Like many people I use facebook alot to keep in contact with my friends and post a few links here and there.

I do also use facebooks advertising service to display ads for a couple of my websites.  In general I find the click cost is cheap in comparison to adwords and other ppc advertsing. Having said that the conversions do tend to be lower so overall it isn’t as efficient as it may first appear.

There are a few of other options you can use to advertise through facebook that are in fact free.

You can create a facebook group and call it whatever you want………
For examples I get cashback from cashbackpages.com which is one I created for one of my cashback sites.
I’ve had a few people join this group and hopefully had a couple of people discover my cashback site because of it.

Any sort of free traffic is always nice!

I’m off to create some new free pages on facebook.
If anyone else gives this a go, let me know how you get on.

No, Its not spring yet and the forcasters say we are stuck with the snow and at least the cold weather for some time to come yet.

But what I’m talking about is the economy which with all the bad news over the last few months is also cold as ice.
However you can be forgiven for not having noticed the first signs of green shoots appearing in the housing market, which haven’t been given that much coverage in the headlines.
(Come on the media, we could all do with some good news!)

The Halifax have announced that property prices have risen by 2% in January, which conscidering how long and how far the average price has fallen is very good news for the economy.

Could the housing market have bottomed out?
Obviously its still early days, but I think as long as the banks start lending customers more freely then people will start snapping up the bargains that are currently available in housing.

What does this mean for the wider economy?
In the short term probably not much, as we still haven’t really felt the full effects of the events of the past few months.
For the long term it could be just what we need to kick start the economy, after all it was the housing market (allbeit mainly in the US) that first triggered the credit crunch.

The good news is that if house prices continue to rise even just a little bit month, then this could get investors wanting to build houses again, which of course gets our builders building and creates more jobs for the whole industry.

What do you think…. Are these the first green shoots that we have been waiting for?

I know everyone is now starting to feel the effects of the economic downturn in one way or another.

Its certainly teaching me to be alot more carefull with my money, both business and personal.

I think the internet is one of the best tools to help you save money as there are so many usefull money saving websites packed with tips on how to get the most from your hard earned cash.

I’ve joined so many of these sites in the last few weeks, I think its starting to become bit of hobby to increase my income and at the same time cut the cost of the bills.

Without doubt I’ve saved myself 100’s of pounds a month.

I’m going to write a list below of my favourite money saving websites.

No doubt you will of heard of some and probably use a few yourself, but hopefully there will be a couple you haven’t seen before.

Please feel free to add to this list …… I’m always looking at ways of saving or making more money

The internet home of money saving has to be at moneysavingexpert.com

If you have never heard of this site before then spend about a week going through it because its full of great advice and will save you a packet. Also recommend signing up to the weekly e-mail.

I have signed up to a few cashback websites, but of course will not take less than 100%

My favourite has to be Top Cashback as I’m now receiving 110% cashback from them.

It still annoys me when I hear so many of my friends still don’t get cashback when they shop online.

Many just don’t seem to grasp the concept. It is quite simply money for nothing!

Just click a link its not difficult.

Another one I love is say no to 0870 which is a great idea as I hate running up big phone bills.

This simple little site has a database full of alternative telephone numbers which are either free or at least a cheaper option. Great for use at work and home.

For selling old stuff and making a bit of money of course there is ebay although the fees can be a little on the high side.

A good alternative auction site is ebids which keeps the costs down making sure you make maximum profit.

Get rid of old mobile phones and get some cash back at the Mobile Phone Xchange

Petrolprices.com is handy as it lets you know the cheapest petrol station in your area. Great if your filling up or planning a long journey. Saving a few pence on each litre of fuel then quickly adds up.

Using a price comparison site like comparethemarket.com is probably the most obvious way of saving money with the internet and there are loads around to choose from.

For maximum savings don’t use them on their own but along with a cashback site as mentioned above.

ie) Find which shop offers the cheapest price through the comparison site.

Then check to see if that shop offers cashback from the cashback website and click through from there.

This way your double quids in!

You can’t always get cashback from everywhere but its always worth a look.

I hope you find some of these usefull to you .

Anyone else got any sites to add to my list?

Just about all affiliates I would imagine, have or will eventually face the dreaded ‘google slap’ at some point and its one of the biggest headaches you will get in affiliate marketing as it can turn any of your campaigns on its head in an instant.

