Blogging Along

For many years now the people of Hull have had to go to Kingston Comms for a Hull Phone Number or Hull landline.

That has now all changed and you can order a Hull number or landline through other companies.

These include Hull numbers through a VoIP phone system which gives you huge flexible options. A historical standard fixed phone line like the one available from Kingston Communications or even a sim card that you can use in mobiles but has a 01482 number as a land line and not the usual 07 xxxxxxxx format.

If this is something you want more information about please visit Hull Phone Numbers and complete the form for more information or a call back.

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.

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.

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

Again another late night and feel I should take time to post here as not to let it slip into a stale state.

So I buckled and have let my partner get a puppy dog which is a cross between a poodle and a shiatsu (quite cute actually). A small chocolate brown “shoodle” I think they call it and it had best behave and not yap too much! ;o) That all happens on 2nd May so the world could end before then and won’t have to suffer having a yap yap yapping dog!

Humber.TV hmmmm Well lets just say it’s a FAB concept, people warm to it, it does “Bridge the gap” as our slogan says and guests think we’re doing a grand job :o) But the thing is I’m lacking a few things to more forward – help, funding, sleep, day light and light at the end of the tunnel! This is due to the time taken up by myself setting live shows up, recording and streaming them live and then editing them ready for the site for on demand. Not to mention anything else involved in getting guests and running the site mechanics.

It has reached a point where I have been doing EVERY show LIVE and putting the webcam stream up straight away for on demand viewing after a quick edit (then when possible editing the HD camcorder shoot later). I now feel I need to go out and about to record items that arn’t LIVE but ARE up and viewable the same day. Again this is more of my time.

So 4 things I’m wanting interest for, from near and far around the Humber.

1. Big Main Sponsors or Advertisers for the site to enable me to buy extra kit and improve shows
2. People willing to shoot video and take down local stories from across the Humber region to include on the site.
3. Interviewers or Guest harvesters for up and coming shows. (booking Guests / Advertisers)
4. Anyone wanting to learn the very basics of how we stream, edit video and anything I know about what we’re doing here at Humber.TV to help in any way possible (tonns still to learn but hey we’ll get there, as I’m far from an expert LOL).

Do you meet or maybe smiled at any of the above requests? Then contact me through Humber.TV web site stating this blog. I then do hope we can work together to make the Web site work it’s ass off for the people/businesses of the Humber and make it a name people talk about.

Hopefully this will stop me going over the edge and ease my work addiction/need from 6:00am till very late every day and I may just be able to get a life and sleep back so I can enjoy the trip that Humber TV is taking us on.

Final Thought to self! I do have 100’s of Hull and other Geo service domains as mentioned before and really need to get my finger out and get them earning. Which if I did would earn I would say £60 a day between them all! Visit Hull Local to see the effort so far and one of the mini sites may fit your area of business.

Sorry if it’s all over this blog but been a long day/week ;o)

Bit of a waffle post but keep with it ;o)

So I now reluctantly have an iPhone and surprisingly like it! I did want the HD2 but VodaFone stopped stocking them and was offered an iPhone. I can see how people spend £s on Apps the first few weeks of getting one, which can be a bit of a money pit.

I thought my iPhone died today as it wouldn’t turn on with it even been fully charged. In the end I tried the home button AND the power button which I think is a trick on the Ipod. This kicked it into life (bizarre) and I was a happy man again.

So Humber.TV hmm I wanted it separate from Media Blocks Ltd and so asked my accountant about my online TV venture Humber Media Network as it now is and was told it was going to cost £400 + VAT. “ok” i said “I’ll have a think” WTF I thought, a little steep. A little digging and asking around I found The company warehouse Called them up and asked loads of questions and it was done and dusted in 20 minutes. May I add they have great phone support and people working for them! Got all documents, shares, minutes, etc for £111 INC VAT in the post today FANTASTIC!

So Humber Media Network Limited was born, as I decided not to limit it’s size by just using Humber.TV as a name and Humber Media Network was like an umbrella name. Opening an account next week with Lloyds TSB again and already have payments from clients waiting for it to become live.

