Had Enough Of Crappy Link Building Emails

Come on, you know who you are! How the chuff is this relevant or accurate?

Hello. I`m Ciaron Dunne Director at mobile.broadbandgenie.co.uk. We are the UK`s most popular advisory website for 3G mobile broadband, with help guides, user reviews and up-to-date mobile broadband package and price information.

We have an idea which I hope you will find useful - we originally found leemccoy.co.uk by searching for `cheapest broadband` [really? I'm that good at SEO I make this AFFILIATE MARKETING BLOG rank for that phrase?] but in fact we have a wealth of independent help and advice and free tools for consumers, including our free comparison tables and broadband speed test, so we are looking for good quality, relevant partners.

We would like to have our editorial team research and hand write some unique content for you to add to a page on leemccoy.co.uk. We will agree a subject with you that is relevant to both of our sites. [That's hard because this site isn't about mobile broadband!] The content will contain a single unobtrusive text link in it back to a relevant page on our site. You would benefit from some unique, relevant content [you're pissing me!] to which the search engines seem to be attributing ever more value. We would probably obtain some long term benefit from the link to us -- which, as a relevant outbound link, would also be potentially helpful to you from a search engine perspective [you really are taking the piss now!]. We are not currently in the position of being able to exchange or return links so we thought this could be a good alternative. [Oh I wonder why?]

Naturally there are no costs for us producing this content for you.

If this isn`t appropriate for you, please accept my sincere apologies for having troubled you. [Nah! you made me chuckle!]

Hope to hear back. [You have]


MULTIPLE EMAILS
We really try to avoid sending multiple copies of the same email to you - we know how annoying this is. However, because of the way in which some email systems are set up, this can occasionally happen. If you have received several copies of this email, please accept our sincere apologies and our assurance that the email is genuine. We are always looking for ways in which to improve our approach and systems so please do let us know if this happens.

RELEVANCE, PRIVACY AND OPT-OUT
We only send partnership invitations requests to carefully selected partners [How carefully?]. We work hard to ensure that all requests are relevant and appropriate but no process is perfect. If our request has offended you in any way, please accept our sincere apologies [Try harder!]. If you do not wish to receive further invitations from us, please email us at linkunsubscribe@broadbandgenie.co.uk (IMPORTANT - WHEN DOING SO, PLEASE INCLUDE OUR ORIGINAL EMAIL TO ALLOW US TO UNSUBSCRIBE YOUR DOMAIN CORRECTLY). This will add you to our exclusions database. Your request WILL be respected (please allow up to 24 hours for our system to catch up).[Best do that then!] Please note that if you are an existing partner we may need to contact you with regard to the relationship from time to time.

I'm going to say any more, I 'm too busy doing link building PROPERLY! Surely you can't send me an email because I had a text file on my server with "cheapest broadband"? Is it in the first 100,000 results? And its in a fecking text file!

I'm not sure if this is related, I've just looked at sites being affected for using a possibly similar approach for obtaining links:

* MassiveLinks
* 10 Articles Discussing The GoCompare Google Penalty
* GoCompare Link spamming again
* What happens if your site gets 'blacklisted' by Google?

I've always said I don't like pay per post type things for getting links.

The Deloitte Christmas Retail Survey - My View

Deloitte has launched its 14th Annual survey into retailing in the run up to the traditionally most important time of year for most stores.

The opening paragraph shocked me, not for any worrying data, but for realisation that's been a pretty crap year for retailers all round. They talk about the dire weather during the year, with a freezing Easter, a wet summer (for 90 years apparently) and not Indian summer. Now retailers have to face the prospect of serious belt-tightening because of the lack of cash for many and the prospects of redundancy for many more. Now we've got Woolies and MFI going into receivership and DSGi said they've recorded their first half year loss for a couple of decades.

But is it really that bad? The other day I said it possibly wasn't. In the survey 24% said they'd be cutting back their Christmas spending, whilst 57% actually said they wouldn't be changing their Christmas shopping habits and 19% said they'd increase their spending. And 16-24 year olds are said not to be affected by the current economic crises as much as other groups.

But what do you notice about the three companies mentioned above? My view is that they're not exactly the most innovative, in touch, cutting edge companies. Businesses that are dynamic and nimble aren't being affected to that agree (am I wrong?) The report stated that two thirds of retailers have not felt the need to change their business, either in terms of stock levels, pricing or how they interact with their customers (how worrying is that?)

The head of UK Retail for Deloitte, Tarlok Teji, concludes what many have been saying" we're in an 'in-terainment' economy. Businesses that allow people to entertain their friends at home instead of spending a couple of hundred quid on a night out at the weekend are thriving. This certainly includes homebrew kits, pizza delivery, and satellite TV.

