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New Releases - 2 New Web Sites
The last few months have been pretty hectic. I'm still working on turning over my old sites on the Build A Niche Store platform to new domains and the latest version of the software (which is a lot better than the old version they were initially built on.) The cut off date for the old links to the new was the end of May. So, until I get the last of these sites changed over I won't see any money from them.
With that in mind, I left the least popular ones till last. So far, updating them to new domains and the new more content friendly system has seen positive results. The new sites have better URLs, and as a result are starting to rank a lot better than the old ones did. It's taken a while, but we're getting there. I've just completed two more sites, and now there is just one small site left to do. That said, I've got a shed load of work to do first following last week's visit to the 3rd Online Bingo Summit in London.
So, the first of these sites up and running is featured around those hip and trendy (and I hate 'em) Pop Art canvases and prints. The old site was on a less descriptive domain and suffered as a result, as well as being further hampered with a .info domain. There's plenty of scope to develop the site further in the future, but for now it's just leave it be and see what happens.
The second site has been a bit more complex, and typically for me, I made it that way on a whim. My old Weird Nations site was a forum for a while, then just the eBay store. I decided to combine the two elements to make Strange, Spooky And Weird - so the old forum was pulled off backups and reinstated with a new look and categorisation. The old link building quiz is there as well as some other regularly updating content. It will be interesting to see how it grows, especially as I've killed off a couple of other old weird sites I had (on similar themes) and 301ed all the traffic to the new site.
At the moment I'm really in the mood for culling some of my older sites, and with Strange, Spooky and Weird I've managed to condense 3 sites to 1. Hopefully with the age of the old domains and the new structure it will start to get some good traffic. And now I've got one final simple BANS site to complete and I can return to the projects on my todo for 2008 list.
Gambling Related AdWords Allowed - If You're A Big Enough Company...
Following a week of massive traffic surges thanks to ITV's lack of planning with their Bingo Night Live site, I was taking a look at the way the SERPs had moved in the last few days. It says a lot about Google that ITV have moved up to the top on some variations of the term pushing me down a couple of places. But then something struck me as annoying / amusing / WTF? The people at ITV are running Google AdWords for their TV programme, as you can see in the screen shot below.
Ok, so this is interesting on a couple of levels. Firstly it sort of backs up what I said in the first post about ITV's poor planning ahead of the show. They are now having the to pay for traffic via the AdWords slot rather than getting the top billing they should rightly have. That's also the amusing element of the equation.
Now, the second and bigger point I wanted to make is the annoying / WTF one, and it has some far reaching implications as well as highlighting some outrageous hypocrisy on Google's part. If you've worked in the gaming field and used to AdWords, you'll know how much of a dead end it is. Google has a ban on any sort of gambling related advertising (foolishly as it's legal in the UK) and the only way around it for small time webmasters is to game the system.
You can still see bingo relates AdWords if you look, many using tricks to get around AdWord's automatic filters that stop the ads being input into the system. But from my estimation, Google has approved ITV's advert, even though it uses the term bingo in the actual ad copy. In the past when I've used AdWords to do my gaming PPC, using the word bingo in the copy would stop the ad showing and you would need to file an exception to get the ad showing. This was in the days when you could indirectly advertise bingo via newsletter sign-ups and similar ruses. The fact the the ITV ad has the word bingo in it leads me to believe they have filed an exception and had it manually approved.
If this is the case, it's pretty staggering. The ITV site makes a big point of trying to get people to sign up to their pay-to-play bingo site. Whilst Bingo Night Live is completely free to play, this commercial element is no different from the sort of thing us affiliates were trying to do back when we could use AdWords to get gaming traffic. So, for me, this begs the question - if your ad spend is big enough, does it give you a free pass to bend the rules and get away with stuff us smaller advertisers would have our accounts killed for?
There's a good chance I could be wrong about this, but if I am right and Google has manually approved this advert then it's just a real kick in the teeth for webmasters like me. It also highlights some really shoddy double standards on Google's part. I'd love to be legally getting my adverts into AdWords, but it would seem I'm going to have to be a much bigger spender before that happens.
Personally, I don't understand why Google doesn't open up AdWords to gaming websites. You can't turn on the TV without seeing an advert for online bingo or casinos on the TV, and it's fine for MSN and Yahoo to carry gaming adverts. But Google still insists on keeping it off their SERPs, loosing out on millions of pounds of revenue as well. Yes there will be issues of quality and loads of spam, but look at the sites on retail AdWords listings and you'll see 3 spammy sites for every legitimate advertiser. Let's hope things change in the near future, then I won't find myself getting annoyed when I see stuff like this allowed.
Why Merchant Supplied Content For Affiliates Could Land You In Jail
From May the 26th, some new laws that partially govern the way merchants advertise online came into effect. The Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (UCPD) is a EU wide set of regulations that the is in place. The laws outlaw a number of practises that companies and businesses use to unfairly market themselves, in the aim of protecting consumers from being duped. The BBC have a good overview of this new law and the abuses it aims to stamp out.
