Thesis Theme as a Niche Amazon, eBay Store

One of my side projects of late has been to learn more about SEO, SEM, and how affiliate programs work. One flavor of affiliate site is the niche content store, which can drop in product listings from any number of sources, though the most popular are eBay and Amazon.

Along with this, I wanted to understand a bit more about how to customize the Thesis theme and build out my CSS skills along the way.

My first effort – MechGarage.com, your source for Robotech and Battletech books, games, collectibles, DVDs, and more! A big disclaimer – if I make a dime off this, great, though this is part of my self-education on all the above, so I’m certainly not expecting anything wild (or anything at all, really). And yeah…Robotech, BattleTech, I’m a geek, but “they” say it’s best to pick a niche you know something about and that isn’t over-saturated.

Leaving aside the SEO and SEM stuff, and focusing on how I built the site, some notes on what I used:

• Amazon aStore via the Affiliates program. Set up the page with a no sidebars template, and dropped in a fairly standard store. The one thing I wrestled with is should I create multiple instances of the store and drive navigation via the Thesis site nav bar? Or, as I have so far, rely on the aStore navigation. The latter is a bit cleaner, but it doesn’t allow for category-specific permalinking to guide visitors – say if they want “books” only.
• iTunes Affiliate Program – set this up via LinkShare, fairly straighforward. The “iTunes Robotech store” on my site is pretty basic as I haven’t had a chance to style anything and the relevant listings are pretty slim as is. But, again, an experiment.
• eBay Listings: While Amazon had the bulk of relevant products, the niche subjects lend themselve to collectibles, where eBay excels. So the “BattleTech and Robotech collectibles” store I created as a sort of add-on to the “main” Amazon aStore shopping experience. To drop those listings in, I used the phpBay Pro Wordpress plugin, which though it actually costs $, is extremely simple to use (one line of code dropped into any WP page or post) and flexible. I really wish there was a simple way to create a blended store with both Amazon and eBay listings, but so far, no dice.
• Other plugins I found handy? The Amazon Auto Link plugin from Joost de Valk, Thesis OpenHook (never install without it!), and the usual smattering of stats and customization plugins.

If I really wanted to mak any money off this site, I can think of 100-odd things offhand I’d need to do – more natural nav structure, better use of promotions in the main content and sidebar, some simple guides around grouped content, and so on. I’d also have to step up with a load of SEO and SEM work, which I’ll likely plug around with as I learn more and look to test out ideas.

All in all, a fun learning project so far and the first of several small side projects to come.