Affiliate marketing has always been fun. The dynamic cut and thrust and the thrill of making those sales until… the horror of a Google update that wipes you off the planet. More of a slash and stab than cut and thrust!

I thought about trying to write an affiliate guide to the Panda update. But given the many faceted ways this simple sounding “content farm and quality” update is affecting my affiliate colleagues I decided I just wasn’t qualified to talk about things I don’t understand. However what I can do is talk about what’s happened in my own tiny corner of the affiliate sphere.

My Tale of Two Websites

I’m in a bit of a unique situation. I have two websites that, at least on the face of things, are identical in structure and SEO strategy and are even occupying similar niches. One took a downward spiral to bogey town whilst the other enjoyed a meteoric rise to SERPS wonderfulness.

So paying special attention to user experience or things that might give off poor quality signals similar to those employed by naughty spammers here’s the key differences I found between my sites.

I’m sure regular readers will know which sites I’m talking about, but I’m going to refer to them as Site A (affected) and Site B (unaffected) to make this easier to read.

User Experience

• Engagement – Site B has a much higher repeat visitor rate, double the average page views per visitor, and almost double the average time spent on site than Site A. It  is generally a much more efficient website and seems to engage the users much more. The majority of Site B’s main pages channelled users into a feed section where there was product data from several merchants. Site A zipped visitors straight through to merchant from key pages – effectively “getting in the way” of the merchant.
• Site Performance – Site B has a faster download speed whilst Site A is increasingly slow, clunky, and inefficient. It also has a dated design in desperate need of updating.

Quality Signals

• Usage Patterns – Visitors to Site B tend to have a more natural pattern of moving through the site whilst Site A’s visitors are more likely to be catapulted straight out to a merchant. The main categories are populated with useful content and rank well whereas Site A is the exact opposite. From a common sense POV having useful content in parts of the site architecture that Google would expect to be key to the site, and having users interact with it, does make sense from a quality perspective.
• Thin Affiliate – Google had indexed all the masked redirects on Site A despite them being blocked via the Robots.txt – thus it knew exactly what all those links were i.e. of an affiliate nature. Site B did not suffer this fate.
• Site scrapers – Site A is absolutely plagued by these whilst Site B hasn’t had many hassles. Pretty much all my mini articles have been scraped back to front and sideways. For many, the site doesn’t even rank first for unique text snippets and hasn’t done for quite some time.  There are literally hundreds of these and they outweigh the brand pages in terms of volume. They are all also very thin and will be pages people only spend a few seconds on. Sounding toxic much??
• Link Profiles – Site A has quite a poor link profile. Too many exchanges and directory submissions and not enough natural looking link love. On the other hand, Site B has a bit more content with “oh my god would you look at that” appeal. It has therefore got a smattering of unrequested links from quality sources.
• Highly Optimised Pages - Thanks to a malfunctioning SEO plugin many of Site B’s page titles were much less optimised than Site A’s. Totally unoptimsied even. I noticed this after being given the heads up on “Soft” pages ranking better than more aggressively optimised pages post Panda by SEO champ Lee McCoy (he has my eternal gratitude). To my surprise many of Site B’s pages were ranking better in their less optimised form.

Conclusions?

There are some pretty glaring differences between those two sites – and it seems Site A has an awful lot of tell tell negative factors.

However fear not! By paying attention to the above factors plus some other common sense stuff I’ve already managed to get Site A on the long trudge back up the SERPS.

Stay tuned for the next exciting episode where I’ll tell you my recovery plan, what changes I’ve made so far, and how they have affected Site A’s performance!

The title is in response to your question “where have you been?” and I reckon that “in the huff” neatly encapsulates it.  I’m aware that probably makes me sound a teeny bit childish, but it just so happens to be true.

It’s Been A Funny Old Time Since January

Since January I’ve been in a terrible old state really.  In my post back then I mentioned my site, Lingerie Brands was looking to be falling out of favour with Google ever so slightly.  Realising I had to improve quality dramatically I had to take an unprecendented step….

Yep, shock horror… I had to let someone else do some development work for the site. In my 8 years as an affiliate I’ve always done my own work and development. Thusly I could do a bit, tinker around with it, change my mind, and generally fart around to my hearts content.  For the first time ever I had to admit something was beyond me and go through a process to develop a brief and actually visualise (or try to) a project from start to finish.

