What does it do? Like the name suggests, this plugin creates a new page or post on your site every time an item is searched, and then displays search results from eBay to the person searching.

The really cool thing about this plugin is the content randomization engine. It allows all the new posts this plugin creates to have unique content.

I installed this plugin a few days ago on my Apple Laptop Shop phpBay Pro site and i already have over 15 new pages of content. And i didn’t do an once of work.

Here’s how i recommend using this plugin:

I created a post category called “Recent Searches.” Set that category to show in your sidebar. In the plugin options in the widgets section of your wordpress admin, set the plugin to create posts out of all new searches (not pages). Then set them to go into the “Recent Searches” category. Follow the other basic instructions from the manual and you’re done!

This plugin only works as a sidebar widget. It does not work for search boxes outside of the sidebar. No big deal. Remove your other search bar and add the widget. That’s what i did.

Note that this plugin costs $15. All of Allan’s other plugins are free, but he put some real serious time into this one. I think the price is very fair (maybe even underpriced). Everyone with a phpBay Pro website should own have this plugin.

Make sure you read the manual so you know the best way to use the content generator.

Click here for more info or to buy this plugin.

By default, only the item title is clickable. But by using this javascript trick we will make the whole thing a link. That should help you get more clicks on your auctions and will help those confused people who click on images or other pats of your phpBay auctions that aren’t links.

(Note: The way this wordpress theme displays code is a little messed up. In order for the code below to your you need to paste it into Notepade, and to a replace all for quotation marks. That will get rid of the “curly” quotes).

Javascript code for column phpbay auctions

All you have to do is open the file called template.column.results.html (wp-content > plugins > phpbay > templates > template.column.results.html)

Replace the entire file with this:

<td style=”word-wrap: break-word;border: 1px solid #eeeeee;font-size:12px;” onclick=”window.open(’%%link_url%%’);” onmouseover=”this.style.cursor=’pointer’; this.style.cursor=’hand’; style.backgroundColor=’%%hover%%’;” onmouseout=”style.backgroundColor=’#ffffff’;” width=”300″ align=”center” bgcolor=”#ffffff”><noscript> <a rel=”nofollow” href=”%%link_url%%” target=”_blank”></a></noscript><a rel=”nofollow” href=”%%link_url%%” target=”_blank”> <img src=”%%image%%” border=”0″ alt=”%%alt_title%%” /> <strong>%%title%%</strong> </a><noscript></noscript> %%paypal%% %%currency%%%%price_or_bin%%</td> 

Javascript code for standard phpbay auctions

All you have to do is open the file called template.ebay.results.html (wp-content > plugins > phpbay > templates > template.ebay.results.html)

Replace the entire file with this:

<table style=”font-size:12px;” onclick=”window.open(’%%link_url%%’);” onmouseover=”this.style.cursor=’pointer’; this.style.cursor=’hand’; style.backgroundColor=’%%hover%%’;” onmouseout=”style.backgroundColor=’%%row%%’” border=”0″ cellspacing=”5″ cellpadding=”5″ width=”100%” bgcolor=”%%row%%”> <tbody> <tr> <td width=”100″ align=”left”><img src=”%%image%%” border=”0″ alt=”%%alt_title%%” /></td> <td style=”word-wrap: break-word;”>        <noscript><a rel=”nofollow” href=”%%link_url%%” target=”_blank”></a></noscript><a rel=”nofollow” href=”%%link_url%%” target=”_blank”>    <strong>%%title%%</strong>   </a>    <noscript></noscript> </td> <td width=”20″ align=”right”>%%paypal%%</td> <td width=”60″ align=”right”>%%bid_or_bin%%</td> <td width=”100″ align=”right”>%%currency%%%%price_or_bin%%</td> <td width=”80″ align=”right”>%%date%%</td> </tr> </tbody></table>   

 
Then just upload your changes and you’re done! Pretty easy, right?

Check out Radio’s blog: Rule One Blog!

Ebay sellers do all sorts of crazy stuff to get their auctions to stand out. And unfortunately, there auctions show up as-is on your phpBay sites. Until now.

Allan Lewis of Handy Hints for New Webmasters created a plugin that converts all your wacky phpBay auction results titles in normal, title case results.

The plugin is super easy to use. Get the phpBay title fixing plugin.

