Affiliate Marketing Blog from UK Offer MediaWelcome to Kieron’s blog - the life and times of an Internet Marketeer

Malcolm Cowley invests in Existem Affiliate Management

It has been announced today that Malcolm Cowley, one of the original founders of Buy.at has invested in Existem Affiliate Management and will be joining the board.

Malcolm left Buy.at in 2008 after it’s sale to AOL Advertising. During that time he’s kept his eye on the affiliate marketing sector and feels that now is the time to step back into the arena.

For my money this is a great move, I’ve always rated the Existem team as one of the top affiliate management agencies in the UK and often refer clients to them. Malcolm will be a great addition to the team and I’m sure will bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to take the business to the next level.

Congratulations guys, I’m expecting big things!

What I’m listening to right now: Gorillaz - “Plastic Beach“

Affiliate Window buys Buy.at

After weeks of speculation that Buy.at was on the market and a few affiliate networks and consortiums were interested, it has been announced today that Affiliate Window (now known as Digital Window) have acquired Buy.at. Announcement here.

Being completely honest here I’m glad that Affiliate Window have acquired Buy.at and not one of the other networks who were in the running. Affiliate Window are without a shadow of a doubt the most proactive and innovative network in the UK. And now that they have snatched Buy.at away from the corporate red-tape monster that is AOL I’m very much looking forward to seeing Buy.at return to their former glory.

So, congratulations to Affiliate Window and Buy.at who are now officially the UK’s largest affiliate marketing network. Well done guys.

What I’m listening to right now: Kieron’s R&B Mixtape Vol. 4

Getting your site featured in Google News - with case studies

I’m writing this article because one of the most asked questions we get at ContentNow.co.uk is “can you help us get our site listed in Google News”. The answer is yes, in fact we launched our News product recently for that specific purpose. However, whether you write your own content, have in-house content writers or outsource your content to a company like ours I hope you find the following article of use. As I get asked about Google News so often I thought it would be a good idea to share my experiences. So first of all…

What is Google News?

In their own words, Google News is “aggregated headlines and a search engine of many of the world’s news sources”. So to put it simply it’s a massive online resource of “news” items taken from all over the world and covering many different sectors.

What are the benefits of appearing in Google News?

1. Your site will be seen as an “authority” on your subject. The very fact that is is featured in Google News implies authority as in “it must be a trustworthy source if Google deem it to be so”. This alone can be invaluable.

2. Backlinks - as you are an authority you will find other websites and news aggregators also linking to you and quoting your site in their articles. These links can come from other trusted sites and are very valuable in terms of search engine equity.

3. More traffic/visitors - your site will be exposed to a whole new audience, the tens of millions of people that visit Google News every week. So make sure you not only write frequently but make sure your content is interesting to stand out in the crowd and also to ensure repeat visitors.

How do I make sure my site adheres to Google News guidelines?

A lot of people think that there are stringent guidelines that you have to adhere to in order to get into Google News. This isn’t the case, although there are some technical guidelines there isn’t anything that you shouldn’t already be doing as best practice anyway. Other than that there are 3 main rules that I would stick to in order to ensure that you get into Google News.

1. Word Count: Ensure that you news articles are a minimum of 250 words each, ideally 300. Now before people comment saying that they have seen sites in Google News that are 200 words and less, yes so have I. But we have anecdotal evidence that news articles of around the 300 word mark have a better chance of getting in. Google won’t confirm or deny this but we have had some clients at Content Now who have tried and failed to get into Google News but upon securing our services and producing news articles of this length, have started to appear.

2. Frequency: Personally speaking I would aim to publish at least 1 news article per day to your site. More if you can manage it. Obviously the more you publish the more frequently the Googlebot will come to visit and the more often your items will be featured in Google News and you will benefit from increased traffic as a result.

3. Write for people, not search engines: Don’t use one of those horrible content bot services that churn out lots of so called “unique” content for your site. They *may* fool the search engines for a little while but they will not fool your visitors. Don’t try to stuff your content with keywords and write to keyword densities etc. Instead write engaging content that humans will enjoy. This will ensure that you get visitors coming back to your site and if you have comments open or forums then they are more likely to engage with you and eventually become a loyal member of your community. As well as “news” pieces try to write opinion pieces or humorous pieces too. All of which will make your site stand out of the crowd.

What is the difference between traditional content and news?

News content should be much in tune with what’s currently happening in your sector. For example, we have a client active in the stocks and shares market, SharePrices.com who have just successfully been included in Google News. We provide the site with twice daily news items that relate specifically to the UK shares, stocks and investments markets. The articles focus on the stockmarket in general and news as to why a particular company has suddenly proved popular/unpopular. Just like this and this both published yesterday.