Get Out The Thumbscrews Dan…

To say that this was a mental nosebleed for me is a positively rabid understatement.  Fortunately Dan at WP Doctors is everything I’m not and managed to steer me through the process without ever letting on his desk now sports a forehead shaped dent thanks to his efforts at getting me to tell him what I actually wanted beyond “look, just make it good eh??”. More about the ins and outs of the project at a later date when it’s all integrated into the site.

Combine this with me trying to work out what Google actually wanted, and the further decline of my site in several depressing stages and by the end of my working day I wasn’t in any fit state to actually talk to you guys.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not bemoaning cruel fate – Lingerie Brands has been in dire need of improvement for a long time now. And that’s exactly what it’s going to get.  Fortunately I’m in a position where other sites rose as good ‘ol LB fell… so I’m only marginally worse off in terms of revenue.

Again, more from me on all of this later. On another note it’s also solved my far too hasty complaint about being a bit bored!

On A Brighter Note I’ve Also Been to New Zealand!

Very therapeutic this was – I’ve returned with a clear head and a quite badly dented bank account. Hey ho, it was all worth it to finally see a little bit of the South Island.

Here’s The Obligatory Boring / Smug Holiday Snaps…

Some dazzling (and slightly squint) self photography at Lake Tekapo observatory

We grabbed a helicopter to take us to look at Mt Cook. I didn't know you could scream inside your head till it took off...

Duncs and I on our overnight trip around Milford Sound. It were bloody freezing so don't laugh at my hat!!

Although Just To Show You Can Never Escape From Your Work…

We had a lovely time spending the night on a boat on Milford Sound. We were seated with two of the only other young-ish people on the boat for dinner (much to our relief), two lovely lads from San Francisco.

As we all got stuck into our respective bottles of wine we talked about technology, the internet, and travel. Eventually I mentioned a bit about what I did for a living and how Google was being causing me a few wee hassles at the moment and that I was convinced Matt Cutts was stalking me because every time I went on holiday there was an Algo change (I arrived in New Zealand on April 12th).

“Oh really?” they said. “Ahhhh… we work for Google.”

“What?!” I said. “REALLY??!! Back of the boat – youse are leaving!!”

They hastily explained search quality was not their bag, and cordial relations resumed.

I should really have asked them if they wouldn’t mind letting Matt Cutts’ tyres down when they got home and perhaps popping a wee note on his windscreen saying “Get it right Matt! Leave me alone and stop ruining my bloody holidays! Lots of love from Kirsty xxx.” I was to polite to ask, but I’m sure they would have been happy do it if they had a notion never to work in the tech industry ever again.

I will always smile when I remember meeting those guys.

Anyhoo…

There be more from me soon on fun topics such as my Google Panda recovery strategy and similar type stuff. LB has been terribly affected by the update, odd considering it’s so similar to my other sites in structure (don’t know if I’m relieved or terrified about that one!). I have some theories on this though and will share them once I’ve thought about them a bit more and played around with things. I don’t want to go chucking red herrings around the joint, there’s enough of those on that subject already!

Cheerio

A friend of mine pointed this neato little plugin out to me last week (thanks Zane!).

The WordPress Broken Link Checker will: -

• Search your entire blog for links returning 404s or other errors.
• Output the problem links into one handy dandy interface.
• Let you edit and change any broken links in one place.
• Detects missing images.
• Gives you lots of clever options on how to deal with broken links on your pages generally.
• Will regularly check your site as often as you want and e-mail you if anything is wrong.

If you have put affiliate links direct into your content you’ve just had a merchant change their site and not implement redirects, leaving you with a site loaded with broken affiliate links this strikes me as an absolute lifesaver that will save you a LOT of time.  Similarly if you have a large site that is several years old and don’t have a strategy to keep up with content that has gone stale I reckon this is an absolute must add to your WordPress arsenal.

I’ve tested it out on my Lingerie Brands site and the only issue I had with it was that it seemed to make my dashboard run a teeny bit slow for a little while. It also reported a lot of my links as broken due to the way I manage and redirect them back out to the merchant.  However Zane also made use of it and reported no problems. I’d perhaps set it to run overnight “just in case”.  As always with a new plugin, making sure that your databases are all nice and backed up is also a great idea. I’d hate to be responsible for suggesting something that melted your site database

Hope it helps some of you guys

Almost everyone involved in making a living at the pointy end of affiliate marketing will have felt “The Affiliate Fear” – that little nagging feeling at the back of your head that everything you’ve built might get taken away from you. Why? Well, either because the industry attracts a higher than average proportion of poor souls suffering from paranoia, or because we spend a ridiculous portion of our working lives with the proverbial Sword of Damocles dangling about 3 inches above our unprotected internet heads.

