Feb/070
Website Optimisation (specifics)
1. Page titles
A vital key to search engine ranking are well written page title tags. The tags must contain a good keyword density for targeted phrases and accurately represent what is to be found on that page. Page titles should be unique for each page.
2.Navigation
There must be clear navigational paths for spiders to follow through the whole site. These paths must use plain, well written HTML as opposed to javascript or flash (which is invisible to spiders). This is achieved with footer navigation link blocks and other similar methods.
3. On page Optimisation
Every page needs to have a good amount of targeted keywords on it. HTML images need to have well written alt tags. HTML formatting needs to be made as clean as possible. And most importantly, the page’s content must be analyzed for correct keyword density and other factors.
4. New content creation
An important factor in good SEO is well written copy, ideally with fresh content being added all the time so that when search engines crawl the website it appears fresh, updated and vibrant. Depending on the existing site content we would consider such additions as blogs, auto-updating news feed content and language translation to increase the website’s visibility. Some of these additions may incur extra costs to the client, so at this stage, we are only recommending these options.
Feb/070
Needing a nap
I went out guided-skiing in Courmayeur with the posh chalet boys again yesterday. We spent the whole day hooning around in the deep powder & sunshine. Loads of forest descents, snow filled gullies and couloirs, and jumping around like goons. The others are pretty gnarly skiers and the stuff we were doing yesterday was right on the limit of my ability and probably the most intense day of skiing I’ve ever had.
Digging yourself out of waist deep powder is hard work and I was falling a lot, so was properly exhausted by the time I was back in Chamonix.
So getting up at 8am and getting into my ski stuff again to be at Flegere for the seasonaire training session was a bit hard. Not to mention the 3 hour lesson that followed in quite deep, sticky powder in snowy conditions. However – I did learn to do a 180 jump on the piste – landing backwards and skiing off, so am quite chuffed about that.
Anyhoo – judging the fat that I’m in dire need of a nap this afternoon, not to mention the state of my left leg, I should probably take it a bit easier for a day or two.
Feb/070
Buckets and buckets and buckets
It’s been snowing here for a few days and according to the forecast there’s another week of dumping snow to come. I went up for a quick ski with Sarah in Les Houches and there was just TONS of fresh snow – the kind where you cut through the trees and it’s up to your thighs.
So maybe this heralds the start of a much better second half to the season? I hope so. It’s funny – pistehors.com published a post all about how winter was cancelled & it had been the hottest year on record etc etc. Then half an hour later there was another post about the fact that the avalanche risk in the Haute Alps is now off the charts since the new snow. It can all change so quickly in the mountains.
Anyhoo – I’m off skiing with the top-end-chalet boys & their guide again tomorrow & have a feeling it could well be the best days skiing ever.
Feb/070
Phase 1 : Website Optimisation
Some changes are going to be needed to any website starting the SEO process. Websites are crawled by search engines on a regular basis once they are included in the engine’s index and there are many basic ways to make a website as attractive as possible.
To do this we have to consider how a website looks to the spider robots used by the search engines and adapt the website to help it as much as possible. There follows a short, but not exhaustive list of the things we will look for and change on a website as part of this step.
Feb/070
Job Reality
OK, so maybe I did go skiing a few times this week, but I’ve also been doing a lot of work. My ‘get some flippin’ work in campaign has borne fruit. I’m waiting to hear from a few bigger jobs that would really sort things out, but in the meantime I’ve got a lot of design work on and I’ve been doing lots of that.
I’m not really much good as a designer to be honest. It takes me a while, and never having been trained to follow the basic design rules, it’s a bit of trial and error to get something like a logo looking good. Generally speaking, if something comes out looking good, then it’s a bit of a happy accident.
It’s good to get back into doing some client work, though. Having to hit deadlines and briefs etc. It’s not exactly fun, but it’s definitely good for me. And if I can bring one of these larger jobs in over the next couple of weeks, then I can hit the ground running with it.
Feb/071
Accidental purchases
Sometimes I think it’s just too easy to buy stuff on the internet these days. I managed to accidentally buy a new camera yesterday.
I’d been shopping for a new camera before Christmas and fount the one I wanted on Amazon, a Fujifilm Finepix S5200. I decided not to buy it at the time and wait till I was feeling a little more flush and then kind of forgot about it.
So then I had to buy a book yesterday. I wasn’t concentrating, and using amazon.fr (which is obviously in French). I just searched for the book, clicked ‘buy’ and kept on hitting ‘ok’ until I got through the checkout process – I didn’t even need to put my credit card details in because they were saved from last time.
It wasn’t until I got the confirmation email a bit later on that I realised that the camera I’d looked at before Christmas was still in the basket and I’d just bought it for EUR 220. I really didn’t mean to do that. It was my French credit card linked to my French account too, and that doesn’t have much money in it right now. I even got a phone call from my lovely bank manager Beatrice to tell me off for going over my overdraft limit.
Still. What's done is done & it is a nice camera. I’m looking forward to using it. I take a lot of photos, but always with crappy cameras. I wonder how a decent camera will affect my photography.
Feb/070
Advertising Revenue
Advertising Revenue - Making Money With Adsense
Advertising revenue and Google Adsense go hand-in-hand.
The Internet has regained a lot of credibility since its fall from grace at the end of the 90’s.
This means more businesses are spending more money to get customers via the Internet. And it’s possible for you to cash in on those millions of dollars.
Google has an advertising program, involving four parties:
1.Google
2.Customers paying for the ads – through the Adwords program
3.Visitors clicking on the ads – on search engine results pages and websites
4.Website owners running the ads on their websites – through the Adsense program. These are the people making money from ad revenue.
