I’ve always loved the way Amazon work as an online retailer – They analyse just about every possible part of the user journey, and do everything within their power to not only close a sale, but increase basket size, and leave feedback about the product to help close the sale for future shoppers.

They think of just about every possible user objection, and offer a solution, all on the one page – Wrong colour (here’s the other colours), Wrong size (here’s the other sizes), not what I’m looking for (here’s what you might be looking for based on what other people eventually bought after viewing this page), it might not work (user reviews telling you it does.. or user reviews telling you it DOESN’T, but then a link to a very similar product that has favourable reviews).

I really enjoyed the Conversion Rate Experts session at a4uexpo last month all about increasing the conversion rate of your landing page – The upshot of it was that longer pages (with the RIGHT info, and the RIGHT call to actions) converted 170% better in their example. This caused some disbelief in the room as it goes against everyone’s main thoughts – Those long “letter type” sales pitches don’t work do they? It’s much better to have everything above the fold and get a quick conversion. So as if to ram home the point, the average length of a page at Amazon was put on the big screen, and guess what – it was huuuuuge!

Sure, the main call to action and main info was above the fold, but for those people who need a little (and especially those people who need a LOT) persuasion or reassurance (or even a totally different product), all the information they need is on that one page, and they are able to make an informed buying decision. Well, if it’s good enough for Amazon, then it’s good enough for me!

It got me thinking about how we can use Easy Content Units to display product information in some very different ways on the same page, thus following the CRE and Amazon model of providing all buying options on the one page for a product like the slanket. Again, I present a nice big image of the product, price info and a “buy now” call to action at the top of the page as you would expect. Most of the sales will come from this, but if I can persuade the people who have objections to buy an alternative product, then I can make more from this page, allowing me to spend more promoting it!

So, looking at the objections.. “I don’t want to buy from “Merchant X” – no worries, we can present a list of all the merchants who sell slankets.. “I want a different colour”.. Lets display all the colours.. “I want a smaller one” – Display travel and kids versions.. “I want a bigger one” – show the double slankets!

Now with a little bit of merchant inside knowledge, you could also create an Amazon style “You might also like…” unit of totally different products that people might be interested in – Products that don’t replace the Slanket, but simply increase your basket sizes (and commissions) by complimenting the product well.

If you’re selling a fair few slankets for a merchant, ask them what people who buy slankets also tend to buy.. Then promote those products on the slanket page – Amazon are the kings of doing this as they are able to target this very well, but this is something you can fairly easily replicate yourself with a little merchant knowledge – If people who buy slankets also tend to like Romantic Comedies and slippers, then promote Moccasins and Hugh Grant films on your page – they’re not going to be your biggest sellers, but they stand a good chance of increasing your overall earnings from this one page.

How many ways should you skin the cat? Every way you possibly can! If it’s good enough for Amazon…

Originally written by Lammo.net, a blog all about Affiliate Marketing

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Duncan Bannatyne OBE was born in Clydebank, Scotland on the 2nd February 1949. He had a relatively poor upbringing as the 2nd of seven children. At a young age his mother told him she couldn’t afford to buy him a bike, so Duncan asked around the local newsagents to see if he could start a paper round. He was told that to get the job he would need a list of 100 potential customers. He then spent time knocking on doors in the surrounding area, and through his determination, managed to produce the list. He got the job and was able to purchase a bike.

At the age of 15, Duncan decided to leave home to create a new life for himself and so he could see something different. He signed up for 12 years with the Royal Navy to work in a ship’s engine room at RNTE Shotley near Ipswich. Duncan served in the Navy for several years before he threatened to throw an officer off a boat landing jetty in Scotland and received a dishonourable discharge. He says he did this in part as a reaction to this particular officer’s abuse of his position, in part as he was dared by others on the ship to do it, and in part as a way for him to try and get out of the Navy. After this he spent nine months in the Colchester military detention centre before being discharged at the age of 20.

Back in Glasgow at the age of 20, Duncan was penniless and without references or qualifications. At 23, tragedy struck when he lost his sister, Helen, to a suspected brain tumour. The death of his sister saw Duncan go slightly off the rails. He was arrested for being drunk and disorderly and jailed for several days. He still believes to this day that her death was a catalyst in his decision as to how live his life from then on. At that point he became the oldest child in the family overnight and he believes her death made him realise he wanted to make something of himself. After this, he still had no references or qualifications and now had a criminal record. He therefore decided that he wanted to become an entrepreneur.

