Archive for the ‘General’ Category

Many people confuse Google Page Rank with the ranking their site has in Google search results.

The two are very different animals however, and do not always match each other. For example – you may have a Google Page Rank of 4 or 5 (it goes 0 to 10 – with 10 being the highest) but you still do not come up at the number one spot for their chosen search term in Google results.

Google says that Google Page rank is determined by a high number of factors… but are reticent about listing them all. One of the most deciding factors however, is the number of backlinks from external websites referring to a particular page. The rank is always allocated to a page, rather than the whole website… so you will usually have a higher page rank on your home page, than to an internal page – this is usually because people will usually point to your home page when referencing your website.

Recently our guide to moving to Lanzarote achieved a Google Page rank of 4. This tells us that Google views the site as beneficial to readers, because there are so many links pointing towards it.

Our nightlife website Canary Nightlife has a page rank of 3. However, some of its internal pages also rank well… such as the Island pages and town pages inside the website.

So how do you raise your page rank? The first place to start is by getting lots of people to link to your website – or to a particular page. You can do this by a variety of methods… such as reciprocal linking, article writing, posting on message boards and much more. Ensure that your content is engaging, and of interest to lots of different people. You might think that you have written a masterpiece – but if nobody else shares your interest… then it’s not a lot of use. Aim to get your link listed on pages that already have a good rank themselves, as their “vote” is respected more highly by Google.

Be wary of websites that email you for a reciprocal link – claiming that they have a high page rank… but then shove your link onto a page on their site that isn’t even acknowledged by Google. This doesn’t help you – and only benefits them.

One thing to always remember though – is that content is vital for the health of your website. Keep it current… keep it fresh… keep it relevant… keep it updated!

To check the Google Page Rank of your own website – either install the Google Toolbar direct from Google… or you can enter your site address into this tool below.

Both options are free of course.

Ever wondered how you can get cheaper calls from the UK to Lanzarote using a regular phone rather than Skype or similar on-line services?

We can now help using numbers diverted from the UK and obtaining your number is FREE!

Read the rest of this entry »

We came across The Tapas Lunch Company recently, who have an established site selling Spanish produce and brands in the UK. We thought it a great idea.

Even though the food here for me personally doesn’t cut it and I’d give my eye teeth to have an Asda around the corner – it’s easy to see the possibilities for the market amongst the British public who might love their Spanish food after holidays or living as ex-pats.

It’s a great link for just about any Spanish themed website or blog. From a site owners point of view as well as providing useful content you can link through their affiliate scheme and make 10% on any sales you generate.

Click here to sign up for The Tapas Lunch Company affiliate scheme.

Interested in finding out about other affiliate programs? Take a look at the affiliate marketing category.

Thanks to my son for this one…! He recently bought a laptop on the island with the Spanish version of Vista installed. Before he bought it he did a bit of research and found ‘Vistalizator’ – a pretty nifty tool for switching to an English language pack.

So many people on the island seem a bit wary of buying locally because of the language. No need with this – it was installed in a few minutes and seems to work perfectly…. Even better than that – it’s free!

As with anything do read the instructions and requirements on the website before you think about installing.

Click on the link to visit the Vistalizator website and change Vista from Spanish to English.

As web designers, and marketing professionals we don’t rest on our laurels. It’s important to us to prove to our clients that we can deliver the kind of results they are looking for. How better to do this than to establish some decent web properties of our own. Since moving to Lanzarote we have established a couple of hugely successful sites. Without divulging our statistics it is safe to say that both sites generate a lot of hits.

Canary Nightlife (launched in February 06) – is a site promoting bars, pubs, clubs and restaurants in the Canary Islands. It’s a very busy site (hits are measured in the many hundreds of thousands every month) which we have proven delivers business to our clients at a very reasonable cost. It also includes a busy forum.

Lanzarote Relocation (launched September 07) – is our guide to moving to Lanzarote. It’s simply a blog of our own experiences of emigrating, our musings about life on the  on the island and other general Lanzarote information, including guest articles. As far as we know this is the only independent site of its type. Again this is a very busy website and features well in Google searches.

As we have written about elsewhere both sites have been imitated – more than once  – as is so often the case with many businesses on Lanzarote. But, we’re confident in our ability to stay ahead of the game – after all this is what we do for a living, we’re not doing this as a hobby or as an after thought!

Cue more insults from our friend “Bob in Cyprus”!

We currently have a number of other projects in the making – watch this space!

I went into the newly opened computer shop in Playa Blanca – Beep. Not expecting much as walking in they didn’t appear to have much stock.

We were looking for a joystick, when I asked  – there were none in stock. However, the girl at the desk was extremely helpful and  showed us the available range on her screen and said it could be ordered in fairly quickly. I was impressed.

Though not really looking like much – the range available on the Beep website is excellent. It might look a little unassuming as you pass by – but to all intents and purpose we now have access to the kind of range of products you’d expect from the likes of PC World in the UK.

The shop is on the back road between the German supermarket and Correos.

We found this summary on how people are searching on the three main resorts of Lanzarote quite interesting. Does it reflect the popularity of the respective resorts in general terms?

The following relates to searches on Google through the month of November 2008.

Playa Blanca Lanzarote – 27,100
Costa Teguise Lanzarote – 14,800
Puerto del Carmen Lanzarote 12,100

We’ve been big fans of Skype for a long time since back in the have a found it an absolute must have since living in Lanzarote, for both work and keeping in touch with family and friends.

Skype to Skype calls and video calls are free, as is the messaging, but what we like most about it is the cheap phone calls.  At the time of writing this we currently pay é0.17 to call landlines in the UK and US on pay-as-you-go.

Also, just recently Skype has introduced a flat monthly rate of €3.95 for unlimited calls to landlines within Europe which seems like a damned good deal to us!

