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One of the big problems that has surfaced recently when dealing with Build a Niche Store (BANS) sites is how to find the right niche. Vic at Make Money Online has talked about it quite a bit, and has even done some videos talking about it lately.

There seems to be some confusion about how to find a good niche and get a BANS site set up to start making money and get ranked. Building a BANS site is just like any other niche site, however you already have a wealthy list of keywords and products at your disposal to make your research a little easier.

I have had some success so far with my BANS sites, so here is a little information that will hopefully help you out.

The first thing that I have been doing, even before buying a domain name, is to go to the eBay category page. This is crucial as it will help you find a niche and give you some keyword ideas. If you already have a domain name, great! If not, this might give you some fresh ideas for a keyword filled domain name, either pre-owned to be looking for, or a new one to register.

When you are on the main category page, take a second to scroll down at the broad categories that are there. If you already have an interest in something, then go for that area as you will be able to write some content for your BANS sites and be more likely to be enthusiastic about your niche.

Expand the certain category that you choose and look at what all is under it.

Now you have narrowed down your niche to a more specific area, but this might not be optimum just yet. Why? Well, are people looking for items in this topic? How many items are listed for sale? What is the success of items listed for sale here? You can see how many items and the category number of those items by using the checkboxes at the top and resubmitting the “search” again.

And the big one, are people looking for this item or niche on Google?

Once you have found a sub-category of an item, now the research starts. Take a look at the items listed for sale in it. Get some paper and a pencil or pen and start taking notes on name brands or other identifying information about the items, such as model names or nicknames.

Now that you have written down some information and verified that there is a good supply of items in this niche, you will want to check and see what the successful sales look like. It does you absolutely no good to build a BANS site for a category that has plenty of items if none of them are selling! Go to the left sidebar in eBay and check the box for “Completed Listings”. This will reveal all previous items that have sold in this category, or haven’t sold, and give you an idea of how much they are going for.

Ok, so items are selling too as you have found out. If there aren’t many sales, maybe you need to rethink the category.

Once you have your niche idea and keyword ideas from the listings, you will now want to check out the keywords and see what people are searching for to find them. If you have Keyword Elite or SEO Elite, then great. If not, I have used the Gtrends Keyword tool with some good success, and it’s free.

Start exploring your keywords and see what type of search volume they are predicting. You will want at least 50 searches or so. You won’t see a “green checkmark” until it reaches 100, but that is ok. As for the competition, the lower the better.

You don’t want to target a keyword that has 250 searches with over 1 million on the competition. Sure, you could do it, but the purpose of BANS is to start making money and get ranked with Google.

Once you have done your research, now comes the fun of finding a good domain name. Begin by going broad with your keywords. What is the main category related to? Are you targeting a specific model or product? If so, try some of those keywords.

Once you have done your research and have registered your domain, the rest is “cake” so to say. Just get going and get BANS set up!

Vic has an excellent video on how to set up BANS, from uploading the files to adding store pages and content. If you don’t know much about BANS, then you really need to watch this introduction to BANS.

Any questions or comments?

Check back soon for an introduction in how to modify a BANS template and create your own from a Wordpress theme!

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