Where Does The Fear Come From?

We don’t have a very hefty sword dangling above our heads and held in place by a single fragile horse hair – but our working lives certainly are plagued with uncertainty. Affiliate marketing is a unique industry – like any other it has a body (the IAB in the UK at least) that issues everyone with guidelines on how to play nice and generally be all round, ethically sound, good chaps. However, unlike other industries it’s not those guidelines that determine who sinks and swims in the affiliate world – it’s Google’s.

A Sword? That Is SO Last Millenium – Try a Google Bomb!

In a nutshell, these are as follows. “Make your site useful to users, add value over and above that offered by the merchants you feature. We hate pages occupying a space that might as well just be the originator of the product. Do not copy stuff from other people’s sites, please don’t use spammy tactics. Make it good.”

“Oh, and just a few small provisos. We like some sites more than others, so what one man can get away with will buy the next chap a one way ticket to Google-blivion. Failure to adhere strictly to the complex guidelines we have issued might result in your business being destroyed overnight. Or maybe not. Did we mention the nitty gritty of our guidelines are actually absolutely top secret so you won’t find out you’ve made a booboo, or we’ve changed them until you wake up one morning and realise it’s time to see what positions McDonalds might have available for you?”

Janet hated getting up in the mornings and discovering she'd won the "Google-blivion" raffle again...

And This is What Makes Us Unique…

If you’re a mortgage broker, insurance rep, own a shop or indeed any sort of business at all you’ll have a list of guidelines that governs absolutely every facet of your operation. They’re all designed to protect the consumer (as Google seeks to protect it’s users). They’re also written clearly in big letters where everyone can see them.

Affiliates? We have a regular prize draw type arrangement to see if we’ve still got a business or not! And my very favourite part – there’s absolutely nothing we can do about it.

Use The Fear – But Don’t Let It Use You!

Now that I’ve set a mental picture of hollow eyed affiliates waiting for their ticket to be drawn in the “one way trip to Google-blivion” raffle extravaganza, I’d like to point out that using the anxiety of this ever present Damocles-esque threat is actually a very healthy thing.

Am I scared? Of course I am, all the bloody time!! But I never get to that sweaty palmed world is about to end stage. As I go about my daily affiliate business I constantly gather data about Google and it’s goings on. Eventually, little things will start tugging at the corner of my mind. When something’s been in there a month and won’t go away I know it’s time to do something about it. I’ve learned to channel my worries and anxieties into positive action, and it’s kept my business growing.

If you’re new to affiliate marketing, this will be the most important skill you can learn.

If you’re already in affiliate marketing and think you don’t need it – I’ll have a big mac, coke, and large fries thanks.

Long term readers of this humble blog will know just how long I’ve spent being inspired by books such as the 4 hour work week and trying to cut down my working hours and generally streamline my business. The idea is to use the flexibility offered by affiliate marketing to enjoy more leisure time.

Mission Accomplished

After returning from my recent 4 month sabbatical I decided to bite the bullet and drop my working week down to 3 days. This has worked exactly as I’d hoped – the business is still running well and the time I put in is enough to keep it growing.

There’s only one problem though…

I’m Absolutely Bored Shitless!!!!!!!!!!!

Err… the thing is I’ve always said I eat, sleep, and breathe affiliate marketing. That is absolutely true. The only problem with this is that somewhere along the road I’ve clearly lost sight of who I am when not being an all round internet surf champ. In fact when I think about it, the process of losing sight of “who I really am” started when I left home and went to uni 16 years ago.

Pre university Kirsty was always busy. Drawing, painting, knitting, sewing, stamp collecting, antiquing, flower making, paper marbling, embroidery – I was always into something. But when I left home, all that creative energy went into shaping myself and my future. Standing back and admiring my handiwork I think I’ve done a decent enough job, so no complaints there.

But what the f**k do I do now?

