August 2009 Entries
We will soon be launching a new site aimed at providing information about site make-overs - it's going to be called Sort My Site Out and we expect a launch towards the end of September to coincide with the roll out of our new search engine optimisation services (www.lanzarote-seo-expert.net) and www.google-adwords-expert.net. The optimisation service ties into the make-over service and our low prices for consultancy and analysis will see a big increase in this aspect of our operations in the Lanzarote and the UK. Contact us for more information.
And whilst we are on the subject of visitor counts - Lanzarote Maps is now exceeding 3000 visitors a month and remains number one on Google and Microsoft Bing. Sponsorship options are available and if you'd like to see more information about the visitors please visit www.logserver.niscoweb.com/lanzarotemaps.
Just a quick note. Lanzsearch.com which only launched 2 months ago has seen a big spike in traffic and is now attracting almost 1000 unique visitors a month. If your Lanzarote Business isn't listed then please head to www.lanzsearch.com and get your site indexed for free - remember that sponsorship options are available and if you'd like to see more information about the visitors please visit www.logserver.niscoweb.com/lanzsearch.
As part of our Community Rewards Programme I am delighted to announce that Ladybird Internet Ltd will be delivering a web site for the Kings School Tyneside Old Boys Cricket Club to be launched at the end of the fourth quarter 2009.
As part of our committment to delivering web services into our community we are delighted to be offering this service free of charge for a year in order to:
Increase awareness of the activities of the club
Provide a stable platform for future growth of the site
Allow historical data...
As most people know by now, we have a site called "bummedbytheboss.co.uk" which was a project to monitor logs ... anyway, we included an image (with permission I might add!) of a character played by Catherine Tate. Imagine my surprise when I found a huge influx of traffic from a blog at http://www.singletrackworld.com/. What someone had done was simply link to the image on our server so that everytime the post was displayed the image was delivered from my network instead of their own. I equate this to someone stealing my money as the 585 people who received the image...
I wrote some time ago about our marketing plan for Shincliffe Kennels and that they intend to use the web as their only marketing outlet. We have registered durhamcattery.co.uk and placed a microsite on; this will be promoted via Google Adwords and our own SEO tools. The aim is simple - deliver more visitors to the main site and get a top 10 position on Google within a month. Take a look at the site at www.durhamcattery.co.uk; it's not a complex design, it doesn't pass all of the new XHTML and CSS standards but it DOES look good to search...
Less than two weeks since we launched the site, northeastchauffeur.co.uk is at number 3 for most of his search phrases. If you'd like help with your Search Engine Marketing (at a surprisingly low cost!) please contact me.
OK - I get asked a lot why some of the core services I provide through either Ladybird Internet or license through NISCO in Lanzarote are free of charge. I thought I'd answer that question since I understand that some people may find it difficult to see how we can continue to launch new services and not charge for them!
Sometimes I will relaunch a service and make it free for competitive reasons (or just to screw around with a competitor acting unethically - see my recent post about Lanzarote Maps).
Some sites will...
The rebrand and rewrite has been completed and this site is now part of The Lanzarote Business Network. We've also made it easier to add cars that aren't in our database of models and also to add multiple photographs to a vehicle. In keeping with the LNB philosophy of delivering services at the lowest possible cost this service is now free of charge. To find out more visit www.carsinlanzarote.com.
The redevelopment of Get A Beer In For Me is now finished and you can now sign up to get your own online pub. It is a free service that let's people buy you a virtual drink - very useful for those small jobs or support calls you do as a favour for your customers. If anyone wants to buy me a drink you can do so at www.getabeerinfor.me/nickbird.
Thanks to Natasha at www.ebfconsulting.com - the Budweiser she bought for me will be very much appreciated when the Swine Flu has been vanquished.
I'm opening up www.getabeerinfor.me to other people - watch this space!
