The reason for this is a simple one and it is because I have been working extremely hard getting to grips with this whole affiliate marketing malarkey.

If you don’t know what affiliate marketing is, then it would prove incredibly beneficial for you to read all about the basics of affiliate marketing.

Acorn Domains – Affiliate Marketing and Domain Name Forum

If you read the above article and decided that it sounds interesting to you and you would like to potentially give it a crack, I would highly recommend that you make your way over to Acorn Domains and start going through the archives, reading and learning as much as you can about domaining and affiliate marketing.

A select few threads on Acorn that are definitely worth a read include the following:

• Making a domain name earn £1 per week
• Renting out sites locally
• Successful tips to market your domain names

There are plenty of other fantastic threads that are well worth a read. If/when I stumble upon them again, I will add to this list.
Have you found a thread that you thought was interesting, helpful and feel it could benefit others? Leave a message and link in the comments section below, and I will be sure to add it to the list.

Affiliates4U – Affiliate Marketing Forum

Affiliates4U is another affiliate marketing forum, with a cracking archive of quality posts from yesterdays noobs that are now established, very successful affiliate marketers that are able to earn decent enough commissions from their projects to earn a full-time living.

To name but a few interesting threads:

• A bit of inspiration for some
• Going Head to Head with an A4U member with rival sites
• Affiliate marketing from home – can you earn 6 figures?
• What can be achieved from a micro niche?
• Single site or multiple sites?

One particularly popular thread that is 3 years old to the day is help and advice for newbies and people who need a kick up the backside in 2009. This thread was started by Smingle – AKA Frank Paul.

The idea behind this thread was to try and open peoples eyes to stepping outside of your comfort zone every now and then, with the benefit of potentially finding domain name golden nuggets.
Frank kindly shares a few domain names over a period of days with the only requested return of a link back to one of his sites. This thread is still the most popular and most replied thread on the forum, with plenty to learn from it besides the mentioned FTR domain names.

Other Worthwhile Affiliate Marketing Reading

With Acorn domains and A4U mentioned and out of the way, it is important to realise that there are plenty of other informational sources regarding affiliate marketing.
Many of these great resources are written/provided by the same members who frequent the very same forums you currently visit, or are ex-members who felt their time was better spent away from the forums, allowing them to dedicate any and all spare time to their own project(s).

Again, to name only a few:

• Affiliate Doctors – This site seems to have died a death, but still some interesting and useful content found inside.
• Stevie Tee – A stand out article (IMO) can be found here – Earn extra income
• Free Affiliate Marketing Coaching – A blog by Matt Carter, with a worthy read found here – is there any money in adsense?
• Self Made Minds – A blog written by Scott Jones. This blog hasn’t been updated quite some time, but still has some corking articles, including £200 per week for ever reader

Do you know of any other interesting affiliate marketing blog?
Maybe just a single article?

Well, if you do, be sure to post a URL in the comments section below. I will update this post to make it a central point of access for interesting articles, blogs and information relating to affiliate marketing.

My Affiliate Marketing Blog

Some of you may very well recognise the domain name e-scaping.co.uk, as it used to be my portfolio website (which is now seemly.co.uk).

I decided that rather than just letting this domain name expire (as it has some sentimental meaning to me), I decided to turn it into a dedicated affiliate marketing informational blog.
I wanted to provide articles of interest, software, tools, etc. that are related to and assist in affiliate marketing in general for fellow affiliate marketers, both new and established.

As I am still rather new to this industry, the content of the blog is a little thin at the moment, but I aim to populate it more and more as time goes on. Maybe you guys could help by leaving your comments and URL’s to interesting content below?

2011 has been a really busy year for me.
In no particular order, the following things have happened:

• I got married
• My first baby was born – a beautiful little girl named Faye
• My Grandad died
• My Grandads funeral

Now those of you with children will appreciate just how hard being a parent can be at times. My wife already had 2 boys, of which I have been a Daddy to for coming on 7 years now (I think), and what a pleasure it has been to see them grow from boys into men! But not only did the above happen, I was also working extremely hard to learn about affiliate marketing, as well as trying to put what I had learned into action and try my luck at monetising a few websites.

Some of the websites were “successful”, whilst others were successful in the way in which they brought something else to the table other than just money, that being – lessons learned, which is something money cannot buy.
Interested to find out more about my affiliate marketing endevours to date? Have a read of this article found on my affiliate marketing blog over at e-scaping.co.uk: Affiliate marketing – the results so far.

