A recent post on communicating effectively with affiliates has prompted me to post my own rules, as I am increasingly having to field phone calls during the day.
i) Email me. You have my email address. I can access my Google mail email on my mobile and pc.
ii) Do not telephone me if you haven’t already sent me an email. In the rare chance I am going to be interested in what you have to say over the phone, I am only going to ask you to send me an email repeating what we’ve discussed.
iii) Do not MSN me to tell me about a generic promotion that I could read about in email or a forum post.
iv) Do not telephone me asking to promote your offer that ends in 48 hours time. You should have sent me an email or posted on the A4U forum a week ago. And if you did either of those and I still haven’t promoted it, then assume that I’ll be skipping this one.
v) If you do MSN me, please send a courtesy follow-up email confirming any details that I may need to recall. Once that window is closed the information is not there to refer to.
vi) Do not email, telephone, or MSN me asking to sign-up to or promote a shop, if I already am.

vii) Do email me. If it’s sent to my Google mail address then it will get filtered based on its content. If it includes certain trigger words then it will get read and therefore actioned sooner than later.
viii) Do talk to me at the next affiliate event I attend. If I do pass you a business card, you may spot that it doesn’t include a phone number on it. It does have my email address …

It’s just after midnight on 10th July 2007. I’ve another two hours before I go to bed as there’s something stopping me. It’s the new site visitors hungry for discount codes. I’ve not seen activity like this for 39 days.
I’d consider June a “quiet” month for Shop Codes. During May my traffic was climbing each day and daily sales were surpassing December figures consistently. Then this graph shows the sudden decline I experienced from 31st May 11:30pm.

So June dipped a lot but it was only a huge blow because I was used to better times. However, this happened to be a little wake up call. Now that the audience wasn’t there I knew I could “tinker” with the site and basically have nothing to lose.

Google didn’t stop delivering traffic to my site. It just didn’t link to many “shop” pages, instead it was just happy to send me people to my home page.

So the traffic is back (maybe another 30 days?) and one or more of these beliefs and actions helped it along the way …

FIX 1: Add a search box to the home page.

Before I could please the search engines I had to take care of the visitors. I previously didn’t have a search on my site as I want people to navigate past related items, click links and not go for the easy option. With a search they may not see related offers.

FIX 2: Change page titles.

I’d already gotten into the habit of producing dynamic page titles dependant on the content. If I didn’t have a code say for Argos, I wouldn’t say I had in the titles or other meta data. Each time I add a new offer to the page, the page title reflects the new offer. And if the search engine is saying that my site is offering a June offer but it’s now July’s offer. That’s a bad reflection on their part and not my site. They just need to come and spider a bit more frequently.

FIX 3. Re-write all urls.

I re-wrote all my urls so that they were consistent. I used to serve the same pages at different urls so the keywords within them would be highlighted in the search result pages. This resulted in duplicate content and unintentional spidering and lots of pages going straight into the supplemental index.

FIX 4. Remove distractions.

I had a WordPress version of my site which was only a few months old. It was effectively a duplicate copy but without the heavy images and a better url structure. When my Shop Codes traffic dipped, it wasn’t a surprise to see that one of my major competitor sites, happened to be myself. So rather go with that one, I killed it, albeit not totally intentionally.

FIX 5. Grab that tail
Once my site was taking its shape it was time to look at the content on the pages. I’ve decided to target three keyword phrases for each merchant I promote. As an example for Petmeds, I am explicitly looking to tap the market of users searching for “Petmeds Coupon Code”.

FIX 6. Use the meta tools to be descriptive
My targeted keywords were moved to the front of the page titles and repeated in the description. I’m a firm believer that sites that stuff their descriptions with repeated keywords will soon fall from grace. Look again at the Petmeds example above. The page title and description say exactly what is on the page. OK, I may not receive visitors searching for “Petmeds voucher code” but don’t bet against it. Simplicity wins. On that note, one of my next tasks is to make sure all pages include no more than five keywords.

FIX 7. Diversify.

I’ve now got an RSS feed and a newsletter that goes out every other day with 50 subscribers. That’s approximately one new sign-up per day. In both cases the content is being pushed to different audiences. My codes are syndicated on other sites and with email, subscribers can browse at their leisure.

FIX 8. Add more distractions.

Knowing that my WordPress blog was doing well for itself on another domain, I brought it ‘inside’. Some of these new pages were quickly indexed and started ranking higher than the ‘originals’ which were in the Supplemental.

FIX 9. Truly believe content is king.

With unique content or a unique spin on the same content, a site will stand out. So I continued to press for new exclusive codes and continued to update the regular offers long into the night, despite knowing not so many people would get to see the information. Once the content is not updated then the search engines have a right not to visit.

Firefly, Leeds 5th July 2007

There was a rare Northern affiliate get together in Leeds this week and it turned out to be a small friendly affair. Approximately 20 people met up at Firefly and enjoyed a drink or two and free buffet.

Events like these are a must to newcomers from across the industry and here’s my spin on Kieron’s article on ‘6 reasons not to attend‘ an affiliate event:
1. I’m only 18/17/65/85 etc. and only do this part time, I’m worried that I’ll be the youngest/oldest there.

Look at the picture. I’m clearly the youngest looking one. Oh well, front left any way That didn’t stop me attending an event.

2. I don’t want to let people know what sites I run and feel I will be under pressure to tell people about my business and the URL’s of my sites.

Ok, Elaine and I tried coaxing some information out of Stu – all in good spirits – but he stuck to his guns and shall remain a mystery for a while longer.
3. I’ve never been to an event and won’t know anyone.

This was my second event but they were all new faces. It was welcoming from the moment I went into the room and met up with Nadeem, who organised the event. There were some new people new to the industry there including merchants and agency staff.
4. I can’t afford it.

I live in Leeds and technically I have to go past this venue to get to my bus stop home. The first beer was free and there was an excellent buffet. Nadeem, I really only came for the free jolly
5. Are the Wurzels really playing live? Do I have to put up with “Combine Harvester” all night?

They weren’t in attendance but there was live jazz starting about 9pm. By then Elaine and the others were the last to leave.

6. I’m worried I might get in a similar state to Frostie in that picture taken in Vegas earlier this year.

I tried my hardest with several Staropramen
The event was wrapped up in less than four hours but I have gained from the experience from meeting new people across the industry.

Business wise, it looks like three new Exclusive discount codes will be on their way to my email inbox in the morning. I attended though to meet some of the familiar faces from the Affiliates 4u site and oh, get some more friends for Facebook

I’m annoyed with a blanket email sent via Buy.at to its Mothercare affiliates: “Affiliates have one week to remove any reference to Mothercare from their sites.”

“Mothercare has now taken the decision to remove any affiliates that continue to promote Mothercare on voucher sites.” Well, Shop Codes UK is certainly a voucher site but 50% of its promoted shops and therefore revenue originate from merchants that don’t even provide codes.

I certainly don’t suggest there’s a Mothercare code on my site. In fact, the only Mothercare promotions listed are that you can get free delivery over £100 or receive 2% Cashback via GreasyPalm.

At least I’ve got warning. When I promoted them via CJ, they just deactivated the campaign without notice.

I’ve never made many sales with Mothercare so they won’t be missed but it does seem odd not to have a big brand included. I shall continue to make plenty of sales for Kiddicare despite not having a code for them either.

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