David Fiske A subtle blend of affiliate marketing and web development

July 2008 Archives

31/07/08 - Integrate Wordpress and Price Tapestry With Ease

Do you run a Wordpress blog with one of Brian Gardner's Revolution themes? Would you like to run a price comparison script along side it, both sharing a similar skin so visitors don't feel like they've jumped sites when they switch scripts?

Fear not as I've added two Price Tapestry Templates that look almost identical to Brian's templates (with his permission of course - thanks Brian!).

Take a look below for some screenshots of the two templates side by side. More

31/07/08 - Understand The Value Of My Time

I understand the value of my time. I understand that if I am not doing ABC because I'm doing XYZ, I'm running behind.

This week has been a crazy week of messages from networks, potential merchants, affiliates and clients. However, all seem to have a common theme - they all don't understand how much my time is worth. More

30/07/08 - 3 R's Of Writing Content

There are 3 important rules when writing content that help to make the experience better for both you as the writer and your readers.

These are: More

29/07/08 - Quidco vs Affiliate Window. What It Means For Most Affiliates

Unless you've been hiding under a substantially sized rock recently, you'll have heard that Quidco in a roundabout way announced it was leaving Affiliate Window (AW). It's a bizarre case of twists and turns.

From what I understood, Quidco's SureShop agreement was the primary reason why they were leaving as AW didn't sign up to it. But it turned out not to be that simple.

Here's my comments on some of the more important allegations that were revealed in the last week. More

29/07/08 - What The New Affiliate Window Contract Means For You

Affiliate Window has unveiled a new affiliate contract with some interesting terms. I've gone through the terms and picked out some rather interesting facts and figures which will impact quite a few affiliates. More

24/07/08 - Incentives That Incentivise

Last month I wrote that gift vouchers were a fine and dandy way to incentivise me. They still are, but not everyone is motivated by vouchers.

Following Sunshine's incentive that is sending me off to Orlando Florida, I thought it would be quite apt to write about what ranks highly in my overall incentives list, given unlimited merchant capital and love! More

22/07/08 - 5 Considerations When Creating Content

A lot of people get into the affiliate marketing scene through price comparison, static content or writing a blog. I think that's a fair assumption for the majority nowadays.

But when it comes to writing content for a blog or static website there are some considerations that need to be addressed before you start if you want to get anywhere with it. More

17/07/08 - Choosing Niches

Kirsty published a question and answer article on choosing the right affiliate niche. In a nutshell, her advice was:

• Make a list of everything that interests you
• Make a list of areas around those topics that you could explore
• Match your content to affiliate programs

The confines of a blog post means that you can't write too much on a topic but there are a couple of other questions you need ask yourself before settling on a niche. More

14/07/08 - Updated Affiliate Marketing Feed

I've had a spring clean over at UK Affiliate Marketing Blogs RSS Feed, removing feeds that haven't been updated since Christmas and crediting those that have been added since.

I've got 23 UK affiliate related feeds that are compressed into one handy RSS feed taking up less space on my Firefox toolbar ;-) More

11/07/08 - Sunshine Price Tapestry Template Discount

As today is a good day, I thought I'd share some love.

As the self-proclaimed Sunshine Price Tapestry ambassador (where's my Ferrero Rocher?!), I've taken 66.67% off the template I designed for Price Tapestry which uses the Sunshine data feed. More

11/07/08 - I'm Off To Orlando!

Enternal thanks to Chris who's whisking me (and 'tother half I hope ;-) ) to Orlando Florida! Sunshine has been running a competition for a while which closed today. I didn't win; Tania and her Fuerteventura holiday site won. Congrats to her.

I've spent the morning doing some work. I then logged onto A4U to find an message from Chris. I messaged him and he asked if I'd heard the news. "What news?" I said. He send me a link to http://www.sunshine.co.uk/affiliates/blog/2008-07-11/sunshinecouk-fam-trip-winners/

As a reward for hard work and a fair bit of effort, Chris is sending me on my trip to sunny Orlando! More

08/07/08 - The Merits of Free Delivery

LoveHoney, the purveyor of adult toys rather than honey based products, has removed it's free delivery minimum order value threshold in favour of universal free shipping across the entire range.

That means that if you want to order just one whistle or Birthday card, you can do so and not pay any postage.

So is this a good tactic in terms of their affiliates? More

03/07/08 - Me On A Really Good Day!

Many thanks to Berocca who sent me a Bloggers Relief pack. I wasn't sure I would be one of the lucky few to receive a pack but I had an email a couple of days ago and a courier arrive today.

Here's my box of tricks: More

02/07/08 - Bizarre Landing Terms For June 2008

Want to know what wacky keywords have been used this month to find my website?

Okay, probably not but here goes anyway! More

01/07/08 - What's The Best Corporate Freebie?

I'm considering getting some stuff printed up in time for Christmas seeing as this year I have worked with some major manufacturers. I may also have some capacity to send some bits and bobs to my account managers / preferred merchants who seem to forget me at Christmas :-(

So my question is what is the best corporate freebie you have received / you offer? More

01/07/08 - Any Merchants Got Just One Spare Mug?

My mug tree has one more space - and it could be yours!

I'm missing just one mug to complete my affiliate mug collection (so far my A4U mug and my Retail Factory mug). More