Thanks Allan!

How do you do that? First of all, make your home page display just one page or post. There are a few ways to set that up. You can create your homepage content with a page, or with a post.

Before we get into that, download the Flexi Pages Widget. That’s what I use to display my pages in my sidebar. Add it to your sidebar and edit the settings so that “List sub-pages only in parent and related pages in hierarchy.” Is checked off. This lets you hide the sub pages under each page until that page is clicked, then it expands and shows the sub pages. That’s what I used on Discount Golf Balls.

How to use a Page for you phpBay Site home page
If you want to make it with a page, here’s what you do (in wordpress 2.5+). First, create a page and for the title, use your headline you want on the front page.

Now go to Settings>Reading and then where it says “front page displays” select “a static page” and then from the drop down list pick the page name you just created (the headline of your homepage).

Then go back to manage>pages and get the ID number of the page you just created. To do this, roll over the page title you just crated and in the bottom left of your browser, look at the target URL. It will say the page ID in there. Write it down. (I know this works in Fire Fox, not sure about IE.)

Now go to Design > widgets and add the pages widget to your sidebar (if it’s not there yet). Then edit that widget and add the page ID number you just wrote down to where it says “exclude pages”.

If you have a main site navigation, you can download this plugin to easily remove it from the menu 

Your homepage is now set up to display the contents of a single page, not wordpress posts.

How to use a Post for you phpBay Site home page
There is also another way to do it. This is more complicated. The advantage to doing it this next way si that with the previous way your page navigation will not have a “home” link. This next way allows you to have a “home” link in your main page navigation. But if your logo is clickable, you may not care so much. If you don’t care, you can skip down to the next section of this post.

First, download and install the Different Posts Per Page plugin. After you activate it, go to settings>DiffPostPerPage and set the homepage to display 1 post.

Now instead of creating a page, create a post and make the title the headline you want on your home page. Create a new category for this post and cal it “Home”.

Next we’re gonna get the category number by going to manage>categories then find the category called home and roll over it. Get the category ID number from the target URL in your browser ad write it down.

Now we’re gonna tell the homepage to only call posts from the category called “Home”. So go to Design> theme editor and open Index.php.

Look for this code:

<?php if (have_posts()) : ?>

Write below that, add this code:

<?php query_posts('p=1'); ?>

Change the number “1” to match the number you wrote down for the category ID of Home and save.

Now you have to remove the category “home” from showing up in your category widget in your sidebar. This is a little trickier than excluding pages from showing up.

First you need to use your FTP program and download your widgets.php file. It’s in WP-includes folder.

Once you open it, do a “Find” and look for $cat_args

You may see something like:
$cat_args = orderby=name&show_count={$c}&hierarchical={$h} "; (if yours is different, that’s fine).

Now we’re gonna exclude the home category by adding &exclude=1 (replace 1 with your category number).

So my line of code now looks like:
$cat_args = "orderby=name&show_count={$c}&hierarchical={$h}&exclude=1";

Save the file and upload it to the same place you got it from and replace the old one.

There, your home page will now only show the one post you created under home, and wont show any other posts you create.

Using Pages and Category widgets with phpBay sites
Now that your phpBay site has a proper homepage you can start adding products ad content.

I use pages to add products because then I can do sub-products with sub pages. And I use posts to show articles and content.

When writing content, create categories that can be high level. On Discount Golf Balls#mce_temp_url# I have my categories as “Golf ball videos, Golf ball reviews, and Golf Ball Articles. Then I file all my posts into one of those three.

Go to Design > widgets and add your Flexi Pages widget and categories widget if you haven’t done so yet. Label them something that makes sense.

Presto! Your phpbay site now functions like a real website.

I know this was a long post, but I hope it was helpful. Anyone else have another way of getting just one page on your homepage?

But before I go into the details of what to change, I’ll take a moment to tell you why removing bids from phpBay sites will help you make more money with phpBay.

It’s really not rocket science. People will click your links when they see a product that is at an amazing price, a price they can’t get anywhere else. But if I’m on your phpBay site and I see an ipod for $20, but I also see 0 bids, I instantly realize it’s not an amazing deal, it’s just that the ipod has no bids on it, and the price will go up. So I’m less likely to click. But if I see an ipod for $20, and I don’t se anything about the number of bids, then I’m gonna click in a heartbeat because I think the ipod is selling for $20.

