Feature List
There's a lot on this page and much of it will in all probability make more
sense once you have the Installation and User Manuals in front of you and have
started to develop your first site and play with the features of the software.
Nevertheless, lets dive in...
All of your store / site development takes place inside the BANS admin panel
which you access once you have installed BANS (as per the instructions contained
inside the Installation manual):
Once inside there are 6 sections to the admin panel which enable you to first
build and then develop your new site in many different ways.
The key principle that BANS has been built to serve is flexibility. Any one
store that you build will only ever use a fraction of these features but their
existence enables BANS users to build many different types of stores...one store
will use certain features and another different features and so forth.
All of these features are covered in depth inside the BANS user manual.
The 6 core sections of the admin panel are:
To make sure that your admin panel is not accessible to anyone but you, once
inside you can set your own username and password which is recoverable (should
you forget it) by email.
The Setup area of the admin panel is where you build your basic store. Here
you can choose which niche you want to build your store to target (ie the kind
of products you want to appear in your store, for example: antique tractors
or Chinese vases), input your affiliate ids and decide on how you want to display
your stores products.
Key Features Include:
- Build a store around one or more eBay category numbers.
- Build a store using keyword search queries.
- Build a store based around an eBay seller id.
- Build a store based around a geographical area.
Input your eBay EPN affiliate id which will automatically add your affiliate
id to every product in your store (meaning that all visitor purchasing activity
will be tracked and credited to your affiliate account).
Add your ClickBank affiliate id to make affiliate referrals of Build A Niche
Store.
Choose whether or not to cloak the affiliate links contained inside your
store.
Change the amount of products displaying on each of your store pages to any
number between 1 and 100.
Enter a site wide search query (ie a particular keyword or combination of
keywords) to only list products which contain that keyword inside your store
Choose whether or not to display product listings on your store home page.
Choose whether or not to only list (Buy It Now) BIN items in your store.
Choose whether or not to display the eBay logo above your store product listings.
Choose whether or not to display the “view more items on eBay”
link which will appear underneath each page of product listings. When clicked
on this will direct your visitor straight to relevant eBay listed search results
tagged with your eBay affiliate id.
Choose whether or not to open a product listing when it is clicked on in
a new browser window.
Choose whether or not to display the “sort by menu” on each of
your store pages which will enable visitors to change the way in which the products
on a particular store page are displayed – eg highest price first / lowest
price first / ending soonest / newly listed.
Choose how to order your store products as default - eg highest price first
/ lowest price first / ending soonest / newly listed.
Enter a minimum and / or maximum bid amount to limit the products displayed
inside your store to those that currently fall inside this bid range.
Enter a minimum and / or maximum price to limit the products displayed inside
your store to those that currently fall inside this price range.
With BANS you have three different navigation options for your store and
content pages:
A “Closed” Navigation will give your content and store pages
a hierarchical structure (like a family tree) meaning that a visitor will actually
have to click on a particular category to see what sub-categories it contains.
(LINK)
A “Staggered” navigation is in between the open and closed options.
When you click on a particular category the sub-categories inside that category
will become visible but the other top level categories will also remain visible
allowing your visitor to navigate to different parts of your store when inside
a particular category. (LINK)
An “Open” navigation means that all of your content or store
pages are visible from any one page. (LINK)
The Template area of the admin panel is where you can upload and modify your
templates and then select the one which you actually want to use for your
new site.
Key Features Include:
Modify the styles.css, header.php and footer.php files of your “selected”
template.
Modify the styles.css, header.php and footer.php files of any of your “available”
templates (modifications made to “available” templates will not
be visible to site visitors until the particular template is “selected”).
Upload a log to either your “selected” template or one of your
“available” templates.
View the modifications you have made to either your “selected”
template or “available” templates.
Note: In the BANS member area there is a comprehensive template guide for
modifying the BANS templates and in the BANS package there is a third manual
which shows you how to convert any template into a “BANS friendly”
template.
The Ads area of the admin panel enables you to add site wide ads (ie ads
that appear on every page of your store) to your new site.
Key Features Include:
BANS has 4 default ad spots – in the left navigation, above your store
products, below your store products and in the right navigation. You can add
ads (for example: contextual ads or affiliate banner ads) into one or more of
these spots.
Note: In the Content and Store page areas described below there is an “ad
overwrite facility” which enables you to add particular advertisements
to just one page.
The Content Pages area of the admin panel enables you to develop your site
with fresh unique content. Content pages are a great way to add “value”
to your site and both improve your visitor experience and target new keywords
in the search engines. Because your site revolves around eBay listed products,
product reviews, recommendations and general information articles all act
as great forms of content.
CONTENT PAGES AREA PRINT
Key Features Include:
Edit your home page: takes you to the edit home page section.
Edit your site map: takes you to the edit site map section.
Create a new content page: takes you to the content page creation section.
Edit a content page after you have created it.
Delete a content page.
Turn a content page on or off: by turning a content page “off”
you will remove it from public view but it will remain saved inside your admin
panel. Turn it “on” and it will re-appear for your site visitors.
Change your content page order: re-order your content pages by moving individual
pages up or down.
View a particular content page: opens up the published content page in a
new browser window.
When you first setup your store BANS will automatically create a home page
which will either be blank or contain eBay products depending on your choice
in the Setup area. The home page editing section looks like this:
And will enable you to do the following things:
Change the meta tags (title, keywords and description) of your home page.
