Love My Client's Theme Song - Norman Cook & Levi Roots

Name me a website that has a tune created for them a couple of musical geniuses such as Levi Roots and Norman Cook?

Nope?

Well Angels Den have an awesome tune! It takes me back to those mellow days chilling out in Barbados! Ah bliss!

Affiliate Marketing More Expendable Than Search Marketing

Not what many agencies and networks would want to hear, but a report by Epsilon apparently shows that affiliate marketing is much more expendable than email marketing, search marketing, social marketing, online display advertising, direct mail and TV:


Now the data is US-based so maybe its not 100% relevant, but surely that sort of information must be a tad worrying if it is replicated in the UK.

I'd be interested to hear if any merchants had the same opinions or if they completely disagree with the report's findings.

10 Reasons Why I Love Christmas

Earlier in the week I did a post about why I don't like Christmas - perfectly intending to do one the next day about "Why I Love Christmas", however I've been a tad too busy. So here goes: What's great about being an affiliate at Christmas:

1. Obviously you get great presents from the networks, agencies and merchants. Webgains I think were the first this year with the great hamper from Virginia Hayward and Affiliate Window was the latest with a couple of bottles of wine and champagne and Existem sent a nice bottle of Rum. I don't expect these gifts, but its always nice to get them. They do make me feel guilty when I feel I don't deserve them - at least it makes me work harder!
   
   
2. At some times of the year its a real struggle to find content to blog about or PPC. At Christmas its just so damn easy. If you manage to organise the communications from merchants, networks and agencies properly then its a piece of Christmas cake to get the inspiration for "great" posts. If you add in using RSS feeds from merchants' sites then there's no excuse for not adding fresh, relevant and profitable content.
   
   
3. There's always a competition or two from merchants and networks. You've got the Affiliate Window incentive - the Raffle Bonanza, the PrezziesPlus one, Existem's own incentive, the fantastic one from PrezzyBox where you can win a trip to Dubai and the outstanding one from BuyAGift (I'll enter this one next year). So far I'm happy with my Nigela Book from Play.com and Affiliate Window.
   
   
4. I was going to say its easy to make money at Christmas. But what I mean is that shoppers just go mental at this time of year and you can promote almost anything and you'll get sales. I don't remember promoting Practical Presents on Affiliate Future but there's been a nice, steady stream of sales from them.
   
   
5. There's just so much data around to help you improve your sites for next year. My Christmas site, which I started this year, is getting around 11,000 different keyword variations a month (visits are obviously a lot more). I'll be going over this data in the first 3 months of next year and seeing how I can improve the sites to increase the traffic volumes for next year. I'll also be going over the conversion rates, EPCs etc for my merchants and see which have come up to scratch. I'll also be looking at Analytics to see where the "hot spots" of merchant clicks have been so I can review the design of the blogs. There's just so much to look at which should help me hopefully double, triple, quadruple my earnings next Christmas.
   
   
6. The merchant, agency, network staff are even more helpful than usual. Some excel themselves all year around, however at this time of year they'll bend over backwards to send content your way, recommend merchants, check over your sites for you. That makes like a fair bit easier - thanks.
   
   
7. You get out of your comfort zone and promote merchants you never thought you would. There's been some merchants that I've blogged about that I thought "I'd never make much out of that" but am then very surprised with the results. This will then take me into the new year and try and find ways to build upon their promotion.
   
   
8. It's nice that when you've been working your backside off for a few months promoting Christmas that you can just change down a couple of gears and see the sales come in. If you want to knacker yourself out and work 24/7 then the rewards are there, but if you want to get the work/life balance "right" then you're still rewarded.
   
   
9. You hear stories from other affiliates that may not have had much success during the rest of the year finally start to make some good money. I really get a lot of satisfaction out of others doing well. There are many affiliates that are just ticking over, doing ok, but need the inspiration and confidence to give the industry a big push. Christmas earnings certainly does that for some.
   
