I think Text Link Ads are bringing me down. My living in London site is, I think, a damn good site and it’s never creeped off of PR0. My backpacking site has been in steady decline dropping from a PR4 to a PR2 over the past several months and now my working holiday site has been knocked from PR4 down to PR0. Text Link Ads have been on both of those sites for a long time and I’m guessing the PR drop has something to do with TLA.

TLA aren’t really even contributing much to my monthly earnings these days anyways. They started at about $140 and each month that’s dropped a little at a time. Well this month has seen a huge drop and I’m only likely to earn $60 if I’m lucky. It’s not really the number of links that is dropping, it’s the price paid per link. This probably has a lot to do with my spiraling PR.

So I’ve started to question whether $60 a month is worth having to accept the possible negative things associated with Text Link Ads. We know Google isn’t a fan of link sales and TLA make it pretty easy for the big G to see that you’re selling links. I haven’t been effected in the search engine results at all. My London site and working holiday sites both rank at number one for their search terms which makes things even more confusing.

My London site gets a lot of traffic, it ranks well in the SERPS, ithas loads of original content and I know that it deserves a PR of above zero so I’m going to take Text Links Ads off of that site starting in November and see if there’s any jump in the site’s PR. If there is you can bet I’ll be giving Text Link Ads the heave-ho on all my sites.

I’ll let you know what happens. Come on PR!

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I was writing a new post and wanted to link to an older post from it and stumbled onto something very mysterious. The old post I was looking at is about living cheaply in Beijing. If you take a look and scroll down a wee bit you’ll notice two links in the body of the post, one for cleaning supplies and one for phone cards.

I certainly didn’t put those links there. Does anyone have any idea how this could have happened? The only thing I can think of is that I’ve been hacked somehow or that Text Links Ads are doing it. I was given the option ages ago to allow TLA to put links into my old blog posts but I turned them down. I think it’s sneaky and misleads my readers into thinking I’m recommending something I’m not so I told them to stuff that idea.

Ok I’ve just checked… yep. It’s Text Link Ads. Despite me for sure telling them I didn’t want to be a part of this program (I even wrote a post about it) they seem to have added me to it without letting me know. It seems to be easy money and I have $33 lined up as payment which is tempting because the rest of my TLA sites are struggling at the moment. But come on! What’s up with them adding me and not telling me? It’s kind of creepy too that they have the power to go into my blog and change my links. I don’t even think I’ve added any code to my Nerdy Nomad site. How are they pulling this off?

Is anyone else a part of this program? What do you think about letting them pimp out keywords to various sites you probably wouldn’t normally have anything to do with? I’m about to write them a strongly worded email and will let you know what happens.

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A few weeks ago I met up with Matt from Nomadic Matt and Shawn (Sean? Shaun?) from Wandering Why for lunch. Of course chatter turned to my favourite topic, nerdy internet stuff, and eventually we started talking about another favourite of mine, link sales.

I mentioned that I often get contactedout of the blue by people looking to buy links. Often they’re good offers, but every now and then they stink. I mentioned that I had been contacted in the past by people looking to buy permanent links in older blog posts. The links would be in posts well buried by now so, by the buyer’s logic, it shouldn’t really effect my site at all.

Matt said that he’d been contacted recently by a chick offering $90 to buy links on six old posts of his. I had actually been contacted by her at a similar time, it turns out. We both knocked her back. I replied that I don’t sell permanent links (but I love to buy them!) and that I probably wouldn’t sell them for $90 each, let alone $90 for six.

So I’m guessing this chick got in touch with quite a few travel blogger types. Often they’re working for an SEO company on behalf of someone else’s site. I wonder how many people took her up on the offer? My logic is that $90 isn’t that much but a permanent link is forever. I would need a lot more money thrown my way befor eI’d consider sticking a permanent link to any part of any of my websites.

What do you think, is $90 for six links on old, buried posts a good deal?

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If you’re planning on attempting to sell direct links on your sites and are successful at it at some point you’ll have to come up with a system to keep track of them all. Doing this sooner rather than later will save headaches and lost sales down the road. I thought it might be handy if I share with you what I do to get you thinking about how you might want to keep track of your own sales.

