A post I wrote about link building attracts about 20 spam comments each day, spam ranging from SEO companies to promotional text for baby wear.

Does spam add value?

Some of them are actually not at all badly written and can actually look like it can add value to the post.

I have been on the fence with this; shall I remove the author’s link and approve the comment? Or shall I just delete the comment entirely?

At first it might seem that the comment can add value but there are a few things to consider before approving a spam comment.

Did they post that comment to one hundred blogs?

As much as the spam comment can increase activity in the comments section, duplicate text can affect rankings. Google takes the most relevant trusted website and buries all the duplicates or not display them at all. From that perspective, if you have ten blogs with all the same comments, the ratio of duplicate comment content in each blog might affect your rankings.

Although that’s not tested just a thought.

I have made it a habit to use flickr as storage for my images. However, I was recently working in a company and was asked to use one of their computers instead of my laptop. I visited my website and behold, I see those deadly alt texts (luckily they were descriptive enough). Upon closer inspection, I realised that flickr was blocked by their IT department.

To make my point clear, it’s probably best not to host your images via flickr, or videos via youtube etc. Companies with strict internet policies have them all blocked, rendering your content inaccessible.

As for iframe content such as facebook fanpage and Google calendars, AJAX should be used to pull the data instead.

Lesson learnt.

The key to my success as a freelancer was communication and building strong relationships; a value rooted from family and friends. To retain clients you have to build a relationship, communicating well in order to understand what they want and need.

As a young freelancer I met all sorts of clients and dealt with all sorts of personalities. I have been ripped off, undervalued and bullied into delivering work I was not happy doing. I blamed other people and simply called them terrible clients, but in actual fact the fault was with me. I did not communicate well enough who I was – my worth, my expertise and my passion for my work.

Establishing your position is key. Your clients should know that you are worthy of respect, an expert in your field and passionate in delivering quality in your work; communicating this early in your relationship is vital.

Doing so allows you to be in a stronger position to have control over the project. All you have to do is deliver.

A chain is a series of connected links which are typically made of metal. A chain may consist of two or more links.

Ranking in Google is getting harder and harder as more and more webmasters utilises optimisation techniques. This leaves newer small businesses in the dark, not being able to compete against the larger and older websites.

Link building is a frustrating process and should be done slowly, carefully and ethically, otherwise, the results will backfire.

Types of Links

• Directory Listing
• Reciprocal Linking/Link Exchange
• Paid Links
• Organic Backlinks

As far as basics are concerned, without going into other sub techniques such as three-way-linking; linking is one of those four.

Directory Listing

For new websites, I always start my link building campaign by listing them in online directories such as:

• DMOZ,
• Google Places,
• Bing Local Listing Centre,
• Yahoo Local etc.

I would recommend all small businesses to do this as it gives them a window of hope appearing on the front page. To extend this further, make sure to list your business in other local directories relevant to what you do.

Social Media

Social Media is a cross between directory listing and organic backlinks. Every business should measure the risk before considering a Facebook Fan Page. Having a Facebook Fan Page with no fans could backfire on your business. That goes for all the other Social Networking sites.

Reciprocal Links/ Link Exchange

Link Exchange is another dangerous part of SEO and it is something that should not be rushed. If your friends own a website then you can ask for a link exchange. That is pretty much the only safe link exchange you can get. If you are planning to ask for a link exchange from a website you do not know, then you need to consider one important question.

What’s in it for me?

If you can give them a good reason to exchange links with you then go for it. If not, then think again, place yourself in their shoes, would you exchange links with a new website? And if you would, then what do you want back?

Paid Links

Paying for backlinks from established websites is a guaranteed way of getting great backlinks. The obvious downside is the cost. If you are confident with your on-page content and you have the budget for paid links, then I would advise you to go for it.

Organic Links

Organic links in my opinion should remain organic. I would not recommend a full blown linking campaign for a website younger than a year old. Think about it, organic links in theory are links that are given by the third party if they are either recommending your businesses or ruining it. If this is the case, hiring an SEO company who tells you that they would give you 3000 backlinks within a month is a complete waste of money. A website’s organic links should grow organically, which means, from few to many as the time passes.

Should I hire an SEO company?

If a friend of mine have a new website and asked me that question, my answer would most likely be a no.  I would tell him to use that money to pay for links from established websites instead. Unless of course you don’t feel confident you can do it.

1. Not all recruitment agency are the same

   • The Good

     These are the agencies which really try to build a long term relationship with you and the client. Sadly, it’s not that easy to find them, mainly because they already have a few freelancers they call first before they look for others.

     How to spot them?

     • If they specialise in a sector.
     • If they are really looking for the right person for the job.
       • For example, when I receive phone calls from agencies asking me to do a Cold Fusion job then I know they’re not a good agency because I don’t do Cold Fusion.

   • The Bad

     These are the agencies that are deceptive in nature. Many of them are successful.

     How to spot them?

     • If they start asking you, the names of the persons you reported to and their contact details.
     • If they are asking you to lie for a job.

