Last week I got round to one of those jobs that I’ve wanted to do for a while and that’s making my affiliate links a bit more visitor friendly and readable. I’ve mentioned before how I automatically convert links to sites that I have a relationship with to their corresponding affiliate links, I’ve now taken this a stage further and have created a Word Press plug-in to make it easy to add new affiliates as I find them.

The way the plug-in works is it searches for the domain of merchants that I have an affiliate program with adjusts it accordingly, for example http://www.thinkgeek.com/ would be converted on the fly to the equivalent affiliate link of :
http://www.anrdoezrs.net/se121lnwtnvACIJCEHEACBEGHEDF?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thinkgeek.com%2Fgeektoys%2Fgames%2F7eaa%2F&sid=cg-http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thinkgeek.com%2Fgeektoys%2Fgames%2F7eaa%2F/geektoys/games/7eaa/

As you can see the affiliate link is pretty darn ugly and to the (slighty) trained eye it is obviously an affiliate link which does put some people (especially tech savvy webmasters) off clicking it.
(more…)

Although I like to have a few generic uk domains I am not a serious domainer, I don’t really know what I would peg myself as if I had to, I’d struggle, I like to try different things even though a lot of the time the line between them grows increasingly blurred.

Established domainers now realise why they used to get questions regarding age, history in Google and pagerank and find themselves benefiting more by developing or semi-developing domains to add more income and end user value. Developers realise it good business to use a brandable generic or more genre specific internet address.

Spurred on by Jeremy’s post about datamining his own stats I took an hour or so out this weekend to look through stats for an old furniture website I had that ranked really well in Google.co.uk last year, I had a database of keywords & phrases that visitors had used to find the site and that it therefore ranked for - phrases that people had obviously searched for. (more…)

I’ve been using Chitika advertising units for around 18 months. Chitika are another one of those networks that like Adsense pays you per click but they also offer more visitor engaging ad units. So visitors can search and compare product prices on your site.

Currently Chitika offer 3 distinct different types of ads. These can be used multiple times on the same page (if appropriate).

(more…)

This is another of those posts about sharing experiences and experiments. A couple of months ago I reported on the revenue streams of one of my sites and how the biggest slice of pie revenue was taken by Adsense and how I wanted to increase other income sources to minimize this dependency.

One of the other revenue streams I looked at was Tribal Fusion. They are a CPM ad network meaning you get paid per impression rather than per click. I implemented them a couple of months ago and placed a 468×60 banner at the top of each page, a vertical banner on the left navigation bar and rectangle in between posts on index pages. These ad positions were previously not used for anything constructive so any income generated should just be an addition, thus reducing the Adsense percentage and increasing the income to boot.
(more…)

Sometimes you look for ways of making money and sometimes they find you.

Last month my better half gave me the good news that she was pregnant with our second child, yikes! It wasn’t long after I had heard of a test you can do online, is it a boy or a girl?

In the UK it is a sad fact that at the 20 week pregnancy scan they can no longer tell you the sex of your child as it leaves them open to being sued {sigh}. So they won’t say anymore unlike first time round when we had our son, some people prefer a surprise, I don’t, I prefer to plan ahead so when a company offers the ability to send away a blood sample and tell you to within 99% the sex of your child at 8 weeks into the pregnancy I find that appealing!

(more…)

Well seeing as this blog is about sharing and learning I am going to cover a small change that I made a few months ago as I now have sufficient stats to back up the full effect of what I did and how it has played out. Maybe not directly useful to you but perhaps the sentiment may apply to other sites.

I don’t know if any of you lot do actual sales online or whether your all predominantly bloggers or? However I tend to do a bit of everything, me being me

I’m not really into drop-shipping or selling physical goods as really there is only so far you can go without taking on staff and giving up my home office which I enjoy so for actual sales I decided to get into e-sales, orders that can be taken and completed online, you have to love the internet!

(more…)

I remember a few years ago share clubs were very popular and they may still be, the idea of getting together with some friends and investing together always appealed to me, and it also looked like a pretty good reason to have a ‘meeting’ over a bar lunch

My mate Ian recently came round for a game of snooker and asked if there was anything he could invest in with me, and basically offered to put money into anything I wanted to try, Ian doesn’t do any business online so this really was a leap of faith and a case of wanting to do something different, buying websites had to be ruled out quickly as I would do all the work while he would just be along for the ride, his budget was around $5000.

(more…)

I thought it time I revisited the mini sites topic again as it did generate some interest last time I talked about them and I feel I need to clear up a few questions of importance.

Q. Why not use one domain rather than lots of domains to save money

A. The initial reasoning for mini sites for many people is to find a use for domains likely already held but not used, many developers have lots of domains that are always on the to do list and never got round to so a mini site is a quick and practical use for a domain you already own.

(more…)

I have developed an interest in domain names recently and although it seems that you need deeper pockets to buy anything good in the .com game I found there are opportunities in the .co.uk market that could serve as an investment for a later date, note you can buy UK domains even if you are not in the UK so no geo restrictions. 

I’d maybe see it as a long term investment that anyone can get involved in pretty cheaply just now, even better if your a website developer/builder as you can add value that way in the short term. You can buy generic words for under $100 on some forums like Acorn Domains. I don’t really have experience in this market so I decided to seek out and question someone who did!

(more…)

Many a website or blog are started with the sole purpose of making cash (and if you’re reading this blog I’m sure you know what I’m talking about), I know a lot of new and aspiring webmasters and questions I get asked a lot are:

• How can I make money from my 3 hour old blog?
• Are my ads blended enough?
• My brother and his pet dog have been banned from Adsense how else can I make money?
• How many ads should I put on my page?
• I haven’t got any subscribers yet so how should I monetize my feed?

I’m a pretty helpful guy (maybe a bit selfishly helpful due to my belief in karma) and the answer I almost always give is:

• Ask me again in 6 months

(more…)