   
10. You get a few days off to stuff yourself silly and spend some of the cash you've earned. I'm a tight git and don't spend a great deal. I don't need flashy cars or a 15-bedroomed house to know I've "made it". Having a good relationship is far more important than others thinking "my Gawd he's loaded" - if it works for you then fine -I prefer the more intangible things in life. But spending a nice bit of your hard-fought earnings at this time of the year can also be good for the soul and makes it all worth it. There's some great offers on at the moment, and even a tight git like me has splashed out on a new 42" TV for the living room from the very helpful and good value DirectTVs.

It's been a great year. I've continued to refine my "route to market", actually learned a great deal of stuff outside of my core competencies, and had a lot of fun in the process.

Now I'm off to have an early mince pie, sit back, think of Valentine's Day, Easter and work out what I need to do to win a trip to Barbados with Affiliate Future. First stop, Magazine Group I think!

Thanks Affiliate Window For The Wine & Champagne

It looks like I'm going to get a bit pissed this Christmas after the Mount Gay Rum yesterday, today Affiliate Window have sent me some lovely wine and Champagne from Waitrose / John Lewis.

For me, Affiliate Window are the easiest network to work with - I don't have to talk to them. I get everything I need from their blog, emails, merchant feeds and their fantastic ShopWindow service. I suppose that's why I feature their merchants on my blogs more than other networks - that and they've got some great merchants in "my" niches!

2008 wasn't a bad year. However, most of it has been spent laying the foundations for future success. I've been spending a disproportionate amount of my time on client SEO work - especially subcontracting. 2009 will see me streamline that operation, focus on fewer clients and allocate more time to my affiliate stuff.

I'll still be doing client stuff, but I'll be spending less time sub-contracting and working from their offices.

I feel I've under-achieved with my affiliate sites this year - here's to a storming 2009!

So thanks Affiliate Window for making it so damn easy being an affiliate of yours.

Thank You Existem Affiliate Management

I'm sorry Pete Taylor but I'd just like to say a big thanks to Existem AM for the lovely bottle of Mount Gay Rum they sent me from the fantastic The Purveyor website.



Its good timing as I was just about to start on Frostie's Extra Old Mount Gay I've got in the drinks cabinet!! I'll drop it around some time! I promise!

As you can see, the card says "thank you for your hard", as I expect Hannah wrote it you can only guess what the last word was!! ;-)

It's a pleasure, never a chore, working with you guys! Even Bruce - at least he had decent taste in music! I sent you guys a CD for Christmas, Hannah's told me she's hidden it however as she'd much prefer listening to the Wurzels!

Can you start coming up with Valentines copy and creatives now please? ;-)

10 Reasons Why I Don't Like Christmas

Christmas is loved by many - mostly small children that don't know any better!

But, me, myself and I doesn't really get that excited about it. And here's why:

1. I've normally spend the last 9 months or so preparing for it and normally can't bear the sight of another email from merchants saying they've extended their Christmas sale. For the past few weeks I've been getting emails from merchants that are so loosely related to Christmas that I can't be bothered to get off my fat backside to promote them - my fault.
   
   
2. I have a fond like for working when others aren't. It's great to get some content done when I'm not being badgered by people to do stuff. Christmas Day is great - no merchant emails and nothing to respond to ... but ... I'm not allowed, its a "family" time. So normally end up sneaking off when everyone has over-dosed on cheap port and mince pies. Then I get a rollocking for buying domain names and not playing games with the family.
   
   
3. You're presumed guilty. You can't drive anywhere without being pulled over and having your breath tested - its bad breath mate, not 15 cans of Stella!
   
   
4. You don't have enough time after Christmas to really get into promoting Valentine's Day or Easter. Oh and add the January Sales into the mix then its a nightmare, plus add thinking about doing my VAT then it all gets a bit frantic.
   
   
5. However much you earn in the run up to Christmas its never enough. You always end up thinking, if only I did things "this way".
   