At the age of 29, Duncan and his first wife moved to Stockton-on-Tees in the north of England from the island of Jersey, as the island represented a difficult business climate for non-locals. At 30 Duncan worked in a bakery when he spotted an opportunity that would change his life forever. To supplement his income whilst he worked in the bakery, Duncan would buy cars from auctions, do them up, and then sell them on. One day he noticed an ice cream van for sale and decided to buy it and start up his own business. He purchased the van for £450, and within 3 years was running a business that used over six vans and was generating annual revenue of approximately £250,000. This roughly worked out at between £30,000 and £60,000 profit each year. After 3 years he sold the business for £28,000.

His next venture was to set up a private care home business, his first development being one of the first brand new purpose built nursing homes in the country. He needed £360,000 to finance this first care home, but at that stage Duncan did not have a financial track record and banks thus refused to lend him any money. He managed to pay the first bill for the new care home from the money he had made by selling the ice cream business. He paid off the second bill by selling his car and loading £30,000 onto three credit cards. To be able to afford to pay the third bill he had to sell his house. Even after he had sold every major asset that he had owned, Duncan still had outstanding debts for the building work of the care home and required extra finance to fund the payments. However, the value placed on this care home was already £600,000, so he returned to the banks. He then decided to remortgage the nursing home, paid off the debts, bought another plot of land, and began building a second care home.

The business then began to expand rapidly, with Duncan not afraid of borrowing money to finance the developments. As soon as one care home was built, he re-mortgaged it and moved on to build the next one. Within three years he owned 9. In 1997, Duncan sold the care home business for over £45 million.

Since then, Duncan has branched into Health Clubs and is now the owner of the popular Bannatyne’s Health Clubs chain. He is the director of Bannatyne Enterprises and oversees an exclusive hotel, bar and casino and, more recently, new housing developments, as well as the Health Clubs chain. In 2006, he acquired 26 Health Club’s from Hilton Hotels, which made Bannatyne’s the largest independent chain of Health Clubs in the UK.

In October 2008, he opened the £12 million Bannatyne Spa Hotel in Hastings. In the 2009 Sunday Times Rich List, his current wealth is estimated to be £320 million. He is also by far the wealthiest of the Dragons in the BBC TV series “Dragon’s Den”.

Originally written by Lammo.net, a blog all about Affiliate Marketing

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It happens to us all, regardless as to whether you are a professional writer or simply someone attempting to complete any writing assignment involving a level of creativity. It is all too easy to push it down the list of priorities and to invent excuses to avoid tackling it right up to the deadline.

The exception is of course, when the subject is so familiar that it requires little thought with material that we are used to explaining without significant effort. Even then, it must be recognised that some individuals have the ability to write fluently whilst others struggle despite perhaps having excellent verbal communication skills.

Developing a structure and focus
As with any other professional undertaking, there are proven techniques to overcome the “writer’s block” problem. The first and most important is to generate a simple list of the points that need to be covered. This will, in itself, trigger some of the vital research processes which may, in turn, lead to further exploration and refinement of the scope and focus of the piece as source material identifies avenues previously not considered.

All too often, copy is written largely from the perspective of the marketer and this frequently masks the real benefits to the consumer that would ideally be the focus. The importance of an “outside looking in” perspective is hard to overstate. In other terms, what is it that the recipient of the information really wants to know? Banging on about the wonderful performance of a product or service is meaningless unless there is a tangible and relevant benefit to the user. Obvious? Perhaps. Ignored. All too often.

Getting a contemporary understanding of the issues
Research and empathy with the end consumer thus plays an important role in deciding what – and how – to communicate. Developing an understanding of the consumer’s mindset is, in itself, a mechanism by which to counter writer’s block. Looking at competitive sites and viewing them through a user’s eyes is not only revealing but can stimulate the creative spirit in the most weary of writers. From the good, the bad and the excruciatingly bad, all of the sites will have something to add to the “do’s and don’ts” list.