Another interesting finding is that brand loyality will be waning. Don't expect your membership list to buy from you just because they did last year. We're in the age of "value tarts". Retailers have to offer true value - not just low prices. High end Christmas food spend will suffer - to the advantage of discount food retailers. But will affiliates in this area notice a difference? The down turn in luxury brand purchases is expected to decline by 2%.

Another interesting piece of information is that 'convenience' remains the most important factor for Christmas shoppers. Retailers really need to be thinking, if they haven't yet, about free deliveries and the ability to set specific delivery dates. If you're £1 more expensive but the consumer knows they can get everything delivered on a set day then you'll be a winner this Christmas.

My worry is that this 'convenience' factor will join forces with the desire to do their food shopping. So I'll be increasing exposure for the supermarkets on my sites (cleverly). Why do you I say that? Well supermarkets have been hammered this year because of the weather and they NEED the gift sales more than ever. And consumers are willing to oblige. In 2007 5 in 10 shoppers said they'd by their Christmas presents in supermarkets. This year its 6 in 1 - something the affiliate marketing industry to really get their collective head around.

But the most pertinent information for affiliates is that "total online Christmas gift and food expenditure this year is expected to increase to an estimated £4.71 billion, up 10% on 2007". In more detail: this is not only due to more shoppers spending online, but people spending a greater proportion of their total expenditure online - great news!

It gets even better for people in my niches. The average expenditure of experienced online shoppers (mainly young affluent males) is expected to be £773 compared to the average population of £655.

But the problem remains, has Christmas spending peaked already? Anecdotal evidence, and my own experience, is that the couple of weeks before Christmas is when it gets BUSY online. The report (figure 11) shows that 60% of people (that are driven by discounts and promotions) will start their shopping in November or before. Whilst 26% will do it in early December and 7% will do it in the second half of the month. The vast majority of Christmas shoppers will finish early too.

Another interesting fact is that there was a 20% increase to price comparison sites from July 2007 to July 2008 and a 130% increase in traffic to specialist voucher code sites.

Also take a look at page 18 for what men and women say they really want for Christmas - interesting stuff. Women still want designer handbags (40% of them apparently!! try Handbags and Gladrags?) although they apparently say they mainly want vouchers, fragrances and clothjes; under 12's still want computer games; the popular "gadget" search terms are still dominated by Nintendo, Apple PS3 and Xbox.

So if affiliates need to optimise their sites for sales and traffic, take a look through the report. Retailers with stock purchased and paid for should look at how you fulfil orders and where you can add value.

And for me? I've bought my presents already (except for my brother's family in NZ) and getting ready to wrap. Now I can spend time on my sites.

update: 247 Electrical have been placed into administration.

Possibly The Worst Press Release Ever?

I know my writing skills occasionally often have a lot to be desired, but is this possibly the worst press release ever?

Not only does it involve Anthea Turner (they must be desperate - she's a nice gal really), but contain two of the most over-used phrases in media history "credit crunch" and "back-to-basics" in the first sentence!! Oh dear!

She must be flogging something of her own ... ahhh yes: The Perfect Christmas Book!

iPhone Geek Porn - EveryTrail Trip Tracking

Anyone that knows me knows that I love my gadgets and I'd have to admit that I've never owned a better gadget than my iPhone - the apps that you can download often have no useful purpose. The EveryTrail app, however, is awesome.

Basically, if you're out for a hike, walk, ride, drive or whatever, can track the route, speed and distance via your iPhone.

I just went for a quick shopping trip to Marks & Sparks, Borders and a garden centre and it tracked the lot. It fully tracked the route I took and the speed I was travelling at - I may have to think about if I have it running when I'm on the motorway however!!



You can also take photos whilst your on your trip and have them geolocated on your journey too. If you accessed my test trip you can see where I bought my new furry hat (to keep my lugholes warm when I'm at the footy, and where it was peeing it down).

They've also got a Facebook App (hasn't everyone?) where you can share your trips with others. I'd love it if James Avery put his cycling trips on here with some photos!

I know that most won't find it interesting. But for those that claim back VAT on mileage could find it useful to "prove" the work journeys they took.

Don't Tell Anyone, Sales Are Up, Sshhhh

So the Office of National Statistics is saying that sales from October 2008 to October 2007 is up 3.2% and 3.0% up on September 2008, but surely that can't be right! The CBI and British Retail Consortium has said that sales fell 0.1% last month.

Read on ...

Somehow I think these positive figures will be pushed under the carpet by the Beeb, ITV and Sky as good news is just no news at the moment!

