Been a while since I’ve had a good “Ask Kirsty” through, this one is an oldie… but a goodie. It’s the old and still painful niche selection problem!

Hi Kirsty,

I need some advice. Im new to affiliate marketing and have been reading as much as i can for the past few months. While reading, there have been 2 things that seem to be repeated quite often, 1) pick a subject you enjoy and have a passion for and 2)just do it.

So, keeping inline with the ‘just do it’ statement, i started searching for a niche/product to promote early on but i didnt really think about picking a topic that i enjoyed. I thought that once i saw the money coming in then that would motivate me anyway.

So i found a kitchen appliance product that didn’t have a lot of competition and got about 27k local exact search (according to Google keyword tool) ad went about creating the site. Im a web developer/designer career wise so enjoyed the site creation, but now im stuck. I need to write content for it, but i have no interest in this product and find it so mind numbingly boring that i can’t bring myself to do it everyday. When i do write content for the site (reviews for each product) i find myself writing the same thing over and over again for each product. its basically the same thing from different manufacturers! i cant afford to hire content writers so the sites come to a halt.

So, i guess i realised the hard way why its important to pick a topic that you enjoy, at least until you get enough experience and maybe make some money.

But here’s my problem. Everything that i have any interest in is so heavily saturated and overly competitive that i don’t think i can compete and it wont be worth the time and effort to get so little reward. For example, i enjoy playing video games, but thats to broad a market and very competitive anyway. i could dig deeper and go for sub sections of the games market to target a niche, but these niches don’t really get any searches so again, its not really worth the time or the effort.

Do you have a tips or ideas of where i can go from here?

Well, Abbid I can immediately pick up on more than one common mistake that you have made in all of this. Clearly you’ve already learned the hard way about needing to be interested in what you are promoting, so we’ll skip that one! So the areas you need to look at again are: -

• Basing your niche selection purely upon what the Google Keyword tool tells you. It’s great to give you a rough idea, but it often over and under estimates actual traffic you might get from your search terms.  Bear in mind that the data you are seeing has been collated on an automatic basis. Whilst it is a good way to investigate possible traffic bearing areas, I think it is important to also realise that it is often innaccurate.
• Basing your niche selection around a single keyword – it sounds to me like you are subscribing to the “exact match domain” school of affiliate marketing.  Whilst this particular bit of advice has been floating around for a while and has been very useful I think it is a mistake to accept it as gospel, and the thinking of it as a formula to succeed is a woeful over simplification. Remember that on any domain, you will not only get traffic relating to your main search term but on many related search terms if you take the time to put up decent content.  I have a single product domain which Google reckons has 880 monthly searches. I get 2,000 visits per month to it because I’m not only ranking for that term but many other related terms thanks to my decent content.
• Thinking you need an exact match domain – You don’t. Yes, try to get something attractive looking with at least one important keyword in it – but don’t let it be a rod for your back. This mistake wasn’t obvious from your question, I’m just guessing. However a lot of people reading this probably let exact match domain availability rule their progress too much, so I’ve included it
• Letting your pre-conceptions build a wall against progress – You’ve only been involved in affiliate marketing for a short time, but already you have a very rigid notion of what you “have” to do to find your niche. Whilst any bit of useful advice you get in this game should be heeded, do not treat it like gospel. First of all, are you absolutely SURE there’s no search volume around the small and targeted niches you have been thinking of?  If they are interconnected I’d consider doing a site to house say 5 or 6 of these, approach one at a time and add others when ready.  Secondly, how can you know that areas are over saturated without actually trying?  On each and every over saturated niche I’ve ever entered I’ve quickly realised I’m one of the only people knocking about who is prepared to spend time producing quality, unique content.  Choose a small area and don’t take on the big boys, but don’t be put off by a little competition either.

Tips and Ideas

I want to be a little more helpful than picking holes in your reasoning, so here’s where I’d go from your current situation.

• Game controller site?  Any other accessories people might buy that you’re an expert on? Most gaming consoles seem to have a plethora of add ons. If I was doing a site like that I’d create a comprehensive section covering each console brand and review main products. Then I’d also create a section for each major use or type of controller i.e. “flight simulator game controllers”  At first glance, there are an awful lot of authority sites in that area… but as I said before, put out some quality content and you will get traffic. Large authority sites are often unable to break out of a set “mould” in their content and structure. If you personalise your approach to how you would shop for these things yourself, I’m betting you’d get traffic.
• Sit down and list absolutely everthing that you’d enjoy shopping for online, and use one of them. Over simplified advice? Yeah, definately but it does sort of come back to the “just do it” phrase you alluded to at the start of this question. You will have to start somewhere, and even if it turns out not to have been the right place, you will learn something you can feed into your next attempt.
• Do not get disheartened if what you try first does not work. You absolutely must try again. Affiliate marketing is not an easy thing to master, there will be false starts and you have to get over them to succeed. Acknowledge that at the start and you have a good chance of winning!!

