Tycio Media

JJAbrams.co.uk Update

2007-08-13T09:41:00.000Z

Okay so how well has my small, quickly put together website for the new monster movie 1-18-08 doing?

Within two days all the pages we’re indexed in Google and the site is being spidered daily. There are currently no back links recorded (no surprise there) and no page rank has been assigned yet. Despite that the site appears very well in the Big G’s search results as below. However the keyword ‘jjabrams’ needs to be included to get it anywhere near the first page of results.

‘jjabrams’ – 5th from 233,000 results
‘jjabrams 1-18-08’ – 8th from 52,500 results
‘jjabrams cast’ – 2nd
‘jjabrams new film’ – 1st
‘jjabrams monster’ – 1st
‘jjabrams posters’ - 1st
‘jjabrams photos’ – 6th
‘jjabrams overnight’ – 1st

At the moment just from organic results from the search engines I’m getting 24 unique visitors a day. Mostly from google and some from technorati.com

I would put this success (if you can call it that) to the Wordpress platform and the plugins that I added:
Activate Akismet which comes with the install as it does a great job at stopping spam posting.
Bunny’s Technorati Tags is excellent at creating links to their directory
Google Sitemaps is a must have as all site should have an xml sitemap and submit it to googles webmaster section
Search Meter is good to log any searches on the site so you know what areas your visitors want to look at
And my favourite has to be SlimStat which is excellent at logging activity on the site including bots and searched keywords that found your site.

So my plan will be to add more info on the new film, also a lot more stuff on his other films and tv series and then integrate something link Amazon into it however the revenue is very slim from them.

The site hasn’t generated any revenue at the moment but then I only have the odd adsense banner which would rarely create a click and some small change.

A little experiment

2007-08-02T13:16:00.000Z

I’ve heard the Wordpress is very good at making a site and I know as I’ve said before it’s very simple. So I thought I would create a fresh new website, using WP, and see how long it takes for Google to log it in it’s engine and how much traffic I can get. Also I’ll be putting Adsense on to see if it can generate any revenue.

Now if you’ve seen the new movie Transformers or you’re up on your films you may have come across a trailer by creator JJ Abrams, the writer of Lost among other things.

As this seems to be a bit of a craze at the moment as the trailer is just a teaser and doesn’t even tell you the name of the movie the web is going wild for information. The film is being nicknames after it US release date of 1-18-08, 18th January 2008.

So today in a matter of hours I’ve created a brand new site with Wordpress, under the domain www.JJAbrams.co.uk and have posted to quick entries about the man himself and the new film. Changed the theme, added Adsense and a few plugins and that’s it. Because of the plugins and submitting the sitemap to google it has already be ‘viewed’ by 22 of the top websites for including it on their databases.

It will, in it’s nature, be high on keywords such as Abrams, Cloverfield and 1-18-08 so we’ll see how it rates. Main problem is the lack of high PageRank links, in fact apart from this page no links at all.

I do plan on adding more entries and pages over the next day or so to keep it fresh and increase it’s content. I’ll also be added reviews on J.J.Abrams films and TV series.

I’ve also bought other domains for it such as www.2008-01-18.co.uk and www.CloverfieldtheMovie.co.uk but I doubt they will be of any benefit.

I’ll keep you posted.

Share in a $2.5 trillion DAILY turnover?

2007-07-18T16:01:00.000Z

Yes you read that right. That does say trillion and daily!!

I stumbled across an affiliate site for Forex. They are the biggest market on the earth trading money and metals. The way it works is that you buy Euros, paying with US dollars, or say, you sell Japanese Yen for Canadian dollars. When the exchange rates change you profit (or loss) from the new exchange rate. But the great thing about Forex is that they offer trading ratios from around 1:50 to 1:200 or it increases the percentage.

Of course there’s a risk to you cash but you cannot lose more than your margin which is your initial investment. Two example of a win or loss situation:

Example: a FOREX DAY-TRADING deal has been made, for buying EUR100,000 against USD, on an exchange rate of 1.3500. The MARGIN required for this deal (offered by the FOREX Trading Platform) is of a ratio of around 1:100. Accordingly, the trader invests only USD100. After a few hours, the exchange rate went up to 1.3620. This is an increase of 0.89%, quite normal for the global Forex market. However, thanks to the MARGIN ratio, the trader's investment went up by 89% (since a leverage of 1:100 has been used)!! Remember: that happened in less than a day! Same could happen in the opposite direction, however - the traders cannot lose more than their original MARGIN deposited. When the rate goes against the trader's favour, the deal closes automatically ("Stop-Loss") when the margin does not cover anymore the contract's decrease in value. Note that the Forex trader may choose any direction for his deal (for example: either to BUY-EUR or to SELL-EUR in a EUR-USD deal), and still do that with his account base currency (the currency with which he operates his trading account). Hence, he may still profit (in case he was right...) even when the EUR goes down.

