Increase web traffic with Traffic Travis
Traffic Travis brings order back to chaos
Search engine optimisation has gone through many changes over the last few years and the rules are ever changing…
This has been mainly instigated by GOOGLE, initially seen by some as unfair practice and having a monopoly on search engine tactics, it does however look like that GOOGLE are trying to level the playing field in so much as bringing to a halt the systematic abuse employed by many SEO practitioners.
Traffic Travis seem to be floating above the warzone and since coming onto the scene has now been viewed as the most trusted Search Engine Optimisation tool in the market and is bringing some order back to the chaos, by focusing the web designer / seo contractor to the task at hand and the ultimate goal, to get that page ranked at that sweet number one spot !
How did I find Traffic Travis?
This might seem a stupid question at first, however when I first decided to go self employed and start my website design and marketing business, it didn’t really occur to me to get involved with Search Engine Optimisation, I thought that part was best left to established professionals that have been doing this since the beginning of time.
At around about this time I became involved with a number of groups on Linked In and started reading intently all about the problems some of the group members were having getting their websites ranked on Google. (Notice here that nobody seems to care about Bing and Yahoo).I got the impression that some wanted to do it all themselves, but had no clue on where to start.
What then happened was the barrage of replies and comments from obvious SEO companies pitching their skills and price models. Apart from getting backs up and some people running a mile, all this did for me was to confirm that this was indeed a skill I needed to learn. Traffic Travis was mentioned by one of the bystanders hoping to quell the onslaught of pitching and I am not sure that anybody picked up on it.
What I did later that evening was embark on a search myself for “Free SEO Software”. This in itself is fraught with problems not only because there is no such thing as a free lunch, but I envisaged myself having to rid my PC of a ton of malware if I chose the wrong link offering free tools and taking over my machine with adware and viruses and ultimately a software product which in the end would cost me dearly on all fronts. When I did a Google search for Free SEO software, Traffic Travis came up top of the list, however before I hit the link, I went further to look into the reputation of the people behind this so called freebie.
To say the least, reviews were raving about Traffic Travis in a way that I thought was too good to be true, a further check on Youtube confirmed to me indeed that it was worth trying.
I downloaded the software which indeed was quick and painless, I was sent a registration key which when input immediately completed the process enabling me to get on with testing out the subject of my quest.
How did Traffic Travis improve my search rankings?
After much reading and research on the subject of SEO, I became familiar with many of the rules behind how to structure pages utilising keywords and how to make the most of position and placement of H1 and H2 tags, as well as keyword density and relevance, but this is just touching the surface. What I really needed was a tool that not only gave me simple guidelines in gaining a good page rank but empowering me to take control of my destiny immediately by giving me fast results and concentrate on creating good copy without the worry of having to go back and restructure the whole page or post time and time again.
Within a short space of time, Traffic Travis offered me a list of options of keywords to use in my copy that had less competition and more relevance to my chosen subjects. By using the options given to me, I was quickly finding my websites and pages ranking on page one very soon. his software has enabled me not only to take control over my own search rank for my own site, but those of my customers as well. I have added SEO to my portfolio of services and this is mainly thanks to Traffic Travis in providing a fool proof easy to use way in enhancing what I do every day.
Conflict in the workplace and how to manage it
When conflict in the workplace can build up…
We seem to spend more and more time in the workplace away from our families and social life to an extent where pressure and anxiety soon build up sometimes resulting in many changes in the behaviour of the very people we depend on to keep our businesses going.
Choosing to deal with potential situations proactively rather than re actively might be a good option, however some organisational infrastructures or simply put lack of man power may not allow for that, so what is the answer?
Conflicts within the workplace can be detrimental to your company morale and business goals. Having the skills to resolve internal issues effectively is one of the biggest challenges in today’s business world. Having training courses in conflict management provide you with practical strategies to address conflict management resolution. It also gives you conflict resolution skills to resolve interpersonal conflicts in the workplace, and help you change attitudes and challenging behaviours so you can reduce conflicts altogether.
Leading practitioners in this field PSET UK Ltd can help you today, contact them now to book a bespoke training course to fit your needs, these are the courses available:
- Introduction to Personal Safety (short course)
- Personal Safety – Intermediate Level
- Managing challenging behaviour in the Work Place
- Personal Safety Training – Police Officers & Staff (Restricted to authorised persons only)
- Physical Intervention Training
- Physical Intervention Training – Instructor Course (Group bookings)
- Restraint Techniques – Physical and Mechanical
Increasing your workflow and your business
How increasing your workflow and your business is essential…
As a business owner, managing your financial affairs involves a lengthy process which starts from billing clients all the way to submitting your returns which can be a time consuming affair keeping you from the task of increasing your workflow and your business. So choosing the right book keeper for your business is vital and more importantly finding the right company that uses the latest technology who knows how to operate in the 21st Century is more important than ever to help you stay in profit.
