I have been running this great hosted chat solution on my ad9 site for a few months - the basic package is FREE gratis . It allows you to chat with you website visits , and also see statistical information of vistitors - what pages they visited and where they came through , what keywords they enterd - all in a live environment .
I must say i was pretty impressed - only 1 problem the other day - the Zazachat site went down (Microsoft XP diagnostics reports it could have been due to "internet congestion") , i was going to award this a 8/10 but the trouble is when their site goes down so does yours! You install the snippet of code on your web page(s) - i put it on all my pages - a few thousand , and all stopped being downloadable as soon as there was a problem - not good . This happens whenver you have a hosted solution serving data to a blind client server application (eg: with affiliate programs such as Amazon and TD the same will happen) .
Consequences - you can loose money! If you are spending a lot on PPC and this happens the consequences can be devastating - you might not know - the only way is vist your site regularly - or purchase a polling application .
It would be much better if hosted enviroments used a sharing protocol with a timeout (not more than a couple of seconds) , to prevent your site from crashing (and thousands of others) .
1 work around of course is not to install on all pages - then you don't get the stats - i have Google Analytics installed anyway , which , touch wood , has been 100% robust ie: no downtime (i wonder if this has a timeout? in the event of the Google server crashing).
Anywey to sum up , in my mind this is a great piece of software that works 99% of the time , but you need to keep an eye on it if you intend installing it on "mission critical pages" of your site !
I have just received back a reply in less than 2 hours from he Zazachat support ticket to say their Detroit servers went down (for the first time 2 years) , so there support looks good too , so i will be using these again once this glitch is over.
Thursday, 14 June 2007
Monday, 4 June 2007
Resale Prevention
I write this as a cautionary tale , to anyone thinking of buying anything on the internet - read the small print .
I recently purchased some pretty expensive music software called Hauptwerk (and a Virginia theatre organ add on CDrom). Total cost was over £200 . I bought it with the view to sell on later when something better cames out . Well the day came when i decided to sell so i thought the best place to sell it was on the Hauptwerk forum - i thought i'd check it was OK with the owner of the site , and was rather shocked to be told by the author of the software that the licence has written into it a clause about not being able to transfer ownership , and that if i did sell i would therefore be breaking the law .
Is this really UK law ? Can this software provider really insist on me never being able to sell the software ? I have the kept a copy of the email that Hauptwerk and Milan Digital Audio sent me telling me that i cannot legally sell my licenced copy of their software .
From their point of view it makes sense - they have a specialised piece of software of limited interest - only to people interested in sampled sounds from pipe organs , and if they allowed buyers to sell on their licenced copy it would reduce demand for the software . I would however never have purchased this knowing i'd be stuck with it .
So consumers beware - always read the small print of any licence or contract - even it amounts to thousands of lines (it's so easy to click the i agree box at the bottom of the contract , when you buy a licence online). The safer alternative is NOT TO BUY - the saying BUYER BEWARE has never been truer .
These days purchasing items it would appear can be a minefield - the consumer needs a degree in law to understand what the contract they are signing up to . In my opinion (but i am biasedhave being sold something i cannot sell on ), if such a contract can be enforced , then it should say NOT FOR RESALE in big red writing next to the price (not in the small print).
I suppose no i have had a chance to reflect - it is however fair to say this software is infact not a mass consumer appeal and the authors do say it is geared towards business - ie: performers rather than the home player .
The software does what it says on the box , and is constantly being worked on by Crumhorn studios so it will be interesting to see how this software develops - perhaps it will have larger appeal - maybe to the keyboard manufacturers - Yamaha et al .
I recently purchased some pretty expensive music software called Hauptwerk (and a Virginia theatre organ add on CDrom). Total cost was over £200 . I bought it with the view to sell on later when something better cames out . Well the day came when i decided to sell so i thought the best place to sell it was on the Hauptwerk forum - i thought i'd check it was OK with the owner of the site , and was rather shocked to be told by the author of the software that the licence has written into it a clause about not being able to transfer ownership , and that if i did sell i would therefore be breaking the law .