Therefore you can have an unlimited amount of profit but a limited amount of loss!!

Download this Free eBook to learn more about currency trading

Forex eBook - Read and Learn

Take a look at their site: Easy-forex.com
And their affiliate program: Forex-Affiliate.com

Flash Book

2007-07-16T08:44:00.000Z

I needed to present a scanned book on my website but didn’t want to just give it as a pdf download, instead I wanted the visitor to be able to flick through the pages on my site just like a book. I’ve seen this presented via Flash but I know very little about Macromedia Flash, or what is now Adobe Flash CS3, but really like the way flash programs can still add some wow factor to a website.

With a lot or searching and many dead ends that were expensive services I found http://www.page-flip.com/. This excellent flash component will load your pages into a book look-alike that you can actually grab and turn the pages. Haven’t got Flash? No problem, they give you the swf book with an xml configuration file that lets you change the size and look and add pages. And it’s only $25, bargain!

Website Collaboration

2007-07-09T10:02:00.000Z

I’ve been trying to find a way of providing my guider’s forums which more stickiness. This is were your site holds onto the visitor and provides a reason for them to come back or recommend it. Now on the whole discussion forums have this built in anyway as users can become almost addicted to discussion something which they are passionate about with like minded people. But there no harm in making the site more than just a forum, which is why I’ve incorporated other features such as document library.

Now one thing that does help in the developing of a forum site is that all you need to do is read the posts and you’ll soon see areas that people would like to see and use. One of these on my site is a neckerchief design tool. There are a couple of big sites providing custom neckers but the ability for the buyer to see their custom product before purchase is limited. This probably being down to the fact they haven’t had the budget to pay a designer for this as in particular professional flash programmers are expensive.

Therefore, having a Qualified Macromedia Programmer at my disposal we’ve put together some designs to creating a useful tool on the site. While wanting this tool to be as useful as possible I emailed the retailers to see if they have any objection it being included, which as it’s free and they don’t want to be left out when their competitors are included they obviously love to be.

This then brings about the possibility to agree a relationship between your site and a retailer where there are plenty of possibilities. For example you can agree that one retailer gets sole exclusivity and from there you could get revenue for each sale, or one off payment for that right, or a free relationship where both sites have the tool which links to the other. Thus providing good traffic for both.

I’m currently in talks with a couple of retailers and I’ll update you all with the outcome.

Surprise Revenue

2007-06-28T07:51:00.000Z

One this that always make me smile about affiliate marketing is those cheques that arrive from sources you long forgot about and no longer promote.

One such cheque today was from 888.com. I signed up to their affiliate program a few years ago when at an expo in London and as I was promoting bingo at the time I soon stopped promoting them as being American based they hadn’t, and still, don’t see the potential in bingo. Especially in the UK.

As an affiliate program I would say 888.com are one of the best. You can deal with them direct so you cut out the commission from the networks and they provide tons of banners, reviews, tutorials, standalone flash games, the lot basically. They also show you up-to-date commission revenue which is more than say JackpotJoy let you know.

My surprise commission has come from one visitor that is the one visitor that’s signed up through whatever old link I have somewhere. Thankfully they don’t have the same rule as bet365 where you must have at least 5 signed up members before they give you your money. This is ridiculous and I have lots of money, gaining no interest, trapped there until the time I can get more signups. Which isn’t going to happy. 888.com however pay on the nose monthly, nice.

One of the other, and more important, points of 888 is their commission rates. If you choose revenue share, which I strongly recommend, you get 45% of all revenue share from your signups from the casino and 25-45% revenue share from pacific poker. Now surprisingly my unknown friend has lost $8000 in the last 2 months at poker. He either has a gambling problem or is one rich dude enjoying a game during his lunch hour, but suffice it to say I don’t care as the £1000 in my bank account will do nicely.

You may notice my site www.internet–bingo.co.uk has suddenly changed its poker and blackjack banners to 888.com as an few more signups will be very welcome. It’s a shame Google only lets certain friends advertise their gambling sites but there’s always other ways to generate leads.