Internet Advertising Revenue To "Fall Off A Cliff" in 2009? My ...

Last night ITV news said there was a severe slow down in high street spending. Actual spending in October in the UK was down 0.1%, not the 1% feared by many.

Now I rate Venturebeat very highly, in fact I think its exceptional. But they yesterday stated that slowdown in internet advertising in Q3 as "sobering". I just don't see it myself. I prefer the IAB's take as it has "stabilized"!


Many in the industry see that if online ad spending isn't growing exponentially every quarter then its something to be worried about. Every form of marketing spend goes through spirts of growth and then the rate of growth slows - its nothing new.

The interesting element of the debate comes down to the "fact" that internet advertising is often more accountable than its offline alternatives and as more and more marketing departments become savvy to this I'm sure we'll continue to see more and more budgets shift online (I'm sounding like we're back in 2000!). And TV ad spend is the one that's tanking according to the Guardian.

And then there's the different forms of online marketing and the budget allocations divided between display, SEM, SEO, Affiliate, Social will shift throughout the next couple of years no doubt!

It seems that the media are obsessed with negativity at the moment. If you're a journo then you are just not allowed to say anything positive. Any data that is inconclusive HAS to be shown in a negative light by the media as that's what they think people want to hear - I strongly suggest that isn't the case.

I think they underestimate the attraction of online marketing and the savvyness of marketing departments to know that online is more accountable and efficient than most other forms of marketing.

PWC has it spot on:

David Silverman, a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, added that, “a weakening economy will continue to be a challenge to all forms of advertising-supported media. However, the Internet should be better poised to withstand the storm given its ability to combine performance-based advertising along with broad-based branding.” Source: PR IAB Nov 20, 2008.

Google Measuring The Usefulness of Forums

Do some searches and you'll often get links to forums. But how useful are they - you don't know before you click?

Well now Google is giving some summary information about the number of posts and the last post date.





has anyone else seen this?

Thanks Webgains For The Christmas Hamper

Just a quick thank you to Webgains for the Christmas Hamper from Virginia Hayward I received this morning!

Anyone that knows me, knows I love cake, chocolate, wine, biscuits and nuts so this is an absolutely perfect gift for me Laura! I know it won't last until Christmas!!

The issue I've had this year is that I've been working so hard on consultancy stuff and there's just soooo many merchants around that its often difficult to find the hidden gems in a network. Over the year I've been broadening out my target area from a very select niche of retail into more general segments. Thankfully Webgains have some cracking merchants - especially for Christmas targeted sites :D as well as some brilliant ones for Easter. I also need to get my target list ready for Valentines too! However, before all that I need to do a thorough review of the Virginia Hayward Christmas hamper.

I'm looking forward to doing more with Webgains next year - probably at the expense of networks that aren't evolving. Oh and if you want to know more about them, you can meet some of the team here.

No-One's Talking Of The "R" Word "Ooop North"

Well I spent the day yesterday on a client's stand at the North West Business Conference talking to various people about content and links for them - yes doing link building properly and not sending out ill-targeted emails, but actually talking to people. The up-shot of this is that The North West Regional Development Agency, The Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, various management consultants and commercial lawyers are all very keen to add content to the site and link in.

The interesting thing, however, was that out of my 60,70 or so conversations I had with these business associations, people thinking about starting up companies, business owners and angel investors; I can't think of one that either mentioned the "R" word or not even uttered the phrase "credit crunch".

Are people just fed up of the phrases, or is it not affecting everyone - in contradiction to what the mass-media is making out? My view is that you'll never dampen entrepreneurial spirit. There was many fantastic business ideas there, one actually appeared on Dragons Den and "failed", and now she's seeking angel investment for another business. There's people like Ben, AKA the Can Can Man, that always makes me smile when ever I meet him - if you're business is flagging, then give him a call! (p.s. Matt, I think he'd be great for the Expo!)



There were many people clambering over themselves to pitch their business ideas in the speed pitching event - in fact it was more than twice over-subscribed!!

I'm back for another day today (it was just so damn good for business - both mine and there's!) and I'll see if anyone mentions the "R" word again today!

Google Mobile Voice Search - Its Groovy!

Its looking very groovy!!





I just love the sound it makes when it searches!

You can download it here via iTunes.

Watch videos about it:




Perhaps I'm speaking with an over tired lisp, but searching for "cinema times" came back with:


How does everyone else get on with it?

Polite Notice To Merchants - The Right And Wrong Ways To Get Exposure

I know some of my blogs are successful, if not great (cough) but please could merchants not spam them by leaving messages in the comments with non-affiliated links to themselves?

