Blogging Along

Over the years I have found that certain products or services shine more with the seasons from the revenue generated from the sites I produce. Obviuosly Christmas Present related site do well from October and increase right up until 23rd December. BBQ sites do well in summer and snow shoes would do well in winter.

Taking this onboard I thought how much of a boost having a mini site would be if in general your business sinks during the colder months for example if you are a fencing suppier in Glasgow if your sales were 20% of what they are in summer what would effect would it have if it just dropped by 50% to 50%?

Having mini sites for areas of your business that taken individually are quite niche and letting me create micro sites for them maybe a case of sink or swim during hard times. You can pay on a monthly lease basis for 12 months at a time, for example if you have a fencing business in Wakefield and you lease a site from us in summer you”ll get more sales due to the site and a buffer in place for the winter months.

This to put figures to the idea and to make it easier – you have a normal (no niche mini sites) year in summer and take in £100’000 having a mini lease site for say a fencing business in Leicester may get on average 2 calls extra a day from the site. This would maybe from 1500 visitors to your site a month but you maybe would convert out the 60 calls a month just 10 of them. Taking a job with a profit of £250 on average, that would take in at least £12’500 over the summer months.

That’s just converting 4% of all visitors to your leased niche website!

So a nice sale this week through SEDO from JobsinHull.co.uk

Although I’d of love to have kept it I needed the cash flow and also focus (as usual) on fewer projects. Not sure what my biggest sale of a domain is but I know it’s never been over £1k  and £650 was a good buy and sale in my eyes.

Over the past 2 months I have been at “The One Point Ltd” working on and batting projects about. To fast forward to today I now work with The One Point on their marketing and development. With me been into the whole SEO, mini site, back linking, websites, VoIP, domains etc this was an ideal opportunity to gain a desk away from working from home, be in a real office environment, have a good team to work with and help set my aims on target with The one Points and my own goals.

One of the first deals stuck was with my HullFencing.co.uk site that daily is getting leads by phone, email and the unknown shop visits now to a local Hull company HPR Fencing Ltd. Giving them a unique number from The One Point so we can monitor our marketing from the site helps reinforce our no brainier method and costs for a Hull Domain mini site.

The monthly fee covers, domain renewals, hosting, editing, a new phone number and any SEO to help propel the site on to page 1 of search engines for key phrases.

On the affiliate front I’m a bit disappointed with BlueDress.co.uk not converting at all and a slight dip in adsense rev too.

This month (a bit delayed i know) Humber TV will move from Mk1, BETA, or what ever you want to call it and should be a nice breeze of fresh air but most importantly offer some great services to the Humber area. In video advertising, commercial videos, DVD production for distribution, Media company access to help with advertising packages for their clients and enduser media submission.

To finish off on it was nice to warn KCOM about a major security hole for email and hosting accounts with Karoo accounts. Hopefully they will be on the case and enforced a fix by now.

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.

Looking at ways to always make extra pennies from mini sites I was surprised to see £4-5 from a broadband site I’d set up a few years back. Looking into this a little more broadband clicks pay quite well from £1 to £5+ which does make it worth while.

Broadband in general and even mobile broadband isn’t really a niche no more and so >Geo<broadband.co.uk sites do well as they haven’t been tapped into that much as your Talk Talk’s BT’s and Virgins cover the whole UK.

proving that it does pay well and works I bought 3 domains of cities over 100’000 in population and setup 3 mini sites with a simple html template.

• LutonBroadband.co.uk
• BradfordBroadband.co.uk
• BrightonBroadband.co.uk

Once they show up in Search Engines and have a bit of age I’ll add the to a WordPress install and make regular posts to them about the pit falls and tips of broadband etc.  I’ve lost my login for Affiliate window and so need to send an email so that I can also add affiliate links which do pay more money but they have to sign up to get the commissions

Luton, Bradford and Brighton been fairly large towns should prove a popular search group with people online and if proven a winner easily cloned  ( not the content the idea ;o) )

Need to rant so here’s 1

-start rant-

Why do people think just because the phone isn’t agaist their ear its ok to DRIVE and use a mobile by having it on speaker phone and holding it infront of them AGGGHhhhhh.

