I had a wee e-mail in from a nice Chap called Babar this morning. He was concerned about his lack of web design skills. Given my recent post about how smashing Wordpress is for the non technical, I thought it was an appropriate “Ask Kirsty”.

Here’s his question….

hi,i would like to create a website.Something from which i can hopefully earn
money from in the future.The trouble is i lack the skills.

P.S-i like your style of writing.It is warm and welcoming;gives the impression
thst your a very happy and content person.I hope this is the case ,and i wish
you a happylife.
now your obliged to respond.

Ha ha Babar,

You know how to ingratiate yourself don’t you?

I don’t think you need to be a web design expert to try out being an
affiliate (It helps though).

Check out my most recent post about using wordpress. It helps if you are
able to understand what’s going on in a web page to make use of some of
the plugins… but it’s not 100% necessary.

I think you could find a basic html course online for free. That’s how I
started out. http://www.davesite.com/webstation/html/chapX1.shtml

This one looks quite good at first glance. If I were you, I’d look
through that and then get into things with a Wordpress blog. They are so
easy to use, and have a content management system which includes a WYSIWYG
editor allowing you to put together a page at the push (or two) of a button!

Good luck Babar,

Kirsty

I’ve been fiddling around with Wordpress for quite some time now. I’ve had a few months to really have a good play around with it. Having recently completed a truly impressive Google compliant Adwords landing page with a Wordpress blog skin, I think it’s time to provide a one-stop guide to getting up off your affiliate bums and launching yourself into the world of Wordpress!!

The beauty of Wordpress is that its totally free, comes with a great and easy to use content management system, and has plugins that can do just about anything you can think of at the touch of a button.

Well, that’s easy for you to say Kirsts but it’s all been sounding complicated to me, so where the buggery do we start?

Well, let’s try the beginning shall we chaps? First off… you will need….

A Proper Domain
No fiddling around with Wordpress hosted efforts. Lets invest a tiny bit of time and money in buying a proper domain. A .co.uk costs about a fiver. When you are looking for a domain registrar make sure that they allow you to change name servers without any hassles. Personally speaking, I’ve always used Fasthosts for my domain registration but I’m not linking to them here because sometimes they are the most frustrating shower of arses to deal with (that’ll teach ‘em!).

A Web Host That Provides SQL Databases
Kinda got a bit technical all of a sudden? Now don’t you panic boys and girls, it’s nice and easy to set up a SQL database with a host and once you’ve pressed a few buttons within your hosting control panel, Wordpress does the rest.

Unclear? Don’t worry. There are incredibly Detailed Instructions On How To Install Wordpress Here. The chaps behind this platform really have worked very hard to make it as simple as possible.

OK, so you’ve got your site all ready to go. What now?

A Decent Looking Wordpress Theme Design
It’s really amazing just how many really cool free Wordpress Themes there are knocking about at the moment. You can create a really, really professional looking site without having to have a shred of design ability.

You can search through loads of free themes at themes.wordpress.net/, however James Little kindly uploaded a really neat Wordpress Pack to his blog a while back which included loads of great themes and some essential plugins. A great time saver.

If you’ve something particular in mind it’s really easy to search for great free themes in Google. Just search for “wordpress theme + site type” I’ve found some total crackers recently by searching on terms such as: -

Wordpress Beauty Theme
Wordpress Magazine Theme (these are great for creating sites with static home pages and a magazine or news site feel.)
Wordpress Fashion Theme

I just love the way you can change the look of your whole Wordpress site just by logging into the admin section and selecting another site from your “Presentation” menu.

OK, so you’ve got your site looking smashing, what next?

Right. First off, you’ll be needing a few of the plugins that make Wordpress sites a lot more effective in search engine terms. Chris Frost wrote a really interesting post about this on his blog a few days ago, so you don’t just have to take my word for it!

In no particular order, here are a few of the plugins I make use of regularly: -

Akismet - Helps keep those nasty, nasty comment spammers away.

SEO Title Tag - Lets you define the title content for every blog post and category. Hugely powerful as good titles make a huge difference to your SEO efforts.

Comment Relish -For adding feed subscription buttons to your blog.