Speaking of which, if you too would like to sign up to 888.com affiliate program click here. ;-)

Starting a new Forum

2007-04-12T14:40:00.000Z

Started a new forum site this week. ArchiTechnical.co.uk

Been meaning to get this off the ground for years. Designed for Architectural Technical designers using CAD software and was originally meant to be a place for all my blocks, details and useful tools that I use everyday. However what has stopped me was the fact a lot of it was produced in work for work and therefore is the electronic property of that company. Therefore the idea was shelved.

I’ve now gone ahead with a forum as there are very little sites out there for the technical site of architecture. It’s especially more important to share the knowledge as regulations are becoming ever more complicated.

But how do you start a forum?? It certainly can’t be a success over night. The problem being is content. The good and bad thing about forums are that they are and need to be full of useful posts to attract new user and to grow. But how do you get started. Well leading from the success of other forums, and failure, the only way is to post as much information as I can and then launch is to a few dozen people that are in the field and will add to that knowledge base. Only then after a few hundreds posts is it then worth realising it to the general public.

I’ll let you know how it gets on.

I Love vBulletin

2007-03-22T15:52:00.000Z

I have an announcement to make. I love vBulletin.

I have a few forums and they are all using the free phpBB system apart from one. Now the free system is good but it’s not highly configurable and when you have to add mods most of the time you need to edit a load of code and your not always guaranteed that it will work. With vBulletin I can download a major modification and have it installed and configured in 10mins without any trouble.

I’ve bought it on a leased license which cost be about £50 and I will have to renew it after a year. I will definitely shell out on the full license which is a modest $180. Well worth it as the forum is building into a colossal site and it’s only getting more useful after every mod.

One warning I would give though is if your starting a new project and don’t have the money the start the forum with phpBB. Once you have the members and posts you can buy the new system and move over all the records. Not sure how easy that is to do but vBulletin have a way to do it.

Text Link Ads

2007-03-19T10:50:00.000Z

A while ago I installed a visitor comment/review script on one of my sites. An additional feature of the script was a text ad options that allows you to sell advertising space. As it is just a text advert and can blend in well with the content I signed up.

Your site is then added to their directory where people then buy a months worth of space. The cost of the ad is based on you PageRank, from what I can figure, and the position of the advert. This can be very cost affective as you can find relatively new websites that can have a lot of traffic but costs very little money to advertise on.

A little annoyingly is that the site won’t accept my most popular site at the moment because it is very new and not on the Google search results yet. The text ads themselves are very basic and mixes in well with the content. The best thing for the person buying space is you pay the fixed price for the month, Some as little a $5 and that’s whether you get 100 hits or 100,000. Obviously if it’s the later the price may go up sharply if you choose to run it the next month! The are also offering $100 free advertising for new signups. Click here for the offer.

I’m definitely going to purchase some advertising space. This will actually add to your backlinks too. However one must always be careful with purchased backlinks as Google could penalise you for them so I’ve heard. I’ll keep you updated.

Text Link Ads
Comment Script

Today after reading Kieron’s Blog on Friday (very good by the way) I’m going to research all the calendar events/holidays/celebrations.

The Truth about Affiliate Marketing

2007-03-16T11:00:00.000Z

The World of Affiliate Marketing. One that used to be just a few people sitting at their home computer adding a few annoying banners to their hobby site. Today it is more recognised occupation with many working full time and a few making large amount of money.

I supposed the advantage and disadvantage to the profession is that it can be dabbled in by anyone for free. Free hosting site such as Geosites and with a free account with an Affiliate Network your away. This is where this occupation differes from many as any one of any age can call himself a Website Designer, Webmaster, Affiliate Marketer and to a point has been the problem getting it respected by a lot of Merchants. Many, if not most a few years ago, thought it as an expotable way of getting your company out on hundreds of site, when the produce is well know they will then pull the plug on the commission based affiliate in favour of their own advertising. This still regularly happens but that’s business.

What it does allow you to do is allow you to add bug name brands to your site and with more dynamic and intergratic methods such as rss feeds and databases you can really blend these products into your site. Add value and function, hopefully.

Don’t believe all the eBooks that say it’s a get rich quick way of making money on the net. For the very lucky ones, who have an original idea, yes maybe, but I’m sure the odds are like winning the lottery. However if you dedicated, put the time in and hit a niche market you will make money.

The best advice would be not to put all your eggs in one basket and instead try a dozen ideas out, promote them, improve them, make sure they have worth to the visitor and in 6-8 months you should see some money. If only a little bit from each site, added together and keep adding more content and more sites your soon have a good portfolio of sites. I would say the minimum time it would take before you can be fully dependant on the income as at least 18months if not a lot more.