Set Up a Paypal Subscription

The easiest way to keep tracks of links is to not have to keep track at all. Paypal has a subscription option that completely removes the need to keep track of link expiry dates and chase people for payment. If you can get an advertiser to agree then this is the way to go but it’s not always possible either because companies want to pay by cheque or bank transfer, or because links are sold on a longer term basis and they’ll want to reassess before renewing.

Setting up a subscription is simple. Log in to Paypal and click on the ‘Merchant Services’ tab and then on the ‘Subscriptions and Recurring Payments’ link which is on the right hand side under the ‘Useful Links’ title. Click on ‘Get Started’ and then follow the instructions from there to create a subscription button. Upload the code to one of your sites, send the URL to your buyer and that’s that. I think there’s a way to email them the link too but I’ve never attempted it.

Links Tracking Spreadsheet

If  you can’t convice your advertiser that Paypal subscriptions are the way forward then you’ll have to come up with a system to track the expiry dates yourself. When I only had a few links to keep track of I just kept the emails in a separate folder and checked it every month to see which ones would be expiring. It only took a second but often I would forget to put emails into that folder and managed to completely lose touch with some people, and therefore the sale.

Once I had more than a couple of links to keep track of, I needed to come up with a new system and whipped up this handy spreadsheet:

It’s a simple thing, but it’s a lifesaver to be able to glance at the spreadsheet and know exactly how many links I have due for renewal, what dates they expire, where on my sites they’re located, what sites they link to and the contact details of the person who bought it the first time around.

In the ‘Expiry and Duration’ column I’ve got things like ‘11th - 6′. That means that the link was sold on the 6th of the month and is valid for six months. I put the price that was paid in the appropriate month’s column and then highlight the box for six months away so I know which months I need to collect renewal payments. Having the contact and link details on the spreadsheet means I don’t need to look for old emails. All the information I need to send a chaser email is right in front of my which is a huge time saver.

Most importantly, no more advertisers are lost in the abyss that is my Yahoo email account.

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In the past I’ve always quoted prices in US dollars. I have no idea why I got into this terrible little habit but I’m guessing it’s because the net as a whole tends to operate based on the US dollar. Link sales over on Digitalpoint are always quoted in US$, online products and membership fees are in US$ and programmers, content writers and designers always seem to be after the not so mighty green back. I’m not a fan of the US$ right now. It sucks and continues to suck and will potentially suck for many years to come and if I can avoid it by dealing with other currencies, I will.

Fortunately, I get contacted several times a month by companies looking to get their greasy little text links onto my websites. Most of my sites are aimed at UK residents and I’ve noticed that more and more companies that approach me are UK based as well. I recently realised that there’s no reason to quote prices to these people in US$ so I’ve started giving my link prices to them in the £. The trick is that I haven’t been converting.

If I would normally sell a link for $10 per month and I get contacted by a British company then I’ll tell them it’s £10 a month. Considering the US$ is worth about half of the pound, I’ve just doubled my monthly earnings to $20. A couple months ago I sold a yearly link to a UK company for £200 where normally I’d have asked for $200. Presto! I’ve just doubled my earnings by doing nothing more than being cheeky.

Does that mean that I’m undervaluing my links and could ask for double in US dollars? I don’t think so. I’ve had no luck selling links for $20 per month but £10 is no problem. Maybe $20 just seems like a lot more to advertisers than £10 even though it’s the same amount? Who knows.

So if you get the chance to deal with companies in the UK, try putting your prices in pounds. So far it’s working for me and it’s always great to be able to double your money without doing a thing!

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I’m thinking that if I want to treat this whole thing like a business I might need to kick up the professionalism a bit. It’s not really by choice because I don’t like stuffy crap like that, but I’ve just been given a kick in the arse by the people at Moneysupermarket.com that has made me rethink a few things.

I posted a couple days ago about the first link sale on my London site and mentioned the name of the company buying the link. I actually thought twice about posting their name and decided to do it anyways because I really want this blog to be up front and give as much information and help to people as possible. I’m thinking that hasn’t been a smart move.