Google Sitemaps - Adds a Google compliant sitemap of your blog.

Related Posts - Lists a a few related posts.

Some Good Posts About Wordpress Plugins

Christ Frost came up trumps again with his Blogging Necessities list. Some great plugins here.

Also, I found this one at The Blog Joint.

Finally…. Some Content!

Cover your topic thoroughly. Write a couple of posts each day on individual products or niche… it doesn’t have to be much, just a couple of hundred words or so.

I recently started this blog: - Natural Beauty Tips. It very quickly started getting traffic from long tail search terms. I still have a lot to do on this one, but it should give you a bit of an idea.

Also, Rob at Monetise This recently posted about a merchant he liked and gave an example of a Personalised Gifts Site he’s created using a Wordpress theme. As you’ll see, Rob has been able to create a nice Xmas feel using a suitably festive blog skin which he’ll be able to change at the touch of a button once Santa has returned to Lapland.

Finally Finally….

What more can I say? Give Wordpress a go. It’s a delightfully easy way to create affiliate content. I absolutely love it!!

Well, if you can’t beat the Christmas countdowns, join them… that’s my motto!

Tomorrow Duncan and I are off to yet another great UK affiliate event sponsored by those lovely people at Buy.at (I always think people are lovely when they buy me drinks - try it and see )

This is going to be an absolute, well, cracker of an event and will take place at Apartment in Newcastle at 7pm tomorrow night. We’ve booked a hotel just a short stagger away, and we can’t wait to see everyone for what may be the last time before we leave the country again *sniff*

Apart from my perennial favourite, the free bar, there’s a whole host of fab prizes up for grabs. Existem AM are going to be giving away a 60GB Ipod Video,

Euroffice are giving away an Xbox 360,

and Thorntons will be giving away a YEARS SUPPLY OF CHOCOLATE to a lucky attendee.

I can’t wait to get down there tomorrow and indulge in some festive fun.. although I am on a diet so I might have to try really hard to be good!

Ah come on now… youse didn’t think I’d stay in one place for five minutes surely? That’s us all booked up again on an Emirates flight out of Glasgow on February 1st.

See, the reason I’m bridally obsessed right now is that I’ve only got till January 31st to have the whole wedding signed sealed and delivered so I don’t end up leaving the lions share of the arranging to my mother, who being a canny Scot would change the venue from Bucks Fizz and canapes at Kildonan House to beer and steak pie at Colmonell Community Centre. Honestly, I’m glad I told her how much we’re spending on our nuptuals over the phone. “Obscene” was one of the descriptive terms she used (and we’re really not spending THAT much - honest!).

Anyhoo… come February the 1st we are leaving on a Jetplane to go to Australia again. However, it’d be a waste of a flight if we didn’t have some stopovers… so first up is..

Dubai!

We’re stopping for 5 nights to have a good old look around. We were thinking of buying the wedding rings in the gold souk (bling bling!), but with concerns about rising gold prices we’re wondering if we should wait till the return trip in September or if things are only going to get worse? Answers on a postcard please!

After Dubai we’re hopping back on the plane for a mere 14 hour (arrgghhh) hop to…

Melbourne!

After a scant few days there to put our campervan into the garage to get the Aircon fixed (essential in February!), we’re jumping right back on another flight to…

Auckland!

This is Duncan’s home town, so we are off to spend a couple of weeks catching up with my in-laws to be and generally relaxing at their truly beautiful house which is set in 4 acres of native bush… ahhhhh……

After that, its back over to Australia and straight back into our beloved campervan where we will make a beeline for the Sunshine Coast, Queensland. When we get there will we relax? Another big holiday? No! It’s not enough for me to circle the globe incessantly, and get married in the same year… We’ll absolutely have to keep ourselves busy. So We’re going to buy a house and get it all signed, sealed and delivered in just 4 months.

We’ve found a place where you can still get a house with pool within a walk of the beach for under $500,000. So we’re blazing a trail before the real estate agents change their minds.

Phew, so now you all know why I can’t sleep at night and have weird dreams about how to explain keyword research!

Time for some Valium perhaps?!