Is this really UK law ? Can this software provider really insist on me never being able to sell the software ? I have the kept a copy of the email that Hauptwerk and Milan Digital Audio sent me telling me that i cannot legally sell my licenced copy of their software .
From their point of view it makes sense - they have a specialised piece of software of limited interest - only to people interested in sampled sounds from pipe organs , and if they allowed buyers to sell on their licenced copy it would reduce demand for the software . I would however never have purchased this knowing i'd be stuck with it .
So consumers beware - always read the small print of any licence or contract - even it amounts to thousands of lines (it's so easy to click the i agree box at the bottom of the contract , when you buy a licence online). The safer alternative is NOT TO BUY - the saying BUYER BEWARE has never been truer .
These days purchasing items it would appear can be a minefield - the consumer needs a degree in law to understand what the contract they are signing up to . In my opinion (but i am biasedhave being sold something i cannot sell on ), if such a contract can be enforced , then it should say NOT FOR RESALE in big red writing next to the price (not in the small print).
I suppose no i have had a chance to reflect - it is however fair to say this software is infact not a mass consumer appeal and the authors do say it is geared towards business - ie: performers rather than the home player .
The software does what it says on the box , and is constantly being worked on by Crumhorn studios so it will be interesting to see how this software develops - perhaps it will have larger appeal - maybe to the keyboard manufacturers - Yamaha et al .
Friday, 1 June 2007
Niche Keyword Marketing
The number of internet searches done daily is rocketting as more and more people use the internet at home and work . It is erplacing other forms of media for finding out answers to questions and shopping for goods and services . Even town libraries and complete towns are becoming broadband enabled so there is definitely a huge potetial for rapid growth in the number of keyword searches performed .
Equally though the number of websites indexed by the major search engines is drastically increasing . All the single word domain names are taken eg: shopping.com , shopping.co.uk and shopping.net and as Google and other search engines weight the domain name highly when scoring a sites ranking in the organic results , there is little point in trying to optimise a site for "shopping" , but if you drill down to longer keyword phrases , eg "London clothes shopping" then there are less than 1000 sites targetting this keyword and the domain londonclothesshopping.co.uk probably exists , all you need do is SEO your site to this niche and you can be king of the castle for this niche . Making a living from niche keywords however requires the traffic - if no one searches for "London clothes shopping" everything is in vain - so choosing good niche phrases that will draw high traffic is the other side of the coin .
Keep an eye on TV commercials for new products / services - and sound bytes - remember "hello moto" for the motorola advert , consumers sometimes latch onto soundbytes , and by being quick it can mean you benefit from someone elses advertising !
Equally though the number of websites indexed by the major search engines is drastically increasing . All the single word domain names are taken eg: shopping.com , shopping.co.uk and shopping.net and as Google and other search engines weight the domain name highly when scoring a sites ranking in the organic results , there is little point in trying to optimise a site for "shopping" , but if you drill down to longer keyword phrases , eg "London clothes shopping" then there are less than 1000 sites targetting this keyword and the domain londonclothesshopping.co.uk probably exists , all you need do is SEO your site to this niche and you can be king of the castle for this niche . Making a living from niche keywords however requires the traffic - if no one searches for "London clothes shopping" everything is in vain - so choosing good niche phrases that will draw high traffic is the other side of the coin .
Keep an eye on TV commercials for new products / services - and sound bytes - remember "hello moto" for the motorola advert , consumers sometimes latch onto soundbytes , and by being quick it can mean you benefit from someone elses advertising !
Thursday, 31 May 2007
Why do so few affiliates make a decent living ?
Let's face it the majority of affiliate sites are not that appealing (to put it lightly) ranging from single page sites splattered with affiliate banners to large portal sites with dynamically created links that are fed from a network and used identically on 10s or 100s of sites .
The sites are unappealing and offer little or no use whatsoever to the visitor , they are built to save time and effort , and get listed high on the search engines . The webmaster hopes that they will rank above some of the brilliant sites on the net by often using clever search engine optimisation techniques which we will be discussing on our goodsites site .
