tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-363395682009-07-08T18:24:07.608+01:00Our views, tips & comments on online marketing & search stuff without the geekspeak and techno-babble!Forty Firsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09791386218553293884noreply@blogger.comBlogger86125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36339568.post-8808877985068599392009-07-02T16:16:00.005+01:002009-07-02T16:41:41.236+01:00

Last December (after procrastinating for a few months), I went ahead and exchanged my ageing PC for a mac. I'd been researching the pros and cons for a few months, but threw caution to the wind and finally did it!So how did I get on, do I like using a mac and what don't I like about it?Well, transferring to the mac really wasn't a big deal after all - it hasn't taken me long at all to get to

Forty Firsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09791386218553293884noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36339568.post-83353361752369860542009-05-12T16:05:00.005+01:002009-05-12T16:28:12.001+01:00

With more and more people going into social networking, it's really important that you put across your true personality in your interactions with the people you come into contact with. Most people are happy to do this, after all, online networking is about building relationships in the same way as going to a normal offline networking event. People buy from people and that's what networking is

Forty Firsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09791386218553293884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36339568.post-16077608322189924032009-04-17T13:19:00.004+01:002009-04-17T13:44:31.002+01:00

Last week I spent about half a day sorting out moving the Savvy Marketers blog from Typepad to WordPress. I'd been quite daunted about doing it for a while and read up on what other people had done, but in the end it turned out less difficult than I initially thought.The reason for moving the blog is so that we can develop Savvy Marketers without the restrictions of Typepad, as there are a few

Forty Firsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09791386218553293884noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36339568.post-49660951158862360112009-03-20T14:59:00.004Z2009-03-20T15:07:19.677Z

As an SEO specialist, I read lots about what is going on in the SEO industry so that I can keep up with all the changes. But with the two way web (web 2.0), things are changing fast and I’m beginning to wonder how relevant SEO is going to be in the future.The traditional way of finding websites has always been to go to Google, type in your keywords and look through the results to find the

Forty Firsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09791386218553293884noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36339568.post-34721945215863723452009-03-12T12:58:00.004Z2009-03-12T13:20:53.328Z

Last year I launched a blog on WordPress called TouteFrance, which is my hobby blog. I wanted to see how WordPress works and how effective it is as a blogging platform. Unfortunately I don't blog on my TouteFrance blog as much as I'd like, but am probably posting every couple of weeks or so.I set the blog up on the self hosted version of WordPress, which basically means that I pay to host the

Forty Firsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09791386218553293884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36339568.post-68249967907449208482009-02-27T17:34:00.004Z2009-02-27T17:49:43.297Z

Recently I've spoken to a few prospects about their online marketing and it turns out that they've not been happy with their current provider.Common complaints have been that they're paying the money and not hearing back, they've not received reports for months, they're not seeing any results from what they're paying their provider to do for them. They've really had enough!OK, you could say that

Forty Firsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09791386218553293884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36339568.post-35546459150717704832009-02-13T15:51:00.005Z2009-02-13T16:19:29.814Z

I'm a great one for being too easily distracted, I look out of the window regularly while I work (what are the neighbours up to?), let the dog distract me, but one of the worst distractions is the internet, particularly since I got on Twitter last year! Even though I'm not a prolific tweeter, it's a case of 'I'll just see what's going on on Twitter', & a few minutes are gone in a dash! In fact

Forty Firsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09791386218553293884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36339568.post-91821043034676328432009-02-06T13:04:00.004Z2009-02-06T13:23:50.676Z

Some of you may have noticed that it's been a while since I updated this blog, in fact I'm rather embarrassed to say that it's been more than 2 months, which deserves a slap on the wrist!OK, a couple of things have happened over the last 2 months which have meant my blogging schedule has slipped and I've been blogging elsewhere too, particularly on Savvy Marketers, where you can find a selection

Forty Firsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09791386218553293884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36339568.post-5776471637119855962008-11-27T15:45:00.003Z2008-11-27T16:00:19.937Z

Just as Robin Houghton wrote about the Snake Oil Salesmen being alive and well, I got an enquiry from a local company wanting some help with their search engine optimisation and website as they felt they weren't getting the results from the company they were currently using.I took a look through their website to get an idea of what had been done and found that not only was the optimisation they

Forty Firsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09791386218553293884noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36339568.post-52092779303941758802008-11-06T13:26:00.004Z2008-11-06T13:56:37.122Z

Twitter is taking the social media world by storm and I've been 'tweeting' fairly regularly for about 6 months or so.For those of you who aren't sure what Twitter is, it's a micro-blogging platform where you can post 'tweets' of 140 characters maximum and you can follow people such as friends, colleagues or people in your industry. The idea of Twitter is to answer the question 'what are you

Forty Firsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09791386218553293884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36339568.post-80798035815977363912008-10-21T14:08:00.005+01:002008-10-21T14:44:05.060+01:00

Last week I innocently wrote about a recipe I had tried out on my TouteFrance blog. However, on Monday morning, I was the subject of a tirade of comments (also known as 'flaming') on my blog from a certain animal society. You can read the blog posts and all the comments here:http://www.toutefrance.co.uk/2008/10/17/french-hare-stew/In the time I've been blogging it's not often I get comments on my

Forty Firsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09791386218553293884noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36339568.post-14010194363350173782008-10-15T08:00:00.001+01:002008-10-15T08:00:01.379+01:00

Today is Blog Action Day 2008 and the topic is Poverty. What this means is that bloggers around the world are blogging about Poverty, what it means, what can be done about it etc, anything relating to poverty to try and collectively help to reduce poverty worldwide - a big undertaking!Living in an affluent country such as the UK, it's easy to forget about the millions of people worldwide living

