Yesterday, Erik Karey released phpBayAds, his eBay ads script, for free to the public. Think of phpBayAds as a self-hosted version of the old AuctionAds program. Erik was kind enough to answer some questions I had about his new release.

With the wild popularity of BANS and phpBay Pro these days it seems like you’ve hit a gap in the marketplace for eBay affiliates. Can you take a minute to describe what phpBayAds does for those that haven’t heard yet and who is most likely to benefit from using it?

I’ve noticed the increase in the popularity of the eBay affiliate program for awhile now and I’ve even started using phpBayPro on a few websites of mine and found great success with it. I also noticed a lot of press on AuctionAds (now ShoppingAds) and it’s shortcomings.

All of these things got me thinking about what type of products I could develop to capitalize on the publicity surrounding the eBay affiliate program which eventually led me to creating phpBayAds.

phpBayAds lets you create adsense-styled ads that feature images and links to eBay auction products using your own eBay Affiliate ID. So when a user clicks on the ad and either makes a purchase or signs up for eBay you get the commissions.

Although results will vary from site to site, I think phpBayAds can benefit every webmaster who tries it as it adds an additional source of income to your websites. phpBayAds are fully customizable from the color of the links to the color of the border to the size of the ads and can be made to blend well with any and all websites.

What was some of your reasoning behind releasing phpBayAds for free?

When I initially set out to release phpBayAds I planned to sell it for somewhere around $20. However when I got to thinking about it I realized that at least at the start of my development that releasing it for free and getting the largest amount of users using the script is to my benefit.

I truly want this script to succeed and to do that I need people to use it and I need people to provide me with feedback. I’m hoping that as the script gets more exposure and as I add features that I may release a low cost Pro version which would include more features and functionality.

What are some of the benefits/disadvantages to you as a developer in making people run the script on their own server?

I think the main advantage of being able to run this script on your own server is that you are in full control. Your ads will always be running as long as your own web host is running. You don’t have to rely on any 3rd party website.

In the future as phpBayAds grows in popularity I would like to offer a hosted version for a low monthly cost which would let those less technical users also use the script.

What’s in store for future releases?

I have a number of features that I’d love to add as long as phpBayAds grows in popularity.

One major feature that I plan to add in the near future is reporting. I want to be able to track all of the clicks going through the ads, show what keywords are performing, what ad sizes are working best and present it all in one useful control panel.

As I mentioned above I’d also like to offer a hosted version of the script and perhaps additional ad sizes.

Lastly I’d like to make the ads more configurable by allowing you to set whether or not the ads should have images, price range of the items, geotargetting and more!

The future is bright for phpBayAds as long as people find it useful.

I want to thank Erik for taking the time to answer my questions. You can learn more about phpBayAds and download it for free over at his blog.

I logged into my GoDaddy account today to renew some TLDS and decided to look around for any new domains that were golf related. I thought the results page from GoDaddy’s domain search was ridiculous enough to warrant a short post.

Here’s what the GoDaddy site looks like after I search for ohiogolfcourses.com:

And here’s that same search after I remove all of the gratuitous advertising, worthless information and flashy graphics:

This is just the search page. Anyone with experience actually purchasing a domain at GoDaddy knows that the sales pitch gets even louder and more intense as you try and navigate through their checkout process.

Now I understand everyone wants to make a buck and I’m fine with that but this is crazy. Unfortunately, I have a suspicion that this ad assault performs quite well for GoDaddy’s bottom line and things will stay this cluttered for a long, long time to come.

I must have incredibly high standards or something because this was another week where there just wasn’t much in the way of articles or posts that stood out to me.

The Brash Boys at 37signals Will Tell You: Keep It Simple, Stupid at Wired

37signals has become something of a polarizing company these days. A lot of people love them and a lot of people don’t. I’m personally on the fence I guess although none of their products or opinions really have any effect on my everyday productivity of philosophy. I appreciate that they feel very strongly about their methods and products. It would be nice if more people took the same stance sometimes.

Is There Any Hope of GOOD Traffic? at Push Standards

I’m officially sour on traffic from StumbleUpon, digg, reddit, etc. now that I’ve been running this blog for awhile and seen what those services can do for me. The answer is that they can’t do much. There’s a good point in the post at Push Standards about banner advertising that I agree with 100%. I share his thoughts on guest blogging also as a matter of fact.

When I decided to launch Jack’s Newsletter last week I thought I would give the banner advertising system called Project Wonderful a try.

Project Wonderful is, in short, an advertising platform for advertisers and publishers based on an auction system. The system is slightly complex so I suggest that, if you’re interested, you head on over to their explanation page and learn more. Basically you bid on a spot for a set amount of money and as long as you aren’t outbid by another advertiser your banner remains displayed until you either run out of money or a certain time limit you define has been met.

I first came across Project Wonderful on the Entrecard blog and I initially only planned to bid on one of their six banner spots. Of course, once I got registered my account, deposited some funds via PayPal and got into using the system I decided to expand my advertising a bit.

I chose the Entrecard site and also a handful of blogs that had the term “wordpress” tagged as one of their topics. The banner I used is on the right and it led directly to the signup page for Jack’s Newsletter.

