Entries from May 2008 ↓

Recently, I have had a few problems with my blogs / websites being down and inaccessible. Now that the sites generate a decent sized income, I can’t afford to have this kind of unreliability and am moving towards getting a VPS, virtual private server (A virtual private sever guarantees a certain amount of disc usage e.t.c and means you are not completely at the mercy of your shared server)

The one thing I noticed about the recent downtime, is that it relied on me, manually seeing that the site is down and inaccessible. It made me wonder how many times my sites were down, but I was not aware of it.

Checking When Your Site is Working

I am going to check out this service at site 24* 7. They offer a free basic account, with the option of upgrading to premium accounts. I will let you know how it progresses and whether it is worth joining.

If anyone has any other suggestions for monitoring uptime rates I would be interested to hear.

Recently, I received my first cheque from affiliate marketing for a new blog about cycling. It was only a £100, but, it is good to open up income streams other than Google adsense.

I have experimented with several affiliate schemes and these are some of the things I have learnt.

Amazon.

Amazon offers one of the most attractive affiliate schemes becaise it sells such an extensive range of products.   I have an account at both Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. It has been a little slow, but, slowly the accounts are building up. The only downside of AMazon is that it has one of the lower commission rates, reflecting its popularity.

Text Links vs Banners.

People often have a blindness to banners. Text links often offer the best click through rate. If the text link is relevant to the blog post, then you have a much better chance of getting customers to click through than a banner. I think that using text links and linking to specific products is the secret of successful affiliate marketing. This does take a little more effort, but is worth it in the long run.

• For example, look at this post at Gardening tips. It is a post about plants for Kids. The links go direct to the relevant page. This makes it more successful than just a banner.

Don’t Be Discouraged By Low Click Through

If you start off with a blog, you are likely to face a lot of frustration as initially, affiliate links offer a poor return and low click through rate. However, as you accumulate more pages and more affiliate links, you gradually build up a cumulative effect of greater sales.

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Good post here at Daily Blog tips about the benefits of being 1st on Google

Although the data isn’t comprehensive it backs up my own anecdotal evidence

Data From One Empirical Study About Google suggests:

1. 54% people choose no.1
2. 13% number 2
3. 9% number 3
4. 4% number 4
5. 4%
6. 3%
7. 1%

• Position number 9 may only be 1%

It may be better to be number 1 for a less competitive keyword search, rather than no. 9 for a  highly popular one.

One thing I would note is that it will vary from keyword to keyword. Some keywords like a definition of a word, people are likely to be happy with 1 page. Other keywords where there is more ambiguity and differences of opinion, people will be less satisfied with just choosing number one and will look throughout other pages.

For some keywords I get the occassional traffic, even though I am ranking something ridiculous like number 80 or even 224!

Recently I had a number 1 postion for a very popular keyword search related to economics / finance. The increase in traffic was amazing. But, I always feared losing the position, and a couple of months later I slipped down to number 3. (Beaten by the Guardian Newspaper)

One thing I did was to buy a domain name with the keyword in. It is worth having a site exclusively for that keyword hoping to cement the number one spot.

 How To Get Number One on Google?

Pay an SEO ‘expert’ like me loads of money

Alas, you’re not the only one trying to be number one. But, here are some tips. How To Improve Ranking on Google 

Recently, the great Humphrey Lyttelton, passed away. He had a marvelous voice, ideal for the radio. I often spent many hours listening to ‘I’m sorry I haven’t got a Clue’ Often I didn’t understand all the jokes, but, I enjoyed listening just for the sense of fun and offbeat humour. As mentioned in this post - The Real Meaning of Words, “I’m sorry I haven’t a Clue” often played on the meaning of words:

Quotes from Uxbridge English Dictionary

Satire - seated in a more elevated position.

scandal - footwear you should be ashamed of

telepathy - you can’t be bothered to turn on the TV

Varnish - to disappear in Mayfair

Xenophobia - fear of Buddhists

From: The Uxbridge English Dictionary Seventeenth Edition (approx) Completely revived As heard on I’m sorry I haven’t a clue.

at Amazon.co.uk

at Amazon.com

When I started my websites, I spent a lot of time and energy in writing articles for ezines. These are websites that allow you to publish articles on their sites in return for a link back to your site. Overall, I think ezines are an excellent way to help your blog / website get established.

These are some of the benefits of Writing For Ezines

Increase Number of Links

Firstly, you get a link from the ezine. But, more importantly your article is invariably copied by other websites looking for free content. Some articles have been copied by 20-30 other sites, therefore, you can quickly build up a range of inbound links. Many of these links are of low quality. Sites which just scrape content are not valued by Google. However, sometimes your article may get picked up by a good quality website in your niche. These links are more valuable than the initial ezine where the article was published.

Choose Anchor Text Keyword

• When writing ezines it is important to carefully choose the most useful anchor text keywords. Don’t just link to your home page. But, link to specific articles with the most valuable keywords.
• For example, quite a popular keyword at Net Writing is ‘writing good email’. Therefore, I will include this anchor text and link to the specific article. The important thing is to focus on particular articles and vary the anchor text.

Traffic.

One of the most surprising things about the ezine articles is that they have provided a good source of traffic. It is not a huge amount, but, to my economics site, ezinearticles may send about 50-60 a month. It is quite a small % of total traffic, but, the traffic is quite targetted and google analytics suggest the traffic from ezines spends a long time period at the site. By linking to my blogs, this traffic can help to build up RSS subscribers. True I have written quite a few articles, but, if you write 1 article per week, you are constantly adding to your traffic sources. There is a powerful cumulative effect. Just don’t expect to write one article and then sit back.

• This is always the sign of a good link - does it send traffic? If a link is sending traffic, it is likely that Google is valuing the site and therefore more likely to value the link.

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Email, has come from nowhere to be one of the most used forms of communication. It’s rapid rise mean there is a lack of any tradition and etiquette in proper usage. Yet, improper use of email can do as much damage as it can benefit.

Just because something is good and can save time, doesn’t mean it will always be useful.

Basic email etiquette comes down to common sense and good manners.

• Keep it simple
• Keep it polite
• Keep it to the point
• Write in proper English, avoid sounding like a text message
• Minimise useage of email; there are many better ways of communicating people.

Useful Articles on Email

• Tips for Writing Emails
• The Art of Writing Good emails 
• How To Avoid Email Embarassment 
• Email Overload  - The dangers of using email too much.

See also: 

• Tips for effective communication at my self improvement blog

I was rather shocked to hear that some keyboards have more germs than the average toilet seat. For some reason a keyboard and a mouse is something that we never think needs cleaning. But, especially if you share a keyboard with other people, you might want to think a bit more carefully.

A microbiologist for Which, found that many computer keyboards have germs such as e coli and S aureus. (links) 

One of the keyboards in the experiment had to be removed from the office because it was five times dirtier than the lavatory seat and home to 150 times the acceptable limit of bacteria.

“[It] was increasing the risk of its user becoming ill,” said the microbiologist, James Francis. “I haven’t seen a reading like that in a very long time - it was off the scale.”

Cleaning Your Keyboard and Mouse.

• A Vacuum cleaner is good for removing dust and small bits which get trapped beneath the keys.
• After shutting down your computer, use a lint free cloth, to lightly wipe with an approved cleaning fluid e.g cleaning fluid 
• Make sure you wash your hands and remove grease before using a computer. (Makes it difficult to eat a packet of crisps whilst typing away)