I was lucky enough to get my hands on an iPad earlier this week (blog post coming very shortly explaining how I managed to get it for free!) and so naturally had to get my hands on a case to keep my new gadget safe (I’m a little bit clumsy!). I initially bought one of the official Apple cases…

It looks alright, but after spending 24 hours with it I realised it wasnt really what I was after. This appears to be created more for functionality, as in you can make the iPad stand horizontally or vertically, I guess for if you’re wanting to watch something on it without holding it. I decided I’d try and find something a little more stylish that did a better job at protecting the ipad, rather than simply making it easier to stand on its own. The Apple case doesnt really do much to convince me that it’d keep my iPad safe if I were to drop it.

So, after a bit of research, I came across a company in London called Knomo Bags. I fell in love with pretty much everything they have immediately! With a price tag of £54.99, their iPad Slim Sleeve was a little pricier than I was hoping to pay, but with it being made from real leather, and it looking damn swish, I decided to take a punt and ordered it in brown.

The case arrived this morning and I’m so impressed with it I have to share it with you lot. If you have an iPad you must get your hands on one of these. Knomo obviously give a lot of attention to detail. This case comes in a very nice brown leather finish and also has a velvet material on the inside, I guess to make sure your iPad feels loved at all times! With such a snug fit, you might think it’d be a little tricky to remove the iPad, but Knomo obviously had their common sense hat on while designing this product and included a pull tab that slides your iPad out an inch or so, allowing you to grab it with ease.

It is well worth £54.99 and I’ve now got my eyes on a Laptop Bag and potentially a suitcase aswell! Although their stuff is quite expensive, in this case (pun very much intended!), you get what you pay for.

Voodoo Rooms turned out to be a nice place to grab a few pre-dinner drinks and for everyone to get to know each other (quite a few of us had met before, however there were a few new faces) and Grand Cru provided top notch nachos (only reason I wanted to go! we used to go after work in my Bright Grey days), some questionable service, but generally a nice place to neck some ciders and have a chat!

In attendance were Fraser Edwards, Elaine and Dave Forth, Clarke Duncan, Jonathan Cannovan, Geoff IdleBull (not his actual second name, but its works!), Khalid Al-Khames (sometimes referred to as Ethan), Dom Hodgson, Fiona Robertson, Chris Cathcart, Tommy (Mr. Glasgow.com) and myself! It was a great night (which I named #ScotAff10 on Twitter, which went down well with the group), and I thoroughly enjoyed chatting with people with similar interests to my own. I’m keen to get something similar arranged for later on this year. So if you’d be interested in coming to ScotAff10.2 leave a comment and when we get round to organising it you’ll be the first to know! Maybe arrange #XmasScotAff10!

Here are a few pics from the night…

(Elaine, Dave, Fraser and Chris)

(Tommy and Fiona)

(Geoff, Dom and Clarke)

(Johnathan and Khalid)

(A few drinks later at Grand Cru!)

(and finally, Clarke took a photo of me tweeting all the pics!)

Thanks for everyone who made the effort to come along, I think you’ll agree it was a great night and we should definitely do it again sometime soon?

Theres two things worth noting in this image. The top ppc results are now surrounded by a nice pinkish colour. As someone who likes a bit of PPC, I’m loving this as I’m sure it’ll help increase click through rates. Secondly, the top result is indeed a credit card comparison by Google! Good luck taking that number one slot from them.

So, is this the beginning of the end for affiliate marketing, or have we nothing to worry about?

So, you want to know exactly how many searches a term gets every month, week or day? Well, a simple technique I use shows you exactly that. I’m not suggesting this technique is in any way new, or innovative. It’s a simple technique that many newbies may not have heard of, so I figured it is worth sharing.

Whenever I am researching a niche to try and identify whether it will be profitable or not, the first thing I do is punch the keyword (and as many variations as I can think of) into the Google Keyword Tool. If this shows a nice high number of exact matches per month, I then use this trick to identify how many searches there are in reality. All I do is setup an adwords campaign for the exact match keyword, and setup an ad that I know wont get clicked due to irrelevancy. It’s a good idea to have a seperate account to do this, as Google won’t be keen on you if you do this regularly, so you don’t want this method tainting your regular campaigns. To make the ad irrelevant, I tend to just put something about me (it’s ALL about me haha)! For example, I was recently researching a fishing niche (not my usual tipple, but if its profitable, I’m there!) and put up the following ad…

Not all that interesting is it? Well, that’s the point! I had the ad on page one 100% of the time for the chosen keyword for a week, and received 0 clicks. So for a grand total of £0.00 I managed to find out exactly how many searches the term receives over a week. Obviously you’d have to take seasonal issues into account, and whether the product is more popular at certain times of the month, but this gives you a great idea of how popular the term is, with real data that you’ve gathered yourself. Needless to say, the term received a hell of a lot less searches than the Google Keyword Tool suggested, but I’m still going to rock with the niche, cause theres zero competition!