I’ve been trying to work out how to describe the process by which I research keywords so it’s actually intelligable. Well, as of last night that problem is solved. Not a shadow of a lie here, I had the most lucid, clear dream in which I was back at school and sat along with my well behaved, keen classmates (that’s how I immediately knew I was dreaming). We were being asked to participate in a hugely fascinating lesson.

The teacher was in front of the board, chalk in hand. The essential days learning?
This Is How We Research Keywords Boys & Girls!

So Are You Paying Attention Class?

Good. Then we shall begin our class on how to effectively research keywords for online marketing.

Now, as we all know, choosing the correct keywords is a drastically important function of online marketing. As affiliates, it’s important to winkle out absolutely every possible keword variation so as to identify some niche keywords that can be got at a reasonable cost per click.

So class, today we are going to perform a hypothetical keword exercise. It’s a little like a word game in which you find as many ways as possible to describe an object or series of related objects (henceforth referred to as “products”)

OK boys and girls… let us pretend that we are promoting beanbags that people seem to like to use to furnish their living areas in a casual manner. How many different ways might we find to describe them? Who’s going to start?

**Now it’s at this stage your beloved author in her dreamlike state is that irritating kid in the class who always had their hand in the air “oohhh, miss miss, I know… pick me!!”**

“Yes, McCubbin?”

“Size miss, what about size? For Example Big beanbags, large beanbags, giant beanbags, sofa beanbags, enormous beanbags”

“Well Done McCubbin. Anyone else? No? OK, McCubbin. You again.”

“Oooh miss, colour. Blue, Yellow, Green, Orange etc oh, and
Texture or fabric - Suede, furry, cotton, cord, corduroy, leather, suedette”

“Goodness McCubbin. This is the most we’ve heard out of you since that alcohol awareness class last week when we asked for the names of alcoholic beverages. Right. What else?”

“Umm…. shapes. Round, square, oval, oh, and all of the above plus generic buying terms like cheap, discount, online, buy”

“Right then. Can you think of anything else?”

“Yes Miss. Always make sure there isn’t more than one way of describing your original product. For example the two word “bean bag” variation. But that’s all I can think of now.”

“OK, now what we do is to go and enter all of those variations into your local friendly keyword research tool. Grab them, and pop them in a spreadsheet. Also, keep your eye out for any search terms that might either give you clues as to current hot sellers or perhaps to a keyword grouping that you haven’t found in your initial efforts.”

Phew!! I feel better for having got that out. That is basically the initial technique I use to find keywords. I sit with my notepad and come up with as many word groupings around an individual product or group of products as I possibly can and then follow the above steps. I tend to use a combination of Overture Search Term Suggestions (although they’re hideously out of date at the moment) and Google’s KeyWord suggestion tool.

Once that process is complete, I start it all over again with any additional variations that may have popped into my head as I worked my way through the results from my keyword research tools.

I don’t know if that will help anyone or not, but that’s how I do it… and finding niche keywords is a skill I pride myself on. I do wonder if I’m working a bit too much though. I mean seriously, dreams about keyword research? Medic!!

Another thing that’s been running through my mind of recent times is the preoccupation with “Super Affiliates”. Why is it that the majority of folks who take any more than a passing interest in our industry suddenly leap into the air like people posessed and proclaim in loud and confident voices: -

“That’s it! I’m sick of working for the man!! I’m going to be a SUPER affiliate!!!!” **Cue superhero type music, and imagine our proud and happy protagonist in a pair of red underpants and his mum’s best turquoise tights**

So look, being serious here, I do understand why people find out about chaps such as Amit Mehta of Titanium Amex card fame, Jeremy Shoemaker with his adsense check for $132,994.97, and our very own Kieron Donoghue who spends the debt of a small African country on PPC every month. Of course they’re hugely inspirational…

But ask yourself these two things If you’re an aspiring affiliate, or are just starting out along the long and weary road to the turqouise tights…

1 ) Is affiliate success necessarily going to be achieved by emulating other people?

No.

The reason all these guys earn money faster than they can spend it is because they are unique and can see money making opportunities where others don’t. If you seek to emulate them, it won’t make you as successful as them. Merely a second rate copy… and you still won’t have a clue how YOU can make money, only what other people are up to.

