I just read a blog post over at John Chow.com talking about a new plugin for Wordpress that allows you to create a BANS store.

BANS stands for Build A Niche Store, and it’s geared toward Ebay affiliates that are interested in setting up a store to sell items through the Ebay affiliate program.

An Old Idea

The BANS stores have been around for some time and ebay affiliates are making good money from them.  But the BANS software cost $97.  Not to worry though, the new Affomatic Ebay Plugin is absolutely free and allows you to create your own BANS store using your Wordpress blog and your Ebay affiliate Id.

Here is a screenshot of the plugin management page:

To place an item on your blog, you add the link and create a keyword that corresponds, then anywhere you place that keyword on your blog in a tag format ([AffomaticEbay]Keyword[/AffomaticEbay]), the ebay item will display along with your keyword.

The New Idea

Now here’s a twist on everything.  If you already sell your own products or plan on selling your own products, whether you have them listed on ebay yet or not, this plugin is a great way to “double dip”.

What do I mean by “double dip”?

Simply place your products on ebay, then create your wordpress affiliate store, also add your products to this store.  Now whenever someone buys one of your products through your affiliate store, you make the affiliate commission from that sale as well as the normal profit from the actual sale on ebay.  You are essentially double-dipping.

This can help off-set the cost of ebay fees tremendously.

With the Ebay Affiliate program and this new wordpress plugin, there is absolutely no reason you should ever have an online store that doesn’t operate this way.  The internet is evolving and you should too, especially if you’re interested in being successful.

Get the Affomatic Ebay Plugin here.

Let me know what you think about this great new plugin.

If you missed my latest post, click here to learn how I make $40-$50 per month with my SMS Blog Feed and only 3 subscribers.

Most people don’t blog just to hear themselves talk.  They do it for others.  To help someone looking for information within a particular niche.

So what good is doing that, if no one enjoys reading your blog?

You want your blog to be enjoyable and to create a stickiness that keeps your readers’ attentions for longer periods of time. You also want those readers to want to come back.  And believe it or not, there are proven methods to increasing that stickiness on your blog.

Post Frequently

This is the number one method for creating a sense of community with your readers.  To make them want to come back.  If you don’t post often, and your readers continue to come back hoping to find new content, they are going to be let down, and eventually give up on you.

You don’t have to post every single day, or even every other day.  Whatever you decide, make sure that it stays the same.  Don’t create a post everyday for a week, then switch to posting weekly, or monthly.

If you’re just starting your blog and aren’t sure how often you will be able to post, start with a longer frequency, then when you feel like you can do more, increase that frequency.  This helps to gain readers, whereas going in the other direction often gives you a decrease in readership.

Break Up Posts Into Series

If you’ve ever watched a television series like Heroes, you’ll notice the cliff hanger ending that always makes you want to tune in next week for the next episode.  Television has perfected stickiness with this method.

Just as with TV, if you’ll break your posts into a series with some sort of cliffhanger at the end, you will cause an interest buildup, and the reader will want to come back for the next post.  This often leads to blog subscriptions.

A good example of creating cliff hanger endings for a post series can be found on BossSanders.com.

Get Interactive

The reason why website like Facebook and Twitter are so popular is because they are interactive.  Sometimes it’s difficult to implement those methods of interactivity on your blog, but you can always do some minor methods.

Whether you realize it or not, commenting is an interactive part of blogging, so you’ve already got one method in place.  Three others you can implement are polls and contests, and giveaways.

Giveaways are expecially great because everyone loves to win free stuff.  And most will do anything you ask them (within reason) to win.  Like spreading word of the contest via Twitter or their own blog.

Polls also help to get reader feedback about thing you could do with your blog that they’d be interested in.

Offer Actions Below Each Post

I’ve written a great  article on what to include below your blog posts, so I’ll not bore you with details here.  But know that adding specific actions you want the reader to perform, like subscribing, or offering related posts to read, have been proven to be effective.

Often times readers don’t want to search exhaustively for what they should do next, they would rather be lead.  Otherwise, they’ll just lead themselves away from your blog.

Offer Incentives For Commenting

Commenting is a big part of your blog, and it helps you and other readers to generate a thought process of creative thinking.  And people love creative thinking.  That’s why puzzles are popular.

Offering incentives for commenting references back to adding a contest to your blog.  A randomly chosen commentator could win a Macbook, or the top commentator each month could win $100.

Whatever incentive you choose to give, be creative.  Do something unique and desireable that no one else is doing.

Respond To Your Commentators

Not only do you want other commenting on your posts, you also want to respond to their comments.

