David Fiske A subtle blend of affiliate marketing and web development

November 2007 Archives

30/11/07 - Price Update 30/11/07

Compare Sat Nav has been updated for the last time this November. Prices are levelling out and slowly creeping up for the rush before Christmas. Last year prices creeped up throughout December than got cut in January. If this year is the same (I don't see no reason why it's not), now's a really good time to buy. More

30/11/07 - Ebay Seller Best Practise

It's not the best blog for this post but nevertheless, it's still blog worthy.

I've been selling on eBay for the last month or so and have developed a short set of best practise rules that I think offers a good buyer experience. More

30/11/07 - Forget Parcel2Go, Try Interparcel!

The refund I was supposed to receive from Parcel2Go a week ago has still not arrived but I thought I would extend this post - Parcel2Go Poor Experience - by explaining how I actually managed to get my parcel delivered. More

30/11/07 - Apologies For The Silence

I've spent the last few days eBaying (both selling and buying) and spent yesterday travelling 350 miles to collect an auction item I won.

I'm guilty of having not really done too much with my affiliate sites at the moment. EBay seems to be eating up a hefty chunk of time and whilst I am profiting from my actions, it's not by much (affiliate revenue is certainly higher). More

27/11/07 - Happy Birthday To My Blog...

Happy Birthday To My Blog,
Happy Birthday To My Blog,
Happy Birthday Dear David's Blog,
Happy Birthday To My Blog! More

24/11/07 - Christmas Starts When The Coca Cola Trucks Roll By

I'm not sure if it's just us but Christmas starts when the Coca Cola advert is shown on TV. Last year, Coca Cola changed their advert and placed the emphasis away from the classic trucks that used to be iconic to the annuals TV adverts.

The good news is they're back this year - and I suspect it's all the negative criticism that a lot of people voiced last year.

So here it is:



:-) More

23/11/07 - Price Update 23/11/07

Compare Sat Nav has had another round of price checks and in traditional Christmas spirit, the retailers have rolled out Traffic editions. More

22/11/07 - Parcel2Go Poor Experience

Jess agreed to send over a box of goodies for the fundraising event I posted about a few days ago.

It turns out that DHL (arranged through Parcel2Go) cannot collect parcels. Twice. More

22/11/07 - Understand Your Visitors And Market To Them (Blended With Top Gear And A Motorhome)

I run a site that generates mostly AdSense revenue. It accounts for a substantial amount each year. However, I've always found it difficult to monetise because it's in a very tight niche.

I took a punt at adding some loans merchants to the site on the basis that a lot of my traffic are looking for jobs and training. More

22/11/07 - Build It And They Will Come

Some preach that if you build a site and do absolutely nothing, you will not get any results. I'm happy to report it's not true.

I built a site a few months ago and never got round to finishing it off. I haven't promoted it directly (it's in a sub-folder of another domain - that's how important it was to me). I just added a sitemap to Google.

Anyhow, I've just logged into a network to find that I've generated roughly one lead a day throughout September. Yes it's not a stupidly large amount of cash but nevertheless, it pays for a year's worth of reseller hosting :-) More

21/11/07 - Credit Card Scam Alert

This is a credit card scam alert I received today from a trusted source.

Take note of it and email it around (or better still, link to me!) More

20/11/07 - Your Affiliate-Merchant Relationships

I've registered to too many affiliate programs! In fact, I'm registered with too many affiliate networks. I sign up for programs that may be useful and that I thought may have worked well but inevitably they don't.

In this last year, I've managed to find a couple of good programs and I need to start focusing on sending them more traffic.

So is it worth the time and effort promoting hundreds of programs or just a handful? More

19/11/07 - Remember My Studio Order?

You may remember a while back I blogged about my Studio order farce. Faster than I could blink, Sean Carter of MediaVest Manchester (Studio affiliate account manager) commented saying he would help chase it up.

Could things get any worse? Did I get my order?

Here goes... More

19/11/07 - Anyone Need An Affiliate Manager?

Here's an email from Roman:

Dear Sir/Madam,
I'm writing you according affiliate(account) manager position.

Affiliate program manager is a person who managing company's affiliate program at affiliate networks like commission-junction, google adwords,etc.

