Where am I going wrong???

Valli

aww Flower bad luck on the failed test for OH

now go get up that wooden hill...and send a winch down for me I am poggered (I think) lol

Flylady_Flower

Valli wrote: »

aww Flower bad luck on the failed test for OH

now go get up that wooden hill...and send a winch down for me I am poggered (I think) lol

Ha ha, yes, poggered is how you would have felt...:rotfl: I felt the same, still do a bit, but didn't work today so feel much better for it.

I'm off tomorrow to Canterbury to view a new project that I have just got - it is a 2 bed apartment and starts beginning of July :T Worked really hard to get it, so really pleased that I have...

I've also started a blog! Ooooh, look at me all techie, but I'm getting the new website and need to drag people in, so a blog is good for that apparently.

We have also been very naughty this week, what with hubby being home and me working he's not been cooking and we've been having takeaways - I worked it out - £65 down the drain because of it!!! that's over a weeks grocery shopping budget and is ridiculous! We had a barbie tonight as I'm determined no more. can't believe he wouldn't cook, still, I suppose he was depressed, but so am I now.:rolleyes:

Anyway, loads to get through before I'm away this Saturday... see you all soon.

fabfuture

Congrats on the Canterbury job! And well done on the blog as well - they can be fun to keep up! Shame about takeaway week. If there were meals in the freezer that were batch done, would he be happy with simply reheating one of those? Or even supermarket pizza!

Flylady_Flower

Well, I'm back, tired but back...

Was very silly Wednesday and worked from 7am and then all night and all day Thursday too - 42 hours straight - just a tad tired when I got home

Have also lost all internet connections as we have left TalkTalk - long story but waiting for new connection once I sort out new supplier. working on my dongle at the moment. bit of a pain as it's much slower, still MUCH better than nothing. :rolleyes:

OK, my sleep pattern is totally up the wall - didn't go to bed until 3am this morning then up again at 9am and only just tired now - I am off to bed once I have found the new flylady thread - will update soon

Valli

Don't think you're going to have any kluck there flower...

Flylady_Flower

Valli wrote: »

Don't think you're going to have any kluck there flower...

Ohhh, am I getting chickens Valli?.... :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:He he, I know what you mean - found in the end though...

I am having a consultation for my new website this morning, so running around cleaning and tidying frantically at the moment - will catch up this afternoon.

Flylady_Flower

Well, the consultation went well yesterday with Philippa - very nice lady and think it will be fun working with her.

I have to look for some websites that I like now so that she can see the kind of styles I like (well, she sort of knows already, but some more confirmation won't hurt).

I thought I would get back to my good, bad, naughty stuff again - I like doing that and it keeps me honest. I have given up trying to work out last week - next to nothing spent as was working most of it and being fed lots so not really much to talk about anyway... So here goes:

The Good Stuff...
Well, the course last week meant that I earned £500 for my troubles. This means that when the invoice is paid I can pay my network fee as it has increased as I am now a senior consultant.

The Bad Stuff...
Got the new lead for DS's Wii and it still doesn't work. Had to take it to repair place that we have locally to see what they could do (free check) but goodness knows what that will cost - why can't they look after stuff eh! £0? at the moment, I will update when I know
£250 of my earnings from last week will have to go on my network fee.... and a further £150 on my website, as it is £650 in total and I only get £500 from Business Link (which is better than nothing eh!)

The Naughty Stuff...
I took DS for dinner in the Harvester last night on the way home... £24.46 for 2 meals and a couple of drinks - he had done really well at college on his work and has nearly passed his City & Guilds - which is an accomplishment when he nearly got thrown out earlier in the year! I thought it wouldn't hurt this time...

I need to sit and work out where we are - I'm a bit lost at the moment and need to get back on track. I have allocated the extra money for the Debenhams card and that is fine and will be paid off in full next month now... :j

I also need to look at ways to increase income, so am trying different things to make my website show up more and bring clients in - I now have my blog, which I enjoy, plus I want to look at Twitter, but am not sure about that and how it works - looks very bitty and strange, but I will speak to my friend who uses it and get some lessons.
I also want to look at Facebook as an option - apparently that works well too.

On a totally different note - what's with the new angry smillie? I've only been gone a week and this weird little red face is now on here instead of the old one with swear words above his head????? what's all that about???? are the smillies not allowed to swear now? :rolleyes:

fabfuture

FF - I'm on Twitter and FB - both are good but both for different reasons. Twitter works more 'quickly', as in you could be far more visible to your target market within 24 hours ... but FB is really useful for maintaining your existing 'real life' friends and making sure that they know what you do. You can also link your blog (& Twitter, if you choose) to FB. The Blog entries come up on your profile as notes and updates are FB status updates.

