Tuesday, May 6th, 2008 Affiliate Stuff, C'est Moi No Comments »

No sooner had I touched back on English ground from my Sunshine holiday, I found out (via the forums?) that I had won another prize - this time from Maximuscle and to the tune of £200. (The luck didn’t end there - I also received two cheques from HM Revenue & Customs giving me back money I had wrongly paid in tax!)

So, first of all, I just want to thank Sam and Maximuscle for this lovely prize, which will no doubt be donated to the pubs and clubs of Leeds in exchange for one or twenty intoxicating beverages.

Upon catching up on my favourite blogs, I decided to use this example of my affiliate winning streak to put forward my opinion. Jason asks if incentives are nice prizes, or impossible tasks that most affiliates won’t bother with. Zak questions whether affiliates really do want incentives, or would higher commission be preferred. Kieron, not discussing incentives per se, used my Barcelona site as an example of a thin site created just to win an incentive.

At this stage in my affiliate career (!) I’m not overly fussed about commissions - I’m just happy seeing the pounds rolling in. I’m also not bothered about incentives - as I’ve said before, I simply don’t think I’m worthy of them.

The truth is I’m developing a portfolio of sites to explore my design, creative, copywriting, SEO and affiliate skills and that, to me, is my biggest reward. My discount code site jumped two units to a PR3 this week, a site that was exposed to Google probably about six months ago. I know TBPR means sod all, but I’m still dead chuffed. A few other of my sites also received PR. I enjoy seeing my new sites being indexed by Google, seeing traffic coming in organically and, of course, seeing commissions rolling in.

Whilst browing the A4U forums I spotted the Maximuscle incentive and realised that I wasn’t promoting them on my discount site. So I built a Maximuscle discount code page, broke my virginity with the Affiliate Window branded widgets and thought it quite pretty, so sent an e-mail to Sam with the URL.

But my plans for Maximuscle don’t end there. I used to use whey protein and went to the gym before turning into a lazy student. I still have some in the cupboard, and I’m adamant I’ll start training again. This, in turn, will inspire me to create a website tracking my progress with tips for others doing the same thing, thus having unique and interesting  content and this, in turn, will have Maximuscle banners and links, therefore creating more promotion and (hopefully) mo’ money.

The number of sites with traffic I have is growing, the amount of commissions I’m earning is growing and one day I may (and hope) be a well performing or ’super’ affiliate. Now that I’ve been to Benidorm, I can (and have started to) build a fatter affiliate site dedicated to Benidorm. Sunshine will, naturally, be promoted. Now that I know Maximuscle has an affiliate program, I will promote them on my future training site.

Naturally, incentives where only super affiliates can win will put me off - but only the competition itself. But incentives can peak (or pique?) my interest, expose an affiliate program and initiate a relationship.  Who knows, maybe I and other smaller affiliates who win incentives will become super affiliates and bring in lots of dolly for the respective merchants.

Regardless of the prize (I’d be happy with a keyring), winning stuff is fun and motivates me to promote the merchant more. I will still promote merchants on sites I think they would fit and all that jazz, but with so many ideas floating around my head and so many of my sites floating round the web, a nice incentive can tie down an idea and receive my full time and attention.

And if the super affiliates don’t want to play, I’m willing to win anything else thrown my way

P.S. Thanks again to Maximuscle!

Tags: Incentives
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Monday, May 5th, 2008 Affiliate Stuff, C'est Moi 1 Comment »

As some of you may know, I won the sunshine mission to Benidorm last week on the (sort of) condition that I took pictures of my meals whilst there. This was an amazing prize as I don’t believe I’m deserving of such prizes yet, but who am I to complain? So I quickly told work I needed a week off, grabbed the lass and we jetted off to Benidorm for a week.

I haven’t been on a plane since I was a little’un and I don’t remember having a fear of flying something which amused the lass greatly as I sat on Row 13, next to an emergency exit on the wing of plane as it landed very bumpily (apparently it’s normal for the engines to make a loud whirring noise as if the pilot misjudged his landing and was ready to take-off again for a second attempt..).

