Since the buyer remained quiet about it… I will instead provide more of my own insight here. What I won’t provide however, is a link to the site or the domain name. If they choose to be involved in this discussion, that’s completely up to them…

Example of Why Chasing Search Demand is a Waste of Time!

Almost all sales activity is based off TeraPeak 90 Day Metrics. As I have said often, if you aren’t using terapeak… you are not even in the game!

The person, whoever it is, that grabbed the recommended domain and built the site, has made a crucial mistake in their research. He chased “Search Demand” first, versus paying attention to what really matters, the products people are buying, and THEN using search demand and SEO to get people TO those popular and higher volume of sales products!

What he has ended with… is a site that has great reviews of products that may rank well in search, but don’t sell! Literally!

Here are a couple of the [brands] and [products] the person chose to target on the site, and the reasons why they were wrong:

ADR Rims & Wheels (Brand)

On first glance in search, you would think you stepped in a goldmine! There is a high volume of search and once you get to the product level, there is very little competition… Good right? Wrong! The two products the person has chosen to review, ADR M-Sport and ADR Spartan, have very little sales volume on ebay in the past 30 days! ADR M-Sport has only sold $1200, and ADR Spartan, $900.

Akuza Rims & Wheels (Brand)

Same deal… when you look from a search perspective, they have great demand and very little competition at the product level! Again… you have ANOTHER product you can rank #1 in search for, easily! The problem is… in the last 30 days, not one person has bought even one of them on ebay! $0, null, zilch. So you may well rank first for the item, but what good is it if nobody is buying them?

The Total Earnings Opportunity

Instead of tearing apart every brand and product the person has chosen to target, which I assume, was based on search demand… I went ahead and looked at the TOTAL SALES Opportunity based on the roughly 25 exact [BRANDS] of PRODUCTS the person is targeting:

• Total Combined Sales: $46,000 / month
• Total # of Products with $0 Sales in 30 Days: 16 (Yes, that’s 16 product reviews of items that NOBODY has bought in the last 30 days)

While it may be a GREAT thing to target phrases in SEARCH with high volume and low competition, who really cares if you rank #1 for a popular term, when nobody is spending money on them?! In my post on the BANS forum, I started suggesting a few categories and products, based on 30 days of TeraPeak Sales:

Brand: XXR Truck Wheels and Rims

• XXR SportMax Wheels – $8400
• XXR 006 Wheels – $6600
• XXR 513 Wheels -  $9600
• XXR 518 Wheels – $4600

In reality – XXR is actually just an OK brand to target, but by itself, the exact PRODUCTS deliver more sales opportunity that 16 of the other reviews already on the site!

OK – So What’s My Point?

I often read page after page, blog after blog… about chasing the highest search volume with the least competition. While that is a Integral PART of the process, its NOT how you build a site! Ranking well for a product that nobody is buying is no different than ranking for abstract phrase nobody really searches for! It gets you nothing.

If you build your own site based off search volume, search demand, search competition, or the ranking for the EASIEST targets – you really need to check your targets first!

Alot of folks have emailed me and asked for more information about RankSpankers. All I can really say is that RankSpankers is a teaching site that walks through EXACT processes, step by step. It’s not a get rich quick scheme and it’s not a shortcut to fame… what it does do however, is show you step by step, SOLID practices that can be used to plan and build ANY website!

One of the launch training modules shows:

• How to FIND the EXACT Brands to Promote
• How to find the EXACT Products within those BRANDS
• How to PowerRank your Brands and Products
• How to Build Your Own Site Blueprint
• … much more…

… and that’s just ONE of the modules! Others include page structure, optimized url structure, on and offsite SEO, and much more!

If you have yet to sign up for launch updates… do so now! I am still on target for a October launch of the site… Incidentally, RankSpankers will do you no good if you aren’t using TeraPeak… it is the ONLY paid tool I even use anymore!

Separating Tasks for Best Results and Least Frustration!