I moderate all comments (I hope) but there seems to be an increasing number of merchants doing it.

I can understand affiliates, they'll try anything, but could merchants please show some restraint and message or email me if you'd like more exposure?

Merchants like Kevin from Greenfingers, Steven from Blushing Buyer, John from PrezziesPlus, Zak from Prezzybox, Ben from Ethical Superstore and others all work with me for enhanced exposure (and guidance if I get things wrong) and a number of PR agencies - "That's the way to do it!"



So no more spamming please!

What I'm loving:

SEO'ers Shouldn't Feel Threatened By The Google SEO Starter Guide

Google has released a SEO Starter Guide (about time).

For most that are belatedly joining the online world it'll be a great introduction to understanding how your site's design does actually affect the levels of traffic you'll receive from Google.

Many small scale, lets do the basics, SEO'ers may feel a bit threatened. And rightly so - the Guide contains the very fundamentals of SEO. The issue is however, that for many established websites there are many common issues not covered in the document.

Every website is different, every client has differing resources, different wants and needs, different views of what works for them. But what this does do is give weight to your arguments when it comes down to making tough decisions such as re-writing the URL structure or why you should pay greater attention to your description tags.

The fundamentals it looks at are:

1) Using unique and accurate page titles
This is an area I often play great attention to. Many retailers forget how this tag is, not only for SEO, but by increasing the CTR from the natural SERPS.

Also many site owners forget about the "active keywords" that can be used here to increase actual conversion rates (my clients will know what I'm talking about).


2) Make use of the "description meta tag"

I still love this tag. Many SEO'ers can't be bothered with it but I view the tag as highly useful. It's great to theme sites and break sites out of any duplication penalty - if used properly.

Of course they also can be used in the snippets in the SERPS so need to be thought of from an "increasing CTR" point of view as well.

Many affiliates use them to stuff keywords in. But what do you think a user will think when it sees a snippet with loads of repeated keywords? "Spam crappy site" me thinks.

If you don't use Webmaster Tools to analyse your meta descriptions, you need a slap (a big one).

3) Improve the structure of your URLs
This is an often overlooked part of SEO. The issue is that many site owners read somewhere years ago that page rank is passed through the directories and not via links. The issue now is that they want really complicated URL's with loads of variables instead of creating a themed hierarchy of folders and content sections.

With one client the extended variables in the URL's are starting to create problems as well as how pages are collated and organised. A proper, logical method of organising how your pages are linked to is vital for SEO success - especially when you can have many different URL's for one actual document. Trying to fix this issue can take 3/4 months to fix in large sites.

4) Make your site easier to navigate
Google proposes the use of sitemaps. On the simplest level I'd agree. But a sitemap should be no substitute to logical navigation within the made body of your site.

Another issue is that many businesses take the Sitemap to the Nth degree and whack every page on it. They didn't read the bit in the SEO document they read 5 years ago that Google will get to the stage were it won't carry on reading links on a sitemap. The actual figure isn't agreed on, but I'd limit it to 150 links. Furthermore PageRank is diluted by the ratio of the links of the page to the actual link in question. So use the SiteMap logically - perhaps think mini sitemaps based around themes and use them as part of content?

5) Offer Quality Content And Services
Many site owners want to get people from the SERPS to their checkout as quickly as possible. A good number have started to add content to their sites - because they've been told to by their SEO agency, without actually knowing why.

Here's a couple of reasons, think long tail, and attracting more relevant visitors. But there's other reasons which I'm not going to give away for free on here.

6) Write better anchor text
Many still forget about this, whilst the rest over-egg it. Webmasters need to think why anchor text is useful? Does a sign over a shop indicate what's actually in the shop? Are you more likely to find what you want if you go into a shop that has a site that says exactly what you're after i.e. [Buy cheap green widgets] or [obscure name that has something vaguely related to your desires]?

Some site owners take the pish with them, they think they should cram every keyword possible into their anchor text. Whilst others think they should have a load of links at the bottom of the page to other pages. Don't you think Google has caught onto this yet?

7)Use heading tags appropriately
This is one of those tags that I've started to downplay in recent years. I'm not saying forget them, I'm saying don't put all of your eggs in the H1 basket. Spread your SEO risk by using the whole range of methods that are available to you in the relevant proportions.

Oh, don't spam the heck out of them, you'll trip a spam filter.

8) Optimise your use of images
Admittedly I'm slack at this, but I've started to do it out of respect for those that are visually impared rather than for SEO per se.

9) Make effective use of robots.txt
Now, unless you know what you're doing here then stay well clear. Sometimes with clients that'll be one of the first things I look at and modify. Whilst other times its something I'll leave until we've got more fundamental issues resolved. Make sure you thoroughly research the topic before you do anything.

