new affiliate site review

[Craig_Longmuir]

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hey all

in the process of setting up an affiliate website to showcase hand picked ‘cool’ products from the tinterwebs…

http://www.coolkaboodle.com

after some initial thoughts, tips, advise, functionality requests etc

still need to collate a lot more products before i start to market it and want to add a few things to the site such as product selection by colours, post counts, email subscriptions and a few other things

anyhow all comments appreciated

cheers

[MatthewKeath]

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craiglongmuir.com, post: 162632 wrote:

hey all

in the process of setting up an affiliate website to showcase hand picked ‘cool’ products from the tinterwebs…

http://www.coolkaboodle.com

after some initial thoughts, tips, advise, functionality requests etc

still need to collate a lot more products before i start to market it and want to add a few things to the site such as product selection by colours, post counts, email subscriptions and a few other things

anyhow all comments appreciated

cheersLooks great

One small thing – on the inner product page, the responsive design is slightly broken, the header and image is cut of on the right margin.

[Craig_Longmuir]

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thanks

you mean on phone/iphone, vertical? yes, need to fix this…it works ok if the phone is horizontal but agree it needs fixing up…its on the list thanks

[Greg_M]

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Really liked the site.

It worked fine on my HTC one (vertical), couldn’t get it to anything wrong collapsing the browser (Chrome on a Mac).

Cheers

[Maxedout]

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Hi Craig

There’s a typo in your Menu – “LATEST PRODCTS” should be “LATEST PRODUCTS”

Thought the absence of alt text or captions on all images, particularly on the home page, didn’t allow me to get a sense of what some of the products are. Perhaps this is deliberate to generate curiosity?

However, alt text finally makes an appearance on the individual image/product page, so maybe missing alt text from other pages is a coding issue?

I’d prefer to have alt text on all images, except the individual image/product page – this page has it’s own product title, so alt text here is redundant.

I’d also like to get a sense of who you are, what’s your story and where you’re based.

Also missing (and this is crucial IMO) is any reference that this is an affiliate site, with purchasing, shipping, etc. completed on an external site – purchasers who aren’t clued up on affiliates and how they work, will be really confused (and perhaps even upset and click away) when sent to another site to make their purchase. You’re going to need a disclaimer/some legal clause ’cause many people will think they’re buying/receiving product from COOL KABOODLE ………

The 3rd sentence on Contact page needs a capital F “Feel free …”

Still on the Contact page, the email address isn’t hyperlinked.

Otherwise, a fun & quirky site – clean layout, crisp images, interesting products – just the thing for “Chris Cringle” pressies and “what to get for the person who’s got everything”.

Gillian

Maxedout Solutions (website coming soon!)
virtual office solutions when you’re maxedout!
http://au.linkedin.com/in/gillianmaxlowmaxedoutsolutions/

[adyster]

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Looks neat!

Is this all custom code or are you using any affiliate backend stuff? How do you keep track of broken links and stuff?

I’m trying to find a decent product finder/catalogue generator.

I’m working on an affiliate storefront builder app myself as well. Want to build a nice affiliate storefront for facetache.com (the current one is crappy). If it works good then might offer it to other niche sites!

BTW, You’ve got “Cool Kaboodle” twice in the page title.

[Craig_Longmuir]

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thanks for the replies…

typos fixed and have added an about page with a bit more info. also changed the homepage text to say “Cool products collated from various online stores around the web.”

i might change the I WANT IT to BUY IT the in small letters below “via amazon.com” or whatever site.

but yes ultimately the idea is to get people onto amazon so they buy the product or more likely some other product.

still mostly adding products but have started also adding to pinterest, FB and a load of other social sites as i go…not really sure how the site will perform yet, but it has potential!! will keep you posted

cheers for looking

[Craig_Longmuir]

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all products are manually added…not scraped using one of the amazon tool. they can be useful but you cant get the sort of control i want.

there are other affiliates linked other than amazon and again these are all hand picked and managed.

broken links – not thought yet but there are plenty of link checkers. most linkely would not be broken links, but maby products no longer available, but in that case the store sites would usually suggest a similar product…

cheers

[martin.firth]

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Hi, really cool site. I’ll give you some specific improvements I would make if this were my own site.

Make your tagline bigger, and centre it. I think it will look good as an attention grabber (kind of like the two taglines on my own site).

I know you want facebook likes, but your like button on the home page just looks kind of ‘plonked’ there. A risky strategy but one which I think would work in your case, would be a little light box which appears on first visit to an actual product page which says something like

“Don’t forget about Cool Kaboodle! Like us on Facebook!”

Forcing them to either like your page or close the box. Yours is a very modular site, you could get away with that.

On your products page you really need a ‘Share’ button to replace those like buttons. You’ve already made your attempt to get them to like your page. Now that they are looking at something quirky, convince them to tell their friends about you.

On the product page, move the right hand side widget down by 20px so they are level.

That’s all I’ve got, hope I’ve helped!

Martin – The Web Guy

[Craig_Longmuir]

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im going to put 4 content boxes at the top with the FB, intro and couple category banners….on the to do list. want to keep the FB like there for now as it grows…the likes have been growing this week – 80+ since monday i think so not a bad start.

the like on the product page is to like the product, not the cool kaboodle page which is sererate…products can be shared via the round icons above the image…
20px alignment – aslo on the list…bit of buggy code that i had to hack …not a real issue tho

cheers for looking

[martin.firth]

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No problem, it seems like you have a clear vision of where you’re going. If you need quick help with buggy code, that’s my area of expertise. Send me a PM or hit me up on Skype, I’ll lend a hand. My skype is martin.embersketch.

Stay classy,

Martin

[Craig_Longmuir]

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thanks martin
been focusing on adding products for now, but have a list of site fixes and improvements i will tackle soon!

the sidebar alignment
FB like popup z-index
post count on menu
select products by colour

for now…

just need some more people to buy off the affiliate links!!

[martin.firth]

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Sounds good. There’s not a product on your site that I considered a ‘filler’. Everything was top notch, good prices and many things I’d never seen before. Keep up affiliate searching, hopefully you can keep the quality up!

Question: Do you receive a fee when they visit the affiliate, or only when they end up completing a purchase?

Thanks

Martin

[Craig_Longmuir]

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hey, thanks. yes i try and only list things that i think are cool, unusual and that i would either want for myself and/or would buy as a present for someone. So hopefully i have good tastes!!

affiliate commission is made with sales only.

its a fairly low conversion rate so will need to get thenumbers up, but its really only been “out there” for a wek or 2 now so its early days and numbers are rising.

will be concentrating on adding the products still for another couple weeks then once im at 500, will start to drip feed them probably 1 a day.

likes and shares much appreciated

thanks for all the feedback

[Craig_Longmuir]

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thanks, yes i am thinking of making the homepage images click straight to the associated store and just have a title link below that goes to the internal page, but maby will do this at a later point once user base is built a bit more..

travel for kids…maby you saw but thought youd like these!!
http://www.coolkaboodle.com/toys/kids-ride-on-suitcase/
http://www.coolkaboodle.com/kids/batman-booster-seat/

[Author]

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