Add content to your home page using the built in WYSIWYG (what you see
is what you get) html editor. This content can be placed above, below, or
both above and below the products displayed on your home page.
Change the link name of your home page from “Home” to a more
keyword oriented link. For example, if you have built a golf store you may
change it from “Home” to “Golf Equipment”.
Modify the type of products and way in which these products are displayed
on your home page:
Change the amount of products displaying to any number between 1 and
100.
Enter an eBay category number to only display products from inside
that eBay category.
Enter a search query (ie a particular keyword or combination of keywords)
to only list products which contain that keyword (combination).
Enter an eBay seller id to only display products listed on eBay by
that particular seller.
Choose whether or not to only list (Buy It Now) BIN items.
Choose whether or not to display the next page of results (ie page
2, 3, 4 etc) at the bottom of your product listings.
Choose whether or not to display the “sort by menu” which
will enable visitors to change the way in which the products on your
home page are displayed – eg highest price first / lowest price
first / ending soonest / newly listed.
Choose how to order your home page products as default – eg
highest price first / lowest price first / ending soonest / newly listed.
Enter a minimum and / or maximum bid amount to limit the products
displayed to those that currently fall inside this bid range.
Enter a minimum and / or maximum price to limit the products displayed
to those that currently fall inside this price range.
Enter a mile radius and zip / postal code to limit the products displayed
to those that fall inside that geographical area.
Change the ads displayed on your home page with the overwrite ads facility
(ie this feature will enable you to overwrite the sitewide ads facility
found in the Ads area for just this page).
As with your home page, when first setting up your store BANS also automatically
creates a site map. This site map will contain all of your store and content
pages and will automatically update as you add / remove pages from your store.
The site map editing section looks like this:
And will enable you to do the following things:
Change the meta tags (title, keywords and description) of your site map
page.
Add content to your home page using the built in WYSIWYG (what you see
is what you get) html editor.
Change the location of your site map in the content page navigation structure.
Change the link name of your site map.
Change the page url of your site map.
Change the ads displayed on your site map with the overwrite ads facility
(ie this feature will enable you to overwrite the sitewide ads facility
found in the Ads area for just this page).
The content page creation section enables you to create as many content pages
as you want your site to hold. The content page creation section looks like
this:
And will enable you to do the following things:
Change the meta tags (title, keywords and description) of your site map
page.
Add the content that will make up your page using the built in WYSIWYG
(what you see is what you get) html editor.
Position your content page in the appropriate part of the content page
navigation structure.
Give your content page a link name.
Give your content page a url address.
Place specific ads on your content page using the overwrite ads facility
to “overwrite” your sitewide ads.
Note: You can also return to and modify a content page that you have created
using the “edit” feature.
The Store Pages area of the admin panel enables you to both edit the store
pages that BANS automatically creates for you (based on your choices in the
Setup area) and create new store pages. If gives you complete control over
how the products that your store contains are displayed to both visitors and
search engines.
Key Features Include:
Edit a store page: takes you to the edit store page section.
Edit your site map: takes you to the edit site map section.
Create a new content page: takes you to the content page creation section.
Edit a content page after you have created it.
Delete a store page.
Turn a store page on or off: by turning a store page “off”
you will remove it from public view but it will remain saved inside your
admin panel. Turn it “on” and it will re-appear for your site
visitors.
Change your store page order: re-order your store pages by moving individual
pages up or down.
View a particular store page: opens up the published content page in
a new browser window.
Every store page that BANS automatically creates or that you create yourself
can be edited manually with the aim of improvement and refinement. Editing
happens through the editing store pages section which looks like this:
When editing a store page you can:
Change the meta tags (title, keywords and description) of your store
page.
Add content to your store page using the built in WYSIWYG (what you see
is what you get) html editor. This content can be placed above, below, or
both above and below the products displayed.
Re-position your store page in the appropriate part of the content page
navigation structure.
Edit your store page link name.
Edit your content page url address.
Modify the type of products and way in which these products are displayed
on the particular store page:
Change the amount of products displaying to any number between 1 and
100.
Enter an eBay category number to only display products from inside
that eBay category.
Enter a search query (ie a particular keyword or combination of keywords)
to only list products which contain that keyword (combination).
Enter an eBay seller id to only display products listed on eBay by
that particular seller.
Choose whether or not to only list (Buy It Now) BIN items.
Choose whether or not to display the next page of results (ie page
2, 3, 4 etc) at the bottom of your product listings.
Choose whether or not to display the “sort by menu” which
will enable visitors to change the way in which the products on the
particular store page are displayed – eg highest price first /
lowest price first / ending soonest / newly listed.
Choose how to order products as default – eg highest price first
/ lowest price first / ending soonest / newly listed.
Enter a minimum and / or maximum bid amount to limit the products
displayed to those that currently fall inside this bid range.
Enter a minimum and / or maximum price to limit the products displayed
to those that currently fall inside this price range.
Enter a mile radius and zip / postal code to limit the products displayed
to those that fall inside that geographical area.
Change the ads displayed on your home page with the overwrite ads facility
(ie this feature will enable you to overwrite the sitewide ads facility
found in the Ads area for just this page).
Creating a new store page uses the same page (ie the same functions) as the
editing store page section, the difference being that it will be a blank canvas
rather than containing pre-existing inputs. So rather than changing (refining)
existing text / choices you will be creating it from scratch.