Relevant websites and/or domain names

As well as having a general interest in gardening, spending time in the garden and garden furniture, I have a couple of domain names within or similar to this niche, including:

• chimineas
• solar water features
• pent sheds
• and patio furniture sets

The majority of my website thus far, are running on the fresh store builder platform with frankly, fantastic results!
But I wanted the ability to design and create a static style website, employing a very little bit of PHP just to keep me on my toes with learning PHP.

I also wanted the ability to design and build a generic style platform that is static in it’s development so that if I wanted to, I could easily zip up the site and sell it on for a tidy sum somewhere down the line.

If this idea worked and was succesful, it would provide me with a nice incentive to create a better masterplan and achieve the dream of becoming a full-time affiliate so I can give up the day job and spend more time with my family – eventually.

So with general interest and relevance, I thought that if people were buying the products promoted on the above websites, ideally they should be looking to protect their investment(s). What better way than to promote garden furniture covers?

Garden Furniture Covers

There is still quite some work to go on this site on it’s own, but it’s out there and available to see/use and make money from. I just need to write some more content for it and it is another completed website under the belt to add to the portfolio.

So with the very first iteration of my static style, boilerplate website design built and out in the open, it’s now a case of sitting back and seeing what sort of results it brings compared to the more dynamic platforms such as a wordpress option or fresh store builder platform.

In the coming months, I will be sure to update you all with how the monetisation of this domain name/website is going.
But until then – please share your thoughts on the design with the comments section found below. I really would like to hear your thoughts. Both positive and negative.

So far I have recouped 90% of my initial investment over a period of 6 months.
The money was originally invested in a few domain names bought from fellow domainers, but mainly through purchasing FTR (free-to-reg) domain names.

I have managed to recoup the majority of my investment by either designing and building websites with affiliate links via amazon, or buying and selling domain names on their own.

I came across the idea of monetising websites via this book by George Marshall called “Get out while you can – Escape the rat race”:

Buy the book – Get out while you can – Escape the rat race

You can read my review of this book here.

Amazon Affiliate Script – Fresh Store Builder

Now, I wanted to point you guys in the direction of a tool called Fresh Store Builder. If you want to find out a little more about this tool, then read this Fresh Store Builder Review.

Now this tool will initially cost you to set up but will make the ability to build monetised websites easy to setup, simple to maintain and great to monetise and you can find that tool at Fresh Store Builder.

Using all this to learn website design

Now you may be asking that “although it’s great to monetise websites, etc, but how does this help me learn…?”

Well, the great thing about FSB (fresh store builder) is that you can create your own themes, alternatively just manipulate the themes you already have at your disposal.

So FSB will Help you learn design via photoshop or GIMP, leading you to play around with CSS, moving on to writing a bit of content and dabble in a bit of SEO to promote your website.

With all these skills coming together you can build up your portfolio and skill-set making you a hell of a lot more employable than you already are!

So go on, give it a go!
Fresh Store Builder

Since this point, I have had 2 front-end development jobs. 1 of which was 18 months as a junior web designer and front-end developer, and the next 18 months is with my current employers as a middle weight front-end developer.

Alongside my full-time job, I used to do a spot of freelance work, but never really liked the idea of working with clients for pittance. So affiliate marketing was the next natural step to try and earn more money on the side and I have now been researching and learning this trade for around 6 months now.

At such an early stage in my affiliate marketing career, to me, success is deemed as a domain name that returns enough revenue to pay for itself. Anything more than the £8 reg fee of the 2 years it is in my name is a massive bonus.

Buying various niche domain names

During the last 6 months, I have purchased numerous domain names of differing quality, value and potential.

I guess every domain name has potential, but I guess this potential depends on your expectations, abilities, knowledge, resources and belief that determines whether a project will ultimately fail or succeed.

One Word Domain Names

Now there has been a lot of forum threads, blog posts and general conversations mentioning exact match domains (EMD’s). The idea behind EMD’s is that Google and other search engines provide a “bonus” level of importance to websites with keywords held within a domain name, almost as if it adds to the authority of the website/domain depending on the keywords of the domain and how that matches to keywords used throughout the  site.

