Simon Jones – Web Wizard

Who is this sales pitch for?

We create unique visual websites aimed at promoting you, your products and services online. Whether you want to sell direct to customers, showcase your product brochure or just want to show off photographs of your work. Contact us today for a free quote.

Most keen eyed readers will see that this is a web designer. It’s not brilliantly written but I did just make it up. It’s short and concise which is great for the reader and would make a punchy head paragraph.

Google is a robot, it is not clever and doesn’t always understand the context of a sentence. Google sees this:

• Brochure
• Photographs
• Showcase
• Visual

Google would therefore possibly list the site under ‘photo galleries’, which is utterly useless for our poor web designer.

Search engine optimisation begins with your site, there are many many more elements I will discuss in later blogs, but this can usually be done yourself. (If you can’t edit the text on your website, speak to your designers or Zako Media in Swansea)

The first thing we need to do, is add our keywords to the text. You should remember of course that the human reading the text is the one who pays for your services so remember to maintain grammar and readability. The following would be a bad example of keyword plugging:

We create unique visual website design aimed at promoting you, your products and services on your website which our web designer designed. Whether you want your website design to sell direct to customers, showcase your product brochure or just want to show off photographs of your work in an elegant gallery website design. Contact us today for a free web design quote.

It might work to get people onto the site, but if they’re put off by poor grammar or complete confusion, you’re no better off than you were to start with.

During your rewrite, it will also help to remove anti-keywords. Something which out of context contradicts the key message. For example, the sentence containing ‘showcase your product brochure’ has words suggesting that our friend isn’t a design agency but could be in print, art or a gallery. If he does offer brochure design or print services, or is aiming to be in Google for the keywords ‘brochure website design’ then he can keep them in.

Which keywords should I use?

That is for another blog. Choose some great relevant ones, try to find your competitors with keywords alone (no company names), but be realistic. Our web designer is up against a LOT of competition for the key phrase ‘Web designer’ and we’re trying to keep things simple here. He can use geography to help, limiting the competition to ‘Web Design London’ or ‘Wales Web Design’ or be more specific. There is a more scientific method, but I’ll cover that another time, subscribe on the right to receive my blogs in your email and keep up to date.

Shadow, our beloved Labrador Springer cross was snatched away yesterday after an incident with a ball and a busy road. Shadow and I were closest friends, he went everywhere with me. If he found I’d left without him, he’d do everything he could to escape, but when we were together, he’d never stray far.

He was just two years old, he died doing what he loved most in the world and there was no suffering. Yovina and I aren’t taking it well at all.

After a stressful but productive day yesterday, Yovina (my wife) and I had turned the barbecue into a fire pit and sat by the warm glow of the embers until we ran out of scrap wood, light, and mental alertness. I realised at this point that I had managed over 3 months without a single cigarette! Having spent a few hours traipsing through Swansea city centre desperately looking for a nice pair of jeans, I smelt smells I simply wasn’t used to, the worst one being the smell of a smoker… man do they stink! You watch them tease the last few drags out of a cigarette before entering a shop, you can see it’s probably burning their fingers as they do so, then with one last exhale, you watch their breath partially drift in through the automatic doors as they nasally offend every person who dares come within a few feet.

I used to be just like that!

Three months ago I set a quit date with an NHS advisor. I started with the patches. After a week I realised that despite the patches, I was still craving, yet with the patches I wasn’t actually stopping my chemical addiction. I removed the patch and went cold turkey. Each crave then was nice because I knew I would never feel the crave for that particular cigarette again. Within a week, my cough virtually subsided completely. The dreaded smokers cough which I always used to blame on the onset or the tail end of yet another cold.  Within a few weeks I stopped getting so out of breath when walking the dogs. After 4 weeks I ran more than a few metres without having to stop for oxygen.

It’s the best thing I’ve ever achieved, and I feel I’ve achieved a lot. Sometimes I wish I could have just one cigarette, which is exactly the reason I can’t. Why would anyone in their right mind want a cigarette who wasn’t already addicted? The answer is in the question… I’m not completely over the addiction. I feel great, and best of all, I don’t stink!

Someone said in blogs today that Ecademy is a great social network but a poor business network. This intrigued me.

Ecademy is a great place for like-minded individuals to meet, gossip and talk about completely unrelated subjects. I’ve seen and been involved in many friendships through Ecademy and met some wonderful, diverse people talking about subjects ranging from SEO to kayak repair, dog ownership and family matters.

Now I want to imagine your best client has just asked you for a good web designer as their last one is now charging too much. These are the people who come to mind:

1) Simon Jones the Web Wizard from Ecademy, you know he runs his own business and he does it well (can be slow at times through bad time management. Ultimately you know he’s an excellent programmer who wants you to make money more than he wants to showcase his design skills)
2) Your friend Steve, he also runs his own web marketing business, you attended his wedding a couple of months ago and regularly attend each other’s BBQs. You support the same football teams and have a great time. You have no idea what his web design skills are like but he picks up his share of the coffee bills so can’t be suffering too much.
3) Your Brother was raving about some web designer named Michelle just yesterday. She got him to the top of Google and is now making him lots of money.