What is book keeping and what does a book keeper do ?
Bookkeeping is performed by a bookkeeper and is the recording of financial transactions such as sales, purchases, receipts and payments.
An accountant uses the financial transactions recorded by a bookkeeper to prepare financial reports such as year end financial statements, cash flows, budgets and business plans.
Most book keeping today is computerised using applications such as excel, accounting software and online web-based book keeping software.
So who are the innovators out there?
Cloud book keeping was launched by Mandy Bagot, a chartered certified accountant, to revolutionise outsourced bookkeeping, using the latest cloud technology with online Sage Line 50 software, so that the most up to date data information can be accessed by the business owner, the bookkeeper and the accountant, all at the same time if needed!
With the ever expanding home working industry, Cloud bookkeeping aim to have a nationwide team of home based bookkeepers, all trained to follow the PRISM process ™ for bookkeepers. Mandy used her 28 years experience setting up bookkeeping systems for many small business owners and their accountants, to create the PRISM process ™, a series of workflow templates and checklists to ensure quality control for home based book keepers, from the moment they collect the papers from a business owner, to the way they file the paperwork and generate the reports, right up to the year end pack they deliver to the accountant.
Cloud Bookkeepers pride themselves on knowing what accountants expect from a bookkeeper and aim to deliver this and more!
Note: Some of the content above is taken from the original website: http://www.cloudbookkeeping.co.uk/
Complaints and how to handle them
Here is a guest blog I wrote for Copy Writing Apprentice.
The Copywriting Apprentice is a comprehensive copywriting course for everyone considering a career as a copywriter.
The link below is a link to the article- I have not entered the same article on my website for ethical reasons.
Yahoo Vs Google
Yahoo vs Google, is the new tech war about to begin?
Former GOOGLE Chief Marissa Mayer in an attempt to encourage closer collaboration has now proposed all remote workers to relocate to their nearest Yahoo office by the end of June 2013 or quit.
The memo from human resources chief Jackie Reses – but driven by Mayer – says that “to become the absolute best place to work, communication and collaboration will be important, so we need to be working side-by-side. That is why it is critical that we are all present in our offices.”
Could this be the beginning of a serious attempt to regain some market positioning over GOOGLE?
It’s been a long time in the arrival where an organisation who has the backing, energy and dare I say “minerals” to go after google’s stake in the search engine arena, especially when Google now have what could be considered a monopoly. Google has even become a household name and when people mean to say go and search for something on the web…they are now saying “Google it”.
So when will this long awaited event come into being? Nobody knows for sure whats cooking in the YAHOO camp, but what we can reveal is that Ms Mayer hopefully is cooking up something to sway the balance and become a serious contender in the biggest gladiator arena of the 21st Century…more on this later on the year…
Social Media and the Law
Is there really such thing as free speech in the UK these days as far as Twitter and facebook is concerned? Or in any Social Media outlet for that matter?
A lot of people are under the impression that whilst hiding in numbers they are safe to post defamatory comments about high profile people and are now coming unstuck.
A tweet is potentially libelous if it damages someone’s reputation ‘in the estimate of right thinking members of society
Back in March 2012 a student who made racially offensive remarks about footballer Fabrice Muamba on Twitter was jailed for 56 days – one of a growing number of cases where a comment made on social media has landed someone before the court.
Lawyers say there are several pieces of UK legislation that can be used to prosecute someone who has used social media to express their views online.
At around the same time last year law student Joshua Cryer, 21, admitted to bombarding former footballer Stan Collymore with a series of racist tweets in an attempt to provoke a reaction. He was charged under section 127 of the Communications Act with sending grossly offensive messages and given a two-year community order.
Most recently, people who tweeted and posted on facebook photos allegedly of child killer Jon Venables are being charged with contempt of court. It’s the latest in a long line of cases that suggest that ordinary social media users should read up on Social Media Law.
More cases are appearing in recent times and the most memorable is the Lord McAlpine issue where he was falsely accused by many tweeters of being involved in a child sex scandal. After the case was dismissed, Lord McAlpine dropped the legal action against Twitter users with less than 500 followers and instructed his lawyers to concentrate their efforts on seeking £50,000 in damages from Mrs Bercow, in what is expected to be the first High Court Twitter libel trial.
Journalists from traditional media are sent on courses covering what can and cannot be said on a social forum and cases of litigation prove that the public at large need to stop and think before they push the send button.
Lastly, a point often missed by most people are the laws covering the use of social media outlets in the workplace. Many companies recently over the last two years have undertaken a blanket approach that inhibits workers to use social media at work for fear that working time is taken up engaging in idle gossip and catching up with friends. Where perhaps knowingly or not your employers could really be protecting their reputation by preventing access in the first place.
Is it time to use your local butcher ?