Don't get me wrong i am not blaming the affiliate - far from it , the opportunity is there to exploit , and IT WORKED , atleast in the past , and i have even done it myself on occasions in desperation when finding some of my better sites are being overtaken by other " net apes " (something i am not proud of) . But the search engines are becoming more clever in auto detecting sites without good content , and will probably eventually penalise all such sites .
So makes a good site ?
A good site offers it's visitors something unique (or as good as it gets) on the internet , this does not necessarily mean you need a large sites - it could be a couple of pages - or a site with a huge number of bells and whistles . The CONCEPT is all too important , before you get your web editor out , you need to find something of value .
One of the quickest ways (but riskiest) is to offer some form of incentive(s) . There has been a huge influx of sites all jumping on the freeby bandwagon - search for "cashback" and just see how many 100s of sites are offering this now . I found the cashback arena highly lucrative , and was lucky to start when there were less than a handful sites (i have now sold it as the work proved too much for me!) . Just think you could have 100s of people visiting your site but if you have nothing worth signing up for and just a load of affiliate banners , the best that can happen is perhaps 1 in 100 to 1 in 200 (industry standard for high quality affiliate sites ) will click a banner and actually buy . but if you are offering something for free , and make it relevant to your visitors (a cashback site offers a whole shoping mall of offers - that's relevant) then the rate of sales (and repeat sales) can be higher , and you will get people signing up to your service too .
Notice the figures above 1 in 200 unique visitors actually buying for high quality sites . For low quality sites this can reach 0 ! For pay per sale in which case you'd be better offer using Bucks4Banners who pay you a fixed amount monthly regardless of no of hits . You would need many websites though going down this route to make a living .
The truth is out there - and all affiliates know it - they are unlikely to see huge rewards unless they beat the big boys and produce something bigger and better . The vast majority are happy to give it a go and make a few pence a week - and the networks are of course only too happy to accept the penny makers - as multiple pennies equal millions of pounds in overide commission .
What i find a bit disingenuous is the affiliate managers sending out blanket emails promising fortunes , any affiliate making a few pence a week will not realistically ever make that much , so if you are such a webmaster - take comfort in knowing you are in the majority - do not be down hearted when you view you affiliate balance total - after all it costs next to nothing to buy a domain , and you should hopefully atleast cover the hosting costs . But if you find it is not making what you expect - take a break ! If you can possibly steal yourself away from the PC and take a few days off , and think about what you are offering , try and come up with a different slant to what everyone else is doing ... and who knows you could be a supper affilaite in the making!
The sites are unappealing and offer little or no use whatsoever to the visitor , they are built to save time and effort , and get listed high on the search engines . The webmaster hopes that they will rank above some of the brilliant sites on the net by often using clever search engine optimisation techniques which we will be discussing on our goodsites site .
Don't get me wrong i am not blaming the affiliate - far from it , the opportunity is there to exploit , and IT WORKED , atleast in the past , and i have even done it myself on occasions in desperation when finding some of my better sites are being overtaken by other " net apes " (something i am not proud of) . But the search engines are becoming more clever in auto detecting sites without good content , and will probably eventually penalise all such sites .
So makes a good site ?
A good site offers it's visitors something unique (or as good as it gets) on the internet , this does not necessarily mean you need a large sites - it could be a couple of pages - or a site with a huge number of bells and whistles . The CONCEPT is all too important , before you get your web editor out , you need to find something of value .
One of the quickest ways (but riskiest) is to offer some form of incentive(s) . There has been a huge influx of sites all jumping on the freeby bandwagon - search for "cashback" and just see how many 100s of sites are offering this now . I found the cashback arena highly lucrative , and was lucky to start when there were less than a handful sites (i have now sold it as the work proved too much for me!) . Just think you could have 100s of people visiting your site but if you have nothing worth signing up for and just a load of affiliate banners , the best that can happen is perhaps 1 in 100 to 1 in 200 (industry standard for high quality affiliate sites ) will click a banner and actually buy . but if you are offering something for free , and make it relevant to your visitors (a cashback site offers a whole shoping mall of offers - that's relevant) then the rate of sales (and repeat sales) can be higher , and you will get people signing up to your service too .