Forty Firsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09791386218553293884noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36339568.post-8650012444340146582008-10-13T12:46:00.004+01:002008-10-13T14:55:04.468+01:00

It's that time of year when we need to start planning ahead for the coming year, which is going to be upon us before we know it! Planning ahead for 2009 couldn't be more critical in the current economic climate so making sure your business is known via many different channels is key. Reaching people in many different ways is an important part of a marketing mix and these are some of the ways I'm

Forty Firsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09791386218553293884noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36339568.post-36474453418915661202008-09-29T10:33:00.003+01:002008-09-29T10:38:44.229+01:00

27th September saw Google celebrate it's 10th Birthday. If you want to find out how Google has evolved since 1998, visit their 10th birthday microsite, with lots of information all about Google, plus their Project 10 to the 100 encouraging people to submit ideas about how to make the world a better place. They're donating $10 million towards the project.

Forty Firsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09791386218553293884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36339568.post-80450670375091721312008-09-22T15:54:00.003+01:002008-09-22T15:59:26.943+01:00

Search Engine Guide have busily been writing a series of 'Best Damn Web Marketing Checklists' on all sorts of subjects relating to websites and search marketing. They're a great resource for any small business thinking about improving their online presence and website, so if you've some time to spare, check them out.As there are so many lists now, you might want to start with the area that you

Forty Firsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09791386218553293884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36339568.post-3492135491874278492008-09-05T13:39:00.000+01:002008-09-05T13:39:31.277+01:00

BBC NEWS Technology Google looks to the next 10 years - as Google celebrates its 10th birthday, the BBC reports on the future, highs and lows of the past decade.

Forty Firsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09791386218553293884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36339568.post-47135517493075803022008-09-02T15:10:00.000+01:002008-09-02T15:10:08.842+01:00

Official Google Blog: Technologies behind Google ranking - would recommend reading this if you're interested in how Google ranks sites based on how people search. Of course it doesn't reveal their algorithm, they'd never reveal that!

Forty Firsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09791386218553293884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36339568.post-78435801315218161032008-08-27T15:04:00.004+01:002008-08-27T18:06:22.667+01:00

I've just got my broadband back after having been offline for over a week and having to work on dial up - it's not easy trying to run an internet marketing business with dial up!I went away for a week's holiday and came back to find that my ISP had cut off my broadband, for absolutely no reason! I'd just upgraded with them to a business package, so have no idea what they did, they can't find any

Forty Firsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09791386218553293884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36339568.post-87849102454676676282008-08-06T15:33:00.004+01:002008-08-06T15:53:30.935+01:00

Being an internet marketer, I spend quite a lot of time reading blogs and news to keep up with what's going on, this industry changes so fast! However, it's impossible to keep up with every blog and newsletter on the subject so I read a select few. These are the ones I regularly read and have taught me a lot over the years I've been working as an online marketer:1. High Rankings Advisor from Jill

Forty Firsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09791386218553293884noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36339568.post-78233638662606972532008-07-18T15:41:00.003+01:002008-07-18T15:54:32.714+01:00

I recently did a consultation for a website that had found some strange things in their site search on Google (using the site:www.example.co.uk feature). They found that search results from their own site search facility had been cached.This is something relatively new and I expect more and more websites with a search facility will see this happening. Google reported earlier this year that they

Forty Firsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09791386218553293884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36339568.post-71782837296985913162008-07-09T16:32:00.003+01:002008-07-09T17:01:11.351+01:00

It probably comes as no surprise that Google knows an awful lot about you, well perhaps not your inside trouser length, but about your surfing habits, websites you like and even more if you have your own website.Here in the UK, Google dominates the search market with latest stats from Hitwise suggesting that Google has an almost 90% share of the search market. Cleverly, Google have introduced

Forty Firsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09791386218553293884noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36339568.post-10731716797535484792008-06-30T18:34:00.003+01:002008-06-30T18:43:17.482+01:00

Until now, I've not really embraced social media sites much, particularly Facebook, as I haven’t really been able to see what it would do for my business, plus the time factor of participating on these sites, it’s hard enough just keeping my blogs up to date and finding the time to comment on other interesting blogs I read.Anyway, I recently got lured into trying out Twitter, which is a sort of ‘

Forty Firsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09791386218553293884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36339568.post-33794214971376299882008-06-20T18:04:00.002+01:002008-06-20T18:08:45.854+01:00

As you've probably noticed, I've given this blog a bit of a makeover, decided it was time for a jollier template!There's a few to choose from in Blogger, but the process wasn't quite as straightforward as I thought it would be as this template was the one I liked the best (jellyfish), but I found the font sizes were huge. You can edit the stylesheet of the blog, so after a certain amount of

Forty Firsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09791386218553293884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36339568.post-49070949138307742642008-06-19T17:26:00.004+01:002008-12-09T02:56:09.974Z

All of us suffer from the deluge of spam emails that uses up valuable time in going through and deleting them, clogs up our email and is generally a right pain in the a*se! A little while ago, before going on holiday and feeling horrified about the amount of spam I would come back to, I decided that it might be worth re-setting up my email. Until then I had a catch all email set up, so I would

Forty Firsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09791386218553293884noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36339568.post-44683908103285561642008-06-17T14:43:00.003+01:002008-06-17T14:51:31.851+01:00

The new edition of Marketing Karma is now out and this month we look at whether your website is trustworthy to your visitors and what you can do to make sure it is.You may notice on this blog that Blogger has now introduced a proper blogroll, rather than just links to other blogs. I really like this feature as you can import your blog feeds from Google Reader to save you typing them in separately

Forty Firsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09791386218553293884noreply@blogger.com0