I think I’ll leave it there… plenty to digest as the post approaches 1200 words!

Good luck

As a few of you guys might know I’ve had a bit of a sad situation recently. My much loved grandmother got very sick and passed away.

I did think a lot about whether I should make a post about it on here,  but hey… I bet there’s a lot of you who have lost people you love who’ve thought “I just wish more people knew how awesome they were.”   So that’s what I’m doing. This isn’t a drone about how I’m feeling (I’ll spare you that), it’s all about her.

My Supergran, Eve.

If grandmothers were like sticks of rock, mine would have had “You go gal” written inside and the wrapper would advertise “free cuddles with every bite”.  She was always first to dance at any party, and one of the last to leave. Optimism and kindness were her watchwords. She was from that generation who came through WW2 with Dunkirk spirit by the bucketload, never complained about what she didn’t have, and could create just about anything from not very much at all.

I could gush on like that for hours, but I think people are best described by what they have done…

Where’s The Midwife?

Back in the “Olden Days” babies weren’t born in hospitals.  The miracle of birth happened at home and the midwife would come with a nice cannister of gas and air, and some words of encouragement.

Through the local telegraph, Gran heard that one of her neighbours had gone into labour.  “I’ll just pop round there and see how she’s getting on” she thought (as you do).  Upon arriving at the door she was greeted by a very, very white faced husband.

“QUICK, get in here!!”

The midwife was, for some reason, nowhere in sight and things were um… progressing alarmingly. Bear in mind that in those days a husbands place was firmly elsewhere when children were being born, so he quickly grabbed my grandmother as a drowning man might grasp a lifering and ushered her through to where the action was at.  Without too much fuss (well, that’s how she told it many decades later!), my grandmother duly delivered their son.

A few minutes afterwards the midwife turned up clutching her gas and air cylinder and remarked,

“Och, it looks like youse are doing fine. I’ll away then.”

And away she went.

And every time my grandmother saw that boy for the next 50 years she’d say “Awww… look at the size of ye!  And to think I delivered you.”

How could he forget?

Mum, Where Did That Pram Come From?

One Christmas Gran was at the town square at the annual carol service. Her cohorts informed her one of her friends had been taken into hospital, leaving her husband to look after their young baby.  In those days the most a man knew about a child was that they brought in the dough to feed them, and someone else looked after them and their ablutions.

“Oh dearie me” Said Gran in no small amount of horror. “He’ll never be able to look after that baby. He hasn’t a clue!”

So off she toddled round to her friends house and told her (very relieved) husband that she’d look after the baby until she was all better.  My Mother told me she went out to the Christmas Carols, and simply returned with a pram, announcing they had a new lodger as she pushed it into the livingroom.  The baby stayed for around 6 weeks.

In total my Grandmother had 7 children of her own between when she got married and her early 40′s. At this point she probably already had 4 or 5 children of her own in her very small 3 bedroom house. She might have been limited on space, but her kind heart really knew no bounds.

Good God Gran, Why Were You Topless Sunbathing?

A few years ago I went to visit my gran, with my then boyfriend in tow. She’d just returned from a lovely holiday with my Aunt and Uncle – she loved the sun so was looking very brown and happy.  She was in the kitchen fussing around and called through “My holiday snaps are on my side table – take a wee look”

I dutifuly went through all the usual nice pictures people take on holiday. The apartment, group pictures at character filled restaurants, Georgious the waiter (my what a laugh he was etc etc etc. My boyfriend knew the family well so was also looking at the pictures with interest.

There were lots of pictures of the beach which I spooled through until to my horror, there was one of my Grandmother laughing away and sunbathing TOPLESS!!

“Arrghhh… Gran!!” I squealed, recoiling in horror. “What the hell’s this?!?!”

“What’s what?” She said, emerging from the kitchen looking genuinely puzzled.

“You’ve got your boobs out on the beach, were you at the topless sunbathing???”

“Ah…” she said, “No no, I took my bra and top off and draped my t-shirt over them to protect my modesty. That auntie of yours bloody whipped it aff me and took a picture. The minx.”

“I see.” I said, somewhat mollified by her unruffled reaction.  “Umm…. did you not think to remove that one?”

