Just in case you’re reading my blog and thinking “I should have Paul Cherry around for dinner, I wonder if he likes steak?” well, wonder no more. If you follow these simple guidelines, you can have Paul over for a steak dinner any time:

• Large.
• Eye Fillet / Rib Eye.
• Cooked Medium.
• Accompanied by some form of potato.

We cooked steak here the other night. We visited a local butcher and got some large rib-eye on the bone. They were probably 700 grams each. I put them on the grill plate, about 1 minute per side, turning half way through to get some nice grilled lines. Then it went into the oven for about 30 mins at 160 degrees Celsius with the mini roast potatoes. The steak came out a beautiful medium, like a little roast beef.

Served with a side salad of cos, beetroot, red onion, capsicum, carrot, cheese, celery and soy crisp croutons.

Enjoy.

Over our holidays we have planted some herbs in a few big pots. I want a proper herb garden eventually, but because we rent it has to be in pots for now. We started with “seedlings” rather than from seeds to give us a bit of a head start.

We have some rosemary that is a little more mature than the others, and it’s actually good enough to start using straight away. We have also planted some thyme, basil, celery and capsicum.

Rosemary is a woody, perennial herb with fragrant evergreen needle-like leaves. The fresh and dried leaves are used frequently in traditional Mediterranean cuisine. They have a bitter, astringent taste, which complements oily foods, such as lamb and oily fish.

Thyme is often used to flavour meats, soups and stews. It has a particular affinity to and is often used as a primary flavour with lamb, tomatoes and eggs.

Basil should be used fresh; in cooked recipes it is generally added at the last moment, as cooking quickly destroys the flavour. The dried herb also loses most of its flavour, and what little flavour remains tastes very different, like hay. Mediterranean and Indochinese cuisines frequently use basil, the former frequently combining it with tomato. Basil is one of the main ingredients in pesto.

We used some of our rosemary to make this delicious roast lamb on Christmas Eve.

Merry Christmas to all!

A ‘generic domain name‘ is a term often given to internet addresses that are generic in nature and most likely to receive direct navigation or type-in traffic. Generic, given the meaning ‘relating to or descriptive of an entire group’ refers to domain names or terms such as ‘cola’ rather than specific, and often trademark names, such as ‘coke’ or ‘pepsi’.

When a user is ‘actively seeking’ a product or service online, for example ‘comic books’, there are generally two means to arrive at a destination website that will fulfill their desires:

1. Search Engine Query - a user can search for the phrase ‘comic books’ and then select from the result set a website that suits their requirements, or;
2. Direct Navigation or Type In - a user bypasses the search engines and navigates directly to a domain name by typing in the phrase with no spaces. For example, ‘comicbooks.com’ or any other gTLD or ccTLD, such as ‘comicbooks.co.uk’ or ‘comicbooks.com.au’. Traffic that arrives with no other website referrer, often from a list of bookmarks or favourites, is also considered ‘Direct Navigation’.

Both of the above means are considered ‘intent driven searches’, as opposed to a more casual ’surfing’ approach which may result in a visitor arriving via a click on a banner advertisement or hyperlink on another website.

In general terms, intent driven searches are ‘worth more’ commercially. Conversion rates of such a user is higher as this user is actively seeking a product or service.

Research released by WebSideStory, Inc. (Nasdaq: WSSI), a respected web analytics and marketing firm, shows that search engine traffic converts more than twice that of traffic referred via normal hypertext links. The figures provided are 2.3% conversion rate for search engine referred traffic, versus a measly 0.96% from other referred traffic.

However, direct navigation traffic is shown to convert at almost twice that of search engine referred traffic. Direct navigation or type-in traffic is shown to convert at an average of 4.23%.

So lets look at this from another perspective. If you are in the business of selling comic books, looking at those figures above, it would seem highly advantageous to own generic domain names such as comics.com.au, comicbooks.com.au or at least look to purchase the organic traffic those names can supply.

Granted that type in traffic volume is generally no where near the volume that ’search marketing’ can supply, with such high conversion rates, it should be considered a necessary addition to your marketing campaigns. Look out for a future post on ‘How can I purchase direct navigation traffic?‘.

