Dragons Den Farleigh Dropped

In an interview with Dragons Den Peter Jones (soon to be fronting Tycoon on ITV) The Sunday Telegraph reveals that the panellist Richard Farleigh has been dropped from the next series. The Daily Mail also reports on this story.

Show insiders had suggested he was dropped in favour of getting more dragons from ethnic minorities.

Farleigh commented:

It would be disappointing if that was the reason – rather than anything fundamental – if it was because I was the wrong colour.”I don’t know why this has happened and I am very disappointed and bemused – I wasn’t expecting it because all the feedback I got was very positive.

“I had even moved back to the UK to focus on commitments for the show. I am gutted that I have not been invited back.

A BBC spokesman said the new dragon would be chosen by their “business credentials” and not ethnicity. He said it was normal that the show sometimes changed its team.

Personally I would have preferred Farleigh to stay and see Deborah Meaden dropped as I find her abruptness most annoying.

Dragons Den

A New Bloggers Social Network

This morning I signed up to a new digg style social network that intends to be just for bloggers. Currently in alpha, bloggbuzz is pitching for contributions from us bloggers and this is what they want to achieve:

Blogg-Buzz is a blogger driven site, exclusively for bloggers like you, to share, discover and promote blog posts that you find interesting!

I’ve signed up and I’ll give it a go for a while. My user name is anotherjunction so feel free to add me as a friend ‘cos I’m currently Billy No-Mates.

Found via Chris Garrett

Quality Score Frustrations

Sometimes I encounter great frustration with the google adwords quality score. On the assumption that I pay less for a higher ad position when my quality score for a keyword phrase is great I obviously want to see great against each keyword phrase.

So for example, lets say I’m doing some ppc on Kenny Dalglish (yep, I’m a Reds fan and we just lost!). In adwords I’ve got my campaign and ad set up and raring to go. Lets say the target url is footyjunction.com/liverpool/kenny.htm

What I just don’t get is why my phrase “kennydalglish” scores great but “kenny dalglish” is just ok even though “kennydalglish” does not appear anywhere in the page or links to it. Furthermore, “keith dalglish” scores great but keith doesn’t get a mention anywhere.

I just don’t get it and it’s very frustrating. Answers on a postcard please!

Betty Boo: Just Doin The Do

I’m now seeing the new version of google analytics – which is good because I thought the old user-interface was bloody awful. New version is just stacks better – tick vg.

For a bit of fun, I’ll start to post just a few of the keywords (oh yeah! there’s thousand upon thousand) used by searchers to find this blog. I’ll try and do this once a month – rather like Rob has been doing for a while on his monetisethis blog.

So here’s the first batch in no particular order:

• minibrix
• branded bread
• affiliate marketing uk
• calories in costa frescatos
• who is the highest earner on ebay
• top 13 uk affiliate networks
• lastfm affiliate
• right riveting read slogan
• betty boo

Anyone remember Betty Boo? Early nineties popster who had a couple of hits – though I can only remember the Doin The Do one. Her real name is Alison Clarkson and I bet you didn’t know that she wrote the Hear’Say (you’ll remember them, Myleene was a member), award winning smash hit, Pure and Simple. Fascinating what people get up to – she’s probably earning a fortune now. Kathy Dennis is another one – she’s had some massive selling songs recorded by various mega artists. Thanks to the BBC btw.

Oh, and bringing this post sort of back on topic I see I’m overdue for my next installment of riveting reads – smashhits maybe!

Analytics Social Networking

Revenue Down? Blame The Weather

Read an article in The Telegraph about how the warm weather in April had hit sales of products such as Bisto. Yet on the plus side, people have more barbecues when it’s warmer and as a result of last years scorching summer sales of Branston Pickle were up 40%. As a slight aside Premier Foods, owner of both these brands, could do rather better in the SERPS for their products.

So what’s gravy powder and chutney sales got to do with search marketing? Well, nothing at all really, other than these sales reports indicate how external factors can affect your search marketing endeavours. For instance, I’m sure (though I haven’t checked to confirm) that my adsense revenue drops when there’s a good footy match on TV, especially when on terrestrial TV. I notice a general decline in revenue when we have sunny/hot weekends too. It’s obvious why this happens – people tend not to sit in front of PCs looking for car insurance and dvd rentals when they get the chance to enjoy the weather.

It’s not just the weather that can suddenly have an adverse effect on your sales. Just imagine if you were an affiliate of Bernard Matthews, happily making commission on turkey twizzlers or whatever every week. Then bird flu is discovered at one of the companies turkey farms in Suffolk and everyone suddenly loses their taste for turkey – your sales plummet.

The moral of this post? Don’t rely on a single income stream for your search marketing business. Diversity is the key to success. Oh, and fingers crossed it rains!

Search Marketing

Google Analytics Gets A Face Lift

It’s already been widely reported but what the hell. I’ve been suffering with chicken pox (nasty!) over the last week and I need something to post about to get blogging again!

The data-packed but not too user-friendly google analytics offering has had a revamp and should be available to existing users over the coming weeks. If you’ve not used this free offering from google then you certainly should give it a try. Some search marketing pundits suggest that you shouldn’t be letting google find out via your incoming traffic stats what your trying to profit from. I tend to agree with the line that Matt McGee takes – if, relatively, you’re small fry to google in terms of ad spend, don’t flatter yourself that your traffic is being closely monitored. My own approach is to add some but not all of my sites – I exclude some sites in our portfolio where we have either significant adsense revenue or adwords spend and I’ll include new sites, like our in-progress ticket sales site to see how the land lies. Even that approach is probably a little paranoid. I can’t recall anyone posting any conclusive (or otherwise) findings of being adversely affected as a result of using analytics.

I’m not yet seeing the revamped view in my own account – looks like I’ll have to wait a week or two.

Search Marketing Analytics