I travelled

I took quite a snap decision to go travelling, it was something i’d always thought of but never really considered until around January when I realised that it was the perfect time for me to go travelling, I booked a return flight from Manchester to Bangkok for the end of April and returning 3 months later. That 3 months quickly went by and I extended it by another 3 months.

To put it simply, it was the best 6 months of my life!!! I visited 8 countries, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Macua.

My time consisted of meeting some amazing people, seeing amazing history, beautiful scenary, untouched beaches, partying and eating some incredible food.

Highlights: Ankor Wat templates in Cambodia, F1 night race in Singapore, Beaches of Thailand + too many more to mention.

Affiliate work

My affiliate work suffered due to the above, when I decided to go I thought 3 months, i’ll leave my affiliate work to itself, checking emails every now and again, when I put my flight back 3 months I bought a laptop in Bangkok and started to do a tiny bit, I organised a few sales of some prime domains I had and purchased a small number of lower cost domains.It was actually incredibly nice to not work on a laptop for basically 6 months, as pretty much since I was 13 i’ve spent few hours most days either working or reading stuff related to the affiliate work.

My plan

My plans for the future will be up in another post in a few days.

Few photos from my travels - literally have hundreds so just picked a handful

Temples of Ankor Wat

Surfing in Bali

Singapore Zoo - amazing!

Sunrise at Ankor Wat - 8th wonder!

Singapore Night F1 - Unreal!

Backdrop to part of F1

Some of the guns we used in Cambodia

Hong Kong Skyline

Ice Bar in Vietnam

Craziest mountain rd in Laos

Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur

Ostrich ride in Vietnam

Pyramid in Phi Phi - where 'the beach' was filmed

typical thai beach!

Active Volcanoe in Java, Indonesia

Mental waterfall in Laos

Being the only people on the Cambodian Island

Sniper ... COD style

An unbelievable 6 months … anyone who is thinking or even not thinking of travelling … you should seriously do it while you can! (age is not an issue, if you 18 or 50 just do it)

I’ve been looking at the sites and domains I own and most are niche domains and sites with a few more generic ones, Now this is all well and good for making me some nice money but I’ve been thinking about going forward and trying to increase the value of sites I own or will own in the future. Therefore I’ve been buying a few domains at prices I’m not used to paying! Before the domains I’ve recently bought the most I’d paid for a domain was about £500, but I’ve been spending £xx,xxx on a single domain at a time, now this is big money for me, but I’m looking at them in terms of investments as well as new ventures.  There will always be risks when investing but I’ve weighed them up and believe that they will be (fingers crossed) good investments.

I’ve also bought domains which have the possibility of turning them into a non-affiliate business and becoming a merchant in a years time when I’ll have finished University.

Talking of University, I finished 2nd year this summer and now am going into my final year this september. I got a 2:1 in 2nd year and aim to keep that going third year while have crazy amounts of affiliate work too and of course while living the uni life (partying!)

If you own any generic domain names and are looking to sell them, get in touch with me

Also, i’m looking for people who may be interested in link swaps with some sites of mine. Including this site which features the latest range of outdoor shoes and other hiking boots.

I’ve also decided to head into sites which are my hobbies, such as my love for playing football has led me to purchase this football shirts website which aims to be the end all and be all of football shirt lovers, fingers crossed it will take off

A week or so back she PM’d me over at A4UForums asking if i’d like a follow up and of course I was more than happy to. To read to this click the link below.

The follow up can be found here: http://www.affiliatestuff.co.uk/affiliate-people/meet-the-real-affiliates-where-are-they-now-max-bramwell/

Hope you enjoy it

First Hannah’s Questions
1) What comes first Uni or Aff stuff? Bit of mixture really. Ideally should be uni but tends to be aff stuff
2) How do you decide which sites/merchants to push? depends on the area, commission, which network they are on, if they offer something good to the user etc
3) What do your uni lecturers think of having a successful Affiliate in class? They don’t know
4) What is your top time management tip for students/full time workers who are Aff’s too? hmm im not best for giving tips as i mix it up, but my general rule is … socialising(drinking) ahead of aff or uni work.
5) Ever posted pissed??? on a4uforum yes once slightly tipsy

These from Diane

6)How are students dealing with the credit crunch? Has it affected students at all? Are they exempt from normal economic issues? Students are just really feeling it in food shopping, generally just buying more own brand food items, general student stuff, buying in bulk etc. Students are not excempt i’d say but they are feeling it

These from Phil

7) How much time do you spend on affy marketing and how long has it taken you to get to this point? I’d say 10-30mins a a day, more checking forum tho. If a student were to start now, what advice would you give them? Keep it as a hobby to do in your spare time at first, then see how it goes
9) What do you envisage yourself doing after you finish uni, and do you think it’s important to complete your degree considering the success you’re having already? Yes i want to complete my degree as its a waste of money otherwise, also after Uni ideally want to keep doing, maybe full time, and/or open my own offline business

These from Mike
10) How do you plan your day? Do you have a team of people working on various things or is it a one man band show? Do you design and develop your websites or get it done from someone else? Day is unplanned really, just see what needs doing and get it done, if I was full time I think it’d be different. I normally either outsource design or use a template and wordpress.

and these from Rob

11) Have you any travel websites? Yes only one though, www.DiscountHotels.org.uk small site really
12) Is there already / do you think there will ever be some academic courses on affiliate marketing, e.g. a Batchelors Degree? Im not sure there is at the moment, maybe some kind of e-marketing degree, im not sure a whole degree in it will become available any time soon to be honest.

Thanks for all your questions, some nice questions. Anymore i will answer in the comments below

Ideally the questions will be centered around affiliate marketing .

Either reply/leave a comment on this post or drop me an email or msn me

1. I still edit pages/websites in Frontpage (although moving more to just pure html/php editting)
2. Even though I do #1 above…one site I did in frontpage which took about 2 hours managed to bring over £10,000 in with only a couple of updates in a year.
3. I own over 100 domain names
4. The most i’ve ever paid for a domain name is around £400
5. I took the Google Adwords Exam and passed it last year

Next to come 5 random facts about me….non affiliate based