Here are just a few Australian companies I have found that are already taking advantage of direct navigation traffic.

Intertan Australia Limited (aka Dick Smith / Tandy) ‘owns’ electronics.com.au - As a B2C supplier of consumer electronics, Dick Smith are cashing in on type-in traffic from this generic domain name.

Dulux Holdings Pty Ltd registered paint.com.au and resolve their main consumer portal on the name, taking advantage of a premium branding opportunity and increasing traffic and awareness of their product.

Flight Centre Technology Pty Ltd have got hold of flights.com.au. If you type-in flights.com.au, you’re flying somewhere! I imagine that domain name converts extremely well for Flight Centre.

Those companies are using generic domain names to ‘value add’ to their existing web presence. There are many other benefits to owning generic domain names, such as search engine optimisation (for generic keywords) and search engine visibility.

Consider the ‘visibility’ in search results for the term ‘flowers’, which result would you be drawn to? A premium domain such as www.flowers.com.au or something like www.jennifers24×7floweremporium.com.au. Domaining is probably the only place where ’standing out’ requires you to be ‘generic’.

Of course, it doesn’t stop with ‘value-adding’ to your web presence, there are some other very successful entities that have taken generic domains and created entire businesses around a name, for example:

Realestate.com.au Ltd, the only real name in property, built a business around the realestate.com.au domain name. Of course, they don’t stop there, they are also the proud owners of property.com.au and various other industry related domain names.

So on that note, domain names are the real estate of the internet. Just like land, there is a finite amount of premium locations and generic domain names are the beach front properties of the internet.

I registered my domain name, paulcherry.com.au on Saturday 15th December. On Wednesday night (19th) I checked Google.com.au for the term “paul cherry”. There it was, my new website ranked number one on Google Australia, for both “The Web” and the “Pages from Australia” result sets.

I know this will fluctuate and go up and down with time. However I will tell you how I “got to number one” in such a short time. This list is in no order of importance, it’s just what I have done so far to get to this point.

1. It’s a weak topic, or “niche”. How many people do you know that are optimising for the term “paul cherry”? If I bought “hotels.com.au” and tried to do the same thing in 5 days, I doubt I would have the same luck.
2. Dedicated IP address. This domain is hosted (in the USA mind you) on a dedicated IP address. This means it shares the IP with no other websites.
3. Outbound links. I am unashamedly linking out directly (not via affiliate links) to other websites. I am not hoarding PageRank or inbound links. I am sharing the love of the internet and linking out to other good websites.
4. Inbound links. I have acquired a few good inbound links from my friends who have other blogs in good standing, some with decent PageRank.
5. Content is king. I started posting ASAP and am going to try to post some decent content every day.

The future. I am going to try and target another keyword and see if I can get ranked for that. So it will be twist on rule #1 above, however #2 will obviously stay the same. #3 I will continue to do, not just to sites about my new target keyword, but also any other decent site I refer to. #4 is key, I need to get some more inbound links with my next target keyword, and #5 is also a given. I need to post and create content around my new target key phrase.

Late last week, Thursday 13th December, the Australian Domain Administration (auDA) board approved the recommendations from the 2007 Names Policy Panel.

Overall there was not much of a change, the Panel agreed that the current rules for .au domain registration, renewal, licensing etc are all quite appropriate.

The Panel did recommend some changes to the transfer policy (change of registrant / owner) to allow “transfer of a domain name licence for any reason”.

In the new year, auDA will work on implementing the new policy, which will mean owners of .com.au domain names will be able to sell their domains for the very first time.

Previously, selling a .com.au name (transferring registrant) was a complicated process and according to the auDA publication, only those “in the know” were taking advantage of a supposed loop-hole in the policy.

Overall, I believe this will be a good change for the Australian domain name industry. For once we will be able to trade names like all other TLDs (Top Level Domains) .com, .co.uk, etc. Well, kind of. The new .au registrant still has to be eligible for the domain name and comply with the regular auDA policy, such as having an ABN.

It will be very interesting once this policy is active to see how people decide to sell, trade and ultimately transfer their Australian domain names.