With all my ideas, I do always seem to be burning lots of candles at both ends and running around trying to juggle life, work and pushing ideas to the MAX. Recently I have taken on offered help (rare for me) by people I have met or knew already and is working out great! Still need to have a chat with a few more people but I’m liking team work and building.

Up to now Interviewers / Hosts for podcast shows, editor for the post production and sound checker for the audio setup to give it a once over for optimum quality.

I have been spending quite a bit of money (bucket fulls) on kit, software, and structure for the pod-casting / video venture but have had so much positiveness from people who we’ve had to interview I know it’s all worth or going to be worth every penny and minute spent on it.

Mentioning the people we’ve had on, we have had some great people and don’t want to list them all but 3 that many will know because of their businesses and exposure are:

• Geof Brooke – Brooke Tiles (now a Humber.TV Advertiser YEAH!)
• Jonathan Elvidge – (Gadget Shop) RED5 (Great guy to lookup to and follow)
• Paul Sewell – Sewell Group (Beams positiveness and knows business)

All the above people just made me more determined to make this venture succeed and grow for the Humber area!

One of my teeth decided a filling had been in long enough and fall out and taken half my tooth with it, which is no fun and the sharp edge it left cut my tongue to bits. 🙁 All sorted now with a temp filling and feels much better and will be fixed in March.

Found out this week Gradwell (VoIP supplier) are having issues with call pick up, meaning you can’t pick another call up remotely from your desk phone in the office. That’s a bit of a pain for some of my clients, but hey ho life does go on.

Final thoughts for this post, and maybe words of wisdom?!

• Use ideas that work and duplicate in business to succeed.
• Home in on business that your good at and enjoy.
• Never trust people who lie, even if it was just once.

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!

So the New Year and the 4th of Jan 2010 filled me full of positiveness, calls and emails streamed in!

Most of my work is Web site design, building and have wanted other projects to make that percentage less one sided. (eggs in one basket and all that) Their isn’t a day that goes by when I have an idea, whether it’s for a new mini site or a totally new project and that isn’t always a good thing.

My current project is Pod casting. Not just recorded to be downloaded to an IPOD later but LIVE scheduled streaming video with local people, businesses and groups discussing and explaining more about their areas. Whether it’s Techy, Health related, Current News, Music or business it can be anything and the good news is it’s all FREE to viewers.

The Stream will be live video and will include an option for a low quality stream or even just audio ideal for poor Internet speeds.

Both Video and Audio will be recorded for later viewing or just listening if people missed it, along with transcript and other useful information. As well as been posted to our site we will be widening our possible scope by posting to You Tube, ITunes and other media sites.

Please do contact us if you are in or have an interest in the Humber area which include the cities, towns, and villages below to name just a few:

• Hull
• Grimsby
• Scunthorpe
• Withernsea
• Hornsea
• Immingham
• Hessle
• North Ferriby
• Brough
• Goole
• Cleethorpes
• Beverley
• Cottingham
• Ellerby
• Hedon
• Preston
• Barton Upon Humber

We’ve ran many tests, setups and believe we have a great model for the Humber area to take advantage of, so please do contact me for more details on how to take part.

We hope to run test shows towards the end of January and start streaming live scheduled shows in February.

Moved out from Hull to Gilberdyke into a brand new house a few years back to move closer to work, but to cut a long story short. Got laid off, setup on my own and is at least an hours round trip to anywhere towards Hull.

Been out in the sticks (watching tractors pulling trailers full of carrots and potatoes) I thought would be quite peaceful but when you get a dick of a boy racer bombing around all the time from getting in from work till going on midnight it ain’t! (Needs his exhaust fixing I think) He skidded off the road last year, his car was a right off and luckily no one else was involved as he does think 2 inch from peoples bumpers is acceptable.

COCK!! a doodle doooooooo……

Hopefully he’ll do a better job now the wet weather is back!

Been self employed and only just starting out in April 08 isn’t a great platform to look at moving and so need to start thinking big and up a gear or two into earning some serious cash.