I’m going to now give you exact details on what I spent, the views my banner received and the clicks that came through. In an effort to keep the sites I used private I’ll only be describing their topic/niche and not reveal the actual name of the site (except for Entrecard, who are fair game in my eyes).

As you can see from my table, the cost per click was pretty good. I received targeted traffic for prices similar or even lower than what I would have gotten through a more traditional advertising platform such as AdWords.

As far as actual conversions on the traffic… well, my hunch is that the only really good converter was the Entrecard banner. I didn’t have any really good means of tracking this in place because I kind of jumped right into using Project Wonderful without a lot of preparation.

Bottom Line

I think I’m going to be using Project Wonderful again in the very near future. I’ll definitely give it one more run promoting the newsletter before the premium WordPress theme giveaway is over.

Another neat twist to using this system that I hadn’t initially planned on is the spying factor involved. You can obviously quite easily get an idea of the kind of traffic sites are getting by just looking at your banner stats. I wonder how many publishers stop to think how much information about their traffic they’re giving away by being a member of Project Wonderful.

Project Wonderful has a slightly intimidating concept and a rather difficult interface but if you’re willing to take the time and chance a few dollars on it you might see some pretty nice results. It’s officially recommended.

This week’s WordPress plugin is great for those of you looking to integrate free photography into your blog posts.

With PhotoDropper you can browse Creative Commons licensed photos from flickr based on keywords and attach them to your blog posts.

This sounds really good but there’s a catch. PhotoDropper automatically includes a credit link to the photographer (which is fine) but it also includes a link back to the PhotoDropper site with the anchor text “photo” next to the credit link.

So if you think that’s a bit shady you might want to look elsewhere for photos for your blog. I always recommend stock.xchng.

I’m writing this today as a word of warning and caution to anyone who is thinking about getting into the freelance web development game: you are not a special little flower.

The web development market is getting flooded with the explosion of overseas outsourcing and the avalanche of free reference materials. Now anyone with a text editor and a shared hosting account can get into the game and try and turn a buck. The job market is flooded with people that can most definitely work for cheaper and maybe even outperform you.

All Is Not Lost

It’s not all doom and gloom though. Even though the competition right now is as fierce as it has ever been there are steps you can take to set yourself above the rest and make a decent full-time or part-time living from freelance web development.

The days of getting freelance gigs from job boards is over for anyone in an English speaking country. You just can’t compete with the pricing that’s being offered from the Europeans and Asians. Thankfully, there are other ways to use your skills for profit that outsourced work isn’t as likely to interfere with.

Work Local

Most of the businesses in your local area haven’t even heard of the term outsourcing before. If they’re looking to get a project done and you’re fresh and new and looking to expand your portfolio this could be a perfect match. Just beware of long hours for low pay as local clients aren’t appreciative of current freelancing rates.

While this is a great method for anyone just starting out it’s not something I’d recommend to a veteran web developer. Local clients are usually pretty time intensive and people with larger client bases aren’t interested in the hassle.

Work Niche

This has been my own personal tactic for several years now. I found an industry that had a need for quality web development work (in my case, professional minor league sports) and built a quality product (in my case, a content management system) to match the need.

I stumbled into my own little niche mostly by accident but sometimes that’s the best way. If you do a job for someone and think there’s a broader market for the same businesses do some research and give it a shot. Once you become a known face in that market you’ll start seeing more work come in through referrals and word of mouth.

Work Passive

The easiest solution is to just not work at all! When you have down time between clients try and develop some projects that generate passive income. That’s what I’ve tried to do with Fore Score Golf Stats and all of the news aggregators that make up Jack’s Sports Report and so far things are going great. I’m generating money each month with sites that are basically hands-off propositions.

It’s A Big Garden Out There

Let’s put this lame plant metaphor to rest. Even if you are one of millions there’s still ample opportunity for you to succeed. Just remember to try and narrow your focus and worry about competing in small markets and not against small prices.

The jobs being outsourced aren’t jobs you would really want anyway. They’re being presented by people with big ideas and big demands that they can’t meet with their small budgets.

Daniel Jalkut on Application Acquisition

Daniel Jalkut, of Red Sweater Software, gave a presentation on Application Acquisition at the C4 Conference that is definitely worth a watch. It runs a little over an hour and is kind of slow at the beginning. Stick it out to get a look at the thought process of an independent software developer trying to expand his product base.

Do You Promote Things You Would Recommend Your Friends And Family Run Away From? at 45n5.com

Mark Wielgus, at 45n5.com, posted another one of his Ze Frank style videos about the dirty world of “make money online”. The eBay product he highlights is pretty incredible; not for its worth but for its scamminess. Holy hell, Internet Marketing can be a disgusting thing.

How to Write Posts That Set StumbleUpon on Fire at Problogger

This post about StumpleUpon at Problogger, actually written by Skellie, is a really deep look at what it takes to get one of your posts some attention from StumpleUpon users. I’ve had some totally random posts on this blog catch fire on SU before though that didn’t follow any of these rules/suggestions.

WP-Premiums

WP-Premiums is a gallery site showcasing customizations of WordPress Premium Themes. I wanted to drop this site a plug today in light of my ongoing premium WordPress theme giveaway. In addition to the gallery, they have a nice blog with news and updates on the Premium Theme scene.