Right now, I have two BANS sites that are under main domains. And then I have a handful of BANS sites that are located in sub directories under domains. Today we will focus on the sites that are under the main domains. I’m doing an experiment between 2 sites. Both site A and B have been Stumbled. On site A, I have been using a more agressive link buidling strategy. I’ve been trading links and doing free directory submissions. The free directory submissions was a 200 directory submission package from someone on Digitalpoint. I’ve also done some article submissions. Site A, in my opinion has a lesser link quality than the links I’ve acquired for site B.

On site B, The only free directories that I submitted the site to were niche specific directories. The rest of the links that I received were from quality paid directores. When I submit my sites to paid directories, I usually won’t submit them to a category that doesn’t have at least a PR of 0. Google has really been doing some weird stuff towards directories.  I used to be king of free directory submissions.  I would pay people to submit my site to directories for me.  I’m starting to get leary of those kind of submissions services.  They tend to submit your site to the junkiest of directories.  A lot of free directories will accept just about any site into their directory.  You almost have to submit to directories yourself so that you get in the best quality.  Anyways, thats what my experiment is about.  I will let you know how things go.

I just bought BANS 2 or 3 weeks back. Here’s what I think about it Pros and Cons.

Pros:

• BANS is very search engine friendly.
• BANS is really easy to set up.
• Adding Adsense is super simple

Cons:

• In order to make a commision a person must click on an item listed on your BANS site and then win the auction or sign up for Ebay. This is really my only con.

One of my BANS sites I’ve already been getting some pretty sweet traffic. I figure I will offset the above con by allowing people to sign up for BANS on my site. I’m going to put up a badge like so (affiliate):

As of right now, I made one sell.  I got a huge commission of $0.35.  And I earned $.08 of Adsense.  Yeah, I know, I’m rolling in the dough :)  I figure I’ll keep promoting until I start earning some sweet moola.  Overall I think BANS is great.  All you have to do is design and promote.  I’ll keep you updated on how my sites are going.

If your business has grown to the point where keeping track of sales is getting tough, you probably need to purchase some sort of accounting software. We bought Quickbooks in 2006, but it sat around until recently. We never really took the time to learn it. Now we have it installed and we are now picking up on the basics. What I like most about Quickbooks is it pretty much centralizes everything. When a new customer comes along, you type in their info. You can quickly make them a quote and then email it straight from Quickbooks. The customer will recieve the quote in PDF format. After plugging the customers information in, it is easy to make to receipts and quotes.

When we create receipts for customrs, we will place tracking numbers associated with their order in the memo line. Just in case a customers calls back later and asks for their tracking number again, we have it in a centralized location where it is easy to find.

The only downfall that I see with Quickbooks is that importing Paypal sales isn’t a super easy task. There are programs out there that you can purchase to make Paypal importing easier, but they charge you a monthly fee. I just get tired of paying monthly fees for every single little product that I need to run my business. So for right now, we will live without the Paypal imports.

If you are in need of an accounting software, feel free to visit our store. You can pick a used or new software for pretty cheap. I would be interested to hear from others who are using a different accounting software then Quickbooks. What do you like about your software? What do you dislike? Have you used other software before?