Thanks to Richard at Lovehoney who has re-sent me a wee surprise package after he read my reply to a post by David Fiske a while back. He got the wrong address first time round after taking details from a domain of mine… so it wasn’t the surprise it would have been!

Well, I say it wasn’t a surprise. It just wasn’t me who actually got surprised. I got Lovehoney to send my wee surprise to my mother’s house in order that I could open it as soon as I got home. Knowing my mother can never resist opening a package not addressed to her I didn’t bother telling her to expect a present of a somewhat naughty nature. “What the hell.” I thought. “It’ll be a laugh to send my mother a shock in the post.”

So this is what Richard sent me….

True to form, my dear old mammy opened up a package the other day and was confronted with a beautifully presented “Jessica Rabbit” vibrator just to show that Lovehoney aren’t scared to send out saucy gifts unsolicited to their female affiliates.

After giving her a few days to stew I e-mailed her about it, and she admitted she’d opened it and then hastily tried to re-package good old Jessica Rabbit so I wouldn’t know she’d been nosey parkering in my packages again. She was so relieved when I sent her a mail about it. Poor old stick really didn’t know what I was planning to do with my spare time when I got back from this trip, lol.

For those of you who don’t know, the Jessica Rabbit Vibrator is a bit of an all time best seller for lovers of naughty toys (now don’t be saying you never get any niche tips from Kirsty’s blog, huh?). Beats David’s 100 condoms hands down in my opinion.

Available at Lovehoney for just £19.99, it’s a real bestseller.

If you want to make a bit of commission from Jessica Rabbit or any of the other extensive range of naughty toys available at Love Honey, you can join their programme via Affiliate Future, or join their In House Effort. Commissions begin at 16% and rise to 21% based on performance.

Richard’s very keen to attract in new affiliates and is a terribly friendly (and possibly cheeky) chappie to boot. Give it a go, you won’t regret it!

LoveHoney.co.uk

Bula Bula everyone. Greetings from the land of sun, sea, and copious helpings of Kava – a mild narcotic root drink!

Well, we’ve been in Fiji for 11 nights now, starting off the final leg of the great affiliate-marketing-funded trip around the globe. When we flew into Nadi, we immediately jumped onto a ferry to take us out island hopping.

As soon as we were zipping over the azure waters towards our beach bure, I got that same old excitement about the life I’m leading right now and where my passion for affiliate marketing has taken me. It’s a giddy sort of feeling travelling to all these places I never thought I’d see in my wildest dreams, and STILL being able to save for a great deposit on the home Duncan and I are planning to buy next year.

When I visit all these great and wonderful locations, my mind always inevitably turns to the vehicle that’s brought me here. It’s all thanks to the wonderful world of affiliate marketing, and I seem to make some kind of connection to it everywhere I visit.

So What Does Fiji Have To Teach Me About Affiliate Marketing?

Much to my surprise, quite a fair bit. We’ve stayed in lots of resorts run by villagers for villagers. The Fijians really do treat their guests as part of the extended village family, and as honoured guests. I was immediately struck when I arrived in our first resort by just how happy the islanders are… I sat outside our Bure for 3 hours with the happy laughter of the villagers and their kids echoing back to me. Not only this, but they seem to manage to be incredibly happy when in fact they have very little. No flash cars, no swanky houses, no mortgages, no worries.

This caused me to have a bit of a look at myself in terms of my constant preoccupation with building and growing my affiliate business. Undoubtedly my obsession with the bottom line is what has created my own personal success. However, like many affiliates I seem to suffer from borderline workaholism when it comes to making m living.

Looking at the happiness of the locals who live so simply and apparently in their own carefree style makes me realise it’s important not to let affiliate marketing be your entire life. The temptation is undoubtedly there. After all, your earnings are only limited by the amount of time you put in. However, I do know there are many top earning affiliates who spend so much time working they never actually take the time to enjoy their money.

It’s important to strike the right work-life balance. What’s the point of being your own person when you’re still tied to a desk?