We had a nice apartment overlooking the Benidorm skyline albeit a 15 minute walk from the beach and the other winner, Ray, seemed to have bagged a posh hotel with salsa dancing and everything. But we had german MTV where we discovered the delights of Tila Tequila, scary rock music and what Family Guy sounds like in german.

The week was spent burning on the beach (I’ve come back white than when I arrived as all my skin has peeled off), walking, enjoying all the British bars, more walking, a bit of shopping, more walking, a spot of drunken karaoke (a vodka influenced rendition of New York, New York if you’re wondering), a bit more walking, a trip to the zoo and yet more walking.

Anyway, here are a few pictures of the meals we enjoyed whilst there:

The only taste of Spanish cuisine I had was this paella. Probably the most boring thing I’ve ever eaten.

A mixed grill consisting of chips, sausage, bacon, pork chop, egg and that stuff some call salad.

Spaghetti bolognese with what appears to be a the scraps of a pepper sitting on top.

These were cool - mashed potato balls with minced beef inside.

Perfectly cooked pork chops I’ve ever had with fries.

Absolutely cracking home made steak pie and chunky chip shop chips served by a pale guy in shorts at a pub called the Yorkshire Pride. Home from home.

A cheeseburger with chips. Tasted better than it looks.

So that’s it. Big, massive thanks to sunshine for this holiday and I’ll be working non-stop on my Benidorm website, which will be fatter than the site I won with

Some more pictures to end the post:

The view from our apartment at night.

A view of the resort.

Me meeting the locals.

The sun had taken it’s toll on the lass.

Adios…

Tags: Benidorm, Sunshine
Posted in Affiliate Stuff, C'est Moi | 1 Comment »

Sunday, April 20th, 2008 Affiliate Stuff, C'est Moi, Design No Comments »

Et voila! My sunshine competition website is now live and kicking… pretty much. Time for a guided tour!

Go To Barcelona is the domain and subject. I think it’s a great domain because I can use it again for other destinations if I wish to do more travel domains, e.g. gotomars.co.uk or whathaveyou. I chose Barcelona because I briefly stayed there last year on a road trip, albeit on a campsite and not any of the lovely hotels featured!

Naturally, I used WordPress to create the site because it’s a fantastic CMS tool, I practically know it inside out and there are loads of plugins to extend the functionality. It’s also my first time with the brand new 2.5, which is quite nice and seems more fluid and easier to use.

Each ‘post’ is a hotel and the ‘category’ is the resort. The great thing about WordPress is that when I add a hotel, it will automatically be added to the category page, but I can customise it to include more information like this hotels in Eixample page which has a brief biography of the area surrounding the list of hotels.

Each hotel has a picture and description (reworded from the sunshine site), followed by a search box to find availability and book that particular hotel. This is followed by a list of similar hotels, thanks to the related posts plugin.

I quite like the design that I quickly whipped up; a clean text-based logo sits above the content, which is backed by a beautiful picture of a beach (which isn’t actually in Barcelona, apparently it’s in Japan). Above the fold has a beautiful summer blue sky and it’s only when you scroll that the whole picture is revealed. Yes, there’s a bit of a crease where I tried to attach a reverse image of the same photo to extend the length, but that will be fixed.

As usual, Internet Explorer doesn’t like it; ignoring the transparent background of the main content box amongst other things. Again, I’m sure there’s a fix somewhere and I will get on to it at a later date, but I think it degrades well with a white background.

The sidebar links are automatically generated thanks to WordPress, firstly with a list of resorts and then a list of articles which I will write throughout the site’s life with information, guides and suchlike.