Newsgroups, blogs and forums are an excellent source for stimulating an understanding of and interest in the issues that may concern or motivate potential customers on any particular topic. The comments made by contributors can also provide useful expressions that, when adapted, allow a writer to speak to members of their target market in a relevant and authoritative “voice”. This is essential, because regardless as to how the writer may communicate in everyday life, when presenting solutions to customer needs, it is essential to speak in an appropriate tone that will engage and interest readers from the target audience.

As an example, colloquial expressions may be fine for music, video etc with a young audience but for drier, finance, retirement planning, and other issues directed at mature or serious audiences, a more sombre tone will be needed. Setting this tone correctly will of course greatly improve the effectiveness of the communication, without in any way reducing the relevance of the message.

Writing techniques
Although most writers today will have a natural tendency to work with a word processor, the creation of the initial information framework is often best done on paper, where discarded thoughts may be crossed out as others evolve, without actually erasing those initial ideas. Conversely, those completely at home on the keyboard will have little difficulty in “dumping” copy onto the page before rearranging it into the final version.

Some find comfort in taking existing copy, dropping it into the new unit of work, then re-working it. However, this latter technique frequently leads to more problems than solutions because of differences in thought patterns and syntax used in the previous work. There is also a real danger of replicating old (or even plagiarised) material – the latter being one of the most unacceptable practices of all.

Other un-blocking techniques
The same techniques that work in re-focusing attention on any protracted exercise should work for writing. From making a cup of tea; taking a brisk walk in the fresh air to gather your thoughts; focusing your attentions on other tasks for a period to clear your mind; or simply changing focus from writing to additional research. Any of these should help in getting you through a stumbling block. If all else fails, you may even want to revisit the focus and purpose of the piece: if you are really stuck it may simply be that you have set yourself an unworkable task!

The techniques mentioned in this article should go some way to overcoming “writer’s block.” However, realism as to your own abilities is needed and it may actually be beneficial to engage with professional writers, because the initial financial cost may be largely irrelevant compared with the optimum results of effective communication.

Originally written by Lammo.net, a blog all about Affiliate Marketing

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Affiliate Marketing in 2009 is primarily pay-per-sale (PPS), so it can be argued that this should be part of a merchant`s sales budget, and therefore uncapped since it is performance based.

However, there is an alternative view that affiliate marketing essentially involves advertising on hundreds or even thousands of different websites, with a combination of performance-based and set-fees, and should therefore be part of the marketing budget, which in most cases is capped. The question here is which view is right?

A win-win
The structure of much of today’s affiliate marketing sector makes it a win-win for all parties. The merchant gains enhanced exposure though a highly competent sales channel. On a PPS basis this is with minimal financial risk other than any network or affiliate programme set-up and management costs. Equally, the affiliate gains access to high quality goods and services, often from recognised and respected brands, without the risks or complexity of carrying inventory, fulfilment and long term product or service strategic planning.

Even in pay-per-click scenarios, the depth of the available data and the sophistication of today’s analytical tools ensure that a merchant can gain raid and in-depth insight into the performance of all elements of such a channel and can adjust the channel mixture accordingly, pretty much in real time, thus limiting any exposure and closely controlling profitability.

Value chain and capital exposure
Exploring this question requires an understanding of the value chain. Simplistically, the merchant is the one making the sale and gross profit margin and is therefore the determinant as to the available margin when accounting for cost of sale. The timing of commission payments from the merchant to the network and from the network to the affiliate (or indeed directly to the affiliate if a direct programme) is then a major determinant in identifying operating capital requirements. In the vast majority of cases, the timings are designed to minimise financial exposure for the merchant — and necessarily so, particularly in the current climate of economic instability.

We must, however, factor in the exposure for any potential commission reversals. Given the Distance Selling Directive and ever growing consumer awareness as to the right of return, this can be a significant factor, particularly in some high touch sectors where return rates are at their highest. In the worst case scenario, a merchant may be exposed to ‘bridging’ the commission costs of reversed sales pending their replacement with fresh sales through the channel concerned. All of these arguments could reasonably be used in suggesting that the affiliate channel must fall within a capped marketing cost, albeit perhaps a rolling framework accounted over a given period as opposed to a fixed annual budget.