A pretty odd subject from a girl who’s only worked part-time for the last year. But I know I’m in real danger of reverting to the affiliate-o-holic lifestyle when I get back to it full time. Just ask my long suffering partner how many times I’ve disappeared into the home office for several hours on what was supposed to be various romantic nights in.

So, I resolve to take a leaf out of the Fijian’s book when I get home. Be happy with what I have (which really is so much already) and concentrate on the things that really matter in life.

Bula!!

Check out my affiliate personality test to see if you are in danger of becoming affiliate addicted!

Well, I’m leaving Australia on Wednesday night at 11.30pm. I’m feeling a little contemplative… so I think I will share my top 5 favourite pictures of the trip so far with you guys. Apologies for the sizing of these… I’m posting the URL’s of pictures which are on our photo gallery site and they don’t quite fit!

So in a Top Of The Pops Stylee (American Charts With Casey Casem for you American dudes)

5. Chilling Out In Railey Beach, Thailand. My good friend Bryan who i know from from uni and his 5 friends came to meet up with us for a wonderful week of chilling out beside limestone cliffs, chilling out in Moroccan style bars at night, and snorkeling in tropical seas. Ahhh…

More Railey Beach Pictures Here (Including a few terrible pictures of me, lol.)

4. The William Ricketts Sanctuary, Near Melbourne. I’ve wanted to visit this place for nearly ten years since it was featured on Billy Connolly’s World Tour Of Australia. There’s a whole woodland filled with beautiful and spiritual sculptures inspired by the Aboriginies and their culture. Absolutely awe inspiring.

More pictures of the Ricketts Sanctuary Here. Find out more about the amazing artist who devoted his life to creating this place here.

3. Rotorua, New Zealand. I’ve always been fascinated by volcanic activity and have never seen any. We visited Rotorua and saw all the thermal wonders this unique town has to offer.

More Wai U Tapu Pics Here!

2. Whale Shark Swimming, Western Australia. Wow. We went out for the day to go snorkelling with these amazing creatures. The sea was sooooo choppy and visibility wasn’t great, but we didn’t give a damn. What a day! We saw Manta Rays, Humpback Whales, and a Deadly Sea Snake. What could match it?!

More Whaleshark shenannigans here.

1. Fraser Island, Australia. World Heritage listed sand island off the Queensland coast. It was absolutely breathtaking. We spent 3 days here, and it was one of those experiences that truly remind you how fortunate you are.

More Fraser Island Fun Here.

Just 6 weeks left now… but what a 6 weeks we are in for. Fiji, Hawaii, San Francisco, Las Vegas, New York. I can’t wait! I have to say though I’m also really looking forward to spending more time on affiliate marketing when we get back to the UK. It’s been a great trip, and I’ve maintained my income levels…. but I miss working consistently at my craft. So getting to the UK for 3 months will be awesome.

After that? Back on a plane to Australia!!

I had a really detail e-mail from Iry the other day asking loads of questions about how to best maximise the adrank on his fledgling campaign. Here’s his question (s). I’m going to answer them within his text, there’s a fair few and answering afterwards would be too confusing!

Hi Kirsty,

1. We always say that we need bid high first to earn the quality score, it
doesn’t matter if we loss up front.

Now, I know a lot of people say this and I do tend to bid a little higher up front to boost the ad on initially. However, I rarely make a loss at this, merely a reduced profit. This kind of thing is personal in my opinion. Do what feels right for you. Perhaps practise this technique on a very small set of keywords and compare to another campaign where you haven’t bid as high?

a. Let say they are 7 – 9 advertisers for a keyword, do we need to bid until
the 1st place? Or we can bid about the 3rd-4th place?

