Blogging Along

Just bagged 2 more Yorkshire domains today.

• YorkshireDesign.co.uk
• YorkshireSEO.co.uk

These for a fair price are a nice addition to the other 4 I have of which 2 have page ranking of 3 and 2.

• FilmYorkshire.co.uk Page Rank 3
• FoodYorkshire.co.uk
• YorkshireBlinds.co.uk Page Rank 2
• YorkshireBeds.co.uk

They all are good solid investments in my eyes and are worth more with even one page or holding page on. This keeps them in Googles eyes and search bots and helps keep any page rank or back links. I could develop further with paid for content but with these going on top of 100′s  of other domains I think I’ll stick with the 1 page for now.

Noticing a lot of old domains dropping from been registered in 1996+ and have had a site up and running since then. So once fleshed out with a mini site they should be a good slow burner. The last 2 I missed catching were reysrods.co.uk and europeanlife.co.uk both from over 10 years old!

Last local one I caught is HullWhitePages.co.uk which will just have a simple custom Google search on, along with a few graphics. Hopefully should do well and is a good portal for people to catch on to.

Completed a few short 45 second long promo videos for the Freedom centre. These just highlighted future events and turned out really nice. Gave me a boost on pushing this type of video to other businesses and the good thing is they can use them on their web site and are featured on Humber.TV too.

Looking to cut back on my domains I’m letting a lot drop that in my eyes I could do without renewing as 10 would cost £70 for 2 years! On the flip side all my Hull domains are now listed on HullDomians.co.uk and give the ability for visitors to show an interest and place an offer in through a form system. To start my campaign off to either rent them out or sell them I’ve placed an Ad in the Hull Daily Mail for a week starting 19th February.

Just bought 2 domains YorkshireSEO.uk and YorkshireDesign.co.uk for £60 which I thought was a bargain and should be able to get them ranking and sold on to a local business. (if I don’t use them myself)

Looking through my SAGE accounts I noticed I’d dropped a bombshell and missed nearly everyones hosting renewals from last year. #fail But should be a nice boost for a few bills I have come up or have now.

I took a punge and turned off my shop plugin for JokeShop.org.uk and made posts as normal posts but mirrored the path so not to upset Google etc. Instead of actually selling products myself I’m giving” Paid on results” affiliate links from Silly Jokes. Traffic from my site is directed to them I make a sale and I get a cut of it but has proven shite TBH.

I may turn the shop back on if by the end of this month I don’t make one sale.

I’m quite a laid back “do anything for anyone” kind of guy, but over the past few months I’m seeing more and more reason to look after No1 more. Dog eat dog world it’s turning into I just need to look at every situation a little more before jumping in to the rescue or offering.

I found my CV on an old memory stick and decided to apply for a few jobs in SEO, Marketing etc just to see what response I get as theirs no harm in trying to see what bites I get from it. I actually wouldn’t mind going into a decent company to work on SEO and online marketing for companies. I would do a bad job too! ;o)

I decided to pull the internet connection from Beverley as I was only using it twice a week for 1 or 2 hours and was costing £40 + a month. So just a waste really.

Final thought for me about my Hull Domains, I may need to educate business about mini sites and “do what you say on the tin” domains buy hopefully enough will get it and opt for the rent option to try and test.

New Year and New goals will be in the form of a marketing service that weirdly enough rolls all the things I have been doing for the past 2 years into one! SEO, Domains, mini sites, Video, Photos, Content writing etc They goals will be having a ques of businesses wanting to get involved.

First stop will be to create 3-5 example showcases of how it looks and works as everyone likes to see examples of anything they are buying into. FACT!

On the domain front I am letting a lot of them drop if I think they are way too much effort to even start to gain any revenue or are not gems. I would say 5% are niche domains / Websites like PlayParachutes.co.uk (not dev yet) that will become cash cows for advertising rev or actual e commerce sites selling products on stock. The other 95% are the GEO domains like my HullBeds.co.uk which will be slowly moved over from the BIG ‘G’ to REAL – LOCAL companies where they will be featuring on other sites I have.

