AOL free laptop and cut price broadband offers launch

AOL have launched their Laptops are free offer for AOL Wireless Plus, AND cut the price of AOL Broadband Wireless to £9.99/month for 6 months.

Over the last few days TradeDoubler has started providing the tracking links for these offers, so I have started promoting them on www.ukbroadbandfinder.com and on all my blogs.

I have also launched a Free laptops Adwords ad group, which drives traffic to a specific landing page.

I'll be pushing both offers intensively through organic search and paid search. The free laptops broadband deal particularly is such an amazing offer - especially for families needing another computer - that I am sure it will increase traffic significantly, and boost my sales.

By Sarah, UK Broadband Finder

Networking

I had a really enjoyable day yesterday, meeting some of the guys from TradeDoubler and AOL, and some other affiliates.

I picked some brains... and then had a few G&Ts so I was quite surprised I actually remembered the conversations.

All the affiliate networks I am with encourage us to get out there and meet other affiliates, merchants, etc, and since starting this mentoring scheme I have decided to grab every opportunity as it arises.

So today I have booked myself onto the A4U Expo at ExCel in October - getting that Early Bird discount with just hours to spare. It seems to be awash with related networking events but as it's costing me £179 (plus VAT - and worth every penny I expect) I may lay off the gins so I don't risk forgetting everything I learn. Then again, I may just take notes.

By Sarah, UK Broadband Finder

Driving sales with Google Adwords

My Google Adwords campaign has been running for a few days now and is driving traffic to my AOL landing page on my UK broadband comparison website www.ukbroadbandfinder.com.

I can't use AOL trademarks, but I have written loads of ads which are quite specific about AOL broadband and dial up package details - speed, downloads, free wireless router, free month, broadband with no minimum contract if you switch to AOL, etc.

Now the campaign is up and running I am tweaking it all the time - clearer Google ads, more popular keywords, keyword mis-spellings - and I'm also continually optimising the landing page (while I also work on the general SEO on the whole broadband site).

It is hard work but the person I really feel sorry for is Jason Henry at affiliate network TradeDoubler, who has been the recipient of far too many emails from me about Adwords functionality, keywords, and optimising. Sadly for Jason, there's more to come.

I'll be working with AOL and TradeDoubler later this week to fine-tune my campaign, and also to find out which areas of my broadband availability website need search engine optimisation (SEO) changes.

By Sarah, UK Broadband Finder

Search engine optimisation (SEO)

In my last post I mentioned the new broadband articles I had written. These were keyword-rich but I know search engine optimisation (SEO) is about more than liberally dotting the word broadband about the site (which, as it is a broadband website, it has enough of already).

I've worked on SEO before, particularly when I used to work for other companies and I got to spend their money on it - and I have also tried to follow the principles on UK Broadband Finder (adding keywords, not using Flash or images to convey content). But I knew I had got lazy with my H1 and H2 headings and that I wasn't making it easy for Google to spider down through my website.

SEO was one of the areas I spoke to AOL and TradeDoubler about - and Sanjeev Mirchandani, the Publisher Manager at TradeDoubler, has helped me out with an SEO checklist covering the basic SEO principles. He also had a good browse around www.ukbroadbandfinder.com and came back with feedback on what I'm doing right, and where I'm missing a trick. (Good - lots of content. Bad - little internet linking from within the body text, poor use of H headers).

So I've started work on some of the main articles, making SEO changes in the following areas:

1. including SEO keywords in H1, H2 and H3 headers
2. using SEO keyword phrases in the body text, particularly near the top of the page
3. adding internal and external text links (again, using keyword phrases in the link) to make it easier for Google to visit other pages on the website (rather than just relying on the surrounding page navigation)
4. adding new content
5. diving into Joomla and giving my main content pages search engine friendly URLs (eg http://www.ukbroadbandfinder.com/dial_up.html)
   

There's loads more to do - and now I'm worried I've added too many links and keyword phrases - but it's a start. Next step is to give each of my broadband packages a friendly URL (over 100 of them) which will take time but should be worth it.

By Sarah, UK Broadband Finder

More broadband content!

Content is king was one of the first things I learnt when I started working as a web editor back in the mists of internet time (well, 1999). We all used to say clicks and mortar without irony as well.

I may not say clicks and mortar any more, or make my fingers into quotation marks to stress a point (ah, the delights of 20th century business meetings) but it is pretty obvious that new, relevant content is still vital. So when I started this TradeDoubler / AOL broadband affiliate mentoring scheme it gave me the push I needed to look again at content gaps on my broadband website, www.ukbroadbandfinder.com

UK Broadband Finder needed more content for three reasons:

• to keep broadband buyers on my website by answering their questions and helping them with the buying process (I think we used to call it "stickyness")
• as a vehicle for all those broadband keyword phrases I need to include, to improve my organic traffic via the search engines
• to keep the website changing regularly
  

So as a first step I have been written a few new articles:

• Getting started with broadband
• Switching broadband providers
• Dial up internet access
• Broadband for Macs
  
• Short contract broadband

I've noticed already that we're already getting more organic traffic - some of this may be down to the appalling weather but I can see from Google Analytics that some of it is content-driven.

I've also written more broadband definitions for my Broadband Glossary blog, which has also driven more visitors - to the blog itself and then on to www.ukbroadbandfinder.com.

Now, I'm off to do some SEO!

By Sarah, UK Broadband Finder

Welcome to The Broadband Apprentice

But... what is it?

I run a UK broadband availability website where you can compare broadband in your area - you can see it at www.ukbroadbandfinder.com

The website started last year with a handful of broadband providers and our trusty broadband checker (thank you, SamKnows). Now it has over 100 broadband packages and more than 20 broadband providers; a broadband speed test; broadband FAQs; a business broadband section and more.

But despite all this, there's a lot more I could do to make UK Broadband Finder more effective, credible and profitable. I've learnt a lot in the past year from podcasts, books, forums, and the day-to-day running of my website, but I know I still have loads to learn.

So when I was lurking on the Affiliates4U affiliate forum and read about the inaugural AOL / TradeDoubler affiliate mentoring scheme for broadband affiliate websites, I applied... and was chosen.

This mentoring scheme will last for around six months, and I'll be getting advice and practical help improving my website, including website feedback, SEO tips, and pay-per-click (ppc) advice. In return, AOL and affiliate network TradeDoubler should get more sales, good publicity and feedback on the problems broadband affiliates encounter.

My Broadband Apprentice blog will follow this mentoring scheme for the next few months, from my point of view.

This is a big opportunity for me. We've already had our first meeting and I've started work on improving my website's effectiveness. So please check back and find out how www.ukbroadbandfinder.com is doing.

By Sarah, UK Broadband Finder