Some (the majority?) suggest that a domain name that has multiple keywords but all in one word (no hyphens) will be given a “bonus” in Google SERP’s, where as a hyphenated domain will not get this bonus.

dust caps

One of my first domains that I developed was a wordpress blog setup to recommend various style dust caps.

Each product page/post has an image, maybe around 100 words about the dust caps, a price and a buy now link.

Now this domain purchase was a .org.uk domain.
I bought a .org.uk dmain mainly because the .co.uk domain was taken, I didn’t want the hyphenated .co.uk version, and because I am very much a cheap skate and don’t like to pay more than reg fee for a domain name at such an early stage.

Now this niche is neither highly priced (around £5 – £10 per set) or high search volume product (getting around 500+ visits a month), but I am happy to say it has paid for itself within the first 2 months since it went live, which to me is deemed as a success. So for the next 22 months return is then deemed as a profit.

Cheap Bean Bag

Now this domain name was a little off the cuff.

I wanted to experiment with the idea of catching people that were already on the route to purchasing an item and were looking for the best price possible – hence the “cheap” prefix in the domain name.

Again, this keyword/domain is not particularly high in search volume (Google analytics reports around around 600+ visits p/m), but the price per item is a bit better at around £40 – £80+ per sale.

Unfortunately, cheapbeanbags.co.uk was already taken, and after contacting the owner and asking how much he wanted and with a price tag of £250 attached to that domain name, I moved on to the next best thing – The non plural version of that domain name.

Now this domain was setup on the Amazon Affiliate store script – Fresh Store Builder (read more about fresh store builder here).

Again, within 2 months not only had this domain name paid for itself, but it had also made profit. So again, I have a domain/website that has been a “success”. So it was time to carry on experimenting.

Domains with hyphens – No exact match bonus?

So after the previous 2 one-word domain name experiments, I though I would give the “dreaded” hyphenated domain name a try and see what sort of results I get.

I done some research for keywords, products and search for domain names that were free to register (FTR), and stumbled across a potential high(er) search volume niche, with the hyphenated spelling actually proving to be the correct spelling of this product type, with that product being high-top trainers.

high-tops

So high-tops.co.uk was my first step into the world of hyphenated domain names, with the idea of experimenting it’s determined “value” within the likes of Google and see what kind of traffic and commissions I can make from it.

Google’s keyword tool reported that there were searches in excess of 18,100 local exact searches for this term, so I thought I would give it a pop.

Well, this was yet another “success” story, in the sense that again this domain name had exceeded paying for itself, but this time within it’s first month!

Currently getting around 70+ unique visits a day, at time of writing this website is my highest traffic site of 2000+ visits per month.

But, conversion isn’t great at all, which I think is mainly due to the fresh store builder not being the best platform for this type of product because each product page displays only one product size, so if a user gets to a page and the high-tops are not in their size, obviously this product is not going to sell… but again, this domain has already paid for itself a few times over, so the hyphenated domain name experiment is deemed a success in this instance.

Double Hyphenated Domain Names?

So, with the .org.uk, non-hyphenated domain, “cheap” prefixed multi-keyword non hyphenated domain name, and hyphenated 2 word domain name proving to be beyond a “success”, I have recently decided I will try a double hyphenated domain name – but – potentially not in the manner you might be expecting…

electronic cigarette is the niche I will be trying next using double hyphens to separate the keywords.
Why double hyphens? Well, this is a growing niche on a rapid scale, meaning all variations of the non-hyphenated and single hyphenated versions and domain extensions had been taken, also do you remember how much of a cheapskate I mentioned I was? well, with all of these factors playing their part, I recently purchased the FTR domain name: electronic–cigarette.co.uk

Now even I will admit that this domain name looks pretty damn ugly and maybe deemed by some as non-trustworthy, but remember to bare in mind that for a domain name or website to be deemed a success, it only needs to pay for itself within the 2 years it is registered in your name.

This domain/website has literally only just gone live, so as soon as I have some results, I will be sure to post an update. So if you are interested, be sure to pop back to see how things are going.

My portfolio site that is now here on seemly used to be on the domain name e-scaping.co.uk.
This domain name has a little bit of a meaning to me and as such, holds some sentimental value, so I didn’t want to just let the domain name expire after the 2 year lease period was up, so I decided to create an affiliate marketing blog.

This affiliate marketing blog would contain information about all things related to affiliate marketing or the domaining industries, including software, tools, helpful articles or just anything of general interest.

