Affiliate Toolbox Part 2 - Web Design and Doing it right.

CSS Layout Generators

http://www.ibdjohn.com/csstemplate/ - OK but seems to be a little buggy in producing the CSS code

http://www.csscreator.com/version2/pagelayout.php This is the best little free utility to produce a basic CSS template that I have found online. This is nice and easy to use - with a really sweet colour slide to select colours. The CSS produced is spot on aswell.

As with all of these things you are left with a skeleton with which there will be alot of work in notepad / dreamweaver etc to get the site looking as you want. Once the template is finished the next step is to check that the site is working as it should.

The most obvious way to do this is check in a browser, in fact as many browsers as yo can find.

Then validate the code:

Start point is http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

The way the web is going valid css xhtml is more and more important. I am one person who still uses tables, but I am slowly weening myself into the world of DIVs, SPANs and CSS

Next thing is to validate the site.

I have found that http://sitescore.silktide.com/ is fantastic for this. Not only does it validate your code, it checks for incomming links, checks your title tags and gives you a full report and score out of ten for your site. There are 130 tests performed on the site!

Results are cached for 30 days - so you cannot check, change, check every few hours when tweeking a site. You can register for an account - as a registered user you can generate reports at smaller time intervals,

This site is very strict so FOLLOW it’s advice.

January 31st, 2007 Posted by scifind | SEO, tools, Web2.0, webdesign, css, valid html, xhtml | no comments

eBay to Revenue Share With Affiliates!

Just got this email from eBay.co.uk:

Dear Affiliate,
We’re excited to announce that from March 1st 2007 we’ll be making changes to the way we reward affiliates. We hope that these changes will offer you greater flexibility and more opportunities to earn more money from eBay.co.uk’s Affiliate Programme. The major change to the programme will be a new revenue-sharing component. This means that not only will you be paid based on the number of new Active Confirmed Registered Users (ACRUs) you deliver to eBay but we’ll also give you a share of the revenue generated by the Bids and Buy it Nows you deliver to the site. This email is just a heads up. We’ll be providing more information and publishing the full payment structure in the coming weeks, so keep an eye on your inbox for news. You can also visit the Affiliates Discussion board for updates. We hope that you’ll be as excited about this new way to earn as we are. Regards,
The eBay.co.uk Affiliate Team

Been waiting for eBay.co.uk to start a revenue share system for ages. Cannot wait to see their terms

January 31st, 2007 Posted by scifind | affiliate marketing, affiliate, eBay | no comments

Revenue Potential at YouTube

 People who upload their own films to video-sharing website YouTube will soon get a share of the ad revenue.

YouTube founder Chad Hurley confirmed to the BBC on the 27th Jan 2007 that the creative bods at youtube were working on a revenue-sharing mechanism that would “reward creativity”.

The system would be rolled out in a couple of months, he said, and use a mixture of adverts, including short clips shown ahead of the actual film.

Funny video from YouTube

January 30th, 2007 Posted by scifind | Uncategorized | no comments

Very usefull Affiliate news site.

Keith Bond has just released the Beta version of his Affiliate Marketing RSS aggrigator site www.internetmarketingblogs.co.uk

And I must say that it is a very usefull tool. There are so many quality affiliate blogs out there that it is quickly becoming a nightmare to keep up with them all. But using Keith’s site makes this alot easier.

In addition to affiliate marketing there is the official network feeds and SEO channels.
 

January 30th, 2007 Posted by scifind | affiliate marketing, affiliate, SEO, tools | no comments

Affiliate Toolbox - Part 1 PPC tools.

I have been having a sort out of my IE7 favourites and I have found a bunch of useful tools to anyone building websites.

Firstly for PPC marketers.

There is the Free Keyword List generator. Ideal for Google Adwords campaigns, Yahoo Search Marketing etc. And also usefull for generating key terms for SEOd websites. Essentially you add terms in upto 5 different keyword lists and they are meshed together.

For Example. If I am creating a campaign for FORBIDDENPLANET and I want to market Doctor Who products via Google Adwords I could use 3 lists. First list has the call to action style words (buy, get, order) the second box has variations on our main product brand (Doctor Who ,Doctor wo, Dr Who) and the third has product types from that brand (Toys,DVDs,Action Figures ) we then select PHRASE MATCH and click generate. We then get 27 key phrases to use, like:

“Buy  Doctor Who  Toys”
“Buy  Doctor Who  DVDs”
“Buy  Doctor Who  Action Figures”
“Buy  Doctor wo Toys”
“Buy  Doctor wo DVDs”
“Buy  Doctor wo Action Figures”
“Buy   Dr Who Toys”
“Buy   Dr Who DVDs”
“Buy   Dr Who Action Figures”
“Order Doctor Who  Toys”

And so on.

This is a very powerful tool - especially when when used with SEO Chat Keyword Typo Generator tool or the MSN adcenter keyword mutator- for the Brand name variations.

Using this it is possible to generate THOUSANDS of key phrases in a very short time.

January 29th, 2007 Posted by scifind | affiliate marketing, affiliate, SEO, tools | no comments

There’s Money in Them Thar Toys. Over £2Billion!

It has just been revealed that the British Toy industry is now worth a staggering £2.2 Billion by the British Toy and Hoby Association.

In the same report the Character Options Doctor Who toy range was revealed to be the biggest boys toy for 2006 - based on value of sales.

Even more reasons to join the ForbiddenPlanet.co.uk affiliate program.

(in house - AffiliateFuture)

Forbidden Planet International is Europe’s largest retailer of cool Television, Movie and Comic Merchandise.
There are currently has 15 bricks and mortar stores in the UK.
Forbidden Planet was established in 1976 and currently has over 15, 000 products listed online.
Forbidden Planet covers a diverse variety of product including DVDs, Books, Toys, Comic Books, Board Games, Prop Replicas covering both classic and the most up to date movies and television.

January 25th, 2007 Posted by scifind | affiliate, ForbiddenPlanet, Toys, British | no comments

1and1 Email Problems

I do appologise if I have not been keeping up with my emails. This is due to the fact that 1and1.co.uk email systems have been having major problems for the past few days.

This has been a real disruption for hundreds (if not thousands) of 1and1 customers, and it just makes me wonder what we used to do in the days before email became the communication tool of choice.

Hopefully email will be back tomorrow. But I have heard this from 1and1 for the past few days.

January 18th, 2007 Posted by scifind | Uncategorized | no comments

Brief Introduction

I am Brian Edwards and I run Scifind Ltd - an affiliate management and internet publishing company.

Currently our main activities are setting up and maintaining content based affiliate sites like www.scifind.co.uk and maintaining affiliate programs. Currently our main Client is www.forbiddenplanet.co.uk

January 16th, 2007 Posted by scifind | Uncategorized | no comments