I have been looking for as many ways that I can to generate income from my domain names. I have most of my domain names parked and parking revenue has been dropping.
One other form of making money with a domain name is Affiliates. I have always said that I think eBay is the best affiliate program for domainers because they carry such a wide range of products. The hard thing in the past has been "making a store" that is Easy! Late last night I got looking into BANS which is short for Build A Niche Store.
BANS allows you to create a niche store with your domain using products that are on eBay! Is this better then domain parking? I would say YES in most cases! I have used eBay affiliates before and they DO work. Now that I have purchased the BANS script, I think this will pay off a lot more. It’s clean, totally custom with a little code work and very easy to use. The cost for the BANS script is $97 and is a One Time fee and you can use it for Unlimited domain names.
With any script or something "new", it will take a little playing around with. If you already have a wordpress blog and know how to load files via ftp, it should be pretty simple.
After playing around after I loaded the files to my hosting, I admit it took me a little bit to get use to the Admin panel. Once I started figuring things out, it was so easy! I think you could spend about 1-2 hours and Really have a nice looking niche store! Adding content helps with SEO and making the pages and colors flow takes a little bit, but once you get things set up, it’s on auto and you do not have to touch it again!
Several of the templates allow for "ads" which you can put banners of any kind. They allow for left and right sidebar ads, header, footer ads. You can put ads in your content if you wish as well. Add pictures to your content, or background and so so much more. Like I said, a little playing around with code and you can make the pages really nice!
The site I worked on this morning and please keep in mind this is my very first one, www.MysteryAuction.net is up and taking customers. You are able to select by categories (number) and you can adjust how you would like the products to display. You can select specific keywords within a category as well, so only relevent items show. I did have a Header made up awhile ago and I suggest to have a nice looking header.
With a little traffic to your domain name and Relevent products on the site, I would much rather see what’s on MysteryAuction.net then a parking page and I think it will pay off much better as well. I have heard many people right on NamePros.com that are making $150 and up on One Domain a month… I could really build 2-5 stores a day if I worked on it… That is some nice extra income! I suggest giving BANS a try and think it is worth the $97 investment.
A couple other things you will need besides the BANS script. Hosting (I use HostGator.com) an FTP manager (I use Filezilla) an account with Ebay Partner Network and a domain of course.
Spike
There’s a thread on NamePros about sites using BANS getting banned in Google.
http://www.namepros.com/parking-and-traffic-monetization/496715-bans-got-me-banned-by-google.html?highlight=BANS
**Jamie Says**
Thank you Spike. I was aware of the thread, but I think it has to do with the domain extension (.pro) and also how the site might of looked. I think it pays to Add Content so it’s a bit more unique. I do not see any reason why a BANS store would remove your domain from being indexed. They are a lot better then just a parking page IMO.
Steven Brawitsch
Nice looking store! I have been using BANS for a while now and have been earning a little extra money on my domains. One thing I want to point out though. eBay just moved their affiliate back end from commission junction to their own in- house program as of June 30 and many ebay affiliates will attest that their income dropped significantly when the back end was moved away from cj…though over the past few weeks things have been getting better. It’s almost as if ebay is finding bugs in their system while it is being used and fixing them slowly.
Jason
Have you looked into the free McJiffy software at http://www.mcjiffy.com/. I’ve got a domain on it http://windowmagnets.com
Seems to do the same thing, unless I’m missing something…?
**Jamie Says**
Looks to be about the same Jason. How does the service work? Is it easy to use? Cost?
Jason
McJiffy is free, the download link is at the top on the home page. unzip the archive, edit the file /sites/default.php with you ebay aff and keyword settings, and upload to your hosting. That’s it…
**Jamie Says**
Thank you Jason. I wonder how much of a difference there is between BANS and McJiffy, because McJiffy uses eBay’s API via a keyword search? BANS allows you to put a specific category number and then you can knock down results based on Keywords for the specific category. I would think the BANS system would show more relevent products more often. Also, eBay limits the amount of searches via API, which could be a problem depending on the traffic your domain gets. I do not see this as an issue with BANS.. I will look into it some more and give it a try. I really do like BANS after using it.
Jason
You can setup McJiffy with a category # too, or you can just do it with keywords. Doing your SEO homework, you can work out the categories and add those to the PHP templates (which I’ve been so far to lazy to do…). It does cache search results, so I don’t believe it’s hitting the eBay api every page request…