-end of rant-

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.

As I always look at situations to see how they can be turned into profit, the snow and ice was a hard one but…..

I’ve noticed lots of gutting hanging off buildings / houses and thought they will need replacing in a week or so and decided to knock up a very quick single page website on “Guttering in Hull”.

HullGuttering.co.uk

I’m hoping as it is so niche that once indexed it will shoot to page one on search engines and get a few clicks to at least pay the domain reg fee back. I know for a fact businesses that fit guttering will have a busy few months ahead of themseleves!

Update: Since putting it LIVE it’s made £1 LOL but is on most phrases page 1, so we’ll see how it does when people start to call in the new year to get guttering fix or replaced.

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.

Last month I became the proud owner of a nice set of recycling domains for quite a few cities in the UK. Examples below are the set I have.

Recycling is a business that will just grow and grow a bit like an undertaker theirs always a demand for it. When searching Google people or businesses usually search for what they want and then drill down again and add the city they need the product or service.

Google is now noting where you are and are showing local results based on your current location which again having a domain that says what you do on the tin helps!

• EdinburghRecycling.co.uk
• BirminghamRecycling.co.uk
• GlasgowRecycling.co.uk
• CoventryRecycling.co.uk
• SunderlandRecycling.co.uk
• BrightonRecycling.co.uk
• ManchesterRecycling.co.uk
• NewcastleRecycling.co.uk
• BristolRecycling.co.uk
• HullRecycling.co.uk
• LiverpoolRecycling.co.uk

We are looking at either selling out right, offering a website build package, domain rental and selling them all as a set. Any of these would be for the right price for us both.

Recycling as a growing culture is also big business for companies and so should see value in a domain that shouts what you do and where you are based.

Think about it………..not too long and get in touch!

Bit of a bombshell hit me the other week which I won’t go into but god it felt like I had a voodoo doll somewhere and was getting it right in the neck! Hopefully I will sort that situation out before the end of September and can move on with a clean slate. Big black cross next to that individual.

I always say people who want jobs doing for next to nothing and/or haggle on prices are not worth the hassle. Well how true is it with a job I have now, it’s a peanuts job but they want the earth to revolve around them 24/7. Although the extra cash was welcomed I feel like a genie in a lamp who needs to perform miracles.

Setup and Getting into FaceBook, Twitter, You Tube, Vimeo and are seeing results by the way of people viewing the pages whether it be a video or a post but then clicking through to Humber.TV which is a result for unique visitors.

Twitter I use daily, i do seem to be getting on well and are trying not to follow every Tom, Dick and Heather that follows me.

You Tube is a great one as I’m posting RAW unedited video and prviews of video’s that are say 20 minutes long ASAP of me recording them. People are searching for that event and viewing the video but then clicking through to Humber.tv from You Tube which is a FAB way to increase the uniques per day.

Vimeo and FaceBook I only kicked off this week and so need to see results filter through over the coming weeks.

I’ve been building back links up for the site and am hoping that Google takes note and rewards it with a nice PR score and even better search results.

Recently we’ve done a bit of OB (outside Broadcasting) for Howden Show and Hull Pride to name just 2 and just them 2 alone drew in 100’s of extra visitors who wanted to find out more or wanted to see the video we shot. (T-shirts we wear have URL on back)

Just like buses this week I have had 2 calls regarding domains, but never struck a deal with either of them, which was a pity as they both need developing. I’ll maybe follow them up in a few weeks for a final nudge which would be nice to pay for an iPAD.

Latest bash at converting hard work into cash/results is my Hull domains AGAIN I know. I have bought a few 01482 numbers and placed them on a few sites one been Hull Recovery which gets a nice flow of traffic but not much revenue. It’s going quite well as I forward the numbers to businesses (helps to track calls) and hope once shown the statistics agree a small monthly fee, and then multiplied 35+ will a nice monthly income. (fingers crossed)

Final thought for today to self – Get out more, meet and talk to people but you must get an iPAD soon!
UPDATE: I have an IPAD WHOO HOO – If you need help setting one up and your in Hull call 01482 240087 and quote this site!

