay Pro WordPress Plugin (but it does contain affiliate links).

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!

If you've been reading my blog for the last few months, you know that I have been trying to understand the best way to monetize the internet. To learn about this while actually doing something useful, I have been running a blog containing cochlear implant information called CochlearWorld.com. That site has provided a playground to try things out -- but my real goal there is to provide helpful content. I am saving the greedy internet stuff for other sites.

As a part time internet entrepreneur with a day job, I am interested in monetization strategies that don't require tremendous amounts of ongoing maintenance. This pretty much rules out blogs, which definitely need daily loving and care. One thing that did appeal to me was niche stores. These require little upkeep to generate residual income. And they scale well -- you can have 1 niche store or 100.

While researching niche stores, I ran across phpBay Pro by Wired Studios. They offer several products, but I am specifically interested in the phpBay Pro WordPress Plugin (for more information on why, see Build Niche Sites with WordPress). Basically, 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. I decided to try this out on my testbed site CochlearWorld.com, and boy was I impressed. First, I tried to embed an auction item in an article: Invisible Cochlear Implant. Instant success. Second, I created auction based pages: Cochlear Implant Auctions. Bingo! The software worked as advertised (and plays very well with Adsense).

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.

So, if you are in the market for niche store software, I recommend that you buy phpBay Pro. Tell 'em Mark sent you.