Well, my blog has lain silent this week save for the odd tumbleweed spinning through. I’ve come up with a lot of post ideas… but I can’t quite get them to make sense. Same deal with work. I’m getting some stuff done, but mostly I’m sitting with my head abuzz jumping from one task to the next without really doing much work.
Why? Because my head is full. Nothing’s happening. The cogs have ceased up.
So. Seeing as I’ve posted so much info that people have found useful, Y’all are going to help me out. You’re all going to sit there and “listen” whilst I terrify you with the inner workings of my fevered mind.
Kirstys List of AARRRGGGHHHH
- Calls to action – could they be better on my sites? How, what’ll I do? How shall I test it? Can I be assed to do split testing?
- Figleaves. Whatever next? Why aren’t they converting like they used to? Are they taking the piss? Where would the £XX,XXX to replace my annual commission from them come from if they shut. What process to identify and test new merchants?
- What should I do this year to diversify, how can I make sure that time is being spent in the most profitable way possible? Where should my business be going?
- Why oh why do people keep contacting me and saying “we’re really keen for you to promote merchant X,Y & Z” and then when I respond and ask for a teeny bit of easy to provide info do they NOT EFFING REPLY?????????
- Credit crunch – oh brother! All the rules have changed, the laws of conversion and seasonality no longer apply. Or do they? What will happen? Why are some of the big brands not converting for highly targeted traffic?!
- The growth of my Lingerie Site. I’m adding 10 new categories a week. How long can it stay as a Wordpress blog, what’ll I do about that massive category list, why won’t any of the many pagination plugins out there bloody well work so I can improve my cross linkage?!
- For that matter, when I’m growing the site… who should I give my time to. What merchants will work, whom should I trial now, who will perform well later in the year? Who’s gonna turn out to be the arsehole that causes me aggro?
- The Australia Dollar / GBP exchange rate is up and down like a YoYo on acid. My income value is going up and down like I don’t know what. I agonise over exchange rate data daily. How can I plan what to do this year when I’ve no idea of the “real” cost when the bill comes????
- God its hot. It’s so bloody hot I can’t think. I sit sweating at my desk all day waiting for the fan to blow some hot air in my direction. Whose idea was it to put the office in this room? Oh feck, it was mine. Should I buy an airconditioner. Is that environmentally wrong?
- Google Analytics has gone all “Winky Wanky Woo” on one of my sites. Its recording PPC traffic as organic traffic, its driving me mad and ruining my nice stats. How will I fix that?
- My new Australian site is going great guns. What’ll I do next in the Aussie search space? How can I improve what I already have further? What next for the SEO.
- What’ll I do about this link campaign I’ve signed up for and can’t bring myself to sort out?
- AAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
*Ahem. I’m off to hide in the airconditioned livingroom. Normal service will be resumed when I straighten myself out. Whisky will be taken and a notepad will be filled.
Wish me luck 
January 30th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
Whats the URL of the Aussie site? What vertical did you choose?
January 30th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
I can appreciate your situation! Such an unpredictable year with so many different directions to run.
One possible solution for “The Australia Dollar / GBP exchange rate” issue: if you can estimate your monthly cash flows (expenses), you can set up some currency forward contracts with a forex trading site like xe.com (https://www.xe.com/fx/login/). Basically, this allows you to lock in an exchange rate for different months of the year and you wouldn’t have to worry about the AUS/GBP fluctuations.
But then again, it’s a bit complicated and, all things considered on your Argggggghhh list, probably falls towards the bottom of your heap
I’ve heard of other agencies / affiliates with a similar predicament, so even if it’s at the bottom of your list, it may be helpful for someone else…
January 30th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Hey Kirsty
Question for you… why do your archive links on your lingerie page all redirect to your homepage? Is that intentional?
John
January 30th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
Google Analytics has been reporting paid traffic as organic traffic for the past few months on a few sites. pain in the arse and many Google account managers have been informed but no solution still.
January 31st, 2009 at 12:05 am
Oh Kirsty – this isn’t how it’s meant to work – us newbies turn to you for advice – not the other way round.
Re the categories list – not sure what you’ve done recently but it looks a lot better (imho)- would a second navbar with parent and child categories in drop down style not work? No doubt the big list works well for SEO though?
We’re expecting snow here over the weekend – so if it’s too hot over there – get yourself to the airport!
January 31st, 2009 at 9:17 am
Thanks Kirsty – you just made me feel better
You could use the jquery ccordion http://bassistance.de/jquery-plugins/jquery-plugin-accordion/
I’m pretty sure its still SEO friendly
January 31st, 2009 at 10:39 am
ROFL! sorry Kirsty, can’t help it. Now you know just what my head is like every day, only add the worry of looking after 24 dogs to that list, plus the fact that I fell over last week and damaged my back so am sitting here miserably thinking of the pain I am in
Seriously, you have made my day as I didn’t think you ever got days like that
January 31st, 2009 at 3:52 pm
Hey Kirsty, Sounds a little hectic in your world at the moment. Maybe a bit of reading will take your mind off these things a bit and offer a few solutions in the pages too. The Mind map thing sounds very simple but surprisingly i’ve found it can help you chill out a bit when your head it buzzing!
Mind Map by Tony Buzan – http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Mind-Map-Ultimate-Thinking/dp/0007146841
Call To Action by Eisenberg ros.- http://www.amazon.co.uk/Call-Action-Formulas-Improve-Results/dp/078521965X
80/20-Do more/work less – http://www.amazon.co.uk/80-20-Principle-Secret-Achieving/dp/1857883993/
February 1st, 2009 at 12:40 am
At least you have some sun. It’s bleak here in blight!
February 1st, 2009 at 11:42 pm
My guess is that it is probably Aus. that is getting you down as the place is a toilet.
February 2nd, 2009 at 11:57 am
http://lesterchan.net/portfolio/programming/php/#wp-pagenavi – I’ve used this pagenation script for wordpress on a couple of sites with no worries.
February 3rd, 2009 at 7:40 am
Thanks for all the nice comments everyone (except John, did you have a bad holiday here or something, ha ha ha!!)
A few helpful suggestions in there too, thanks to everyone who posted a wee resource I’ll be looking at them all.