It is some time since my last update and I have moved further away from the affiliate side of things to concentrate on Gluten Free Food Products which has evolved massively over the past year.

Timeline for Gluten Free Food Products.

• November 2011 – Launched in Darlington selling products from other manufacturers over the internet.
• January 2012 – Our first show at St Chads in Leeds – green as grass but learned a lot.
• June 2012 – Decision made to produce our own products.
• July 2012 – New premises aquired in nearby Bishop Auckland.
• July – August 2012 was spent building a gluten free kitchen / bakery
• September 2012 – Our “Mandy’s Gluten Free” product range was launched
• October 2012 – Our first show showcasing the new range Mandy was overjoyed at being refered to as “The Quiche Lady from Facebook“.

Launching our own range was the best move we could make, things have taken off at a hectic pace, our gluten free products are now for sale at several locations across the country as well as being available on our website.

We are a regular feature at Saltburn Farmers Market which is the 2nd Saturday in the Month from March to December, they are also holding a Food Festival on Sunday August 4th 2013.

Forthcoming Events.

• Bishop Auckland Food Festival – Saturday 20th and Sunday 21st April 2013 – We are in the Newgate Centre
• Taste Of Teesdale – Sunday 21st July 2013 (attendence TBC)
• Salburn Food Festival – Sunday August 4th 2013
• Coeliac Cumbria – Gluten Free Food Fair – Saturday November 16th 2013 – Carlisle Racecourse
• Wirral Coeliac Group – Gluten Free Food Fair – Saturday 1st March 2014 – Ellesmere Port Civic Hall
• Leeds Coeliac Group -  Gluten Free Food Fair – Saturday 22nd March 2014 – Pudsey Civic Hall

Gluten Free Food Products can be contacted on 08454 670701 and admin@glutenfreefoodproducts.co.uk

It’s some time since my last post and during that time things have been moving at a hectic pace.

My affiliate activities while still an important stream of income now play second fiddle to my first faltering steps as a merchant, in November Gluten Free Food Products Limited was born and the last 2 months have been a steep learning curve with premises, equipment, stock, Vat reg, e-commerce website, credit card integration and a million other things to sort out, thankfully I have haven’t had to do it alone and my wonderful girlfriend Mandy is also my business partner and we have embarked on the adventure together.

My internet marketing skills and Mandy’s inside knowledge of Coeliac Disease means we cover a fair few bases.

We have now soft launched and are waiting for the trickle of orders to become a torrent, full launch comes this Saturday when we are handing out leaflets and samples at our first food fair as an exhibitor so if you happen to be in Leeds pop over to St Chads and give us some support.

Guest post by Kayleigh-Ann Smith (Kaz) my feature writer on several of my websites.

Hello!!

I am Kaz and I go by the nickname Luna – I am a bright haired, pierced and tattooed writer and I want to write for you!

I write all sorts of stuff ranging from fashion, health & beauty for Fashion Style You   lingerie for Beautiful Lingerie and my own stuff, adult fan fiction (I do wish to put emphasis on “adult”) for an LJ I share with some friends at http://twinks-n-kinks.livejournal.com.

If I don’t know about something I will head off and see if I can educate myself before saying I can’t do it and even then I would give it a good go first – you learn by doing, and if you don’t try something new, or go outside of your comfort zones then sometimes, things just do not get done.

I like to write about my own experiences too, when it applies – I dye my hair a lot and when using new products I like to do reviews on them; same for make-up I have done a piece for FSY about mascara’s and if they live up to the expectations we have of them after seeing the adverts.  It went down pretty well as did the video review and companying article about a hair colour stripping product – I actually ended up shaving off my hair and saved a lot of people doing the same.

I don’t just stick to the guidelines – I like a good debate and a piece I wrote on ear piercings on babies and the use of piercing guns sparked off a good debate which still ebbs on (in a civilized way) it also educated many people who didn’t realize there was even an alternative to piercings guns etc.

Writing is all about ideas, views, education & debates and as long as they stay friendly; it is all good.

As well as writing about things I like to take pictures of them too.  I like to take pictures of anything and everything from architecture to flowers and people – though architecture and flowers etc. are my favourites as they can’t pull a “diva strop” and can always hold a pose!  I always have a camera of some sort on me; more recently I got an iPhone4 and promptly got the instagram app – I’m snapping away at everything!

I am a proud Modified Doll – https://www.facebook.com/themodifieddolls – and do charity work with them, through photoshoots and fashion as well as “spreading the word” about our months chosen charities and out monthly magazine.
I am a friendly and funny creative type – and I like to think that comes through in my writing, I can add a funny twist to something, make it a little more laid back or I can be deadly serious; it all depends on the subject matter – feel free to get in touch by e-mailing me at glitterluna@hotmail.co.uk or adding me on MSN at the same address… or if you feel like it, you can “Ping!” me my ID is miss_luna – I look forward to hearing from you!

