Ill (again), SEO, work, and more work
Thu, 23 February, 2006 – 11:52 pm
Seems like working all hours means you can no longer fight off illness. I managed to get over my last hit of a cold, blocked sinuses, swollen glands/neck last week on Monday, spent the week desperately trying to tie up loose ends of work before my week of meetings this week, and yesterday whilst in London I started to feel my throat hurting more and more as the day went on. I have to say I'm impressed that I managed to drive from Camberwell to Kings Cross, a trip I've never done, in the dark and not get lost or fall asleep at the wheel! Last meeting at 8pm finished at 9.30pm and luckily the drive back to my parents just took a little over an hour which I spent most of the journey shivering despite the heaters being on, and trying not to close my eyes. I've delayed going back to Cheshire today due to the snow and because I've felt so bad today. It looks like I'm gonna have to go back to taking my vitamin and zinc tablets to get over this illness.
However at least all of the meetings I've had this week have gone easily. I've agreed future work and clients are pretty happy. I also woke up to various emails today with 4 requests for more work, 2 from existing clients and 2 from new clients, one of which was very nice along the lines of I'll give you £XXXX to fix my site. Before I'd even spoken to him! I do enjoy a reputation preceeding me!! However despite all of this great new work (yes I'm not allowed to complain blah blah blah) I'm tired. I'm absolutely shattered. I love running my own business but work is beginning to get out of control now. I would contract it out if I could find people that I could trust to do it. Dave looks after most existing site updates, the CSS and XHTML as that's his area, my Mum (bless her) will do whatever she can to help out besides my accounts which she does fantastically already, and Paul does various bits of work for me too to help ease the workload, however I don't really have anyone to help with the PHP. I'm not a fan of working on someone elses PHP. We all code differently, use and prefer different methods, and so editing someone elses work can sometimes take longer than just rewriting it yourself. Therefore I'd want to have someone who I could rely on 100% to do all the PHP, integrate with Dave on the front end layout and at least have an understanding of XHTML/CSS, but also have the business knowledge and experience. It's hard to find someone who has the business knowledge, understanding, appreciation and enthusiasm (especially when it's not their business) as well as the knowledge of secure PHP. Khalid has so far been the one person I've trusted and now that daft sod can't do any freelance work any more (I'm still not impressed mate ;)). I guess as always, when it's your business or little empire you find it hard to let go of areas of the business and entrust them to someone else. I know I need to find someone, another freelancer who I can pretty much contact when required and who I know is dedicated to their work and take pride in their work. I know of people with the business sense and I know people with the PHP knowledge, but I need a combination of the two in people. Hey before I go further, I don't believe I'm perfect in either, far from it. I'm not a business person, I'm a programmer, but I've had to learn the business to get where I am. I guess after writing this little lot I should really say anyone who thinks they fit the bill and fancy a bit of freelance work give me a shout either on the comments or at 3.E.Media.
I've spent the evening trying to work out why a recent client's site is dropping from the rankings in Google. To be honest why their site is virtually no where to be seen in any of the big 3. The site was changed over from html, spaces in filenames, table design, into CSS/XHTML, Accessible design, SEO'd, new fresh optimised page content, and pretty much an all round major improvement. I've even compared one of their phrases which they used to rank 4th for and no longer rank, using the keyword density tool on their old site and new site. The phrase is not spammed on the new site but there is an improvement of use in the two compared pages. To be honest it's not really making much sense to me at all. The Google Pagerank has transferred over thanks to using 301 redirects, Google has indexed all new pages, there is no black hat SEO tricks whatsoever, so why are they not ranking? The only thing I've found is the lack of backlinks to the value of zero as far as Google's concerned. Not entirely accurate as one of their partners definitely links back to them, however Google loves backlinks so I can only presume this isn't helping them. I'm also beginning to believe that Google is holding their page ranking down until it's had a chance to index it properly. The new pages have only been around for 6 weeks and it was a major update to the site so perhaps Google have a slight delay on the new pages as a search for "sms messages solutions" doesn't even bring them up and this is in the page title and H1 header and in comparison to the top ranking pages the phrase is much more accurately displayed on their page than the top position site. So I'm going to go for it being a backlinks and new page issue. A bit of a test now. I always announce my own sites here as the site has a PR of 5 and the spiders pretty much love this site. So I'm going to go for a couple of key phrases and link through to the site (a rareity as I don't tend to link to client sites from here) using some nice key phrases. Mobifi Ltd provide SMS Messaging Solutions such as SMS Alerts. There's two phrases there (hello to the client if he's noticed this referral in the stats!) so it'll be interesting to see if they make any difference. I don't usually experiment on client sites (just to put that point forward!) but in this case it can only be a worthwhile experiment. I do always state that there are no guarantees that the SEO will work or increase visitors however in my mind I always believe it to be the case, so perhaps it's just a case of time and patience in this situation.
