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Who is Lammo?
Posted by Lammo in 
Calling all newbies! Do you struggle to know where to start in your Affiliate Marketing career? If so, then worry no more, Affiliates4u member smingle (real name Frank Paul) has over the last few weeks been providing step-by-step guides and advice on the a4u forum, and it’s proven to be so popular that it is now the most read thread in the history of the forum, also containing more replies than any other thread in a4u history.
Click here to read the thread in its entirety – Be warned, at the time of writing, it contained nearly 850 replies spread over 57 pages, so you’d better grab yourself a LARGE cuppa, and settle down to read everything you need to know to get started (and more importantly MAKING MONEY) in Affiliate Marketing – As the thread title (help and advice for newbies and people who need a kick up the backside in 2009) suggests, it’s also useful for those Affiliates who may have lost their way a little over the years, and need a kickstart to get them back earning decent money again.
Who on earth is Frank?
Frank is an SEO professional based in Swansea, who does the SEO for some major Blue Chip companies. He’s also a natural entrepreneur, and owns more than a thousand domain names (would hate to see his renewals bill!), and not just the crap that the rest of us buy when drunk.. He’s got some top Premium names, and is developing some really amazing looking sites.
What is Frank saying?
Well, if you’re stuggling to read the thread in its entirety, then the general gist is that Frank offers some sound advice on the basics of SEO (meta titles, use of H1 tags etc), but also real-life examples of how to build a mini site around a niche that exists, and even includes the domain name that (for at least 10 milliseconds after he posts it) is available to register, and an idea of how much traffic you’d be likely to see, and how much you could earn by converting that traffic well.
Why the hell is Frank giving this information away?
Of course Frank could very well keep this information to himself, and keep registering the niche mini sites himself. Frank appears to be a very selfless person though, always happy to help out, with advice, motivation, a little hand-holding or just some kind words. The only thing he’s asked for in return is a return link to some of his larger projects (such as Diets, Lollipop and Underwear) from the mini sites – a small price to pay for information that could earn you thousands of pounds a year.
But does it actually work?
It certainly does – many of the domains given out at the start of the mammoth thread are now ranked really highly in Google, and have already started to make sales for the affiliates who built them – Amazing going really for just a couple of weeks – Imagine what results we’ll be seeing in 6 or 12 months time!
I built a couple of similar mini sites last year, and they’re right up there at the top of Google for their chosen keywords – all with basic on-page SEO and a handful of inbound links. They’re not going to make me rich, but they do earn me a nice bit of beer money every month.
Can I do it myself?
Of course you can – Frank has given you pretty much all the information and tools you need to be able to go away and do your own research to find the niches and the domains to go with them. As soon as you see that there are literally thousands of untapped niches out there, you’ll start to think outside of the box, and find some brilliant ideas.
And of course, you can always do what everyone else does – If you’re unsure, run it past Frank first – He is incredibly helpful and always replies to people personally, whether on the a4u forum, via PM or emails.
Lammo’s Soapbox
For me, Smingle’s thread has been a throwback to how the Affiliates4u forum used to be 6 or 7 years ago – Really nice guys helping each other out, with no back-stabbing, bitching, flaming, or questionable motives. It’s just a shame that threads such as this are the exception to the rule: 90% of the posts on there these days are from people who use the forum solely as a promotional tool to push their programs, and what little conversation survives on there is soon drowned out by another hundred “Merchant X Discount Code” threads..
Finally (I really need to get off the soapbox), it would be really nice to see Frank getting some recognition at this years a4uawards – It appears they’ve done away with the rather fluffy First Annual A4U Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence (or whatever it was called), but I would argue that Smingle’s thread has contributed more to the future of Affiliate Marketing than several networks have in the last year, and it would be nice to see his efforts are appreciated, both by a4u, and by the affiliate community as a whole.
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Great thread for newbies and season pro’s alike
Highly recommend reading it all!
Definately been one of the better threads on A4u. Franks been really helpful and it’s got everyone helping each other out and the creative juices flowing!
I’ve been dipping in and out of the thread for a few days now. I’ll treat myself to a proper read once I’ve finished my tax return (two days early this year!)
Good post aboutt a very good thread. I missed out so hopefully some more might get posted.
It’s been a fantastic post on A4U – tip of the hat to Frank…
Top bloke.
Frank’s advice to newbies like myself is priceless.
I have to agree, Franks post has been an insperation.
Made my first couple of sales from AM by following that thread. Cheers to Frank
I have just opened this thread and by Golly, here is somebody that does not advertise himself under the impression to help Newbies.Thanx Frank
Question:As a Newbie,I have tried Adwords,Clickbank,Ezine Adsense for a year–not even one cent, so what can work? Please direct me to a very plain article that describes point -for-point what to do as you expert guys sometimes do not realise that a Newbie is really a Newbie
Thank you so much
Chris
Chris – Everything you need to know is in that thread.
What works? Building a website that is relevant to something people are searching for, and then adding *extremely* relevant products to that site. It really IS as easy as:
1. Use the Google Keyword Tool to identify keywords that people are searching for.
2. Grab a .co.uk or .org.uk domain that matches the keywords.
3. Get your on-site SEO spot-on (using Frank’s on-site SEO guide) and add unique content.
4. Add relevant products using Easy Content Units
And that’s it – If you don’t believe a newbie can do that, then let me share a story with you. My 15 year old nephew has never dabbled in web design, marketing or anything. On Monday this week, he completed steps 1 and 2 above. On Tuesday (yesterday) he did steps 3 and 4. And today, his new site sits on the first page of Google for his target keywords!
Has he made any money yet?
J-Dog, not yet, though I bet he’ll be checking the stats every 5 mins until he has!
I’m still in that phase! Can’t beat a bit of stat checking.
Hi Lammo,
Has your nephew made any sales yet?.
?
+ Were they through ECU
Rob – Yes, he has made one single sale in the 3 weeks since he put the site live, it was through ECU, and it’s netted him a sweet £24.35 commission (less my fees of course!) – Looking at the stats, he’s ranking for around 15 different combinations of his main target KW which is brill (though the majority of pageviews still come from him showing his mates the site lol)
£24 from one sale! That is good. I’ve made about £11 from 28 sales this month
Lammo thanks for the post on a4U it has inspire me to push on with a few projects I am working on and to think more seriouly about affiliate marketing.
Thanks again
Lammo, just discovered your site, a real treasure trove of great content, am about to get stuck into smingle’s post, from the previous comments it looks to be a diamond in the rough, definitely pumped about taking his points and running with them, onwards and upwards!
Hi. I’m new to affiliate marketing but have been scanning all the programmes out there and came across Chris Carpenters Google Cash Dective 2. It’s expensive!! Would like to know if there is anyone in Auckland who would be interested in sharing the cost of GCD 2
Wicked new logo! ;D
Hi John, I checked “Easy Content Units” and I saw the amazon logo, unfortunately it’s co.uk, does this mean ECU only works for amazon in UK? I can only use amazon.com here
Hi Sky,
Yes, at the moment ECU only works with UK merchants including Amazon.co.uk.
However we will be launching a US version early next year which will use amazon.com
The thread by Smingle on A4u really motivated me to give my all to affiliate marketing. I sat on the laptop most of the night reading it.
Thanks for the post, I might have another look to remind myself of the basics.