David Fiske A subtle blend of affiliate marketing and web development

January 2007 Archives

31/01/07 - Tradedoubler Website Redevelopment

Tradedoubler have updated their website and changed from browns and beiges to blues.



Tradedoubler is the main network I use as I find them to work extremely well. More

30/01/07 - Cold or Flu or Man Flu

I am off work today as I can barely get out of bed. This will probably not have a detrimental effect on taking over the world but you never know! ;-)

I have a cold or flu or man flu so I am drinking lots of cups of tea, dosing myself up on Anadin Extra and taking several kips through the day. More

29/01/07 - Another Shopping Site

I have 'launched' Smart and Green, a Shopping Portal.

Whereas Compare Sat Nav is a price comparison site, Smart and Green is more of a virtual catalogue.

So why did I bother and how much will this benefit me? More

29/01/07 - Another Week...

Refreshed after a weekend break, I am getting a move on.

The David Fiske project was designed to prove whether there is room on the Internet to make money through affiliate schemes.

The answer so far is there certainly is scope but it takes a very long time to crack the code. More

27/01/07 - 3 Sales in 2 Days

Okay, nothing really to shout about but it is better than no sales!

The total amount of sales is now 11, and has bumped the conversion rate up to 0.35% (today) from the average of 0.20%.

In other news, I am currently working on a massive shopping portal using data feeds for anyone and everyone.

The potential of this is huge as each product has it's own SEO'ed .html page, with an SEO'ed URL. More

26/01/07 - Price Update 26/01/07

At 1048hrs, a new update was released to Compare Sat Nav.

Prices have certainly stabilised now after Christmas and the January sales.

The total product count (total number of products from all the retailers combined) is now 291 compared to 311 before the update. More

25/01/07 - PPC Perked Up a Bit

I have now had 18 impressions and a whole entire click!

I am not sure why I'm happy about that as it didn't result in a sale.

But at least the system works! More

24/01/07 - Loans and Mortgages?

How depressing is it writing about these?!

I suppose that if you are into you mortgages then it is OK but it is as dull as dishwater to me.

I am not interested in loans and mortgages but I am more than willing t see if I can make some money out of them! More

24/01/07 - Massively Depressing PPC Campaign!

I started my campaign last night and have had a whopping 3 ad views.

Something tells me I am not going to get a lot of traffic or sales there!

In my crusade to develop my PPC skills, I have registered with Michael Anthony's Affiliate Marketing School. More

23/01/07 - The Pay Per Click Jump

I am very wary of Pay Per Click (PPC) and reluctant to take the jump.

However, I also know that there lies an awful lot of money.

So what is the problem? More

22/01/07 - What Came First - The Chicken or the Egg?

So, which is it? Is it the chicken so that it can lay eggs or was it the egg that resulted in the chicken?

If it was the egg, how was it made? If it was the chicken, where did it come from?

What's all this got to do with web development? More

21/01/07 - A Change In Tactics

Computer Chooser is up and running and as of next week, will benefit from at least one day a week of full devotion.

It has also managed to get into Google in less than 3 days which is good going!

I have added Google AdSense to Computer Chooser and the advertisements that appear s far are promising.

I have had around a third of the total number of advertisers come back and A-OK the site but I need the other two thirds to come back soon. As with most sites I build, I am using Tradedoubler as the main affiliate source. More

19/01/07 - CSN-Factor Final Showdown

In what has been dubbed the CSN-Factor, several retailers face a suspension from Compare Sat Nav.

Reasons for why this is necessary include

• A shortage of traffic
• Overpriced sat nav systems
• Brand unfamiliarity with visitors

So who has been axed? More

19/01/07 - Price Update 19/01/07

At 1657hrs, the prices were updated on Compare Sat Nav.

The eagle eyed spotters of you may have noticed something unusual about Argos. More

19/01/07 - An Experiment This Week

This afternoon will see a price update on Compare Sat Nav.

Unusual? Yes. Why? More

19/01/07 - Computer Chooser Launched

The first of my two new sites (Computer Chooser) is now available at http://www.computerchooser.co.uk

As promised, I will now reveal what I have in mind for it and why I chose to built a site about computers. More

18/01/07 - CSN Server Issues

In typical 'me' style, I have done a U-turn on moving the price comparison over to Compare Sat Nav. The reason is that I need to upgrade the hosting as I previously stated. I thought I wouldn't have to but I do :-(

So instead, I am going to leave it as it is. It works well at the moment, and now has on average 58 visitors per day.

The saying "why fix it if it 'aint broken?" is very true here. It would be a wasted effort.
More

17/01/07 - Microsoft Windows Vista Conference

Apologies for no lectures yesterday. I was at a Microsoft Windows Vista conference all day and so could not post.

Incidentally, whilst on the topic, Microsoft Windows Vista will be launched on 30th January 2007. It is designed to replace the current Microsoft Windows XP operating system.

There are four flavours of Vista: Windows Vista Basic, Windows Vista Home Premium, Windows Vista Business and Windows Vista Ultimate. Most home users would benefit from Windows Vista Home Premium.