Shhh… this is a secret! A secret that will not only save you time, but makes sure your niche product website will do its best, right out of the gate!

1 – Building The Site Blueprint- If you Have No BluePrint, You Have no Plan!

When you start planning your website – do ONLY that! Plan your site based on what people are buying and what your site is about! The ONLY important aspect of planning your website is that when you are done, you have a list of ALL the pages and ALL the Product Reviews & Guides your site will contain.

ELIMINATE SEO from this part of your site building… that comes LATER! You are not building a site for search engines, you are building a site that provides information for readers, and every page of your site should support the READER, not the search traffic!! (This step is a featured section of the RankSpankers Website – Stay Tuned!)

If you are outsourcing your content, submit it to your writer and forget about it, for now.

Step 1 Complete – 2 Hours.

2 – Build Your Site Structure

Once you have settled on your site blueprint, the next logical step is to build the foundation for your site. When I use WordPress, (Most Often) this is when I handle the install through Fantastico, install my plugins, create the category structure and almost every aspect of building a site on the WordPress backend.

Keep in mind that WordPress has a “Privacy” setting (Admin > Settings > Privacy) that you can use to block ALL search engine spiders for now, as a matter of fact… its now turned ON by default!

Step 2 Complete – 1 Hour.

3 – Create Your Content Titles

After you have the backend completely setup the way I want, I actually populate ALL of my page and post titles in place! Copying them from my BluePrint is simple and easy enough, and within 1-2 hours, ALL of my sites structure is completed, and I can review how it will flow to visitors.

Again, I am NOT paying any attention to SEO at this point in my page or post titles! They are what they are… and the main thing, is that they need to instruct a visitor to EXACTLY what content is included on that page! SEO is a separate process… that we will get to AFTER the site building is complete!

Step 3 Completed – 1-2 Hours.

4 – Source, Edit and Upload ALL Product Images

At this point in my site build, I usually spend a few hours sourcing ALL images at one sitting! It makes it much easier, since I am not piecing it together on the fly… opening new windows, tasking between applications, etc.

I Sit down with my Site BluePrint and go on the hunt! By the time I am done, usually 2-3 hours later, I have 100% of all my product review images uploaded and applied to their respective posts.

Step 4 – Completed in 2-3 Hours.

5 – Add the Post Content Once you Have ALL Of It!!

If you use a service like TextBroker, you can expect to have all your content back within a day or two, unless you choose a specific author for ALL your content. (Which is what I do)

Store your content in a text file as it is coming in… and ONLY when you have all of it, should you jump over and put it onto the site. You would be surprized how much time you waste opening and closing windows, when you post it as it arrives. I use my site blueprint for storing ALL the content to the site and once its complete, only then do I jump back into the admin and post it all to the respective titles.

Step 5 – Completed in 3-4 Hours.

The End Result…

For myself, I like breaking these tasks into separate days or sessions for many reasons:

1. I Don’t Get Bored with one Site when I break it into several days!
2. I STILL get things done while waiting for Content!
3. I am never jumping from window to window, task to task in the same session! Its like working in a factory… doing piece assembly… focusing on ONE SMALL part at a time!
4. I don’t lose a full day on one site, and can work on several sites in one day!
5. I OFTEN come up with different ideas during one step or another, that are easily implemented sitewide!
6. I am very Task Oriented, and have a starting and ending point to each task, thus I feel like I have accomplished something!
7. Its EASIER to track where you are on a site build!

I could go on and on… but the bottom line is that “It Just Works!” By following a repetitive protocal on every site build, you will begin to get super-efficient at each task you complete, taking far less time on the next site!

Repetition turns to habit… habit turns to productivity… increased productivity turns to money!

If only Microsoft had done their due diligence AHEAD OF TIME, they would have known! Fortunately, we can all learn from their mistake. Your Niche Websites are No Different!

Success Tomorrow Relies on Successful Planning Today!