You certainly don’t “have” to bid until you are in first place. Your position in the listings will depend on a combination of Adrank and what actually turns out to be affordable in order to make your campaign profitable. If merchants are in those top positions (or even worse, a PPC agency with a massive budget) it can be impossible to bid enough to get those positions affordably regardless of Adrank. Basically, your aim is to rank as highly as possible, as cheaply as possible, and still turn a good profit!

b. How many clicks that we are looking at before we reduce our bid?
i. E.g. $50/day budget per campaign
ii. Are the clicks referring to per campaign / per ad group / per keyword

How long is a bit of string? I can’t really quantify it. I usually adopt a bit of a “finger in the air attitude” to this (yes, scientific I know!) I monitor the CTR. This will usually gradually increase. Once I feel it has peaked I leave it running for another few days. You should monitor your adrank / CTR at the adgroup level. The rest will take care of itself! That said, as your entire Google Adwords account gets older it will acquire an adrank all of its own. This will assist your performance as time goes on.

c. When we reduce our bid, do we reduce the bid dramatically or gently? Do you
reduce the bid manually (means per keyword)?
I tend to reduce my bids gently on a daily basis if I think competition is strong. This lets me guage the point at which I can’t reduce further without affecting performance. You can also reduce dramatically, but there may be some Yo-Yoing as you try to find the right bid level to run a campaign effectively.

d. Another question is, what are the CTR that we are looking at to obtain a
good quality score? I know we should strike for the best but is 2 – 3% rate
acceptable?
2 – 3% is a reasonable CTR IMHO. However, do not get hung up on CTR as a measure of success. If you have an adgroup you’ve optimised the hell out of with a low CTR that makes you money, it’s a success. Money in the bank is the name of the game after all, and the odd adgroup with low CTR will not relegate your account to Google Adwords purgatory!

e. If the commission of a product is about $15, should we bid until $1.0 to get
the high position? ( assuming the conversion rate is 1%)
Not unless you have very deep pockets and enjoy losing a lot of money! Perhaps a better way to do it (particularly for a beginner) would be to work out how much you need to pay for a click to give your desired profit based on your estimated commissions and converstion rates. Say for example you paid $0.10 per click. This would mean that you would pay $10.00 for one conversion leaving you with $5 profit. Bidding $1.00 a click for this product would undoubtedly leave you in top position, but the kind of loss you might incurr with this strategy might take an excessive amount of time to recoup.

As a beginner, perhaps it would be better to follow a strategy not including any planned losses till you really, really have a feel for how Adwords will behave with your bid amounts?

2. Let say if there is a scenario when I look at the data

I would like to know does the Average Position actually include the previous
data before 1:00 a.m. as well.. If it does include, does it means that the
current position of my Ads are probably at 6 – 8 position because the
system has factor in the average position when my Ads were in 2.3?

You’d be best to manually check the search results to see where your ads are really sitting! Quite often an average position report isn’t entirely accurate. Sometimes it can be skewed by terms you may be showing for on broad match etc. A visual check would be best.

Kirsty .. Sorry, I know that’s lots of questions and I really hope that you
can help me on some of these questions which have been bugging me quite a
while.

I actually really like your life style and I hope one day I can travel like you
as well!

Good luck Iry, it’s a great old life… but it needs a lot of hard work to achieve. Seems from your detailed question you’re certainly working hard at it, so I’ll see you in the Caribbean for cocktails in a couple of years!

Click here for cheap & reliable Ayr PC Repair

This is really a wee congratulations to an old school friend of mine, Alistair. After many years repairing people’s PC’s in his spare time he’s finally gotten himself Microsoft Accredited and set up a PC Repair Business in Ayr, Scotland. For your reference, we sat together in higher art class for a year when I was just a wee Girvan lass, aged 16! He was more interested in paints and crayons than computers, and I’d never even used a colour monitor or anything other than the school Apple Macs (which were black and white in those days!).

So although my Ayr readership may well be limited I think that all of his hard work in getting himself set up deserves what little publicity and link love my little blog can provide him.