Having used Windows Vista Home Premium, I can firmly say that when I have enough cash kicking around, I will upgrade. I didn't think I would have done if I hadn't been on the conference so at least they have sold the idea to me!

Here's the boxes for the new complete installations:

      

And for those who are interested, here are the boxes for the upgrade versions:

      

I have also added a Microsoft Windows Vista Amazon Store if anyone is interested in upgrading. More

15/01/07 - Price Update 15/01/07

At 1134hrs today, a new update was released.

Prices have started to stabilise now so the next few weeks should see few price changes.

Some further development has occurred on the Compare Sat Nav front. More

12/01/07 - Project Statistics

I have updated the project statistics tab to reflect the additions to the David Fiske portfolio.

For each site, there will now be detailed statistics, plus a culmination in the cumulative statistics for all three sites.

The change has been made to ensure transparency throughout the project and to see which site is more successful. More

12/01/07 - New Themes

I have decided upon what it is I am going to devote several months of my life to full time.

I will have three sites in my empire:

• Compare Sat Nav
• A property related site
• A computer related site

I am aware that these markets are huge so I will be focussing in on small niches.

So why have I chosen these areas and what benefits can I deliver? More

11/01/07 - Domain Name Suggestions

I have just uploaded a script that may help some people somewhere decide upon that lucrative domain name.

David Fiske Word Formation.

It gives suggestions of 4, 5 and 6 letter words. More

11/01/07 - A More Definitive Explanation

Let's stop and regroup.

I have 24 hours left on my Wordtracker account and have to come up with either one or several good niches to tackle.

I have come up with some ideas but they are proving to be over populated areas, or in all fairness, not strict niches. More

10/01/07 - Perhaps a Little Overambitious

Perhaps I have bitten off more than I can chew!

The diet website idea is no more. After doing some keyword research, the KEI values that Wordtracker retrieves are all less than 1 (i.e. don't touch these with a barge pole).

I suppose I shouldn't be too disappointed! But it does mean I have to go back to the drawing board. More

10/01/07 - Entering the Property Market

I have decided upon the second and third site to be added to my humble empire.

The choices go against my own advice of choosing niches but hopefully I can pull this off.

Price comparison works for CSN but it requires a manual update every Monday. It is imperative that this update is made otherwise my prices start falling out of sync with the real world.

So the two new sites will primarily consist of static content. More

09/01/07 - A Century of Website Development Lectures

SPECIAL OFFER (and it's free!)
I am in a generous mood and will happily answer some consultancy questions for free. If you have any questions about what you are doing or if you are experiencing any problems with affiliate marketing, contact me and I will do my best to help. You should know that the best questions will be published here - so 5 minutes of fame for your site if you want a link!

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Perhaps not 100 years of articles but at least 100 articles!

It is nice to get past the first 100 as it allows reflection upon the past and vision to the future.

So far, the David Fiske project has seen the creation of www.comparesatnav.co.uk and has seen the (rough) logic behind developing a portfolio of sites.

So what does reader land have to look forward to in the next 900 articles (the next milestone is 1,000 lectures)? More

09/01/07 - More Writing About Passions

Okay, so during the last lecture, I briefly explained that if you want to make money on the net, you need to write about a passion.

I already have a consumer electronics site (namely Compare Sat Nav) and so am looking to diversify and create a portfolio of affiliate based sites.

The first question has to be "how many sites are we looking for"? More

09/01/07 - Write About a Passion

There is no doubt about it, to be seen in the search engines, you need a lot of well ordered, well titled, keyword optimised pages with well written content.

At the moment, I am playing a sitting game waiting for Google's indexes to be updated with my html page names instead of the old "?q=..." blurb.

There are tasks I can carry on with. I can research even more keywords. I can add more static content. I can add pretty pictures. I can exchange links.

But with my new ambition of having a portfolio of David Fiske sites (an empire if you will), I need to come up with some lucrative ideas for other sites. More

08/01/07 - Popular Affiliate Niches

In deciding what else I can invest my time in, I suppose it would be worth looking at what other affiliates are doing with their time.

Using Lee McCoy's website as a starting base, I will take you on a magical mystery tour of sample websites and determine which markets are therefore probably best to leave along (at least in their raw form - niches should be OK). More

08/01/07 - I Fear It May Require a Portfolio

Here's the bad news. I think I have proved something so far!

I am not sure Compare Sat Nav can make billions on its own. I believe that through organic search listings, link exchanging and so forth, I can increase the visitor count but only so far.

At the end of the day, is currently the second highest performing site out of my portfolio and given the fact that the others have been running for around 1 to 2 years, this much progress in 5 weeks is great.

However, I do think I need to start work on a couple more niche websites as brothers and sisters for Compare Sat Nav. More

08/01/07 - I'm Not Convinced about PPC

I have read a few websites about Pay Per Click advertising and I'm not convinced that it will work for my site.

Each sale of a £200 navigation system is worth around £2 (worst case) and at a click through of currently 0.25%, for every 400 visitors, I generate one sale (statistically).