After running through several RankSpanker reports for others over the past week – one thing I immediately came to recognize from the requested niche markets, is that you MUST properly research your market and the buying habits BEFORE anything else! Then you use the same process to evaluate every segment of your site, that hopes to fill that market!

Let me see if I can put that into straight English… focusing on the ePN program, since that’s where most us like to play! The things below are 5 Reasons I will RUN AWAY from a Niche! Several of you who have requested these RankSpanker Reports are already privy to this info… as I have suggested finding something else, and tried explaining why.

1 – People Just Don’t Buy It Online?

Having the most informative and highest traffic site revolving around “Sleeper Sofas” is great! I mean, you could have the top 2 ranking positions for EVERY term associated with sleeper sofas… but if people are not going online and buying them, what have you really got? Bragging Rights? Try spending that on a Full Tank of Gas!

If People Don’t Buy “Your Niche Here” Online – Don’t build a site about it! If they DO, see how much they spend! In this case, people DO BUY sleeper sofas on eBay- does that mean we should target it?

2 – People Just Don’t Buy “Enough of It” Online?

If you don’t use TeraPeak to research your Niche, you have already lost the battle! TeraPeak tracks ALL metrics associated with eBay, and if you want to know what people are spending in “Your Niche Here”, you need to invest the $24/mo.

In this case – TeraPeak tells me that there was $98,000 in total sales over the past 90 days. Some may think this is great… guess what, its horrible! Assuming you can build a TOP SHELF site, you are likely to spend the first year or two at the 5-10% referral rate at best… As an affiliate, we earn about 2% – 2.5% of the total sales. In this case:

90 Day Metrics

$98,000 X 10% Referral rate = $9800.00 X 2.5% ePN Affiliate Payment = MAX of $245 in affiliate commission if ALL the Stars Align for 90 days! Thats only $81/month! Not gonna happen for me.

If the Niche Market Does NOT Support your own Expectations – Run from it! I walk away from almost every market that does not generate at least $200k worth of 90-day revenue.

3 – It Won’t Fit Into a UPS or USPS Truck!

Many of you are gonna ask about this one and WHY it matters. IF an item has to be shipped by freight truck (Like a sofa or other large items) then the buyer and seller MUST talk BEFORE the sale is completed!

More often than not, these sales are completed OFF of the eBay system and you get no sales commission! I’m talking from direct experience with this… we sold large items on ebay for several years. EVERY item we sold had to be shipped in a truck. When buyers called us, 7 out of 10 asked US if they could save extra money by keeping it out of eBay. 7 out of 10 times, we sold it to them for the cost, minus eBay fees… which are alot on large items!

This also holds true for Cars, Trucks, Boats, any any other item that “The Majority or people” are going to want to see before they buy! I have a few sites in the auto niche and while they DO make sales, they will always lose a certain percentage, probably large, due to the nature of the item.How many of YOU would buy a car without ever seeing it?

So – If it Won’t Fit – Run Away from it!

4 – Low Sell Through Rate

This should be 100% self explainatory. If people have to list 500 items to sell 100 (20% sell rate), stay away from it! If they can’t successfully them in the Worlds Biggest Marketplace, what makes you think you will? I personally walk away from ANY Market with less than a 30% sell through rate, without ANY additional research!

Sleeper Sofa’s are at 23% Sell through rate.

5 – If They Can Call for Free – They Will!

As you progress through your research, you MUST check out the people selling the products you are going to represent! If I told you I would give you $5 for EVERY person you referred to this page to buy my sleeper sofa… and the top of my sleeper sofa page had a statement that said: Call for Color Choices Before Buying – 800-555-1212, How often do you think you would get paid?

Check out several of your seller pages to see how they have to sell the products! In the case of sleeper sofas, almost ALL of the sellers have 800 phone numbers, and explain all kinds of questions away with a simple… “Call Us – Its Free” answer!

All of this is done BEFORE You get into your Site and Product Planning!

Aside from using the TeraPeak system, what other metrics do YOU use, that make you RUN away from a website build?

This has never been more true than with the Golf Putter Guide site!