He is now officially accredited by the Mighty Bill Gates himself to fix every computer malaise known to mankind. So if you do happen to need his computer related services… here’s a bit of a run down of all his services: –

Troubleshooting Windows problems
Operating system install
Pc Health Check
Data backup
Data Recovery
Virus removal
Hardware replacements
Wireless network setup

Reflective of the upstanding chap I know him to be, he has a “No-Fix No Fee” policy for his services. A breath of fresh air in my experience of the old PC repair crew. (I was once charged £80 because the vent at the back of my computer was clogged with dust). His repair rates are Here.

Sorry about this shameless plug, but its nice to be nice. Good luck Alistair!

PC & Computer Repair Ayr

Well, looks like I was wrong about Clook in my last post.

After getting a very nice and concerned e-mail from Jim at Clook (on a weekend day too) I decided to go off and investigate the incident further. The kind of incompetence I’d thought had happened just didn’t sound like this organisation I thought was so rubbish. He even avoided doing that dreadful public damage management type comment post and sent me a message privately.

Now, for those of you who don’t know – my other half looks after all things web design, updating, and product feed related for me (Yeah, you know what’s coming next don’t you?). When I initially asked him about updates he 100% guaranteed me he’d uploaded nothing during the entirety of July and showed me the link file version he had on his machine. It was a completely different size to the one on the server. There was also the fact more than one site had been hit by this malaise.

So, after the e-mail from Jim, I go off and check my other half’s machine. What do I find? Yep, the site files were altered on days that match the alleged Clook disaster. When I enquired of this he sort of got this funny look on his face. I don’t know if any of you readers have ever caught your kids out stealing from the fridge at 3am? It was that kind of look. “Oh THAT site alteration.” He says.

The next part of the exchange has been censored for reasons of public decency.

So. I am very, very sorry Clook Internet and Jim. You are wonderful. Beautiful even. Nay, you are the very best web host that has ever graced the face of this planet. You would never overwrite someone’s files, nor perform any kind of server maintenance without informing clients. This is why you are not currently in the kitchen cooking me a very nice dinner with a decidedly hangdog expression on your face contemplating spending the rest of your luxurious world trip on various hotel balconies.

So in the vein of the last post…

What Has Kirsty’s Other Half Learned?

– The reasons Scottish people are renowned for their firey tempers.
– Always check your site is completely OK after ANY uploads (something I’d already told him!)
– It’s a really good idea to give Kirsty accurate information before she goes nuts and posts abuse (that should have been directed at him) about a company on her blog.
– Check your site twice after any update.

So once again, if you are with Clook Internet… stay with Clook Internet. Nay, spend more money secure in the knowledge that they are not related in any way to the Dukes Of Hazzard.

I’ll let you all know when my fella has cooked me enough dinners to cover the lost commissions and when he’s allowed to sleep indoors again.

*Edit: Read this first, then check out my latest post to see what REALLY happened and why Clook are nice guys after all*

< AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!! >

OK, so towards the end of last month an affiliate programme that had been going great guns for me suddenly stopped converting so well. We hadn’t changed anything, and the affiliate manager said they sometimes had a drop off at the end of the July sales. “Odd”, I thought. “We don’t usually see this kind of drop off.” However, with all the bad weather in the UK I thought perhaps people were just miserable and not spending.

Enter Clook Web Hosting – The Villan Of The Piece

Today I finally get round to some site maintenance prior to my Fiji trip. Guess what? Every single one of my links to aforementioned merchant (and a couple of others) IS GOING TO THE WRONG PLACE!!!

I use a single file to manage all of my links for database sites. So without letting me know, it seems Clook in their wonderful wisdom have performed some kind of maintenance to the server… and re-uploaded all of my files on July 20th. In doing so, Clook’s wonderful tech staff uploaded an old version of my links file. Thereby ensuring my sites still worked, but none of the links went to the products I have so carefully been preselling.

I would have been better if the site had gone down TBH, I’d have worked out something was up a lot quicker.

And why am I ranting on here instead of contacting Clook? Because their Contact Us page isn’t bloody working!

I’m kicking myself for not having checked my links sooner, but when traffic is still getting through to the merchant, sales are coming in, and I haven’t changed anything it’s not the first thing I think of.