How do you feel when you say something in response to someone in a conversation you’re having, only to get a dumb look in return.  This is alot like not responding to your blog comments.

You don’t have to respond to them all, especially if you’ve got a large number of readers.  People know you’re a busy person because they are too.  But as long as they see you making an effort to respond to three or four, they’ll know they’re not speaking to a brick wall.

A Good Blog Design

I’ve seen so many blogs that still use the default wordpress theme, or clutters as many things as they can into every small piece of space they can find.  This is counter-productive of your blog.

A blog that isn’t pleasing to the eye will turn away potential readers before they even start reading what may be the best article every written.

A good design will promote flow of the page, and help draw readers deeper into your blog.  First impressions are important, but you don’t have to pay your life savings to hire a designer either.

There are many great themes floating around on the internet for free.  Will it separate your brand from other bloggers?  No.  But it will make for a better design.

One of the best blog themes that is very flexible is the Thesis Theme.  Many top bloggers such as Darren Rowse, use this theme.  I recommend it to all new bloggers who plan on becoming successful but don’t have the money to pay for a custom design.

You can get the Thesis Theme here.

Display Your Best Content

Somewhere in your design you should have a widget which displays your best content.  Not the content you think is best, but the content your readers think is best.

There is a reason it’s labled as your best content.  Apparently your readers liked it and voted for it.  Your best content is what will keep a new reader coming back to your blog.  It’s what will cause a new or long time reader to eventually hit that subscribe button.

Some of my best content is the reason this blog has sky-rocketed with visitors within the last couple of months.  It’s the reason I’m already making more money on my blog that most will ever make.

If you’ll look to the top of my blog, you’ll notice a place that says “Most Popular Posts”.  Those are the posts that caught my readers attention.

If you’re interested, read my post about the 8 Daily Tasks to Increase Blog Traffic.  Alot of my readers think it’s a great article.

Create Sticky Content

If you’re interested in finding out how to create sticky ideas or content which fall beyond the ways I’ve given you to make your blog sticky, then check out a great book I’ve been reading called “Made to Stick”.  It’s a definite must-have for bloggers who plan on being successful.

You can get Made To Stick here.

What other methods do you use to make your blog sticky?

The Sears in my home town is attached to a Mall, and I walk in on occasion, but only to pass through to the inner sanctum of the mall.  The last time I actually took the time to look at the items in Sears, was when I was a little kid.  Most of what I remember wasn’t anything I was ever interested in.

But when Sears sponsored a $100 gift card through IZEA for their “Don’t Just Give a Gift, Grant a Wish” program, I got the chance to revisit the store of my childhood memories.

The Revelation

Sears, I found out, is no longer the store of my parents generation.  They have changed with the times just as any other store has.  It’s weird how biased many younger consumers are towards stores like Sears because of how they remember it as a child.

I’m glad I had this opportunity, because it has opened my eyes.  Not only to the newer, and better Sears, but to the possibilities that other stores I haven’t visited since childhood could be and probably are a lot different than I may think.

Heroes At Home

The absolute best thing I saw during my shopping spree at Sears was that they have a program that supports our troops on the home front.

This strikes home for me.  I am in the military myself, and I know the hard times service men and women can face when returning from deployment.  I have had friends and family return home, that walk a little slower or are a little edgier.  Who find it harder to cope knowing what they now know, and having seen some of the most horrible things anyone could ever experience.

The Sears Heroes at Home program is great, and it shows me that there are still people who support our troops each and every day.  If you’d like to donate to the Heroes at Home program, please click here.

The Sears Offerings

If there is one thing I’ve noticed about Sears since my shopping experience, it’s that you have to be very creative to buy more than a couple of things at Sears when shopping with a $100 budget.

Sears is pricier than many of the other stores where I live, but they do offer some really great items.

Sears had almost everything you could imagine a big store having.  Clothes, Electronics, Home Furnishings, Appliances, Shoes.  But the one thing I noticed that Sears didn’t have, was Toys.  I was a bit stunned.  So I went to their website after returning home, and was relieved to see they do carry toys.  Just not in this store in our hometown.

The electronics sections was a little on the skimpy side, but out of the things they did offer, there were some nice items.  Here’s a small selection from what stood out most in my mind.

• iPods
• Flip Videos
• Giant Flat Screen HDTVs
• The Wii & Other Game systems
• Movies

Sears also had seat messagers set up to try out and relax after a long day of shopping.  My pregnant wife really enjoyed those.

My Purchases

As I walked through the store, I was so mesmerized with the number of things I wanted to get.  But $100 wasn’t going to buy them all.

