Normally I write about how there’s some rift in the matrix at Google or how things in the SEO world are affecting what we do or how you can better leverage social media and stuff like that. That’s what blogs are for – they’re not usually for the venting of personal issues or a rant about things that are annoying me, not on a corporate blog anyway. A corporate blogs should sure just be for things that are specifically “for the company”.

“Don’t let personal and business mix” say the (mostly British) “social experts”. Yeah, that’s in quotes because I’ve yet to meet someone calling themselves a “guru” or an “expert” who I haven’t instantly wanted to scream at right in the face shouting “SHUTTUP! YOU KNOW NOTHING!!”

Oh no, I’m getting anrgy….woooahhh, I’m getting personal, will this affect the brand??? Oh-0h, let’s hope I don’t get too shouty, that won’t do…. Read the rest of this entry »

The SEO newswires have been abuzz lately with the news that JC Penny, a huge department store in the US has been penalised by Google for cheating and using “black hat” SEO techniques to boost rankings for many keywords.  But what did they do and how did they do it? More importantly, how can you ensure you don’t fall into the trap and get penalised yourself?

Read the rest of this entry »

When you are starting out with your first website, it can always be a temptation not to spend much money. Let’s face it, you need to spend money on all the other stuff like an office, stationery, a good accountant, networking events …

It’s really not hard to find someone who will offer to build a ‘cheap’ website. There’s plenty of bedroom startups looking for their first client.

We could do cheap websites, we’d probably get a lot of business if we did. But we don’t. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the biggest problems with search engine optimisation is the fact that you don’t get immediate results and you will in fact have to wait quite a long time for it to have any great effect. This singular problem has its root in the idea that the Internet is essentially an instant media and people expect things to happen more or less straight away.

When I’m consulting with customers, it doesn’t matter how many times I try to set the expectation that results won’t come for a good few months, maybe eight or twelve (sometimes two years, depends on the difficulty), they still call me up after month two to complain that nothing has happened. This is especially problematic if they have come to us in desperation because their business is failing. Although they never said as much, they were essentially expecting a huge rise in Google rankings to save their business overnight. It usually pans out that their thinking is “if only I can get to number one in Google, I’ll be a millionaire”. Unfortunately, this is rarely the case.

The problem is also highlighted and brought into stark contrast as we get near to peak times in shopping when they would expect to sell a lot of their particular product if only they could be found in the search engines. However, as already pointed out, as it can take a long time for the results of any SEO to kick in, asking us to get you in the top ten for the search “Easter Eggs” is pretty useless if you approach us in March.

Of all the business planning subjects, the issue of an effective strategy for your search engine campaign is probably the most ignored and yet most important. Many businesses will plan where they are going to sell adverts (or maybe more the truth is that they simply knee-jerk when a sales calls happens) but they never expect to have to think about their Internet marketing.

If you want to sell a lot of stuff at Christmas, it’s a massive waste of time to invest in your Internet marketing in November; you should have really started in January. If you’re really serious then you should have started two years ago.

We’re used to it, of course. Having unrealistic expectations of any business service is par for the course and it really doesn’t matter how many times it is reiterated that you won’t be beating Dell anytime soon for the search “personal computer”, what actually hits the brain after it has been filtered through the ears is the idea that after posting a few blogs and visiting a few forums you will indeed be top of the pile by the weekend and drop-shipping a million products a week.

I like to think of this as the ‘Amazon effect’. There is a common misconception that Amazon was an overnight success that took little effort and cash to start up and become the behemoth it is today. The truth is more the fact that it took millions to get going and was a logistical nightmare for its founders. Indeed, in the early years of its existence many business gurus were predicting its demise.

If you have realistic expectations, understand the risks and see search engine optimisation as important and you realise that you won’t become a millionaire overnight then please get in touch and we can help you. If you want to be number one tomorrow and take on PC World, then your cash would be better spent elsewhere.

As most of the people that have followed this blog for a while will know, we are pretty transparent on this blog. We are happy to give away our SEO and web marketing secrets (well, most of them) and we often give you some behind the scenes of what is going on at Calloway Green as a company.

This year we’ve decided to lay out some of our goals as a business. One reason for this is that if we tell you what we’re going to do, it’s puts a bit of pressure on us not to let you down.

Some of the stuff we do 2011 will no doubt happen unplanned. Let’s face it, this industry (and many others) moves so fast and Google changes so often that who knows where we will be at the end of 2011. But here’s some of things we are committing to.

