I then had some time to take in the exhibition and hang around at the Existem-AM stand which seemed to be where you could find the affiliates throughout the conference!

Next session was about PR by 10yetis and once again it was an excellent presentation with some great tips. I was surprised to hear that free newspaper The Metro is consider the most influential newspaper.

From there I moved on to the presentation by Nora from Sedo which was interesting as I’ve been getting more into domaining recently. The number of cases studies of businesses which have rebranded just to match a generic domain was pretty amazing.

Finally I made it along to the Super Affiliates session which was both entertaining and inspiring. In some ways it wasn’t so much about learning new information (apart from Shak’s story which was new to me!) but about being inspired about what is actually possible.

The second night party was really enjoyable although the private Sky party did mean things were a bit disjointed which was a shame. Maybe that’s just because I didn’t get in but it did mean I couldn’t catch up with those who were behind the closed doors!

All in all it was a fantastic couple of days and a job well done by all at Existem.

I had an early start but got down to London in time for the intro by Matthew Wood from Existem and the keynote by Michael Nutley from NMA then the full programme started at 11am.

I went to the WordPress SEO session by Joost de Valk which was excellent and packed full of useful tips. I think I probably need to set aside a couple of days to install about 20 plugins now though! The most useful tip that I took away was to look at hardcoding certain parts of the wordpress theme like the blog title instead of causing another database query for something that never changes. Load time has always been the one area of WordPress I’ve been disappointed with so I’m hoping that making these changes will help.

I went to the bonus lunchtime session held by sunshine.co.uk where they released their sunpress plugin which looks pretty impressive and will be a great starting point for a WordPress travel site.

Next session I went to was the Extreme SEO session which was fairly lively and in between the chaos there were some great tips. Lots of chat about taking out your competitors with negative SEO rather than improving your own site though which was slightly disturbing! The dominate subject was link building and it does seem to show that as long as you take care of some basic on page SEO issues the main thing you should be worrying about is links.

The final session of the day was the Affiliate State of the Nation panel which I moderated. It seemed to go pretty well and there was some good discussion about issues facing the industry. Most interesting for me was the issues about affiliates either wanting to grow large businesses or keep it as a lifestyle business. Thanks to Kieron for speaking up on that point of view. I was also amused to be sitting on the stage watching Shane Robinson fall asleep in the second row.

It was great at the end of that session to bump in to Pete Sipple from Frequencycast which is a podcast I have been listening to for some time and which I would highly recommend.

Finally the night finished with a cruise on the Silver Sturgeon which made for a great end to the day.

I’m looking forward to my first expo after missing the last one due to the arrival of my daughter It’s her first birthday the weekend before the expo so I’ll be free this time to head to London.

I’ll be moderating the Affiliate State of the Nation Panel at 16:30 on the first day so I’m looking forward to that Check out the agenda for full details of all seminars. I looks like it’s going to be a difficult job to plan your way through the seminars with 4 excellent choices at each stage.

Hope to see you there!

The VOIP phone line means I can keep the same local number if I move office or just travel as basically the number follows me where ever I connect my phone handest or laptop to the internet. Another nice feature is that voicemails are recorded and emailed to me which means I can process all incoming messages in my Outlook inbox.

I have to admit that I found it a pleasant surprise that Gradwell travelled from Bath to arrange a lunch for their customers in Edinburgh as I’ve never met any of my other suppliers in this way and I’ve dealt with a good number of web hosting companies over the years. It’s definitely a great way for Gradwell to get to understand their clients and also to encourage their clients (me included) to look at working with them more in the future.

Thanks Gradwell!

I decided to use this promotion to experiment with a great Free Page Peel Plugin which Paul over at Fish and Clicks made me aware of. Thanks for the tip

And yes that’s an affiliate link Considering signing up for the expo through that link if you’ve ever listened to one of the podcasts and enjoyed it!

The Affiliate Summit 2008 Preview show on WebmasterRadio.FM was hosted by Affiliate Summit co-founders, Missy Ward and Shawn Collins.