Unconstrained potential
In the majority of cases, the merchant is happy to get as many orders or referrals possible, so it seems reasonable not to impose a limit as to the value of commission the affiliate can potentially earn. Recognition must also be given to the fact that the income generated by the affiliate is almost never cost free. In fact, the more effort the affiliate puts into attracting customers, the more likely it is that serious skill, search-engine optimisation and potentially even paid advertising has been added into the mix.

On a pure play performance basis, it is the affiliate that is taking the capital risk here. Clearly this risk must be acknowledged and supported by the merchants in question. In the absence of financial support, imposing artificial constraints as to potential earnings may see the more professional (and effective) affiliates looking for alternative merchants.

Marketing or sales cost?
The thrust of the argument here is that both the merchant and the affiliate each have a significant part to play in the value chain. To expect only one or the other to carry the full responsibility and / or the financial cost and risk would be unrealistic. Whilst we are not privy to the internal accounting mechanisms of individual merchants, it is reasonable to assume that the truth, as always, lies somewhere in between the two. For merchants in sectors with a high returns rate exposure, there will be carefully managed financial controls to protect trading capital and to ensure stability. These may take the form of periodically controlled marketing spend caps.

Similarly neither party wants to artificially constrain sales volumes, any such limits will be adjusted in real time in accordance with the profitability identified in the affiliate channel. Since affiliate commissions are sales volume-driven and are quantifiable only per sale, it is reasonable for the merchant to account these within the cost of sale itself.

The fixed costs of affiliate channel management must also be accommodated, including programme set-up costs, marketing and communication, the use of specialist AM firms and monthly fees from the networks. In all likelihood, these will be accounted within the annual marketing budget as they are quantifiable and predictable.

In the same way that the merchant recognises the value of products being professionally promoted on highly ranked and professionally managed affiliate sites, the affiliate recognises the value the merchant brings in their brand, products or services and the time, effort and expense incurred to develop them. In science, this is referred to as a symbiotic relationship where each animal depends upon the other. As with the Shark and the Remora no one gets eaten if both work collaboratively!

Originally written by Lammo.net, a blog all about Affiliate Marketing

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I stumbled across GeoffBlog’s review, and agreed with pretty much every word of it, so rather than post the same things, I thought I’d just link to the post (maybe I could do a session next year on entitled “How to be a very tired, still-slightly-hungover and thoroughly lazy blogger”) instead, and bullet point the main things that stood out for me:

The Twitter wall was a brilliant addition, and kept me entertained throughout – it was useful to see where the good sessions were, what others were doing, or for the daily announcement of “Rum O’ Clock” by the AF team

Roll on a4uexpo 2010!

Originally written by Lammo.net, a blog all about Affiliate Marketing

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There have been numerous attempts over the recent years to improve the lot of small businesses by introducing measures to try and reduce the administrative burden and encourage enterprise. Sadly, the financial aspects have changed so much that it is hard to be definitive as to the benefits of incorporation for a small business over staying as a sole trader. Many of the non-financial benefits, however, still remain and it will be for each individual to assess their personal circumstances to decide what works best for them.

Key benefits of incorporation
One of the major benefits of becoming an incorporated business is that your financial liabilities are capped at the amount of share capital invested in the business. As a sole trader or partnership, you are fully liable for the debts of the business or any judgements for fines, penalties or claims against the business. This may be acceptable if you are engaged in work when the risks can be easily identified, but can be substantial in areas such as construction or financial services. Insurance can be obtained (at considerable cost) to mitigate some of this financial exposure, but at the end of the day, trading as an individual means that your personal assets are at risk. Of course, even as an incorporated business you may have to pledge assets or security to the bank or other financial institution to gain lines of credit, but at least these will be capped and at your discretion.

One of the major drivers for small businesses to incorporate has been the potential tax savings to be had. Incorporated businesses pay tax at 22% (up to £300,000 profit) which leaves more money available for distribution as dividends to the shareholders. This means that a husband and wife trading as equal partners in a business making £30,000 profit could save nearly £1,600 in tax and National Insurance if trading as a business rather than as a partnership. This rises to over £7,000 per annum where the business makes £100,000 of profit. This assumes that both partners take a salary up to their tax free allowance and the remainder in after tax dividend income from the business.

Other considerations
So the financial motive for incorporation can be great. But there are other issues to consider since, as always, incorporation comes with some additional costs and burdens.