I would appreciate if you could to advice a person I can send my CV if your company has a vacation to this role.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely Yours,
Roman xxxxxxxxxx

I've got a few problems with this message that may help to educate people who email affiliates. More

17/11/07 - Price Update 17/11/07

A day later than usual, Compare Sat Nav has been updated. As expected during the onset of Christmas, prices are being lowered. More

13/11/07 - Christmas Is A time Of Ideas

Argh, Christmas is looming and I've now got too many ideas to action!

I've got a script I want to code (which is to be resold), I've got a couple of websites I want to build and a couple I want to redevelop.

Where do I start?! More

12/11/07 - Calling All Merchants With Spare Stock !!!

The other half works in a nursery who are running a one-off fund-raising event for a Welsh charity called the Christian Lewis Trust.

The Trust helps families by providing emotional and practical support for families of children with cancer. That's the good part. Their patrons are Mel C (Spice Girls), Philip Schofield and Joe Pasquale (which is the questionable part :-D )

What I'm after

Anyhow, if any merchants have any stock they could spare to donate as raffle prizes, please email me via my contact form for my address. The value of the prize is not important and it can be stock sitting in the corner of your warehouse. Alternatively, a real world gift voucher would be welcomed. More

12/11/07 - People Buy For 2 Reasons

People buy things to satisfy at least one of two things: wants and needs. It is important to understand this to develop your affiliate websites and to help understand your market. More

09/11/07 - Price Update 09/11/07

Compare Sat Nav has had a price update and the good news is that Amazon seems to have reduced nearly all it's prices this week by at least £5! More

09/11/07 - Social Shopping Sites

E-consultancy reported the launch of social shopping site Osoyou. The concept is that groups of friends can be formed around the topic of shopping, engaging in chat, sharing of opinions and the all important buying.

Here's what i think of the concept of social shopping sites. More

09/11/07 - Top 5 Affiliate Blogging Tips

If ever there was a link bait style title, that was it!

Here are my 5 top tips for blogging as an affiliate. They apply to affiliates that focus on SEO rather than PPC. More

07/11/07 - Traffic, Links and Revenue

I had a creative spark and came up with this. Some of it is concerned with web development and some is concerned with PPC. More

07/11/07 - Studio Order Farce

I placed an order with 24 Studio (aka Studio Cards aka Express Gifts) back on 29th October 2007. I had received a leaflet with my TV magazine offering a free tin of Roses with my first order. There's an incentive and a half and as I liked a particular item, I thought I would place an order.

Here's what happened thereafter. More

07/11/07 - Open Source To Dave Source

I thought I'd post a bit about my progression in web development as part of a November "1 year old" special! The 1 year mark is on the 27th November 2007 and from now until then I want to provide a bit more background information about me, a bit about the project progress so far and a bit about the future.

Today's topic is about web development. More

06/11/07 - From Affiliate To Merchant

I've just launched an affiliate program for Price Tapestry Templates. As it's a unique sort of product, it's payout is 20% of each sale. More

05/11/07 - Are You Forgetting To Target Your Market?

Sometimes your stats throw up some useful information. I could spend hours going through the keywords lists mine generate (popular one's this month so far include several voucher code phrases including "my hmv promo voucher doesnt work" - quality!)

Anyway, when I set up Price Tapestry Templates, I set everything in GBP. Why? Because I live in the UK. However, after checking a few months of stats, over 75% of my visitors are outside of the UK. More

05/11/07 - Amazon Launch Amazon Prime

This is the first time I've seen this on the Amazon site so I presume it's fairly new.

With Amazon Prime, you pay an annual subscription fee but then get some good perks. Here's a run-down of what you would get. More

02/11/07 - Price Update 02/11/07

Another round of price updates have been released on Compare Sat Nav. A quick look at the TomTom One product range price tracking graph shows a good trend for shoppers this Christmas! More

01/11/07 - Novelty Christmas Gifts

I've got some space food for sale on eBay if anyone's struggling for gift ideas this Christmas. They're all freeze dried and have a novelty factor about them! More

01/11/07 - Reduce, Resuse and Recycle

The 3R's of recycling and they apply to your web affiliate business.

How? More

01/11/07 - Plan Before You Action

I like to impart some wise words every now and then and today's tale is about the benefits of planning before you rush of and create websites. More

01/11/07 - Caution - Genius At Work!

It's nice when things come together as they should. I logged onto the site today to see a new design - out with the pumpkin and in with the fireworks! More