They were joined by Stephanie Agresta, Partner at The Conversation Group; Sam Harrelson, VP of Business Development at OnCard Marketing ; Jim Kukral, Owner of ScratchBack.com; and Wil Reynolds, Associate at SEER Interactive.

One event I particularly enjoyed last year in Vegas was the Gospel Brunch which will be held again this year. For more details check out the Christian Affiliate Marketing Association blog for more details on that.

Finally I wondered about recording a UK based preview podcast before the summit. I can’t make it this year but if you are heading over from the UK and would like to have a chat about what you are looking to get out of Affiliate Summit West and who you are hoping to meet then get in touch and it would be great to sort something out. Are any of the UK networks & agencies heading out this year? It’s your chance to raise your profile before you get there

Have things changed for the better? Certainly in some ways they have, the industry has grown and is getting taken more seriously but on the other hand it’s not such a friendly place any more. I remember that first event and everyone sat down and chatted without holding anything back. No suspicion that they were going to get ripped off etc I suppose it’s inevitable that as things grow it’s no longer going to be as laid back and open as it used to be but every so often it’s good to remember those days.

What do you think about the changes in the UK industry over the last 5 years?

It’s also good to remember that the a4u musical at the expo wasn’t the first affiliate vocal performance…

I noticed a funky new electronic brochure on the a4uexpo site and there’s a nice new look to all the publicity. Existem have also announced the pre event party which is sponsored by buy.at who seem to be putting their name to parties everywhere

I think the expo will be a great event especially with some really crucial issues getting raised recently. These thread in particular is well worth a read.

• Adaptable Affiliates?

So I ended up back in Edinburgh with some time to catch up on work and then it meant I was able to enjoy a couple of drinks with Mark and Bruce from Existem Affiliate Management who just happened to be in town. I’ve known Mark for a while but hadn’t really got a proper chance to speak to Bruce before so it was great to have a few hours to chat about all things affiliate marketing. These guys know their stuff so if you are looking for some help on the merchant side then it could well be worth getting in touch.

It’s only a day away now from Beer 2.02 which is the second informal gathering of Edinburgh based internet, advertising, social media types. It’s hard to exactly label the group as it’s such a mix but it’s an excellent way to keep up with what’s going on with the web and meet some fantastic people. It’s open to all so if you are in Edinburgh do come along. This time it’s at the Terinea offices courtesy of Jamie.

It’s interesting to see that amount of coverage that Belhaven got from donating beer for the previous event last week. It’s clear to see that the ideal link building strategy seems to be supplying beer to bloggers

On Tuesday next week (June 26th) I’m planning to take a quick day trip down to the Online Marketing Show. I wasn’t planning to go but then their PR company got in touch and invited me so the personal touch won through in the end! I’ll go along to the affiliate marketing related talks and hear what the networks have to say to those outside the industry.

Finally closer to home, on the 28th I’ll be attending Beer 2.0 with the crowd from the Edinburgh Coffee Morning. I’ve really been enjoying this meeting over the past few months where we assemble on a Friday morning at centotre, laptops in hand, for bacon rolls and discussion of all things internet and advertising. This time it’s an after work drinks format to allow a few others to attend. If you are local then do come along and meet some of the people who are keeping me up to date with web 2.0 every Friday – Mike, Ewan, Jamie, Johnnie & Andy to name just a few. All of their blogs are well worth a read, coming from different perspectives & all sharing something new.

I won’t be able to make it to the expo since we have a baby due to arrive the same week! However I’ll still try and report back on what’s been happening so I’ll be relying on phoning everyone to stay in the loop.

It’s something I’m hoping to try out during Affiliate Summit East in Miami too. Since I was lucky enough to get to Vegas this January I won’t be taking another big trip this year but I’ll be trying to build up a list of contacts that will be at the show that might be able to phone in with brief reports to make a podcast. Again if you’ll be at the event in Miami and have 5 minutes spare to call in with some news please get in touch

With all these events that I won’t be able to attend it means I’m really looking forward to the buy.at 5-a-side tournament next Friday. Look out for the Affiliate Rovers