But – if you’re the kind of sad individual who values quantity above quality – here’s a tip for you…

I play with Twitter – (only because I hate it so much, and as research for posts like this). Overnight I got 200+ new followers on one of my accounts, and they are still coming in at the rate of around ten to twenty an hour.

How? Very simple, just add the ‘big name’ Internet Marketers to your Twitter account.

If you don’t know who they are – they aren’t hard to find. You probably already have mails from the likes of Eban Pagan and Yaro Starak in your spam folder, having been ‘tempted’ into subscribing to their mailing list to download some free useless information in the past…

Your new followers will for the most part be generated by bots, and be of no use whatsoever – and are only from sad ‘get rich quick on the Internet’ types – but it’ll up your numbers.

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1. I hate Twitter…
2. Phishing scam in Spain
3. Opening a Moneybookers merchant account

I sometimes use this site as a way to alert the readers of scams. Having stumbled on a business card promoting the TVI scheme in Playa Blanca here in Lanzarote very recently and having previously been asked by a friend to check out its credibility this seemed as good a place as any to put this. I won’t embarrass anyone with the name on the card – they’ve just got sucked into a pyramid scam and have lost $275-

What claims do they make?

• they claim it’s a legitimate travel business
• that you can make $10,000 a week from recruiting others

What is it in reality?

It’s a classic pyramid sales scam, (A pyramid scheme is a non-sustainable business model that involves the exchange of money primarily for enrolling other people into the scheme, without any product or service being delivered. Pyramid schemes are a form of fraud – Wikipedia)

• the ‘ business’ consists only of recruiting others
• has been banned by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, with no doubt more to follow and their offices in London have been vacated and moved to India

If  you’re the person who’s name is on the card (nobody I know), I’m very sorry you got ripped off.

Anyone else, please be on your guard. I know times are hard for many here on our little island, as they are elsewhere, it’s a perfect time for the unscrupulous to prey on hopes and dreams. Make no doubt these people will take your last penny off you.  Don’t buy dreams – if it looks to good to be true, it probably is. We all know that – but sometimes even good people get caught out when times are tough.

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1. Phishing scam in Spain
2. Ash compensation email is a scam
3. Does my company really need a website?

One of the biggest problems as a web designer can be finding suitable photographs to fit with our clients websites. Having waded through many an on-line stock library in the past I always seem to end up back at Fotolia which must have one of the biggest collections of them all – approaching 7 million photographs.

Prices for images suitable sizes for use on the web start from 2 or 3 Euro.

What is surprising is that a quick search on Lanzarote will throw up over 1.100 images – which makes it particularly useful for businesses on the island. And most are of very good quality due to a human based acceptance system – you won’t find many holiday snaps on this site!

So – no need to steal any of my photographs from our sites, or from other popular sites on the island as happens all to often.

It only costs a couple of Euro to avoid breaching copyright laws!

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1. New computer shop in Playa Blanca
2. Photography
3. Telefonica

Firstly let me point out categorically that we NEVER employ this (or any other underhand) technique. We deal honestly and openly with all our clients. The stats quoted here come from a project we have under development (not a Lanzarote site) and I did this just to illustrate this article.

If I was trying to sell you advertising, it would look pretty impressive wouldn’t it? Really, it’s not. It’s a very simple deception technique used by unscrupulous web site owners.

Now – how did we take a site from 16 page views to over 9,000 in less than 48 hours?

Simple – I bought the hits from a website – for $9.99. There are a number of sites where you can do this, and on some you can even set a daily rate (which if you are using this to be deceptive) which you can control to show an upward trend – one such site is “Buy Hits Cheap” (www.buyhitscheap.com)

The thing to note – is that hits from this type of source are worthless. In this instance, I haven’t shown you it of course – the vast majority came from China, so even if they were real and not just automated or users tricked onto the site by some means – they would not be able to read your content anyway!

There’s four reason people might use this…

1. They are stupid, and believe they are buying genuine, worthwhile, human visitors

2. To improve their rank on the Alexa website (or similar sites) that measure sites by traffic rather than more thorough means

3. An SEO company can use tools like this to deceive less knowledgeable clients and impress them with improved performance

4. Most commonly, a small web site owner hoping to sell ad space can create charts like the one above to deceive prospects. Picture a site with 200 visitors a day (or even less), if the owner was to ‘buy’ 1000 hits a day they have a chart which has 1200 hits a day (and they only need to do this for a week or a month occasionally to get a nice print out for their sales folder. Simple, but very effective to a potential client with little or no understanding of the internet.

So – next time someone comes knocking on your door selling advertising – don’t take their impressive statistics as gospel.

Here’s a couple of things that you should be aware of…

1. The term hits means files loaded which includes images and other files – each page can contain many items. For instance a hundred hits a day could simply be a couple of pages viewed!

