LickOfPaint

How would you suggest the visitor journey be made 'better' ? On a related note, I've just seen that the http://www.activitysuperstore.com/Weekend-Gift-Breaks/ page (which gets a high number of visits) is trying to refer people to their Sister company. Need to analyse this in Google Analytics to see if they're better selling their weekend breaks on their own site and letting the Sister site just do its own thing...

Blogging isn't very profitable when it comes to time invested anyway. So paying someone to blog for you is even less profitable. I used to have this amazing blog that got around 3,000 visitors a day. I gave it up in the end, because it simply couldn't generate enough money to make it worth while. But you may be writing about... I dunno, high end gadgets or hi fi and getting good Google rankings and converting traffic to make it all worth while. Please tell us some more, because I'm curious to see if you can make half decent money from blogging.

Hi guys, I've spotted a rare opportunity for targeting some keywords around weekend breaks. The only problem is that I don't know anything about creating a booking system that integrates with various hotels around the country - or how that stuff even works on a basic level. Is there an affiliate scheme with plugins that already lets you do this, or would I have to develop a bespoke hotel booking website? For example: http://www.canopyandstars.co.uk/find-a-place#displ...ypeid=roadmap&zoom=4 This kind of site.

Hi guys, Check out this gift experience site I have to redesign the home page of... http://www.activitysuperstore.com/ You know what to do! Criticise it to death and let me know what needs changing As you can see, it's very cluttered right now and all the stuff below the fold doesn't get any clicks whatsoever according to Google On Page Analytics. As always, I like to get feedback from you guys to help me leverage changes I propose with my clients. It seems to speed up the process and minimise resistance like you wouldn't believe!

100% (Not Provided) in Google Analytics is the big news right now.

Just make sure your site is on a Wordpress platform for maximum Google love

Agree with Jason. Everyone and their dog says they're good at SEO these days. And everyone offers the same kind of package deals. So you need case studies of previous clients/projects to demonstrate what you can actually do, otherwise it's really tough to market yourself VS Indian SEO companies who are always much cheaper. I stuck with copywriting for my income, because marketing my SEO experience was too hard. I now offer SEO as more of an upsell.

Yeah, "worthy content". This seems to be the big challenge for so many. The problem I found when writing for various clients is that they want an ROI on everything - including blog posts. You can't just do something because it's nice and because people will like it. There's a price tag attached to everything and they want to know the ROI. And if there isn't one, the work doesn't get approved

4li4s - as you were saying, it's not always so easy to just walk away from your problems. I've had some terrible, soul destroying jobs over the past couple of years (I do freelancing in the side for extra cash) One agency I worked at had me working 11 hour days. I ended up handing in my notice (with no other job lined up) and being signed off by the doc for 2 weeks with stress. Another place I worked for, I handed in my notice after 2 weeks - it was that bad! But, while both were horrible ordeals, they taught me invaluable life lessons. What doesn't kill you makes your stronger (/stranger)

I haven't seen anything amazing from Google Plus on its own. But like a lot of things, everything helps in small amounts. Google Plus could be a grower, so it doesn't hurt to set it up and start spamming some related G+ communities with your good content.

EMD (exact match domain) all the way! Google ranks them really well. That's why people call their brand name after a popular/ish search term. For example, CheapWebDesign.co.uk Sure, it's lazy as hell, but it works.

Thanks for all the feedback guys. Totally agree with what you're saying. It's busy/messy and not particularly user friendly. Once the site is moved over to Drupal, it will have a better search box. Agree that job detail pages would be better. These are pages that are yet to be filled with content. The site has been around for a while and just left to rot in cyberspace. So it needs a lot of love (hard love!) to make it a proper resource like it's intended to be. Better content, design, usability, you name it. At least no one has said that they hate the guy with spiky hair ...yet I'll keep you guys posted on changes...

Be Awesome That's the best advice anyone can give. But basically it means that you need to have a great site, great content, be integrated with social media and do amazing and interesting things that your competitors don't. Live and breathe what you're doing. Building a bog standard website designed to rank in Google and then rot in cyberspace isn't going to cut it in the long term. You can do so much better if you're active in communities online and keep promoting it with clever marketing. Traditional marketing is still the essence of good business, not just good websites.

Hi guys, could you review this site I'm revitalizing? http://www.webdeveloperjobs.co.uk/ Also, could you read the articles and see what you think? I'm not a great web developer, so I might have missed some things. Thanks for your feedback

The first thing I did was click on VIEW WORK...and it didn't go anywhere. Good call to action though

Like this Sometimes your services simply evolve to meet the needs of your clients. This is a good thing - especially if it's bringing more business your way. So you're doing something right, and I'm sure it wouldn't hurt to slightly tweak the name of your company. You could probably use the news of your company name changing to reach out to contacts you haven't spoken to for a while.

Optimisation followed by building links - lots of links! A website isn't going to rank itself otherwise. As for focussing on local search or general search, it depends on what the business is about. I mean, if it's a garden centre in Bedfordshire that doesn't take online orders, then they have a county sized catch net for example. Local search can be miniscule depending on your niche and area.

SEO is not my area of expertise, but it doesn't stop clients calling me up in a panic when their rankings have dropped! What I'm seeing right now is that websites with a very high number of directory links seem to be ranking really well. No other real explanation for it. Just wondering if anyone else is seeing this in their niche?

A client has asked for me to make them a contractor calculator here Problem is that they've asked me to make it better. Yeah, that's all I've got to go on. Looking for feedback on how I could make it a bit more engaging/sexy? PS: I've already told them to get rid of all the promotional blurb at the top of the page... Any help appreciated

More proof that the current online advertising business models needs drastic change. One of my clients generates most of their income by selling advertising slots, then they bid on Google AdWords like crazy to get traffic and charge based on page impressions. I'm amazed anyone advertises on their site...but then again, they can't see the Google Analytics for the real website stats.

Thanks, I'll chuck him a PM!

Sorry to hear that. Best of luck in your search.

Hi all, I'm finally looking to get onto the property ladder in a couple of years, but I'm planning to be self employed by that point, so I've been looking into contractor mortgages. If anybody could offer me advice on the best route to take I'd appreciate it. I am looking for a flat in the region of 140,000 with a deposit of 10% and might be able to stretch it to 15%. I've been looking at a number of options for first time buyers, so far this one seems to appeal the most: Contractor Mortgages Made Easy have annualised my rate and got me a mortgage approved in principle over a year ago but at a very high rate - 5.65 for a 10% Has anybody tried this route or found a better route? Thanks

I always had a better time with them though, probably because the file sizes are so much smaller.

lol, nice work.