9) Be aware of rel="nofollow" for links
This is a fantastic, but largely misunderstood tag. If you've got a large site with poor structure and medium levels of PageRank then you can effectively use them to funnel PR to the most relevant (highest earning) pages whilst you work on your link building/link inducing programme.

10) Promote your website in the right ways
I'd virtually always recommend that clients blog about what they do. But you need to make sure that they've got the resources available to them and the appropriate style to make this work (oh and a great template). Not all blogs work.

Google also recommends the use of social media sites. If you don't know what you're doing this could cause more harm than good. I've seen so many reputations destroyed online over the years by incorrectly using social media.

11) Make use of free webmaster tools
But you need to know how to use the information given to you. Simply having data won't help your search engine performance. Knowing how to take that data, mix it with an understanding of your client's needs, resources and desires together with an understanding of the target audience, the market as a whole, their competitors and the ability to quickly respond to changes in your and their environment - that's the key to SEO success - and happy clients.


If there's anything you don't understand, or would like clarification on, some SEO training, then feel free to contact me on the email address top right, or PM me if you're on the A4U Forum.

p.s. time to read the morning papers with a cuppa

So Who Is MyVoucherCodes' Mark Pearson

Many have been talking about MyVoucherCodes and the person that apparently runs it - Mark Alan Pearson. But who is he?

Mark's like the Scarlet Pimpernel in that everyone's talking about him but many have never actually met him. Fortunately I (and a few others) have when we went to the Barbados 2008 affiliate trip.

To set the scene here's some photos.

Damn! Most of "Team Fun Got In the way of this one - Mark's in the background


Mark's Hiding Again


Frostie Stalks His Pray Whilst Tom Looks At Me Saying "So You Think You'll Drive Do You?


Letting Others Take The Lime-Light


I Don't Know What's Going On Here


Mark Joins In On The Afternoon Cocktails


The thing is, Mark when he's not thinking or talking business is a nice guy. I know that'll shock everyone. They want him to look and be like an uncompromising, non-affable, selfish, arrogant person. Although you can tell Mark is young, and slightly dismissive of people that don't see the world in the way he does, he is mostly just like you and I.

My view is that he's 95% his way to being a fantastic businessman. Like many affiliates it appears he tries to push merchants a bit too far. With experience he'll learn to work more closely with the merchants, networks and agencies (his Christmas campaign is testimony to that).

Somewhere along the line it appears there's been a breakdown in his business processes where it appears that merchants, networks and agencies are asking him to interact with their brands in one way and that doesn't seem to be implementing their requests on his MyVoucherCodes website. The upshot of this is that it has left a bad taste in the mouths of many parties - including affiliates.

I know I've commented on Voucher Code sites and they may not be as great for merchants as many think. But now there's been a barrage of merchants changing their code policies. If he and others and tried not to grab that extra buck at the possible expense of merchants and users then the situation may be different?

Anyway I digress.

Mark is a serial entrepreneur, he's involved in a number of companies:

CoReg No.	Company Name	Appt Date
06226245	A WEEK WITH YOU LIMITED	25 Apr 2007
06327961	MARKCO MEDIA LTD	30 Jul 2007
06735602	MARKCO PROPERTIES LIMITED	28 Oct 2008
06226049	PEOPLE PASSION PLANET LTD	25 Apr 2007
06506214	PETOBA MARKETING LIMITED	18 Feb 2008
06255141	THE MILLION TREE PROJECT LTD	22 May 2007

Many have congratulated him on his PR successes. But I feel most of the ground work for MVC was done before he started using 10 Yetis with his use of various forums to get the "hype" ball rolling.

And Petoba is interesting. But I won't comment about that.

In summary, Mark is an interesting character. He's obviously done well. It looks like he gets bored easily and has a strong desire to succeed. It is this desire that I feel allows him to cross lines that are written in merchant T&C's as well as the unwritten rules of business. I hope Mark can see some of the comments of those in this industry and re-assesses how he does things (or get a tighter grip on what goes on his sites without him knowing - he does have staff). There's so much potential - it needs to be guided. Perhaps he should take on a mentor just as Google did to channel their enthusiasm.

So his PR company has done a lot of work getting the MVC brand out there. Perhaps Mark should do a little bit of his PR himself and work closer with the industry?

Report Card For Mark: B- Good performance but could do better to work as a team.

Disclaimer: If any information is factually incorrect, or anyone would like photos removed then feel free to contact me.

P.s. Any views on this?

Affiliate Who's Line Is It Anyway?

This has got to be some of the funniest TV you'll ever watch!

