David Fiske Affiliate Marketing & Web Development

March 2009 Archives

25/03/09 - Viral Video: Extreme Sheep Art, Made In Wales!

I stumbled on a video (care of Innocent) which is truely amazing - if it's real. I so hope it is though! Uploaded by BaaaStuds, it features ingenious art, made by herding sheep.

The end of the video promotes Samsung LED TV's which is why I suspect it's viral origin but it's a great video nevertheless.

Here it is: More

24/03/09 - SunPress Exchange Wordpress Plugin Version 1.1!

It's been nearly a week since version 1.0 was crowned a success by Chris and Joost.

A grand total of 39 people have given it a whirl and I've had an array of feedback, all postive though :-D

Rob Barham, a travel affiliate with solid industry experience as well as avid SunPress user, came up with a couple of ideas on how to make the plugin more user friendly.

Hence, version 1.1! More

20/03/09 - My A4U Awards Nominations 2009

Alas, the time of year has come again to stand up and by counted in the UK affiliate industry awards. You've got a few weeks to register your first round of voting at http://www.affiliates4u.com/awards/nominate.php

If you are a forum member, stand up and be counted. It takes a couple of minutes to do.

Here's who I have voted for this year, and the reasons why. More

18/03/09 - SunPress Exchange Wordpress Plugin

Back in early January, Joost posted details of a Wordpress related competition - design and build a theme or plugin that extends upon sunPress, the Sunshine.co.uk affiliates plugin. The prize was a Macbook Air or cash alternative.

Breaking with my recently set New Years resolution, I delved into the world of WordPress. I've got a couple of sites running the script so I know the ins and outs of running it. I've designed the templates for the sites so know how that works. Plugins was an area I've never delved into. More

13/03/09 - Thanks ShinyShack.com For A Million Pounds

Thanks to the very kind folk over at ShinyShack for not only sending over a box of tricks but officially being the first freebie of the year :-P

ShinyShack are a gadget website (featured on Why I Need) and their product range is similar to competing websites. Prices are very competitive and postage is way cheaper than most gadget sites - all good reasons to promote them to your users!

Here's what they sent through: More

11/03/09 - The Mighty G Follows PayPal's Lead

When Google Checkout launched many moons ago, it sent curious shock waves around the merchant side of the web. Would it kill PayPal? Would loyal PayPal users make a switch?

The novelty with Google Checkout was the tiny percentage it charged to merchants for each credit card transaction. Sales up to 10 times the percentage of any AdWords spend was free and thereafter each transaction was charged at 1.5% + £0.15 per transaction. Compare this to PayPal's standard of 3.4% + £0.20 per transaction and you'll see why there was so much interest.

But alas, an innocent looking email now blows all that out of the water. More

04/03/09 - 3 Reasons Why I Don't Have a Community

Building a community can be very profitable if you've got the right combination of users and income streams.

Income doesn't necessarily need to come from affiliate programs. It could be through membership subscriptions or banner ad sales. In fact, it could be a combination of all three!

Users become loyal over time and can even contribute content or introduce new users through viral promotion.

Building a community therefore sounds easy. Build a site and attract some users. Tada.

I've been trying this for some time now and still have no community. There are 3 reasons why this is so. More