What's In A Name?

I'm sorry I mentioned the celebrity thing now. For one; I'm tired of trying to find ways of incorporating the theme into my blog and for another; far too many visitors are arriving here expecting to see something that isn't here (FBT). But hey ho, we live and learn eh??? Anyway...

My regular reader will know that I am currently researching a book on Website traffic and this is proving to be quite challenging. There are so many opinions and hearsay (No, not like Myleene!) in the various SEO forums that it dilutes any genuine information - even worse; it misleads people. So perhaps the only way to find out the genuine facts is to carry out my own experiments into the murky waters of SEO. My first little test looks at what's in a name, or more specifically the TITLE tag in HTML.

So just how important is the TITLE tag on a web page then? Is it vital for SEO, or can you get away without it? Well one way of finding out is to see how the search engines will view identical web pages with different title tags. For the purposes of this experiment I have created three web pages; all identical except for the TITLE and META DESCRIPTION tags and uploaded them to a test folder.

It will take some time for the search engines to visit and index the test pages. So in order to get the ball rolling I will list the pages here:-

• Test page 1
• Test page 2
• Test page 3

Now all I need to do is keep an eye out for the pages to appear in the SERPS. Once that happens I can analyze the results.

So more on that when the time comes, but in the meantime I'm not going to mention the large parts of an evicted jungle guest as I have no intention of improving on my current number two spot in Google for the keyword hinted at and mentioned in a previous post.

Is Jan Leeming On Target?

You know, I really can't get over the number of extra hits My Rich Pickings is getting as a result of people searching for Faith Brown's tits. I just wish I had mentioned Myleene's m**** or something! (Far more appealing to my eyes.) Anyway, not that it is doing anybody any favours, because my blog has nothing whatsoever to satiate the demands of eager Faith Brown fans - so I presume most of them simply hit the 'back' button immediately.

Which brings me to mention targeted traffic. The fact is that it matters not if your site has 20 or 20,000 visitors per day - if those visitors have not arrived because they were looking for that something your site has to offer, then your site is not a success and ultimately you won't profit from it. So what can you do to generate visitors who are actually interested in your site and didn't arrive by accident?

It is a complicated subject and one that I am going into great detail about as I research my new book on Website traffic. But one worthwhile method that every Webmaster worth their salt knows about is PPC campaigns, whether that be with Google's Adwords, Yahoo's Search Marketing, or whoever, the fact is it works in getting targeted traffic to a site if used correctly.

But for today it is enough to wonder: Will Jan Leeming parachute jump out of that plane or not?

What Are You Looking At?

Checking my stats this morning I discovered that there had been quite a few extra visitors to My Rich Pickings so I decided to investigate where they had come from.

What surprised me was that they were all (yes ALL of them) from a Google search for "faith brown tits". Now I'm not surprised that people are searching for the term, but I am surprised that my last post, Design Consistency, Get Me Out Of Here! currently gets a no.6 position on the first page of Google for it. Mind you, I'll bet that most of the visitors were disappointed when they discovered what the post was really about!

I guess it proves the theory that writing something controversial about a topical subject can boost your ratings, so perhaps I should try more of it.

Come back next time for Dean Gaffney Plays Footsie With Crocodile In Hot Tub!

Design Consistency? Get Me Out Of Here!

Maybe I lost the plot or took too much medication or something, but I seem to recall that I was going to look at a popular TV show and try to find elements that can be transferred to a website in order to try to repeat this popularity?

Oh yes, it was just a feeble excuse that would allow me to mention the antics on "I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!". Ah well, I'll just have to run with it now...

So just how can the show be compared to a website then?

The first thing to notice is the opening titles - they are consistent. As the show starts the viewer is drawn in by familiar imagery and titles with an appropriate 'jungle' colour scheme. It is the same for every episode of the show with the celebs appearing in the same order each time. This can be transferred to a website by providing a consistent layout with the logo and navigation in the same place on each page and a harmonious colour scheme.

Then there is the order of the show; the 'teaser' film of the celebs at the beginning followed by the 'welcome' talk to camera from Ant and Dec and then another look at what has been happening in camp. This is then followed by more observations which are backed up by more film of the antics in camp, and so on. Again it is consistent from one day to the next making the experience easy for the viewer. One way of transferring this 'easiness' to your website is by making sure that every page on your site is easy to find and doesn't require any radical thinking. Make it 'easy' for the user.

Incidentally, who decides which celebs get to bungy jump out of the helicopter and which ones take the lily livered option of canoeing up a river? Obviously Faith Brown couldn't have bungy jumped because her tits would have battered her to death before she reached the ground, but just how that decision is made I would like to know. Comments please...