   
6. I always feel guilty for not sending Christmas cards - I'm the world's worst Christmas card sender!
   
   
7. I'm always out of the loop. Most of the affiliate Christmas parties are either in London or Newcastle way (isn't that Sunderland's smaller and less-cultured neighbor ;-) )
   
   
8. I get S.A.D. so I don't feel like working much anyway - its a real struggle.
   
   
9. Merchant's go over the top. They get targets and think they've got to slash prices just because everyone else is. Sometimes I think merchants go too far.
   
   
10. Because I'm a miserable bugger! ;-)

Merry Christmas Everybody!

MyVoucherCodes Sold For £7 Million?

I've just had this comment added to a previous post:

I heard he's sold MVC which is based in Rotherham for around £7 million and all the staff apart from Tom Packer who owns around 20% was sacked on the Monday. I still think they've done so well, fair play to them.

I'm not too sure of the Rotherham bit, as I've got Mark's address as South Croydon, Surrey. I've also only got one director of the company. However, Rotherham Business News states that MVC is a Rotherham company and also mentions Tom Packer as "head of web development."

It also looks like he's involved with two new companies - Cruicked Bars Ltd and Smile Heaven Limited which were set up in June this year.

So why would Mark sell MVC? Well I know he's not the only voucher code site owner that's been thinking of selling - if the news is correct. There's been added pressure from affiliates such as myself and then latterly by networks and merchants to respond to their requests to improve the journey to sale that consumers make - so I'm not suprissed. 

Existem has just entered the market with VoucherCodes.at - have they done it too late? Has the Voucher Code bubble burst, or are we just approaching the adolescence of the market?

And I Was Thinking Of Taking It Easy For A Couple Of Weeks

I've worked my backside off this year on my affiliate stuff and its really paying off. I got myself an XBox360 yesterday (didn't want to distract myself) and was planing to start down-shifting that side of my business whilst I concentrate more on my client SEO stuff.

Mega Monday was very good for me. But now I read that next week will be even better!

So now I'm going to have to put down the controller and pick up the mouse and get loads more work done! Don't people understand that us affiliates like time off too :-(

Right, time to do 2 site reviews, a sales proposal, a mega-huge SEO review, do a quick bit of accounting and catch up with some clients then do some affiliate stuff. I may settle down for some PES 09 action before the footy about 7:30. During the game I'll be reading emails and checking stats on my iPhone no doubt - grr! And then get back on the PC for some late night blogging. How long 'till Christmas?

A Very Big Loop-Hole In The Affiliate Model

Before I've mentioned that merchants can mitigate the ability of Voucher Code sites to affectively steal commissions by appearing high up for their own sites for their own voucher codes ...

... the idea was that if content affiliates sent merchants a visitor and they were just about to buy and then decided to try and find a voucher code in the search engines they'd hopefully find the merchants own site again with a code - no other affiliate's cookie will be dropped and my hard work would be rewarded with a commission.

All well and good!

But now we're at the situation where merchants are launching voucher codes that attract 0%. I thought "fair enough" if people want to steal codes and use them then that's fine.

But yesterday I had a couple of transactions come through for Hawkins Bazaar on Webgains that attracted 0% commission. I couldn't work out why so I raised it with Webgains and got this reply:

Hi Lee,

Unfortunately, it looks as though the user has used a discount code which has been specified in our system as attributing 0 commission.

While I can appreciate that you haven't actively advertised this code, Hawkin's have specified that they aren't paying commission on transactions recorded as using their offline codes.

Which is fair enough. Some site has listed a code somewhere and my visitor has gone off and found a code (even though I've mentioned one clearly on my site!)

But what's stopping merchants publishing codes on their own sites that attract 0% commission? I'll be spending that hour that Loquax mentions (and yes sometimes I do spend an hour researching and writing a post) and won't receive a jot for sending the merchant the sale.

But it goes even further. Those two transactions show explicitly that content affiliates are suffering substantial leakage with merchants that offer voucher codes! The proof is there.

So how am I going to change my business next year? Well I'm definitely going to stepping up my content, making offers more explicit and changing how I send traffic to merchants.