So What Have I Learned From Clooks Incompetence?

– That I probably need to perform random link checks every other day.
– That I need a new web host (which I totally don’t have time to deal with right now!)
– Always investigate thoroughly when there’s any sort of issue. Third party morons may be at play.

So guys and gals… if you use Clook Internet I urge you – think again!

< / AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!! >

I’d an interesting question come in from Rick that represents a bit of an extension to the information about selecting keywords in my Google Adwords For Beginners article.

I’m just starting and so far have 3-4 campaigns under my belt with $0
income so far. Just Search PPC to understand the process but what I’ve noticed
is that early on I bought keywords that were short and only used 100 or so but
then I heard that some people are utilizing up to the max of 40,000 keywords.

PS There’s so much to read and yours and Amit’s sites are pretty much my guides
everyday. Thanks for sharing and I hope to do the same once I start to make more
then $0/day

Hi Rick, and thanks for the compliments about my dear old blog. It’s really nice to feel appreciated!

Your current confusion is one of the unfortunate side effects of learning all about affiliate marketing online. There’s so much information knocking around (much of it conflicting) that its all too easy to get confused and wonder if what you are doing is actually right. Before we go any further, I think it’s important to say that you should always try and treat what you read as subjectively as possible. Much of the information you read can’t be applied generally. It may only pertain to one sector or even one individual.

I tend to take a bit of an “slow build” approach to the number of keywords in a campaign. First of all I look at very, very tightly targeted search terms and spend a lot of time winkling out as many of these low volume keywords as possible.

I then apply them to the campaign and let it run for a week or two. Once my trial period is over, I look at epc’s (earnings per hundred clicks). First of all I look at the overall EPC for the entire campaign. If it’s really healthy overall then I will broaden the reach of my search terms to attempt to get a higher volume of sales at a reduced EPC whilst still turning a profit.

If the EPC is not healthy I’ll do a detailed analysis to see if there are any keywords within the campaign that were doing particularly well. I will then switch off anything that’s just not performing and seek to expand upon the areas (if any) that are bringing in good levels of profit.

So in short, it’s quality as opposed to quantity of search terms that make for a successful campaign. If you blanket your campaign with every search term you can think of, you’re likely to spend a whole lot of money and possibly be looking at a negative number for your profitability.

Good luck with your first profitable campaign… it can take a few tries to get it right so keep in there and you will eventually find your feet!

Wayne dropped me a wee line after my last Ask Kirsty post asking for a bit of general clarification on a remark I made about link building.

Hi Kirsty,
I’ve read a lot of affiliate blogs and websites trying to learn as
much as I can and yours is the first I have come across that is based in the UK
(as I am). I will read reagularly from now on.

Wayne

Hey Wayne,

The thing about link building is that the amount of work and time required to build adequate links is connected to the competitiveness of the sector you are attempting to break into. Because the site I was referring to was within an extremely targeted niche with low numbers of competitors, I only needed a very low number of incoming links to rank well for my target search terms. The URL for my niche site is also keyword rich, which can assist with achieving good rankings relatively quickly.

For more information on “niche marketing” see this thread about achieving a number one ranking on Google in 36 hours, and check out Stu Fosters Niche marketing blog. Andy Beard also has shedloads of niche wisdom on his blog!

But back to the link building!

For the reasons I’ve outlined above, alas there is no magic formula to effectively building relevant links within a short time. However, you can make sure your link building efforts are more productive by making sure they are strongly relevant to the content of your web site. I firmly believe that these days quality of links is far more important than quantity (although you do have to strike a fine balance between both!).

So How Do Links Help Your Site To Rank?

Back in the good old days of search engine yore, to rank well in the search engines you merely had to get thousands of incoming links to your site and you were well into the search engine gold! Alas, those days are gone… these days link popularity is a different beast.

