Dream Job

Reef Island Job Rob

Nice piece of viral marketing from the Aussies. Similar to something by Thomson last week - but better!

As reported on the BBC they are going to pay someone £70 grand to stay on Hamilton Island in the Great Barrier Reef from 1st of July until the end of 2009 - writing a blog !

The "job" comes with a 3 bedroom villa, flexible working hours, and apart from visiting the Great Barrier Reef Islands, other responsibilities include feeding the fish and cleaning the pool. No sweat mate.

If you want to compete with me for the job have a look at www.islandreefjob.com
The website is pretty slow tonight - I bet they are getting some serious traffic!

Win a holiday or two

I have won a couple of holidays in my time, when I worked at TUI I was lucky enough to go to Germany V Italy in the 2006 world cup. And as a member of the general public I managed to win a eurostar trip to Bruges via a survey in the Sunday Times.


So as my first experiment with using the web to make money or anyway to see how much traffic I can generate and what works best I have started another little blog.


I figure people love free stuff and people love holidays so . . .


welcome to my free holidays blog



I am using google alerts to be notified of new competitions when they come online and just making new posts when I get time. When the opportunity arises I am using affiliate links. I will mostly keep it free from other ads and banners for the time being as I want it to look fresh and encourage people to come back rather than give them a headache.

Affiliate Ambitions

Update 2nd Jan : I started a new blog dedicated to affiliate marketing for the travel industry

One of the things I have been thinking about now that I am out of a job is whether I should get into creating and maintaining websites and generating an income from affiliate marketing.

. . .The first thing I have done is signed up to some of the major UK affiliate networks. . . .



Why me ?

I am interested in this because I have got the analytical mindset to spot trends, optimise the websites etc as well as the creativity to exploit ideas and opportunities as they arise. I know I've got a lot to learn but now I have some time to get my head round it all. I think I will stick to the travel industry to start with at least, as it should be there I can most easily create useful content to encourage a loyal set of visitors.



What is affiliate marketing ?

I've got some experience with this from when I worked in the travel industry. In a nutshell it's where a "publisher" puts an advert or text link on their website and the "advertiser" rewards them for that - usually on a performance related basis such as % of sales.





Even if I can't make enough headway or get too bored with working from home, then the experience it will give me can only help me in my job search (example, someone kindly sent me this job the other day) and frankly I have nothing to lose at the moment.... What swings it is the move to Spain as this way I can get going on something straight away and have some continuity when I come back.

List of British Affiliate Networks

Today I joined a couple of the UK Affiliate networks to get a better idea of what is is all about and see what advertisers are available / what commissions are on offer.
(Also because it's a Monday and I needed something to get on with).

I am looking into this as it's something I have worked with a little bit in the past and am really interested in. I know it's hard work and very competitive driving traffic to a website but to me "the cut" seems pretty reasonable considering the only major risk or cost is the time I spend on the project. Compare that with your average airline running at 1% margin and massive amounts of capital at risk.


Here they are :

AffiliateWindow - I was a bit put off by the £5 joining fee but you get that added to your account so it's not really a fee. Plenty of travel companies here including STA, and lonely planet (books)

Affiliate Future - Seems to be very strong on travel. Affiliatefuture have RIU, Jet2, Virgin Atlantic, and monarch all on their books.

Tradedoubler - A Swedish company, Tradedoubler has BA, Opodo and other big names.

Paid On Results - Not so strong on travel but plenty of other e-tailers. I also like that they email you a daily summary of activity on your account and pages like this with tips on how to get the most out of being an affiliate publisher.

I will add more as I join them.

What to do next

Now that I have been released by Sterling, I can concentrate on what to do next . . .

I don't want to jump into any job, I'm not panicking. I would rather sieze the opportunity to spend the extra time with my daughter while figuring out what to do next.

I'm happy to stay in the travel industry because it's so broken.