David Fiske Affiliate marketing & web development musings from Fiske Towers

It seems a bit odd to add an about page as post 481 but nevertheless, I've decided it should help those who have stumbled across this blog by accident.

In a nutshell, here's what my blog is all about.
 
Thoughts

I tend to use this blog to jot down my thoughts on affiliate marketing and website development. I'm a techy kind of person so I like to focus on web development and integration of affiliate programs into solutions. I try to keep my posts relatively non-technical for the benefit of those who don't share my passion for PHP and MySQL.

Comments

Occasionally I'll read a blog or forum post and feel a response is in order. Sometimes such a response cannot be accommodated in a reply in that forum topic or as a comment on a blog. This leads me to writing an in-depth comment on the situation as I see it. I'm not always right (you have to be wrong sometimes according to the law of averages) and some would not necessarily agree with my viewpoint. Fine. Let's have a creative discussion. I'll tell you my side, you comment and tell me yours.

Examples

I love examples. When I read a blog post and see a list of tips and tricks without examples, I switch off. I'm a 'learn by doing' kind of chap. You'll find examples here (real life and theoretical) which I use to demonstrate points. The real life examples are one's I consider as 'best practise' sites - one's I would love to emulate if I had the time and patience (which often I don't). Theoretical sites are plucked from the sky. It could be a site about shoes or ducks or kettles or scissors or........

Opinions

I'm an opinionated person. There's no shame in that whatsoever. I'll use this blog as a platform to vent my frustration with particular companies, make a statement about a particular aspect of the industry and just post something (usually videos) which are clearly off topic!

A Summary of My Aims

My aims are simple: to help, to inform and to learn. I like helping other's. I like informing people of what's going on or great sites to visit. But most of all, I am here to learn. I don't have the answers to every question. I learn from others and in turn help even more on aspects I do know a lot about.

I'm not afraid of asking questions. I'm not afraid of making mistakes (and I've made plenty thus far). We all need to make mistakes and ask questions to grow, learn and develop. Stop learning and you'll stop earning.

A Bit About Me

At the time of writing, I'm in my mid-twenties, I have been using the interweb for around 10 years (eek!) and have been designing websites for around 8 or 9 of those. Back then it was a case of doing it as a hobby. I was developing primitive solutions back then using HTML and snippets of JavaScript. Then came along the urge to learn PHP and subsequently MySQL. I know a lot of it off hand but Google's a great tool for researching built-in functions.

Amazon Associates is where the monetisation started, closely followed by Google AdSense. Tradedoubler was my first affiliate network signup.

I'm university educated (though not in an IT discipline), and have run my own business for 4 and a bit years. There have been some months where cash is tight and other's when I'm rubbing my hands with glee. Affiliate marketing is not a straight forward ride - it's a rollercoaster of a ride and you have to take the rough with the smooth. Nevertheless, it's a terrific industry and very enjoyable.