For an example, look no further than the page you are on at the moment. Notice down the right hand side of the page and also in the top left of this article there are groups of ‘Ads by Google’ (if can’t see them its because either you are not in the US or not reading this article on my website).
Google has developed technology that automatically senses what the theme of the page is and then displays ads that are suited to the theme. This way the visitor will see advertisements likely to be of interest.
The Adwords customer (the advertiser trying to sell a product or service etc using these ads) is billed every time a visitor clicks. The amount depends on the cost of the ad, which is basically determined by advertising demand.
Revenue from that billing is split between Google and the owner of the website where the visitor clicked. If the ad costs the advertiser 50 cents per click, Google gets 25 cents and the website owner running the ads gets 25 cents.
If you were to click one of the Adsense ads you see on this page I’d get 50%.
Google Adsense is not the only program you can use to place ads on your site. Companies like Searchfeed offer similar programs but Adsense is where the money is.
There are a few key elements to successfully earning revenue from Google Adsense:
•Create website pages to rank well in the search engines. No visitors =no clicks=no revenue
•Strategically position your Adsense ads to attract the most clicks.
•Target keywords that have a high click price, thereby earning more per click.
•Make sure the words you target have enough searches per month to be worth the effort of creating a webpage.
•Make your site a valuable resource so visitors return.
Some more advanced strategies include:
•Create a valuable newsletter that visitors want to receive. Publish each issue on a webpage with Adsense and notify subscribers by mail with a link to the page (this method also minimizes risk of your email being filtered).
•Target less competitive keywords for your search engine rankings but direct the traffic (legitimately) to pages with more competitive keywords because the Adsense ads will pay more per click.
•When choosing Adsense ad design (you can choose color and format) avoid designs that are obviously ads. The less they look like ads the better.
I recently read a book about Adsense, written by a guy called Joel Comm, that has increased my revenue by 34%. I’ve heard from many other marketers with similar stories.
Through testing and tracking he was able to increase his earnings from $30 per day to $500 per day. His Adsense revenue for January 2005 was $17,463.75!!
Feb/071
First proper Ski-Tour
My mate Andy McCrampons and 5 of his buddies have been making it a habit this season to hire a guide every Tuesday and go out t find the best snow that the valley can offer that day.
One of the lads couldn’t make it today, so I filled the space and went on my first big Ski Tour. I’ve been ready for this for ages, and just waiting for the right opportunity.
So 8:30 am we’re in Flegere car park, and half an hour later we’re at the top of the highest lift in the flegere ski area where we put the skins on the skis and started the first climb to the top of a very steep pass before dropping over the other side of the col to an area of the Aiguilles Rouges I’ve never seen before.
We skied into the bowl and through to the second climb, which was much longer – maybe 2 hours of slogging up hill on skis with a fairly hefty amount of equipment on our backs. I was struggling by this point. Ski touring has got to be the most brutal fitness of a sport I’ve ever done. I was sweating like a cornered virgin by the time I’d got half way.
After stopping for lunch for 20 mins in the most beautiful spot you can imagine we climbed the last pitch on foot through this tiny rock window and looked down the valley at a perfect, steep powder field. There were tracks, but plenty of room for fresh ones.
The decent is what ski touring is all about. Getting out into areas of the mountain where the lifts don’t reach gives you access to amazing off-piste descents in the back country. The slog up the hill is hard, but the decent is worth every calorie burned.
We skied down to Vallorcine. Probably about 10km. The first, steep part was amazing with steep powder loveliness all the way. The exit of from the valley was hairy at times too – crossing rivers on skis, branches all other the place and a little track through the terrain that was so narrow you couldn’t even snowplough. It was like a toboggan run really – just careering down it waiting to crash.
Then from Vallorcine, we had a quick beer and jumped on the train back down the valley to pick up our cars.
Amazing. Just Amazing.
Feb/071
Moving out / Moving on
I moved out of my flat over the last few days and recombobulated my life. I stashed a load of stuff (mostly my diving gear) up at the the farm where the Andy & the boys live. The office now has my clothes & ski gear in it. I also converted the bathroom (which had been converted into a kitchen) back into a bathroom, and got everything stowed away nicely.
I thought it would take me longer than it did to move and had a bit of time to chill out and have a lazy day on Sunday. So I went skiing for a bit and had a short nap afterwards about 4pm. Was quite surprised to wake up at 9am this morning. Must’ve needed it.
I’m quite happy about moving. It feels good to be back in front of the computers and to have all my stuff in the one place. It also reduces my monthly outgoings by about 65% and makes me much more able to get out of Chamonix for a while when interseason comes around.
Feb/070
Some dopey numpty
So as I got in the car this morning I noticed that there were stones underneath the wheels of the car. Someone had chocked the tires. Interesting. Also the handbrake was off and the gear stick was in neutral. Hmmmm, the plot thickened. Then on closer inspection I saw a bloody great dent in the driver's door that wasn't there yesterday...
And a nice note unter the wipers telling me that whomever it was was very sorry about the accident and a name and mobile number to call to sort out the insurance thing.
Amazingly it bothered me not a jot. I think the golf carries it's new bruise very well and looks even more double 'ard than it did. I have noticed that people in nice new motors give me a wide berth on the roads, and long may it continue!
I wrote the geezer the following text in French. I had a little help, but was quite proud of my language skillz:
Bonjour. C'etait ma golf que vous avez battre, mais c'est pas grave. La voiture est presque mort. Je nais vais pas elle repare, mais merci comme meme