Blogging Along

Having built a few for certain towns I thought it would be an idea to find a few generic domains such as the one mentioned below and lists town / city areas on them.

Not sure it will have a good uptake from people or search engines but worth a go. The domains I choose were common phrases that people have searched on my Geo sites looking at the stats from the many sites.

• FencingSuppliers.org.uk
• LapFencing.co.uk
• Fencepanels.me.uk

Looking again on Google trends these are common phrases people use to find these types of items or companies.

Ideally they will turn into a directory listings for fence suppliers all over the UK and will use them to back up our other city focused websites.

I’ve spent quite a few weeks and to be honest are just finishing off the transfer of the bulk of my web site clients. This move has happened due to many reasons but the main ones enabling me to focus on Humber TV and my clients getting a better service with the new ISP.

I have also been trimming back a lot of domain I *may* develop but have decided to take the dive and let a good batch drop by not renewing them. We are talking 100s of domains and not just say 5 or 6 and so is a big saving in outgoings for me.

This morning I battled with my JOBPress theme on JobsinHull.co.uk and it now doesn’t error at the checkout with Pay Pal. I flicked the ON switch and is now live to submit jobs to at just £1 for 30 days. This is at just £1 for feedback and suggestions and will review charges once I feel happy with the setup and running.

Going back to domains, I have also curbed registeringdomains and booking drop catches for them.  A few examples of recent ones are WilliamWilberforce.co.uk and HullHairdressers.co.uk both nice ones to own and develop as catches and WingMirrors.org.uk as a fresh reg.

The only websites ideally that I will still run will be personal ones or ones that are generating revenue from leasing or affiliation from Google and alike. Not looking at older posts on here I am looking at building revenue from these types of sites to at least £30 per day or £1k a month.  This would be an absolute minimum long term as 250 sites should at least make £1 per day which calculates to around £7500 a month.

With my main focus been on Humber TV getting al sites live and performing I may freelance out as my ideal goal for Humber TV is to cover events and generate at least £250 a day from producing short promo videos, marketing using videos and selling video content.

Just as an example do a search in Google for “Fish Spa Hull” what would you click on, on the results page?

The videos I’m guessing, the videos will always be there unlike, radio adverts, PR services, leaflets, News Paper advert, Adwords campaign and so on…..

The new way to advertise… Huumber TV

;o)

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.

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-

Slowing down on registering domains and booking catches with catch services just lately. Everyone is feeling the pinch and need more time to develop domains I already have anyway. Spending £30 – £50 for a catch is all good and well but need to be followed up with a live indexed site.

Humber wind farms or the whole wind farm idea in the Holderness East coast area seems a fab prospect for the area business,  jobs and just the green side of it. Myself I think we should dam part of the Humber off and be 100% guaranteed energy but I’m sure that won’t happen in my life time and the depth just isn’t there.

Looking forward I need to split myself into 50 I think or make a plan of action and STICK to it. Lots happening gand theirs me trying to juggle it all. With Humber TV’s 1 year Birthday coming up (party??)  I’m hoping that I have a set standard with all programs that get published. A nice intro tune, credits, graphics and just over all a better feel to them. This all does take time and think shows will need to be cut down more I think to a maximum of 20 minutes ish.

As mentioned in my last post – Looking at producing a few promotional videos to a fair standard at a good price for comapnies to use and for me to use on Humber TV, You Tube, Vimeo, mini websites like Hull Beds, Hull tyres. I have a few in mind which will look good and should give people and companies an idea of how it will look and work.

Keeping on domains I’m surprised none of my Premium ones haven’t been hunted down by big chains. PriceCrunch.net BodyCreams.co.uk BodyConfidence.co.uk to name just 3 as a £x’xxx or even a £xx’xxx would be nice right now. Well worth renewing and developing for an investment me thinks.

I’ll finish off by asking any businesses who spend money on advertising on or offline to get in touch to see how I can help you gain more clients by using my many portals.

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.

If you have installed Word Press and get the message “You do not have sufficient permissions to access this page.” because you have created a link for a subscriber to login. If a subscriber tries and login again using the link they will get the error mesage “You do not have sufficient permissions to access this page.”

Look at the file menu.php in the folder /wp-admin/ and edit one of the last lines in the file

wp_die( __(‘You do not have sufficient permissions to access this page..’) );

Replace the text and maybe add a link to help the user back to the main part they subscribed to the below.

wp_die( __(‘You are already logged in, please visit the <a href=”http://website-address.co.uk/members-area/” title=”members area” >Members Area</a> to see the content.’) );

Hope this helps and is a quick fix to a simple problem!

