David Fiske A subtle blend of affiliate marketing and web development

February 2007 Archives

28/02/07 - Who Links To Me Tool

You may or may not be familiar with the web tool:

Who links to my website?

It basically is a mashup of Google, Yahoo and MSN data, with a healthy dose of social bookmarking too. More

28/02/07 - Combinations and Permutations

"OK, so you've told us how much money we need to earn each day to create a reasonable living but how easy is it to generate (for example) £100 per day?"

I suppose that would have made for a better post but nonetheless, I'll clear that up now.

What are the calculations for working out how many visitors you need? More

28/02/07 - Where Do You Start With Affiliate Marketing?

As a reasonably prolific blogger/affiliate marketer, I thought I would construct a sensible map of where newbie affiliates should focus their energies.

Naturally, there will be some who agree and disagree with my map - that's what comments are for!

Let's crack on... More

28/02/07 - Making a Living Online

I think to make a living online, you need to be earning £20,000 a year. That's twice the national minimum wage though should be viewed as a starting figure.

This equates to £55 per day. So, you need to earn on average £55 every day from affiliate revenue to realistically live off it. More

28/02/07 - Amazon And Marks and Spencer?

Have I missed something? Since when did Amazon and Marks and Spencer pair up?



The worrying thing here is that Amazon state that I am ordering from M&S despite shopping on, and placing an order through the official Amazon website for items to be fulfilled directly by Amazon! More

27/02/07 - Pesky Affiliate Networks

I've just changed my site header logo to include a caricature of myself. I think it looks better than the photo I could have used!

I'm standing next to a billboard that those pesky affiliate networks have tagged! This "tag your own content" web 2.0 lark is getting way out of hand!

I hope you like it. More

27/02/07 - AdSense Alternative?

I have mentioned ClickBank in passing a few times and said how a lot of affiliates start there, then progress to UK based networks.

I had an email today offering me the chance to buy some AdSense rivalling software called ClickBank AdBox for a whole $7. That's about £3.50!

I've got a couple of sites where that would come in quite handy so I stumped up £3.67 (today's exchange rate through PayPal) and I now hold a copy of CB Ads in my hand (well, on my hard drive!).

So what is it and what's it like? More

26/02/07 - ebuyer 0.1% Commission

Last week ebuyer announced they would be leaving Tradedoubler and said on 24th March 2007 their commission would be reduced to 0.1%.

It turns out someone typed March instead of February. More

26/02/07 - Affiliate Marketing Definition

There has been a few questions banded around the net about what exactly affiliate marketing is. No one (apparently) has come up with an accurate definition. So, it's my turn!

I'll start with the definition of affiliate, then marketing, then affiliate marketing. More

24/02/07 - Price Update 24/02/07

At 0936hrs I released a new price update to Compare Sat Nav.

Not much has changed this week. A few prices changed by as little as a penny whilst others moved at most by £10. More

23/02/07 - Sat Nav Price Update Delayed

Updated prices should be live later on this evening or early tomorrow.

Apologies for any inconvenienced caused. More

22/02/07 - Fancy Renting Out Your Drive?

Tom Page has developed an ingenious website that is a prime example of a niche website.

You Can Park allows people to rent out their driveways to anyone who wants to use them.

He came up with the idea when he had to park 3 miles away from work. More

22/02/07 - ebuyer Leaving Tradedoubler

Yet another decent affiliate program that is closing.

ebuyer are reducing their commission to a pathetic 0.1% on Saturday 24th March 2007 and then leaving in May.

Congratulations on the advanced warning but I don't see why they are running the program at 0.1% for a month and a bit. More

21/02/07 - Plodding Along

I have get the foundations laid for a very interesting website that I am hoping will become the difference between an OK project and a project that proves a point.

I'll release more details soon.

In other news, Rob Powell has noticed a lag in Amazon stats of 9 hours. I can beat that as my stats were last updated two days ago! What the devil is going on?! More

20/02/07 - Affiliate Marketing Distractions

If you are like me, you like to keep an eye on what is going on in the Internet affiliate marketing industry.