2. Unique visitors, is exactly what it says – as is page loads. The ratio of visitors to page loads is crucial – lets say a site gets 1000 visitors a day and 1000 page loads, it means that anyone who his getting to the site is jumping off right away, they are not reading the content. If its 1000 visitors to 10,000 page loads – obviously users are finding the content useful as they are reading 10 pages each.

3. Ask where the hits come from geographically – does it reflect your target audience?

4. Ask where the inbound links in come from – they should be from quality sites – not “I’ll click yours if you click mine” type sites like Twitter!

It’s a simple thing. Statistics, charts and spurious numbers look great – but they can be formed and twisted to say whatever the person sat in front of you wants to say if they are less than scrupulous!

Ask questions! Even better have a look at who’s advertising already and talk to them!

And the big question is – have you ever heard of the site before someone walked through your door or that email arrived in your inbox?

Related posts:

1. Are you a shopkeeper?
2. Adbeans – an alternative to Google AdSense
3. Contextual advertising placement…

Things to look out for are:

Your own name or email address not being in the “To” section
Hovering your cursor over the link (don’t click it) bringing up a suspicious looking address that doesn’t match the site it is supposed to – the thing to look out for is the last description before the domain extension – e.g .com)

If you receive anything like this, just delete and forward it as spam to your Internet Service Provider, and also consider forwarding it to the company who the thieves are masquerading as. If you are concerned that perhaps you are missing something from your bank, then phone your own branch.

NEVER log in using your bank details, email or password to a website from a direct link in an email. Reputable companies who you know will only ask you to log in through their main website and not via an email such as this.

Click on the screen grab to see the email content.

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2. TVI Express, is it a scam?
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For the purposes of this article, we shall concentrate on Google – after all, it is the biggest!

We are very proud to say that we have NEVER had a site banned by Google. Not any of ours, nor any of our clients. However, a couple of years ago we did buy a domain that had been registered by someone else (who no longer lives on the Island) and found out very quickly that they must have broken some criteria laid down by Google had resulted in the domain being banned. This banned domain was Lanzarote Business

Getting a site unbanned by Google is not particularly easy. First of all, Google won’t tell you why a specific site has been banned. However, it does give you some ways to ensure that a site doesn’t get banned in the first place, so going through these step by step can help you to check that you are following best procedures, then leaving you to approach Google and ask for reconsideration.

So how do I know if my site is banned by Google?

There are a couple of ways to try.  Start by going to Google and typing in site: followed by your domain name, minus the www. For example:

site:lanzarotewebdesign.com

If it gives you search results… then all’s well, and your site is not banned. If it returns no search results, then it is not listed in their archives. If this is the case, then do a search for “Google banned checker tool” – there are plenty of free ones out there – and here is a link to just one of them: Google Banned Checker Tool

What could have caused it?

Getting a site banned by Google isn’t that common really – so you must have done something pretty bad if that has happened. There are a number of reasons why Google may have banned your website, and here are just three of them:

• Using Black Hat SEO techniques
• Linking to”bad” sites, such as gambling, pronographic or link farms
• Duplicate content. Copying another website’s content can definitely harm you, which is one of the reasons we take plagiarism very seriously indeed.

How can I fix it?

The best way is to open a Google Webmaster Tools account. It is free, and only takes a couple of minutes. Then you submit your website, validate it by placing a small piece of code in your website, and you can start using the tools that Google has provided. There is a tool in there that can resubmit your site to Google, and offer it for reconsideration.

The offending site that we had was looked at in less than a week, and is already commanding many useful search terms… all on page one of Google results. We simply proved to Google that we were new owners, and that the site was full of useful content – and Bob’s your auntie’s husband.

Summary
Don’t risk getting your site banned, by urilising bad practice – and do certainly be careful who you get to build your website!

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Moneybookers has in the end turned out to be an excellent choice – as always opening the merchant account took a bit of time, they wanted to see the working site, and of course – lots of bits of paper related to the business – as anyone company working within the law is bound to do. It took a bit of time to get going but the way the system work it doesn’t stop working on the site as you can add your buttons which apply to the standard account and the credit card options are added when the merchant account is approved.

Opening the merchant account was FREE (always a good thing), and Moneybookers commission rates are low at only a  1.9% compared to PayPal’s 3.4% (plus a €0.35 transaction fee) that saving alone was enough to persuade us to open an account!

On the downside – As web designers we didn’t find their site either particularly user friendly, there’s a learning curve when you are used to using PayPal – and support wasn’t particularly quick when needed. However, the advantage outweighs these minor gripes, the reduced fees are enough for us to suggest that anyone give them a try….