If you don’t already have a Skype installed you can download the free software.

As well as viewing some of the work of 360Turismo – one of our  – on their website, they have recently set up a virtual tour of Lanzarote on viewAt.org it really is well worth a look at. As well as giving an idea of their capabilities – it is a very impressive way to see the island if your interest is more general.

We were highly amused to receive the following comments from an anonymous source…

It’s all rather pathetic, but entertained us nonetheless. Of course we could easily have deleted these messages but thought instead, for the amusement of our visitors it might be more entertaining to respond.

To set the scene here’s how ‘Bob’ came to visit our site (from a UK IP address)…

First off, ‘Bob’ visited Google and did a search for Elle Draper which landed them on Elle’s personal Blog (unlikely behaviour for a random ‘Bob’ in Cyprus) and viewed 4 pages over 24 minutes

From that ‘Bob’ then clicked a link to another Blog site of ours about moving to Lanzarote, he viewed 5 pages in there over a couple of minutes, before finding a link to this website.

After hitting this site ‘Bob’ viewed 28 pages over the course of 22 minutes!

The first message was this one in response to our article entitled ‘Internet Thieves…’ (profanities have been removed, which is the only change made to the originals) Our answers follow…

Author : Bob (IP: 90.194.38.250 , 5ac226fa.bb.sky.com)
E-mail : bob@bobstuff.com
URL :
Whois : http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput=90.194.38.250
Comment:
What a load of fu**ing rubbish. You are just promoting a poxy little business on a rock in the middle of fu**ing nowhere. How many web designers are on your sh**ty island? JUST YOU at a guess (or I bet that’s what you claim!). Jeez … little fish in a little pond slagging off anyone trying to make a living? You c**ts make me sick … if you are going to use negative marketing it isn’t a good advert for you and this sort of prose just makes you come across as a very small outfit trying to build a reputation quickly by appearing knowledgeable and smart. F*CK you’ve only been in business for what .. 18 months??? I live in Cyprus and we see twats like you arrive here all the time … big ideas, big mouths, and gone in three years. TW*T.

There’s not really much to comment on is there with the first message? Nothing more than a string of insults…. The second comment, below, was in response to an article called How not to build a website.

Author : Bob (IP: 90.194.38.250 , 5ac226fa.bb.sky.com)
E-mail : bob@bobstuff.com
URL :
Whois : http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput=90.194.38.250
Comment:
Go on then .. name a reputable competitor .. still get the feeling you are the only company there and you won’t recommend a genuine competitor…. cyprus has twenty good companies … how many you got there? Still reads like it’s just you and you are trying to stop anyone else getting a foot in “your” market … point me to a URL I can trust and I’ll get a quote from both of you. I’ve got three in mind on the island for my new estate agency … are you telling me via your page that you are the only one … or you have done a deal to get a cut from the “competitor” (who is probably a business partner of yours) you recommend .. come on … have it out on a public page not a “private email”.

You come across as protectionist and arrogrant – name your competitors so your potential clients can make a fair “online” comparison. BTW- stop bleating about search engines when your competitors seem to be higher than you (even golanzarote.com scores higher than you!)

Anyone else ?

Okay, now we actually have some comments that amount to more than a string of insults so we’ll answer the key points directly to ‘Bob’.

1. If someone wasn´t coming to us we´d suggest Timanfrae Media. We have NO financial arrangements with them or anyone else. Not sure how you conduct business ‘Bob’, but we pride ourselves on our professionalism.
2. Yes, there are few good web companies here, and many people who do it part time.
3. In number one on this list we answered your request for us to point you at a reputable alternative, can we look forward to receiving your quote then?
4. Now here´s where we got confused – you say you are looking for two web design companies to quote you for an estate agency website, so presumably you’re opening up as an estate agent here in Lanzarote if you are looking at web designers in Lanzarote. In your other message you referred to our island as a shit*y little rock in the middle of nowhere? Hardly the attitude for a prospective Estate Agent is it? Not sure that’s the way to sell houses.
5. As regards to the comment about us appearing big in our little market – we must be doing something right! Thanks for the compliment… If you care to look at our portfolio ‘Bob’ you may see that our clients tend to like our style of business – our profile has a knock on effect for them.
6. We make no apology for what you describe as ‘protectionist and arrogant’. We welcome healthy competition, it provides us the opportunity to prove our promises are more than just words. Again ‘Bob’, look at the portfolio on our Gandy-Draper site. Our clients love us – which isn’t something we feel warrants an apology!
7. On the same note, nor can we find it in ourselves to apologize for appearing ‘knowledgable and smart’. Thank you again for the compliment ‘Bob’!
8. We don’t really see the point you are trying to make about searches as any of the following searches – Lanzarote web design, web design Lanzarote, Search Engine Optimisation Lanzarote, Search Engine Optimization Lanzarote will usually put us within the top five , and you may find one or more of our other sites on the first pages too.
9. The mention of golanzarote.com (who as an information site is not a competitor) suggest more than a passing interest in Lanzarote.

The big question now is, who is ‘Bob’ in ‘Cyprus’. Anyone got any ideas?

• Is he Elle’s stalker?
• Is it just an attack on us for whatever reason, be that business or personal?
• Is he one of the competitors with a poor reputation elsewhere?
• Is he a ‘wannabe’ planning to move to island and trying to mix things up?
• Is he one of the sharks in Lanzarote we have talked about elsewhere?
• Is he actually ‘Bob’ in Cyprus? (In which case why is his original search on the name of Elle Draper? And, why would he be so sad as to post such comments on the site of a web design company on, in his words, a “shi*ty little island”. “a rock in the middle of fu**ing nowhere”, thousands of miles away?)
• Is he something or someone else? We’d love to hear your ideas…

You decide…!