Many of my compatriots have posted on their blogs reflecting on the last decade or year and very good reading it is too here are some of them:

• CantBarsed.com 10th Anniversary Year! Joe Connor
• Surviving A Decade Of Self Employment Jason Dale
• Goodbye to the Noughties and a New Life in the Teenies… Nadeem Azam
• What a difference 10 years makes… J Lil (aka James Little)
• That’s All For 2009 Folks – What will 2010 Bring? Kirsty McCubbin

For me this is not a time for reflection, the Noughties were ok to me well actually a bit of a rollercoaster ride, however, as one top astrologer put it on New Years Day, they have tweeted their last tweet and updated facebook for the last time, and you cant phone, text, email or skype them, they are gone forever.

Now looking forward to the Teenies (is that the accepted term?) what will they bring, undoubtedly for all of us, a whole world of new changes and challenges on so many levels both personally and professionally.

On a professional level I am going to start by building on the foundations our dear friend the Noughties left behind, 2009 was all about consolidation, I ended the year spending 90% of my time on the few sites bringing in the majority of my revenue rather than wasting time on dead ducks.

The main focus this year will be on building up the brand of Fashion Style You which is now over 2.5 years old and steadily growing month on month (google willing).

Aside from that I am going to remain flexible while continuing other projects and collaborations which have proved fruitful in the past I will also be looking for new opportunities, possibly selling a few sites but above all moving forward.

The Noughties Have Updated Facebook For The Last Time

For a long time now it has been wise to treat any stats provided by Alexa with a pinch of salt therefore I don’t visit very often however I was there the other day and noticed for the first time the Clickstream tab and was mildly surprised and intrigued by what it revealed:

Upstream Sites

Percent of total visits to keithbond.co.uk preceded by a visit to the upstream site.

• 24.17% easycontentunits.com
• 15.83% google.co.uk
• 12.50% affiliates4u.com
• 10.83% twitter.com
• 9.17% affiliatewindow.com
• 6.67% facebook.com
• 5.83% google.com
• 5.83% internetmarketingblogs.co.uk
• 4.17% webgains.com
• 2.50% here.org.uk

Downstream Sites

Percent of total visits to keithbond.co.uk followed by a visit to the downstream site.

• 23.85% affiliates4u.com
• 15.60% google.co.uk
• 14.68% easycontentunits.com
• 14.68% twitter.com
• 11.01% affiliatewindow.com
• 5.50% google.com
• 3.67% amazon.co.uk
• 2.75% discountcodes365.co.uk
• 2.75% here.org.uk
• 2.75% webaffiliate.co.uk

Interesting that 24% of my traffic (according to Alexa) comes via Easy Content Units, obviously due to the two wordpress plugins I developed which can be used with them, more suprising is that 10% of traffic comes from Twitter.

Not quite sure how the downstream is calculated but I suspect it is a combination of both click throughs and browser bookmarks, the bottom stat caught my eye

• 2.75% webaffiliate.co.uk

as 2.78% of the Webaffiliate upstream comes from this site (cheers Chris for the mutual support).

The accuracy of these statistics is open to question but it did give me a geeky half hour while I played with them.

Alexa Clickstream

Those of you who work with me and a few of you that don’t are probably aware that my main area is fashion, as you may appreciate there are a lot of fashion merchants out there and its a often a case of me picking the easy options when choosing what to write about, if I have content about a merchant I am more likely to give them prominence than if I have to do my own research and totally write articles from scratch.

Don’t get me wrong I am not against writing stuff from the ground up and probably between 6 and 12 articles daily are all my own work.

So what do I require to push your programme?

In a word CONTENT!!!

Unique content is best and it will push you to the top of the pile, I have a wonderful agency person who sends me 3 unique articles a week for one of the merchants she looks after, consequently 3 articles a week get published for that merchant.

So what kind of stuff am I looking for?

Well the answer is absolutely anything fashion related, short articles work best for me in the 150 – 200 word region.

One article will get you exposure, one a month gets you regular exposure, one a week… etc you get the picture.

Tell me and my users about your brands, your ranges, your new stuff, your best sellers, your clearance department, celebrities that use your products, media attention they have gained, anything really, it is all useful.

If you send me unique content I will use it.

If you send me generic content I may use it.