As for the numbers I bought for sites like Hull Recovery, Hull Taxis etc they died a dealth. When I called they didn’t think they would or was doing any good (call records proved other wise). It maybe that they would be ideal for a new start up who hasn’t got any traffic or exposure, but we’ll see.

Doing my bookkeeping myself for the past 2 years+ was a mistake I wouldn’t wish on anyone. First off I wasn’t one for keeping on top of it and wasn’t one for actually doing it once it became a need to. I HATE ACCOUNTS!

Been in business as a self employed person has made me want to stay in business due to the flexibility but also with all the job loses and unemployment I am a man controlling my own destiny. To be honest now I do find myself falling over myself offering help (for free) to new start ups where I can and hope they see it as a good opportunity to grab with both hands.

So nearly the end of June and didn’t want to rely on Web design too much I get 2 – 3 jobs in with no effort and very welcomed as cash flow as always IS king and I thank these 2 new start up companies for that.

It feels as though Humber.tv has been launched for an age but has only been up for 3-4 months and I know I’ve worked on the whole idea for over 18 months but it just feels sooo long since March. I’m very excited by the idea of us creating mini adverts to place in the breaks to interviews and video’s and again this has come off the fly from a request by a client (Karma Queens) for us to produce a short film for them.

This summer has been a good one with been self employed and working in Beverley as it’s not to much of a sin to go to Kings Head in Beverley with Duncan P for a cheeky pint or 2. Working or employed this wouldn’t be possible to be able to enjoy the sun in the afternoon  but does mean working later to keep on top of work is needed but again all to do with flexibility.

We now (at Humber.tv) have Jess C, Neal, Valerie P, Nick D, and Gina as interviewers and look forward to full weeks of interviews and work flowing towards the Humber.TV way. I do hope they all stay on and grow with the whole idea as I do like them all as people and it’s quite easy not to like a person for what ever reason.

My aim for the past 2+ years has been to just survive and ride the wave, because when I set out as a limited company the crunch in the business world had just kicked in and many said it wasn’t a great time to do it. Looking back it was a perfect time to setup.

Domaining been one of my passions but cash been in short supply I have been only renewing ones I feel they are worth doing and will continue with my GEO Service / product fest in the knowledge it will pay off.

Final thoughts before July kicks in……….

• So glad I started Humber.TV
• Need to set up Humber.fm as a Internet only radio station
• Get every Geo / service domain LIVE and earning
• Get at least 2 interviews a day and post more events
• Focus my ideas more and always aim higher and expect nothing!

I have an ever growing list of Geo / Product or Service domains (mainly Hull) and setting them up using WordPress takes time, uses MySql databases and limits how many I can setup in 1 day.

This has forced me to start using a simple  html template to speed the process of getting them LIVE, INDEXED and EARNING!

Hopefully they will perform as well as the ones running on the WordPress installs, but the main reason is to just get them LIVE. I have 100’s of them covering many cities but mainly Hull, I have a few other areas including Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Bradford, Belfast, and Edinburgh.

Latest ones I’m trying to perform as well as the WP sites using html are:

• Hull-Airconditioning.co.uk
• Hull-Hotels.org.uk
• Hull-Kitchens.co.uk
• HullCasino.co.uk
• HullClinics.co.uk

A side step one not a Geo one CommercialPhotographers.org.uk

With having so many domains you do need to get them start paying at least their own reg fee as I noticed 2 years does come round rather quick and before you know it no site is on a domain. Working from a spreadsheet marking down which are live, using html or WP and when was the last time I posted on them helps get things done too.

Looking at what Scott Jones has done with his ideas and efforts it makes me want to see the light at the end of the tunnel for my efforts. But time will tell and do hope within 4-6 months my daily revenue is up from £8-£10 a day to the very ideal £60.

I have even looked at possibly renting domains out but will need to think how best to go forward with that before jumping in with both size 9’s.

I have a growing network (as mentioned before) of Hull domains mainly plus a few other cities and have a solid £9 – £10 a day coming in from a select few with affiliation advertising.