Link popularity is one of the many things search engines look at when deciding which sites are most relevant to search engine queries. At a very, very, basic level, a search engine will analyse the relevance of sites linking to yours. If you have a site about Blue Widgets and have carefully made sure that other sites in the blue widgets sector are linking to you, then your site will be seen as relevant. Personally speaking, I also try to get links from sites in broader, but related sectors also.

So What’s The Quickest Way To Effectively Locate Potential Link Partners?

I find the best way to perform link research quickly as part of my initial marketing activity is to locate other related sites that are actively seeking link partners.

To do this, I first make sure I have created a comprehensive list of target search terms (more on keywords in another thrilling installment of “Ask Kirsty”. I then methodically work my way through these search terms by entering them into a search engine and appending them with terms such as: –

Add URL
Exchange Links
Submit Links
Link Submission
Link Exchange

i.e. Blue Widget Link Exchange, Submit Blue Widget Links… etc

This exercise can also be repeated for broader, related subject areas.

There is far, far more to building links than this… but I feel this is an excellent first step. One proviso, it’s important to vary your link anchor text and make sure you don’t build too many links too quickly. Similar anchor text and rapid increase in incoming links can trigger an adverse reaction from Google who is always on the lookout for scurrilous search engine behaviour!

I hope this helps… I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you how to effectively build links in 2 hours. But if I’d worked that one out I’m afraid I wouldn’t be sharing!

One of my lovely blog readers, Joe, has dropped me a wee line asking what the best strategy was in terms of his future affiliate site and content. Here are his questions!

Hi Kirsty,

Joe

Hello Joe!

Very good questions.

1. A year ago I’d have told you to go with the niche sites and not to get bogged down in the creation of a mega site. However, the affiliate world is shifting once more, and many affiliates are starting to swing back towards larger sites once more. These do tend to be in niche areas these days though as opposed to catch all shopping directory type arrangements.

Personally, I’m taking both the approaches you mention. I still create niche sites, because I can usually put one together very quickly and they are still making money. However, with content increasingly important I’m starting to create larger sites once more in order to give myself a good opportunity to create some really convincing content in larger niches.

In your case I would start off with one or two niche sites whilst you learn your affiliate craft. This will allow you to put all the vast swathes of information you’ve no doubt been reading into practise without it taking too long. If it takes you 6 months to develop a site within a niche only to find it’s not working out too well, I suspect you’d get disheartened and quit. I certainly wouldn’t blame you! If you really work at getting a couple of small sites to the top it will demonstrate that you personally can succeed. Then you can start the hard yards of a bigger site secure in the knowledge you are applying your own winning formula.

2. Contextual linking is definately the key to success in affiliate marketing. The more you are able to “presell” your users on a product before they leave the site, the better. You can verify this by taking a look at any network that provides performance data on creatives. Text links and product based items always seriously outperform banners and buttons.

Many affiliates (including me) use product feeds to feature 1000′s of products directly on their site. Increasingly there are many tools and scripts out there to assist you with this. Many affiliate networks do this. Affiliate Window’s Shop Window system is a good example of this. Paid on Results also has some really, really easy to use tools that will let you directly feature merchants products. However, feeds don’t create unique content… it’s up to you to do that as well and really add value to the site beyond the feed content.

For your first project I would recommend a site that focuses on a small group of products or even a single item. I have one site that is based around one product that makes me around £150 a month. The conversion rate is really high as it’s a product very few retailers actually sell. The site took me around a day to put together and another couple of hours to sort some incoming links. it’s made me £1000+ since I set it up. Not bad for a day and a bits work!

What I’m trying to say is that you don’t need to create a complex site with 1000′s of products right away to make money. Think small, and you might be surprised at the disproportionate rewards.

The best thing you can do right now, is start a site immediately. You are clearly thinking the right way about things, so just jump on in and create the site that will start your online career!

Good luck

If anyone else has a good question they’d like a detailed answer on from me, please use the contact form on the blog. I’m happy to publicly answer questions that will benefit other affiliates!

Nice additional article here on site size by David Fiske.