Kirsty The Newbie

Now I empathise more strongly than ever with all you newbs out there in affiliate land. I thought I remembered what it was like, but now I realise the struggle to get started fades in your mind as you move further away from it. Trying to find things to occupy my now extensive leisure time makes me realise just what a hard job all you guys have!

I have all these ideas for projects, but feel I need to understand the whole process before I dive in. So nothing happens. I have so many ideas that I spend hours researching and never actually seem to start anything, and I’m too scared to invest money in my ideas in case they don’t work out and I end up with a whole load of junk I don’t really want or need. I’m already that bored with being bored that all I can do when I try to find something to do is sit around…. being bored.

And Here’s The Dangerous Part…

I keep on ending up in my good ‘ol familiar office. But not working. I end up checking stats, looking at projects and visiting the same old websites I use to break up my working day over and over again – just because I don’t know what else to do.

And then guess what happens when I step into the office to try and do my 3 days of work?

I’m Absolutely Bored Shitless!!!!!!!!!!!

*cough* so just to recap. I aimed to work less, live more, and earn more so I could enjoy an exciting and fulfiling life.

What I’ve achieved is indeed working less and earning more but not enjoying any of it. I’m using all this extra spare time to experience the utter and stultifying boredom and apathy I’ve apparently waited so long to enjoy. Nice work love – that’ll be one to tell the grandkids about eh? Well, if I can be bothered to have any.

Insert Positive and Upbeat Comment Here

Now y’all know me. I’m a glass is half full type of gal… except today I can’t be arsed. So do me a favour – insert your own upbeat comment about how I’m going to jolly well pull myself together and fabricate a rich and fulfilling leisure life in the space I’ve left below.
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There. Now isn’t that better?

Want to experience a day in my shoes and find out why this blog has been a little quiet recently despite my wild promises of more top quality affiliate prose now I’m back home?

Just follow this easy step by step guide to seeing the affiliate world through my eyes and all shall be revealed dear readers…

1. Locate a convenient greenhouse. Perhaps see if the botanical gardens in London can accommodate.
2. Move your office desk in there.
3. Increase the ambient temperature to 32c (that’s 89.6f).
4. Just for a bit of a giggle, whack up the humidity to around 95%.
5. Now do 6 hours affiliate related work in those temperatures with just a fan to cool you down.
6. Endure several browser crashes per day because your computer system is too hot. This will usually be at a crucial moment and will enrage you considerably.
7. Once you’ve finished your days work, pause to push your glasses back on your nose (they’ll have been sliding off for quite some time) and decide should you a ) think up a dazzling bit of blog prose or b ) rush off and spend some quality time under a cold shower before dropping insensible onto the sofa.
8. Now you know why I haven’t been blogging.
Image credit: CartoonADay.com

Don’t even dare ask why my office isn’t air conditioned – in this house nothing is as simple as selecting a single job and just doing it. Because we’re mid renovation even the simplest tasks seem to end up requiring an entire section of wall to be replaced, major drainage works, and some kind of retaining wall to be constructed.

It’s Not Only The Temperature That’s Been Distracting Me

Other than wrestling with blazing hot computer keyboards and still trying to do a reasonable days work I’ve also been having a hot time of it at the hands of Google.

In my last post about how affiliates need to lift their game I didn’t mention that one of my own sites had been affected by the rumblings from the Google jungle (although I spoke about it in the comments section). Lingerie Brands has had a rather nasty gouge taken out of its traffic and rankings and I’ve been spending a lot of time working out how we will redevelop the site to keep Google happy.

Initially I thought it could be a “thin affiliate” filter being applied, however I’ve since realised that it’s not so much my site having a blanket type filter applied as other sites being deemed more appropriate to rank higher in the SERPS.

I don’t want to go into it too much here but I’ve found where I’ve lost rankings I’ve largely been replaced by merchants themselves and sites doing interesting and useful type stuff with product feeds. Where I’m still ranking A-OK there’s not so many merchants or sites of that nature in the space. Also, if it had been an adjustment to their thin affiliate filter I’d have expected my other similarly structured mens underwear site to be affected – but it’s not. In fact its got more traffic than ever.

So I’ve spent a sweltering week working out a redevelopment brief for good ‘ol LB so she can keep up with the times. In all honestly, its long overdue. The current site format is old, tired, and needs to improve the value it adds to the users. I’ve known that for quite some time and Google’s just sent me the loud and clear message that they couldn’t agree more! I’ll post more on this when my thoughts are more… cogent!

