Website Stats And SEO

Having created my website over three years ago, I've been carefully watching the stats of how many people visit my site, where they come from and which pages are of most interest and of course I want people to go away having either registered for my newsletter or to have downloaded some of my resources. If someone contacts me for a coaching enquiry that's a bonus.

Today I hit a new high for unique visitors to my site. It's gradually been increasing over the last few months and has certainly doubled from the visits I was getting last year. I'm no SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) expert but I have a vast resource of tips and information available to me through my Ecademy network and I've picked up on a few ideas that I've applied to my site. Particularly around the area of keywords. SEO can be a bit of a black art with thousands of pounds being spent on getting company sites to No. 1 on Google with various guarantees for positioning. All it takes is one wrong move or a change to the algorithm and you're off the radar. It's not necessarily the number of visitors or the number of links to your site - it's about what happens when people get there. Are you converting those hits to business?

I'm happy to take advice but I'm not about to change the whole look and feel of my site just to please the search engines. It's generally agreed that a user friendly, readable website geared for the human visitor not the robots and spiders is more likely to achieve it's aim, at least for the genuine visitor. I'll keep tweaking and changing, adding and modifying to see what effect it has and keep those stats rising.

As the Tipping Point mentions, it only takes a small, simple change to result in a big difference.

You can do this in many areas of your business, especially the marketing. If the message doesn't get across the first time, try something else. Do some research within your target group. Make sure you can measure your effort in some way so you can see what works and what doesn't.


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Breakfast With A Difference

I've got out of the habit of going to breakfast networking meetings. Like many others, I find the regimented structure of BNI meetings and their pressure on referrals too much and not in line with the way I work.

I happily give referrals to and from my network but I do it in a much more natural way. If people want an accountant or book-keeper then I can happily recommend two or three to them. That way they can chose one that suits them.

However, the Brighton Chamber of Commerce has recently started holding regular breakfast meetings and I'd heard good things about them from the last chamber meeting I went to, so I thought it was about time I made a visit. They take place at Carluccio's one of the many new eaters that have opened up around the new Library in the town centre (sorry city centre). It's certainly a step up from the usual cooked breakfast that gets presented along with a tepid cup of coffee at the usual hotel venues. Freshly squeezed orange juice and a selection of danish and croissants to start us off, while people stand around and catch up with old contacts and meet new members.

The coffee was thick enough to stand your spoon up in and strong enough to strip paint and ensure I'd be awake for the rest of the day. Good, proper, Italian coffee. After we'd all got settled at tables there was then a steady stream of breakfast plates that came out and more coffee (or tea) if you wanted it. Decently cooked, scrambled egg or a slice of toasted bread, mushrooms - not the usual wet soggy mass and tomato. Slow to appear but worth the wait. The only downside was that the venue was so noisy you actually had difficult holding a conversation with the person sat next to you. There was a short presentation from one of the Chamber members and now that O2 are sponsoring the events, one lucky member went away with a new mobile phone. She did have the largest business card of all of us, so that could be a good trick for next time.

Definitely worth a visit and at least you don't have to get up every week if you want to attend.

Get Up An Hour Earlier

I'm not suggesting this if you already get up before the birds or before the sun has risen over the horizon or you're naturally an early riser or prefer to be a night owl but if you're wondering how you can get more time in your day (especially if you want some 'me' time or time to exercise), get up an hour earlier.

What time do you usually wake up, do you roll-over and doze for a while or lie in bed reading until you feel ready to get up? If you work for yourself perhaps you feel you can start your working day when you want.

Most of the time I'm not an early bird and prefer to get up at a leisurely pace - usually checking emails while I have breakfast. However, on those occasions when I do get up early, I find I get a whole lot more done. When I was going to breakfast networking meetings, starting off at 7.00am, I'd get home around 9.00am having already felt like I'd done a day's work and I'd still have the whole morning ahead of me.

Now I've started getting up an hour earlier, which gives me the time to either clear the morning's emails, so that I can get on with work at my usual time or I get out for a run, have breakfast and a shower in that extra hour. Making it easier to fit exercise into my day.

You could use this extra time to have some quiet time on your own - shift your working day, so you spend the extra time with the children, organising your admin, filing, housework, getting out into the garden.

How could you use this extra time?

Working At The Weekend

Why do we do it? Because we can.

I'm not saying that we should but if you run your own business then you are in a better position to choose when to work than people who work for someone else. Obviously, if you have families - you're more likely NOT to be working at weekends and stick to a more traditional working week (or are you?)

I'm working this weekend - catching up on things I missed or wasn't able to do because my broadband was out all week. That said, I quite often seem to do some work at weekends. Most of my weekend work revolves around reading emails, planning and writing, updating my blogs - more of the fun stuff.

What better way to have work life balance than to spread your working hours throughout the week including the weekend? Weekends are a good time to catch-up or get things done depending how I've spent my week. I'd rather do my shopping in the week than on a Saturday morning along with everyone else, who 'has' to do it then. I do the gardening when the weather is fine - more often during the week. I arrange to meet up with friends for coffee/lunch to coincide with client meetings during the week. I can do non-time limited work in the evening and weekends. I also volunteer on a couple of days a month, which I can also do during the week.

It does depend on your reason for working weekends. If it's because you have to - in order to get all your work done because there just isn't enough time in the week, then you need to look at improving your planning and prioritising what you do.

Don't spend too long working and if you're seeing it as a problem, then it probably is. That's when you need to do something about it.

I'm off out into the garden again ...

At Last!

... back in the land of the living, or at least back online. I've been without an Internet connection since Tuesday morning when I was switched over to my new ISP, no warning and no indication of the new connection info I'd need as and when it did get connected.

I resorted to the local library on Tuesday afternoon just to check email (useful free service) and managed to check emails yesterday at the Money Marketing Live Event up in London. Finally this morning, after a lengthy call with my new ISPs Support Line (why do they always charge extortionate amounts for this), I was able to establish some sort of connection through a modem. Still can't get my wireless router working.

So, I'm back. I've missed whiling away the hours browsing through blogs but it has at least meant that I've been less distracted by email and the internet and been able to get on with other things! Unfortunately, all those website and blog updates I was going to do this week will now need to be done over the weekend.

Fortunately, my business isn't too email critical although I do like to respond to emails the same day and I've not been able to do that. I certainly haven't missed all the spam though.

So, if you want to get more done - get rid of your internet connection (at least temporarily).

Money Marketing Live 2007 - Olympia

More fun that I thought possible.

Not only did I get a chance to meet up and chat to a few people from my Ecademy network but I got an even better understanding of what IFAs have to face with recent changes and review of their industry. The challenges of running a successful business while dealing with compliance, certification and clients.

I sat in on the IFA Business Model Panel Debate and David Scarlett's presentation. Both really useful in understanding the challenges to IFAs and their business. It was also useful to talk to some of the many providers exhibiting at the event and understand what they have to offer to IFAs, and more importantly ... what they don't offer in terms of business support and personal development

A very worthwhile day out.

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