Alternatively news could come in the shape of a new product review for something just announced/released. Maybe a review of the forthcoming Apple iPad or a new video game. It’s also possible to get really good coverage from other sites if you include videos in your news items. For example, Recombu (not a ContentNow client) did this excellent piece on the new HTC Desire, it was picked up (via Google News) from leading authority on all things tech, Gizmodo. By creating innovative and engaging content, Recombu have firmly established themselves as a major authority in their field, so much so that the main players in online tech are now quoting them regularly in their articles.

How many writers do I need in order to qualify for Google News?

I don’t remember where I read it but I do remember a Google News representative being quoted somewhere as saying that “multiple” authors were needed in order to qualify. This would seem to be backed up by the Google News submission page that asks for a link to a “list of authors and editors available on your site”. So a page like this one from SharePrices.com is a must. It would seem that Google News are looking for a clear organisational structure with multiple editors and authors, so it’s important to have this in place before submitting our site.

When should I submit my site to Google News?

Again there is no hard and fast rule for this. Personally I would wait until I had been up and running and producing quality news content on a daily basis for  2 to 3 months before applying. This will prove to Google that you have a track record and hopefully improve your chances of submission. A site with no history and no historical news content will almost certainly be rejected.

Overall, if you ensure that you’re writing good quality original content daily that isn’t copied from other sources then getting into Google News isn’t too difficult. The hardest part is maintaining the frequency and of course coming up with original content on a daily basis. And that’s why I set up ContentNow.co.uk, as I myself struggled with this and used to spend too much time writing content when I should have been looking at the bigger picture. Writing quality content is really time consuming, if you’re lucky enough to have in house content writers then perfect. If not then an outside provider such as ourselves may just be able to help

If anybody has any questions then I would be happy to answer them in the comments. Likewise, please feel free to share your experiences with Google News.

What I’m listening to right now: Gorillaz Pirate Playlist

A4U Awards and tips for entrants

It’s that time of year again, can you believe it’s the 4th annual A4U Awards. This year it’s at the Grosvenor House Hotel, Park Lane, Mayfair on the 9th June. As previous years it promises to be a glamorous night to remember, black tie and posh frocks will be the order of the evening and champagne will be on tap.

The important bit - if you’re involved in affiliate marketing in any way, shape or form then you MUST vote. If you don’t vote then you can’t complain at the winners, so head on over now before the closing date of 1st March.

Tips for entrants

It’s no secret that I’m on the judging panel for the awards so I thought I would give some advice on what makes an entry stand out.

Don’t be shy with figures

This is not the time to wear your tin foil hat and shout conspiracy. To give the judges the best idea of your business then please ensure that you give supporting figures in your entry. If you tell us that you increased sales year on year by “a lot” then I’m sorry but that won’t cut the mustard as much as cold hard sales figures. Please trust me when I say that the judges won’t steal your ideas, copy your business plan or share your figures with anyone else. It was a shame but last year I didn’t give some entries as high marks as others because they didn’t give enough information. So please, give yourselves as much a chance as possible and give us as much detail as you can.

Good luck, see you in Mayfair in June!

What I’m listening to right now: Kieron’s Valentine Mix

DFDS affiliate incentive - £4500 B&O sound system and Spotify Premium up for grabs

I’m not sure how this managed to pass me by but I’ve just noticed that DFDS have a rather brilliant affiliate incentive on the go at the moment. There are 11 prizes up for grabs including a £4500 Bang & Olufsen BeoSound5 and 10 Premium Spotify subscriptions!

The B&O BeoSound5 is a really cool sound system that picks the next song that it will play based on the sounds from the previous track, or you can just play albums and playlists you create yourself. The screen also displays album artwork as well, adding to the look of the whole system. Ideal for the home or (affiliate) office.

Like all good incentives it’s really easy to enter, all you have to do is make 1 DFDS sale for 1 entry into the prize draw. Obviously, the more sales you make the better chance you have of winning.

Out of the 10 Spotify Premium subscriptions on offer, 5 are to give away to people who add a piece of content about DFDS Seaways to their site or blog etc. For every bit they add DFDS give them an entry into the draw and obviously the more relevant and good quality content they add the more chance of getting sales and winning the top prize too!

The 5 remaining Spotify Premium accounts are for all those affiliates who didn’t make a DFDS sale in 2009 or have joined the program so far this year. So basically incentivising inactive affiliates.

The incentive runs until 28th February and full details can be found here.

MASSIVE TIP: As a rule entries into affiliate only competitions tend to be really low. No matter how good the prize it seems we can’t be bothered to enter. So make sure you enter and you may be surprised to find yourself a winner.