Notice the figures above 1 in 200 unique visitors actually buying for high quality sites . For low quality sites this can reach 0 ! For pay per sale in which case you'd be better offer using Bucks4Banners who pay you a fixed amount monthly regardless of no of hits . You would need many websites though going down this route to make a living .
The truth is out there - and all affiliates know it - they are unlikely to see huge rewards unless they beat the big boys and produce something bigger and better . The vast majority are happy to give it a go and make a few pence a week - and the networks are of course only too happy to accept the penny makers - as multiple pennies equal millions of pounds in overide commission .
What i find a bit disingenuous is the affiliate managers sending out blanket emails promising fortunes , any affiliate making a few pence a week will not realistically ever make that much , so if you are such a webmaster - take comfort in knowing you are in the majority - do not be down hearted when you view you affiliate balance total - after all it costs next to nothing to buy a domain , and you should hopefully atleast cover the hosting costs . But if you find it is not making what you expect - take a break ! If you can possibly steal yourself away from the PC and take a few days off , and think about what you are offering , try and come up with a different slant to what everyone else is doing ... and who knows you could be a supper affilaite in the making!
Tuesday, 29 May 2007
Lifetime Revenue Or Pay Per Sale Which Is Best ?
When monetising a website the aim is to squeese as much revenue as possible from your visitors .
Most affiliate networks pay on performance on a one off basis - a visitor generates a revenue if they perform an agreed action , depending how the affiliate program is set up :
It can be Pay per click (typically a few pennies for simply clicking an advert , the biggest network being Google Adsense , pay per lead , pay per sale or pay per call , the advertiser only pays you for the 1 sale (or series of sales with an agreed cookie period).
Once the cookie period expires you no longer get paid if that same shopper buys again from a mcerchant .
Lifetime affiliate programs are different they tag the shopper to your affiliate account indefinitely so you get paid time and time again . You really have a lifelong share of business (providing the merchant upholds the agreement) . This can be particularly profitable in some categories of merchant - typically gambling and cashback sites .
The only 2 lifetime commission cashback sites we know , and are trying out at the moment are freefivers and greasypalm - both also operate upfront cash of 75p per lead (correct at time of posting blog) as alternatives to lifetime commission , but this is just 1 off payment . A Lifetime program only requires a miliionaire shopper to join and you could be quids in !
We are closely monitoring the performance of these plans , with a small trickly of UVs , we hop to eventually build up a better picture of which converts the best - lifetime or one of leads , to allow of statistical inaccuracies we reckon we need about 400UVs per program on each plan to access the best strategy .
To be kept in the loop join our webmaster forums
Most affiliate networks pay on performance on a one off basis - a visitor generates a revenue if they perform an agreed action , depending how the affiliate program is set up :
It can be Pay per click (typically a few pennies for simply clicking an advert , the biggest network being Google Adsense , pay per lead , pay per sale or pay per call , the advertiser only pays you for the 1 sale (or series of sales with an agreed cookie period).
Once the cookie period expires you no longer get paid if that same shopper buys again from a mcerchant .
Lifetime affiliate programs are different they tag the shopper to your affiliate account indefinitely so you get paid time and time again . You really have a lifelong share of business (providing the merchant upholds the agreement) . This can be particularly profitable in some categories of merchant - typically gambling and cashback sites .
The only 2 lifetime commission cashback sites we know , and are trying out at the moment are freefivers and greasypalm - both also operate upfront cash of 75p per lead (correct at time of posting blog) as alternatives to lifetime commission , but this is just 1 off payment . A Lifetime program only requires a miliionaire shopper to join and you could be quids in !
We are closely monitoring the performance of these plans , with a small trickly of UVs , we hop to eventually build up a better picture of which converts the best - lifetime or one of leads , to allow of statistical inaccuracies we reckon we need about 400UVs per program on each plan to access the best strategy .
To be kept in the loop join our webmaster forums
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