If you send me nothing I don’t have a starting point.

What else can you do?

Let me know when your products have been on TV or in the papers and magazines, the fresher the better, I got a heads up about a range of products that were featured on a Channel 4 programme recently, so I wrote a short piece about them, it wasn’t fashion incidentally but a health product which I could use on the main fashion site, from the moment I published they literally started flying off the shelves and I know for a fact a lot more publishers than me benefited, as the product was not unique to one merchant, a few more sales were diverted in the direction of the one I promoted thanks to being guided by the agency looking after them.

I have just realised it is a year as of yesterday that I wrote about this very same subject How To Push My Buttons And Get Me To Promote Your Wares just shows not a lot has changed.

A big thank you to everyone who sends me content, has already sent me content and is about to send me content.

An open letter to affiliate managers and merchants How to get me promoting you

Triple whammy today from Blue Chip Vacations (BCV) the specialists in self catering holidays in Devon and Cornwall who have an affiliate programme with Affiliate Window.

First of all their wonderful affiliate manager Elise Newman informed me that I had won a short break at the gorgeous At The Beach apartments in Torcross. Thank you Elise and Blue Chip.

Also today they announced a change in commission structure to 5% of the sale this was previously £20 per lead, a quick check through my stats reveals that this is a significant pay rise, enough to get me pushing the programme even more.

Thirdly BCV now have an affiliate blog, something I have long advocated that all merchants who are serious about affiliate marketing should have and which many of the most successful merchants now do, so check out the Blue Chip Vacations Affiliate Blog today.

I only started promoting BCV after chatting to Elise at A4uexpo in October but my efforts are already starting to produce a decent return, that is what affiliate events are all about, getting merchants and affiliates together and forging business relationships, so anyone who is undecided about going to events, thats includes merchants, affiliates, networks, management companies and agencies get yourselves to as many as you can you may be pleasantly surprised at the impact it has on your business.

I’ve won a weekend break with Blue Chip Vacations and they are paying all affiliates more money too

Would have called it 100 things I want to do before I die but everyone who makes this type of list does that and also I don’t want to tempt fate by mentioning dying.

1. Live somewhere with a sea view
2. Go skiing (suppose learn to ski should come before this)
3. Tour Africa
4. Ride a tandem (god knows why but a 3 person one like the Goodies had would be cool)
5. Scuba dive
6. Ride in a helicopter
7. Tour Australia
8. Go abseiling
9. Write a book
10. Visit the Falkirk Wheel
11. Learn to ride a horse
12. Go bodyboarding
13. Swim with dolphins
14. Go deep sea fishing
15. Walk the Great Wall of China
16. Visit an active volcano
17. See the Northern Lights
18. Take my mum for a ride in a hot air balloon
19. Be a film extra
20. Fly a microlight aircraft
21. Take a watercolour class
22. Give blood
23. Celebrate Chinese New Year in China
24. Go racing at Happy Valley (Hong Kong)
25. See my great grand children
26. Own a racehorse (had shares in the past but would like at least a quarter not a nostril)
27. Do a charity walk, run or cycle
28. Go dog sledging
29. Drink Guinness in Dublin
30. Learn authentic Chinese cooking
31. Visit the Taj Mahal
32. See a West End Show
33. See a Broadway Show
34. Own a Vineyard
35. Ride an Elephant
36. Go to top of Empire State Building
37. Take a gondola ride in Venice
38. Go to the Carnival in Rio de Janeiro
39. Ride the London Eye
40. Fly through the Grand Canyon
41. Attend the Dubai World Cup (horse racing)
42. Visit Lake Titicaca
43. Enjoy Mexican beer at a beach bar in er Mexico
44. Visit the Las Fallas festival in Valencia
45. Take my Daughters to Lapland
46. Own a broodmare
47. Visit Soaring Dragon Cave (China)
48. Take golf lessons (and if I like it take up the game)
49. Go wine tasting in the Loire Valley
50. Visit the Uluru national park (ayres rock) and explore the none touristy bits
51. Do a firewalk
52. Tackle a Jasperizer at the famous Cap’n Jaspers on the Plymouth Barbican (already done the ½ yard hotdog)
53. Get this list up to 99 complete them and write another one. (this is 53)

99 things I want to do that I aint done yet

No doubt you all get strange emails at times, just received the following via one of my fashion blogs, it starts off OK poor misguided soul thinks I manufacture clothing but the next to last sentence is a classic and I still have tears streaming down my face as I type.