In fact I must have 350+ of Hull domains or similar like ManchesterPrint co uk and know for a fact 90% are NOT live or haven’t been optimised at all for SEO or revenue.

So I do think if all 350 rose to a level where each was getting even a few uniques a day it would add up to over £100 a day. I have noticed with the sites that do earn, very rarely go over just 10 uniques a day to get a click or have a CTR (click through rate) is mainly 10% or more.

But as many of you know 350 + mini sites all take time to build, add content, and maintain. If all sites together earn’t £100 a day, it would be worth the effort/cost to action that .

On a flip side, I think if all the Geo domains (350+) was indexed in search engines and had a fair number of uniques a day I could demand a starting sale price of £500  for the sale of each to local businesses in the relevant area.

You all can add that up to £175k which is a very nice sum (if all were sold) and would only go through with the sales if every domain was sold and not just cherry picked.

So I just need to get people on them and set some time aside to blast them all live!

Just a quick post and a few requests really.

Ok I have so many ideas and tasks to do that I don’t benefit financially from (YET) I am opening my arms to anyone wanting to get involved with (the below post) Humber.TV

People possibly needed for the following tasks below, all of which I can do but I don’t have 12 arms, 6 heads and 50 hours in a day!

• Graphic designer (show and site logo’s for shows)
• Voice over (some people with great sounding voices)
• Transcription (turning shows into text)
• Video Editor (tidying shows up and adding adverts)
• Marketing (the idea to advertise on shows)

I am getting a lot of positive feed back and people wanting to be involved in shows, so do YOU?

Do you want a slot to discuss the papers or latest news?

Maybe your into gadgets and have 3 you want to tell more on.

Are you an expert in starting up a small business and can explain and answer questions in how to do it.

Which pubs, bands, clubs or just nights out in general are shining in your area and why?

The Humber is a big area to cover for one person and would be sensible to have area helpers who orchestrate the people and shows for LIVE streams. Shows will then be ready for the broadcasting kit to just arrive at a designated venue and got for it. Local knowledge is better from a local person!

So does that sound a plan? Contact me!

I started out in buying domains at the beginning of 2007 with 123ABC co.uk from a drop, where someone had let it lapse and didn’t renew it.

Over the 2 years of buying domains, developing some and selling them on has had me thinking at stages

AM I MAD? Will it ever pay off?

In the early days when I was buying rubbish domains and not really doing much with them, yes, I did think OMG I’m addicted and am never going to get a return.

I turned to trying SEOing a few of them, which I had great results for Google rankings and Page Rank. So in  nearly 3 years I’ve chomped my way through at least a 1000+ domains. On the flip side have made many £xxxx’s too, and increasing more so now I sort of understand from Affiliation and selling domains.

To get a domain to earn,

1. It’s reg fee back
2. It’s hosting cost back

Is a good feeling, knowing what ever money comes in after that, is pure profit or at least in exchange for any extra time you spend on it on development. I now have 3 accounts with (cheap) Blue Host which allows me to have upto 300 domains, with a WordPress install on them.

Limitations are in place with them like I said your limited to a huge 100 Mysql Db’s but also your file count, as I found out the other day with an email from them…..

your file count is ideally 50’000 but MUST be below 200’000!

100 WordPress Installs = 80’000+ files with no plugin’s, no theme’s and no content/pages and so over the 50’000 straight away! But hey ho fair enough as I cut back what I can to keep below the 200’000.

Back on track with my plans….

Latest plans are all based around local mini sites like HullPrint.co.uk, I started in Hull as it’s my local city and am now moving to the other larger cities by population.

• Birmingham
• Leeds
• Glasgow
• Sheffield
• Bradford
• Liverpool
• Manchester
• Bristol
• Wakefield
• Cardiff
• Leicester
• Belfast
• Brighton

Out of the 200 Geo domains I have, if 50% of them perform ok and bring in at least £5 per day through Adsense and Affiliation

I’ll be a happy man!

I’ll keep you posted, but just a snap shot of todays earnings from just 4 of the GEO sites that are performing ok.

• Site 1 = £6.43
• Site 2 = £1.11
• Site 3 = £0.46
• Site 4 = £0.34