A few weeks back, I accidentally dropped my Logitech Harmony One Universal Remote Control from the side of my bed to the wooden floor below, and unfortunately the screen took the brunt of the fall and the LCD display was internally cracked. The remote was still working, with the touch screen working fine. The only issue was, I couldn’t see what I was pressing! So, the remote was rendered useless… insert sad face here.

People who know me well, know I’m not all that lucky when it comes to electronics. I’m lucky in that I have some cool gadgets, but unlucky in that they always seem to break (I’m not clumsy, its just down to luck, honest!). My contents insurance company soon found out how unlucky I am, and decided not to offer me a renewal, so I wasn’t able to simply claim the remote back on my insurance. However, this is where the magic happened. So, I phoned up Logitech Customer Support on 0800 032 64 33 (they’re dedicated Harmony Remote support number) to tell them of my issue, in an attempt to find out the cost of repair. I had struggled to find anyone online to repair the phone, so figured I’d go direct to Logitech. Turns out, they made the remotes to be unrepairable, as in they cannot be opened with ease. Logitech, then kindly asked me for a few details, and told me they’d send me a brand spanking new remote control for free (yes free!). All I had to do was send them a photo of my broken screen to prove it was bust, and they sent out a new one.

To me, this is phenomenal customer service. Logitech could easily have told me where to go, after all, it was me who dropped it! Instead, they were happy to provide me with a new remote, which they could have sold for in excess of £100 (sure it costs them a fraction of that to make, but still, I’m impressed!).

So, how do we go about setting up the page so that the user must become a fan/like it before they can view the content? Well, just follow these simple steps…

1. Setup the Facebook Page
If you have not already got a page setup, simply goto Facebook.com/Pages and hit the “Create Page” button. I’d suggest taking some time to consider the best name for the page, because once its chosen, you cannot change it at a later date (I’ve found this out the hard way, gaining hundreds of fans for a page, then realising I’d have been better off with a different name!). Once you’ve chosen the best name, do the usual stuff, such as adding a nice juicy image and adding a welcome spiel to the page.

2. Add Static FBML Application
Facebook Markup Language (FBML) is basically a language very similar to HTML, but for, you guessed it… Facebook! It allows you to do all sorts of funky things on additional tabs for your Facebook page and a great example of how it could be used is the BUCS page. In order to use FBML on your page, I’d suggest installing the Static FBML app. To do this, either search for “static fbml” on facebook, or go straight to the app page here. Then just select “Add to my page” below the app’s logo and choose the page you’d like to add it to. Now, browse back to your page, and you’ll see that a tab called “Boxes” has appeared. What I tend to do is hit the “+” button to the right of that and select”FBML” from the dropdown list.

Once you’ve added the application, you can remove all the tabs you don’t really need. I remove all of them (apart from the info tab as that’s not removable). To remove a tab, select it, then select the pencil next to the title, then select “Delete Tab”

3. Spruce up the FBML Tab
First things first, you want to rename the tab to something relevant. To do this, goto the page’s wall (or homepage I guess) and select “Edit Page” under the page’s image. Then scroll down to find the FBML tab, and click “Edit”.

You will then be confronted with two fields; the tab’s title and the actual FBML. Rename the tab by simply changing the title. Now you can get onto the actual FBML’ing that makes your content hidden. What I tend to do is create a quick blurb explaining why the user wants to become a fan/like the page, it could be that they receive a discount for my service, or it could be that they simply get access to the funniest image in the history of the internet, whatever your reason is, make it clear at this stage. So begin the FBMl with the quick blurb (this content will be visible to everyone). Follow this by telling the visitor that they must hit “Like” to view the content. You then need to use the <fb:visible-to-connection> tag to hide any content you wish hidden. Below is an image of a very simple example of how it could be done.

4. Make it the default tab
The final step is to make the tab the default tab. To do this, browse to the page’s wall and hit “Settings”, then just choose your new tab as the page’s default tab. Now whenever a non-fan visits your page they will see this tab first, prompting them to “Like” the page.

So, if you have a Facebook Page for your website or business, why not have a think about how you could increase your fan numbers by hiding some content? In the run up to the grand national, I created around 30 locally targeted pages (such as “You know you live in Aberdeen when…”) and managed to achieve just shy of 900,000 fans, I then promoted various Bookmaker deals to these fans and did very well in terms of commission! Good Luck with your pages, and I’d love to hear if this tip helped increase your fan numbers.