But if you had to pick 4 affiliates to be in an episode, who would you pick?



Mine are:

Shane Robinson, Steve Everett, Mark Norvile, Tom Quinn

Google Shopping List - eh?

I can never keep up with all the new products they're offering. I just keep to SEO, Base and Adwords etc.

But what's Google Shopping List?


I've probably missed a million post thread about it somewhere!

And if it is going to be popular, how do you think it'll change the affiliate industry?

MyVoucherCodes Expulsion - Or Dancing Cat?

You've got a choice. Read the post about MyVoucherCodes being expelled from the Play.com affiliate programme

or

watch this video with a dancing cat promoting the Royal Mail's new personalised stamps.

[Video removed for editorial reasons]

Go puddy go!

Or what about:

Senior Adult Choir Hip Hop

Redundancies Coming To A Media Company Near You?

I remember being made redundant a good few year ago. The bottom fell out of my world as I had a fair amount of debt. But now its the best thing that ever happened to me. But its difficult for many that are finding themselves in that situation to be just as positive as we're getting ever closer to Christmas and the likelihood that this will be the "deepest recession for 80 years.

Yesterday I heard of a PR company in Manchester (not one of my clients) that made people redundant with half an hour's notice. And today I see that the Blogging solutions provider Six A Part is shedding around 8% of its staff because of the economy and the uncertainty it brings.

We've got another 2,000 jobs from Virgin Media going and the TUC says that an average of 1,000 jobs are being lost per day.

Now I'm glad that I'm self employed and got a buffer to protect me from any downturn in earnings. But its still a worrying time for my friends in the networks, agencies and merchants. I've already heard of restructuring in the affiliate industry (please don't ask what it is because of not saying). And I've also heard of some networks severely cutting their marketing budgets.

Now there'll be the usual numpties that have their head up their backsides and imply that you shouldn't be honest with what's going on and you shouldn't mention the "R" word when it comes to the affiliate marketing industry because we want everyone to think that our industry is impervious to market forces and the wider economic downturn (right?)

Even though the affiliate marketing industry is a robust one, largely based on performance, I feel that there'll be some tough times ahead. Merchants will demand more bang for their buck. And I see leaner, meaner networks such as Paid On Results do well and the chickens will come home to roost for those networks that became fat on the profits of past actions that some disagreed with (I'm being so restrained here).

I have an un-natural focus on business efficiency and value for money, in time I hope the industry can look back, as I did to the past down-turn, and think "actually it was good for us".

Update: I've just been watching the Bank Of England press conference (sad I know). It looks like we're in for a deep but short recession. Inflation will fall back down towards the 2% mark - mainly because of the reduction in mortgage repayments. However, CPI (consumer price inflation) which is as a result of "excess" demand could go negative next year. Overall it looks like the economy could shrink by around 2% in 2009. Not good at all.

Welcome To My New Blog Sponsor ....

Welcome to Existem AM who twisted my arm bought me off with a lemon chicken lunch to put their banner on this blog.

Actually its great with those guys as they work their bits off for you and are always willing to have their ear bent about stuff.

And here's some nice pics of the crew to help you decide that you want to work with them:

Hannah keeps her affiliates in check - she won't let them get away with things


Mark likes to get very close to his affiliates and goes to lengths that other agencies wouldn't


And Bruce is always willing to look a prat if it helps affiliates do more with his clients

How To Get From 0 to 4,000 Vists A Day - Revisited

This is going to be one quick tip (really two) that is going to form part of something a lot bigger (hey Jess ;-))

Anyway, there are many reasons why blogging is perfect for affiliates; you can quickly add new content and have the content automatically integrated with links and other widgets, you can also appear to be an authority on a subject when you're really not (take this blog for instance ;-)) but the bit I love is that you have at your finger-tips a system to really exploit the long tail.

Back in March I wrote a post called How to get from 0 - 4,000 visits a day in 10 weeks and it was pretty much well received in the SEO and Affiliate marketing community.

What a wrote then is still true now. But now I'm going to extend it a bit.

On the end of the last list should be "extend your target posts into infinity and beyond.

I see many affiliates target the same areas as I do and often a rye smile comes across my face when I see them all target "head terms" with new sites. My view is to dive as far into the long tail as your imagination takes you and then allow the data that your analytics software to drive you further into the longtail and ac cross subsets of your chosen niche.

I use some subscribed to software to do this, but as others have told me not to give away my competitive advantage, I'll tell you how to do it by hand.

Every week I'll look at my keyword referers and write down any that I think will be good post topics and allow me to attract some good niche traffic with suitable merchants to promote with it. If you've already started in the long tail, written a decent amount and thought carefully to the keywords you've placed in your templated sections then this list should be a veratable bounty of great post ideas.