   • The Ugly

     These are the agencies who give you jobs with no partiality.

     How to spot them?

     • If their client list is filled with gambling, adult companies and other unethical groups such as those who promise instant millions.
     • If they call you for all sorts of work from development to cleaning.

2. Don’t be afraid to bargain with your pay

   Never be afraid to bargain with your pay. In theory the more money you get paid the more money they will get. So in theory it does not hurt to ask for more.

   However, as I said some agencies are bad. They try and get commission from the client and a commission from you also. Push it as far as you can but learn your limits. Something you will only learn as your relationship grows with your consultant.

   At the end of the day, if you think you’re worth more, then you’re most likely are.

3. Let them do the selling, you do the job

   Recruitment consultants are excellent sales people. They do a harder job than your local furniture salesman. They don’t sell furniture; they sell people and people don’t always look their best. Ask them for advice on how to make your CV better.

   The web is your expertise, focus on your expertise and let them focus on getting you the job because that is what they do best.

4. Respect Confidentiality

   If they ask you to keep the clients name confidential, do so. Not only does it benefit them, it benefits you also. The more recruitment agencies know about the client, the more competition you have.
   Even when you don’t land with the job, don’t burn your bridges.

5. Don’t forget to say Thank You

   A simple thought so powerful we forget to do.

Many spiders will build webs to catch prey but there are lots of spiders who prefer to hunt

A Website Redesign can affect your SEO, especially when you are moving around content and renaming pages.

The matter has more to do with file location, linking, caching and crawling.

After redesigning for a church in Wanstead, I realised that a redesign can take a toll on your SEO if you don’t inform Search Engines about it.

It can also be a bad experience for your users who are visiting your website via external links targeted to a page you have (re)moved.

Search Engine and User Solution?

Exclude the old pages in your robots.txt file to stop search engines from crawling those pages.

Disallow: /oldpage.html

However, this solution only helps search engines.

To help visitors coming from referrals and search engines, redirect all your old pages to your new pages by doing a 301 redirect via your .htaccess file.

Redirect 301 /oldpage.html /newpage.html

Finding Broken Links

To find broken links, sign up for a Google Webmaster Tools account as it tells you all crawling errors the spider encounters.

Another useful tip is by Googling ‘link:http://yourdomain.com’ which tells you all the back links going to your site. Make sure all the pages they are linking to is still live or redirected to the appropriate location.

There are also many services online which helps you find broken links in your pages. One of the more reliable ones is W3C Link Checker

Lastly, make sure to have a helpful ‘Error 404’ page just in case you don’t find all the broken links.

• Knowing your target audience
• Knowing your product
• Tailoring your product

In this case study we will be using East London Christian Library(ELCL).

Knowing your target audience

Our target audience are Christians in London looking to borrow books.
NOTE: If you have more than one target audience, create a list of them.

Knowing your product

Knowing your product is knowing what you have to offer.
In this case what we are offering are free Christian books.

Tailoring your product

Tailoring your product is all about writing copy that matches your product to the needs of your target audience.

The main keyword for our website is obvious – “Christian library [in] London”

We want anyone who searches for this keyword to end up in our website.

Understanding Google Analytics

The picture above shows the traffic information provided by Google Analytics for our website.
The website has been running for under six months and has received 83 visitors, 43 of which are returning visitors with an average time on the site of four and a half minutes. Our traffic is very low.

Using Google AdWords Keyword Tool

After a quick search using Keyword Tool by Google AdWords the results shows this:

As you can see from the figure above, the search volume for the following keyword “Christian library in London”  is low. We are not interested with the global search column as we are conducting a local SEO. We are only interested in the local search value which is sixteen.

On a positive note, we can assume that we are swallowing the whole of sixteen searches every month. We can therefore conclude that we are hitting our intended target audience.

However, our intended audience is not many at all. It only attracts a small number of traffic, which explains why we only received 83 visits. Assuming all sixteen searchers are from London, and a quarter of them are from East London (or living within a commutable distance to our library), we are only getting four visitors which is reflective to our analytics report [see below]

The good news, is that our five visitors who visited us via the keyword “Christian library London” stayed for an average of ten minutes which means, our visitors found what they are looking for in our website.

Keyword Research

The keyword “Christian library in London” does not bring enough traffic. Looking back at the Google AdWords Screenshot[see above], we can then think of other related search terms we can use to attract more traffic.
What caught my attention was the keyword, “Christian bookshop London” which attracts 260 local searches per month.

If you fire up Google’s Keyword Tool again and search for “Christian bookshop London” we can see other related  keywords.

After going through the list of related keywords, I compiled the following search terms:

• Christian bookshops London – 390
• Christian bookshop London – 260
• Christian bookstore London – 320
• Christian book shop/store/shops London

Although we are not a bookshop, the following searchers are potential customers as they are possibly Christians looking for books but does not necessarily mind buying or borrowing them.

What happens next?

