phpBay

You’ve done your research on your niche, selected your keywords and purchased a domain name. The next step is to set up your website. Since you’re trying to maximize your profits in a short amount of time, you want to get this done as quickly, easily and most importantly cheaply as possible.

Your best bet is a content management system, or CMS. A CMS allows you to dynamically add information to your site and graphically make changes to the site’s layout. There are many choices for a CMS, such as Drupal or Plone, but the most popular is Wordpress. The reason for this is Wordpress is very easy to install and use, and it has a vibrant community offering themes and plugins that help beautify and extend functionality to your site. I recommend you use Wordpress, but I encourage you to research the popular CMS’ out there to find which would best fit your situation and style, since it is ultimately your site and you will be the one doing all the work here.

The next step is installing your CMS. Depending on your webhost, there are a couple ways of doing this.

1. Manual Installation – The universal method is manual installation. Download the CMS of your choice from their website, and follow their instructions. This typically involves uncompressing your CMS and uploading it to your webhost via FTP software and setting up a relational database on the webhost server. Typically, these steps are not very difficult, but if you’re not technically inclined, they can be daunting. Fortunately, there is an even easier way.
2. Automatic Installation – If your webhost uses cPanel, they may have software that can automatically install popular website scripts and CMS applications with a couple of clicks. That software, called Fantastico De Luxe, asks you a couple questions about your site, such as where you want to install it and your username for your site, and it handles all the rest.

Now that your CMS is installed, your next step is installing any plugins to extend functionality. The plugins you install have much to do with how you plan on monetizing your website. For example, if you’re using Wordpress as your CMS and you want to create an affiliate store, you may want to install the phpBay or Associate-o-Matic. For a membership site, you may consider integrating aMember with Wordpress. No matter the site, other plugins you should consider are All in One SEO Pack, MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer and Google XML Sitemaps. These last three can greatly help in generating traffic to your site.

Next, you should beautify your site. You can go all out and develop a custom template or hire someone else to, which to some may be a selling point to have a unique design, but you don’t have to. Many of the free templates out there look great and in the long run, it doesn’t really matter if the appearance is unique.

By now, your site should be ready to post your content, be it articles with adspace, an ebook, or an active membership site. The Equity Millions system has lots of good information on how to best monetize your site. Good luck and happy flipping.

Let this be a word to the wise, and a testimony that even professionals can get burned.

Lately, I had decided that it was about time that I churn out some niche stores. What better way to earn some quick money by selling a profitable niche store in order to seed larger projects. There are really 2 choices when it comes deciding on a partner for a niche store: Amazon and eBay. For my purposes and the niches I was trying to target, the eBay Partner Network seemed the right fit. With software packages such as Build a Niche Store (or BANS for short) and the phpBay Wordpress plugin, it would be extremely easy to get multiple sites up and making a profit, especially with the methods I learned from the Equity Millions system.

However, while I excitedly submitted my application and waited for a response, eBay purged some 300 affiliates from their program. No explanation, and only 7 day’s notice, with no option remedy the situation. A couple weeks later, I received a response. In the end, my application was denied. All that time and effort was wasted.

Or was it?

Since I was using the phpBay plugin for Wordpress so that I would have an integrated blog with my store, I noticed in the admin area a link to join the Pepperjam Network. I checked them out and noticed that they had a partnership with eBay. Through joining the Pepperjam Network, I could still become an eBay affiliate. My time and resources were not wasted after all. I could still set up my niche stores, and through the methods taught in the Equity Millions system, sell them for a nice profit.

Not an Equity Millions member? Read our review to find out more, or Click Here and join today.