If you currently trade as a partnership then there may be issues arising on transferring assets into the new business. This may involve capital gains issues (if property or other tangible assets are involved) or valuation challenges for items such as intellectual property. There may be options for deferring capital gains tax payable until the asset is sold within the business, but this is a specialist area and professional advice should be sought before choosing the appropriate course of action.

A limited company is treated, in law, as a separate entity and, therefore, is capable of continuing in existence after the initial shareholders move on. As such, it becomes easier to value the business and for existing owners to sell and move on at the appropriate time. Similarly, the mere fact that it is a standalone business can add credibility to the operation.

The downsides
A limited company has to have financial records prepared and audited each year to a higher standard than those needed for a sole trader. This additional compliance cost can be considerable especially if the business accounts need to be audited by a registered auditor. Shareholders and directors details have to be filed on public record at Companies House. This can lead to a loss of privacy and additional intrusion from unwelcome callers. Likewise, reports and accounts have to be published – although the rules have changed in recent years such that abbreviated financials can minimise what is released into the public domain.

The responsibility for running a business is also defined and clearly sets out the responsibilities of directors for managing a business so as to meet deadlines for filing accounts, avoiding trading whilst insolvent and fraudulent trading.

Forms of incorporation
There are many forms of incorporation available these days so choosing the right form could be important for your type of business. Incorporating your business in another jurisdiction could also bring benefits for certain types of trades. So whilst it may be financially advantageous to consider incorporating, there are many other nuances to consider that may have a bearing on your decision. The best plan is to consider carefully your options with a qualified and experienced professional advisor since once you have made the move to being a limited company or perhaps a limited liability partnership (LLP); it can be costly and time consuming to step back. The benefits of protection from financial liability can be a considerable peace of mind although the moral consequences of your actions remain!

Originally written by Lammo.net, a blog all about Affiliate Marketing

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Once again the age-old voucher code debate has reared its ugly head, and is showing no signs of going away. Which led me thinking of potential solutions that would help avoid content affiliates like myself losing out when the very consumers we’re written for, persuaded to part with their hard earned cash, and in many cases “closed the sale” head off to a voucher code site and overwrite our cookies.. Now I’m not saying this is a “solve-all” solution, but I think it’s got legs – see what you think…

Q: WHEN does a consumer decide to use a voucher code?
A: When they’re told by the merchant there might be one!

I would say that most people when shopping online don’t even think of using a discount/voucher code, but what do you think happens when they add all their items to the basket, get out their credit card and hit the “checkout” button, only to see a big shiny box proclaiming “enter promotional code here”? That person who was quite happy to pay full price suddenly realises that if they can find one of these codes, they’ll get a discount, so off they hop to Google, enter “merchant name discount code”, and click on the first couple of sites – whoops, there goes my cookie!

You’d just as well have a bit on the checkout page that says “Would you like to pay full price for these items? Click yes to pay now, or no to spend 30 seconds doing a quick Google search to see if there’s a voucher that could save you £10 off these items.”

What if this “enter promotional code” box could be hidden for content affiliates?

In the same way that merchants can hide their sales phone number for traffic coming from affiliates (basically a cloned site without the telephone number), would it be possible for affiliates to choose which version of the merchants site they’d like to send traffic to: one with “enter promo code” boxes, or one without.

Voucher code affiliates could opt to display the boxes as normal, and content affiliates could choose not to, removing the temptation from the shoppers screen and helping to ensure they get the credit for the sales they deserve.

A few problems… and possible solutions
1. Not all merchants would be willing/able to implement this. True, it would need to be done on an opt-in basis for those merchants who are willing (and technically able) to do it – Even after 9 years of Affiliate Marketing, I still see merchants every day who can’t/won’t remove their telephone numbers. It would certainly help the merchants who did implement it win some friends with content affiliates!

2. What about gift vouchers? For a number of merchants, their gift vouchers are issued in code form, which is entered in the same area as the promo/discount/voucher codes. Clearly, they would still need to offer the ability to pay by gift voucher, but wouldn’t this be better as a “pay by gift voucher – enter code” area on the payment page rather than a generic “enter promo/voucher code” on the personal information page?

What do you think? Could this work? Would networks/merchants adopt it? Would affiliates use it? Would it make any difference?

