Getting my knee sorted

Posted by David Whitehouse

I’ve been having problems with my knee for almost 4 years now, I spent 1 year trying to continue karate on it, but in the end I had to stop because the pain was too bad and it really felt like I was doing my knee some damage – plus all the stories of people at karate getting hip or knee replacements kind of worried me!

Anyways, during that time I have been to the doctors twice, the first time was just after I injured it, they told me they’d book me a physio appointment and I waited quite a few months before realising that they hadn’t bothered at all. So I decided to go private, I was given a load of exercises, none of which appeared to help, by this time it had been a year. Then I saw another physiotherapist about it around 2 years ago, again more exercises, again no change. Then I saw another physio late in 2009, more exercises and again no change.

So not wanting to give up I saw the doctors again, he suggested I tried strengthening my quads – yeah cheers doc, like I hadn’t tried that one before!

So again, not wanting to give up, I contacted Andy Wray, a local physiotherapist in Ripon who has only recently gone private full time. So I saw Andy, and he went through the usual tests and checks – and nothing really seemed apparent, until I let out a big girly scream and he suggested I might have a “lunge lesion” – as the pain sounded like it was bone on bone.

So Andy wrote a letter and I took it to the doctors and now I am finally seeing an orthopaedic surgeon, so hopefully they’ll get it all sorted and I can get back to a martial art, WOOHOO!!!

Cheers Andy.

New USB Soundcard for Improved Voice Recognition – FAIL

Posted by David Whitehouse

well I’ve got and naturally speaking 9.5 and I produced for a USB soundcard basically it’s meant to improve the quality of the audio because instead of using inbuilt soundcard them using an external on the advantage being that you don’t hear all the worrying stuff coming from the computer so it can get a better sound quality I am also ordered Dragon naturally speaking 10 some hoping to start blogging them using this

anyway I didn’t really correct this you can see how good it is and also by just both her and normal conversational speed so wasn’t like that they’re dictating slowly I was just talking about would normally

Why it is important to buy both the .co.uk as well as the .com

Posted by David Whitehouse

Many people neglect the importance of buying their local domain name as well as the dot com.

As you can see from this example, my colleague Rory is up to no good again!  He’s just bought the unitednationsofsound.co.uk and no doubt he’ll be climbing the rankings to get the number one spot over the next few weeks.

I just hope Richard Ashcroft makes him an offer for it…

Update: Apparently they’ve been in touch with Rory and he is passing it over to them

Happy New Year

Posted by David Whitehouse

Happy New Year everyone!

What 2009 Meant for Me

Well the year is almost up and I was just wondering what I did with all that time… Then I realised, quite a lot actually!

  • I got my arm so that working at a computer in my job is bearable.
  • I beat depression.
  • I became a true expert in SEO – I really have learned a hell of a lot working at Bronco.
  • I published a book and sold just over 60 80 copies.
  • I got engaged to a woman with a heart of gold and looks to match.
  • I read nearly all of Seth Godin’s books and learned a hell of a lot more!
  • I had my first well performing website with over 30,000 uniques in 30 days and built a subscriber base of over 500.
  • I helped my m8 Themba start a new online shop selling HID Lights which I am sure will do well

Plans for 2010

  • Get married
  • Get something fixed: either my knee, neck, jaw or arms!
  • Quit playing computer games online
  • Save up for a deposit on a house

How a Spammer See’s the SEO Cycle

Posted by David Whitehouse

My colleague Paul has recently done an excellent diagram that communicates how SEO works, so I thought I would adapt his and do one to explain how spammers think SEO works:

spammer-seo-cycle

Free Is Not the Future

Posted by David Whitehouse

So I did some work for someone earlier this year, all entirely for free. I didn’t know them, but they were local (from Leeds) and I thought I’d offer to do a little bit of work for them in return for perhaps a link and a testimonial – but mainly for the experience.

Anyways, I did a full analysis of their website and made some excellent recommendations on how to get more traffic, and more importantly, targeted traffic. I wrote up a report with all my findings and recommendations, and I am sure if followed it will lead to increased sales. I’ve attached the graph of their visits for November 2009 (I’m not going to mention who this site is, so this will remain anonymous):

God this is an embarassment

God this is an embarassment

Here is my gripe, I regret doing the work for free, big time. They haven’t implemented the findings, they haven’t written me a testimonial and they haven’t given me a link (despite asking twice). It just goes to show how little some people know about SEO and how little value it can be given. The biggest loser of all is of course my client, by now they would be getting significantly more traffic and many of them would be leading to sales – oh well. No more free stuff for anyone (except of course my friends)!