I got an email yesterday from Moneysupermarket.com guy saying that the deal was off. I emailed back to ask why (it’s annoying I had to ask, especially since they’ve already had a link up for several days without any payment) and he went into a spiel about it not being acceptable that the private details of the deal had been made public… blah blah blah… a professional level of privacy is expected… yadda yadda yadda… trust has been lost… etc etc etc.

I really can’t fault them at all for feeling that way but I don’t think my post was particularly evil, really. I’m guessing that someone read my post and innocently contacted them about selling a link of their own, mentioning my post. I wouldn’t expect someone would have read it and thought to rat me out but if that’s the case then you suck.

This has cost me the deal for the London link, and a couple of other links worth £150 for a total of £250. An expensive lesson, but I’m actually happy to have learned it. Unfortunately for this site it means that I won’t be giving details of the companies I deal with anymore, but I think that actually makes sense. If I keep mentioning who is buying links from me then people with similar sites are likely to try their luck too. Common sense is not one of my strong points so I guess I’ve had to learn it the hard way.

I guess the chatty, casual approach isn’t gonna cut it! Time to treat this thing like the business that it is. This email probably isn’t too professional either but I’ve already been bitchslapped by MoneySupermarket and really have nothing to lose. Plus I think it’s a valuable lesson and I don’t want to see anyone else making the same mistake!

Professionalism starts now. No…….. now. Ok, NOW!

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Since I’m totally dragging my feet on the whole direct link sales case study thing for my living in London site, I thought I’d give an little update with some good news. I’ve managed to sell my first link on the site without much effort at all.

Some guy from MoneySupermarket.com contacted me out of the blue about buying a link on my backpacking site’s links page. We made the sale and, knowing they’re a pretty huge company with what must be a seriously massive marketing budget, suggested that he might want a link on my London site.

The pitch went a little something like this:

As you’re buying links I thought I’d mention another site of mine, http://www.stuckinlondon.com. I’m just about to contact a bunch of companies about advertising and thought I’d see if you were interested. Links would be on the front page under the ‘Partner Sites’ bit and I’ll be starting out with a price of £10/month or £100 for the year. It’s a site targeted at a market who do a lot of travelling and the site gets a good amount of traffic and is on an old, trusted domain. Thought I’d see if you wanted to jump on board… it’s a bargain!

Actually, the pitch went exactly like that. I like to keep my correspondence pretty laid back and chatty rather than stuffy and formal and so far it works for me.

His reply? He agreed it was a bargain and I’ve got my first sale! I should have asked for more considering size of the company but my plan has always been to ask for £100 per year so thought I’d stick with it. If I find that I make more sales at this price without much hassle then I might consider raising it a bit.

I think the sale was easy because, once again, I was already in touch with the marketing guy. The price really is a good one and I think marketing people who deal with lots of other sites will recognise this. I’ve been contacted about links on Travoholic.com loads of times and I’m thinking that I should dig through those old emails and see if any of them are keen on my London site as well.

So one link down, lots to go!

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I’m a bit busy with a whole bunch of annoying things in the offline world so I haven’t had a chance to compile my super duper huge list of potential advertisers. In the meantime, I thought I’d address a comment made on my last post about making that first contact with possible advertisers.

Lea pointed out that sending off bulk emails to addresses I find in magazines might not be the best approach as they’re meant to be for customers, not for random incoming sales pitches. I totally agree with this but the problem I have is that I’m both lazy and completely crap at sales. Because of this, phoning is out of the question. I love the anonymity and simplicity of just shooting off a bunch of emails and hoping for the best but I acknowledge that it’s probably not going to have the results that a phonecall might have. I’ve had luck finding advertisers in the past but I put that down to being able to speak directly to the marketing person. This has either been because they’ve contacted me previously about something else or just because the company is a small one and the people who work there have to be a Jack of all trades.