I started off, like many others, very close to ClickBank. I never sold their products, I just followed the free mailing lists offered by so-called gurus.

As time went on, I signed up for more and more free stuff. I now get at least 100 messages a day from affiliate marketers every day! That's at least 36,500 emails a year! More

20/02/07 - DVD Rental

Apologies for no posts yesterday. I've been busy making my voice heard about St David's day and road pricing.

I spent the majority of yesterday constructing an online DVD rental website. More

18/02/07 - Ling's Got To Me!

Ling Valentine of Lings Cars fame and fortune has really got to me.

After seeing her on Dragon's Den and writing a brief summary of my thoughts, I have spent a lot more time reflecting what it is that makes her successful. More

18/02/07 - AdWords Quality Score

The much talked about quality score that was rumoured to be going live has done.

I logged into my account and found I have the ability to add a new Quality Score column. More

17/02/07 - Expanded Alexa Information

Intrigued by reading a summary Keith Bond's Alexa article on BlogRoll, I ran www.davidfiske.com through it.

My official summary is Alexa's country stats are rubbish!

Here's what they 'think' my site achieves:

More

16/02/07 - Price Update 16/02/07

In a Friday ritual, I have updated prices on Compare Sat Nav.

Again, this week's volatile prices were on TomTom systems. More

16/02/07 - A Feed To Rule Them All

The response to my blogroll has been great though I'm not seeing a lot of reciprocal linking :-(

Also, I've yet to see a blog post about the blogroll. What happened to my name in lights?!

Anyhow, I have extended the blogroll to a new RSS feed which is located at http://feeds.feedburner.com/UkAffiliateMarketingBlogs More

15/02/07 - Dragon's Den

Everyone else is talking about it so here's my take.

The Lings Cars pitch intrigued me. The site does too.



At first glance, it is the most ugliest site in the world. It is messy and disjointed. However, when you look deeper, you notice a few things we can all learn from. More

15/02/07 - Affiliate BlogRoll Feed Aggregator Style Site Response Rate

Fancy UK Affiliate Marketing BlogRoll has only been running for a few hours and already I have 6 live feeds and 1 awaiting approval.

Names so far are:

• Brian Edwards
• Chris Frost
• David Fiske (still counts!)
• Ian Ebbs
• Jesse Owen
• Kieron Donoghue

There are a few big names out there still but they keep their contact details very private!

So if you know of anyone who should be on the aggregator, please send them a link to http://davidfiske.com/blogroll More

15/02/07 - Affiliate BlogRoll Feed Aggregator Style Site

In my quest for making affiliate programs work for me, I have found a lot of people are confused at where to go on the Internet to read affiliate blogs.

After all, there are hundreds of thousands and which of those are worth reading?

That's where Fancy UK Affiliate Marketing BlogRoll comes in! More

14/02/07 - Making a Successful Website

So far in this project, I have harped on about creating niche sites.

All good and well but on it's own, it will not necessarily be a successful website.

So what can make or break a site? More

13/02/07 - Project Evaluation

There are a few people who have contacted me recently loving the stuff that's here. That's good because I'm not doing it for me. I make £0 from this site despite the blatant advertising that surrounds it! Infact, it costs me money in hosting.

Having said that, it's a great feeling knowing I am helping others.

In the last lecture, I looked at the state of my portfolio. This lecture is more of an evaluation of the project so far and what you can learn from it. More

13/02/07 - Time To Get Going

Sometimes we all need a kick up the proverbial bottom and that's what I'm doing here.

I need to go through my sites and see where I need to improve. More

13/02/07 - A Quick Note On Contacting Me

I welcome all messages including questions, thoughts, advice, etc.

When you contact me, please remember the following: More

12/02/07 - Mac and PC Videos

Mitchell and Webb have been hard at it developing a series of adverts for Apple UK. Quality!