A quick way to check out using Twitter is to read the 101 guide at http://twittercism.com/twitter-101/ I follow this guy to stay in touch with the latest Twitter news. Also using a different application on your computer makes it easier to follow - I use Tweetdeck, where I can divide the people I'm following into groups and decide whether I want to send a particular tweet to FB.

I would do online marketing in this order:
- Website & installing statistics - this is where you want everybody to end up, theoretically - checking out all of your work and allowing you to find out where they came from via Google analytics - or another package.
- Twitter. I don't know exactly what you do, but because it's about homes and is a service (I think), this is going to get you the biggest return on your time. You can be following 50 people in your sector within a day - and unless someone has thousands of followers, they usually look at who has started following them within a day or two (assuming they use Twitter regularly). Also look at who your best targets are - chances are they are mates with others in that sector and they tweet to each other - so follow them all and get a sense of what is important to them and how you might approach them 'in real life' if you wanted. Lots of people ask questions and this is where you can step in and answer if you have something useful to suggest - AND suddenly you're being helpful to the people who can most help you with your business.

Twitter regularly. No brownie points for tweeting once a week. Once a week for a blog is fine.


-FB. You can put up a 'page' on FB for your business, as well as having a personal profile page. Just search for 'page' on FB and you should find yourself on the right path.

- Blog. Update ideally twice a week or more. Can be on jobs you're doing - or other things related. Perhaps one of the paint companies has released a new palette which you're using or you've found a wonderful rug supplier - you get the idea.

On your blog, make sure your titles use keywords that you want people to search for - blogs are very search engine friendly and use labels, so visitors can easily find a section of posts they are interested in eg tools, colour, cleaning

Can you update your website yourself? This is REALLY useful for tweaking your search engine optimisation as you find out more about how people find your site and if you do any AdWords advertising. BizLink ran a really good SEO talk that I attended. The trainer did SEO full-time - and while she was a bit full-on pushing us to hire her, it meant she had great ideas about maximising any online marketing budget you have, including a small Adwords campaign to find out oodles of info about how people find you.

I suspect, though, that a burst on Twitter after your site goes live could be a huge step in the right direction - and Twitter is FREE! Just remember that the Twitter mantra is 'add value'.

Sorry it's so long - but hope it helps.

Flylady_Flower

Grrrrrr, just replied to you FF and it was eaten.....

Thank you so much for this, loads of info that I can use.

I [strike]will[/strike] am checking out the Twitter 101 - it looks great and hopefully I will learn lots - I have tried to search under my headings, but can only find american people - I need UK I think.

I knew you could do a facebook page but didn't know how - thanks for that too, I think I will be having great fun now...

I also havne't been putting in tags on my blog - doh! guess what I'm about to go back and do...

I can currently do anything to my website as I did it myself, so any changes have to be by me, but there may be some restrictions on the new site - I can change words and photos though, which should be all I need to do anyway, and anything else can be changed quite easily by Philippa.

Thanks again for this, it's a great help and I don't mind long posts at all

fabfuture

Flylady_Flower wrote: »

...I have tried to search under my headings, but can only find american people - I need UK I think....

You probably do, in the long run, but if there are US tweeters in your sector, then it can be an idea to follow them anyway - check if they are saying anything either interesting to you or if they seem to be slick at marketing, their ideas are always useful. Also, one of the things that is popular is retweeting - that is, reposting what someone else has posted, but you put "RT" at the start of your tweet, along with the person's name, so they are credited. One of the US people may post for example, a relevant article in the New York Times, which you might retweet. You could also have a look at those US people in your sector to see who they are following. It's pretty normal to follow hundreds or the odd thousand people, so don't feel you have to manage who you follow too carefully. If you stop following someone after a while, they aren't notified and they're unlikely to notice you're gone.

Also, think outside the box. For instance, if I was a hairdresser who wanted more young clients, I might follow teen & young magazines, fashion magazines, radio stations, make-up artists, aspiring models, run competitions on my FB page & link tweets to it. I might organise a competition - when I hit 100 followers, everyone gets a 15% discount for two days on a particular service or product. When I hit 500 followers, there's another discount etc. You could write an ebook about making the most of your hair on a budget and distribute via a download on your website, promoted via Twitter.

Good on you researching already - and have fun!