2 ) Honestly, what’s wrong with being merely “Pretty Good”? Have a good think about how you’d define success in real terms. Doubling your salary? Working 2 days a week for the same money and having time to spend with your family?

Personally speaking, I’m not a super affiliate in terms of turning over millions of pounds a month (and that’s what I reckon a real super affiliate is)… and I’ve no desire to be. What’s the point of the affiliate lifestyle if you can’t take them 5 or 6 holidays a year? Furthermore, my Duncan intimated to me last night that (my) preoccupation with money bothers him a little bit sometimes.

Have you thought about whether your current partner wants to wake up next to Sir Alan Sugar instead of you tomorrow morning?

Pretty Good Affiliate is an A-OK job description too in my book!

(n.b. anyone who knows me really well will no doubt be aware there’s bound to be another word in that job description. But in the interests of decency, I’ve left it out! )

Gah…. so ok, I got up this morning and realised the spring in my step has sprung, and my usual determined attitude has slipped away from me. In short, I just can’t be arsed to do anything. Even remaining upright seems like a big ask this morning.

This happens to me every now and again (and probably to most affiliates who work at home all day long), unfortunately I can’t just take the day off which is my usual solution. I was off all last week arranging bits and bobs to do with my wedding, which is probably why I am so unmotivated today. It’s a bit depressing returning to reality!

So what’s my strategy for pulling the affiliate phoenix from the ashes and rescuing my entire day at the height of the Christmas rush?

1 ) Get dressed and wash my bloody face. I’m chronic for still sitting around wearing my favourite Jimmy Jammies with my red fleece dressing gown (the one with the ickle stars on) at 2pm. Good some days, but the trouble is if you are dressed for bed you sometimes spend the whole day feeling like you should still be there. NB if any merchant REALLY wants to impress me, its free Jimmy Jammies they should send me. Possibly with “Make Money While You Sleep” embroidered on the pocket.

2 ) Write myself 3 easy tasks I absolutely must get done today on a big bit of paper and stick it where I can’t fail to see it all the time. That way, when I get distracted looking at pearl tiaras on e-bay I will eventually remember to at least do some actual work in order to pay for my random e-bay purchases.

3 ) Resolve not to sit up till 1am this evening checking out great new niche domain ideas that are sure to bring me in oodles of free traffic. Another failing of mine is working too late at night. It was something I got myself sorted out on after poor old Duncan commented casually (or was it tearfully?!) that he hadn’t signed up for life with a workaholic. He’d rather liked me when I was behaving like an Alcoholic and partying on down till 6am five nights a week (no pleasing some people!). However, I’m slipping again as a result of feeling I need to do a lot of work to get my business back on track after a year of backpacking

4 ) Time to detox from those late night glasses of wine. They’re not good for waking up full of the joys of spring. Nor will the nurse who weighs me every Tuesday at my slimming club be impressed when I start to put on weight from too much wine.

Will this work? Maybe not. I’ve just spent the first half hour of my action plan taking to you guys…

*Rushes off to do some Unique Content For Beauty Blog*

I had a quick mail from Jamie, one of my readers, a while back asking about the best criteria to apply when choosing a merchant to match with site content. Here’s his question: -


Hi Kirsty,
firstly let me say thanks for creating this blog - it has certainly helped me
make my first small step in to affiliate marketing.

Many thanks!
Jamie

Well, it’s no easy task trying to work out which merchant is the best match for your carefully crafted content. In many ways, the ability to choose a merchant well is the hallmark of a truly successful affiliate. After all, what’s the point of your carefully obtained traffic if you can’t actually make it pay you dividends in the form of lucrative commissions?

So is there a secret formula to choosing a good merchant? There is a formula, but as we all know a good formula is only good if the numbers are actually right. As I mentioned in another post recently, here is the formula I use to help me work out if a potential PPC campaign might work out. You can use merchant data or network stats to work out the following: -

Avg Basket Size x Avg Conversion rate = Avg Sales Per Hundred Clicks x
Affiliate Commission = Avg Earnings Per Hundred Clicks

OK, this is a formula to work out if paying per click will turn a profit. However, it can also be used to work out if you think a merchant you’re considering is going to convert well enough in comparison with other merchants offering similar products.