I got through to the ATO today, regarding the letter I received about my ABN being cancelled. As I mentioned earlier, having an ABN (or any registered business entity) is required in order to purchase .com.au domain names.

Anyhow, the ATO girl (who sounded about 12 years old) simply ran me through a bunch of questions:

• What is your main business activity?
• Have you set up a trading name yet?
• Have you advertised you business?
• Have you purchased any business equipment / property?
• What else have you done to do with the business?
• When did you start trading?
• Is there other information you think is relevant?

After I answered all of the questions, she basically said I would receive a yay or nay letter within 28 days. I will follow up again when I get word.

I received a letter in the mail from the Australian Tax Office (ATO) recently. It looks like they are “cleaning up” the Australian Business Register (ABR). The letter says that because I haven’t reported any income against my ABN on my tax returns, I must not need it (my ABN, not income). Anyway, I originally applied for an ABN just so I could register .com.au domain names, as per Australian Domain Name Administration regulations.

This is the first financial year I could earn an income from my .au domains, and subsequently income on my ABN. Anyway, I have to call them and tell them why I need it. I will see if the “to register .au domains” is a good enough reason, and whether or not I can keep it on that merit only. Otherwise I’ll tell them that I am “just about to ramp it up”.

The other day I tried to call, I got put on hold but then something else came up so I had to hang up. I called back later and the message said something along the lines of “we are experiencing a high volume of calls and can not take your call right now”. I couldn’t even join the queue! I will let you know as soon as I can get through to them.

I’ve worked on both sides of affiliate programs for years now and one of the biggest issues I see with advertisers are their banners and marketing creatives.

I’ve set up a lot of advertisers in an affiliate network as well as in-house programs. When it comes to banners, the worst thing you can do is offer one 468×60 standard banner of your logo and URL. Well actually, the worst you can do is 470×80 or some weird size that doesn’t scale or fit into banner rotation software. In fact, you could do even worse and just offer text links.

Anyway, I want to make agencies and advertisers aware of the do’s and dont’s that will subsequently lead to an affiliate dumping or not choosing your program at all.

In no particular order, I offer some hints and tips:

Design - Clean and Professional
As an affiliate, I have a nice looking site so I want your banners to complement it. I don’t care how many clicks you think you can get with a red and yellow flashing “YOU WON” banner, I am a professional, so please keep your banners looking professional. I understand, your corporate colours are important, but so are mine.

File Size - Watch Your Weight
Hire a designer, one with experience creating banners. I don’t want my users to load 100KB banners when it could have been created in 10KB. The IAB are currently working on “file weight” guidelines, but while you wait, just compare your stuff you everyone else.

Pixel Dimensions - Stick To Standard Sizes
The IAB in Australia (Internet Advertising Bureau) has published a set of standards and guidelines for the Australian UAP (Universal Ad Package). This is the very minimum you should have, it includes 4 ad units including a leaderboard 728×90, standard banner 468×60, medium rectangle 300×250, and a wide skyscraper 160×600. Note, the US IAB drop the 468×60 from their UAP and swap it with a 180×150.

A lot of major traffic portals will be compliant with UAP units, however keep in mind the ‘mum and dad’ affiliate who also want to see some other sizes.

The United States IAB also publishes standard ad unit guidlines for a complete range of banners. Work towards adding as many of those banner sizes over time, or as you receive requests working with more affiliates.

Promotions - Keep Your Banners Updated
If you have seasonal campaigns or products you must keep your banners updated, this lets affiliates know you are actively taking care of your program. If you’re a chocolate shop and you’ve got Easter promotional banners but it’s Christmas time now, forget it. Keep your promotional banners up to date. You should identify seasonal banners as such and allow the affiliate to run your promotional banner in a “spot”, managed on your end that he/she can rely on you to update and keep fresh.

URLs in Banners
You must have a different set of banners for affiliates on CPL/CPA programs to the ones you use on CPM campaigns. When you buy impressions from me, I am selling you the right to get brand recognition from my users, even if they don’t click. If you’re paying me per lead or per acquisition, and your URL is featured predominantly in the banner, forget it. I don’t want my user typing in your URL tomorrow and I get nothing for it.