We have to write a copy or two which contains the following keywords above. If we are doing this entirely for SEO then writing a lengthy copy will suffice. However, not only are we looking to increase our ranking, but, convert website visitors to library visitors also.

The best way to do it is to give our web visitors what they are looking for and gently try and convince them to pay the library a visit by creating a copy like so -> Christian bookshops in London.

This case study focuses on the process of designing the logo for a social care service company.

Morgan Browne Social Care Services Ltd provides a range of social care services for young people such as housing support, therapy and professional consultancy.

Requirements:
Our client needed a logo which represents who they are, what they do and who they are for. The logo needed to show that they are qualified social workers for young people of today.

In short they needed to convey that they are professional, fresh and current.

The Process
Our branding process undergoes a series of brainstorms followed by traditional hand drawings and illustrations. Below is a scan of our final brainstorm and quick illustrations (Sorry our drafts are too messy to post!)

[screenshots]

We decided to show

• professionalism by using grey
• freshness through lime-ish green
• and currency through a serif font

Although we used colours for representation, the grey-scale equivalent is as representative as its coloured counterpart. Creating a brand which is memorable, transferable and unique.

This case study focuses on the process of how we design a website for a client.

East London Christian Library is a free christian library with more than 1,500 books situated in Walthamstow, London.

Please note that this process is not a strict formulae of our design process. The process from client to client may differ slightly dependant on circumstance and clients preferred involvment.

View Website

Requirement:

Our client wanted something different. He wanted a bookshelf menu with the books as its navigation links. He wanted the website content to be contained in an open book and the look of the website to be more traditional rather than modern since the building the library is situated in is traditional.

Process:

Our web design process is broken down in a 3 phase timeline

1. Initial consultation
   Contract signing
   Deposit payment
2. Template draft
   Client revisions
   Final template agreed
   Completion of payment
   Domain name registered and template published online
3. Client sends us content/Copywriting
   Client amendments
   Design contract finished

First phase

The first phase involves an initial consultation where we acquire our clients requirements. We will be writing user stories and drawing up wireframes to try and capture our clients imagination. Our client can also provide design pegs, likes and dislikes.

[wireframe example]

Second Phase

The second phase involves throwing the design templates to-and-fro until the client is happy with the design. We then register the domain and publish the design online.

[template drafts]

Third Phase

The final phase involves the content of the website. In this case our client has provided their own content for the project. In some cases, we are hired to copywrite also.

We then test our design with all major browsers. We make sure that our design is cross-browser compliant and accessible to the widest audience possible including old browser such as ie6 and new technologies such as the iphone.

This design is done using hand coded XHTML and CSS which means all our coding adheres to W3C recommended standards which can be partly proven by passing its Validation Service.

View Website

Igorot.net is a non-profit organization whose aim is to retain their ethnic practices, culture and tradition by regular hosted events.

View Old Website

Requirements:

• Website Design
  • Modernize the look and feel of the website whilst at the same time keeping things generic and simple
    • Retain most of its elements such as page layout, colours etc.

• Website Development
  • Content Management System(CMS)
    • A way to edit the website without the knowledge of HTML
    • Ability to upload any file through the admin panel without using an FTP client
  • A small and simple discussion board where people can create post and reply
  • A way to check their email through their website
  • A way for the administrator to create an email account on the fly
  • Migrate their membership excel sheet into an online database accessible in any computer
  • A way for their new members to register to their organization online
    • Email notification for all new registration to the admin
    • Add new members on to the membership database

Actions and Implementation

Website Design
Our redesign process works by developing the idea already conceived and stepping it up to reach its full potential.

We kept all of its elements from its layout, colours, graphics and content but modernizing its look to give it a touch of elegance.

A lot of thought has been placed on the websites usability, accessibility and over all user experience. The redesign process involved getting feedbacks from members of the organization and non technical users to ensure its target audience are able to use the website and its features.

Website Development
We met all of our clients development request through the following:

We decided to build their website on top of WordPress CMS and redesigned the admin panel slightly for easier usability for the client. This allows them to edit their pages without the knowledge of HTML.

To tackle the File Management request by our client, we developed a WordPress plugin by hacking together an open source AJAX file manager.

We decided to use a single ‘thread like’ discussion board for Igorot.net since they only do very few discussions online.

‘Creating an email address on the fly’ was a bit of a stumbling block for us as we had to somehow link their WordPress database into our webhosts email address database. Without giving you all the gibberish jargon we have managed to do this just by supplying the requested ID and a password.

We migrated their membership list into an SQL Database allowing them to edit their membership list anywhere. The database is linked to an online membership form which automatically updates their member list and notifies the admin for new registrations.

Testimonial

“Thank you very much for meeting all of our request. We appreciate your time and your patience dealing with us. I would definitely recommend UKLWD because they have been very patient to endeavour our needs. Very easy and straightforward to work with.

-IGOROT UK, President”

We are now hired by Igorot.net to act as consultants and designers for their digital and print work such as event tickets, banners etc.

To view the end result, please visit them at Igorot.net