I’m actually very happy this has happened in an odd way – I’m going to be able to add in all sorts of little time saving functionalities to my site and we will then also be able to roll out similar principles to our other sites and redevelop those also.

2011 is going to be an interesting year and so long as it cools down a bit – I’m really looking forward to it

Hey… can you guys hear that? I think I may be able to hear the winds of change advancing upon affiliate land!

In recent weeks I’ve been hearing campfire-esque affiliate horror stories told in hushed tones from some corners of the internet.  There are tales of affiliate websites being hit with the dreaded Google slap and *gasp* some of them have unique content.

Google’s New “Low Quality” Algo Tweak

It was only ever a matter of time – but in recent days Google’s very own Matt Cutts has announced that there has been an algo change to try and weed out sites with “shallow or low-quality content“. Of course the announcement is very vague in nature, but it’s clear this is a further advance on the Mayday Update which had so many affiliates shuddering in horror.

The key question here is, what constitutes low quality content? I’d suggest that this is something all us affiliates should be giving some mighty careful consideration. “Low quality” is not the same as “Non Unique”. Two recent cases in point from the Google Webmaster help threads when the algo tweak began to bite should serve to illustrate my point neatly: -

The Case Of The Travel Site Owner

A travel site owner found his site complete with unique content had been slapped silly. Now, whether or not this was justified aside Google Employee John Mu posts some useful points to the thread including: -

• “One thing that is very important to us with affiliate-oriented sites is that the site provides enough unique and compelling content of its own, that it would stand on its own feet if the affiliate content were removed.”
• “our algorithms generally tend to prefer sites that are either the original source (saving the user time on clicking through) or sites that have really strong content.“

I really feel for the webmaster in that thread, when you read through it his anguish is all too obvious.

The Case of Unique Not Being Unique Enough

In another thread, a webmaster complains that Google has penalized my entire network of 30+ sites (credit to Lee McCoy who posted the link on Facebook!). He scores a reply from Matt Cutts himself.  In this case Matt is saying that although his content is unique on the face of things, it’s not very high quality and therefore not considered unique enough by the algo.

Specific Examples Aside…

What we as affiliates should all be taking away from this is that we need to make sure what we are providing users isn’t just the same as a merchant site, or equal in quality. It must surpass the information people can get by going straight to the merchant.

Due to a lack of wholesale wailing and gnashing of teeth from the affiliate world I’d say that Googles algos are developing subtly. However, as we see time and time again Google constantly raise the bar on us affiliates. I think it’s time for us all to take a step back, look at our sites sites, and ask “Does this add value over and above what my users can find on the merchant site?”.

If the answer is no, or you’re not sure I think it’s time to start working towards changing that. The thing about a truly valuable resource is that it takes a heck of a lot of time and effort to build. In my opinion it’s better to start now and avoid potential pain later. I’m certainly going to do this as of today. My mantra will be “I have to be better than the merchant”.

If the Google boogey man doesn’t eventuate (and lets face it Google love to slide on the boogey man outfit where affiliates are concerned!), my websites will be much better for my efforts and will ultimately benefit my business more.

I’d say that was a win-win, huh?

Remember me?  Odd Scottish girl who likes to ramble on a bit about affiliate marketing?

Hehehe, I’ve had a handful of people wondering where the hell I’ve gotten to recently after an unprecedented silence on this blog. The answer is quite simple – I decided to take a complete and utter break from affiliate marketing for the last few weeks of my holiday and was mostly successful (barring having to upgrade my website servers around Christmas and being repeatedly woken from my bed by downtime alerts).

I did miss talking to you guys though

Back Into The Dynamic Cut and Thrust…

Urgh, they say breaking up is never easy but honestly it should be getting back together is never easy. I’ve now resumed my relationship with affiliate marketing and have spent the most dispiriting 4 days slogging through a pile of admin type tasks I’ve let build up. I definately lost the will to live a couple of times this week. But that’s all completely normal type stuff and it never takes long for something to reignite my spark.

What A Difference 4 Months Makes!

As soon as I got down to surveying my own personal affiliate landscape in depth I realised there’s been some massive changes for me whilst I’ve been on my extended break. My PPC is now barely registering on the spendometer, Christmas was “steady” rather than a “woah!!!!”, and my sources of income have altered wildly.

