Chris Hooley gives an excellent example of how important anchor text is with a post about an Arizona pool builder mate.
Check out Chris’ excellent blog post here.
Brendon
We’re doing a case study on getting better rankings for a web site over on Tailored.
It’s working well so far – the Northern Ireland web designers site we’re doing has moved from # 426 to # 14 for the targeted term.
Check it out here.
Cheers
Brendon
The best clients come on in, make a decision and get things moving.
I have a prospect at the moment.
Prospect – search engine optimisation work. Have been back and forth with us for 3 months. I’ve made the offer 3 times. They’ve accepted then pulled back.
Today they asked me to quote for more work and then asked for a discount because I would be getting 2 jobs.
I sent the “Our schedule is suddenly busy – we can’t help you” email. And ran as far as I could from the client.
Some clients you just don’t want – somethimes it can be an obvious red flag like the above that tells you, or simply a gut feeling.,
Either way, take notice and don’t take the client on. IT is almost worth more trouble than the money you receive.
Brendon
Seamus Clarke is a guy I’ve been having some email conversations with. Seamus runs a web design business in Belfast and we’ve been chatting about seo strategies for design firms.
I always think that the search numbers for seo and web design services are hugely out of proportion to the number of people actually seraching.
It’s because these seo and web designers do heaps of searches to see where they come up – if you see 30,000 searches for ‘web design my city’, then you can be sure that 100 or so web designers in that city are doing that search each month to see where they come up.
It wouldn’t be 30,000 different potential customers.
Cheers
Brendon
I’m doing a 1,000 km bike ride at the end of March.
If you are keen on sponsoring me, shoot on over to the page I set up here and click on the PayPal link.
Appreciate any help you can provide the charity.
Cheers
Brendon
I’ve noticed some big gains with our ugg boots site – Brandboots.com.
As an affiliate site, the site has had some pretty significant gains lately becuase ugg boots are a very popular Christmas gift – ideal really, with winter occuring in December in many parts of the world.
Here in Australia, it gets very hot at Christmas: often up to 40 C (that’s 104 F) – so we don’t make a lot of sales here.
We get quite a few visitors to our main site at tailored.com.au too for our ugg boots page.
So we tend to steer those visitors to the Brandboots.com site too. Every little bit helps.
Cheers
Brendon
I just submitted my Tailored blog to a new service called BlogHijinks after reading about it over on the excellent Simon Sandler blog.
It’s one of those sites that annoys me – they have a “Be featured for $4.95” submission or a free subsmission.
It’s only when you’ve done all of the work to list your site do you find out that you have to provide a reciprocal link. They don’t tell you at the start. I bloody hate that.
The other thing that seems dodgy to me is that the $4.95 fee is monthly recurring! They don’t tell you that at the start.
Anyway, I submitted the site just to see the process but I’m feel like they’re trying to scam me already.
Just like a client I saw last week – he’s being charged $600 pa for his web site hosting. I told him we’d transfer him to our host for $200 pa.
He said, “You can charge me $600 if you want – I just feel like these others guys are ripping me off.”
People hate feeling like they’re being ripped off.
Treat them well. Charge a decent amount so you can make a profit. And keep the client fully informed. It ain’t that hard.
Cheers
Brendon
A quick shout out to Brian Evans of Columbiana Web Design & Marketing
– one of South Carolina’s leading web designers.
Brian shot me through an email to let me know a site link wasn’t working – I guess that’s part of marketing. Building goodwill within your community. It can be as quick and as easy as shooting someone through an email!
And that’s where the law of reciprocity kicks in. Because Brian did something nice for me, I’ve written this blog to say thanks.
And that’s good for Brian. If your looking for Columbiana Web Design & Marketing, check out the portfolio of Brian’s team.
Cheers.
Brendon
Probably the most common question I get is “What do I do when people don’t pay me?”
It’s a good question. It’s, unfortunately, a big problem.
I’ll keep general and just say “Keep at them. Be insistent. Don’t give up.”
Brendon
Every now and then you come across a great product you just have to mention.
Here’s the best unique birthday gift idea I’ve written about – this was the best gift I’ve given anyone.
Worth checking out.
Cheers
Brendon