So I have a semi evil plan and have decided to comprimise a bit. I’m going to stick to emailing, but instead of being totally lazy and jumping straight into my pitch,  I’m going to send out pre-ad pitch emails to try to find out who holds the marketing purse strings. Sort of a little reconnosance mission where I get to be all sneaky and stuff. I’m not sure yet what I’ll write but I’ll draft something up (I’ll let you know what I come up with) and then send it from one of my many email addresses. I’m going to avoid using my main email address so that I can still attempt to get in touch with anyone who ignores me without coming across as too stalkerish.

This whole thing is an experiment and I’m not really expecting much, to be honest. If it works that’s great, if not then I’ll know not to waste my time approaching people out of the blue in the future. Just another step in what has become a massive trial and error process for me!

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The reason I had to wait until Monday to start this little link sales journey of mine is because that’s when TNT Magazine comes out. What is TNT you ask? Well, it’s a weekly free magazine targeted squarely at the same folks that my site is targeted at - Aussies, Kiwis, and South Africans in London plus any other young people here on a working visa. About a two thirds of it is content including feature articles about festivals, life in London, road trips, European travel etc. The rest is packed with advertising and that’s the part that I’m interested in.

The ads in this magazine will act like a checklist for me. It’s reasonable to think that any company advertising in TNT might also be interested in an ad on my website. Ads in TNT are not cheap so I know any company I see in there has a pretty substantial advertising budget and they might be willing to spare a small amount for me.

Each ad in TNT usually has a website and email address listed somewhere so most of my work is already done, laid out in the pages of the magazine. This afternoon at work I flicked through the pages, taking note of possible advertisers. I set up a little spreadsheet listing the type of company (tour companies, shipping, recruitment, hostel etc.), the company name, URL, email address and then I have columns for date emailed and response. The idea is to make a pretty big list using TNT and a few other resources and then work through it, noting when I sent emails, if I got a response and what their reply was.

There are a couple other magazines I can look at for ideas and I know some companies I want to approach just from seeing them around the web or the city. For example, there’s a company called Man and Van that’s an Aussie owned removals company. Then there’s the Oz Bus which is an overland trip between London and Sydney that I’ve seen advertised in the pubs. Plus there are sports leagues I know about. I’ll spend the next few days brainstorming my list and then send out a flurry of emails later in the week.

Having TNT magazine and knowing the market so well is a huge advantage because I’m almost overrun with possible advertisers. I don’t think getting a list of companies would be as easy in most industries. Now the trick is converting as many as I can to sales!

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It looks like I’ve finally tweaked and tinkered with my living in London site enough for me to considering the thing finished. Actually my sites are never really finished as I usually try to keep adding content here and there, but it’s finished enough to be attractive to a potential advertiser. The major thing that was holding me back was just the crappy header that I used to have and that’s been replaced by something a bit less crappy and now I’m ready to attempt to sell ads on the site.

I thought it might be interesting to keep track of my efforts of selling ad space from start to finish. So far I’ve never really been rejected when I’ve approached companies to advertise, but I’ve only ever done it a few times. I’m not expecting my little run of luck to continue with everyone I approach and I think it might be interesting for people to see which companies I’ve approached, how I’ve done it, their reaction, the price I’ve asked, the price that was agreed, or which ones have come back with a big, fat NO.

Starting on Monday, here are the areas I’ll touch upon:

• Where to find potential advertisers
• Making the first approach
• Deciding what types of ads to offer
• Setting an initial price and then negotiating
• Sealing the deal and receiving payment
• Keeping track of link sales
• Building rapport with advertisers and keeping them sweet

I’ve written about some of these things already but think that with an actual site and actual companies the whole thing becomes a bit more interesting. Rather than making a post about each heading, I’ll just be giving a sort of running progress report with those topics as key features.

When I built my London site, direct link sales were something that were on my mind from the start. I know that there are a lot of companies who want to advertise to the market my site is aimed at and the trick for me will be convincing them that my site is the way to reach them. I’ve always been really bad at sales so this will be a challenge, but one that I’m looking forward to.

Keeping track of things from start to finish will hopefully shed some light on this whole link sales process and open my eyes as well to how it all works. Here’s hoping things go smoothly! Nah… that’d be boring.

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