Looking back from March with Humber.Tv and the whole idea I do feel we have some good direction towards HOW the idea and company will make it’s living. Advertising is good but you need to offer twists and extra angles to secure advertising deals with local businesses.

I was once told as a young man by a local boss of a company…

It’s so easy to loose money but very hard to make it.

This is so true with the ideas and the paths I’m going down testing and trying out new ways to put shows and video onto the internet. Some things just don’t work and will never be worth the effort but you’d never know that unless you try them out to see.

Research is all very well but doing it and trying and testing ideas is good first hand live research!

I need to ge the few dozen postcode named sites up and LIVE ASAP so people can see the network I’m trying to create and get more people involved. First site live is HU15.co.uk covering Brough, South Cave, Gilberdyke, Newport etc and will grow to be on the same scale as Paul Smith’s HU17.NET along with all the others set to be put live.

Local news is key to keep people using your websites and updated regularly and people will find it through Google.

Build it and the will come

That’s sort of true but still need the  right kind of site for people to find it sticky enough they do come back for more.

I joined BCC or Business Community Co-operative Group which has NO annual fee, and only costs £10 per week to cover room hire and a hearty breakfast. Best networking group I’ve been to from just the feel and welcome you get from the people there and isn’t competitive with 5 web designers, 3 accountants, 10 life coachers. The categories are locked down so thats your area and is unchallenge “Video Production” been my area of business and category.

Just offering show reel videos to businesses in a certain area of business, Gyms and fitness for example and will be made up of 12 companies in that sector for an hour long show reel on local “Gyms and fitness” This will be ondemand from Humber TV and also showing as a schedule when nothing is showing live.

All in all I have lots of ideas and good interest for our road forward – Think Positive!

My Photo above by Pixelcreations.co.uk – Klaus Selke – Photographer

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.

I have spread myself quite thin, and all because of my active mind that seems to have new ideas every week. Rather than saying ok when I’ve finished this I’ll do that next, I start it so not to miss the moment. I could hire some one to follow it up for me but not got the cash spare to do this.

I have juggled quite well up to now and have cut back on a lot of things time and money wise. This will hopefully get the wheels in motion and my arse into gear with a climb that can only be up, instead of bobbing along on a flat line.

I nearly never was able to post this as a crazy 169 year old woman disregarded giveaway markings on a Beverley Westwood road and would have been a head on crash. Luckily I decided driving onto a grass verge and skidding was a better option than death.

Cash flow is KING and hope this month or before the end anyway, payments are more regular. No one is withholding money, it’s just jobs take longer than anticipated. Hence as mentioned before Humber.TV and the whole video service will generate a nice regular flow to balance short falls in the month. Latest one we created was for a teeth whitening company.

I have a lot of mini site ideas, FootGloves.co.uk Jokeshop.org.uk to name 2 and these are sites that if I follow up and make them a lot bigger, increase inventory and range, they will do a storm. Again time and money! A local Joke shop owner who has no web site agreed to work something out between us as he has the stock and I have the ranking and web site.

Want to set a few goals before the end of this year and hopefully look back at this and smile.

• Humber.TV – 1000 unique visitors a day
• Jokeshop.org.uk – Stock inventory 250 items plus with 25 orders a week
• My Hull domain portfolio – Making £25 per day from adsense or clients renting
• People in the Humber Area know Humber TV as a Brand to view local video after asking 100 people 50% of them say they have heard of it
• At least 25 clients renting Hull sites from meand  at least at £10 a month
• Have a team of 4 Volunteers with HD camcorders to record events etc local to them for Humber TV
• I am at a stage where I can start thinking about myself and maybe even go to the gym
• Make 10 new friends I chat to at least once a week!
• To use this blog at least 4 times a week almost like a diary

Lets see ;o)

So it’s been a week or so now since Coco (the puppy) arrived and has forced me to have many sleepless or broken sleep nights. Problem with the pup waking up,  it also wakes my 2 year old daughter up too :o( Not good as it works vice-versa. Life goes on and I need to catch as much shut eye when I can.

One of the interviews we recorded with Jackie Cowie, she said about weather having an affect on our happiness and well-being . Sun comes out people tend to be happier etc, well

WHAT THE FREAKING HELL IS GOING ON THIS YEAR?