What is a ‘google slap’?
Well trust me when I say you won’t miss it when it happens…
One thing you learn fast as an affiliate is that google is like your best friend and your worst enemy all rolled into one.
Lets assume you have just set-up a new adwords campaign to your website or merchants site.
After some carefull thought you have set-up some ad groups and chosen your targeted keywords and set your bid amounts based on your projected target for that month – For arguements sake lets say your bid is set at 5p per click on your best performing keyword/s.
Now overtime of course to run your ppc campaign successfully you will continue to monitor your “return on investment” (ROI) to ensure you are actually making a profit – Along the way gathering as much feedback on keyword conversions and cost per sale and find the sweet spots to maximise your return ( in simple terms )

Example:
Lets assume you have had 1000 clicks on your keywords all at the set amount of 5p and you have had 40 sales in that time which have given you in return commissions totalling £120.
So.. Your cost = £50 in clicks and your profit is a very respectable £70 ……….. Happy Days !
In an ideal world of course you would from now on just leave every thing alone, simply top up your adwords credit and have yourself a nice money making machine that required no maintenance.
   Unfortunately lifes not that straight forward and that includes your new psychophrenic friend.
BEWARE! At any time google may make your keywords inactive by raising the minimum bid requirements for your precious keywords at any time.
The minimum bid required could now be set to anything…
Sometimes it may be 10p or 25p or even 50p – In fact just about anything google wants.
OUCH! YOU HAVE BEEN SLAPPED!

The Effects of a slap:
The first thing you will probably notice is that the traffic you have been sending has dropped dramatically – In fact it might have just about dried up all together if its on some of your best performing keywords ( and sods law dictates it probably will be )
This of course in turn means fewer sales and a big drop in profits for you ( Not such happy Days! )

So.. What to do next
The most important thing at this point is not too panic
Don’t just simply increase your bids to the required amounts to satisfy your hunger for site visitors – Thats the worst thing you can do.

Battle Stations: – Here’s how I try and combat a google adwords slap..Don’t panic – as above - I sit down and first try and figure out the reasons behind it.
The most important thing most people fail to realise – and I can’t stress this enough is that 9 times out of 10 increasing your bid/s is not the answer! This will probably just make your situation a whole lot worse. Chances are that a few days down the line your going to get slapped even harder and it will cost you big time.

The main reason why google will increase your minimum bid is probably because your keyword quality score (QS) has dropped so by just feeding more money in is not going to help your situation.
You need to improve the quality or it will keep dropping further regardless.

Improving your keyword quality score: 
There are a few ways you may be able to improve your score.
1. Ensure your keywords are highly targeted
2. Improve the quality of your ads by ensuring you grab the users eye and increase your click through ratio (CTR) – Its a good idea to have a few ads running in each ad group so you can guage which perform the best.
I tend to have 3 or 4 going at once and then continue to edit the lowest performer. This keeps things moving in the right direction.
Its worth making a note that it may help to simply switch the poor ones off.
   Don’t worry too much on the click through ratio for your content ads – Its generally a miss conception that a low CTR for your content ads will effect your quality scores – I’ve heard it said so many times by other advertisers and its simply not true.

Crunching the numbers:
Its only worth conscidering increasing your bids once you are happy you have improved your chances of a better CTR. Otherwise the downward spiral of your campaign is likely to continue.
Of course its only wise to increase your bids if its going to still be profitable.
Making money with PPC isn’t rocket science – If more money is coming out than you are putting in then your winning – Its that simple.
You must do the maths to ensure you can afford to increase your bid amounts.
Back to the example above – If you had to increase your bids to just 10p you can see because it will double your cost you won’t have too much profit left. Any more than this and you will soon be making a loss assuming the trend would continue.

Other things worth doing..
If your a PPC affiliate its good pratice to have multiple campaigns – Work your way up and get yourelf in the position of not being destroyed if one campaign goes bad.
Don’t be afraid to stop/pause your campaign for a while.
Its worth looking out for other reasons why your bid price has inflated…
Sometimes increased competition for your words may be the reason behind the ’slap’ – This may even vary throughout the day – I have noticed certain words fluctuating as certain competitors may only bid at peak times for example so there are still windows of opportunity which can be grabbed by using the ad scheduling function.

Google Doesn’t hate you:
Don’t fall out with the ‘big boy’ – google doesn’t hate you.
All google wants is the best results for its users so they keep coming back for more. ( so keep improving )
They aren’t trying to destroy your campaign as they want you to keep pumping the money in.
Having said that I wouldn’t say that they don’t try and push their luck a little.
Remember google needs to keep trying to inflate keyword prices – Some people think that google slaps are systematically activated to do just this.