Given the amount of press and media exposure about what we are finding in economy brands of meat products, might well be making us ask the question, “Should we be using the local butcher more”?
Apparently 76% of us buy and eat ready meals on a regular basis. We all lead busy lives and demand more quality time with our families but at what cost?
FINDUS, a well known brand in the high street shops, provide ready meals and other frozen produce, has admitted using up to 100% horse meat in their products. This in itself is fine if they were to inform us…giving us the choice to buy or not. But there is a question behind recent findings that horses are more likely to contain vetinary drugs that may incorporate drugs which cause cancer and cause other side effects.
Enough reason I hear you say to start using our local butchers who know what goes into the meat we are buying.
Lingers Butchers
Wordfence Website Security for wordpress
Wordfence Website Security
When you have a WordPress site built by PKM | Marketing Dragon, you can be assured that if it’s a membership type site, Security will be added by default, typically with wordfence.
From my own personal experience from creating membership sites, it’s an unfortunate reality that it will come under scrutiny from both human and non human entities.
It has become a bit of a learning curve over the last year on finding the right security plugin to meet the requirements of each site, but over the last 6 months one of my sites has been hit by increased levels of bot search activity from China and the Russian Federation. Simply increasing the security of certain sites has stopped hacking attempts.
The best plugin which has proved itself as the most robust and reliable is WORDFENCE. This plugin allows you to view by IP address each and every visit to your site and block anyone that potentially could be a threat. The good part is that you can’t accidentally block your own IP address. Highly recommended!
Iphone or Android Apps developer?
Iphone and Android Apps developers call to action
Are you finding that there are not enough hours in a day? Finding that you are spending Sunday’s catching up with news and events to keep yourself plugged into whats happening?
Well if you are an Android or Iphone apps developer, I have a job for you! I think there is definitely a market for an app that will find all the articles of interest that get published throughout the week and have them compiled nice and in order for reading when you have a moment of down time. Or if your like me, when your sitting on the toilet!!…Not a good image is it?
It is a well known fact that Sunday is becoming another business day, not only because we live in a very diverse community who know nothing of the old days of Sunday trading but with E-Business nowadays there is little choice if we want to keep up with whats new and who is saying what. Linked In, Facebook and Twitter communities are a buzz on a Sunday and is now potentially the busiest days for social marketing and networking.
However if like me, your Sunday is precious but know we all have to stay up to date with whats happening out there, Somebody might consider designing an APP to collect all the articles and news based on your chosen keywords and send them all to an easy reader application for your chosen mobile device. So when you want to grab five minutes to catch up, you can do it in a focused and organised way without wading through tons of rubbish…how about it ???
Incidentally, If you do take this idea..I wouldn’t mind a piece of the action 
Let me know..
Feel free to comment on this below!
Getting value for money from your website designer
Essential tips to getting value for money from your website designer
Sometimes, I am surprised when I go digging around some of my followers websites to find that the most obvious things are missing that I feel are quite crucial to the success of a website and the customers business as a whole.
I know we live in a society of “You get what you pay for”, however these obvious missing items cost nothing in time for the designer to add, but they certainly increase the value to the end customer and actually should be part of any “Basic” package.
By default I routinely put GOOGLE analytics on all websites, purely to measure the amount of visitors to my sites. Otherwise how else am I going to know that my articles and content are being read? And more Importantly, from this I can understand what changes I need to make to keep and increase my audience.
There are a lot of website owners out there living in ignorant bliss that their investment once created and paid for is being viewed by the whole world and for all to see. The sad reality is, unless a number of things are included on the website, not many people will see it and appreciate your valuable content.
Here is a basic list of what your website designer should be including to help you engage with your customers, retain visitors for longer and most importantly improve your search rank ratings with GOOGLE, YAHOO, BING and all the other search engines out there too.
- A basic set of common sense keywords that relate to your business or content- no more than 20-25 keywords.
- A decent meta description of what your website is about (This, like the keywords will be hidden amongst the HTML code within the website page).
- Descriptive ALT tags for your pictures so that search engines can see that the images description match the content.
- The ability to embed Video or other rich content. People like to read but sometimes video or pictures can paint a thousand words, consider having a tuition or a self help guide on a YOUTUBE video if its relevant to your site.
- Make sure the content is relevant to the subject and shows knowledge of the subject. The owner of the site is the most responsible for the content as its about their chosen subject after all. Its no good letting the web designer go off and put a load of nonsense up because they don’t know your chosen subject- work with the designer on this, because the designer needs to optimise the content for search engines.
- Keep it fresh. Most websites get ignored if they are left to sit and gather dust, make sure you are always adding good quality content to be added either a few times weekly if possible.
This should do for starters and help you with choosing your web designer- look for their portfolio and check that they offer the basic but essential little extras that make you stand out from the crowd in your chosen field.