Painting a Target On Your Back

Last night, I was running through some of the site pages and checking copyscape, just to see if any of the pages had been duplicated out on the web. I found that while none of the exact texts have been copied, there are a few new Golf Putter Review sites that popped up in the last few weeks and one in particular, is tripping the copyscape filters with very similar content.

When I decided to build the golf site, many of you may recall that I didn’t want to post the actual product pages, until they were live and ready for traffic. Anyone who knows their way around BANS would easily have known them, as you only need to force a 404 on the site to see the full index of pages.

Of the few I found, 1 of them has, literally, the EXACT pages as the putter guide site! Yup… same categories, same product review pages and in most cases, even the same product review titles! Its not a BANS site, but instead WordPress was used on the backend.

The moral of this story…

If you Blog about, or share your own projects in public domain, someone, somewhere… will take that project and try to make it their own!

In this case, there was no option to keep the niche private… so I may just have to do a little overdrive marketing on this one!   which is GREAT for the site winner!

Mark

My plan is to offer one of these build sheets on a random niche market at least once a month. If, after viewing the report below, you decide it would be helpful to get your own site off the ground, make sure you review the bottom of this post to learn how you can obtain one of these reports on a site of your own.

If you were not subscribed to receive updates from this site… you probably missed it! Subscribe Now and make sure you never miss another Hot Market!

Rank Spanker Niche Website Build Report

The Rank Spanker Report is a Blueprint for a new and available Niche Site Project. It is here for the first reader, interested in the market, to jump on and take!

• Overall Market Segment: Sports > Golf
• Niche Market – Mallet Putters
• Average Selling Price:  $46.00
• Sell / Listing Rate: 53%
  
• Highest Priced Items: 293.00
  
• #Sold in last 90 Days: 4330

Terapeak is used for all historical sales and hot product target data.

Looking at those numbers, even if you only garnered 10% of the market, you stand to earn $165/month with this site. Just imagine if you get 30-50%!

Formula: 4330 divided by 3 =  1443 sales per month X 10% = 144 sales. 144 sales X $46 = $6624.00 total monthly sales. $6624 divided by 2.5% (average commission at ePN) = $165/mo affiliate commission!

Available Domain Names

The domains for this niche are currently available at GoDaddy. If it were myself, I would register #2, #3, and #6, as my top 3 choices for the site. I have placed lines through the three I would only use as secondary choices.

1. MALLETGOLFPUTTER. +COM
2. MALLETGOLFPUTTERS. +COM (Register)
3. GOLFMALLETPUTTERS.+COM (Register)
4. GOLFMALLETPUTTER.+COM
5. MALLETPUTTER.+NET
6. MALLETPUTTERS.+NET (Register)

Numbers 2 & 3 are perfect for the market segment, state exactly what the site is about, and have a good resale value due to the .com and targeted words in the domain name. I would jump on #6, simply because it is a high volume 2-word phrase, and will perform just as good as the others! I would even use the .net as my primary site, and use the two .coms as “parked domains”, pointing them to the same site.

5 Suggested Starter Guides for the Site

The starter guides for the site should be developed AFTER all of your review or product pages are in place. They will ultimately build themselves, and provide a great resource for the things people are looking for, that lead into your actual money earning product pages!

1. Top 10 Mallet Putters of 2009
2. Guide to Putting with a Mallet Putter
3. Scotty Cameron Mallet Putter Buying Guide
4. Blade versus Mallet Putters, Which to Use?
5. 5 Reasons Pro Golfers Prefer Mallet Putters

35+Product Review Pages to JumpStart The Site

This section outlines the MAIN CATEGORY PAGE and subsequent Putter Reviews that should be sub-pages of each. This list is ONLY a STARTING POINT for this site, and following the guide, you should begin adding new product reviews during your periodical review of the sites performance.