She just giggled a bit, treated us to a mischevious look, and wandered off back into the kitchen, leaving myself and the boyfriend to regard each other in uncomfortable silence. We didn’t look at the rest. Just in case.

And Finally…

Thanks dear Gran for everything you’ve given me. The little dimples that appear when I smile (I always saw them mirrored in your face), my creative streak, my strong sense of empathy.  But most of all, thanks for my sense of fun and the delight I take in dancing the night away. All of these gifts have come from you and I will always carry them with me.

I use them often and in the same way that I think of you – with love, joy, and laughter.

A few times recently I’ve awoken to discover that one of my main sites, Lingerie Brands, has been down for several hours thanks to a corrupted .htaccess file. After taking a bit of advice I changed the permissions on my file to make sure it could not be written to.  A week or two of uninterrupted traffic and I relaxed thinking all was well again.

Imagine my horror this morning though when I awoke and discovered a mail from my friend Lee telling me the site had been down all day.  I logged into my FTP account and sure enough, the .htaccess file had been altered – again. The addition of a single “s” after all the wordpress stuff had knocked my entire site over.

So Who’s Been Dicking Around With My Damned Site??!!!

Well, as it transpires my issue is all thanks to a technology improvement at Clook.  One of their support chaps informed me that

“We’ve recently changed the PHP setup slightly which makes scripts like WordPress, Joomla etc. run better as it gives them better permissions on the files. However it looks like your wordpress installation is now able to write to the .htaccess and its writing to it incorrectly”

At this point I was relatively unconcerned, after all wouldn’t Clook be able to sort this issue out for me by pushing their magic techie type buttons just like they always do?

Ummm… Apparently Not!

I was then asked if any of my plugins controlled the .htaccess file (there’s nothing I use that directly says it alters it) so I suggested one which dealt with redirects which was only on LB and one other low traffic site and therefore could be the culprit. Clook responded with

“I would definitely check into that first plugin, especially since it’s only installed on the one site. Since it does manage redirections, it could very well be the culprit. Please let us know what you find.”

I was unable to work out from the code if anything in there might be the villan of this piece but then I’m no programmer, so given that their new setup is clearly causing issues in some scenarios I felt certain they’d want to confirm or deny if that particular plugin could be causing the issue so they could perhaps gain insight for future situations.  They were certainly interested enough to ask me to tell them about it.

Alas, “Unfortunately such coding issues are beyond our scope of support.”

Ah. OK then. I suppose they have to draw the line somewhere.

So It’s All Down To A Process of Elimination

Basically, this issue is likely to be down to a plugin performing wicked deeds somewhere. So all that Clook can suggest is a process of elimination. I switch off plugins I think might be causing the issue and wait to see if it happens again.

I find this sort of situation immensely frustrating.  I can’t find out what is causing it because I have to wait for it to happen again (if my plugin purge doesn’t fix it), and I can’t stop it from happening again because of the new and improved write access.  Perplexed I asked Clook if their new setup was changing file permissions and they told me that in fact

“Our changes don’t make it so that WordPress can modify the permissions on a file, but rather so that it can modify necessary files without you first having to change permissions.

This is noticeable when you try to make changes to a theme. Before the upgrade, you would have to individually modify the permissions on any files (header, footer, etc) before you could make changes to them, then you’d have to change the permissions back. Now that is not necessary.”

Well That’s Quite Good Isn’t It?

Quite a good, convenient change for most Clook users (they did say most people were very happy when I casually mentioned how I personally thought it was shit!).  Also, it probably prevents the odd scenario where forgetful people change the permissions to “Yeah baby overwrite me!” and then forget to change them back, subsequently resulting in website hackage and general unhappiness all round.

It’ll also make the whole WordPress setup / customisation process easier.

Do I Like It?

Frankly no, I don’t like it one little bit. I hate the fact that I have handed control of my .htaccess files in particular to WordPress which can sometimes behave in unexpected and unstable ways thanks to its “aggregate” nature, which often results in conflicts.  I don’t like that I now have an issue on a rather large site that I can exert no control over whatsoever. Honestly, I feel like an ancient occupant of  Troy who has just wheeled in a rather attractive and unexpected garden ornament that’s just convieniently big enough to hold an entire murderous army and retired to bed for the evening. It’s only a matter of time!

It just seems nonsensical that I know where the issue comes from, how it can be stopped, and I simply can’t protect my file from it.