And just a final note, my adsense earnings are increasing nicely. The main sites are my Swish World site and my Diet Spot site. The latter is for my challenge of losing weight and getting fit again (of course being well is usually a good start), as well as posting up all of my favourite recipes as I do love to cook. Being on the front page of Google UK for "chicken fajitas" is just a bonus 
Anyhow, that kind of wraps up my whole time off. Illness and work are the biggest culprits. Man I need a holiday! Hopefully in May.
2 Responses to “Ill (again), SEO, work, and more work”
Blimey Sarah,
Shouldnt you be getting a little time away from the keyboard if you are unwell? - I am beginning to see how you have a problem writing content for other sites - you spend far too much time bloggin
Seriously, get well soon - the wife and son have been struck down for over a week now and are really struggling to shake it off. How I have not been affected, I have no idea. Usually, its the wife that only suffers for a short time due to her far healthier lifestyle! My bad habits tend to knock me for six.
With regards to the work, I hear where you are coming from. I have been self employed now for about 4 years and without a doubt, the toughest thing to do is delegate. It doesnt seem to matter how good the staff are, they are still (very) prone to making mistakes and, as you state, just dont have the dedication that comes with being the owner of the business. In my case, running the gift shop, its things like talking to customers. I will go as far out of my way as needed to ensure the customer is satisfied, yet no matter how much I bang on about it, I listen to the staff talking to the customers and despair!!
Still, occasionally you have to stand back and look from the outside, my staff do turn up on time, they dont sit aroud deliberately sciving and they do try hard.
I would imagine that finding good coders (at a reasonable price) is pretty hit and miss. There are so many "dabblers" like myself in the computer industry. I am quite happy running my osC website but would not have the confidence to actually go out and offer my services to others - But I will bet there are plenty of people out there with less knowledge than me trying to make it in the web design/hosting business. So, it must be difficult to find people to contract the work out to, or at least people you can trust.
Anyhow, good luck with the work, it certainly sounds like you are keeping busy and that is always a good thing when you are self employed. My wife always says I am never happy - when there are alot of orders, I am too busy, too tired and complaining, as soon as things start to slow, I go into panic mode - wondering how I am going to pay the bills!! There never seems to be an in between.
Get well soon,
Rich
By richandzhaoyan on Feb 24, 2006
Unfortunately a business cannot run itself as I'm sure you're aware. I do take it more easy when I'm ill purely because I can't tend to think straight or concentrate too well, but it's just a vicious circle at times, stressed, over worked and usually you need to actually be working twice as hard to clear the work.
It's definitely a case of finding someone who knows their stuff, has the experience of business and someone you can trust. But I'm beginning to realise that I need to find someone as work just seems to be getting busier and I'm not really someone who says "no"!
Still I think the various tablets have done their job as I'm just down to blocked ears/sinuses and an achey neck. At least my head is clearer today which should mean I can spend the weekend working again.
Hope your wife and son are better soon.
By Sarah on Feb 24, 2006