What I’m listening to right now: J. Holiday - “Round 2“

TechCrunch “Macbook AirGate”

I read with interest today about the Macbook AirGate scandal on TechCrunch. Basically it tells a story of how one of their interns, a young guy named Daniel Brusilovsky had allegedly asked for a Macbook Air in return for writing a post about a startup. TechCrunch got wind of this, the intern admitted it and now all posts from the intern have been removed.

Now, as soon as I read this, I thought I may know what post they are referring to. I clearly remember in November last year reading a post on TechCrunch about new tech site TechnoBuffalo. The TechCrunch review stood out to me because (forgive me TechnoBuffalo) TechnoBuffalo is nothing new, exciting or imaginative. It’s a tech blog and IMHO an average one at best, certain not newsworthy in any shape, way or form. There are thousands of tech blogs just like it and as far as I know, none have ever graced the pages of TechCrunch. So for those reasons I remember thinking at the time that someone was definitely calling in a favour somewhere as it just stood out a million miles as a post that should never have appeared on TechCrunch. I also remember that lots of TechCrunch readers left similar comments on the blog post itself. It seemed that nobody could understand why the post ever appeared in the first place.

Then today I read about Daniel at TechCrunch and “MacBook AirGate” and the first thing I think of is that TechnoBuffalo post. I wonder…

A quick search of TechCrunch finds that the original TechnoBuffalo post has disappeared. TechCrunch said that they had removed all posts by the intern so its possible that this is one of his. Luckily the Google cache of the original post is still up (gotta love Google). As you will see, the post is written by the intern in question, Daniel Brusilovsky.

Now I’m not saying that Techno Buffalo were the ones who gave Daniel a Macbook Air in return for a review. I have no evidence of this and I’m certainly not making any allegations. I’m simply saying that if you looked at the above evidence you could be forgiven for thinking that was the case.

The problem I have, is not with Techno Buffalo or with Daniel but with TechCrunch. If I, and others (judging by the original comments now sadly deleted, that were made on the post) then why couldn’t the TechCrunch editors? Surely TechCrunch has better editorial control in place than that? Especially for junior members of the team and interns. This whole thing wouldn’t bother me as much is it wasn’t for the fact that TechCrunch position themselves as being impartial and even go so far as accusing others of less than impartial reviews when receiving free products.

At least my bribe posts are clearly labelled

UPDATE: John Rettinger from TechnoBuffalo has responded to this post in the comments below, hopefully there is more to come on this story.

What I’m listening to right now: Usher — Little Freak (Feat. Nicki Minaj)

Buy.at ShopCentral

After a short break of 7 months or so I’m really glad to welcome back Buy.at as a blog advertiser. In the time that they’ve been away they’ve managed to shake off the awful “Platform A” rebrand and go back to the good old Buy.at brand that we all know and love. Welcome back guys

Buy.at ShopCentral

It’s fantastic to see that Buy.at are still innovating too and have just lanched ShopCentral. It’s basically a simple-to-use storebuilder (hey, even I can work it) which can give you a full-on affiliate site crammed with thousands of products up and running in a matter of minutes, example here. Whilst there are quite a lot of affiliate networks and third party suppliers that offer content units, there aren’t that many that offer full storefronts. And in my humble opinion there aren’t any that are as easy to use as ShopCentral.

What makes it extra special cool

You can use a tick box when setting up to “use search engine keywords” so perfect for PPC affiliates and even for parked domain names. I’ve seen this in practice and it’s very clever how it works and because it’s a live-feed it’s always up to date. Like I say, very clever and simple, just how I like it.

Well done Buy.at, great to see you guys are still innovating.

What I’m listening to right now: Mary J. Blige — “Skycap (Feat. Timbaland)”

What I Wore Today - not me, PoppyD

I love this vainglorious blog from PoppyD entitled “What I Wore Today“. Probably for no other reason than because it reminds me of my very own “what I’m listening to right now” signoff. Anyway, check it out, new outfit every day, simple as. I considered doing one myself but then again I think people would get bored of my True Religion/7 For All Mankind/Rock & Republic jeans with Abercrombie & Fitch tees combo. Best leave it to Poppy then

What I’m listening to right now: Florence + The Machine - “You’ve Got The Love - Jamie XX re-work Feat. The XX“. Brilliant.

No need for the negativity

Disclaimer: As I’ve said on this blog loads of times, I love Spotify, I think it’s the bees knees and the best music app ever. I think Daniel Ek is one of the most creative entrepreneurs we have ever seen and I have tons and tons of respect for the whole Spotify team. They are doing a bloody fantastic job in changing the way we all listen to music. And yes, I run a Spotify community site called ShareMyPlaylists.com - for exactly all the reasons mentioned above. I am unashamedly a Spotify fanboy.