The PPC Fairies:
I must say I’m not entirely convinced on this theory myself and one thing I have noticed is that sometimes doing nothing at all is the answer - Whilst I’m not paying so much on my ppc bill for a while I can concentrate on other things and use my budget elsewhere.
Usually over time the PPC fairies pay a visit and put things back as they should be.

I think they must have just flew away on holiday as one of my campaigns has been on pause for 2 weeks and still ‘no cigar’

Time to go to bed now lol – its been a long day but thanks for reading
Mike

I have been sent a £50 adwords voucher from google to giveaway.

The voucher can only be used on new accounts so unfortunately its not any good to anyone already using adwords for their ppc campaigns.

Its a great opportunity for anyone to start pay per click advertising who hasn’t tried it yet.
You can use the 50 quid to set-up your new ppc campaign/s without having any fear of losing your money.

What its worth?
That of course depends on how successfull your campaign is but you never know you may make a good few sales to keep you going and end up starting off for free.

Quick Example  : With 50 pounds of adwords credit at 5 pence per click you could have 1000 free clicks,
or 500 at 10p
A good little start ( I wish I had one when I opened my account )

If anyone is interested in receiving this free voucher please let me know and I’ll send you the details in full which includes what I get out of it as set out by google.

Thanks for reading
Mike

BTW I’m already trying to get hold of a few more

Its now been a whole month since I started my blog and I must say I’m suprised by how much I’m enjoying writing it.

Okay so a month isn’t that long I know and i’ll be the first to admit that this isn’t exactly the best blog in the world – But even I would be hard pushed to do that in just 4 weeks .

Like I said when I first started, I’ve never wrote a blog before so i wasn’t sure how it would go.
I’m liking the fact that a small handfull of people are regularly reading my posts and keep coming back when its updated so i can’t be doing that bad. Its quite encouraging really – So thanks to all those that are reading.
 
To be honest I haven’t really made much of an effort to promote my blog and I probably should have added to it more regularly as some people seem to post something every day – So maybe this month I will make an extra effort to start writing more detailed posts.

As I’m an affiliate marketer naturally I’m obsessed with statistics and I was suprised by some of the stats that are coming out of this blog and some lessons have been learn’t from these
Here’s some stats from one months blogging and starting from scratch:

1. Hits: 350 
2. Top Post: The Future of Online Poker (read 41 times)
3. Top Referer: Affiliates4u.com
4. Search Engine Traffic: 53 Unique Visitors
5. Most Searched Term: deal or no deal pkr ( 4 times )

So what do the above stats tell me…
1. Well first off its not exactly a traffic magnet – but on the other hand it hasn’t done too bad either.
2. Is a little annoying as the main topic is affiliate marketing.  ( I will get this sorted )
3. A4u Rocks!
4. Again WTF is this?

These are the obvious statistics but as I’m a stats freak had to find some more – And these ones interested me the most.

5. My Blog has 53 inbound links
6. According to Alexa my blogs traffic rank is in the TOP 7.85% of ALL Websites
7. Google Crawls my blog everyday.

So what do I make of this:

5. As far as I can remember i’ve only made 2 inbound links to this blog myself – so blog sites are great at naturally generating inbound links.
6. Theirs an awfull lot of crap on the internet LOL
7. Well its obviously mainly down to the fact its hosted by wordpress

There I’ve finally convinced myself

Thanks for reading
Mike

I’m sorry if the following post doesn’t make much sense but I’ve got to settle my own curiosity when it comes to typos and keyword misspellings.

I’e ee doig soe researh o the iteret ad it appears that the ost regular letters that are left out whist typig are for soe reaso o the last row of the keyoard.

Enough of that……
What I mean’t to say was
I’ve been doing some research on the internet and it appears that the most regular letters that are left out whilst typing are for some reason on the last row of the keyboard

Apparently now with alot of keyboards running on a wireless connection and with batteries there are more reliability issues.
It appears the keys most effected by a low battery are mainly on the bottom row + with other faults aswell.

I think this is quite interesting
I know some website owners who deliberately make spelling mistakes on targeted keywords on their websites content with the intention of picking up typos on the search engines from users mistakes.
This is also a well known common practice for some marketers using google adwords and other ppc engines.
Personally I’ve never thought the volume was large enough or couldn’t really be bothered to include all the permitations – Its all just too much.

Now I’m not sure there is much truth in the bottom row theory although it does give a little food for thought and I think some of the big boys would see this as a gem.