Originally written by Lammo.net, a blog all about Affiliate Marketing

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So that time is very nearly upon us again when the great and the good in Affiliate Marketing descend upon London Village for three nights and two full days of networking, education, and maybe a tiny bit of drinking until 5am.

As a veteran of the previous two expos, I thought I’d share some essential tips with you to ensure you make the most of a4uexpo 2009..

Pack the right equipment..
Essential items to survive a three-night, two-day conference include a decent supply of Paracetamol, ProPlus and business cards. I wouldn’t worry too much about paper or pens, as they are usually provided for you within the delegate pack, and if not, there’s bound to be a promotional pen or twenty lying around that you can lay your hands on.

It’s worth remembering that you’re out on a limb somewhat at ExCel, so it might be an idea to take some snacks and drinks with you (you can always leave them in your hotel room) – Food and drink is provided at regular intervals throughout expo, but when you’re starving hungry and fighting 300 other hungry people for tiny bowls of salad as they arrive 10 at a time, you’ll be thankful you nibbled on a cereal bar a few hours earlier

Prepare Properly..
There’s no reason whatsoever to wander around ExCel aimlessly looking for people you might want to speak with – The a4uexpo team have provided a complete list of all the exhibitors, sessions and attendees, so you can plan exactly who you want to speak to, what sessions you’re going to, and whose stands you’re going to visit. You’ll get much more out of the conference this way, and avoid sitting through boring sessions and speaking to hundreds of irrelevant people.

The “appointment” system of the last couple of expos appears to have been dropped (looking at last years, it wasn’t that greatly used), so there might be a small wait to speak to people on the more popular stands. We’re not exhibiting ourselves, but if you fancy a chat with me or Jason about Easy Content Units or anything else we do, the best thing to do is drop me a line via Twitter (@lammo77), as I’ll be tweeting live from expo.

Don’t be afraid to speak up..
If you’re in a session, and don’t understand a point being made, don’t be afraid to ask a question – You’ll probably find that ten other people are thinking the same but are too nervous to put their hand up. The speakers love questions too – It’s much easier to answer a question than it is to think of something interesting to say yourself!

On a similar note, don’t be afraid to introduce yourself to other attendees – affiliates are (mostly) a pretty friendly bunch.. There’s no cliques here, and most affiliates get one really well and are happy to chat with anyone, regardless of how long they’ve been an affiliate or how successful they are deemed to be. Come and say hello – we don’t bite!

Pace yourself..
I will not be naming names, but a certain person who works at an agency caused much amusement last year on the middle night, being completely unable to co-ordinate his hand in order to pick up the drink that was in front of him – The look of sheer frustration and confusion on his face was priceless. Then there’s the network employee who fell asleep on the final night – his colleagues had abandoned him and he had to be put in a cab and sent on his way. Or the handful of people who seem to throw up in the toilets every year…

Yes, it’s a free bar – everyone does tend to like a drink at these events, but if you’re getting this wasted, then you’re not going to be doing much business are you? And isn’t that why you’re going to expo?

Send me to bed..
This is my first expo since Little Lammo was born, and I’m determined to make the most of the event. For me there’s an added bonus this year – the opportunity to have a good 6 or 7 hours uninterrupted sleep for three nights!

I’m therefore imploring anyone who sees me in the hotel bar anytime after 1am to please send me to my bed, rather than letting me chew the fat until 5am every night like I did last year!

Any other tips you’ve got to share?

Originally written by Lammo.net, a blog all about Affiliate Marketing

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This little fella has been with us for a month now, and he’s turned our lives upside down! I can’t believe a whole month has already flown by before I’ve had a chance to introduce the wee man – he’ll be a year before we know it at this rate! I’m very much working around his demands at the moment, so I’ll making sure to document these things before they’re confined to the (not entirely reliable!) memory banks..

The birth..
I was worried about the birth to be honest, after I’d read someone describe their child’s birth as “like a scene from a slaughterhouse” – I don’t do blood and gore, and so this had me worried. I needn’t have worried though as the majority of the labor was blood-free, and when it did become a blood-fest, I was up at the non-business end of things. That doesn’t mean it was a doddle though – Er Indoors was in labor for a total of 28 and a half hours, the first twelve of which were a piece of cake, but it soon went downhill from there on, and the worst thing for me was having to watch Er Indoors in excruciating amounts of pain without there being a damn thing I can do about it.