Using a Parallax Effect

Now, although the design is nothing that hasn’t been done before by anyone else, it is the first design I have approached in this style – that style being a parallax design effect.
Don’t know what a parallax website design is? Take a look here.

Now obviously my design is nothing compared to those featured in the article linked to above, but as I mentioned – it is the first time I have stepped into this arena.

Try re-sizing your browser window and keep an eye on the header section of the website.
Notice how the clouds and hills move, with a sense of perspective provided by the scenery that appears further in the distance moving slower than those things that are nearer?

This is created by using percentage (%) on the background-position attribute on background-images found in the CSS.

Using a Little Texture

This is the first website I have designed for a short while now and I decided I would like to employ the use of a little bit of texture, mainly to try and step away from a solid hue for sections/items or resorting to using the same old gradients for a little bit of depth.

There is only just enough texture to notice it, but this is the point in good design isn’t it? Subtle effects to make the overall effect look that much better?

The wordpress theme was in fact a child theme based on the fantastic, open source, themeshaper theme made by Ian Stewart. Not heard of it? It is well worth the investigation – especially if you are looking into developing with WordPress, or even if you already do develop with WordPress.

Share Your Thoughts?

So, I have shared my latest work with you, even provided a little bit of a background as to why…
What are your thoughts? Is it OK?

Please leave your thoughts and comments below. I very much appreciate any and all comments – positive or negative.

I liked the idea of setting up an amazon affiliate store front and finding a solution that was both quick and easy in order to get sites on multiple domains in order to monetise them effectively and efficiently was fairly high up the list of requirements.

Amazon Store Script

During a few months of research, toying around with the likes of WordPress as a product review/recommendation platform and trying various other amazon store scripts that can be found on the net, I stumbled across fresh store builder, which is a fantastic amazon store script which allows you to automate the adding of products, categories and subcategories, etc, whilst also giving you the freedom to add your own textual content for any given page.

Fresh Store Builder

The interface and usability of the fresh store builder as an affiliate store platform is pretty sweet, with a nice navigation area in the admin which gives you access to adding or editing categories and subcategories, you can change the look of your store by choosing from the 4 default theme templates or for those of you that are a little more advanced in graphic/web design, you could even try modifying your chosen template, giving you complete freedom of how your store looks.

Auto Populating Amazon Store

When you have set up a subcategory or category, you have the option of  setting up auto product population based upon a keyword search, browse node or ASIN.

Now although this is a fantastic option for populating a website from zero to hero within a couple of clicks and a few minutes, in order to be found in search engines you will of course need to be providing Google with unique content, but it still gives you a head start when looking to populate your store.

Success Rate of Fresh Store Builder

Now I have installed the fresh store builder on to a couple of my domains, and I have been pleasantly surprised by the almost instant results from some of these websites, with a handful more than paying for themselves within the first couple of weeks of being live.

A domain that has been less successful (so far) is Chiminea, mainly due to the fact they are yet to be indexed by the search engine behemoth that is Google.

The other advantage of this button is that is also gives Facebook a massive advantage with regards to gathering priceless advertising demographics, allowing them (Facebook) to advertise proven popular events, products, articles, websites, etc, to users that have already ‘liked’ (or associated) themselves with such activities.

This means Facebook are able to provide adverts to users that will be relevant to them, which in turn allows advertisers to target the potential consumers they are specifically looking for. Something Google has been unable to replicate – until now.

Google’s version of the Facebook ‘like’ button

At the moment, the Google Plus 1 Button is still in it’s infancy and is currently being trialed through an experimental stage.

From Google:

The +1 button is shorthand for “this is pretty cool” or “you should check this out.”

Click +1 to publicly give something your stamp of approval. Your +1′s can help friends, contacts, and others on the web find the best stuff when they search.

Improving Google for users & advertisers alike

So the +1 button will allow Google to start gathering advertising potential information and demographics from it’s users on a massive scale, and if it proves to be anywhere near as successful as the Facebook ‘like’ button it, could prove to be a massive money spinner for the already highly successful Google advertising platform.

It will be interesting to see how this pans out for Google over the coming months/years, but also to see how it could be used to gather information/statistics that will ultimately be used towards website authority and search engine rankings.

Care to share your thoughts?

A few months ago, I signed up for the following reseller hosting providers, Krystal.