I thought long and hard about whether I should write this post or not. On the one hand, this isn’t my fight, I don’t work for Spotify and I should just let this article wash over me and put it down to Sarah Lacy having a quiet day with little else to write about. But then again I’m not one to keep my thoughts to myself so felt compelled to put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard if you will.

The article I’m referring to is this article from Sarah Lacy at TechCrunch that has annoyed me. At best it’s an opinion piece that doesn’t really have any place on TechCrunch, at worse it’s an unprovoked and unnecessary attack on a startup. It starts with Sarah saying possibly the only sensible thing in the whole article “no one likes a blogger who says “I told you so.””. With that Sarah, I agree 100%.

From there Sarah basically tries to say “I told you so” because, and this is the best part, as far as she can guess, according to third parties not involved in Spotify and other rumours, Spotify isn’t profitable yet. Sigh. Really? Is this a story worthy of TechCrunch? Sadly, these days yes it is.

Bizarrely, the basis of the whole “Spotify isn’t profitable yet” slant to the story seems to be this article where Rob Wells, the senior vice-president Digital for Universal Music Group International said that Spotify has a very sustainable financial model. I’m not sure how Sarah managed to interpret this in a negative manner but because Rob Wells (who does NOT work for Spotify btw) claimed that Spotify needed 10% to 12% of it’s users to be paying Premium subscribers in order to hit profitability and in the UK it’s “lagging behind” then it’s hashtag FAIL in Sarah’s eyes.

Sarah then goes on to call Spotify out because they haven’t launched in the US yet despite saying they “definitely” would by early 2010. It’s only January. Sarah makes sweeping statements that “Americans don’t like to pay for things online” citing Netflix as “only” having 10 million paying customers.

What really annoys me, apart from all the guesswork is the general negativity of the article. On the one hand Sarah says seems to offer praise:

“Look, I love the service, I love that the founders believe in it enough to invest their own money and I love that the company is ballsy enough to think it can succeed where hundreds of music startups have failed”

She then takes it away by saying that Spotify would be “better in someone else’s hands” (linking to this article about Mark Zuckerberg’s love of Spotify) and that a bidding war would be good for Spotify. How very rude. I would argue that Daniel Ek and the Spotify team have made more advances in dragging the music industry into the 21st century than anybody else. Anybody. Yet Sarah thinks that Spotify should be sold off? Now I know that we need tech correspondents like Sarah to report on our industry and to maintain some sort of checks and balances but a little part of me thinks “What the hell gives Sarah the right to put Spotify down like this? Has she ran a startup and come up against the same challenges that Spotify has?” No. Anyone can sit at a desk somewhere and write inaccurate rubbish passing it off as journalism, it’s far easier to write about startups that actually run one I guess.

What baffles me is that TechCrunch can publish this nice fluffly story praising Pandora about reaching 40 million users but give no mention of revenue and profitability. What gives TechCrunch? You’re happy to speculate on Spotify’s revenues and it hasn’t even launched in the USA, yet no mention of Pandora’s bottom line in your fluff piece?

One part of the article that did make me raise a smile was Daniel Ek’s reasoning as to why he doesn’t give Sarah an interview, he “doesn’t like (my) tone.” Good on him for having principles and not being scared to air them.

I’m counting down the days to when Spotify is bigger than iTunes, totally changes the digital music landscape forever, is responsible for “plays” to be recorded and counted in official music charts worldwide and is eventually sold off for many billions of dollars. It will by my turn then to say I told you so.

What I’m listening to right now: Balearic Beats

Amazon Kindle DX versus Apple iPad

My Amazon Kindle DX came last week and I’m so impressed with it I thought I’d share my thoughts of it with my blog readers. For anyone who doesn’t know what the Kindle DX is, it’s basically an eBook reader, but it has a few special extras that make it stand out from it’s competitors. Namely….

No fuss setup

As you can see from the picture below, the Kindle DX comes preset with your Amazon account details. It knows that it is linked to your Amazon account and you can order eBooks with just 1-click. There is absolutely NO configuration needed, you simply take it out of the box, charge it and you’re ready to go. This is how all electronic devices should be.

Amazon Whispernet

This is possibly the coolest thing about the Kindle DX. It comes pre-installed with Amazon wireless Whispernet which is basically a wireless connection so you can browse the Kindle Store on your device. Best thing about this is that there is no cost. No monthly subscriptions, no download limits, no contract, no hunting for wi-fi, nothing. It’s remarkably quick too, I downloaded by first eBook the other day and it took less than 60 seconds.