Recently, I found myself (as I quite often do) having an afternoon chat with experienced affiliate, Frank Paul, about our sites and what we’ve got going on at the moment. Next thing I know I’m striking a deal to buy a Lay Betting website. However, I wasn’t offering cash. Those of you who know Frank, know he doesn’t need the money, so a monetary offer was off the table. However, Frank does have a strange facination with Coca Cola. So we sealed the deal. 240 cans of Cola for the domain name LayBetting.org.uk and the site which was on it at the time. The site was receiving a nice amount of traffic from people looking for lay betting strategies and tips, so it was a no brainer for me. The Cola cost me around £55 from Tescos, including delivery direct to Frank’s door. I would need just 2 or 3 signups to the likes of Betfair or BetDaq in order to make my money back. Unfortunately for Frank (but fortunately for his kids, as he only allows them to drink Diet Coke), Tescos thought it would be ok to delivery 9 creates instead of 10, and only 4 crates of full fat coke, rather than 10!

Anyway, since taking control of the site, I’ve added a new wordpress theme, but as you can see I’m yet to add the content. Once the site has content, and a little bit of TLC I am confident I can make the site earn mid to high £xxx per month. However, as is the site’s made a whopping £20 commission, with one sign up to Betdaq, which I’m actually quite happy with considering the lack of content. I won’t retire just yet though!

Anyway, now that I’ve got a little more spare time (or at least 30 mins on this fine Sunday evening), I figured I’d write a blog post, to get this blog back on the road! Here’s a little summary of what I’ve been up to since my last blog post on Christmas Day 2009…

Affiliate Doctors
A couple of months back, Steve from Affiliate Doctors asked if I’d like to join the panel of experts who provide advice to newcomers to affiliate marketing on a regular basis. I was really flattered just to have been asked, so I jumped at the chance. Around six weeks ago, I was officially an Affiliate Doctor, with Steve welcoming me to the team. My first contribution to the site went live on the 18th of March, and there are a few more in the pipeline. It’s an excellent resource for newcomers and experienced affiliates alike, so I’m very happy to be a part of it.

Sold a few sites
Around the beginning of March, I decided I would sell a few of my smaller affiliate sites, mainly to allow me to focus more on my thesis, but also to get some cash together for when I graduate in July. I had never any sold sites before, so was also interested in seeing how the process works. I succesfully sold 10 sites in total, included my first ever affiliate site nrbet.com. I was particularly sad to part ways with nrbet, as it was the first site that I had made, and has always been my “baby” so to speak. However, I just don’t have the time to keep such a site updated, and decided to let it go to a good home, and I’ve very excited to see how it’ll transform over the coming months. The whole process was relatively painless, and I managed to sell any sites with revenue within around 48 hours of listing them on Acorn Domains. I’d also like to thank Khalid, who helped me out by emailing my sale details to his buyers list, resulting in a few sales. The sale of these sites did really help me focus on my thesis, so I’m glad I made the choice to sell up.

A4U
A few months back I was asked to become a moderator on the new A4U forums. I unfortunately haven’t had much time to do much moderating, but now that I’m a little quieter I’ll definitely be frequenting the forums more often, looking for bad guys! Again, I’m flattered to have been asked!

As I’ve still got quite a lot of uni work to go, I won’t be back into the full swing of affiliate marketing until the end of May. At which point, my plan is to work on a few projects I’ve had in the pipeline for a while, and also to get a few joint ventures on the go! In the meantime I’m going to be doing some research, rather than actually creating sites. I’m very interested in getting into domaining, so I’m going to have a look around and see if I can spot any decent opportunities.

You may or may not have noticed, I’ve given this blog a bit of a makeover, I hope you like it!

Just a quick post as its christmas day and I’m feeling rather full after demolishing an excellent xmas dinner prepared by my Dad (his first time…usually Mummy Boyd adopts the chef role, was dang good though).

I’ve got a bunch of Google Adwords Promo Codes that credit your account with a £50 free spend. These codes will only work on accounts that are 14days old or less, so generally for newbies to either affiliate marketing or PPC in general. Adwords is what I would class as advanced affiliate marketing (once you master it there’s serious dosh to be made!). Many are scared to give it a try after hearing the many horror stories floating around. I first tried it around a year ago and I’ve not looked back. Not only can it allow you to make money on a site instantly, its actually incredidbly good fun and really rewarding when it pays off.

Theres only one way to learn and thats to give it a shot. What better way to do that than with Google’s moolah!?

Here are the codes, they expire 31-12-2009 so use them up quickly, feel free to pass them onto anyone who can make good use of them. Sell them on ebay and ill hunt you down and probably give you a stern talking to, so watch out!