What I ask from merchants, networks and agencies to do next year is to have a real good think about if you're really interested in the long term future of the industry and you want a massive percentage of your sales to be CONTROLLED by a few voucher code sites? I'd also like you to think about how much you value content affiliates?

I'd like agencies and networks to really think if you're doing the best for your merchants - who's top of your list of priorities?

Hopefully, we'll get the balance right next year and not let those that have a vested interest in not allowing an unfettered debate to get away with it.

p.s. I'd like to thank Webgains for their quick reply! Its not their fault!

for feck sake! There's another bloody 0%er!! 12 minutes ago! I'm getting fed up with this!

Google Has A Good Sense Of Humour Or Is Very Astute

haha Google does actually have a sense of humour, or they're "down with" the common folk like me.

They actually know what "munter" means!

Does SEO Work? A Look At Some Traffic & Sales Data

Some people know what I'm capable of and have kindly given me some testimonials which help set expectation levels. However, if you're a retailer and you're hiring an SEO company what should you expect from them?

Well the answer is always "it depends!" A bit annoying I know, but websites are like people, they're all different and some work more efficiently than others. Some sites need to trip down a bit whilst others are so lean they can't get any thing done.

SEO's about making your website healthy, productive and easy to run.

I took over a client (not saying who of course!) at the end of September and sent them their second invoice at the start of the month. With invoices I generally like to give some stats so I did here.

The issue that we had was that they were so busy in the second month that they couldn't get most of the recommendations implemented - so I gave a discount (nice guy aren't I?)

But here's some of the stats I sent to show how much progress the SEO/Usability/Shopping Cart Optimisation has made:

• Visits up 48.48%
  
• Page views up 101.05% 
  
• Google traffic up 45.28%
  
• Yahoo up 113.22%, 
  
• AOL up 96.92%
  
• MSN up 54.88%
  
• Sales almost trebled (up 182%)
  
• Conversion rate up 82.62%
  

[Edited sales volume figures] But Google sales were up 257%

[Edited these figures too] Total Search engine sales up 294%

The increase in revenue was [edited] a few grand a week (based on average basket size of £30)

During the two months (66 days actually) there were [edited] 200 - 400 extra orders (over the average before the campaign started). Over the past two months that equated to an extra [edited] many several £k in extra revenue.

Overall their actual return on SEO spend was 575%

As we didn't get as much done as I'd like I'd say that most people employing an SEO consultant should look at a 3 month return on their SEO consultants fees of at least 300% but my target is around 500%.

Don't forget, the affects of good SEO should last at least a year, but excellent SEO should last a lifetime.

I'm a bit manic for time this month. But I'm willing to give a "Top Ten SEO Recommendations" review of any online retailer's website if they wanted a few quick tips.

I've got enough time this month to do the first five that contact me and let me know their site's details.

There are some T&C's however. 

1. Obviously I can't help with the SEO implementation for free;
   
2. Its only open to online retailers (merchants)
   
3. I can only do the first five that submit their details
   
4. I'll do them over the next week (the tips may be quick but I don't rush the analysis)
   
5. I reserve the right not to do any reviews for retailers that are direct or close competitors to any of my clients (its not fair on them)
   
6. There's no cash alternative ;-)
   
7. The closing date for your entries is 12pm 9th December.
   
8. I'll correspond via email.
   

p.s. the Get Visible site is still in Beta, there's some more content to add.

An Interview With Someone You May Not Know: WheresTheMatch.com's Wes Lewis

I'm starting off a serious of interviews with people you may not know. This doesn't mean I don't have the draw to attract the big hitters from giving me their views, merely that I think we often hear too much from them. So here's the first:

I've known the creator WheresTheMatch.com, Wes Lewis, for about 9 years, since our days at TopJobs when Wes was the web design manager and my job was to keep him and his team busy with loads of SEO recommendations (some of them had a purpose and others I created to get me out of an office full of women!)