Who do you refer first in a real life situation?

Most people will choose number 2 despite knowing other’s track records. Their own good friend comes ahead of a business network contact. They do this because of rapport, liking and loyalty. You wouldn’t want to let your friend down and you’re sure they feel the same about you. As friends you would also feel a certain amount of guilt if you didn’t refer.

So if Ecademy was a social network rather than business, doesn’t that just make it even more important? Should we be making ‘business contacts’ or friends? Surely when we’re in business doing something we enjoy, we’re already finding that the business/pleasure mix is a beneficial one which should not be ignored, forgotten or separated.

So stop selling to me and others and make friends with people you enjoy talking to. Develop trust and loyalty and if no business arrives, who cares, you still had that funny night in the pub where ………

Thoughts?

Welcome to the new look sipa.co.uk I’ve copied all my favourite blogs from my business site Zako Media and will build upon it over the coming years. Feel free to use the comments below for any feedback, love it? hate it? want one of your own?

Here I will focus on social/business networking and social media while the blog at ZakoMedia will deal specifically with websites.

Have a read, let me know what you think, but above all, enjoy

Google have been approaching the social market for some time, rumours have spread about the potential to buy Twitter, at one point Facebook were also eyeing up this microblogging platform before taking their own steps and adapting their news feed into a media rich frenzy of status updates, chipmunk videos and people finding strange objects in their farms.

Today Google have launched Google Buzz, it does everything the ‘better’ facebook version does but has the portability of Twitter, it also allows you to integrate all your existing social networking activities into one including Google’s own profile pages. Finally with Gmail integration, it’s easy to keep up to date without an extra window. It works on iphone and android mobile devices out of the box. so head down to http://buzz.google.com and watch the official Google Buzz video below.

So far I’m following just a couple of people, none of whom have actually made their first update, it’s a little quiet but as Google have a huge number of subscribers already to it’s other services, who knows where this will end up.

Will it replace Twitter? Not yet, Facebook tried and haven’t but there is potential for it to grow quickly with it’s subscriber base so watch this space.

Google talk hasn’t replaced Live Messenger, Google voice hasn’t replaced Skype, Google Docs hasn’t replaced MS Office and Google’s Chrome hasn’t replaced Firefox. However Google Mail, Youtube, Google Reader, Google News, Google Maps, Google Skymaps and Google Search have all rocked the world. Perhaps I’m sceptical about Google Buzz, but only time will tell.

Contestants

Simon Cowell – Stuck to traditional marketing methods based on years of business experience.

Tracy Morter – A photographer from Essex with no marketing experience in the music industry at all.

This week, both people went head to head.

Weapons?

Simon Cowell – TV Show – The X Factor, one of the most popular audience participation tv shows in the country. The X factor has produced Christmas number one after Christmas number one! The transit method was once the most popular media device in the world.

Tracy Morter – Networking – Facebook. Has never produced a Christmas number one or any song for that matter.

The Product

Simon Cowell – Young attractive face, the face recognised by millions across the country singing in an amazing voice a song of hope and dreams.

Tracy Morter – A 1992 rock band singing shouting a rebellious song containing more swear words than the radio would care to filter.

The Result

The Christmas number one slot has been the place of heros. The Beatles held it three years running from 63-65. Queen has also taken the spot, Pink Floyd, Band Aid, Cliff Richard and many more. This year, the official Christmas number one is ‘Rage Against the Machine’ with ‘Killing in the name of’

“**** you I won’t do what you tell me”

Power to the people! Network marketing has beaten TV marketing in an amazing fight. Joe deserved the spot but for the ultimate test of a new society.

Social media is and will continue changing the world.

(and Joe, we know you’re number one really. RATM was just to prove a point. Good luck in your new career)

Driving home the other night, something scooted across the road forcing me to stop suddenly. I pulled over and found a very friendly king charles with no name tag. I pulled the leash out of the car and had a walk around trying to find someone with an empty lead or at least to see if the little guy would take me home. Instead he happily walked alongside me as if nothing was wrong.

I walked up to the street he appeared to come from and found another small dog owner, asked if they recognised the dog. She told me outright to keep it. The owner regularly lets the dog loose outside the house and he’s been hit by a couple of cars…

I took him home and filed a lost dog report to the police. I couldn’t guarantee this lady’s story and certainly didn’t want to end up in court for theft.

He happily wandered into the kitchen where I decided to investigate. He was filthy, thirsty, hungry, had to keep him and my dog for fighting for food and attention. He rolled over as we stroked him and I watched his black skin turn white as hundreds of fleas ran for cover. These were the biggest fleas I had ever seen, most 2mm long!