85PP-U2EL-6RVH-482K-QHA
85PP-UFTA-LDCT-CHEV-BGJ
85PP-UVP6-UXG8-2Z49-Q3J
85PP-TPJU-XH5E-39FZ-9PJ
85PP-U4ZP-9PCB-RMUD-4Y2
85PP-UJG9-AU5L-9DFJ-6FJ
85PP-TSKQ-AZX5-R7K4-T4S
85PP-U7K9-LLDP-KS8N-G2S
85PP-UMPE-T2R9-JBA2-972
85PP-V2PG-E83E-SRZH-D3S
85PP-TV4G-U4TP-L89L-8S2
85PP-UAQF-MW8Y-PNEB-4YJ

You can only use one per account so dont try and add them all! If you are a newbie and feel like giving it a try but dont know where to start feel free to add me on msn and I’ll give you a few pointers! If you use a code can you comment to let me know so I can score it off so others dont waste their time entering it

Merry Xmas,

Mark

1. All In One SEO by Michael Torbert
This plugin allows you to manually define the Title, Description and Keyword tags (all of which are basic SEO practice) while adding a post or page.

All In One SEO Pack

These tags are part of the basic on page SEO that seems to get overlooked by so many sites, so installing this plugin will remind you to populate these tags for every page. Once you have installed the plugin, goto Settings > All In One SEO and define the tags for your homepage.

2. Simple Link Cloaker by Steve Johnson
I use this plugin to cloak affiliate links and also to manage my outgoing links. In order to increase my click through rates, I find its important to cloak affiliate links. Which of the following links would you be more inclined to click while hovering over a “Buy Now” button?

http://www.markboyd.co.uk/dvd-rental
or
http://www.awin1.com/cread.php?awinmid=2605&awinaffid=76861&clickref=&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lovefilm.com%2Fdvd-rental%2F

I personally would be more likely to click the first link, therefore I tend to cloak my affiliate links. Simply install the plugin, then when you’d like to cloak a link, copy the long affiliate link into the plugin settings page then define what you’d like the link to be cloaked as. Simples!

3. WP-Ads by Nick Brady
This plugin is a godsend.  This is the bee knees of ad management plugins. Its super simple to use, you simple create a “zone” and then define banners for that zone. These banners will then rotate evenly unless you specify another weighting. You can then copy a line of code into your wordpress templates or into a page or post and thats where the zone’s banners will be displayed. If you take a look @ Nrbet.com (a site I’ve neglected somewhat!) you can see this plugin at work. There are five zones defined on nrbet: the header 468×60 banner space and the four 125×125 banner spaces. WP-Ads also allows me to monitor banner impressions, which is particularly useful if you sell ad space by x amount of impressions.

4. SEO Friendly Images by Vladimir Prelovac
Simple yet effective plugin that defines your image alt tags for you based on your posts title or the image file name. This saves you having to define the alt tag for every image you include in your posts/pages.

5. Google XML Sitemaps by Arne Brachold
This nifty little plugin automatically creates an XML Sitemap whenever you update your blog and it also pings the search engines to let them know of the changes.

6. Robots Meta by Yoost de Valk
A very handy plugin from the King of Wordpress Joost de Valk. I use this plugin to define which pages I dont want Google to index, such as login page, privacy policy, terms and conditions and contact us pages. With this plugin installed you simply choose if you’d like the page to be indexed or not and also if you’d like google to follow the links on the page or not.

7. Custom Post Templates by Simon Wheatley
Not necessarily relevant for affiliate sites, but its a plugin that has saved me pulling my hair out at many times in the past. Its easy enough to create custom page templates, but wordpress havent made it as easy to create custom post templates and thats where this plugin comes in. Create templates in the same way you would for a custom page template, then simply choose your template of choice on the New Post page. Voila!

8. Link A Dink
Again, this isnt a necessity for affiliate sites, but I like it, so I’m sharing it! The Link-A-Dink plugin allows you to create a list of “buzz words” and if any of those words are mentioned anywhere on your blog they are replaced with a text link. For example I could setup this blog so that anytime I mention the phrase “the forums” it would add a link to Affiliates4u.

9. Contact Form 7 by Takayuki Miyoshi
Every site should have a contact form (apart from this one… I’ll get around to that one day!) and the Contact Form 7 plugin couldnt make it any simpler.

10. Smart Youtube by Vladimir Prelovac
If you want to embed youtube videos into your posts, then this plugin is for you. All you have to do is copy the URL of the youtube into your post and add the letter v – e.g. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti3UL_mVHHI.

Hopefully you will have now discovered one or two new plugins worth using on your sites! I’d really love to hear your comments and more importantly, which plugins you use that I havent mentioned!