Haydon Rouse

Businesses of Kent!  People of Kent!  In fact, where ever you are, I can get you listed high in the search engines.  “Yeah, yeah” I here you say.  “I’ve heard it all before” - you say.  Well the proof is in the pudding, so here is the pudding…

Do a search on Google on the keyword “kia” (the car make).  In position 9 (first page) is my client Maidstone Kia - they sell kia cars.  That’s 9 out of 73,200,000 results!  Their site is top for “kia kent”.

Have I got your attention yet?!

Ok, do a search on Google for “web designer kent” and my web site design business is top out of 24,700,000 results.

Do you realise how lucrative getting to the top of the search engines could be for your business?

So why the frustration?  I need sites to work on so I can satisfy my competitive desire to get to the top of the search engines. If you’re interested then please get in touch.  I can work out a monthly price dependant on how difficult the keywords are for your particular industry.  It may be possible for work to be done on a commission basis, so the more products you sell the better for everyone.  Lets get rich together!

Yesterday evening I went to watch my beloved football team Whitstable Town play a league game against Deal Town.  Well, what an amazing game of football.  I got to the ground just after kick off to find Whitstable down a goal after just 5 mins!  A dodgy decision by the ref gave Deal Town a free kick just outside the box apparently.  Well that wasn’t the refs only bad decision of the night.  Anyway, at half time we were still 1-0 down despite some great shots on goal.  Just after into the second half, Deal scored again.  Gutting.  We managed to bring things level and then Deal went ahead again 2-3.  The boys equalised again, but no sooner had we scored than Deal went ahead again! (3-4) We were all wondering whether it just wasn’t going to be our night.

Somehow we caught them on the break again and managed to level it again 4-4.  That would have done me at that point,  I would have settled for the draw.  I just didn’t want them to score again straight after equalising.  Again Deal attacked and I held my breath, willing the ball out of our area.  We cleared it and attacked.  After a bit a goal mouth scramble the captain managed to poke it into the Deal net!!  Seconds later, the final whistle. 

Wouldn’t allow me to put photo here so view it here

We had won 5-4!  Talk about stressful.  You can see me going nuts in the pic - hands aloft, just between the two Deal Town players.

Per Laleng is the photographer.

btw if you type into Google “Deal Town FC” in top position is …. Whitstable Town’s site!  (yes I designed and optimise the WTFC site)
  

This is a subject I’m passionate about.  As most of you know I’m a web designer, but it’s not much use having a web site unless the site is ranked well in the search engines, particularly Google.  So search engine optimisation is all about getting a web site appearing as high as possible when users search for particular terms related to that site.

At present I’m working on sites that specialise in UK walking holidays and cnc routing.

I’m also running a seminar on search engine optimisation on the Saturday 16th September 2006 in Faversham, Kent.  SEO is vital for anyone doing business online.  If you’re interested in attending the seminar or discussing how I can increase the number of visitors to your web site then please get in touch.

You can ignore this post.  All to do with getting my blog listed on Technorati.

Last year we had to get someone to get rid of some seagulls that were nesting on our roof, between the chimneys.  They had become really aggresive and would swoop down on people as they walked down the road.  They had attacked some workmen who repaired some loose tiles next door.  They’d also dive bombed us whilst we were out in the garden, so we decided they had to go.  Paid a fortune to have them removed and have a wooden box with spikes made.  Well, they aren’t nesting up there this year (apparently seagulls come back to the same nesting spot year after year) but they are still in the area, and boy, are they noisy buggers!

For the last week we have been woken up by their screeching at about 5 am.  The amount of noise they make is incredible.  They sit on the roof screeching and then all their mates turn up and start up as well.  The sound they make sounds almost prehistoric sometimes.  Damn things!  I hate seagulls.

I’ve been researching CMS’s (content management systems) some more as I think SO (survivor-online.co.uk) should really have one.  I’ve always liked Joomla, but had to check to see if anything new was around.  Had a look at Drupal, but thought the number of templates was limited.  Read that Drupal is quite difficult to skin as well, so that has put me off.  Also it just didn’t seem to have the addons.  I’ve seen and heard that some blogs can be pushed to be a CMS, but again there aren’t the addons.  So I’ve more or less decided that it’s going to be Joomla.

There is meant to be a new version of Joomla coming out which is quite a step up and there is talk that updating to the new version might be difficult.  I’m therefore holding fire for a bit till the new version comes out.

Then I’ve got the task of trying to integrate Joomla with VBulletin (the forums) so that there is only one log in for users.  Read about some hacks that enable you to do it but they look scary.  I’ve come across a site that offers an integration service and it’s not too expensive (something like $40) so I’ll probably go for that.

Got bored the other day and started playing around with a new logo for SO….