## MAIN Category

• Product Review Pages

## Rife Mallet Putter Reviews

• Rife Hybrid Tour Mallet Putter Review
• Rife Barbados Putter Review
• Rife Barbados Black CS Putter Review
• Rife 400 Mid Mallet Putter Review
• Guerin Rife Two Bar Hybrid Mallet Putter Review

## Callaway Mallet Putter Reviews

• Callaway White Hot XG 2-Ball F7 Mallet Putter review
• Callaway White Hot XB Teron Mallet Putter Review
• Callaway White Hot XG Sabertooth Mallet Putter Review
• Callaway White Hot XG 330 Mallet Putter Review
• Callaway White Hot XG Hawk Mallet Putter Review
• Callaway White Hot XG Rossie Mallet Putter Review
• Callaway White Hot XG5 Mallet Putter Review
• Callaway White Hot XG7 Mallet Putter Review
• Callaway White Hot XG7 Center Shaft Mallet Putter Review

## Cleveland Mallet Putter Reviews

• Cleveland VP5 Mallet Putter Review
• Cleveland VP509 Mallet Putter Review
• Cleveland VP109 Mallet Putter Review

## Nike Mallet Putter Reviews

• Nike Ignite Mallet Putter Review
• Nike Unitized Mallet Putter Review

## Mizuno Mallet Putter Reviews

• Mizuno Bettinardi A01 Mallet Putter Review

## Odyssey Mallet Putter Reviews

• Odyssey Crimson Mallet Putter Review
• Odyssey Black Series I Mallet Putter Review

## Ping mallet Putter Reviews

• Ping Craz-E One Mallet Putter Review
• Ping iWi Mallet Putter Review
• Ping i-Series Mallet Putter Review
• Ping Karsten Mallet Putter Review

## Taylormade Mallet Putter Reviews

• Taylormade Spider Belly Mallet Putter Review
• Taylormade Rossa Monza Spider Mallet Putter Review

## Titleist Scotty Cameron Mallet Putters

• Titleist Cameron Futura Mallet Putter Review
• Scotty Cameron Kombi Mallet Putter Review
• Scotty Cameron Circa 62 Mallet Putter Review
• Scotty Cameron Red X Mallet Putter Review

## Yes Mallet Putter Reviews

• Yes C-Groove Mallet Putter Review
• Yes Callie Mallet Putter Review
• Yes Olivia C-Groove Mallet Putter Review
• Yes Tiffany Mallet Putter Review

Who Will Take this Site and Run With It?

As you can see, the Mallet Putter Site is wide open and ready for someone to JUMP ON! Using this blueprint, you will have:

• 10 Mallet Putter Review Categories
• 36 Product Review Pages to Start
• 5 Guides to Attract and Direct Visitors

That’s 51 Pages to start – PLUS your standard site pages!

Do You Want Your Own Personalized RankSpanker Report?

I have helped many people over the years and FINDING THEIR STARTING POINT always seems to be the biggest challenge! The reason I am offering this service… is because so many people have told me I should! Researching the market takes every bit of 3-4 hours, and much longer if you don’t know where to start!

RankSpanker Report Contains:

• Suggested Domain Name Options!
• Suggested Page Structure!
• At Least 5 Suggested Guide-Type Article Titles!
  
• At Least 25 Suggested Review Products!

If you want a report delivered to your inbox, the cost is $89 $40, (Click to Order or Read More) and will deliver within 48 hours 3 business days (I had to stretch the time and increase the cost due to the demand). If the market you choose to pursue is NOT WORTHY for any reason, I will make suggestions to narrow it down and make it a much better market, or refund your money immediately!

Image from: http://www.gfn.com/sowhatsyourpoint/?cat=105

Having been involved in building just about every type of website from ecommerce, to CMS, to portals and niche sites, over the course of the last 15+ years… I can honestly say, I just learned something new from the Build a Niche Store Guide! Honestly… Wow! Great Job Adam and Kelvin – Thank you!