This is in the form of mini site revenue, domain sales, directory building, websites for clients and any sexual favours needed. (last part is a lie)

Been self employed is great at times but can put me on a bit of a downer not been able to bounce ideas around with people face to face. Living in the sticks again doesn’t help that situation, distance, travel, and cost etc.

2010 we should be looking at selling in spring time and then start to rent for a year or so to sort things out and get back to normal living in Hull.

All in all I need to move people!

Face to a name?

This post is a bit of a moan and a blatant plug for the best advertising money you’ll spend within Hull!

Formed our limited company around April 08 and submitted the company details to many directories and other sites alike for free.

From that day on (un-ticking the box I wish to receive news letters etc) we have had nothing but a constant bombardment of phone calls and spam emails from most of them. I know they have to make money and to follow up listings but the annoying thing is when they try and sell us a listing and then when we decline SEO or a new website. They clearly have no idea,

That’s what we do!

Two points that bug me –

1. First of all, the call centre person who calls you has no idea what a company offers, who then calls them up to get a listing upgraded to pay annually and just wants your card details.
2. The next day not giving 2 hoots what happens to your listing or business leads now they have their commission and another tick in their box. This is backed up by everyone I’ve spoke to having NO results from paid listing on these national directories.

Really isn’t right that is it?

This got more and more grinding as the months went on. I asked clients and businesses at networking events, do you get these calls and confirmed –

“All the time! Bloody annoying”

Knowing how people generally do searches online using Google, Yahoo, BING and other search engines using a Geo location and service or product required. We decided to start buying up all Hull related domains, Services, products e.g. HullBeds.co.uk, you get the idea where we were going by covering all angles.

• 100’s of domains
• 100 hour’s,  late nights and long weekends
• £xxxx’s for registration fee’s and secondary market domains

We had a solid network of domains and a main directory they all interact with in some way- Hull Local.

We have found people like to speak to faces and real people, not some guy or voices at the end of the phone. We didn’t want to try and create a national directory but kept it a local one just to Hull which also made sense for travel and getting to know businesses. We don’t just expose your business from one website/directory which limits how many times you can be shown in search results but a whole spread of websites.

An example, If your company sells blinds, you can be listed under our Blinds, Conservatory, and Windows categories. All  of which focus on been in Hull and then on our specific mini websites again all focused on been in Hull – Hull-Blinds.co.uk, HullConservatories.co.uk and HullWindows.co.uk This gives your company 8 shots at any one search when people perform a search instead of the usual 2 shots. If you need this explaining a little better please do contact me.

I could write a book on how the network of websites would benefit your business. I’ll leave it there and just ask you to take a look, see how it works and if you do want a chat let me come and show you how it could work for your company!

I thank you ;o)

Attended the first UK east coast digital conference today the KC Stadium and just in short FANTASTIC Jon!

Speakers as follows and briefs I my add to over the next few days:

• Rory Cellan-Jones – Very real, down to earth, and surprisingly quite funny
• Jaan Orvet – Calm, controlled, great ideas about nodes and how projects should or could be worked
• Charles Arthur – Great tips on how to get noticed by journalists with stories or exclusives
• Stuart McFarlane –
• Mike Butcher – Bursting at the seams this guy, so much to say and share. Could have a pint or spend a week with this guy and NOT get bored.
• Rob Palmer – Web guy from Newcastle, great design skills and ideas. Hope he has the balls to go it alone some day full time. Good luck Rob!
• Kai Gates –
• Karen Barber – Despite a tech glitch at the beginning, she sort of enlightened us all to new ideas and Audio Boo in general
• Anand Verma – He has his fingers on the pulse of what not to do and what to do in the digital market place. Very watchable.

A lot of it that was said I knew a fair bit about but the main part of the whole day I’d take on board is “Got and idea? Go for it! Make it real.” This is directed at Jon and his teams efforts.

He had a vision and went for it! I do think a lot of it was down to who he knows. This follows true in life all the time, but if you have an idea, talk to people ask for help, go to Hull Digital meetups and don’t look back.

Jon is sending out questionnaires I think for feed back but