1
My First Regrettable Acts of 2014
2
“Hi, I’m Here to Fix My SEO”
3
A Novel Idea to Help You Scale Massive Affiliate Campaigns

My First Regrettable Acts of 2014

December 31st, just gone 1pm:

I’m enjoying a very small window of opportunity in No Man’s Land. The abyss between getting drunk and merely thinking about getting drunk.

No work today.

Today is my Sabbath.

I know a lot of affiliates are curiously teetotal. The idea of getting wankered is seen as a threat to one’s ability to make money online. Forgive me… for I am British.

And so, New Year’s Eve is my favourite night of the year.

Perhaps it’s the clean slate ahead.

The chance to wake up a new man on January 1st:

A pang of motivation, a bubble of new goals, the itch to get started.

But first… a roaring headache.

Desperate measures.

Taxi to Spoons.

All day breakfast. Nose an inch above the plate. Toast crumbs dribbled in beard. Don’t give a fuck. The Vodka shakes. What are these stamps on my hand? Taxi home. Feeling nuclear. One false step and I’ll blow.

An afternoon nap, swiftly interrupted. The sprint is on.

A bout of the shits.

Oh fuck, why Tequila?

Uncontrollable remorse.

An evening hangover, morose sorrow. Get walked by the dogs.

Eyeful of daggers for anybody in sight.

Home, sofa, primal groans.

A Recovery Twister:

The Recovery Twister

Miracles do happen.

The fog lifts, a haze departs – memories of Amsterdam – I’m… why am I drooling?

A calm wave of serenity.

A vision.

2014: I’m having you by the balls.

And in that priceless moment, just before ordering a savage Meat Feast and internally combusting once and for all, I really mean it.

Happy New Year, Affiliasphere.

“Hi, I’m Here to Fix My SEO”

Not so long ago, I vented my disgust at the Rise of the Content Marketing Moron.

Well, there’s a new moron in town.

And his name is The Complete Stranger.

The Complete Stranger comes with a massive sense of entitlement, and with requests that disrupt my day to benefit his.

Like the ‘link removal’ request.

I’ve had several of these in the last few weeks:

“Dear Blogger,

It has come to our attention that a third party agency has used questionable means to secure links to our website on your blog.

[COMMENT SPAM]
[COMMENT SPAM]

These links are harmful to our search engine strategy, and we would greatly appreciate if you could remove them at the earliest convenience.”

Why?

Why should I?

You hired this agency.

If they spammed up my blog with junk links, that’s my first reason to be pissed off.

If you then come and ask me to take time out of my day removing these links, that’s my second reason to be pissed off.

I don’t have the time, or desire, to worry about somebody else’s link building strategy.

And yet the first impression you get when dealing with 95% of these agencies is that the world needs to bend over backwards ASAP.

If you are trying to ‘disavow’ your rotten link profile, you can start by acknowledging that you are no more than a piece of shit on the bottom of my shoe.

And then start to grovel.

Nothing personal.

That’s just where you stand on my hierarchy of priorities.

Another request I hate:

“Can you make this link nofollow? Or remove the nofollow?”

You pretentious little fuck-urchin.

Is it not enough that I stopped to consider you? That I linked to you out of the gajillions of other pages on the web?

No, you want the link to be technically correct. Once again for your own gain.

This is where SEOs need to understand something important:

The only person who gives a shit about your link building strategy is you.

Every blogger or webmaster you deal with is doing you a favour when he takes up your requests.

But it will only be a favour.

And he’ll probably never link to you again, while feeling a sharp urge to douse your balls in petrol and start throwing matches.

There are a couple of exceptions where I have removed or adjusted links for guys that I know on a personal level.

Favours.

But when a complete stranger lands in my inbox requesting that I get off my arse to fix a problem that he created on my property, then the answer is swift:

Fuck you.

Your world may revolve around SEO.

Mine does not.

Recommended This Week

  • Volume X is now the bestselling release in my entire Premium Posts series. If you haven’t picked up a copy, what’s wrong with you? Are you sick?

  • The volume is sponsored by Adsimilis, a network that does a better job of appealing to affiliates than most. Register an account if you haven’t already.

A Novel Idea to Help You Scale Massive Affiliate Campaigns

Every affiliate keeps track of his day-to-day profit and loss.

This involves tallying up total commissions and deducting total ad spend. The number you’re left with is the number that gets bounced around forums as “$X/day earnings“.

If you want an advantage over the competition, here’s a novel idea:

Don’t include new traffic sources in your spend column.

Record them under a monthly allowance as ‘Research & Development’ instead.

Why does this work?

Because it stings to lose money.

And losing money is guaranteed when you venture in to new traffic sources.

Instead of letting these losses affect your daily totals, you can assign them to a separate Research & Development allowance, which is just that: an allowance.

The amount you’re willing to spend on R&D should be set in stone at the start of the month. It’s an amount that you’re happy to lose in the name of scaling your business.

Whatever happens, it’s your duty to spend every last penny of that budget on testing and researching new markets.

Any money you make from the traffic can offset your R&D spend, but it shouldn’t go anywhere near your daily stats.

The effect this has is quite dramatic.

  1. It gives you permission to lose money regularly, which is the fast track to making money quickly.

  2. There is less emotional sting in new campaigns and more incentive to experiment. After all, you’re not collecting commission. You’re collecting insights.

Here’s the problem with most affiliates:

master-jp

There are two points I want to highlight from this fine piece of JPG (the best you’ll see today, I’m sure).

  1. Successful affiliates quickly learn that losing money is a prerequisite for scaling their businesses.

  2. Unsuccessful affiliates turn short-term failures in to long-term loss of profit by letting their emotions get the better of them.

I feel like I’ve let myself down with my artwork, but fuck you. It’s an important point.

How many times have you abandoned a traffic source because the first campaign bombed completely?

Chances are, you bailed because you didn’t like the effect it was having on your daily profits.

So remove those campaigns from your daily totals.

Give them a separate budget:

A Research & Development budget.

At the end of the month, look at your progress.

Do you have a profitable campaign? If so, start recording the totals.

If not, be grateful for your allowance. You might not have profit, but you do have data.

Data is one step closer.

Data is what runs through the veins of every successful affiliate.

Recommended This Week

  • Volume X is now the bestselling release in my entire Premium Posts series. If you haven’t picked up a copy, what’s wrong with you? Are you sick?

  • The volume is sponsored by Adsimilis, a network that does a better job of appealing to affiliates than most. Register an account if you haven’t already.

Copyright © 2009-.