David Fiske Affiliate marketing & web development musings from Fiske Towers

This is basically a summary of what I have explained in the past few lectures together with some fresh advice.

It covers SEO, Google AdSense and good web design skills.
 
Always put a menu on every page. It should be a uniform menu that looks and functions the same on every page. A visitor should not have to think about where to click. They should be guided.

Put the menu on the left hand side if it is vertical, or at the top beneath the page logo if it is horizontal. Avoid where possible right aligned menus.

Use a good colour scheme. Use variants of one colour or perhaps two colours. Use black, white and grey on top of these to create a good quality build. Do not mix three or more different colours if in doubt. Sometimes it works. Mostly it does not.

One or two colours need not equate boring. Add a picture to introduce other colours subtly.

When creating Google AdSense ads, make sure the title is formatted in the same style as you hyperlinks on the rest of the site. If the main site has green hyperlinks, format you Google AdSense ads to have the same shade of green for the title.

Format the body and URL of Google AdSense ads to match the content colour of your site, preferably black (#000000). Do not add a border to your Google AdSense ad and make sure the background colour matches that of your site (white or a light shade of grey works best with most colours).

Use a font like Arial or Verdana rather than any fancy font on your computer or Times New Roman. Arial / Verdana are easy to read and great for text on websites.

Keep distractions to a minimum. We are trying to sell sat nav systems on the demo site. The more flashy adverts we have for Car Insurance, the less likely we will achieve our goal.

Furthermore, make sure your advertising is relevant. If your main content is all about confectionery, advertisers like Hotel Chocolat and Thorntons are great. Kwik-Fit is not and neither is Vauxhall. Mind you, Argos would be good to promote as you could link to Chocolate Fountains and similar complimentary products.

We all have experiences of great customer service and we would love to promote particular companies. For example, I recently hired a van from Burnt Tree Vehicle Solutions. They fitted me in with short notice and gave me a brand new van (Volkswagen Transporter) with only 300 miles on it. They offered great customer service and I will use them again. Mind you, next time I will request a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter. I have had a few of them in recent years and prefer those!

That was an example of inappropriate linking! A lecture about web design and I am talking about vans! But you see my point? Mercedes-Benz aren't offering me money to sell Sprinter vans. They aren't offering me a free van. So why promote them? Especially if it were on a site relying upon affiliate revenue to survive.

Finally - write about something that is passionate to you and not something that you hope to get freebies for. I would love a brand new Mercedes-Benz (did you know that I like Mercedes-Benz vehicles and think that Mercedes-Benz are the best car manufacturer in the world!) but just because I write about them does not mean I will be given a free car van or truck [I have got a HGV Class C licence so I can drive rigid Mercedes-Benz trucks ;-) ]

The same goes for revenue making. Make sure the topic you choose is one you are interested in. I would love to receive £20 commission for each credit card application I can generate but am I really that bothered about credit cards? No. I am interested in sat nav and would love to test and review them. I am a techie who loves gadgets. What can I say?!