3 Words I hated since I started out in business in early 2008 is VAT, TAX and Books. If I could give anyone any advice in starting up a business, it’s “Get an accountant ASAP”. You may think £100-£200 a month to do ALL your accounts is steep but boy is it worth it in the end. It frees you up to do other work YOU get paid for and is one less stressful thing in your life.

Be careful (as I have found out) you do get shocking accountants that just don’t talk to you and you get some FAB ones.

Other Goals and plans that I do hope will help Humber TV are ones with local groups or business. I can offer News and video coverage to help promote their services and they can offer me the use of the facilities there. Maybe the use of  a Board room, meeting rooms, Gym, etc it’s a little bit of back scratching that costs both parties no cash.

Vebra helps customers find property that is for sale and rent in the UK. By adding properties visitors can search for property and Estate Agents with ease.

What a lot of Estate Agents don’t realise is as soon as you ask your website developer to add a feed from Vebra, you stop your website getting credit from search engines. The feed isn’t seen as content on your website and Search Engines such as Google and Yahoo know this and isn’t great for SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)

Here’s a test you can do just to prove what I’m saying is correct.

In Google search for the Phrase “Your company name 4 bedroom houses” e.g. browns property agents 4 bedroom houses

You’ll find it comes back with many websites with property on but NOT yours.

Sites such as:

• findaproperty.com
• rightmove.co.uk
• zoopla.co.uk
• primelocation.com
• homesandproperty.co.uk

When entering all the property details into Vebra’s system it goes on many sites such as RightMove.com and if embedded it will appear on your own site in what’s called an iframe.  As mentioned above this isn’t seen by Search Engines on your site only Right Move.

When people search for property and maybe your company name they will more than likely (if the company uses Vebra) end up on Vebra or Right Move etc amongst other estate agents listings and potentially going with another agent.

Here’s a good example of a site that does’nt rely on Vebra. Search again like the above example but with a company that doesn’r rely on Vebra.

Plum Properties 4 bedroom houses as you can see in the results the company website is top of the search engine and has the visitors full attention. Not listed with other agents.

I’m not saying DONT use Vebra just don’t completly hand over your websites content over to a simple feed from them add property to your own like Plum do.

Need Advice? Give me a call 01482 240087 quoting this site.

I have collected 150+ Geo & service/product domains besides the 500+ Hull domains I have like BristolGyms.co.uk and the others below.

• CardiffLocksmiths.co.uk
• CardiffNetworking.co.uk
• Edinburgh-SkipHire.co.uk
• BradfordNetworking.co.uk
• BelfastAccountants.co.uk
• LincolnDoors.co.uk
• LincolnEstateAgent.co.uk
• LincolnFencing.co.uk
• LincolnGarages.co.uk
• LincolnGyms.co.uk
• LincolnLighting.co.uk
• LincolnOpticians.co.uk
• LiverpoolNetworking.co.uk
• PlymouthNetworking.co.uk
• SheffieldAdvertising.co.uk
• SheffieldCleaners.co.uk
• EdinburghNetworking.co.uk

A guy contacted me trying to sell a .com domain he had registered only 30 days ago and I had the .co.uk version. By the sounds of things he has blasted emails out to all local businesses suggesting they make an offer for the domain.

Doing it they way he has, has probably pissed a lot of businesses off and has put a lot of brick walls up in front of them if I ever wanted to offer my domains to them. Although I do make money from them monthly it was nice to feel I could at some point offer them for sale to local businesses.

I’m just on a mission to get all of my geo domains live and have decided not to go down the WordPress route for them all to save time and resources – At the moment the sites live generate a nice bit and once all live, indexed and have visitors I think £1k+ a month would be ideal sum to start at (fingers crossed). It would help if the revenue increased a bit soon, as renewals come in batches and can be £100+ a pop.

I have had a few calls regarding the geo domains and would rather rent them out than sell out right! So I’d best build them quick and stack em high!

UPDATE

I was called in December 2010 by a local Aerial fitter who wanted a Hull, Goole, Scunthorpe etc numbers from my Hull VoIP website which diverted to his mobile. I got him setup with a Hull number and made my HullAerials.co.uk reflect his new number to drive traffic to him.

I can see he’s had a fair few calls but think it will be in the first few weeks of 2011 he’ll see more calls filter through. I will be renting the site out to him at just £25 per month and will add content weekly to help with rankings.