Guest post by David Merry a Director at online live casino CastleCasino.com and manages the affiliate program marketing. You can find out more about promoting CastleCasino.com at www.castleaffiliates.com.

Reliable tracking software holds the affiliate industry together, without it we wouldn’t be able to put any faith in the programs which we promote and rely on. Regardless of the confidence which you have in your affiliate software operator it is always best to get another third party perspective, something which Google Analytics allows you to do in spectacular fashion.
Even if you have 100% faith in the tracking capability of your affiliate software, the greatest benefits come from the mountain of extra data analysis opportunities it provides you with. As a quick example to entice you to read further, you may naturally assume that the 100 clicks you send per day to your merchant come predominantly from a particular keyword you get 2000 visits for; however you may discover that actually they come from a keyword which only sends 500 visitors – therefore enabling you to shift your focus and allocate your budget better based on accurate statistics. In short, you could spend less money and make a lot more. What have you got to lose?

How to implement:

In order to allow Google Analytics to start tracking your outbound affiliate clicks as goals you need to complete the following:

Step 1: Assign a tracker to each link.

You will need to input an artificial tracker to each link that you want to track, which is created by tagging the page with the _trackPageview() JavaScript function. As an example, if you wanted to log every click on a particular link to www.keithbond.co.uk as a page view for /G1/keithbond.co.uk, you would add the following attribute to the link’s tag:

Although adding a tracker to every link is long winded initially it can be speeded up using a find and replace source code tool. From that point it becomes simple and second nature to include the JavaScript tracker when building a link. Please note, the G1 included in the link stands for ‘goal 1’ and just helps me categorise, you can add whatever you like.

Step 2: Use the JavaScript generated tracker as a goal

The task is now simple, simply add the tracking link to your Google Analytics goals section (Website Profile > Edit). Using the code above as an example you would add the following:
/G1/keithbond_co.uk

This should be added as a URL destination with head match selected in Google Analytics.

Simple!

How to use the tracking

Once the process that I have outlined has been implemented you should start to receive data reported as goals within hours.

The most basic report you will find is an overview of the goals which have been completed and the conversion rate. This doesn’t help analyse anything in particular however may give you insights into trended data, for example which date of the month are your conversion rates generally the highest.

Next browse the traffic sources section in your Analytics and break it down further to the traffic sources list. Then click on the ‘Goal Set’ tab and you will be greeted with exact click through percentages that every single source has given you. This should help you identify which sources are actually earning you the money and sending traffic to your merchant. Remember that traffic levels is just a worthless number, it is the traffic which converts which pays the mortgage.

You can also use this same method with the keywords which you rank in search engines for, allowing you to identify the consumer intent of those visiting your site through them. Remember, you can now filter out all of the keywords which are sending you non-converting traffic and allocate budget into what earns you money.

As my last example (from the millions I have!) you can even break this down into territories. The example below shoes me that people from Spain seem a lot more inclined to click on this particular brand – all I have to do to improve conversions for this is to include this brand on the Spanish versions of our sites. Simple, yet effective.

I think you are starting to get the point, try it out for yourself and see what is and isn’t working for you!

Guest post by Joe Williams of SEO Training

“A man can’t see, he can’t fight” [Terry Silver – The Karate Kid III]

Insightful words from Karate Kid villain ‘Terry Silver’.  A principal so profound it can be applied to just about anything, including online marketing. To compete in your online industry, you need to see what works and what doesn’t [a man can’t see, he can’t fight].

So, how do you know what works?

It’s all about successful actions on your site or the ‘conversions’ your visitors take which help drive business. This could be an enquiry (lead), sale, download, subscription, newsletter signup or anything else which helps reach your goals. This is something I often highlight in our SEO courses.

Google Analytics Goals (and how it’s got a whole lot better!)

Google Analytics allows conversions to be tracked as goals. Once a goal is triggered, you can see what contributed last to its success e.g. Affiliate, SEO or PPC, and whether a referring keyword was involved. This is really useful but often there are many referring traffic sources and many keywords that assist in any one conversion.

So only knowing the last referrer is a bit like Terry Silver attempts to blind Karate Kid. You can’t see the whole search journey and this makes optimisation (or fighting) difficult. Much more difficult.

The Rise of Google Analytics Multi-Channel Funnels

Read more about it here.

Knowing the whole search journey and allocating assists for conversions has been around for a while but only for premium web analytics packages which small businesses and often affiliates can’t afford.

Well, Google has now made this feature free for all. And this makes everything a whole lot easier to plan and optimise in your online marketing efforts.

Every wandered why brand keywords convert so well? Customers must know who you are. But those that only recently discovered you are likely to have found you another way first and now using Google Analytics Multi-Channel funnels you can find out how! A super handy feature.