I’m sure a ppc campaign for dell with the exact match [uy ew keyoard] could be a winner

Thanks for reading
Mike

Many economists are now predicting the worst is over as far as the big banks are concerned, but unfortunately it still looks like the worst is still to come for the general public with the ongoing rise in oil prices which is pushing up prices for just about everything else we buy, especially fuel and food. There is still a long way to go before things start to calm down imo.

The housing market is in freefall with prices dropping faster than they have since the 90’s
From a personal perspective this hasn’t been good as I have now been forced to withdraw my own house from the market which I’ve been trying to sell for the last 12 months ( After having 6 offers falling through along the way it hasn’t been the most pleasant of experiences )
Of course there are 2 sides of the coin to this story and the fact that high house prices are now going down is a great thing for those who wish to get on the housing ladder.

So what does this mean?
All in all it means the markets aren’t very active at the moment as people are sitting back and waiting to see what happens and are increasingly being forced to tighten their belts more and more each week.
Consumer spending is running thin on the highstreet as a result and a recession in the uk still looks likely.

Any glimmer of light?

Well yep !
As far as affiliate marketing goes things are looking up in some areas.
Because more people are now turning to the internet as a way of cutting the costs.
The average man on the street is talking about ways of saving money and word of mouth travels fast.
( Its one of the best forms of marketing )
Cashback sites are enjoying increased sign up rates and price comparison websites are more popular than ever. 

Banks are starting to lend again which means people are searching once again in numbers for the best loan and credit card deals etc.
The internet may well be hailed the savior to the uk public/consumer as we all go through the harder times.

Some affiliates (myself included) may need to adapt to survive these harder times as most sectors will still be hit hard by less overall consumer spending.
But keep your eyes wide open and you will see light at the end of the tunnel – just make sure your heading in the right direction.

Thanks for reading
Mike

Fans of the TV game show Deal or No Deal are in for a treat as pkr have launched their own version of the game into their ground breaking 3d software.

Many poker sites have long realised that there is an opportunity to gain more revenue from players who are often caught up for hours at a time especially in long tournaments when the action is sometimes slow.
Rather than sit back and let these players wait for a good hand while playing tight in their MTT’s to ensure survival they would much rather they bought in another game or waged some money at the cash tables.

Multi-tabling came first allowing players to play several games at once which also multiplies the rake the poker site earns from that player. Many poker players find playing at more than one table a little too much so sites like paradise poker decided it was more profitable to add a blackjack application which could run along side the poker game and was much easier and faster to play.

The guys at pkr who are heading the way in the online poker industry in my opinion have once again showed their flare by adding the new deal or no deal game to their site. They have put an extra spin on a poker application by realising that this new game in itself with its cult fan base could attract potential new poker players to its site and also opens new avenues for pkr’s affiliates which is always appreciated.

Nice one guys!

Thanks for reading
Mike

I must admit I was a little suprised at first to read today that ‘the Duckman’ Jason Dale has launched his own cashback website cashquack.com
I say suprised because as Jason is the first to admit in his blog, he has not always been the biggest fan of cashback websites and neither am I.

Don’t get me wrong as a consumer I love cashback sites – There is nothing better than scanning a few price comparison websites and finding the cheapest option and then banging the price down even further by discovering that I can get moneyback from that retailer on the highest paying cashback site.
Its saved me a small fortune I’d recommend it to anyone. (ahem!)

Now I always do this when I shop online and I’m sure other affiliates do the same, plus even use their own affiliate links on occassions. Its one of the purks of the job right?

The problem for me with cashback sites is they let everyone know how to do this and thats not really a good thing as far as affiliate marketing is concerned in my opinion.
I never shop online without getting some form of cashback or another ( why would I ? ) But soon everyone in the land will be shopping this way so you had better wave goodbye to your shopping portal and niche product websites because no one is going to pay you ‘their own commission’

In time the only way for affiliates to gain any decent income from retail affiliate programs will be to have a cashback site of their own which I think is why Jason has made the push to launch his new site. ( He hasn’t gone quackers after all )

Cashback sites aren’t as profitable as traditional links so affiliates are being forced to cut their margins.
There is already a large number of cashback sites and the growth of new ones emerging is going to accelerate at an amazing pace.
I’m sure it won’t be too long before families set-up their own personal cashback sites for each other to use as they hook on to the idea which will leave affiliates ‘high and dry’

This will eventually – all but kill the retail affiliate marketing industry as we know it.
Make hay while the sun shines I say because its all going to be spread a little thin for all retail affiliates pretty soon.

Thanks for reading everyone and good luck with the new venture jason
I’m off to get my own new CB site while theres still a chance of making a few quid

Mike