HELLO!

My name is Anat and I own a store.

I really like to import your clothing to Israel.

I think you’ll find it a great new knish.

I find your collections great for our girls and boys!!!

I must explain, that the store is an On-line department store.

We also host Sushi parties for girls between the age of 15-22. where we sell the goods.

Our website is currently in process but I will be more
then happy to send you the link when it’s done.

Strange email made me chuckle

Another year, another chance
To start our lives anew;
This time we’ll leap old barriers
To have a real breakthrough.

We’ll take one little step
And then we’ll take one more,
Our unlimited potential
We’ll totally explore.

We’ll show off all our talents
Everyone will be inspired;
(Hmm…while I’m writing this,
I’m getting very tired.)

We’ll give up all bad habits;
We’ll read and learn a lot,
All our goals will be accomplished,
Sigh…or maybe not.

Oh well, Happy New Year anyway!

By Joanna Fuchs

New Year’s Reality Check

First of all, as it is unlikely that I will update this blog again before next Thursday , I’d like to wish all my reader(s) a very merry Christmas, if you are sat waiting for a card from me I’m sorry but you will be disappointed, I am the worlds worst card sender and have only sent one so far and don’t intend sending many more.

I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to everyone who has sent me Christmas presents and cards this year (for the cynics amongst you this is not a bragging post I work damned hard for what I get and you can achieve the same too).

Special thanks too…

• Webgains – Beer Hamper
• Paid On Results – Bottle of Jack Daniels
• Existem Affiliate Management – Bottle of Mount Gay Rum
• BeCheeky – Chocolates
• Scifind Ltd - Lottery Ticket
• Big Idea Media – Lottery Scratch card
• Affiliate Window – Premier Cru Champagne and Fine Wine Set
• Equator – A cookie (from their server)

…  will add to the list if any more arrive, I truly hope I’ve not missed anyone out.

Merry Christmas Everyone

Christmas Cheers

Nice healthy debate going on over at the a4uforum at the moment regarding brand bidding plus generics got me thinking there must be an easy way to see all the advertisements for a specific keyword / phrase a bit of a dig round proved I wasn’t wrong. Google have a great tool that reveals every ad for a specific search term even if bids are set so low they don’t actually trigger on serps listings check it out here or use the box below.

Here is what google has to say about what these results reveal:

Google shows “Sponsored Links” from our advertising network in the right-hand column of the search results page (and sometimes also in a colored box above of the search results). If you click More Sponsored Links below the listings on the right side of a search results page, our Ad Search engine compares your search terms to the ads in our network, and then provides you with a page showing all ads that match your keywords.This feature makes it easier for users to search through our entire ad inventory for relevant matches to their search terms. It also makes it easier for advertisers to view their ads.

Have a play its certainly very enlightening.

So just who is bidding on your brand?

Thanks to everyone who has expressed an interest in this Voucher Codes site I have taken the decision not to sell just now having spent Christmas revamping the entire thing.

One lesson I have learned is never try to sell a site without at least some idea of revenue details, to this end I will keep better records from now on.

As many people are currently building and developing websites around voucher / coupon / promotional / discount codes I have decided to buck the trend and move out of the arena.

My decision to concentrate more on my other websites has not been taken lightly but I feel I have taken this site as far as I want to go, and I have little time these days for updating it, someone more dedicated to the niche will be able to take it to a higher level.

The site in question is Vouchers UK I’m the first to admit its not the prettiest site in the world and it could certainly benefit from being moved to a CMS from the current WordPress.

History

The site originally went under the name Bargain Beetle (established 2003) but was re branded last year.

Stats

Only have AW Stats to go on here is this years visitors:

Unique visits: 51761 Total visits: 72431 pages: 177374

November saw just under 5000 Uniques.

The domain is registered with 123-reg and buyer is responsible for all Nominet fees.

If you are at all interested contact me via the contact form.

I am a bit of a novice when it comes to selling websites so if you want to purchase it you will have to walk me through the process.

Established Voucher Code Site NOT for Sale