Back in the day when I created my first mashup, the ebay-youtube-adsense script, I was pretty much a beginner at php. Despite that, over 100 people have downloaded the free script in the last few months, and my flagship site http://smartphonereview.co.uk now gets over 150 organic search visitors a day, netting me about $100/month in ebay commissions and adsense revenue.
I figured it was about time to take this script to the next level with what I’ve learnt since I began programming php applications.
So behold my latest mashup site: Home Cinema Audio review!
This is a substantial evolution of the original mashup script. The key features are essentially there, but upgraded substantially.
The biggest change is I’ve replaced the Affiliate Future product section with a feed from the Commission Junction API, which gives far more results and improved SEO over the former.
It also means I’ve had to switch the script from php4 to php5, so now I’m using my custom RSS parser I mentioned in the last blog post. This improves the loading time of the script enormously (although it’s kind of offset by the slightly slower loading of the CJ API feed).
The other big change is in the style of the site. It now sports a much cleaner and more modern theme, with pale blue smooth divs and better separation of posts and product items.
Oh, one more cool feature not found in the earlier version: Static URLs! Now the links generated by site searches take the following form: http://homecinemaaudio.co.uk/review/home+cinema.html
This is great for SEO and looks much nicer for your visitors than …index.php?q=home+cinema
I’m still working on the finishing touches to the new script so it won’t be ready for public release yet. But when it’s done it won’t be a free download. The older mashup script will still be free, but this new one will be on sale for around $30 per copy (though you can make as many sites from it as you want).
The reason I’m charging a small sum for this is for a couple of reasons. 1) I’ve had dozens of people telling me I’m missing out by not charging for the original ebayoutube mashup script, and 2) this one is significantly more evolved and robust than the first. I don’t want to start charging for the free script, so I figure charging for ‘version 2.0′ is the next best thing.
But you CAN still get it for free… when you buy the soon-to-be-released Affiliate Mashup Store. I’ll be making an announcement regarding the release date for this premium affiliate mashup script soon, but I’ll say right now that I’ll be giving away a couple of extra scripts with it in the first week of release - this new mashup script being one of them.
So until then, check out the new mashup site, then head over to http://affiliatemashupstore.com and sign up for the waiting list to get some cool free stuff.
May 15th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
Hi
What type of marketing did you do for these sites to receive the organic search visitors?
Thanks
May 16th, 2008 at 6:19 am
Congrats on your smartphone site, and impressive script upgrade. It looks much nicer than the initial version. I’ll be the first in line to test it out when it’s done
2 quick questions:
1.) Will you offer code for U.S. ebay and cj users?
2.) What are the advantages of having youtube on the site? It seems that it would take users away from the site if they double click it.
May 16th, 2008 at 8:00 am
I did surprisingly little marketing for the smartphone site. I posted a few links (including deep links) in a handful of blogs of mine (including ebay blogs - these are great because it replicates across all countries).
I also made a hubpage and a squidoo lens for smartphones. A bit of social bookmarking, etc. Nothing too radical.
It took a good couple of months to get really great rankings, but as with my other mashup sites the great thing is they get ranked for all sorts of search terms thanks to the way the script builds its own links from search queries.
@Ron, actually it’s really easy to adapt the new script for any country. The CJ part just requires one variable specifying the currency, and the new ebay affiliate program makes it just as easy to switch countries with a change in the rss url.
I’ve been wondering about the youtube bit myself too - the main advantage is it looks nice! People are more likely to stick around if they can watch a video. Plus with adsense embedded in it, it’ll get a few clicks (which are often more expensive than other text ads). But for some sites it might not be appropriate so it’s easy enough to snip it out of the code.
July 21st, 2008 at 12:59 pm
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