Ah Well, I Needed To Sort Out Uptime Monitoring Anyway

One reason this has been so damaging is that it’s tending to happen when I’m asleep here in Australia. This means the site has been down for an entire UK workday twice now, and I think there have been 2 or 3 other shorter outages which I’ve caught before too much damage was done.  Lingerie Brands has gotten to a size where it probably should be monitored, so at least this situation means I’ll stop procrastinating and get it all sorted out.  It will mean I’ll probably get woken up at some ungodly hour of the morning if (when) it happens again and will be incredibly grumpy the next time I contact Clook about it.

I did enquire if they might consider adding an opt out sort of system but was told they’ve applied it over all servers for consistency. If I want a customised setup I’ll need to pay for one.

Would I Still Recommend Clook?

Hmmm… I do still really rate their service. Despite me being severely pissed off about this issue I was still very impressed with their support which was prompt, curteous, and as helpful as they could be within the constraints of their role.  However, I am deeply uncomfortable about not being able to prevent files I want protecting being overwritten. It just doesn’t feel right and I feel as if my control over my sites has been compromised.

Still, I certainly won’t be moving my site elsewhere so the fact I’m prepared to work through this issue rather than jumping ship must mean I still love them really. Only time will tell if continuing to use them is sustainable.

Now… Who Owes me a Favour?

I’m off to find some technically able type to look at the code of my suspect plugin to see if it is indeed the culprit. I certainly hope so, there’s nothing else I’m using that should be dicking about with the .htaccess file, but it’s always so hard to tell with WordPress!

In honour of the fact I know a number of UK affiliates will have been “networking to the max” at the Buy.at Speakeasy last night I have decided to help out all those poor delicate souls by publishing my very own cleansing hangover cure.

This should help rehydrate, calm those churny tummies, and make all the affiliates who have partied just a wee bit too hard at the free bar feel a little bit better again!

Kirsty’s Affiliate Hangover Remedy

Ingredients (based on using a 2 mug tea infuser):-

Half a Lemon

Half a Lime

1 – 2 tsp of freshly sliced ginger.

Boiling water.

Optional: 2 Hedex Extra to serve.

Instructions: -

• Chop lemon into 3 or 4 slices whilst attempting to stay upright. Wonder why the knife sounds so damned loud. Place lemon into teapot.
• Repeat with lime, and try to ignore the flashbacks from the evening before. Do so with only one eye open if it helps you aim the knife more effectively.
• Add your chopped ginger.
• Pour boiling water into the pot, leave to infuse for 5 minutes. Use the time to ponder if those last 5 rounds of Sambuccas really were the hilariously good idea they seemed.
• Serve in the drinking vessel of your choice.
• Repeat recipe until you feel human again.

My recommended method of intake is to have 2 mugs of this, let it rest in the tummy for 5 to 10 minutes, and then complete the hangover cure with a monster bacon sarnie with lashings of sauce. Allow bacon to do its stuff, before treating your poor punished body to some more cleansing tea for dessert.

This recipe will also work if you use a mug to infuse your ingredients and can also be used in non affiliate hangover situations. These include, colds, flu, tummy upsets, and when you’re just feeling golly gosh darned sluggish and under the weather. A great detox that’ll leave you feeling lovely inside and out

Now don’t say I never try to do anything to enhance your health and wellbeing. This blog is also about the affiliate mind and soul don’t you know. Well, either that or I’m burning time instead of working again. You decide!!

Hello?  Hello? Is there anyone out there? Merchants… it’s me, Kirsty!

Despite all the networks, talented agency types, and in-house affiliate managers there still seems to be an issue with communication between us Jupiterites and the Martians who we work for. Somewhat puzzling, because lots of people seem to be shouting about their affiliate programmes. What I don’t understand is why do I never seem to hear the right ones?!?!

It’s Like Being Single Again…

Lingerie site owner with GSOH, ample traffic assets, and penchant for selling copious amounts of knickers.

Seeks like minded underwear or hosiery merchant for underwear fun and long term relationship. Reply to PO Box 157, Jupiter.

A few years ago I’d wondered at the lack of approaches by merchants, but put it down to not having quality content sites.  However, having remedied this in recent years I still find the number of “do you think you might be able to feature us on your site” type approaches surprisingly disappointing.

I’m not saying such approaches are non existent.  As a good example of sods law two nice agency people have approached me with very interesting undies sites in the last week. However lets not let the facts get in the way of a good rant here – I still find it surprising that this doesn’t happen more often, particularly given that I now have nice content sites in several niches.

So What’s The Issue?