Get your list to an amount you can comfortably cope with (taking into account you'll be getting emails from merchants and you'll have conversations with affiliates that'll beget other ideas) and post away.

That bit isn't rocket science. But I'm sure many affiliates will see merchants as the only source of post ideas - whether its emails from them or monitoring their site's RSS feeds of new products.

But whilst I was implementing this strategy on my blogs this week I suddenly thought "how do you know you're on the right track if you're ahead of the game by a few months, and how risky is my approach?". For some it'll come with experience and for others you'll have to rely on cold hard stats.

And here's the answer.

You could rely on just looking at the plain old visitor numbers. But my advice is to go a bit further.

When I look at my stats in Google Analytics I do two things. The first is to gauge the bredth of terms. Every time I log in I'll look at the total number of search terms for the past 30 days and see if there's a growth in that figure.

This is a bit more useful if you're looking at exploiting the long tail.

But there's an even better method. My advice is to look at the ratio of search volume for your ten most popular search phrases as to the total search volume for the rest.

Here's the (partial) stats for two of my sites. The second I learned off the first which I've pretty much left fallow until I need to work on it again.

	SITE 1
Total Visits	Top 10	Ratio
1,333	495	37.13%
9,593	2605	27.16%
37,926	11,135	29.36%
-	-	19.26%
-	-	12.78%
-	-	13.00%
-	-	10.04%
-	-	12.41%
-	-	14.53%
-	-	12.66%
	SITE 2
Total Visits	Top 10	Ratio
37	13	35.14%
115	33	28.70%
90	18	20.00%
126	45	35.71%
288	61	21.18%
325	52	16.00%
1690	96	5.68%

With the second site can you see how much I've thought about attracting more niche searches than other affiliates and that the ten most popular search terms only attracted 5.68% of the overall traffic?

This is partly because this only looks at Google data. By accident the site works very well on the "head terms" in MSN and Yahoo!.

This forms part of my strategy as, I feel, is the best way to gain good placements in Google:

1) Start Niche,
2) Use your data to go nicher (is that a word).
3) Cover a huge spectrum of keywords
4) As you go you'll attract more links,
5) Leverage that link juice to move more into the head
6) Beat the other affiliates that tried to start too big.
7) Go back and try and mop up some more long tail keywords.

I hope that was of use? Its basically building a pyramid with a strong base and adding more layers and then making the base even wider and building it higher again - always keeping a strong foundation of long-tail keywords.

Thanks To Ethical Superstore and Ben For Helping

As you know I do a fair amount of chocolate sales at a certain time of the year and I'm going to try and spread that out a bit. But it was nice to get a ping from Ben at Ethical Superstore saying he'd like to send me some chocolate advent calendars to review.



Now I thought that was ace but he (Polly me thinks) also sent some Fabulous Fairtrade Choclates as well - which I know I'll enjoy reviewing. I've still got the bean bag Hannah got sent to me (and I better do it before I pop down to see the Existem guys tomorrow!)

So thanks Ben & Polly. If anyone else wants to send me stuff to review feel free. I'm just starting an adult gifts blog too ;-)

Awin DeepLinking Lovely-Jubbly

Its great to see Affiliate Window launch their new deeplinking tool!

The only problem is (don't sigh guys!) that Awin are already the easiest network to research products and create deeplinks using their ShopWindow service.

My blogs review products and as part of that process I'll come up with post ideas and then try and find products that are relevant. I normally operate in the gift areas and Awin has loads of those merchants so its a piece of cake with ShopWindow.

The issue is that its obviously restricted to merchants that have feeds. Now I can explore wider and create product-focused posts across their full range of merchants very easily.

I know POR offer a tool to help you do this as well which is awesome. And now TD and Buy.at offer great deeplinking tools. Webgains have a good solution too.

Its great that networks are making it easier for us to promote their merchants - they're starting to really help content affiliates. Its also a great things when networks listen to affiliates (especially when we're right).

So we've got these tools, offer blogs with RSS feeds to alert us of new offers and products, but what else can they do?

You know what? I'm not sure! As long as we're notified of things we should be promoting, its easy for us to promote them and we can accurately assess the profitability of what we do - there's nothing much else they can do.

Maybe something related to live stock checking and alerts if we're promoting products that are going out of stock??

Also what about, "How do you compare with your peers"? A rating to say, you're in the top 5% of affiliates, 10%, 20% on epc, volume? (Not sure about that one)

Alerts to say that your epc or conversion rate for a given period has fallen below an acceptable level?

