A Fishy Way To Value Your Domain

The always interesting Frank Schilling posts about a new domain valuation tool at leapfish.com

You’ll see that, according to Frank at least, this valuation tool has someway to go – but it’s always interesting to see what your domains might be worth.

Disclosure: It’s got to be faulty, how can this very site, a superb search marketing blog, only be worth $21.00 ??? Weird, I know!

Google Doesnt Hate All Affiliate Sites. Just Sh*t Ones

Just read a brilliant post from Rae Hoffman. If you’re into affiliate / search marketing then you should certainly read it.

Loved the line about Google doesnt hate all affiliate sites… because deep down most site publishers with affiliate based revenue models just know it’s true.

Even if we don’t want to hear it.

Affiliate Marketing

A Right Riveting Read #6

For my sixth post in this occasional series that I’ve entitled Riveting Reads I’d like to make you aware of The Equity Kicker.

Nic Brisbourne, the chap behind the blog, is a venture capitalist in London working for Esprit Capital Partners. Actually, there’s a connection here for any affiliate (like me) who works with buy.at – Nic manages Esprit’s investment in Buy.at so presumably he feels that there is money to be made within affiliate marketing.

Nic comes up with some interesting posts and it’s interesting to see what a city money man considers to be hot or not within our ever innovative world of web apps and social networking. I won’t pick out individual posts – subscribe to the feed yourself and see what he has to say.

Whilst I’m not certain, I more than likely found his blog by following a link at vecosys – another excellent blog that’s well worth subscribing to too.

New, New Blogger

Stumbled upon a new google blog this morning that should be of interest to any of you that use blogger. blogger in draft is a new blog detailing some new features that may or may not end up in a future release of blogger. Unusually for a google, blog comments are enabled – though a quick glance at those already there indicates comment quality issues ahead.

As I’ve been messing with wordpress this week for a new little idea, you realise just how much available functionality there is outside the cosy world of blogger. Though it has to be said that I got myself confused with wordpress.org and wordpress.com – most confusing to begin with (I ended up with going with .org and then buying a hosting package at dreamhost).

So, if you like blogger you can now get to peek at some of the features that may come along. Personally I’d like to see multi-page support and far more templates.

Blogs Blogger

Marketing A Proposal

Late last week I took a call from a PR and communications agency who are looking for search marketing consultancy for a client of theirs. It’s an interesting project and one that I’d like to be involved in.

Whilst beavering away for some time in my hot office yesterday (tight deadline for this one!) before joining my children in the garden for a well earned lolly ice, I was thinking that there’s quite a fine line to be drawn when submitting a proposal.

From my point of view I don’t want to offer the nitty-gritty, this is what we’ll really do information in my proposal because, understandably, that’s the information that I want to charge for. On the other hand, if the proposal is too high level you’re not really giving an indication of the services that you believe need to be applied. It’s a difficult one to judge and I hope I’ve pitched it at the right level. Presumably we’re not the only party to be invited to offer services and of course we don’t know who else would like the business.

The other thing that I can never avoid when being asked to submit a proposal is to spend time looking at the current position of the potential clients website. To get a feel for what the project might entail I’m right in there, looking at the website, looking at the HTML, spotting problem areas, dabbling in keyword research, etc. It’s a little time consuming and could be deemed to be wasted time if you’re not invited to become involved in the project. But what can you do? You need to get a feel for what you might be getting into and subsequently what might be appropriate fees for both parties.

I’ll let you know if my proposal is successful or not.

Search Marketing Consultancy Services

Over 40 And Past It. Or Maybe Not

I’ve been reading various reports that appear to be contradictory.

One report commissioned by PayPal suggests that at the tender age of 42, Britons become technological dunces – I best make my fortunes bloody quick then! Allegedly, once the average Briton hits their early 40s, people increasingly turn to their children or younger relatives for help with video and dvd players, computers, MP3 players and mobiles. Not me …. though I confess I’m not big on mobiles, especially predictive texting.

Other reports suggest that it’s the silver surfers that are keeping online trading alive. This poorly named, aged 55+ proportion of the UK population are time rich, cash rich and looking to enjoy life. Apparently they spend more money online than other age groups.

But doesn’t this contradict the PayPal report? Silver surfers are more than old enough to be technophobes - so how are they managing to even get on the internet, never mind spend oodles of cash at a wide range of web sites?

Don’t you suspect that some of these surveys are just plain old statistical nonsense?