Thanks to my unwillingness to push my luck with Adwords this year, some programme changes, and some niches that have traditionally done well just not going off for me during December / January – I’m out into uncharted territory. However, I’ll still end this month 30% up on January last year thanks to one of my newer sites which has neatly stepped in to take up all that slack and then some.

And That’s What I LOVE About Affiliate Marketing

Ahh, the romance is back on!  I adore the ever changing, always challenging, and often perplexing nature of trying to keep making a living at this game.  If you stand still or rest on your laurels things invariably fall apart.  What you thought was the solid bedrock of your business turns to sand and dribbles through your unresponsive fingers if you don’t keep on pushing and innovating.  My business today is only still on the up because I enjoy and embrace the double edged nature of the business – even when it’s cutting me to damned well ribbons

But more about all these changes when I’ve had more time to analyse and ruminate on them!

Queensland Floods

As I’m sure most of you realise I’ve made my home in Queensland. Fortunately I live on the Sunshine Coast and despite a huge amount of rain falling we have been spared the devastation that’s unfolded in the rest of the state. My house is absolutely choked with mould, my front door has swollen to twice it’s normal size, and my house was infested with termites thanks to all the damp weather. I count myself incredibly lucky considering all the terrible flooding and tragic stories, and will be kept busy with the clean up for quite a few weeks to come.

If you’d like to make a donation to help those affected by the floods you can do so at this site here.

We did have an interesting feature crop up at the bottom of our garden which I think will demonstrate just how much water the sky can throw at you here in the sub tropics.

Should there be a creek at the bottom of our garden dear? I'm sure it wasn't there yesterday!

Meanwhile, Enjoy These Travel Pics

On a more sunny note, we did manage to find a bit of good weather recently – so here’s a some  sunshine pics to show you all that Queensland really is an incredibly beautiful place and a bit of what we’ve been up to since I last posted.

Walking along the best beach in the world with my friends - Whitehaven

Duncs chills out on our Whitsundays boat trip

Our birdseye view of the NYE Fireworks on Sydney Harbour

More from me soon, and any pictures from now on are more likely to be of mould than any gorgeous beaches!!

I’ve been back in Australia just under a week now and getting caught up with my sites. Alas, I’ve had to renege on my promise to not work upon my return as we have to sort out some Google Adwords issues I’ve mentioned previously and get our new site up and running.

Seeing as I’m at my desk anyhow I thought I’d get back into my semi regular Friday posts and let y’all know what I’ve been up to and some of the stuff I’ve been reading about.

Don’t Know Your Canonical From Yer Elbow?

Confused by the difference between 301 redirects and rel=canonical? I know I was, but thanks to this extremely comprehensive guide from the lovely people over at SEOMoz I now need wonder no more! Basically 301′s are for your everyday site and content moving situations, redirecting traffic from expired content to the most relevant page on your site, and preventing multiple home page versions from being indexed. The canonical tag can be a much easier to use alternative, is handy for letting search engines know about pages which may be duplicates where a 301 is inappropriate, and stopping automatically generated URLs such as those containing session id’s being indexed.

Simple eh? If, like me, you’re a bit behind on the wonderful world of canonical fun catch up here!

Could You Make A Better Job of a Site Than Someone Else?

A great post from the very entertaining Finch pointing out that there may be financial opportunities to be had by taking on someone else’s dud project and adding a bit of affiliate magic. If a site’s current owner doesn’t have the mindset to monetise a project, maybe you do!

A4U Awards – The End Of The Blog Awards

Entries for the 2011 A4U Awards are now open. I see that the best blog category is now defunct as my fellow blogger and current holder of the accolade Jason Dale pointed out.

The reason is “due to the lack of active bloggers”, and to be honest I agree with Matt & team’s decision completely. Without a larger pool of bloggers I think the award was going to get a little bit pointless this year with no new blood for voters to consider. They’ve said if the pool expands they’ll revisit having an award for affiliate blogs. I’d love to see more people blogging within the UK space so here’s hoping the award will resurface at some later date.

Think There’s a lot of Money in 2nd Tier Affiliate Marketing?

Well think again! John Lammerton has referred just oodles of new affiliates to UK networks, some of whom are now pulling in very nice monthly amounts of up to five figures per month. So did he write his post from his private yacht moored off Capri? Well, maybe not…

Whilst we’re talking about Mr Lammerton, he’s recently started a brand new and original feature called “Ask Lammo” *cough* If you’d like to ask this experienced affiliate marketer and owner of Easy Content Units any questions just use the little box in the bottom right hand side of his site.

