The majority of this traffic was not for people searching for codes. It’s Silly Sale Season and many high street stores such as Debenhams, Dorothy Perkins and Laura Ashley are offering up to 50% off.

My highly optimised site – for codes – is now converting visitors at up to 35%. So one in three of my sale-searching visitors are clicking through to the merchants pages and spending thousands. If only I knew this before.

You see I own a domain with the word ‘codes’ in it – a fact that will soon see my commissions being decreased by Dorothy Perkins – and I have always prioritised codes over any other type of promotion. This was down to the templating of my site and the fact that with a sale you just don’t know when it ends.

Only yesterday I generated £3,500 worth of sales to one of Dorothy Perkin’s high street competitors, netting me a substantial £400 worth of commission. And this was just one merchant, others which have not performed for me before have started to take spots in my Top 10 merchants list … once dominated by Figleaves and JD Williams.

This is not a fluke. Since my recent return of holiday I took a different approach to adding content to my site. As I had 3,500 emails to catch up on and hundreds of codes to add, I ignored them all.

I then worked on the last email in approach. So if the last email was about a code, I’d add it. If it was about top 10 products, I’d add that content. If it was about a sale, I’d add that content.

The result is I’ve a lot less codes on my site than I really should have but have now got a variety of alternative content, that is converting well

… with no ‘Click to Reveal’ in sight.

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• Voucher Codes #5
• Promotional Codes #4
• Discount Codes #10

This is significant as I don’t specifically target these keywords. I put my effort in the more lucrative long-tail keywords with 3 to 5 words included.

It is a sign that Google is trusting my site more to deliver on each of the three sets of phrases I’ve highlighted. Generally I feature on the bottom of the ‘Voucher Code’ page and then on page 2 for the other two search phrases.

The time of day makes a difference. On the mornings I may feature on page 1 for ‘discount codes’ but in the afternoon it will be page 2. Then the next-day the same pattern or the reverse happens.

The result of this increased exposure is that up to 10% of my traffic now arrives from these generic search terms. So I am attracting a brand new audience to my site. This is reflected by my RSS and email newsletter subscriptions.

I usually just increase my subscribers by one a day. This weekend an extra 20 have entered their email address.

I best send out a newsletter for the first time in a month then.

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I didn’t promote the Grand National specifically as I’d left it a little late but that didn’t stop hundreds of visitors looking for a bookmakers offer in time for the big race.

My Coral page saw the most attention of all the sports betting pages I promote. Coral have lots of bonus codes for sports betting, casino and poker and I update their offers monthly.

The ShopCodes Coral page had 274 page views and at £5 commission and 2% revenue share, it looked to be a grand day.

From all those views though, only 3 sales were made generating £15 in commission.

Not a good conversion rate. I wonder how much more commission I’d have generated if I didn’t openly display the promotional code but enforced a click by using a ‘click for code’ button or used an iframe to the Coral site?

Coral have looked after me in the past though so I am not concerned that I only converted 1% of visitors.

The bookmakers rewarded me last year by sending me £200 in Thomas Cook travel vouchers which have no expiry date and I am still looking forward to use.

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I aim to remove all expired codes and sales from ShopCodes and not have them present just because I’ve got a page ranking well in Google for a nice search term.

This is made less painful when merchants replace a code with a new one or extend the expiry date. You’d be amazed at how many merchants only offer codes at Christmas time though, so some of the merchants pages look typically flat for some of the year.

To give you an understanding of the work I’ll need to do in the coming days, here’s some numbers.

78 promotions expiring 31st or expired on the 30th.

32 of those promotions involve Exclusive code merchants. These are merchants that have offered me a unique or branded code or landing page. If it’s the actual Exclusive code that is expiring and not just a generic sale, then I’ll have to send out up to 32 emails, to merchants and affiliate managers.

10 of those Exclusive code merchants have my Exclusive code expiring today. I’ve since sent 10 emails to affiliate and network managers asking for a new code or to extend the existing code. Having an Exclusive code extended is not a given and some merchants don’t reply to the email and some may say their business model has changed (See below). So you have to list the benefits of them providing a unique code, such as increased exposure above-the-fold or some sales figures.

Of the other 22 Exclusive code merchants, the unique code is ongoing and their monthly offer is changing. This is a simple task of me removing a line of information or replacing it if a new offer has arrived via email.

Once I’ve taken care of all the 32 Exclusive code pages (and I have 143 in total) I look at the generic codes.

Of the other 56 promotions expiring, 54 are codes and 2 are sales. (I only really promote sales where the expiry date has been set.)

I don’t just delete the expired codes, I do a search in my email inbox to see if there’s an update from that merchant. I filter all my emails and I currently have 39 unread emails in my inbox containing the word “code”. I’ll work on these emails before others. Now, it’s 44. Told you today was busy.

And finally 1 top merchant has informed me that he can’t extend the Exclusive code he’s provided as they are phasing out discount codes until the end of their financial year.

To some who promote Figleaves, this may be a blow. No more so than me, as they’ve been my number one merchant for quite some time.

I’ll be taking a closer look at their site later this evening to see what other content I can add.

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It’s been my focus this month to not to be too reliant on search traffic that includes the keywords “code” or “codes”. Basically because for 2 weeks I had very little traffic anyway.