But Are Network Stats Reliable?

And this is the issue. Whilst network stats are an excellent guide, you have to bear in mind that like any data they can be skewed by several factors.

For example, if a merchant is being heavily promoted by discount code or cashback sites, this could create artificially high conversion rates. Similarly, if the merchant allows brand name bidding or there is a closed group in play, this could make conversion rates look better than they really are.

However, a merchant’s conversion rate can also be skewed downwards if an affiliate is promoting them using methods such as incentivised clicks.

Finally, it’s also difficult to pick which merchants your own traffic might be a best match for.

OK, So It’s Less Than Straightforward Kirsty… What Can We Do?
Well, the solution is almost both the things that Jamie is talking about. Yep, look at the conversion rate but take it with a pinch of salt. Look at it and ask yourself “is that realistic?” Eventually you will gain an eye for various different industry segments and will begin to learn what is and is not a reasonable site conversion rate and EPC.

The second part is kinda “pick the cheapest”, but not quite. I’d say “pick the site you’re most likely to buy from yourself”. If you’d buy something from an online shop and you’ve researched your niche well… then it’s likely to be a good candidate for promotion. I also thoroughly recommend going through the order process once you have chosen your merchant. It may well highlight whether you’ve stumbled upon a winner or not.

Finally, once your traffic stream is coming in remember to check what your site users are looking for when the arrive on your site. Make sure that the search terms people are entering match the kind of products you are featuring. Sometimes you can unwittingly rank for a search query which generates good traffic. You’d be missing a trick if you didn’t make sure you had the product your visitors were looking for!

Jamie has a mainstream marketing blog here

MMMMmmmmmmmmm……..

I got a lovely Cadbury’s Flake Passion gift set on Saturday morning from the postman.

This rather yummy gift (which is bad for the diet I’m on and no mistake about it) was sent via a Webgains incentive for October. All you had to do was make 5 Cadbury’s sales, and you could choose from 4 different gift packs.

Lets have more incentives like these please. Yummy!

Cadbury’s Offers 5% commission on a 60 day cookie via Webgains.

For any of you who I haven’t personally gotten hold of and bored to tears with my latest big business project, I feel it’s important to warn you that from this point on my blogging may well take on a somewhat self-obsessed bridal theme.

See, the whole reason that Duncan and I have come back to the UK for 4 months, is so that we (read, me) can get down to the important task of organising our nuptuals. Before I came back I was absolutely certain that “I wouldn’t be going mad like all my friends have done”. Furthermore, “I certainly won’t start obsessing with trivialities. It’ll be a good Ayrshire affair. All common sense and no bells and knockers.”

Ummm… WRONG!

Last Saturday I went and tried on wedding dresses for the first time. And I think it was at the very moment that first bit of white fabric touched my shoulders, that Bridezilla emerged from the chrysalis.

Before I knew what was happening, I had my first ever bridal strop. And it was a biggie. The reason? Well. See, as a child I was obsessed with all those hugely glam movie stars from the 30’s to 50’s. Ginger Rogers, Marlene Dietrich, Joan Crawford, and my all time favourite… Audrey Hepburn. And it was old Audrey that did it in the end. I found someone selling a replica of this tiara that she wore in Roman Holiday…..

“OOOOOHHHH, fabulous!” I thought. “I’ll look just like Princess Audrey!”

And it was around that point I got really, really, carried away and decided to look for a suitably grand necklace to go with it.

I found this cracker at Zulu Moon, an online jewellery store, and immediately set my heart upon it…

I was very excited about looking just like one of my silver screen icons. The issue? The necklace was out of stock. How frustrating. I wanted it immediately!! Imagine what happened in our living room when I was told it was never coming back into stock? I duly spent 6 straight hours on the internet trying to find something similar.

Nada. Zip. Cue 3 hour huff.

So… that’s it. Bridezilla is in town. You have been warned. I’ll do my best to keep it to a minimum, but no promises. Tell you what, If you all put up with it, I’ll send you a bit of cake!