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By Les Scammell, January 27, 2010 12:13 pm

It’s a sign of the times I guess. People are not the only ones being frustrated in this world. Of course, my feelings are that this bird shouldn’t be out trying to find trees instead of using light poles.  My second thought is that we should be ground based lights that shine upwards and outwards rather than eyesores like this. Just my thoughts – I guess the bird would agree. Grow trees rather than grow more light poles!

There is frustration all around us these days. Plus Sized and Skinny Jeans – do they go together. Some people say yes – I am not so sure. It’s not that I am against plus size people – heck I am heading that way myself. I know I look horrendous in jeans. Perhaps I am shopping in all the wrong places!

Should I be in looking in a Franchise or Chain or Both? Chain stores are cheaper but their staff members are often rude and fairly short on any information when it comes to products. Franchised stored are often a little dearer (sometimes way dearer) but at least the people working there have a little more knowledge of their products.

How are these all related? Our society seems to be changing so rapidly. Take that poor bird. By the time it finds a tree it can peck away at, it’s bill will be so damaged from hitting metal it will probably not make a dent anyway. We are modernizing, but not to our advantage. There are a lot of plus sized people around – and I am becoming one of them. Why? Our world is so modern we don’t do anywhere near enough to burn of the energy we consume. We used to walk miles everyday. These days we hardly do any walking – at least, not meaningful. We want everything on auto – even our lives I think.

Take the Evolution of the Library. It used to be somewhere that we could go to do research and to borrow books. Go to a library now and you see computers, audio tapes and videos. These of course are being replaced by CD’s and DVD’s. Books – yes there are books but not as many now as ten years ago. Research – use one of the computers.

If you work at home, say as a medical transcriptionist, there are some Things a Home-Based Medical Transcriptionist Should Do – one of these is to get up and take a good daily walk. Sitting at a computer all day just leads to extra weight – I know, I am a classic example.

What we need is plenty of exercise, a winding back of some of the technology so we have to do some things ourselves. I wonder how many people actually grow their own fruit and vegetables these days. They say you need Healthy Eating for a Healthy Smile. The world needs healthy consumption for a healthy planet. It’s not just the birds that are becoming frustrated – so are we.

Right now – I am taking some of my own advice. I am off for a good walk so I can burn off some of this fat. With a sensible diet and plenty of exercise, I wont need plus size clothing, I can keep my smile, shop at my favourite clothing franchise and dump the library for my local bookshop where I can order books I like.

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By Les Scammell, January 25, 2010 4:01 pm

Another post on Small Business Mavericks caught my eye this morning so thought I would follow up on what the latest gossip was on the topic. The post – How Your Meta Description Will Help You Rank Higher – reminded me of how I almost doubled my traffic on one of my blogs just by beefing up the meta description.

Meta descriptions are used by the search engines as the snippet when your site appears in the search results – sometimes. That is often the problem. Google for one will decide on the text for the snippet. From what I can gather, it will look at the meta description tag but if it decides its not appropriate then it will find text that is, often from the first paragraph. (So make your first paragraph an extension or new version of your meta description perhaps?).

The latest comes from Chris Crum at WebProNews where he talks about rich metadata and how that effects your listing in search results. This will take a little thought and more investigation I think. I don’t know how appropriate it will be for blogs, but for web pages it could be a real plus. I wonder now if there will be developing niche for those that can learn the markup language used. It could be the next best thing in SEO I think.

With comScore reporting a 46% growth in search, it certainly isn’t dying as some have been predicting. I do wonder whether or not the art of SEO itself is starting to feel the pinch. Search results are no longer based purely on ‘relevant pages’. You now have local search results together with a map (for some searches), results appearing based on where the searcher is located geographically, and other results such as images, videos, news and blogs. I know before Christmas I did a search the results page was almost full of featured results. The organic results were limited to about five and were well below the fold.

As an example, type in Barack Obama in a Google search window. The results verify what I have pointed out. In order of appearance in the search results:

1. News items related to Barack Obama
2. BarackObama.com listing
3. Wikipedia
4. real time search results window
5. image results
6. organic results

The organic results start about two-thirds of the way down the page. My suggestion – if you want to appear in search results for Barack Obama, you will probably have more luck using social media and appearing in the real time search results.

Well defined meta descriptions, a good opening paragraph and perhaps the include of rich metadata could mean the difference between winning that click from the searcher or being overlooked for someone who has done it better. I wonder what the search results will look like in two or three years time? Can anyone remember what the search results looked like three years ago?

Fortunately, for now, SEO can still win traffic. Google isn’t the only search engine in town and results like those for Barack Obama are not quite the norm. In the future, who knows, organic results may not start until page two – and who looks there?

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By Les Scammell, January 22, 2010 2:09 pm

With more newspapers looking to charge people a fee to read their content, it has to leave you wondering how long it will be before other content providers like some of the big names in the blogging world, start to charge to read their content. Would you pay to read CopyBlogger, Problogger or the Marketing Pilgrim?

I am not sure that I ever would and I am not sure that we will ever reach that stage. Small Business Mavericks asked the question – Is Paid Content Our Future? and more generally, “is this the future for all online content?”

What I can see in the not too distant future is that some of the big named bloggers and content providers will ‘charge’ an access fee – however, it won’t necessarily be in dollars. Insisting that individuals become members (and so sign up to the mailing list) is one option – an option that is probably very real. Would you become a member of one of the big sites if that was the only way to access their content?

I do see a problem with that model however. The only way it would work is by having all the content marked as private. This means keeping the search engines out and if you keep the search engines out, you won’t rank for that content. If you don’t rank, you will not attract new visitors unless you can circumvent the search engines and deliver a strong social media marketing campaign. If you niche is franchising, how will you let the non-franchise world know what is happening. I know if I was in that industry and want to Make Your Franchise a Success – I would want all the free traffic I could get.

Some niche’s are probably not big enough to utilize a subscription based content model. Take medical transcription – would you subscribe to get the latest news on the topic. If you were in the field you may, but that is only 5,10 thousand tops – is that enough? Probably, if you were so popular you had all of them subscribed. Most of those involved have enough difficulty Handling Home-Based Medical Transcription – I don’t think they would bother with any form of paid content.

I guess if the big boys aren’t ranking in the search results, we may get a look in! In the meantime, is paid content on the horizon – maybe for big time operators, otherwise, don’t even contemplate it.

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By Les Scammell, January 21, 2010 12:53 pm

Sometimes I get some strange emails. Today I received one touting a franchise business that promised income of $75k-$200k with a total outlay of only $45k. I am always a little suspicious when the first thing they throw at you is the income. Carpet cleaning (and mattress sanitizing) is big business. The market is also pretty full.

The New Hot Franchise Sizzles! that appeal to me don’t involve cleaning or any intense sales. I would prefer a hot franchise opportunity that had customer coming to me – a franchise like fast food since it is always going to be popular.

I had an offer several weeks ago to sell a new range of toothbrushes that were set to revolutionize dental care. Now I know that Gum Diseases Should Be Identified in Time and that dental care is very important. But at $0.50 commission paid on every toothbrush sold, even in my humble town, if I could get everyone to buy one, I would still only make around $25k – and there are always expenses.

What I would like to buy into is an online franchise. With an online presence, you can have multiple income streams. Even with an online presence, I would be wondering – Can Small Businesses Earn Affiliate Money? I think they can if the affiliate program was related to your business in some way.

Really, what would please more than anything right now is not having to read silly emails that promise me the world.