Office

More

12/02/07 - Watford Electronics (SavaStore) Gone Into Administration

I received an email just now that is worth sharing:

"As of last week, Watford Electronics Ltd has gone into administration. Its Savastore affiliate programme has been suspended with immediate affect. " More

12/02/07 - The Newbie Affiliate Syndrome

I'm not new to affiliate marketing but I am new to creating a living from it. £50 a year from friends and family helps but it covers a week's shopping, and not a Christmas shop at that!

Having posted over 200 messages onto A4U Forum, I appear not to be alone in this. A lot of people find it easy to make a couple of quid but when it comes to making a consistent liveable amount, they struggle.

There are several effects of the Newbie Affiliate Syndrome (I've just created a syndrome. Yippee. I've got the same feeling I suppose scientists have when they discover a disease!). Here they are... More

12/02/07 - PPC Progress

I have been dabbling with PPC for a bit now but it has slowed right down.

I have tried a bit of this and that but nothing that earns consistent revenue. More

11/02/07 - Build a Niche Store - Ebay Affiliate

I am not sure about this product I have stumbled across: Build a Niche Store. It's not a new product but it is certainly very interesting.

Basically, you tell it an eBay category number and it creates a set of pages based on live eBay results. More

09/02/07 - Getting Started As An Affiliate

Kieron Donoghue of UK Offer has posted a blog article worthy of your attention.

He explains the Do's and Don'ts of becoming an affiliate. I seem to have done the Don'ts so maybe it's time for the Do's! More

09/02/07 - Price Update 09/02/07

At 1347hrs, a new price update was issued on Compare Sat Nav.

The product count has increased by 4 this week.

Also, the TomTom range is becoming price volatile again. More

08/02/07 - PPC Profit!

I made...

...£5! It took £10 worth of ads to make me £15 in commission (£5 profit).

I have avoided promoting sat nav systems and went for something a little more popular with a mass market. I had 2,000 advert views in 2 hours so I found a good market. More

07/02/07 - Credit Cards, Loans, Mortgages and Insurance Products

Here's another site in my portfolio: make us happy.

I have a confession - unlike all the other domains I have used on this project, www.makeushappy.co.uk is not new. SHOCK!

However, before you go shouting about how bad this is, the domain is relatively new (1 year old) and had only ever had 43 visitors in it's entire life. It was in the Google index though as a holding page. More

07/02/07 - Do Blog Based Affiliate Websites Make More Money?

There is an undeniable trend towards blogs. Everyone used to 'have to have a blog'. Now everyone 'must have a blog'.

So can affiliates jump on the blog bandwagon and profit from it? More

07/02/07 - Another Niche Site

In a drive to have a portfolio of niche websites, I have spent 2 hours getting Gifts of Crystal up and running.

It is crafted around Price Tapestry and Nucleus CMS.

It centres around Swarovski crystal products. More

06/02/07 - Portfolio Change

I'm changing my portfolio slightly!

Since Smart and Green has become a shopping portal, it would be better suited on the portfolio of DBFCS.

In it's place, I am launching another brand new site. More

05/02/07 - DBFCS Rebrand

I have redesigned dbfcs, though it is now pending new content.


(old to new)

As I said at the end of last week, I want to integrate the David Fiske project and dbfcs so that I am not duplicating work or heading in different directions. More

05/02/07 - Comet to Leave DGM

Comet are leaving DGM and hence will be leaving Compare Sat Nav.

The programme closes on 15th February 2007 and hence will be removed prior to, or on 15th February. More

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

After nearly forgetting (oops), I have updated Compare Sat Nav.

Prices are getting giddy again, especially on the TomTom range. More

01/02/07 - More Aims for 2007

It's always the case - you try and write down all your objectives, you inevitably forget some!

I have a few more aims! More

01/02/07 - The Project Aims for 2007

I want to get onto the property ladder and hence need to earn around £30,000 from affiliate marketing per year to afford the mortgage.

For that, Mortgage Sorter estimate I could get a mortgage between £80K and £105K. Not much, and that's on £30K per year!

Essentially, carrying on the way I am now is going to get me nowhere.

So what has to change? More