Also what about "You're doing well promoting this product, but people regularly buy this one too? "(A bit like Amazon's "People also bought ..."

Perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself ....

But great stuff Awin, time to have a play with it in real life.

Anyone understand this?

You say wa? Anyone know what this guy is saying?

Dear Sir,

This is Tushar Sabhani working as Senior Executive Business Development with Pratham Software Ltd. (PSI)

This mail enquiry is in reference to UK visit of our Global Head for Sales & Marketing Munish Saxena and President US Operations Gulab Sharma in the coming month of November.

I have gained initial understanding of your organization, Visible Systems from your web-site http://www.visible.co.uk. Later our Solution Heads have identified the potential synergies with Visible Systems offerings & technologies and can really map them to ours.

Resultantly our Global Head Sales & Marketing is really interested in having an exploratory meeting with you during his UK visit. We would like to explore opportunity to offer you software development & project management capabilities in offshore and onsite models with assured cost savings (at roundabout 1/3 rd of UK cost) on a broad spectrum of technologies & platforms spanning Microsoft, Java, LAMP and System level programming.

PSI is an ISO 9001:2000 certified IT company with team of 150 professionals and clientele ranging from Fortune 500 to start ups. Most importantly we can offer value beyond cost and provide self managed resources, mature offshore project communication set up, 24*7 project visibility and control for clients, team’s multi-cultural exposure, strict compliance to ISO 9001:2000 standards and outsourcing risk mitigation through client centric legal documents.

Our major advantage is our size appropriateness for small and mid size IT companies and strategic location of our development center in India’s developing city Jaipur. This helps us offer our clients better attention, short issue escalation path, low employee attrition rate-smooth project continuity, price competitiveness as compared to Metro cities along with ISO 9001:2000 standards of quality and processes

PSI can also leverage it's access to huge resource pool to provide you staffing services in varied skills sets. Please let me know if you would be interested in an exploratory meeting with Munish and Gulab in November.

Looking forward to your response

Best Regards,

SEO Content Article Writing Services

And you thought this would be a post offering my own services ;-) Well I'm not. I'm recommending a company called Scribbes that offer Article Writing Services.

Copywriting for clients is a necessary evil along with analytical SEO and strategy implementation. However, Richard has done some great blog content for a client and really taken the heat off the stuff that I do.

So if you need any content for your sites then drop him a line (he doesn't know I'm posting though!)

There is a bit of a cross-over with what I offer, but the industry is big enough for me to recommend "competitors".

TTFN

Keep Up With Buying Habits - MDS Battery - 8% Of A Growing Market

We're going into a "make do and mend" economy. We all know about it. There's endless stories about how people are changing their buying habits.

I've taken on a new client MDS Battery and when the economy was booming people were lazy. If their laptop battery "went" they'd buy a new laptop instead of forking out £100 on new battery.

But now they've seen a significant trend towards buying replacement laptop batteries, car chargers, power leads and AC adapters as people "mend" rather than buy new laptops.

The same can be said of their Sat Nav Batteries, PDA Batteries and camcorder Batteries - sales are going up nicely.

And people are buying bulk orders of Duracell Batteries in the run-up to Christmas.

With the laptop batteries at £100 and converting very nicely why not take advantage of the 8% commission?

If you're doing PPC I can help you out with some guidance if you would like.

If you've got motoring sites then they do a range of Motorcycle batteries that also do well.

For people golf sites then they also do golf caddy batteries.

There's also good commissions to be made on the UPS Batteries.

We're just sorting out a product feed at the moment. So any of you that would want them for your price comparison site or PPC then give me a nudge.

So as people are moving away from buying new to mending - its a good time to get your fingers in the replacement battery market.

This Is Blue Marble

Never Forget Old Sites - Activity Gifts

Whilst "her in doors" is hogging my work machine I'm on the lappy and listening to Five live. So thought I better do something at least vaguely usefull before we go out I decided to have a look at some of the many sites that I just don't bother updating anymore.

It was nice to see my Activity Gift website is starting to rank really well for stuff that I thought it'd never rank for unless I gave the site a major overall and do some mega linkbuilding.

The only issue is that now I've got too many sites that I want to do "something decent" with. Not only do I have another gifts site to start next week in a nice little niche but now I've got to work out which keywords to target, get content ideas together and choose which merchants I'll push hardest. If only content sites were as easy as some seem to think ;-)

Oh, and of course, I need to create a decent template!!! That one is shocking.

If there's any activity gift merchants out there that want to appear on it, can you pm on the forum or email me on "lastname"."firstname"@gmail.com?

I'm probs not going to give it a major push until after Christmas, but we can stuff moving at least.