Thoughts on PPC

We don't use PPC for any of our affiliate sites at the moment. We'd like to, the reason we don't is firstly we can't contemplate the thought of losing any money - we like the fact that we can run a lot of affiliate sites without paying a huge amount in hosting, and secondly, we don't have time to watch the campaigns and monitor our site availability. It is a bit frustrating because we know that PPC works, because web marketing is all about being seen first when somebody goes onto the internet. If we were to do this, the best way would be to leverage the longtail, which means using a large number of long keyphrases where the bidding amount will be small. PPC experts that we know about include Shoemoney and Kieron.

Joost Internet TV from the makers of Skype

The guys behind Skype are now set on bringing us internet TV in the form of Joost.com. You can sign up to be a beta tester although there have already been a lot of applications. It should be pretty cool.

Advice for Getting Started in Affiliate Marketing

If you are just starting out in affiliate marketing, our advice would be to pick one of the high value areas, e.g. finance, high value electronics, travel, gambling, then pick a high value product, and then go very niche with your site.

Examples might be:
- A really good guide to a particular city that is far away so you can sell expensive flights.
- A focus on a high value electronic product, such as tablet pcs.
- A very specialised site on a high value finance product, e.g. equity release mortgages.

Going niche will help you become an "authority" site and that will bring traffic, you can't be the same as millions of other sites out there if you are just starting out.

It also helps if what you are going to promote is a relatively new product, as this will usually mean more demand and less competition. Taking advantage of the latest consumer trends is always a good idea.

Ask yourself the questions:
- Do people buy this product online.
- Are people searching for this product online. See keyword suggestion tools.
- What is the competition like from other sites, do I stand a reasonable chance of getting onto the first page of a search engine?

Good luck!

Cisco Responds to Apple infringing their iPhone Trademark

Cisco owns the trademark to iPhone, but Apple went ahead with their iPhone without obtaining permission, despite numerous negotiations. Cisco has made their feelings clear on their blog, saying that they wanted to share the name and they aren't pleased about Apple's actions.

It will also be interesting to see whether Apple makes any attempt to get the iphone.co.uk domain name considering the case with itunes.co.uk which Apple went to court for and managed to win.

Antispam Mods for phpBB

One of the things we'd really like to do better on our sites is get more user contributed content. However, we always find it hard to find the time for application development, so we normally look around at open source solutions first. Forum wise, there's phpBB, and the main problem with this is that it attracts spammers. Our first foray into running a forum has been the Flat Screen Forum UK. We don't have many real users yet, but we certainly attract a lot of spammers. If you have this problem, a couple of easy things you can do are:

- Switch on Admin approval for all registrations. This way people can't post anything until Admin has approved them.

- Start adding given domains to the e-mail ban list.

We have a post on a4uforum that is yielding some useful advice.

Redirecting and cloaking affiliate links

We don't do any redirecting or cloaking of affiliate links on our sites. Perhaps we should, because we have seen some dramatic drops in our Google rankings on certain terms and wonder whether this has been from being identified as an affiliate site. If you want to protect yourself, here are some simple techniques you can use.

ShoeMoney thinks 95% of SEO is simple

ShoeMoney has posted on his blog that he thinks 95% of SEO is super simple, and we are inclined to agree. Simple things like buying a decent domain and using good dash separated file names will get you a long way. ShoeMoney has a background of developing content sites, and those looking to develop super successful websites should have content at the forefront of their minds. Any web developer should focus hard on the question "What are people really interested in?" and then work out how to give it to them. Rich content sites are certainly a good way to go, but boy do they take a lot of effort. Smart people will just create the framework and let users generate the content, a la Blogger, MySpace and YouTube.

Mobile Phones and Africa

An interesting investigation on Newsnight today of the impact of mobile phones on Africa (part of "Geek Week"). They are having a revolutionary effect, and helping to break down corruption as people are now less reliant on people in positions of authority. There's also the case of organised flash mobbing in Nairobi shanty towns to protect against eviction by bulldozer. What's more Africa is at the cutting edge of mobile payment technology, and large sums of money are now being routed into Kenya via mobile phone from relatives abroad.

What Consumers Really Want from the Internet

In case you haven't realised it yet, what surfers really want on the internet is cheap prices. Cheap prices are a key driver behind the increasing growth of internet shopping against the High Street. Businesses that bring cheap prices to consumers can experience rapid growth, as evidenced by the glassesdirect.co.uk story.

Free Games for your Mobile

Are available from gamejump.com. The games are totally free but are supported by adverts at the beginning and end of the game.

Magazines on your Mobile

Tocmag.com is a service that allows you to download 6 page magazines to your mobile, and also to create your own mobile magazines.