Within literally five minutes of www.getabeerinfor.me going live, John of www.lanzaroteholidayapartment.info bought me a lovely bottle of wine - check out his holiday apartment in Lanzarote and tell him I sent you!
John has been a customer for about four years and we moved his site onto our network and added some groovy photo gallery stuff. His site is ready for a revamp to bring it in line with our new development tools and platforms but if you need a holiday apartment in Lanzarote give him a shout!
Thanks John!
Another idea ... I've just registered buyapresentfor.me and people will be able to give out a card with www.buyapresentfor.me/theirname and allow friends and relatives to buy them a gift. An admin area will allow them to add their own "wish list" and prices and the service will be very very low cost - in fact, less than a tenner or even free !
www.getabeerinfor.me will also work on the same principle --- Watch this space !!
I had a call today from www.pcrepairsuk.biz who had a call from an area where they didn't have an engineer. They passed the customer number onto me and I spent five minutes of my time (and my phone bill) helping the customer solve their problem. The customer rang PC Repairs and told Lesley that I had fixed the problem and could they pay me. She didn't want to give out my number or address so I rang the guy to check he had no more problems and that the issue had been resolved. He wanted to pay me and I...
The next site to get the makeover is going to be www.propertyinlanzarote.com - this site has enjoyed a top 10 position on Google for over five years and we'll be adding hundreds of properties to it at the weekend and then relaunching it with the LBN branding. Watch this space for more information!
I've just uploaded the new build of Jobs in Lanzarote and (apart from a few minor issuing with having the security of our document store too restrictive) it has gone really well. We used our List Server to connect to the old database, sent one message to the List Server and it is now in the process of sending our relaunch messages to the previously registered job seekers. Of course, because we always try to make life as easy as possible for ourselves, if an email bounces or is replied to with "Unsubscribe" then our List Server will automatically remove...
We are adding consultancy services to Ladybird Internet Ltd to handle the increasing number of customers who simply require brain power rather than technology. For example, some companies have staff to build Sharepoint portals but they don't know what's possible, we were asked recently to summarise Data Protection legislation and write a privacy policy and it makes sense for us to wrap this type of service into a new brand.
BLUE SKY THINKING will launch in September with a web site and seperate branding - we already use Blue Sky Mail for our mail server branding and so Blue Sky...
We have recently had a couple of customers experiencing problems sending mail to Yahoo addresses (.com, .co.uk, and .es). We reported the fault with their servers to them and they have corrected the issue - all mail is now being successfully delivered to Yahoo mailboxes.
However, in order to ensure that future problems are resolved quickly please note:
If you are told by one of your customers that they have not received an email from you please look at your SENT folder and report it to us (the DATE and TIME are very important).
We apologise for any inconvenience...
We developed this site (www.shincliffekennelsandcattery.co.uk) back in February 2008 and it's time for a revamp. This customer has now decided to move away from all forms of advertising and concentrate his marketing budget on the Internet. Over the coming weeks we will be:
Updating the existing site with new content and a new layout whilst retaining the "paw" theme
Adding a blog with useful information for cat and dog owners
Adding a microsite on a different domain name to generate more cat boarding business
Adding auto responsders to...
The new web site is now live at www.northeastchauffeur.co.uk - it's a simple three page site with an enquiry form and the client will be promoting it using keywords in a Google Adwords campaign (which is one of the reasons why we have used organic keywords in his domain name rather than the name of his business). He is using an Auto Responder on his enquiry form so that the customer gets an immediate notice that their enquiry has been received and his blog (www.northeastchauffeur.co.uk/blog) will be kept up to date with photographs and information about jobs he has done...
We are about to start work on some new projects including a web site for a North East Chauffeur company - we have deliberately registered a non business name based domain name as Google seems to give a higher index position to web site urls which match keywords - we know this works from Jobs in Lanzarote and Property In Lanzarote (both #1 on Google) so it makes sense to do the same for our customers as well. We expect the new site (which is a simple one but still built to XHTML and CSS standards on the .NET platform)...