You’ll see this all over the internet and it can’t be said enough. Content is King. Design your site around the visitor, make them want to stay and more important come back. If you’re the site of choice for a specific field then they will come and you will make it. Try and cheat the user and it will fail.

What are your hobbies, interests and profession. They say everyone has a book in them. I say everyone is an expert at something and therefore has a great website in them. If you have some knowledge in you, share it.

Some Affiliate Networks are Tradedoubler, Buy.at, Affiliate Window, Affiliate Future, Commission Junction,
And I suggest to just read and absorb the posts at A4uForum

History of my Sites

2007-03-15T10:50:00.000Z

A good place to start would be a description of a few of my sites and what they do, or what their supposed to do anyway.

I originally started off with a site called raaow.com which was just a database of jokes and funny pictures. This took up a lot of bandwidth with little return as it didn’t really lend itself to sale. Sold a few gadgets through iwantoneofthose.com but that was it. It did get a lot of traffic though which was partly due in the beginning to buying steakandcheese.co.uk. The .com was a US site similar to rotten and in the same area as Raaow. This way I pinched a load of UK visitors and didn’t see it as too bad because it was going to an actual site with similar content. Ironically in the end many sites thought I was steakandcheese.co.uk and linked to it as that so most of the traffic was intended for me. This is a good way of getting traffic however if visitors are ending up at a site completely different than what they are looking for then there just numbers using up your bandwidth and not valuable visitors/customers.

The next lot of websites are the usual affiliate marketing stream that everyone has a go at.
Firstly is the general offer site that you can fill with every merchant available to you. Mine is called Click-An-Offer and has a slight twist. I’m not good at writing content and was racking my brains on how to generate original pages but with little work. Then I realised it right in front of me in my junk folder. All these Newsletter with great marketing type generally doesn’t get saved on the web. So I set up a system of saving each newsletter into the database, added my deeplinks and there you have it. I wasn’t as easy as that as it has taken a lot of programming skills to get the code into my pages is a useful SEO state but it’s not bad. Google has started to love the site but it is highly depended on me inputting new pages every day. Also these sites don’t make great money unless you spend a lot on PPC Advertising and get specific customers into specific offer pages. What it may be useful for in the future is a decent PageRank and link to my other site. I’ll keep you posted.

The other sites are the usual Bingo review, credit cards, loans etc. These are hugely popular areas and not worth bothering about in my opinion. The bingo site, Internet-Bingo generates some nice surprise deposits now and again as I get 25% of the lost money of my players for life so even with a hand full of regular player you can have a trickle of income. My favourite site is JackpotJoy. I remember getting a weird look from the 888.com people from the US at one of the London expos when I asked if they had any intention of doing bingo. They just thought why bother it’s for OAPs. I’m sure they will catch on if not missing the boat altogether.

My other two main sites which I’ll go into more detail some other day is Dizzybint and Guiders. Both of these were started by my girlfriend and have grown in popularity. Dizzybint started as just a bit of fun but gets a lot of traffic for 80s Cartoons and Films. I’ve been trying to get her to tone down the pink which believe it or not she has over the years. Guiders is a Forum or GirlGuide Leaders and I’ve only just upgrading it. We lost all the old posts which was a shame because it got to 7000 in its first year but the site was slow and not easily customised. Now I’ve taken the jump and bought a vBulletin board which is excellent. I have a phpBB forum for my rowing club called MenSquad.co.uk and though I was reasonably happy with it vBulletin is so more powerful and stable. Adding mods is so much simpler and trustworthy and the amount of configuration available is amazing.

I think I’ll end every post with a ‘to do item’.
Today I’m going to ‘Customise my Blog’ with help from The Colour Scheme Gallery

Welcome

2007-03-14T21:03:00.000Z

Welcome to the new Tycio Media blog.

My name is Mike Edwards and I live in South Wales. I've been making websites since 1998 when I just wanted to learn how to make them. It then grew into affiliate marketing in 2000 and I've been increasing my knowledge along the way in sql, php and just recently experimenting with Forums and now a blog.

I've been reading for a long time now how every webmaster must have their own blog. I have resisted till now as I just thought why would anyone want to read my ramblings and didn't want to add to the billions of bytes of rubbish floating around the web.

The reason I am now giving it a go is to formalise all the useful information I've picked up over the last 9 years and basicly have a log of all my brainstorming.

So many of my ideas are just scribbled on lots of notepads and bits of paper. Here I'll try and log it all down and maybe it will be of use to others.

Obvously I'll be keeping any original concepts to myself until it's ready for release but I'm going to be as open as possible with all my resources and ways to generate traffic and of course money.

Thanks for reading,

Mike