I wish I could share all the details of the methods they used… but instead, I will just prepare you all by saying the three “Types” of content they focus on building is amazing when it all comes together. I was able to drill into high enough volume terms, that had a high amount of products, and had little demand… Granted it took me about 3 solid hours of work (they said it would take about 30 minutes) but I can immediately see it was well worth the time!

Keeping the CopyCat Readers at Bay

Before I get into the exacts of this new site, I want to stress that as I prepare to build the site, some crafty reader is going to take what they read here and develop a site of their own, ahead of this one ever being live. Ultimately, theirs WILL rank in search ahead of this one, simply due to their launching of the site first.It won’t be the firs or last time this happens…

With that said – I am not going to publish ALL of the site categories, guide categories or many of the sites details, until it is all out here for the taking, or.. the site is launched! Instead, I will provide generalized information for now.

Planning Your Niche Site Content

Based off the research in the Number 1 Way to Make Money Guide, I have determined the following will be built to get the site off the ground, and fill the need for information:

• 17 Product Brand Pages
  • Nike Putters
  • Wilson Putters
  • MacGregor Putters
  • 14 others (to get started)
• 8 Product Type Pages
  • Wedge Putters
  • Heavy Putters
  • 6 others (to get started)
• 68 Answer (Money) Pages
  • Wilson Harmonized Putters
  • Wilson ProStaff Putters
  • MacGregor Face Off Putters
  • 65 others (to get started

This makes the initial “Launch site” a total of 92 “Money Pages” in size, not counting the standard pages like About Us, Privacy, Contact, etc.

Using the basic guidelines provided… the Winner of the Niche Site Contest can reasonably expect that with NO ADDITIONAL PAGE CREATION, they should earn roughly $460/month by this time next year from the Golf Putter Guide website!

How Is Your own Research and Planning Coming Along?

Planning for the Niche Site Giveaway

As outlined in the first section of the guide, before I jump around and just start installing and building, I want to take the time to plan my site! Following along in Step 1, I am somewhat deadlocked into the domain I already purchased to giveaway, so before we waste endless hours of time building a site that can get nowhere, I want to qualify that it is a worthy niche first. Under normal circumstances, I would do the qualifying FIRST… this stuff happens when you open your mouth before you think!

• Is there a Tangible Product? Yes! Putters…
• Is there Demand in the Market? Yes…
• Is it “Niche” Enough, or Too Wide? Yes… Niche enough!
• Is the Market Already Over-Served? No!

At this point, I am convinced that the market itself is open to entry and the Golf Putter Guide site CAN fit into it! I still need to take more of a forensic view into the market however, to be sure I am not wasting my time!

Interest In Your Niche Market

One of the BEST methods for finding your niche, which is covered in the first section of the guide, talks about looking within your own interests and goes through several other ways you can find a niche from within your existing lifestyle. For the purpose of this site, I am going to stray just a bit and develop a niche site I truly have little interest in!

I realize its a bit harder… but we may not always be interested in a profitable niche market, and as mentioned above, I kinda backed myself into this market, so I have to go for it! The success of the site when its done, will simply be a testament for how it can be applied to ANY niche market, as long as the demand, products, and proper building is done from the start!

Pulling the Plan Together to Qualify the Market!

As outlined in the Choosing your Niche Market section, I am ready to fully qualify the niche market, and determine the basic outline for the site! I like to refer to this as forensic research, as it involves getting into the nuts and bolts of the Niche market data!

• There are Several “Product Types”
• There are Several “Product Brands”
• There are Also Several Variations and Accessories, that will help drivew additional traffic demand!

Using the guide as a reference, I was able to not only find several specific BUYER words, but also qualify them by searching through the tools referenced in the guide, and making sure there is a high enough DEMAND to make them worthwhile phrases to build a site around!

Next Step – Put the Plan on Paper!

Covered in Step 1 of the Guide you will Find

• What Exactly is a Niche Market?
• What Are the Requirements?
• How to Spot or Find a Niche
• Narrowing the List
• Checking and Validating the Choices

If you have completed the Step 1 of the bans guide, we invite you to provide a review below!