I hadn’t started looking for them, they were impossible to miss and no responsible dog owner would ever have let it get that far.

We took him straight up and gave him a soapy bath to get rid of the worse of them, then while my wife was drying him off I ran to the pet shop to grab some strong flea products.

The bath didn’t clear them completely as suspected but they were no longer hoarding. The bath was full of dead fleas and his coat was once again a beautiful black brown and white with all the curls in just the right places. We dusted him down with flea powder and once the half hour passed and he was brushed down, applied some spot-on treatment. (They did say not to use two products but the powder was relatively weak lasting only a couple of days and the chemicals different so all should have been safe.) We kept him contained last night in an effort to keep stray fleas, eggs and larvae in a known area.

This morning he was almost flea free. He’d almost stopped scratching and must have had the most peaceful night’s sleep ever! I found a couple of live ones still, but I really had to search so hoping the spot on treatment will continue working as the 24 hours suggested hadn’t elapsed.

All the while, rooms used were dusted down with the remainder of the flea powder and left overnight for hoovering the next morning. The two dogs were playing happily although occasionally had dominance dances when we were around. When I went to the loo, I got up the stairs, turned round and had too faces looking up at me, it was absolutely adorable!

This morning we had a call from the owner. I tried to address the flea problem politely. (How to tell someone their house is full of fleas without criticising their cleanliness. I know that fleas don’t necessarily mean they’re unclean but I think she took it that way). She casually said that he must have collected them in the street. I just thought that yes, the first ones he did, the other thousands come from neglect and are breeding, nesting and growing into adulthood in your carpets… but I didn’t say anything… She sent her son round to collect and I had no choice legally but to hand him over. I also gave him the rest of the spot-on treatments and again tried to mention about his house being full of fleas. These may have been too subtle but he was reading the packet as he left.

It’s heartbreaking to do that, but in the eyes of the law, that dog is their property and I have no right to decide whether or not they should have him.

I’ve vacuumed the entire house moving all the furniture and looking forward to repeating the process every day or two for 3/4 weeks I didn’t get a thank you, a handshake or anything. More to the point, I feel like I’ve lost a new friend. He was a lost, itchy, dirty little thing who went to happy, sparkling and almost void of those pesky things. I know I did the right thing on all fronts but didn’t want to let him go.

If we find him again (which I suspect we will) I’ll send him to the dog pound. The owner will have to pay them £70+expenses. That will hopefully teach them to keep a closer eye on their animal and if they can’t afford or are not willing to pay, he’ll be rehomed under strict rules to someone who will treat this fluffy bundle of joy the way he deserves.

This video was brought to my attention by Richard Perry and I think it paints a wonderful ideal which the 21st century has trouble addressing. It does not talk about copy and redistribution which is unquestionably illegal but about adapting other’s works to make it different for non-commercial purposes. The ability to do so is available on nearly every home computer and exercised by millions of technologically savvy people worldwide in the form of musical remixes, video collages and even the simple act of putting music to one’s own photo gallery or video. Youtube is full of them, should it be ok to do so? Under broadcast/copyright law, it is illegal.

With the way the internet works currently, we have already made a copy of anything we view, watch and listen to whether we intend to or not. Images are stored in our computer cache directory, videos are buffered onto the hard drive. Should common sense intervene and revolt? How far should it change? Should we be allowed to use a popular song on a commercial website? Provided of course we have purchased the music in the first place. Or should broadcast licences be simplified and more accessible to the general public?

Here’s the full video, listen to what Larry Lessig has to say on the matter. It is 20 minutes long but time well spent.

A big part of marketing is about the image you project from inside your company as well as out. As someone who wants to come across as very helpful with a supportive and can-do attitude, I got into the habit of asking clients after my final invoice ‘How do you feel it went so far? All feedback is appreciated’

It’s a simple question but one which has proven invaluable. The latter part invited negative criticism as well. I would like to say this never happens but it does which is a good thing.

We all make mistakes… but without generalising, I make mistakes. Most mistakes I know about and fix them before the client (and in my line of work, their clients) ever notice, if it’s a big mistake I will inform the client and tell them what I’m doing up at 3am, what I’m doing to fix it and when they can expect it to be rectified. Some ‘mistakes’ go unnoticed however. Asking this question ensures that I know what they feel I did wrong, and this gives me the opportunity to put it right. When that customer is deciding whether or not to renew, that could be a make or break decision. I have so far lost only one client in 2 years.

When things are going perfectly, it instead gives me the opportunity to proudly add their comments as a testimonial or I can ask that it is submitted via Ecademy or LinkedIn.

Customer feedback is essential as there are three types of complainers:

1) Something went wrong and they tell you
2) Something went wrong and they don’t tell you
3) Nothing went wrong and they complain anyway

Number 3 is the most annoying but number 2 is dangerous for your business because they are telling someone.

This is the easy way to move number 2′s into the top slot.