By fattening my site I can capture those visitors looking for sales or other promotional offers. So I’ve spent more time updating merchants that haven’t got codes but do have some cracking offers, such as this example for Orange.

So my code site is adding more content. Maybe not down the line of writing 1000 word product reviews but it is a start.

{Tongue twister ahead} Here’s a warning to those content site owners that complain about code sites that don’t yet include codes on their own sites. Code Sites will become Content Sites!

Adding codes takes a lot of time and effort but over time these webmasters will become more efficient and be able to add codes more seamlessly.

This will allow them to fatten up their site with non-code related content.

The big code sites already do this. For a part time affiliate like me, I have to pick and choose which merchants I promote and how. This is often dictated by the perseverance of the affiliate manager.

Added Value

To show that code sites don’t just steal commissions from other affiliates. Here’s two lines from my log files this morning that demonstrate that ShopCodes brings in seasonal traffic and product traffic. The search term “sat nav voucher codes” goes direct to my Halfords page but could have been any merchant.

The other search is “halfords easter offers”. Now as it happens I don’t actually have their Easter offers on my page as I’ve not received their latest newsletter but I list about a dozen product offers.

So webmasters, why not start adding codes to your sites? As I’m adding non-code stuff to mine.

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Sending an embroidered thong in pink to mum just seems so far removed from the usual card, chocolates and bunch of flowers.

Or is Mother’s Day also a day for sending presents to your mates fit mum?

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The plan included sorting out my brand; using a new tailored Content Management System and fleshing the site out with a new design.

What better way to launch all these new enhancements but on a new shiny domain too? How about ShopCodes.com that has been irritatingly just sat there useless with an ISPs default holding page for many months.

I had to own that site. It just made perfect sense. It would tick all the boxes and more.

During November I contacted Sedo.com, who buy and sell domain names. They would value the domain; I’d give them a maximum bid; they’d contact the owner; negotiate on my behalf and try to acquire it for me.

Sedo enjoy a success rate of over 70% but by the New Year they’d still not managed to get a response by the owner. All I knew was the domain was up for renewal in a couple of months time, so I registered my interest at Snapnames.com who could bid at a live auction.

Then just one month ago Sedo got back to me saying that they made successful contact and that the owner had immediately accepted my four-figure bid.

Then after a nervous three weeks of waiting and lots of support tickets between companies during the transfer process, the domain ShopCodes.com was finally in my hands and safely registered on TUCOWS with my current preferred ISP Servage.

I used my January trip to San Francisco to acquire some International exclusive codes and I was hoping I could keep the .com a different entity from my existing ShopCodes.co.uk.

I didn’t want to just use the .com to target the US but it was a good opportunity to try out a new CMS and design and avoid duplicate content issues by listing non-UK merchants at the start.

However, after I’d 302 re-directed the .com to the .co.uk as a temporary measure, Google started linking to my ShopCodes.com site at the expense of ShopCodes.co.uk. Even Google says this is the exception and not the rule.

It means that Google thinks users will rather see the .com rather than the .co.uk. Fair enough but I’ve no content on that domain yet.

Traffic also dipped as Google didn’t recognise the .com as a UK site. So the home page is not being returned in Google UK search results pages. It does in the full web search.

I quickly addressed that by using Google Webmaster Central tools. However, with that double blow, traffic has crashed 75% in the short term.

So I am walking before I am running but I am currently sprinting to fix these short term issues. So you may see the end of .co.uk and the launch of .com this week.

The site just won’t have any bells or whistles. As it’s blooming too early.

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I started promoting JD Williams from 2nd October 2006. It is no coincidence that my Shop Codes traffic and commissions subsequently grew exponentially from this time.

Promoting the JD Williams brand, which is an umbrella network of approximately 25 mail order catalogue sites, was a masterstroke, with its combination of new customer discounts and free gift promotional codes.

JD Williams split those brands across two affiliate networks, CJ and DGM. They include websites such as Simply Be, Crazy Clearance, VivaLaDiva, Christmas Gifts Direct, Autumn Clearance, PremierMan, House of Bath, Summer Clearance, …

With budget restraints JD Williams have now had to consolidate their affiliate programs down to one network. It’s not been reported which, if any, will transfer over. Assuming DGM will remain their one network.

I found an email I sent just 6 weeks after signing-up, dated 17th November 2006, to the then affiliate manager. It began:

“My promotion of JD Williams this Christmas on both the CJ network and DGM has been very successful this November.

“I have generated £14,800 sales on the CJ network with a further £9,134 on the DGM network, totalling £24,000.”

Now, looking back, that is remarkable. I have to stress all of these sales were from organic SEO traffic and not Pay-Per-Click. I know because my site was appearing as the number one result for key search phrases.

In fact my initial email was to ask if I could brand bid on PPC because I knew if I were to lose that good organic ranking, I’d lose nice commissions overnight. We didn’t follow that up as the sales continued right up to Christmas.

In the first 5 months of promoting JD Williams, I generated £95,000 worth of sales on the CJ network alone. With that I surpassed a JD Williams set target and in early 2007 received a £1,250 cash bonus as a performance incentive.

2007 and this Christmas was just as strong.

JD Williams on CJ, you shall be missed. This will leave a big big hole in my CJ statistics. There are only a couple of merchants exclusively on that network now that are still worth promoting.

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