True, when people get to eBay they will realize that it’s not selling for $20 and that there are no bids, but at least we planted the eBay cookie. The goal with phpBay is to plant as many cookies as possible.

So lets take a look at how to modify your theme to stop the bids from displaying in phpBay auction results.

Step 1. Locate your template files. You want to edit the file called “template.ebay.results.html” for the regular auction layout and “template.column.results.html” for the column layout. The path to both files is “phpbay_plugin > wp-content > plugins > phpBay > templates”

Step 2. Save a copy of the files in another folder BEFORE you edit them.

Step 3. Open the files in an HTML editing software (or in notepad).

Step 4. Look for this line of code: 

<td width="60" align="right">%%bid_or_bin%%</td>

Step 5. Now you can delete that whole line. But I prefer to comment it out in case I want to turn it on later. To comment it out, replace that line of code with this line:

<--<td width="60" align="right">%%bid_or_bin%%</td>-->

Step 6. Save the file and upload it over the current file using an FTP software (I like Filezilla).

Step 7. There is no step seven. Your done! Go to your site to make sure it worked.

Hope that little hack helps you get more clicks on your phpBay Sites.

One problem people have had with phpBay Pro 3.0 is that the auction images do not link to ebay auctions (only the item text is clickable). While this is a valid concern, it is a very easy fix.

Allan from Handy Hints for Webmasters emailed me a great solution. It’s just one small change to your template file.

First, locate your default template file in /wp-content/plugins/phpBay/templates

Second, find thehtml code that places the image on your phpBay site. It will look something like this:

<img src=”%%image%%” alt=”%%alt_title%%” border=”0″ />

Then replace that code with the following

<a href=”%%link_url%%” target=”_blank” rel=”nofollow”><img src=”%%image%%” alt=”%%alt_title%%” border=”0″ /></a>

Make sure when you paste the code into your file that the quotation marks are not curly. you may have to retype them manually.

That’s it! It was that easy!

I install all of these plugins on any wordpress site I make, not just phpBay sites.

Some of these plugins are not the most recent versions, but if you have wordpress 2.5 than you can upgrade them all automatically in your plugin menu. Upgrade them all before activating them.

If you don’t have wordpress 2.5, install the “wordpress automatic upgrade” plugin first, use it, then install the rest and you can then auto-updgrade them all.

All of these plugins are compatible with wordpress 2.5 There is a link to download the zip file at the end of the post. Make sure you read the instructions in the readme.txt files before you use the plugins. They don’t call it “readme” for nothing…

alinks: Automatically link certain words in your blog to other blog posts or websites. This is great for internal linking targeted keywords for SEO. Note: this plugin can conflict with phpBay if you set up an aLink for a keyword you are using in an auction. Keep that in mind when making aLinks

All-in-one SEO pack Probably the best plugin out there for SEO. I’ll discuss how to use this to optimize you niche site in later posts.

Google analyticator: Easily links your blog with your google analytics account (if you don’t have one, get one! it’s free, too!). This will be great for tracking how much traffic you get from your keywords in search engines, among other things.

Sitemap Generator: Generates a sitemap for goolge and other sites. this is great for SEO and other things.

Link cloaking plugin: Automatically cloaks and redirects your affiliate links, or any other links you wanna keep private. This is great if you wanna link to any other affiliate offers from a phpBay site.

Viper Video Quicktags: Easily embed video from YouTube and other sources right into blog posts. This is good if you have a content area of your blog and you want to embed product demos or reviews in your site.

Wordpress Related Post Plugin: Shows other related posts at the end of a post. Great for internal linking (SEO) and getting people to read your other content.

Wordpress Automatic upgrade: Upgrade your wordpress with the click of a button!

wp-cache: Makes your pages load faster. Turn this off if you are making design edits so your pages don’t cache and you can see changes.

cforms: most amazing contact form plugin I have ever seen. It can do almost anything. Read the instructions

Download the Wordpress Plugin kit here!

Just unzip the file and copy all those folders into your “plugins” folder like you would with any other plugins.

Enjoy!

Nest post will be about optimizing your site content for your niche so you can make money on ebay!