Eventually it was clear that Jack wasn’t going to come out by himself, so we were whisked down to surgery (we’d already been prepped 5 hours previously after a scare where baby’s heartrate dropped for around ten minutes) and he was finally delivered via forceps at 10:43am on Saturday 22nd August 2009. The drama didn’t end there however as he was having trouble breathing by himself, so we had a nervous 5 minutes of silence before he was breathing (and crying) by himself, and maintaining his temperature before we could relax (a little!)

I can sum it all up in one word: Brutal. I really didn’t enjoy the birth, and would be quite happy to never go through it again.. Er Indoors seems to have forgotten the worst of it though, so I dare say we’ll be back in the delivery suite again before too long – and of course, it was all worth it in the end..

The first month..
It really has whizzed by – There’s been all the stereotypes you’d expect – dirty nappies, lack of sleep, colic, frantic worrying about whether he’s ok, etc, etc. But it’s really not been that bad, and we’re into a “kind of” routine that works for us.

Once again I find myself trotting out the line “I’m really glad I’m an affiliate…”, as I was able to take a full two weeks Paternity Leave off to focus entirely on Jack and Er Indoors, and following that, I can work when I want around feeds, nappie changes, baths etc – If I was still in the Day Job, I’d have been expected back in the office for 9am Monday morning where I would be chained to my desk until 5pm every day (at least I could get some sleep then though… lol)

Whereas as an affiliate, I can stay up until 4am watching Chuck Norris films (it’s not ALL crap TV on in the middle of the night) with my boy whilst Er Indoors gets a good 4/5 hours sleep, then head to bed myself, sleep till lunchtime and then get to work throughout the afternoon.

Going forward..
I’ve already found that I’ve got a LOT less time since Jack’s been on the scene, and I’m determined that I’m gonna be there to watch him grow up, so I’m learning to say NO a lot more.

I’m not taking on new projects, I’m not promising to promote every merchant that asks, and I’m prioritizing with a ruthless streak – when you’ve only got an hour at a time to focus on work, you realise that all the crap you fill the working day with is just a waste of time, and so I’m working slightly less hours than I’m used to at the moment, but I’m still achieving just as much as I can working 100 hours a week.

Someone said to me just after Jack was born “That’s it – your life goals and work goals will change forever now”, and they’re spot on – I no longer want to be the best affiliate on the block.. I just wanna be the best dad possible to Jack, and I’m not gonna achieve that by working every hour of every day – I’ll be the only tax-paying dad at every school assembly, sports day and swimming lesson – and that’s all thanks to Affiliate Marketing

Originally written by Lammo.net, a blog all about Affiliate Marketing

Meet Jack Robert Lamerton

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Mini sites remain a popular approach among content and SEO affiliates. For those of you who have yet to play with them, a mini site generally consists, as the name suggests, of a relatively small number of pages focused on a specific theme and with a relevant domain name, strong on-page SEO and great content. Although less fashionable than perhaps three or four years ago, mini sites remain a useful tool for affiliates wishing to promote niche merchants, products and services. This approach can be particularly useful for affiliates whose main sites are perhaps cross-category directories or shopping portals for which it can be hard to achieve search engine rankings in some of the tougher categories.

Assuming that you are trying to drive natural search traffic as opposed to simply using the site as a set of PPC landing pages, the acquisition of good inbound links is going to be essential. There is an element of “chicken and egg” with linking: webmasters want to trade links with sites that are already ranked but it is hard to get ranked without links. The type, quality and location of the first five links therefore become critical in kick-starting a linking campaign.

Techniques
Since you cannot yet offer a ranked page as a “fair exchange of value” for linking, you will need to offer some form of content instead. One popular approach utilises social media sites such as Digg, Squidoo and other blogging and article publishing platforms. Articles that are of particular interest to the selected group and contain a naturally inserted link to your mini site should certainly help in initiating the linking process. Because many of these sites are strongly ranked by the search engines and are regarded as being independent rather than overtly commercial sites, such links can over time contribute significantly to ranking. They key here is to ensure that the sites you choose do not use the dreaded “nofollow” tag with links. Many social media sites have employed this: a technique originally introduced by Google to allow the webmasters of blogs and social media sites to “tell” the search engine spiders not to follow – or at least not to confer ranking as a result of – a given link. This was in response to excessive numbers of low value posts from webmasters seeking only the link and offering relatively little in the way of intellectual property or value in return.