A Better Blog

Blogging has been important to us as a company. We tell our clients to blog as much as possible, but we don’t blog as much as we could. When things get busy, activities like blogging sometimes go by the wayside.

The thing is though that we think that blogging is becoming more and more important. It’s an awesome way to give great content, help and guidance in your market and become what some marketers call “the trusted advisers”.

So, we are committing in 2011 to building this blog into a phenomenal resource for anyone looking to get more business leads (and direct sales) through their website.

Brand NEW SEO Seminars and Webinars

We have been running SEO seminars for over 20 months now. We’re really pleased with the feedback we’ve had and the hundreds of people that we have been able to help out.

Some of the people that come along have ended up as SEO Services, which is great.

We aim to do at least one seminar a month and we’ve had offers to talk at other people’s events as well. Lots of new content and ideas that you’ll be able to take away and use in your business.

As soon as we have dates, we shall announce them on this site.

Better Social Media Integration

Although Social Media is a term that is banded around by many, it’s becoming more and more important. We meet loads of people that have had a dabble with Facebook and Twitter and either got fed up or stopped. The thing is that you need to plan your activity and your reasons for using all this new technology.

Part of our SEO Seminars will cover this, but as with most things, you have to model the behavior to teach it the best. So keep an eye on our Facebook page for upcoming ideas on getting more business from social media. We may just try and work out exactly what ‘social media’ means too.

Better Managed Websites

Our development team have worked very very hard in 2010 to build a new Content Management System for all the websites we create for our clients. In 2010 we met a lot of people that were fed up with how much of a pain it was just to keep their site up to date and looking great. We have taken the pain out of this and we intend to help many companies this year have awesome websites that convert visitors into customers and clients.

That’s just a few of our goals. How about you?

If there’s one thing that the recent break has helped me realise, it’s just how much junk email I receive every single day that does nothing but interrupt my work. As there was nobody sending me real emails for a good few days, all I had were all the crappy ones from mailing lists I subscribed to during the year and websites with forums telling me that absolutely nothing had happened, but that they thought they ought to tell me anyway.

Thanks.Normally I don’t notice them because when my phone beeps to tell me I’ve got something new to read, interspersed between the junk will be a real email that I can look at and respond to. I simply filter out the rubbish and carry on, but when there’s going to be nobody emailing because their website had gone blue or their emails aren’t coming through, then you suddenly realise something ‘aint right.

Last Monday whilst enjoying a few drinks with friends, my phone beeped about ten times during the evening and each time it was because some website wanted to tell me that Dave had posted a reply to something I’d said just before Christmas. Well done Dave, your post has just interrupted my beer. Obviously it’s not Dave’s fault, he didn’t know, he’s not even in the UK so it’s probably breakfast where he is.

No, it’s technology’s fault, and it’s our fault for not taking a hammer to the damn things when they begin to encroach on our life in ways that are simply not healthy. We need to rise up against the machine Luddite style and take back our calendars, reclaim our spare time and remember that life is made for living and not responding to beeps and whistles from the technology that follows us everywhere.

Just in case you’re wondering where I’m going with this, don’t panic, I’m not going suggest you throw your laptop out the window or burn your hard disks, no, there is an easier way that won’t mean you’re destroying equipment and bringing on the wrath of your insurance company.

Here are a few non-violent tips to help you on your way:

1. Unsubscribe from all those mailing listsGo through all your emails right now. This minute. Now. And where you see an unsubscribe at the bottom of the email, consider whether that would be a good button to push. Do most of your mails stay bold and unread? Do you actually read and get any benefit from any of them? If you don’t, click unsubscribe.
2. Hit the ‘SPAM’ buttonUnsubscribe not working? People ignoring your requests? Many email systems have a button that will alert your host or at least update your software so that any senders who repeatedly send you stuff that you didn’t ask for will be marked as spam and you won’t see their emails again. Be brutal, get rid of them.
3. Stop signing up for stuff
   This is my biggest problem. I keep signing up for crappy websites that promise to send me lots of useful information when really they’re just piling more rubbish into my inbox. DON’T SUCCUMB!!! JUST SAY NO!!! If you don’t sign up for them, they can’t keep hassling you. End of. Obviously if it’s useful, keep them, but keep it to a minimum. I’ve just unsubscribed from a mailing list telling me about all the latest deals on lease cars – like I care!