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Before I go any further with the results of that digging, let me state categorically we have not, will not, and will not ever have any dealings with the site or those behind it.

Apart from being a really shabbily designed website, it;

• gives no indication of its owners
• is selling membership to unwitting tourists who might want to ‘feel part of the island’
• it claims to be non-profit making (sic!)
• offers people the opportunity to work for them for the investment of £2000
• the whole thing stinks…

The whole site and its related domains are written in a style of language many reading this will be familiar with… It includes the phrase “Simon says” throughout…

Yes, you guessed it. It’s an old favourite – it’s the inimitable Simon Harris again. Simon and Jenny Harris and Quills Wills may be down and unable to trade here (his words on the Gazette forum as I recall), but it seems they are not out.

The evidence?

The name of the domain owner – Melanie Ross (click on her name for the Google search which demonstrates clear link)

Companies House information…

LANZAROTE SOCIETY MANAGEMENT LIMITED
HARBRO HOUSE
CROWN LANE
DENBIGH
LL16 3SY
Company No. 06661107

and…..

THE QUILL GROUP (1986) LLP
HARBRO HOUSE
CROWN LANE
DENBIGH
DENBIGHSHIRE
LL16 3SY
Company No. OC328567

The same address is also the Registered Office of… THE QUILL GROUP COMPANY SECRETARY LLP
and THE QUILL GROUP TREASURER LLP

There’s plenty more where that came from – but I think you’ll agree it’s pretty clear as to who is pulling the strings on this baby! Of course, I have emailed and asked that any links they have included on there to our sites be removed – we have absolutely NO association with this venture.

The really worrying thing is that on the site it says that one of their aims is to represent the island and it businesses… Think about that one!

A note to tourists who may be reading this at this point – there are many good sites in addition to our own Lanzarote Nightlife if you are looking for information on the island – just Google, you’ll find plenty. And you certainly don’t have to pay to feel a part of the community – you are always welcome on sites like our own forum at Canary Nightlife, the forums on Discover Lanzarote and at the Gazette.

Now, of course, I’m not saying Simon Harris is a conman – I do however have an opinion based on all I’ve seen and read about him. What I would strongly urge anyone who is reading this – if you are thinking about doing business with him, or any of his companies, make sure you do thorough research – hopefully there’s enough in this post to get you started. That research may end up saving you thousands…

Caveat Emptor….

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1. The golden rule is to stay in touch with your customers
2. If you are inconsistent they won’t trust you
3. If they can’t find you they will go to your competitor
4. And if they forget who you are, you’ll have to start all over again

In principle I agree with what they are saying – but lets face it – it all sounds rather threatening… Realistically any advertising medium has as its first priority its own financial health. So many magazines are using this sort of approach at the moment.

If you are an advertiser you must put the interests of your own business first! Yes, it is absolutely crucial to maintain a presence – but all advertising should be judged on results – measure what responses you get, make a note of where they come from, and always assess how much each enquiry or sale is actually costing you.

Here my take on the above points;

1. Yes – absolutely, but if it’s your customers you are talking to there are plenty of other ways instead of paper advertising – email, direct mail, face to face (depending on your business), and of course your website
2. They trust you if you provide a consistent and quality service whether you are advertising or not
3. If you’ve done points 1 and 2 correctly your CUSTOMERS will return to you whether they see you in a magazine or not – though they do have a point when it comes to new prospects not finding you so easily – of course there are still alternatives to reaching those people to – it’s largely a case of applying a little imagination
4. If you’ve done point 1, 2 and 3 in the right way they haven’t forgotten!

Magazines, radio and the other old school advertising are not the be all and end all to marketing your business.

However, as I said ealier – marketing is critical in the bad times – absolutely critical, and with money tight you may have to cut your budget. If you are cutting back on your magazine, radio advertising find a way to replace it with something more cost effective – don’t just stop doing everything. If you do, they are right and your business will simply die.

Use the recession to assess what you are doing.

• How cost-effective is your marketing?
• Could you be getting better results for the same cost?
• Are there alternative ways to reach your audience?
• Could you generate more referrals?
• What do you have in place that can be improved upon?

Now is not the time to panic – use it to learn – get smarter! And, take a long hard look at your business as a whole.

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This recent article about us was in the April edition of ‘Spain’ magazine back in the UK.

There are of course business benefits to us from press articles…

• they add credibility
• they have the potential to bring in business (this one brought us an SEO client)
• they may create additional website traffic – the Canary Nightlife and Gandy-Draper sites saw additional traffic throughout the circulation period
• our clients see that actively marketing ourselves and our sites s in turn driving traffic to their advertising with us and their own websites

We were approached to do this article after an article about Elle in the expat section of ‘The Sun’ website.

Watch this space – we may have another on coming up soon…

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