It’s ages since I had any Ask Kirsty questions (between John and Affiliate Doctors perhaps I’m being edged out of the market?!?!). So if anyone has any problems they’d like unpicked and analysed for public consumption please do drop me a line.

Are These The Furthest Travelled Affiliate Freebies Ever?

As you may or may not remember, we picked up a fair few freebies from various sources at the A4U Expo. To prove that there’s no lengths an affiliate won’t go to in order to bring home their conference goodies here’s a picture of our stash which has travelled on no less than 7 flights since we were in London at the Expo.

By far the most impressive feat is the transport of the 6 Peroni glasses my Duncan liberated from the opening party with the help of two willing accomplices with very large handbags. Fitting them into our already stacked to the brim luggage and actually keeping them in one piece ended up being the mission of the century. They now have just as much sentimental value as our wedding crystal and serve as a reminder of just how much an affiliate values a good freebie

Actually, I think a far more appropriate title for this post would probably be “why it’s impossible for Kirsty to have a real holiday”. Having just got back from a very, very cool trip I want you to know I was thinking about affiliate marketing and this blog at some very improbable junctures!

Its clear that my passion for affiliate marketing is verging on the obsessive. I couldn’t stop those insistent little analogies popping into my mind when I was supposed to be concentrating on some of the world’s most impressive sights.

Pompeii – Don’t Build Your Business on The Side of a Volcano

"So we'll build the main plaza so that scenic volcano sort of dominates the town. Whats that? Nahhhh.... it won't go off!"

When our Roman chums built this amazing place they knew Vesuvius was a volcano – they just didn’t realise it was an active one. I was quite shocked to find there are 700,000 people living in the Naples area today. If this old lady blows her top (a trick she’s long overdue to perform) there are hundreds of thousands of unlucky residents in the danger zone. There are also some fairly firm doubts about the effectiveness of the evacuation plans

Seemingly madness, but there’s a huge number of dodgy adwords accounts, sly cookie stuffers, website copiers, and naughty fraudsters determined to make that easy buck building their empires on shaky ground. If you’ve based your income on something a little bit dubious, have been getting away with it for a while, and think you’ll never be caught – think again! There’s nothing worse than being shaken from your bed at 3am by the distant rumbling of a financial pyroclastic flow heading straight for your bank account.

Much like Vesuvius it’s not a matter of if, but when.

Rome – It’s Not All About The Colosseum Darling!

When you think of Rome, you instantly think of the Colosseum - but it ain't the only amazing bit of tourist eye candy in the neighbourhood!

Affiliate marketing suffers from what I’ll call “Colosseum Syndrome” for the purposes of this little rant-ette. “So Bill, I hear you’re taking up affiliate marketing. What are you going to promote? Ah yes. Mortgages and Gambling – a wise choice. However, have you considered checking out the rest of the affiliate neighbourhood?”

Time and time again in affiliate marketing people target the obvious and don’t put any effort into finding out about any beautiful yet underrated gems that might be nearby, and much easier to exploit without having to fight through crowds of competitors.

Not far from the Colosseum and only 4 other people there.

Leaning Tower of Pisa – Solid Foundations Are Essential!

Duncs refusing point blank to do the traditional holding up the tower pic (thank goodness or I'd have started divorce proceedings).

The Tower of Pisa was built in 3 stages, each stage tried to correct the obvious lean which means this tower has levels hanging all over the place to try and give the impression of a straight, well built tower. It was finally stabilised just a few years ago. Only took just under a thousand years to sort out

This anaology would have been obvious to anyone, the only way to build your affiliate business is on foundations of hard work. Anything else and you’ll have to spend an unpleasant amount of time and money going back and doing the underpinning work which may, or may not, work!

Some Other Pics Sans Smug Analogies

Thanks for bearing with me during those, it was essential to my mental wellbeing that I get them out onto the blog as I couldn’t believe how they kept popping into my head when I was supposed to be busy touristing!

Nice was... nice although my Dad is looking unimpressed here!

Me on the cruise ship in a dress, behaving myself, wearing makeup, and hair done. Quick! Call Record Breakers!!

Meeting the local wildlife in Krabi….

But the best bit of the trip… god it’s so good to be back home in Australia!