Spotting the use of nofollow is generally fairly easy. Simply view the source of some of the posts and pages on the site in question and search for “nofollow”. If this is included in the links from posts or articles, remove the site from your set of targets and move one.

For those sites that appear to be relevant to your audience and in which there is no evidence of the nofollow tag, make sure that you produce material that is of genuine use to visitors. One ever popular technique is to search for relevant questions raised around subjects related to your own mini site. You then add a materially useful response to the social media site, perhaps covering the issues in some – but not complete – detail and include a link to a highly detailed and relevant piece on your own site which completes and adds value to your explanation. Simply adding an “I’ve answered it here” post isn’t sufficient as it doesn’t provide the site social media site owner with any content of value to be associated directly with their own domain.

This approach allows you to put most of the effort into the piece on your mini site (which will of course add to your own content score over time) and to re-use this effectively by creating multiple value-added posts pointing at it. If the quality of your material is at the right level and the relevance is good, you should find that many of the posts will be accepted and the link duly added.

Article sites and directories
Whilst these remain a popular form of promotion for both new and established sites, it is important to recognise that with the exception of DMOZ and the Yahoo directories (both of which will require that you have significant original material on the site and are pretty hard to enter sites with significant affiliate links present on them), the value of article sites and directories as link partners has diminished over the last two to three years. Although we are not huge fans of the dreaded green bar Google page rank indicator here at lammo.net (because it is so infrequently updated and is but one of many ranking factors), it IS a useful indicator as to whether the lower level pages in directories and article sites are actually being ranked. If you can find articles from an article site highly ranked in the search engines or you can see that the detail pages or an article site or directory have a page rank above zero, it may be worth the effort. If not, move on!

Buying links
Tempting as it may be in the early days of promoting an unranked site and despite the number of webmasters who will happily offer you a link for a fee, never go down this road. This is explicitly against the search engines’ terms of service. Through senior contacts in the industry we know that it IS reported and it IS penalised when discovered.

Self promotion
One historically popular solution has been for affiliates to use their own site(s) to link back to a new mini-site. Most affiliates have more than one site so it is arguably fairly simple to link to your mini site from several sources. If you have an established site that gets plenty of traffic and is steadily climbing the search rankings then linking to your new mini site could surely prove to be advantageous? The issue here is that the search engines dislike site networks. They are easy to detect: common IP addresses, WHOIS data, nameservers and so forth. Even if you keep all of these elements separate and distinct for each of your sites, excessive linking between a set of sites has been known to be penalised. Why? From a search engine perspective, this mirrors the behaviour of many low rent link building firms who constantly hit the same database of targets with link requests and over time accidentally create a “warm network” effect as a result. Similarly, many linking solutions use collectively owned (often by the link builders themselves) site networks, numbering thousands of separate domains, in order to appear to “trade” links for their clients. There is usually little value in these domains and the search engines are on a mission to weed them out from the SERPs results. Inversely, cross-links from multiple mini sites to one central domain are generally held to be akin to a “doorway” approach and are equally likely to incur the wrath of the search engines. By cross-linking between your own web properties you are mirroring questionable techniques and running the risk of a penalty – including the potential loss of those hard won rankings for your more established sites. Avoid!

Timings
Those first five links are essential. Natural, unique links to relevant and significant topics that are not reciprocated are the goal. Social networking sites are potentially powerful allies if you can get the technology to work in your favour, but there’s no guarantee of instant success. Whatever the initial set of sites you choose as link partners, it is important to recognise that it will take time – often many months – before you see any significant effect on search engine rankings as a result of your link building efforts. Until your site has a visible Google page rank and is appearing reasonably highly in the results for relevant search terms, it makes sense to continue to focus on offering value in the form of content in starting the long journey of building solid rankings.

Originally written by Lammo.net, a blog all about Affiliate Marketing

Your first five links

Related posts:

1. Using article sites to build links – Good idea?
2. How to build links to your Affiliate Website
3. Should you link in content? Damn right you should!