With the passing of time which saw both of us being made redundant, Wes getting married to the lovely Tracy, a number of relationships for me, a few jobs for Wes and my own self employment we've always kept in touch.

Wes lives in a modern house about 100 yards behind mine, he has a dog, a wife and always has the latest car. Whilst I'm still here in this one and only got rid of my banger a couple of years ago (I hate spending money).

So here's the interview:

Q: What projects are you involved with at the moment?

Apart from my day job at Autotrader.co.uk as a User Interface Designer (posh title for web designer) I am heavily involved with 2 websites (all eggs in one basket and all that...) namely, PriceInspector.co.uk and WherestheMatch.com. Our price comparison site is over 18 months old now, and while we have had relatively little success in getting the site to the masses, now is a good time to push on with this as people desperately look for the "cheapest" price during the credit crunch (can't believe i mentioned the crunch term in the first question..)

Q: You've been bubbling under the surface with some of your product feed stuff for a while. How's that going?

We built a very complicated but streamlined in-house piece software that takes in feeds from the popular affiliate networks. The importance for merchants to correctly populate their feeds is very important, our software spots errors (commonsense ones as well as technical problems), and rejects the merchant if there are too many. Whilst a lot of sites claim to be able to "compare" prices, most of them are simply product catalogues, so we feel we have the edge in this area.


Q: What are the biggest obstacles you face with your sites? Are they different when working in the content and the feed sectors?

The recent gloom and doom press of price comparison sites means its very hard to keep people interested when visiting - we have created a "brand" rather than a means to find the product which again gives us that little edge. Content is something we are looking to improve over time, although its not in our immediate plans due to resources.


Q: I know I've given a few pointers on the way, but how many of you in your team? What sort of skills/experiences do you all add to the mix?

We are a 2 man team, I cover the design, brand, and SEO for PriceInspector.co.uk and WherestheMatch.com. My business partner, Matt Waring, is a software developer and was responsible for the import manager software, as well as the back end .net development of the websites.


Q: I think your http://www.wheresthematch.com is a great site, where do you see that going in the next couple of years?

We see the site as brand leader in its field. Hopefully, if targetted in the right way, it will be a household name as many more TV companies fight for the rights to broadcast live sport on TV. We have a few "golden goose" ideas for WherestheMatch.com which will further enhance its service so watch this space!



Q: And for PriceInspector.co.uk?

PriceInspector.co.uk has been on the back burner for the last few months, but its now back as a priority - much work has been carried out in the SEO department (currently number 3 behind PriceRunner and Kelkoo for term "price comparison site") so we are hoping the brand can establish a bigger slice of return visitors.


Q: Over the years I've seen price comparison sites dominate the SERPS and then die away again (some are still doing ok)? Are you worried that they're a fad and have been over taken by social media (such as blogging) as a successful method for affiliates?

I think blogging is an easy way to get afilliate sites to marketplace, however I think that these type of sites will run their course - the importance of a strong brand will always out-live any short term based blog websites.


Q: What's the single best pieces of advice you've been given for SEO, PR, Web Development and running a company?
SEO - content is king [Ed: So true]
PR - based on our current PR company, not a lot sadly.
Web Dev - No pain, no gain!
Running a company - teamwork really is the key to a happy partnership, and singing of the same hymn sheet helps!

Q: Dave Macfarlane thought you were a bit late into the market 18 months ago. Do you have any thoughts in the light of how the site has progressed since then? And did you make the top 50?

We have not made the top 50, I think most people in the affiliate business have heard of PriceInspector, but we need to get it to the masses before we can get more piece of the pie. Its simple though, make the top 50, and start ordering the Ferrari.


Q: As I attended your wedding, I suppose you better come to ours? Can you make 1st November next year? And will you get us a better present then when we got you and Tracy - that was pre-affiliate days you know!

Yes, provided its in the UK as my missus won't fly :-( As for a present, if you give me some more advice on SEO for PI, then I make more money, which would then reflect in a bigger present - a win win situation :-)



So, cheers Wes! I hope people will start listening to people that speak less and do more.