Lets assume that each click on a PPC network would cost £0.03 (approximately $0.05). Using the 400 visitors required above, I would end up spending £12 to generate £2 in commission. More

08/01/07 - Price Update 08/01/07

At 1146hrs, Compare Sat Nav prices were updated.

The implementation of out-of-stock notification throughout Compare Sat Nav was rolled out today and will be updated weekly along with the prices. More

07/01/07 - The Problem With Distributed Websites

Compare Sat Nav extends over two servers for the pure and simple reasons that I had no alternative if I was to keep the initial expenditure to a bare minimum.

The majority of changes I make are to the satellite navigation price comparison area of the site first, before being rolled out to Compare Sat Nav.

Apologies to those who visit Compare Sat Nav looking for the changes I make. try the satellite navigation price comparison area first! More

07/01/07 - Navigation Compaction

Oh dear, it's changed again!

Website design is an art - it is never finished even when you think it is. What looks good today looks bad tomorrow and worse the day after! If you hate website designs that change regularly, avoid CSS Play as the design over there changes each time the wind changes!

So what have I done? This!

More

07/01/07 - Psychological Changes

I love psychology. I am a very analytical person and like to interpret view and opinions of others and relate them back to practical aspects of their life.

Whilst reading Web Copy That Sells: The Revolutionary Formula for Creating Killer Copy Every Time last night, I stumbled across a chapter that was right up my street - the psychology of visitors.

Compare Sat Nav has a clean layout but it still isn't converting anywhere near the 1% I had hoped. More

06/01/07 - Can I Make a Living Here?

I suppose I should have asked this a long time ago but did I didn't!

Is it feasible to assume with a lot of work, Compare Sat Nav and any other affiliate sites I set up can earn me a reasonable income?

I understand that it takes a lot of work but given that, is the idea feasible?

I posted this to the A4U Forum and here are some of the responses I received: More

05/01/07 - Ways to Make Money on the Net

My last post assumes that you are looking to create a website with affiliate advertisements.

For me, affiliate programs have always been exciting yet never successful until recently. I had always had them in the back of my mind but never really exploited them as best I should have done.

I was having a think about other ways I could make some money, besides affiliate marketing. More

05/01/07 - The Website Child Theory

I want to share one of my theories with you. It is a theory that states that all websites are like our own children.

We conceive an idea about our website. It may start with “wouldn’t it just be easier if…” or “I’ve thought of a niche idea…”. However it starts, it is an idea that is conceived.

You set around creating your site. You bolt bits on, you may integrate API’s or embed external content. After careful manipulation, you end up your baby – a fully functional website.

Here is where people fail. More

04/01/07 - Creating a Benchmark

To measure my progress, I will need a base level - a benchmark to measure all other successes by.

The money and conversions are easy. I started with nothing. However, the SEO side of things requires a bit more planning.

It should be noted that how the figures are calculated is not important - it is consistency that is. If I measure Google links this week, and then Yahoo next, there is no consistency and my results will be volatile. More

04/01/07 - The SEO Starts Now

I have reached the chapters in the Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day book where I can start implementing some SEO tactics.

I will try to divulge as much as possible but when it comes to keyword selection and optimisation, I will not be able to publish this information here. The reason is that it will then pit www.davidfiske.com against www.comparesatnav.co.uk which is not in my best interests.

It is for that reason I advise you invest in a copy of Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day. It starts off slow but it is packed full of useful information in sections 2 and 3.

Anyway, here is what I have done so far. More

03/01/07 - The Power of a Newsletter

I don't know about you but when I go shopping, I look around for the cheapest option. I hate paying pull price and will use discount vouchers or take advantage of sales if it means what I am looking for can be sourced cheaper.

The majority of my visitors are looking for the same thing.

They are looking to find a satellite navigation system for the least amount of cash. They land on my site, find a system and look for the cheapest price. They then go to the cheapest retailer and place an order.

Nice theory but it is not like this is practise. More

02/01/07 - Out of Stock Notification

After quite a bit of code hacking, I have now added an out of stock notification:



This will be updated at the same time as the prices. More

02/01/07 - Price Update 02/01/07

Another round of price updates have been uploaded to Compare Sat Nav. 3 new systems have been added with 16 out of 22 retailers experiencing a price change on at least one system.

The end of the January sales appears to be looming with many retailers moving their prices back to the RRP values.

As a result, I have removed the flashing banner informing people of the sales. More

01/01/07 - Link To Compare Sat Nav

This is my request to you. If you like what you are reading here and would like to help, please add a link to Compare Sat Nav on your website. As a thank you, I will add a reciprocal to your site from Compare Sat Nav.

The link exchange page is at http://comparesatnav.co.uk/pages/links.php. You can use the following HTML to link to Compare Sat Nav:

<a href="http://www.comparesatnav.co.uk/" title="Compare Sat Nav - GPS
Satellite Navigation Systems">Compare Sat Nav - GPS Satellite Navigation
Systems</a>

Here is the mechanics of the link exchange: More