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You know the old phrase “Don’t sweat the details” - Forget that you ever learned that when building your BANS store. You need to be a detail person and make sure that your website is finished properly.
First clue to me that a BANS store is not finished is when I see “Your Link Here” or something like that. These are frequently included in templates that you can download and they’re designed for exactly what they say they are…PUT YOUR LINK THERE! Find the header file and replace the phrase with something like “Info About Widgets” and make sure your link works.
Another clue that a BANS store is not completed are the words “Store Navigation” or “Site Navigation”. Every BANS store has these and it’s easy to change them. These are also terms that are in the header.php file that you can change and it will help with your search engine rankings. Just go into your BANS control panel, into the template file and search for the words “Store Navigation” and put “Widgets For Sale” or something related to your website in it’s place.
Build your own store pages – Don’t import the categories from eBay. Make targeted store pages and use unique meta information on EVERY page.
Last clue that a site has not been finished is in the general design. I tend to want to change as much as I can for two reasons. I don’t want my site to look anything like an out of the box BANS store and I don’t want the search engines to de-list my store as a crappy thin affiliate site. Go to the CSS file and experiment with changing the colors of the text, backgrounds, borders etc. Don’t be afraid to use #ffffff, which is white; People like white space. If you’re really bad with design, buy a nice looking template. Search the BANS forum for people making templates or offering design work.