Not just eBooks

One of the reasons I bought the Kindle DX is so that I can download newspapers from wherever I am in the world. The Kindle DX supports 91 “eNewspapers” at the time of writing, including the Times, Daily Mail, Telegraph and Financial Times in the UK. Costs are $1.49 (about 92p) for 1 issue or $22.99 (about £14) for a monthly subscription. All newspapers come with a free 14-day trial too. There are also 39 magazines available to download too, such as Forbes, Fortune and Business Week etc.

Big but portable

One of the reasons I really like the Kindle DX is that it has a really big screen (9.7 inch) to make reading that much easier, with smaller devices you have to keep hitting “next page” every few seconds as the pages are so small. Despite the large screen though the device is only 535g in weight and sits very comfortably in your hand.

Text to speech

The Kindle DX comes with a really next feature that, at the touch of a button starts reading the text to you. It’s a bit spooky at first but works really well. Brilliant for people with poor eyesight or those who just want to relax and be read to.

Battery life and storage

You can read on a single charge for up to 1 week with wireless on. With wireless off this lasts for up to 2 weeks, very impressive. You can also store up to 3,500 books, more than enough for anyone I would imagine.

Experimental

As well as all of the above you can also use the Kindle DX to browse the web, it’s not perfect but it’s great for mainly text sites. You can also play MP3’s on it

Electronic Ink

Reading the Kindle DX is *nothing* like reading from a computer screen. It’s really hard to describe but the screen uses real ink that is held in place electronically. This means that there is no glare and your eyes don’t sting like they sometimes do after looking at a monitor for a while.

eBook Library and ease of use

I used to have the Sony eBook reader but the problem was that it was pretty much impossible to find anywhere online that sold a decent range of eBooks to support it. And if you were lucky enough to find a book you wanted you had to sign up and pay through 3rd party websites, download, transfer via some dodgy software and basically jump through loads of hoops just to get to the product. This infuriated me no end, so much so that I binned my Sony reader, it was rendered useless. Not so with the Kindle. Basically, 1 click gets you to the Amazon eBook store where there are currently 329,728 titles available to me in the UK. Then one more click to purchase and the eBook is installed on my Kindle in 60 seconds. Pure. Genius.

Price

Well it’s not cheap. The US price is $489 which works out at around £303. However, don’t forget that there are no monthly contracts and the Amazon Whispernet is totally free, anywhere in the world. I’m already using mine a lot and imagine I will for a long time so it’s great value in my opinion.

But what about the Apple iPad?

However, is it better than the Apple iPad? Of course i’t’s impossible to say as although the iPad was released to the world at the Apple press conference today, it’s not for sale yet for another 60-90 days.

One of the big selling points for the iPad is the iBooks feature that basically turns the iPad into an eBook reader on steroids, leading to the inevitable will iBooks kill the Kindle type stories. Instead of the grayscale screen of the Kindle DX the iPad has a full colour screen and admittedly it looks gorgeous. Whether or not it hurts the eyes like conventional monitors after long periods remains to be seen. However at 680g for the wi-fi model or 730g for the wi-fi plus 3G model it’s certainly not as light as the Kindle DX. So maybe that’s a factor.

The entry level iPad is priced just a little bit more than the Kindle DX at $499. However, it will have to be in a wi-fi hotspot in order for it to work. The 3G models start at $629 rising to $829 with a monthly tariff of between $14.99 and $29.99. UK prices have yet to be announced. For me, the Kindle DX is better value with it’s one-time payment of $489 and no monthly charges for wireless access.

So which is better?

If I was looking for a pure-play eBook reader then I would choose the Amazon Kindle DX every day of the week. The fact that it’s lighter and more portable than the iPad plus has much longer batter life are the key selling points. Coupled with the free Amazon Whispernet for downloads anywhere in the world then it’s a clear winner. Sure, the iPad has a colour screen but if you’re mainly using it to read books then it becomes redundant. The Kindle DX is very easy to read outdoors whereas I doubt the iPad will be.

After saying all that however, if you want a nice shiny new gadget that sits somewhere between a laptop and an iPhone then gof or an iPad. For apps, games, web browsing, email, music and all other aspects of portable computing I think it will be hard to beat. I’ll be buying one for sure. To compliment my Kindle, not replace it

Further reading:

Mashable - 4 Reasons the Kindle is Dead, 4 Reasons It’s Not
Crunchgear - The iPad vs the Kindle spec for spec
Stephen Fry - iPad about (brilliant review from Stephen)

What I’m listening to right now: Musiq - “Fish in the Sea”