There could be several reasons why merchants aren’t flooding me with requests to promote them and prostrating themselves at my bejewelled affiliate feet: -

• I don’t have bejewelled feet, and if I did merchants most probably wouldn’t grovel at them. Bummer. Still, a few free bras or the odd box of chocolates wouldn’t go amiss.
• People don’t do “Affiliate Research” any more because we’re rude buggers and don’t respond, thus making such pursuits an unproductive waste of time.
• The best use of management resources is targeting the 5% of affiliates that’ll drive 85% of your sales. Big sites such as MyVoucherCodes.co.uk can drive massive volumes.
• My location – maybe face to face networking is where the red hot merchant action is at. Australia makes it difficult for me to meet people over a nice beverage or ten.
• Too many merchants view affiliate marketing and management as a “passive” process. Build a programme and they will come. Which, of course, they quite often don’t. Said merchants then throw in their programme and tell anyone who’ll listen that “affiliate marketing is shite, and doesn’t work.”

Perhaps what it comes down to is that affiliate marketing is a lot of work, and the online nature of the industry, combined with the problems of attempting to manage and communicate with a large pool of business partners (many of whom aren’t available during business hours), means we get shoved on the “too hard” pile. Overall though, I think my 85:5 rule point above is probably very close to the mark.

The Solution?

Hah, I’m backing away from this one!  Too big a question for this affiliate blogger to answer without descending into utter conjecture and upsetting people who spend their entire working lives trying to look after us affiliates. Technology driven solutions such as Affiliate Window’s catchily named “Darwin” affiliate admin area may help considerably.

And Of Course, It’s A Two Way Street…

I’m also aware that this is my business and it’s my responsibility to build it and find new people to partner with on my own.  Maybe merchants prostrating themsleves at my feet, or even finding out about me before I start sending them sales is just a romanticised pipe dream.

Apologies for the longer than usual radio silence by the way. I went on a holiday to celebrate the end of the destruction of my home!

Yep, that’s right…  Today was my first proper day back at work after all the general noise and mess of our renovation project. During the 3 months of utter chaos I found it unbelievably difficult to get any actual work done but I was determined to at least do something with the time that I could look at and say “that was really a worthwhile achievement”.

Kicking Office Boredom into Touch…

Back in March I realised that the way I’ve been working just isn’t jiggling my affiliate mojo any more. With that in mind I set about analysing how we use time and what it would cost to significantly reduce the amount of time spent engaged in repetitive tasks that aren’t particularly specialised.

So What’s Been Drinking Up Our Working Hours?

I decided to look at two key things: -

• Writing Content
• Posting Content

Short phrases, but these two things are a huge part of what keeps our business moving and growing.  For the last 15 months Duncan and I have done a tremendous amount of this as we’ve shifted the business away from reliance on PPC and put a lot of effort into making the sites we do send PPC traffic to unique and filled with added value for the site user.

It’s Been Great, But Dear God It’s Boring!

We had a sit down and worked out how much time we were spending on average doing this important, but frankly simple, task. You ready?

Time Kirsty Spends Writing & Posting Content: 35 Hours Per Month

Time Duncan Spends Posting Content: 40 Hours Per Month

Total: 75 Hours Per Month

Thats An Awful Lot Of Hours!

Not only is that a mahoosive chunk of time, I realised that it also represented a bottleneck. I’ve been outsourcing some content writing for quite some time now to increase output.  However, Duncan had no more time he could devote to posting up said content without going mad with boredom and letting other important tasks slide. In fact, for a long time now he’s struggled to keep up with all his tasks and I’ve started “slacking off” because I was getting fed up.

It Occurred To Me That All of This Was Work That Someone Else Could Do. So…

• I got a friend to write me a WordPress script that will post all our content for us from a CSV spreadsheet.
• I increased my order with my content writer(s) so that output was the same as previously, and then added 20% for good measure. All content is now output into csv format by the writer all ready for posting.

This means that not only have I freed up 75 hours that Duncan and I can do something else with every month, I’ve removed a bottleneck that was stopping us from growing the business more quicky.

How Much Has Freeing 75 Hours Cost Us?

Content: £800 per month

Script: £0 (excellent mates rate eh?!)

This means that to free up no less than 5 days per month each (and bearing in mind we only work an average of 17 days per month) we are paying the roughly £10 an hour to have someone else do  tasks we really have grown to hate and therefore have started to do badly.  30% of our workload has now been lifted and at a cost that represents a *lot* less than 30% of our business profits.

Obviously I will have to spend some time every month sorting out who is writing what, but I’m hoping to get that down to about a morning’s work at the start of each month.

I Feel Great!

It’s a great feeling to have finally sorted this out. Words can’t express how good I feel so I shall leave y’all with a picture from my recent wee break that really sums it all up.

Ahhh… that is SO much better

P.S. I’m hoping to now have a little more time to spend on here engaged in writing I really do enjoy