Keeping your inbox clear of these things will do wonders for your sanity. Don’t be a slave to the beep and don’t turn away from a conversation with someone who is actually buying you a beer to find out what some other persion, that you’ve never met is trying to tell you.

2011 is the year of getting personal.

Join me!

Just in case searching billions of web pages in seconds to find what you are after just wasn’t quick enough, Google are making the process even quicker.

They have take the hard work out of having to actually ‘visit’ websites to see if what you searched for will help you.

You may have spotted this new transition already, they are calling it  ‘Google Preview‘. (Andy has blogged about this last week, but I wanted to emphasise some points).

Basically, when you do a search, you will see a little magnifying glass sitting next to the search results. Hovering over the results will give you a quick snapshot of the sites in the top ten.

You will be judged!

It is said that people stay on sites for a matter of seconds. Now people won’t have to even visit your site before they make a judgment.

If you’re site does not make some kind of impression fast, you may as well have thrown all the money you spent on SEO in the bin!

Now is the time to get your site right.

If your site is badly designed, full of clutter, or it simply isn’t clear what you do then you could be in real trouble.

If your site does not emphasise how you can benefit the visitor, then forget about getting any enquiries.

Suddenly, design has become important again. It has always been important to be honest, but people seem to be happy with throwing a site together and hoping people will find it and contact them.

Will you suffer from the new Snap Judgment?

Google often make changes that don’t really affect you and your business.

This is different. People simply do not have the time to check through all the sites they think ‘may be’ ok, they will go for the slickest, most trustworthy looking solution.

In a “snap judgment” environment, great design and a great message on your site are essential.

If this isn’t your strong suit, maybe you should give us a call… 0845 0573420

It was a sad day for freedom last week as Paul Chambers who was convicted for sending a Twitter message failed to overturn the decision made back in May. If you’re unfamiliar with the story, Paul has been the victim of a law system that is woefully behind the times and obviously not equipped to deal with a society that has moved on beyond traditional methods of communication. In the parlance of the Internet, this is a huge #fail for the law in Great Britain.

But what’s it all about?

Paul was trying to get to Belfast to see his girlfriend and he found that Robin Hood airport was closed. He decided, obviously not imagining the consequences (who would?) the following:

“”Robin Hood Airport is closed. You’ve got a week… otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!”

Now, you’d think that this would simply go unchallenged. It’s a joke, a jape and whether you believe it’s in bad taste or not (let’s face it, he’s off to Belfast), you have to look hard to find any menace in it. Reginald Perrin very often dreams of skewering his employer with a harpoon – is that menacing?

Well it appears the crown prosecution services thinks it is and so they took him to court. He was fined and ordered to pay costs.

However, he appealed and many in the Twitter world thought this was a good thing because his prosecution was obviously complete nonsense and it should never have got this far. I mean, how often have you said in the pub that you would kill someone if they didn’t bring you a packet of peanuts this time? Would that be seen as threatening? As intelligent human beings, do we not have the ability to discern a joke from an actual threat?

Well, the appeal failed last week and he has now landed himself another bill of £2600. Stephen Fry, who has been rallying against this whole mess for months has offered to pay the fine for him.

So, what lessons can we take from this?

Well, as a proponent of free speech, I’d say “to hell with it, say what you like” but it appears that doing that could end up with you losing your job, your company and an awful lot of money so my advice is “it’s up to you”.

It’s a very sorry state of affairs.

This is just a short post and update to the details of our upcoming event on the 11th August in Birmingham:

“Turn Your Website into a Sales and Marketing Machine”

We have decided this month that we will be donating half the money from the tickets to Barnardos. They are an awesome charity (in our opinion), running 415 projects across the UK.

Whatever the issue from drug misuse to disability; youth crime to mental health; sexual abuse to domestic violence; poverty to homelessness; Barnardo’s believes we can bring out the best in every child.

So we thought, as a business, let’s get more exposure and money to them so they can do more of what they do best.

We hope to see you at the event if you can make it.

BOOK HERE… http://www.eventelephant.com/onlinemarketingevent

There seemed to be a frenzy on a few weeks ago for the new iPhone …

This has caused some queuing outside the O2 shops across the UK. Apple seem to be quite clever in the way they use scarcity to build their brand and there’s some kind of assumption that it must be amazing because it’s hard to get hold of one.

Doesn’t really work on me, I just carried on walking past the queue. Read the rest of this entry »