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.

Only 40 or so days left of what is widely predicted to be the biggest online spending spree ever so if you are an online retailer make sure you get your fair share of the bootee.

Make it easy for your customers to buy from you…

I realise as an affiliate its not my place to teach merchants how to do their jobs however as a shopper who buys a fair bit over the internet I’d like to make a few suggestions.

1. Ensure that your shopping cart process is not too complicated. Christmas is probably the wrong time for usability testing but grab a random person and ask them to buy something.
2. Make sure ALL your payment methods work, you can guarantee the one method on the blink is the one everyone is trying to use
3. Do you really need your customers to register. Christmas is a time of impulse buying and many customers will never ever return, insist on them registering and you may just drive them away, no need to switch off registration completely, just offer a quick checkout route.
4. Make the most of your 404 and search traffic. If a user arrives at a page on your site which doesn’t exist or looks for a product you don’t sell, give them a few suggestions rather than a blank page to stare at.
5. Remember to up sell to your customers. Make suggestions which compliment the original purchase, McDonalds do it (you want large fries with that) and online Amazon are the masters of the up sell with every page having “Frequently Bought Together” and “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought”

People who read this article also read

Christmas is coming checkout your checkouts

Why do people abandon online shopping baskets?

Merchant 404 Pages

Online marketing is evolving at an astronomical pace and one of the major influences in this change is Twitter, if you have any type of retail business selling absolutely anything and you don’t use Twitter to get the message out there you are seriously missing a significant audience.  One of my websites is currently getting 7% of its traffic via twitter thats over 200 targeted visitors a day extra.

The most recent innovation by Twitter is Twitter Lists, and believe me Twitter Lists are awesome. Once people have added your twitter to a list your  tweets may potentially appear all over the internet. They will turn up on websites and blogs and there is a great likelihood that they will send you a lot of targeted traffic.

Oh and a little tip (for anyone who could be arsed to read this far down) Twitter Lists make an outstanding addition to your research armoury whether you are a merchant or an affiliate make lists of tweeters in niches you are interested in and bingo instant ideas.

For example I’ve just started a list of UK fashion merchants and fashion bloggers http://twitter.com/#/list/KeithBond/uk-fashion and I expect it to prove to be a useful resource of ideas and another way of getting through bloggers block.

I had an interesting discussion recently which suggested that Spyware / Adware may be rearing its ugly head in the UK again, I know that the official stance is still zero tolerance however I was wondering if any of the networks would like to confirm that they are remain totally clean and are not again being subjected to unethical applications which are stealing the bread (or the cookies) from the mouths of the hard working affiliates.

Zango (formerly ePIPO, 180solutions and Hotbar) is the name that is being bandied about.Wikipedia has them down as Zangocash these days part of the Pinball corporation.

So nutshell I have these questions for the Affiliate Networks and merchants with independent programs:

1. Can you categorically confirm you are totally adware / spyware free?
2. Do you work with Zangocash / Zango (or any of its incarnations)?
3. Has the above named company approached you recently with a view to working with you?

I’m not looking for a witch hunt, just piece of mind, so help a paranoid old cynic out please.

Just a quick post of my schedule for next weeks a4uExpo in London. Purely for selfish reasons so I can print it off.

Monday 12th October

11.30 Taxi > Darlington Station

12.02pm – Train > London Kings Cross, not taking laptop so reading The Shadow in The Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

2.44pm – Underground & Dlr > Custom House Excel

Hopefully Check in to Custom House Hotel by 4pm find a friend or 2 and possibly get food in upstairs bar at the Fox  5.30- 6pm ish

7pm  Ignite Pre-Show Networking Event at Novotel catch up time with lots of great people, plus most importantly pick up expo badge, this could mean an extra hour in bed on Tuesday Morning.

Tuesday 13th October

A great day in store ) Heres what I intend seeing any blanks I will decide on later

09:15 – 10:15 Platinum 5/6/7 SEO Strategies To Make A Splash! Dave Naylor

10:30 – 11:30 Platinum 5/6/7 Meet The Search Engines Q&A Matthew Trewhella, Google – Dan Cohen, Microsoft – TBA, Yahoo!

12:00 – 13:00 Platinum 4 The Affiliate Doctors Live! Kieron Donoghue – Chris Garrett – Duncan Jennings – Dixon Jones

14:30 – 15:30 Platinum 3 Beyond Link Bait: Getting Authoritative Mentions Online - Dixon Jones – Kelvin Newman – Jon Myers (Moderator)

16:00 – 17:00 Platinum 5/6/7 Advanced Site Architecture And Product Feed SEO Judith Lewis – at a4uExpo Europe I unfortunately missed Judith’s talk but heard some great feedback about it so if there is only one session I see at this years expo this is it. (Sorry Nadeem I’ll catch up with yours by video)

Evening at the o2 food first then Breakout Party at the Inc Club from 9pm

Wednesday 14th October

Another awesome day of education meetings and networking.

11:00 – 12:00 Platinum 5/6/7 Barriers to Conversion & Discovering Untapped Opportunities With Analytics – Joanna Butler – Will Critchlow Lisa Myers

12:15 – 13:15 Platinum 5/6/7 Beat Your Merchants At Their Own Game Ben Jesson & Dr Karl Blanks – I make no secret of the fact I admire the work of Ben and Karl of Conversion Rate Experts, so this is undoubtedly my must see session of day 2

13:30 – 14:15 Platinum 3 Regulation, Promotion and Education – What Can The IAB Affiliate Council Do For You? Matt Bailey, i-level – Daniel Powel, Commision Junction – Dan Thut, Qua Media -  Julia Stent, Vodafone

16:00 – 17:00 Platinum 5/6/7 Conversion is King! Gary Beal

17:15 – 18:00 Platinum 5/6/7 How to Build the Best Performing Email Database - Trine Buus – Email is an area that I have never managed to do anymore than scratch the surface hopefully this will open a whole new world for me.

Wednesday finishes with Fish n Chips at the Networking Drinks, Hot Buffet & Ice Party! in the Fox.

That wraps things up just need to remember to get back to Kings Cross for my 1pm Train on Thursday.

Apologies in advance to anyone I know who is doing at talk at the same time as the sessions I have planned but if you doing one when I’m free give me a shout and if I dont have a meeting scheduled I’ll pop along.

If you my dear reader is planning to attend the expo please stop me and say hi.