All of this has been put together with the aid of sunshine’s fantastic affiliate area which allows you to choose your own banners of which there are generic and some customised to the resort of your choosing. I’ve used a generic in the sidebar and resort based on the category pages. Then there’s the search wizard which allows you to create a search box customisable to the hotel, and thanks to the chat tool and a friendly fellow called Alan, I was able to find the boxes I wanted. The spreadsheet helped list all the hotels with URLs of images. It really is a fantastic example of how an affiliate program should be managed.

So there you have it, how to create a site in just over a day thanks to WordPress, a few good plugins, the amazing sunshine affiliate area and a bit of motivation. Your comments are appreciated! Click here to see the site in action.

Tags: Go To Barcelona, Sunshine
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Wednesday, April 16th, 2008 Affiliate Stuff, Merchants No Comments »

Go on, guess by the poor pun what this post is about.

That’s right, the sunshine.co.uk affiliate promotion. I’ve been watching with keen interest the fantastic incentives put forward by the sunshine team such as the Macbook Air and now the Barbados trip. I really like their website and the affiliate area is a fantastic example of communication and tools for affiliates. It made me wish I was a good travel affiliate.

Now sunshine have started their missions, it makes me really want to get involved and I’ve decided to take the plunge with mission one, getting a domain and throwing some sunshine content on there (aswell as mission four with this blog post!).

I know that the travel industry is one of the most competitive and that one small landing page type site isn’t going to make me a millionaire. I have little knowledge of travel nor have I dabbled with travel sites.

The thing is, I love seeing little projects like this but I simply do not have the time. With my full time job, a nicely maturing discount site to maintain, an easily bored girlfriend and sleeping to do, I simply don’t have much time to create new sites and get them out there (which explains why this blog hasn’t been touched much either). I have loads of domains which aren’t even parked, let alone include content.

I don’t even want the trip to Barbados (well, that’s a little dramatic) - I’d feel out of place and undeserving of such a phenomenal prize. It’s the mere excitement of this well planned incentive and the idea of setting up a small site to add to my portfolio with motivation behind it that makes me want to do it.

I’ve bought the domain based on a destination I visited last year - Barcelona. Well, we camped on a beachside campsite there - and I’ll be developing it with a few pages of content, photos and banners at the weekend.

Massive kudos to the sunshine team - this is a brilliant incentive and you’ve got another (albeit noob) affiliate on board.

Tags: Sunshine
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Friday, March 21st, 2008 Affiliate Stuff, C'est Moi 3 Comments »

Happy Easter folks! As I write, the sun is shining and I’m sat here comfortably at home instead of gazing longingly out the window. And I will be until Tuesday morning. It’s given me a chance to relax and spend a bit more time on my sites which makes me ask - across the nation suits are being thrown off, cars packed up and people are heading out into Britain’s most tourist friendly areas. But what are you doing?

Are you like me and taking the extra time available to work on your sites? Instead of getting stuck behind a caravan on the way to Scarborough, are you tweaking meta tags, writing copy and optimising your CSS? Or are you lounging around in your pants drinking a beer (maybe both?)?

I’ve taken ten minutes out to post here - I know I haven’t posted in ages which I’m a bit annoyed about but I have been very busy. The last few weeks have been spent getting to know Price Tapestry and incorporating it into my oldest, biggest and most Google friendly site.

I will write some stuff about the site and about Price Tapestry in the next few weeks. There are some fantastic things that can be done with it and I don’t see many other people writing about it so it might prove useful.

In other news…

I’m now a merchant as well! I wrote some time ago about seeing the networks from the other side of the fence, and I’m now happy to announce Webgains have been chosen and the affiliate program for The Retail Factory is now live. I shan’t take up too much space here writing about it; the sign-up page is here and some incentives are over there. If you’re enjoying all the chocolate the Easter bunny has kindly provided, you might like the chocolate hamper we want to give away!

And despite having Friday and Monday off from The Retail Factory, I’ll still be checking my work e-mail so feel free to e-mail should you have any questions/problems/comments/requests etc.

Happy Easter everybody and don’t work too hard!