Krystal hosting reseller providing fantastic support

Since I signed up with krystal, I have asked in the region of 10+ direct support questions, of which the support has been fantastic!

Reseller packages are pretty much a definitive requirement for any budding freelance designer, in order to provide your clients with an affordable hosting solution whilst allowing you to make increase your profit margins.

Best & cheapest reseller hosting package (potentially)

Although the services and support are top notch, the prices are rock bottom, making krystal EXTREMELY affordable. Trust me, I’m a skin flint and I have scowered the internet for the best reseller package at the best price.

The smallest package costs £25 p/a, of which you can host 2 websites from that one account, with access to 2 databases (ideal for 2 wordpress website installs).

Reseller hosting perfect for the seasoned freelance designer/developer

The largest package is ideal for the seasoned freelancer, whilst still retaining an affordable price tag (especially when you factor in the potential revenue YOU can make from selling hosting to clients), which costs around £500 p/a.

But the package that is the most reasonable and affordable for the likes of you and I (and the package I actually use) is the ruby package – at £99.99 p/a, as a freelancer, this is a VERY affordable reseller hosting provider.

Check them out at www.krystal.co.uk.

Another great thing about Krystal?

The servers are UK based, making GEO targeting for SEO that bit better for you and your clients website rankings in Google.

I really hope this helps out some of you guys.
Even the basic package is one of the cheapest hosting solutions for single websites.

Although I don’t watch the show religiously, there does tend to be an interesting range of guests with pretty good interviews to go alongside.

But there is one thing about this show that has really got me so very much inspired over the last couple of weeks and this is the daily updates of Eddie Kidds London marathon charity run in aid of children with leukaemia.

The London Marathon – 22nd April 2011

The London marathon started on 22nd April 2011. Eddie Kidd started his marathon run on the 17th April and he was very much determined to complete the 26.219 mile course.

Now the amazing thing about this whole charity run is that Eddie Kidd is walking the course.

Big deal you may say, but for those of you that don’t know, Eddie Kidd had an accident back in 1996 when a landing went wrong;

Kidd suffered serious head and pelvic injuries in a stunt bike crash at the Bulldog Bash, held at Long Marston Airfield near Stratford-upon-Avon on 6 August 1996, when a landing went wrong.

In comparison to some of his previous jumps, this stunt was relatively minor, a jump of approximately 50 ft 0 in (15.24 m) across a drag strip. Though he landed the bike upright and on two wheels, Eddie was knocked unconscious. Because of this, he was unable to prevent the bike from continuing up and over a 30 ft 0 in (9.14 m) drop beyond the end of the run off area.

Doctors later told his parents that he could be in a coma for up to 10 years, but he regained consciousness within six weeks of the accident.

Now this accident has left him wheelchair bound for the rest of his life. So what makes Eddie’s marathon run so special is that he is walking the london marathon.

Support & sponsor Eddie’s London Marathon charity run

Eddie has a special page made up for charitable donations for his charity of Children With Leukaemia, in which at time of writing, has amassed £37,385.66 from very kind, supportive and very much inspired onlookers.

I for one have donated what I could afford, and I urge you to do the same.

When I have visited these sites, then go to one of the websites I frequent daily, say Sky Sports football news, there is usually a banner or two that advertise products/services of the websites I have visited recently, and if I am completely honest, not only do I find this really annoying and a bit “big brother is watching you”, I also don’t see how this kind of advertising can work in many instances…

Say I went to Amazon and I was looking for power tools, for arguments sake, lets say I searched for a hammer drill. Now when I next go to sky sports football news, I get a banner or two advertising said product (as I have grown accustomed to, but don’t necessarily agree with). Now, what if I had purchased said product from Amazon…?
Why would I want to see advertisements of a product I just purchased? (As I’ve probably got it all wrong as to how these adverts actually work, if someone has the answer to this, then please do leave a comment!)

How to opt-out of advertisment cookies

So, as these adverts are so chuffing annoying, I was luckily enough, pointed in the direction of this cracking website from the Network Advertising Initiative, which allows users to opt-out of these advertisement cookies.

If you, like me, use the Firefox browser, there are of course plenty of add-ons that will allow you to block flash banners/adverts, but for those that use the likes of IE, Chrome, etc, and you too get annoyed by those pesky “big-brother is watching you” style advertisements, then head on over and opt-out!