Crazy Hump Day
Posted On: 2008-05-07
It's Hump Day and things sure are crazy around here.
I've got a client who wants us to look at adding some extra pages to his site but has no idea how to access the content management system the last web designer used. The client can't get a clear answer out of said designer so we can have a look ... even though that web designer has told the client that he's too busy to do the work the client now wants us to do. I've got another client who wants us to stop work on one website and start work on another ... but basically not charge him for the work we've already done on the first site.
I've got another who ordered some advertising for a magazine and got us to produce the graphics to go into said magazine ... but now he finds that he got the measurements wrong and what we produced is way too big. And I've got a printer who can't understand that some brochures we ordered for one client are not to be included with the business cards we ordered for another client.
We're also dealing with a broken office chair with the nearest suitable replacement hundreds of kilometers away; a hard drive that is refusing to give up its data and a laptop that is refusing to even think about working ... but at least the sun is still shining, the birds are singing and it's a great day to be alive.
And if you think that's all crazy then spare a thought for a well-known mainstream affiliate marketer who employs a number of people in-house. She's very successful and if you wanted to make money from affiliate marketing then her business model is definitely one you should think about following. But right now she's fighting off criticism from people who seem to think that online marketing isn't about the money.
If that produced the 'Huh?' response from you then you really do understand what online marketing is all about because if it's not about the money then I have no idea what it is about. But then there's no accounting for some of the ditzy flakes that seem to inhabit some parts of mainstream.
And there is a word of warning for you. Not everyone who appears to be a guru over there in the world of mainstream marketing really does have a clue. While I was trying to follow the reasoning of some of those weird people who think that online marketing isn't about the money I found that one 'guru' on one of the best known marketing and SEO sites on the Web today was a guy who was writing articles for me 18 months ago for $10.00 a pop.
Now can you tell me how someone can rise from a cheap article writer to a guru with years of experience in such a short time? Perhaps it really is as that well-known affiliate marketer said on Twitter ... most of the people who write about marketing and search engine optimisation are total hacks who really have no personal experience whatsoever.
And here's a little craziness for all you people who think that anyone who designs in tables and not CSS should have died in the last ice age. Have you ever looked at your beautifully CSS designed pages as Google sees them?
Perhaps you should because you may find that while browser renders the web pages in all their beauty Googlebot sees them in an entirely different way. Head into your account at Webmaster Central and have a look at the results there. It could be that your coding is wonderful and Googlebot is not confused by what it finds but it could also be that you won't like what you see what Googlebot sees.
And if you're one of those people who feel that the only way to succeed online is by using all the freebies you can find then here's a little word of warning about a freebie that was released today. It seems that Hewlett Packard has released some free web page designs and even some blog designs too.
One well-known blogger was quick to point people to them as a great source of free goodness but in his hurry to tell people about them it seems that he missed all those nasty embedded links hiding down in the footer. Admittedly there were only two links but that's enough to upset Google and you wouldn't want to get whacked by the big Google stick now would you?
And that's if from me today ... now it's time for me to dive back into the all that silliness that I mentioned before. Let the craziness continue!