God Bless You Google – It’s Never Dull!

Ahhh… it’s always the same isn’t it? You decide to take a well earned affiliate holiday and Google turns around and changes all the rules on you!

The introduction of Google Instant Search this week has created widespread anxiety all over the internet. So is it the end of SEO as some have claimed? Frank Paul certainly doesn’t think so.

Of course the new structure of the Google SERPS will definitely mean we’ll see some changes. So far my own stats and traffic levels are pretty much unchanged but as always my attitude is that if I do take a hit I’ll not only find a way to fix it, but also to exploit it. I stand by my earlier comments about affiliates and adversity.

Paul Wright has made some interesting points about the impact of this on affiliate marketing with regards to brand bidding and the possible impact of the consolidation of search phrases away from those longtail searches that are so valuable to all us affiliates. On the other hand, Gregory Lyons thinks that the longtail will see an increase in volume over the longer term.

So to sum up, it’s uncertain business as usual in affiliate land. I’d rather look for opportunities in all of this than threats, I just hope my current “sabbatical” will still allow me to see them in a timely manner.

Speaking of which…

My Week Off The Web

I’ve not had a lot of time for blogging this week with the arrival of our guests, but I thought you guys might like a teeny glimpse of what’s been keeping us apart

Me discovering that Elephants have runny noses.

Meeting a Monitor Lizard at Mapleton Falls.

Proof positive Australia's beaches are NOT overrated (or overcrowded)

Duncs doing some waterfront BBQ-ing... How's the serenity?

So would I like to move back to the UK? Hmmm.....

Short one this week… I’ve been far too busy trying to get my affairs in order to spend much time reading up on interweb type stuff. However I’ve decided to take a wee break from cleaning out my pantry (I kid you not, things were falling on me when I opened the door) to get a post pushed out.

Wanna Know What The Most Popular Affiliate WordPress Themes Are?

It’s a question that’s not too far from the lips of any affiliate either old or new. Check out this juicy snippet from the 2010 Affiliate Summit Affstat Report which was created from a survey of over 1100 affiliates and get the lowdon on the WordPress themes other affiliates rate.

On a related theme, I also found the gen on the most popular WordPress plugins.

Mackays Self Catering – Are You Serious??

Twice this week I’ve had spammy comments like the one below submitted to my travel website: -

I must confess I have absolutely no idea if this sort of activity actually works. I’m far too scared to try it because of the risk of penalty related heart problems. It’s surprising to see a business like Mackay’s Self Catering indulging in this. Such spammy blog commenting is usually from nonsense websites of an erectile disfunction or casino type nature.

Unsubscribe Me!

In other news, I’ve been streamlining my inbox in preparation for my 4 months of limited working time. I get hundreds of unneccessary mails a day, often relating to programmes I’ve no intention of promoting in the near future or merchants I do work with who don’t send out information of value to the way I promote them.

With that in mind, big up unsubscription related kidos to Affiliate Window and Webgains who have a handy little link at the bottom of each mail sent out to help you manage your communication preferences.

Yah boo sucks to Buy.at and CJ whom are going to cause me to have to perform some (possibly fruitless) searches of their FAQs and general affiliate admin areas.

Happy Friday everyone, the weekend is in sight (even more so here in Australia) and it’s time for the best of Kirsty’s week on the web! I’ve changed the name from last week’s rather unimaginative “Friday Further Reading”.

Freaky FourSquare Creepout

Foursquare is a bit of a mystery to me. Of course this is not helped by the fact that I don’t own a mobile phone. However the experience that  Shea Syliva had back in July might make you think twice about how you use it.  Creepy stalker type stuff.  Turns out there really are some nutters hanging around on the internet…

Sell Your House The Affiliate Way

Shawn Collins’ rather beautiful house is on the market, and in typical affiliate style he’s delving into the sales process to try and generate a few targeted leads of his own. Personally I think a lot of Real Estate agents could learn a lot from this sort of highly targeted approach.

Itchy Owie Caterpillar

It’s been a while since I mentioned a creepy crawly experience. To be honest I’m getting used to all the critters here in the sub tropics.

However this week I made the startling discovery that if something as benign as a hairy caterpillar should land upon one’s unwitting neck  it can lead to several days of unfortunate itching and burning. Yes, that’s right. In Australia even caterpillars have poisonous bits on them.

Their official name is the processionary caterpillar (and god help me if I end up with enough in my garden for them to have a parade!) but I’ve re-christened them “The Itchy Owie Caterpillar” because that’s pretty much what they seem to create. General itchy owieness on unfortunate female affiliate marketers taking time out for reflection and a cuppa under a nice shady tree in their garden. Hmph.

