Update on database driven websites using ShopWindow Toolset
A while ago I blogged about the ShopWindow Toolset from Affiliate Window. Well, a few weeks have passed and we’ve now built the following sites based on the API.
So far the API has been great to implement into a template and there have been no major problems. Although the mobile phone segment needs a lot of work done to incorporate the tariffs etc. into the structure. Its still early days with regard to the search engines, but indications are that the sites are being indexed well and show up in the results, although not that high. Of course this will be as a result of the duplicate content issue, one which we are monitoring and working towards a solution.
What I’m listening to right now: Rihanna – “Rehab”
Thursday, June 14th, 2007 at 11:40 am and is filed under Affiliate Marketing, Affiliate Networks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Welcome to my blog. My name is Kieron Donoghue and I run UK Offer Media Ltd. I thought it would be fun to post a daily (well hopefully daily) blog, writing about my experiences in Internet Marketing and more specifically Affiliate Marketing. I'll include some personal stuff too, probably about my other passions, music and cars. Please feel free to post your comments and thoughts too.
June 14th, 2007 at 12:22 pm
Hi Keiron - sites look great. How would you rate the networks in terms of offering value added services such as the Shopwindow API? Would you, for example, consider building a travel site around Affiliate Future’s new holiday/flight search APIs, or incorporate them into the travel section of UKoffer.com?
June 14th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
Hi Dave, I think the main difference is that the AW ToolSet allows you to create much bigger database driven sites whereas the AF search API doesn’t cater for this. However as you say, it would fit well into a Travel section of an existing website.
UKOffer.com is due to be rebuilt soon and will change direction so probably not the best fit though.
June 14th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
Hi Keiron, great showcase for what the API can do. I have been busy working on my store with a few extra bits and the pages are hitting the #1 spot on a few long tail terms. The duplicate content issue is one downside to using shop window however it’s a very small downside on what is a great platform.
June 14th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
Hi Kieron
I had a play with ShopWindow. So far SE indexing is going quite well and we are seeing some reasonable organic traffic.
However, the conversion rate we are seeing from it is very low.
How are you doing with conversions?
June 14th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
Nice one mate. I had a play around with it, but am struggling in terms of technology
I have put it to AWin that they think about running some sort of course on this for us less technical ones, or us lot who don’t have the luxury of having developers to hand.
I hope AWin take this opportunity to help us affiates who are willing to travel/stay down south, and in return show us in more detail with maybe some technical bods at hand to even help implement the most basic type of site.
June 14th, 2007 at 2:27 pm
I might give this a whirl with AffWindow, they look good. Just out of interest I notice you seem to register your domains with .org.uk, how do these rank against .co.uk in the search engines? I have never thought of using these as I thought they were for non profit organisations. But there seems to be quite a lot of names still with the .org.uk address available so might give them a go. Cheers Lee
June 14th, 2007 at 9:35 pm
I heard these type of sites get low quality scores, how are you finding it?
June 14th, 2007 at 9:44 pm
kieron
you may want to check the pages in firefox.
looks great apart from that
golly
June 16th, 2007 at 3:54 am
[...] From here.org.uk [...]
June 17th, 2007 at 7:10 pm
Hi Darren, can’t complain at conversion rates, just working on increasing the traffic now!
June 17th, 2007 at 7:11 pm
Lee, in my experience .org.uk domains rank just as well as .co.uk domains. I haven’t seen any difference at all.
June 18th, 2007 at 2:17 pm
Great tips and advice for a newbie affiliate marketer as usual Kieron. The flexability of the tool looks good but I think you should check the code your templates are producing though.
Coming from a developer background I look at the html and think one of your includes/templates are producing duplicate “body” “head” elements.
June 19th, 2007 at 10:23 pm
[...] Times, Cookie Length etc. Also enclosed was a summary of Affiliate Windows ShopWindow that Kieron blogged about not so long [...]
June 23rd, 2007 at 12:05 pm
We went the DIY route for our first ShopWindow site too (see link on my name if you’re interested). Just curious - are you likely to ‘fatten’ it with original content in due course or leave it as it is to see how it develops ‘out of the box’?
Personally, I’m awaiting two key improvements before I really pile into ShopWindow, although I like it a lot already: better categorisation of products by merchants, and the ability to create custom category trees that will exclude products not appearing in the niche targeted by the site.