Anyway, back to the webby stuff:

I think that overall the thing that should be drawn from today's observation (apart from that mental image of Faith Brown's bazookas violently flapping in the wind) is CONSISTENCY. Just as "I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!" uses familiarity in its opening titles and maintains a consistent format with the same things happening in the same order, so we can utilise this consistency in our website designs. It is not rocket science and the idea is at the very core of good web design, but it is worth pointing out for the benefit of the many who think it is cool to have a new layout and colour scheme on each page of their site.

Until next time, take a look at where else you can see the same sort of uniform design consistency: newspapers, magazines, books, buildings, shops????

Oh, and try to get that image of you know what out of your mind now!

I'm A Celebrity so take the piss!

Finally the new series of I'm A celebrity Get Me Out of Here kicks off in the UK tonight, and...

Hang on a minute, am I on the right blog here? My Rich Pickings is supposed to be about making and saving money online and Websites and stuff, isn't it?

Well, yes it is but I think there is an analogy in here somewhere that it would pay for us to look at.

As we all know; a Website (or blog) is only successful if it gets plenty of visitors to its pages, and a TV show is only successful if it gets plenty of viewers; so there should be something we can draw from this; i.e. if we figure out what makes people watch a successful TV show, then we might have an idea of how to create a successful Website (or blog).

Now, I can't help it, and I'm almost ashamed to admit it, but I am a fan of "I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here" despite the fact that I hate almost all other so called reality TV shows (although how dumping people in the jungle and then filming their every move relates to reality I'm not sure). So what makes the difference between this and the other 'reality' TV shows, and is it relevant to successful Websites?

For me, the thing that makes "I'm a Celebrity" appealing where others fail is Ant and Dec taking the piss - I don't care two hoots about the so called celebs, but watching some stardom hungry has-been chewing on a wichity grub while Ant and Dec wet their pants laughing is what I call entertainment. And THAT I suspect is what makes so many other people tune in too - laughter.

Go on, admit it: you'll be talking about something you saw on "I'm a Celebrity" tomorrow, and more than likely laughing about it too - and that means the people who didn't see it will be tuning in tomorrow night to see what all the fuss is about. Talk about viral marketing!

So over the coming three weeks I will be analyzing and blogging about how "I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here" can be compared to a successful Website. Oh, and probably laughing about it too! Watch this space...

Long Live the Google Search Engine

My regular reader will know that I spend a lot of time writing. It's obvious I know but, in order to write it is regularly necessary to do some research and I find that the World Wide Web is the ideal medium for it because I don't have to leave the office and break my concentration in order to look up some fact or statistic. My preferred tool for this research is usually the Google Search Engine (not for nothing is it the most popular on the Web).

When researching a certain topic on the Web I regularly come across a lot of junk and irrelevant nonsense (I know, I know, I should make more use of the advanced search feature at Google.). And a lot of the time I will find a page that exists only to sell me something; it may go into a lot of detail along the way but ultimately at the end of it all there is a 'buy now' button. Nothing wrong with that, after all we all have to earn a living, but it is not usually what I was looking for at all.

So it is always nice to find the information I am looking for nicely laid out on an accessible Web page without having to delve deeply into a site and run the risk of being side-tracked along the way. It's also a great bonus when it just happens to be FREE too! Naturally when I find a great resource my first instinct is to pass it on. So if you are at all concerned with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) you might be interested in my latest find:

It is Ron Castle's article "How To Become Number One At Google". Yes, I know that ultimately he is promoting a service, but if you are a Webmaster and know what you are looking at, then you will realise that there is a great deal of information about SEO beyond the visible words in the text ;o)

In conclusion, my message for today is a simple thanks for the Google Search Engine; without which the Web would be a whole different place, and I might still not have found what I was looking for......... (cue Bono et al...)

Increase On-line Earnings By Filtering

Catching up with some on-line reading today I came across a very interesting post from John Chow called "Using the competitive ad filter to increase Adsense earnings".

Basically he claims that the so called 'MFA' (Made For Adsense) sites that contain little or no proper page content are buying their traffic through Adwords and other PPC services and using low cost per click keywords. The point being that if you are getting low value clickthroughs from your sites (typically 3 or 4 cents) then the chances are that it was a MFA site responsible and you would have got a higher value from a legitimate site.

I think it is a risky business buying traffic from Adsense in order to earn from Adsense because it could end up costing far more than was ever earned. However, there are many black hat tactics abound and there are many ways of exploiting the earning potential of Adsense; so I don't doubt that it happens.

What intrigues me is the idea that by blocking some ads we can increase overall revenue. Can it be possible? Well I am experimenting with the idea right now.

Watch this space...