I’ve gained about 40 pounds since my wife got pregnant with our first child and while she lost it all, I find that I haven’t, so I’m beginning to work out and do some running, maybe eat a little healthier.  So the first item I picked up was an armband iPod holder.  I’ve got the iPod but have never had a way to carry it while running.  I’m hoping this purchase will be a motivator to actually start running.

All of my family Christmas get-togethers involve a little game called the “Chinese Auction”.  I’ve noticed others call it Dirty Santa.  In fact it’s probably better known for that name.  So my next couple of purchases were a Retro Style Hot Dog Cooker and a couple of other items that can’t be mentioned until after Christmas (I’ll leave them in the comments after our Christmas game is over).

The Results

I was overall please with my 4-5 hours of time spent in Sears, as well as with the number and quality of items that were offered.  I still think toys would have been a big seller, especially for the holiday season, and maybe a bigger selection of electronics, but other than that, it was a great experience.

Now It’s Your Turn

Sears wasn’t only interested in sponsoring my gift card, but they’re interested in granting your wish as well.  So they’ve partnered with IZEA (who is the contest sponsor) to offer you $100 as well.  For your chance to win a $100 gift card to spend on anything you’d like at Sears, simply do one of the following:

• Blog Comment - Leave a comment on this blog post with the items you would buy with the $100 gift card.  Make sure you also include the item number of each item.  You can go to Sears.com to research the item numbers.
• Twitter Tweet - Simply tweet the following message on Twitter:  “RT @steven_sanders please grant my wish to win a $100 #Sears gift card - tweet to make your own wish http://urlbrief.com/8b5d48“
• Blog Post - Write a blog post about the contest and link back to this post.  Make sure you leave a comment letting me know, so I don’t miss you.

Each tweet, comment, or post counts as one registration.  You can register up to three times by doing all three.  The winner will be chosen at random by IZEA based on all entries.  The contest ends at Midnight EST on December 23.  So make sure you get your entries in by then.  For more on the contest rules, go here.

Other Ways To Win

All of the Izea Insiders did the same thing I did, so visit all of them below to enter their contests as well:

http://www.benspark.com/benspark-grants-a-wish.html

http://mythoughtsideasandramblings.com/2008/12/16/granting-wishes-at-sears/

http://corrinrenee.com/dont-just-give-a-gift-grant-a-wish/

http://table4five.net/2008/12/16/win-a-100-sears-gift-card-and-grant-a-wish/

http://laviedelaurie.com/2008/12/16/dont-just-give-a-gift-grant-a-wish/

http://something-about-harry.com/grant-card-grant-a-wish/

http://www.toughgirl101.com/2008/12/sears-holiday-shopping-for-toys-for.html

http://boatinginbeautifulbritishcolumbia.com/2008/12/16/dont-just-give-a-gift-grant-a-wish/

Any idea, no matter how crazy or small could turn into a potential viral marketing tool. Sometimes even after trying your hardest to create viral marketing media, you’ll find your biggest success is in that which you didn’t intend to go viral.

Gary Vaynerchuck as well as many other top bloggers have had things go viral before, but it was always something unexpected.

The Simplicity Of Viral Marketing

I’m sure if I mention the “Numa Numa Song” most of you probably know what I’m talking about.  A kid decided to goof-off one day and video tape himself lip syncing to one of his favorite songs.  It became an instant hit and now he is known all over the world.

What comes to mind when I say “Ask a Ninja” or “Lonelygirl15“?  You’ve probably seen them both on YouTube.

All of these were crazy ideas that went viral and now are some of the most well known videos on the internet.  In fact, Dan Meth created a video called “Internet People” that highlighted all of these people that made it big from a crazy idea.

But Viral marketing doesn’t have to come from a video, it’s as easy as setting up a spoof website, or on a more serious side, creating some great content on your blog that helps alot of people, or generates a new way of thinking.

Keep This In Mind

Viral marketing is more of a hit or miss opportunity.  You can sit at home all day and create what you think will go viral, but never get noticed.  Then as soon as you give up and create  something just for fun, it could be the next big thing.

I’ve tried writing articles hoping they would make it to the front page of digg.  Hoping that one would go viral, launching me quickly into a more well known brand, but while some of my articles have been big hits for people all accross the web, they haven’t hit that viral stage.  Does it mean I’m going to give up?  Absolutely not.  I’ll keep trying until I get it right.

Just because you continue to try and never succeed, don’t give up.  Branding yourself, or making money online isn’t a quick process.  It takes time and alot of hard work.

Have you ever had anything go viral?