For online affiliate marketers and web masters, the most important new piece of the legislation is this prohibition. Companies are now banned from: "Using editorial content in the media to promote a product where a trader has paid for the promotion without making that clear in the content or by images or sounds clearly identifiable by the consumer." This directly affects a number of things such as using fake promotional blogs and seeding positive comments about services or products on the web. It also brings into question whether affiliate marketers should disclose that their links are affiliate links as well.
Lee Mccoy first brought this new bit of legislation to my attention last week, with his piece entitled "The Death Of Affiliate Marketing? Declare Your Relationship or Go To Jail?" which looks at the area of disclosure. As ever with new laws to do with the internet and marketing, there is a lot of confusion and grey area. Lee focuses on the area of disclosure and how it's not clear what actions affiliates should take. Something else struck me today whilst reading a blog about bingo, and it's another aspect for affiliates that Lee didn't touch upon. It applies to the impact this legislation will have on the reviews and content that merchants will provide for their affiliates to use on their sites.
It's common practice for merchants to supply their affiliate with copy to add to their sites. It's particularly prevalent in the bingo world where I'd guestimate about 90% of sites carry these merchant provided reviews. You don't have to look far to see merchants offering to write content for their affiliates sites, whether it be boilerplate or bespoke. Personally I have never used this content, I've always written my own so as I can avoid any claims of bias at my sites (it comes from practices of balance drummed into me whilst working at the BBC.)
It's just as well, because my understanding of this new law is this, all these reviews on sites are now illegal unless there is some clear disclosure that the content was provided by the company it's being used to promote. In fact, any merchant now offering content and reviews without insisting their relationship with the author is disclosed is now breaking the law. In one fell swoop the new regulations have criminalised thousands of webmasters and merchants in the UK, who I'm guessing on the whole don't even realise they are in breach of these new laws.
And it goes further than just using their content. In the bingo world for instance, there are lots of blogs written about the game and the offers by both affiliates and bingo operators. There are also plenty of fake personas behind these blogs as well as fake personas on social networking sites, all with the distinct purpose of marketing. Without some sort of disclosure on these profiles, blogs and the like, they are now all in breach of the law, and could all face legal fines or imprisonment.
As to how effectively they can be implemented, well, that's another matter. I accept the need for these laws and actually believe they are a good thing (I got caught out by fake marketing blog myself in the past) but to be honest, I can't see how this can possibly be policed effectively. There may the odd big bust for the big guys, but beyond that, I've not seen any real policing of the Gambling Act advertising regulations that came in last September, and that continues to be abused by many sites on a daily basis. If a fairly small subset of advertisers cannot be policed, then something of this new law's scope will be nigh on impossible.
I'm not condoning that people should flaunt these regulations, far from it. I've always been open on my sites about my relationship with the merchants I promote, and it might just be enough to have some sort of simple disclaimer page about your affiliate links to cover yourself. Just thinking of the bingo realm, I know of several highly visible blogs that are owned by bingo operators and run as an SEO boost or publicity mouthpiece for their commercial sites without any sort of disclosure. Whilst it's obvious to anyone in the space, the average visitor would be completely clueless, and it's exactly this sort of clueless visitor that these laws hope it protect.
As an affiliate you should now think hard and fast about using any content provided you by the merchant, especially if it's editorial in its nature. If you do use it, you should make it quite clear that you disclose its source. Merchants on the other hand should now ensure that their affiliates are aware of these laws, and make certain they state that the affiliates must disclose where the material has come from. The detail of to what level this should be done is yet to become clear, and whilst it's unlikely you will be sent to jail, the possibility none-the-less exists. Personally I'd rather be safe than sorry.
Poor SEO Planning From ITV's Bingo Night Live
It's a good idea if you're going to launch a TV show with a major online element to do a bit of pre-planning and preparation to get your site well ranked ahead of its air date. Unfortunately, the people behind ITV's brand new show Bingo Night Live didn't think ahead and do a bit of ground work to get their programme's web site up in the SERPs. Currently they're down in 9th place, whilst my site ranks second for the term Bingo Night Live and as a result, I've spent the last few months enjoying the traffic.
Now, to take part in the TV show you need to register at the site (and you can print off your bingo tickets too), so as you'd expect, a lot of people are looking for it. Until earlier today there was just a single holding page (on a different URL) with no content on it. As a result, there's been nothing for the many sites reporting on the show to link too, there's been nothing there to make Google want to index the page and rank it well and as a result the site's easy to overlook in the SERPs.
Now, if that had been me, I'd have had content up on the site from the day the press releases went out, and there'd be the option to pre-register as well. I'd find something to go on there be it updates and news on the production, and I would have made damn sure that everyone who was reporting the programme had a reason to link to my site. Then again, having worked in broadcast media, I can understand how these sort of things can be overlooked or undervalued or simply not resourced.
Ok, I'm not saying the traffic I've received as a result would necessarily stay with my site or even spend much time on it without bouncing off. That said, thousands of bingo fans have now seen my brand and maybe will come back again at some point as a result. This kind of association is something all website owners can aim to take advantage off. If there's something big in your niche and you can find a way to cover it well in advance you should do so. Better still, add some value in the form of comment or opinion as well to further elevate the value of your coverage. You never know, you might just get an unintentional jump start on a major brand and benefit thanks to their inability to effectively plan ahead as a result.
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