Some networks and advertisers offer post-impression tracking (PI) that will track a sale for x number of days after a user has been served a banner impression, that is acceptable and a highly respected piece of code. In my experience with some finance campaigns (credit cards, home loans etc) I’ve seen up to 40% of sales coming through from 2 day PI display ads. So if your URL toting advertisements give you 40% more sales that I won’t be getting commission for, I’ll be promoting someone else.

So to summarise:

• Standard sizes, best variety possible.
• Clean and professional designs.
• Small filesize, fast loading.
• No URLs for CPA/CPL campaigns.
• Keep banners fresh and promotions up to date.

Most importantly, be prepared to work with your affiliates. If you are in a network and an affiliate application comes through, make sure you have the right tools for that affiliate or they won’t promote you. Check out their website, consider the possible spots you will be promoted, if you don’t have a banner size for that spot, create it, and get back to the affiliate. It can get costly creating custom banners, but remember, if you add another standard size or colour for a particular affiliate, it can always be used by other affiliates.

Those who know me are generally aware of my elite craftsmanship when it comes to making poker tables. Ever since the first one I constructed in 2004 and published the “How To Build a Poker Table” plans on Poker.com, I have been known to throw the odd table together. After that first one, I started building poker tables (to sell) with an old workmate of mine Jason, who continues to build poker tables under the Card Shark brand.

Anyway, I recently completed a special poker table for my sister for Christmas. This one has some nice patterned vinyl for the padded arm rail and hot pink playing surface. It sits on Ikea legs (with built-in storage) and some LED lighting. I took a few photos during the build process and am still considering whether to re-publish the “plans” with the all-new methods.

Here is a photo of the end result.

Ok so my first post is a bit off topic to what I promised, but hey, it’s my blog and I can do whatever I want, I’m an adult.

Welcome to PaulCherry.com.au, I am Paul Cherry. I started working in the online industry in early 1998 for a company then known as Toast.com. I responded to a advertisement in the local paper for a position as a “Search Engine Updater”. When I started, I actually joined a small group of developers who became the foundation of a brilliant SEO team.

The direction of that business evolved and it soon became known as DarkBlueSea (ASX: DBS). Within DBS I served many roles. I became manager of the SEO/traffic team and worked on various products including the beginning of DarkBlue.com (an affiliate network) and Fabulous.com (a domain name registrar and parking solution). There are close to 1 million names in total parked with Fabulous.com, half of which are owned by DBS. That’s right, DarkBlueSea has one of the largest domain name portfolios in the World, with over 550,000 registered to the company itself.

I left DarkBlueSea in 2005 to pursue another interest of mine, poker. I began working on Poker.com as a webmaster/SEO, where my only job was to keep the site at number 1 for the term “poker”. After several years, as internet businesses do, the direction changed. Poker.com became more than just an affiliate portal, we had a shot at building and running our own poker software client.

At Poker.com I helped design the software, became tournament director and then managed the affiliate team. We had a considerably small team (for a poker room) and I performed many tasks from software concepts through to marketing campaigns. I traveled to several industry events representing the poker room and even to the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas with some of our best players.

October 2006, all hell broke loose with the online gaming industry as the US House of Representatives passed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act by slipping it in to the SAFE Port Act. The World’s biggest poker room, PartyPoker.com, lost 60% of its share value overnight.

The Poker.com software became CarbonPoker.com and continues to accept US players, while other poker rooms closed their doors to the USA. The owners of the company who I like, got out, and I soon followed. Poker.com became a poker information portal once again. CarbonPoker.com (and the software management company) has created a new poker network called Merge Gaming.

Early 2007, I began working for Boomerang.com.au (Australia) Pty Ltd. Boomerang is an Australian owned and operated web publishing company based in Brisbane. I am currently employed as the Business Development Manager and am involved in domain management, affiliate advertising and the company’s web development programs.

I am starting this blog quite late in my “online career” however I believe it to be a necessary platform for my future endeavours and also my current rants about the industries I am involved in.

Over the coming weeks, and in to the future, I will write my thoughts about (mostly Australian) affiliate programs, domaining, SEO/SEM and anything else in between. Welcome to PaulCherry.com.au.