Firing a Client

I never thought I'd have to say it but this week we had to fire 2 clients! The reason being that the clients were taking too long to pay, and trying to get us to do work for free. We can be quite generous with our workload and often do a few extra bits as a gesture of good will but these clients were draining and taking valuable time away from the clients who paid on time.

I saw an blog about firing a client and this gave me the added push to do it. I hate to fire clients but in this economy it is better for the business to stick to lovely clients who appreciate the extra effort we go to for them.

Have a look at the article on when to fire a client and ho to do it properly!

SEO Creative Best Month ever

Well SEO Creative was formed in May last year and has had Luke on it full time since September and things have been going well. In October it was going so well that I could leave my job to get better after a Kidney infection.

I joined SEO Creative in December although I did help out a bit before, and this month has been amazing.
January is supposed to be a quiet month but so far I have spent so long doing proposals talking to clients and working on their sites that we are having to work weekends as well as getting more freelancers.

We are really pleased how things are going and hopefully it will continue.
Wich us luck peeps!

The Apple iPad

The Apple iPad was released today and has had more publicity than even they could imagine!
There has always been a cynical love hate battle between Mac users and PC users and the split over the iPad is quite similar.

The choice of name is quite obvious linked to the iPod it is a dissapointing label from such a creative company especially as many have picked up on the reference to sanitary pads and Twitter users have come up with the #itampon, the #iSanitaryPad etc.
This isn't helped by the old funny video showing the iPad 
The PC tablet has been around for years and Apple even had a go themselves a few years back but bever succeeded.The technology and design used in the iPhone has obviously been brought in to the production of the iPad but like the iPhone I can imagine it will be very buggy and replaced in 12 months time with a 2G version.
What this iPad could do is revelutionase the use of e detailing, the pharmaceutical industry have been using PC Tablets for ages for their e detailing aids to show products, use for e learning etc and reps can take these tablets around quite easily.
I hope enough people buy the tablet to reinvest the money Apple will inevitably want before developing a 2G and 3G version that may revolutionise the way we use computers!

Fairy Fun

One of my friends posted this to my facebook page today I thought it was amusing as I am a fairy lover and celebrated hen do by forcing my friends to dress up as fairies.
Thought I'd share it with you guys  :)

Well we've had a great week this week with some exciting new Viral Campaigns coming up this month, I love working on Virals its so much fun but it is hard work getting them to work properly!

I have recently written a blog on the importants of real time analytics in the first days of a viral launch have a look and let me know what you think or if you have anything to add.

I'll be updating this a bit this week as I have 2 Virals, am sorting doing some big PPC builds and Facebook PPC campaigns as well as making sure a few sites go live! January has been a good month our best yet in terms of profit since we started SEO Creative in August (and I joined in November). I am also speaking at a WiRE (Women in Rural Enterprise) event on Tuesday so better have athink about what I'm going to say ha ha.

Bye for Now
SEO Belle x x

Whats going on with Google

In my eyes Google managed to go from hero to zero in less than a day!

Yesterday reports on how Google China reacted to being hacked by showing censored material from its SERPs then offends the English language by reverting to Americanised spelling of British words in the UK SERPs!

China's government is ruled by censorship and although they are trying to give the impression of an evolving modern community, China has to put up with cyber police who ensure any material on censored subjects does not show up.

Apparently Google was hacked into by the Chinese Government, trying to access human rights activists' Gmail accounts and responded by listing material the government had banned in its search engines.

Google China has never had the market share in the Chinese search engines but was still used, apparently by showing such materials Google is risking being banned themselves! I am pleased for Google that they seemed to take a stand against this big brother society (quite ironic due to Google's own dominance in some areas) and also pleased it has drawn attention and awareness to other societies.

Yeah Google!!

Wait, don't get too excited, only hours after these first reports I (and many other Internet explorers) noticed some discrepancies in the Google UK SERPs, if I searched for search engine optimisation I was showed American results for search engine optimization, a small difference in spelling but a big F- You to English language!

This not only degrades our culture but reinforces the opinion of American spelling being the norm whereas in history this is not the case but just colloquial versions of our own standards - Yes I did English A level lol. This is not just Britain but other English speaking countries such as Australia are being pushed into results only relevant to Americans.

This totally contradicts Google's personalised search results and the whole purpose of having geo locations and geo targeting in search engines. Why bother using ip recognition to direct us to correct search engines if you are only going to show us American results any way!? And is this the service you expect to keep a market share in the UK showing irrelevant results to a whole nation!

Having a 70% + Market share is one thing but if you give us random American results then do not expect to keep it! I can see Bing in the corner rubbing their hands saying 'I love it when a plan comes together!'

I hope Google gets this sorted as it is my Search Engine of choice but they have obviously launched new crawlers without testing thoroughly enough in markets other than the US. Simply not good enough!

Perhaps Google china was not a purposeful rebellion against the Chinese government but just standardisation to the good old American way!

Y'all come back now ya hear!!

No sick pay when you work for yourself :(

Working for your self has many perks, I have worked for a few top agencies and by doing that I always put in 100%. I often got burned by employers that didn't appreciate the unpaid overtime I put in but the clients always appreciated it so I didn't stop working this way.

I used to work for a company who were and still are a talented bunch of SEOers, web designers and web developers. And I enjoyed working on the campaigns but unfortunately before I got married I got a Kidney Infection that got quite serious. I couldn't commit to the company as I felt I should and decided to take a career break.

As time went on and my money ran out I had planned to get another job but the infection has proven to be more serious than first thought. I am still having numerous appointments at the doctors therefore could not work at another agency without either compromising my health or not putting the time a company would deserve. I then joined my husband in his venture SEO Creative, helping project manage, look after accounts and do my favourite bits of Internet marketing campaigns. Having the boss as my husband I can choose what is the best use of my time and work how suits me best - even in my PJs sometimes lol :).

However the bad thing about working for yourself is no sick pay, with my Kidney infection I am in pain but I can control that and still work well. I can make up time if I need to go to a hospital appointment and the overtime I do doesn't matter as I get out what I put in. It is also much better as at home I can drink a lot of water and this helps me whereas I wouldn't in a company.

Today however I have flu :(

This is when I could do with having a generous company allow me a few days sick to recover, I am drinking lemsip out of a MyMadEx mug and trying to focus on getting the accounts in order before my meeting with the accountant.

Just goes to show you there are pros and cons to every situation. Right I am off to make some chicken soup.

SEO Creative

WE are working on the seo creative site, and it is in a lot of need, the site we have up was put up in a week as we needed something up when the business first started (who wants a web design and SEO company that don't have a website)!
Its been live about 5 months now and we didn't have the chance to do much on page SEO, quite embarrasing really but client work comes first.
We are going through the site and optimising the pages based on a keyword map we have only just put together ha ha! We are also adding new pages on the services we offer and elaborating a little more about what we do.
We meant to do all of this over Christmas but ended up getting ahead on a client job but hopefully the new site will be live soon and we can practice what we preach!

An SEO Grrrrl!

I am an SEO fanatic who spends too much time online, I have a company called Media Pro where we have various products services and a network of sites. The main site is on SEO and Website Design this is for anyone who needs Internet Marketing for their business. We also have review sites, fun sites, wedding advice sites, and a Boxing Website all of which trade under the Media Pro Umbrella.
Well... that is me but this blog is purely for fun!
Keep updated on my life and the funny things I find online!!