The sun and temperature just needs to get it together and give us a summer we all deserve this year.

I’m finding a lot of clients are now GETTING “online marketing” and are warming to Twitter, other social media and Generic domain mini sites. This is great to see my clients I help and offer support to doing well. This made me think I maybe missing a opportunity for offering a service to all companies that need to up a gear on the online roller-coaster and maybe need to shout out a bit more.

I am finding more and more that besides other CMS’s Word Press out performs a standard html in many ways I mean

• Indexed into Search Engines faster (tried and proven)
• The ease of having 30 pages indexed with little effort to create them compared to the standard way of producing pages in HTML say using Dream Weaver
• TAGS you add to posts or pages to help identify what that post is mostly about
• You want some new feature WP will have a plugin to do it if not someone on the planet will be able to build it

The only downside is a Data base is needed to run every WP install.

So I’m off to ERBN.co.uk tonight for 7pm in the hope to spread some Humber.TV love and either get people interested in the whole idea or actual on the shows for interviews. Fingers crossed !

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’m always up for registering new domains on most days and use many methods of finding new new domains to register for niche mini sites.

• TV adverts
• Radio Adverts
• Papers
• Magazines
• General generic domains etc

Flicking through my Mrs girly womens mags and noticed an article on a guy wearing Foot Gloves and thought Nah it’s got have been registered by now. Checked out FootGloves.co.uk and FeetGloves.co.uk and BOTH available to register WOW!

Not sure how long this type of product has been out but well worth a registration fee of £7 I thought. To start with I’ve just banged a white blank text only (no design) web site up just to get indexed and up and running. I’m sure it should perform well for it’s key word phrase of Foot Gloves only time will tell and adsense with prove it’s worth whiile.

I did register a few others but will make another post once I decide how to promote them.

Attended a Hull and Humbers Chamber of Commerce speed networking and lunch today at Cave castle (FAB grounds complete with moat) and I realised I need to get out more.

I did use to go to a few networking events but was trying to promote web design and VoIP. Web design is saturated and VoIP people didn’t want to take or trial it.

So out this morning and people I spoke to warmed to the idea of my Humber.TV idea and concept which made me feel fuzzy inside! Also people came up to me and was saying “Are you Mr Humber TV?” again this was a little strange and almost felt like a celebrity  😉

The Chamber hold a speed networking and lunch every month and WILL be going to every one from now!

On another note with Humber TV Valerie Prentice (our only host) is departing to France for a month and needed a stand in. Jess from Divine Clark PR was very interested as an extra permanent host and bagged 4 interviews next week at £50 a shot for advertising. “Result” I thought and hope she keeps her intro rate up.

This made me realise I need to up a gear with the whole Humber TV game and am now on the look out for more willing people to help out on a short term volunteering basis (hope to pay on invoice for their time ASAP). Wanting people who see the potential of the concept, are willing to stick with it and help out how they can to make it work/grow.

3 days till D day, D been DOG! “WOOF WOOF”

Adsense has nicely increased daily which is nice and aren’t sure if it’s with me adding new content on a few or just people looking on-line more leading up to gardening and getting out weather.

Needed to raise some funds and sold a few domains in the past week which in one way wish I never as I let them go for peanuts but altogether made a nice tidy sum to help out. Tried to sell my scuba gear too but think it may be harder than I think due to testing etc.

Signing off and catching some Zzzzzzz

Always on the look out for new niches, up and coming technologies that I can make mini sites for and hopefully build a platform ready for a company to buy/use from me.

Today I bought 11 Augmented Reality domains and quickly developed one to get indexed and be a test bed for a design and structure. Below are a few phrases have set aside and bought as .co.uk / .org.uk domains to develop. I have a few others not mentioned but have just web forwarded or redirected to the relevant domain/s.

• augmented reality goggles
• augmented reality glasses
• augmented reality headset
• augmented reality game
• augmented reality technology
• augmented reality books

AugmentedReality3D.co.uk was the first of the set and is live now and will be adding and changing each day/week. I usually build mini sites in WordPress but decided to save on Mysql Data bases and just bang one up using a html template.

I see augmented reality been big in the next 1 or 2 years as today it’s really only been used by most people as gimicks to find places and play mini games etc

In the next 2 years  Goggles, Glasses, headsets, Games, and books will come in to our lives using the technoology of augmented reality and will become an every day on the go smart phone accessory. This is possible with smart phones built in GPS and solid state compass.