Search Engine Optimisation

Search Engine Optimisation or SEO is a term most of you will have heard of but some of you may not be too clear on what it's all about.

To put it in VERY simple terms, it's about getting your website ranked highly on the search engines - that is appearing on the first page. It's actually a very complicated subject and companies charge anything from £40 per page to £3000 before they will even look at your site.

But there are a few simple things you can do yourself to aid in the Search Engine Ranking game! Get links back to your site! That means asking other websites and directories to link to your website. But you don't just want any old link. Some links score better 'points' than others, especially for Google!

So what links are best. You want links from complimentary sites - those websites who provide goods or services compatible with your own. For example you might sell organic make-up, so a link from an organic vegetable provider would be a good link but one from a mortgage advisor wouldn't be as powerful, earning less 'points'.

And try to get links that use your keywords as the link text rather than your web address - e.g. Organic Cosmetics instead of www.yournaturalbeautystore.com or Keel Soft Toys instead of www.greattoys4u.co.uk . If your keywords are part of you web address it isn't so bad but a text link is still better e.g. www.childrensbooks.co.uk has the right words but a link saying Children's Books would score more.

This is only a very small insight into improving your rankings. There are lots of other things to be done but hopefully it's given you something to think about. If you would like some more info then ask us at the next WBa meeting on June 10th.

Learning from Experience

I've just spent a long weekend in Holland with the TKD team. The travelling was hard - coach and ferry and a very long day. Having to collect other team members for the BTCB combined British squad meant travelling to Dover via Southampton!

The competition itself taught our team a few valuable lessons. Life isn't always fair, sometimes you know what the true outcome should have been but the formal results show different. The answer is simply to accept this and move on.

Everybody has off days when they don't perform their best. Just accept it, tomorrow is a new day and a new beginning.

Sometimes you can throw everything you have at your opponent and still get beaten. Time to evaluate what you are doing right and what can be improved on. Sometimes the competition is just better than you are. So change tactics and work to your strengths.

So for me it's time to step it up a gear and make sure I organise my time better. I can do everything I set my mind to achieve - I just need to schedule it better!

Perfection!

Is it just that I'm a perfectionist or are some large companies guilty of doing a half hearted job just because they can. I was with a prospective client yesterday and he had an advert with a well known company. This company had access to the same information I had and a printed copy of the clients logo. Yet the logo they created for their advert bore a mere passing resemblance to the clients actual logo.

Now maybe I'm just too much of a perfectionist but when I recreated the logo I made sure that the font (type face) was the closest I could get it to the original logo. I had taken a photo of one of the vans on my phone so I could colour match as near as possible. It took me about half an hour to create a top quality digital version of the logo for me to use in their new design. Wasn't difficult, just took time.

But do some large companies get away with a poor quality job because they are a large company - or do they genuinely just not care!

Caring about your customers is a must in today's climate and showing it can make a difference between winning the business and having to pitch to a whole new client. Now which do you think is cheaper? A bit of really good customer service, going that extra bit to show you care? Or pitching to lots and lots of prospects and hoping to get at least some!

OK. Rant over for today!

May Networking in Wirral

It was a great night last night with lots of new faces to go with the old ones. Lovely informal networking with a couple of Networking Newbies who had their eyes opened to the potential of face to face networking.

For those of you in the local area who haven't attended yet book the June meeting in your diaries now. It is on 10th June from 19:30 until 21:30 or if last night is anything to go by finishing nearer 23:30.

Just bring along your business cards an buy yourslef a drink. See you all next month.wi

Warning - Possible Scam

One of our clients was today approached by a company claiming that they were producing a magazine on behalf of the fire service to be distributed to schools in the area. The sales tactics were rather heavy handed and the client got suspicious.

I've taken a look around the net and concur with my client that his suspicions were well founded. These types of scams are common place and change little except perhaps for the good cause they are supporting.

Never accept any sort of deal over the phone. Check up on the company concerned and check with your local trading standards office - they have often already had complaints about the company approaching you. Don't agree over the phone to place any sort of advert and don't give in to bullying tactics that tell you you entered into a contract and they'll take you to court (yes they tried this on on my client).

** We have been asked to remove part of this post as it was leading to the confusion that a company mentioned was guilty of scamming They weren't to our knowledge and we have honoured their wishes and removed the paragraph linking them to this post.**

So be on your guard and if you get approached by suspicious sales people we'd like to know so we can warn our members.

...and Thank You for Your Knowledge!

After my last post it was kindly pointed out to me that we often give away far more than our time. We often give our "attention, consideration, information, the benefit of our knowledge and experience, advice etc" (thank you - you know who you are!).

I guess we should all be factoring the value of these things into our pricing too. How many of us don't? How can you put a price on knowledge learned over many, many years? I know I personally find it difficult. But all these things have a value that often isn't immediately recognised.

Maybe next time we finish a meeting we'll all remember to say thank you! A general thank you for everything shared and not just time! And when you put a price on that next job remember to include a sum for the more intagible things you give too! As well as pricing your time, put a price on your knowledge and experience too.

Thank You for Your Time!

"Thank you for your time!" A customer said this to me as I was leaving today and it made me think. How many of us put a value on our time? How many of us give away our time for nothing?

I'm guilty of it. I hope that the time I give away is returned 10 fold in customer loyalty and fresh business. But how many of us actually factor in our own time when pricing goods and services?

When you came up with that price for postage and packing did you think about your time? The time spent actually wrapping the goods? The time taken to go to the post office and wait in the queue? Have you worked out exactly how much that time is worth? It has a monetary value - do you know what yours is worth?

I challenge you all this week to calculate how much an hour of your time is worth in money. Then take account of all the things that you do with your time that don't pay anything. Some of the things will be unavoidable like doing the books. But how much time do you waste that could be spent better? How many times a day do you check your emails? Do you get distracted from important tasks by answering phone calls?

Time is a valuable commodity - how valuable depends on you. Manage it wisely.