Good Guy Of The Week Award

Thanks to Edwyn McFarlane of Affiliate Window who kindly dropped me an e-mail and sent me over some deep links after seeing a frustrated Tweet from me after things went a bit awry for me when I was trying to grab some links on the Awin affiliate interface.  Good to see them and some of the other networks engaging with their affiliates in this way. Thanks Edwyn!

Beware WordPress Theme Functionality

It turns out you really can have too much of a good thing with WordPress theme functionality. This post from Joost De Valk highlights how using  functionality to alter things like titles and descriptions which is included in a theme rather than adding yet another plugin to your setup can end up causing you unneccessary hassles.

Of course in my own case that hasn’t helped much – I currently have a 1,100 page wordpress site which has a broken SEO plugin meaning I can’t edit my existing carefully crafted titles and adding a new plugin will probably delete the lot. I’ve tried screaming into a bucket of water, but to date that solution has been unproductive.

And Finally…. Why Working At Home Is Both Good And Shit At The Same Time!

Want to see the truth of life after going full time as an affiliate? Check this out. And you thought it was all fast cars and glamour!

Have a good weekend everyone

Happy Friday to you all

I’ve been trying to spend a bit more time on knowledge improvement recently by subscribing to useful blogs and generally keeping up to date with interesting internet goings on. It occurred to me on  that if I made a note of anything I think is juicy I could turn it into a bit of a digest on here and (hopefully) give all you guys some good resources and general fun stuff to have a bit of a gander at on a Friday.

I’m not promising to do it every week as I don’t always find much of interest and I’ve never been into posting for the sake of it.  So welcome to the very first edition of Kirsty’s semi regular Friday amble around the interesting corners of the interweb!

Investing In Link Building

The bane of the affiliate’s life!!  This was a good link building post from the guys at Seomoz.  What I particularly liked about it was the thought that you can apply a budget to your link building, and not necessarily a cash budget either.

You can say “I will spend 60 hours building links for this site – now what can I effectively do with that time?” That really struck a note with me.  Most people can think of a few things they could do to try and get links in to their site. By creating a list and allocating time to each item you can set mini project for yourself. Structuring it before you start will make the task more manageable and interesting rather than the endless open ended and downright mysterious slog it can often appear to be.

Rand Fishkin also did an interesting video post about sitewide, reciprocal, and directory links and their SEO value back in May.

Twifficiency – What Was Your Score?

A bit of a buzz was created midweek with the outbreak of mass Twifficiency score reports on Twitter. This led to it’s creator, James Cunningham, getting his very own online article in time magazine and a host of other PR. UK AM’s very own Clarke Duncan had his tweet talking about how he was going to consider offering young James a job featured in the article meaning he was able to bask in the reflected glory of the latest internet sensation. He didn’t let his newfound online celebrity go to his head though.  Meanwhile, Kieron was a lot less impressed with the general Twifficiency hoo hah.

The Emperor’s New CO’s

Continuing on our Clarke Duncan related theme, this is ever so slightly old news but just in case you haven’t read his excellent post on the latest domain extension release you can check it out on his blog. A great take on a traditional tale.

This Document is Confidential – Errr… No It’s Not

Tweeter Garret Gillas noted that a lot of people have apparently still not learned how to use a robots.txt file to protect their secret documents!

No Index, No Follow My House

This gave me a rather ridiculous mental image of houses with large No Index tags just beside the front door. People in Germany can now remove their houses from Google Street View.  As an incredibly nosey person I disagree with this notion totally.

IAB Launch Their Blog

I noted on A4U this week that the IAB have launched their blog.  Subscribe now if you have ever asked yourself the question “what do these guys actually do for us?” and keep yourself up to date with their initiatives, meetings, and agendas.

Lammo’s Decade As An Affiliate Marketer

Think that once you’re on the full time affiliate gravy train that life is just a sedate saunter down easy street?  Check out John Lamerton’s full and frank disclosure in his recently completed 3 part post on the ups and downs of his affiliate business since he went full time.  Eye opening stuff and I’m filled with admiration for John, both for his tenacity through some really stressful times and for a very honest and open description of his journey.

Part 1 – Getting Started & Going Full Time
Part 2 – Making A Fortune, Losing A Fortune
Part 3 -Knock It All Down & Start Again

He’s Made A Total Arse of Himself

Nothing to do with affiliate marketing at all, but I’d like to round off with my favourite news story of the week about a burglar who was sprung after getting his ass caught in a window. Love the humiliating pictures they took of him before releasing him!!

If you have ever been burgled this will at least demonstrate there is such a thing as Karma

Have You Read Anything Good This Week?

I’ve you’ve read any crackers this week, post them below and share!