The sircles IT support & solutions blog Internet Safety & Security, Windows Tweaks and Server Fixes

We are currently looking at some of our domain catalogue as a resource to be invested in rather than hyped up and sold on, and this is where an internet domain name is not so akin to real estate, but more like owning a port, or an exclusive trading agreement. A domain does not suffer from a limited number of rooms or a limited amount of land, and it is always a unique resource, no matter how many other domains are similar (and there are more and more obviously) but in this case we are going to examine a fairly sought after domain in the UK market, and although it is not a single word domain, it is a single phrase which is essentially a single keyword in its own right. 

Travel Information (a co.uk domain in this case) is something that everyone requires whether they are trying to go on holiday, return safely from a business trip, or just point their car in the right direction to get home. In all of these cases there is one phrase that is being seacrehd for on every device in every airport or jam or port- 'travel information.'

Now with all websites there is, of course, the question of content. This is a very important question as content is what your site has to offer and without it no one is going to hang around and so the search engines will quickly evaluate you as pointless. This means that we will have to invest heavily in a great site UI and fill it with huge amounts of information doesn't it? Well possibly that is a good solution but perhaps there is another way to look at this problem before we call the bank manager.

The thing about travel and travel information is that people are always looking for a single source where they can be reading about all sorts of different options rather than swimming around the internet in search of the best options and generally doing all of the work. Perhaps then we can find a way to offer sources of information a chance to publish their material on the site and when there are a reasonable number of guide books and maps etc. included it can be unleashed on the web users. Hopefully they will begin to find it useful.

So what would this site actually take to put up - emails sent out to councils and the national trust, region by region, until you have a number of attractions to visit in Britain and then you can begin assembling information from your readers rather than having to go out and find it. an important part of the site will be to continue to ask readers to point out any errors or overlooked places to visit.

Now what is going to actually persuade the National Trust and friends that the site is worth corresponding with? Well the domain name travelinformation.co.uk itself is a real seller here. The correspondence will have to have a very nicely assembled email and/or written letter with great presentation all-round, as well as a really good 'under-construction' page that may need to heralded as more of a re-design. Either way the prowess of the site is far from proveable at first and so these first impressions are important. Most of the councils/attractions etc. will happily give permission for their leaflets to be reproduced as advertising is what the leaflets were for in the first place. Some sort of OCR software will be needed to give the website search engine readability rather than images being postered all over the pages but this is a tiny detail.

So once we have a small audience then we can encourage by making high-quality, relevant offers to who are hitting certain pages then we can start to build an audience. There is no room for capitlisation at the start - the deals must remain as good as we can make them otherwise we will never begin to have any buying power with our suppliers, and so never build our site. Once we can get 3% where other buyers cannot then we can make a percent on give a percent to the buyer and start to recover our losses so far with that last percent. The most important thing is that our site remains a good place for our small client base to exchange information and look through deals to purchase travel deals.

You know what it's like - you're sitting there at 2:40 pm and the whole world has ground to a halt. There is no point drinking more coffee, it just wears you out. The office is mostly quiet and you are staring at a long list of tasks to complete before the end of the day. Suddenly something comes up on LinkedIn (which you just happened to have open) and suddenly a post comes up such as:

With a 'comments ?' at the bottom.

Now the first temptation is to just type in 'contempt' and that is fine - this post is not about recovering anything useful it is about getting you to work for someone other than your employer for free, and it is why LinkedIn is about to re-enter the category of 'banned websites' in the average SME in the UK. Not only has Microsoft just purchased LinkedIn - which is a bad enough sign - but the truth is that no visible effort in improving this site has really been made since it started out. LinkedIn is essentially a stream of people you hardly know (you work with them but they're not in your office or they would just come and speak to you) liking and commenting on a splurge of allegedly business related information. The post above (which I shall post on LinkedIn this week just as an example) does not get sent by someone with a lot of contacts. It is simply sent from a person or to a group where there may be contacts without a lot to do. This means that they will comment their thoughts and that this image will then be displayed to everyone in their own contacts. The time it arrives is no coincidence - middle afternoon humdrum time - and when the image starts to go viral, it becomes more effective, as it is being passed to people from a friendly and partly familiar source. The image itself is simply a way of overcoming the style and text size limitations that LinkedIn has stipulated to stop attention grabbing posts that waste everyone's time. But they overcame these restrictions years ago, so why haven't LinkedIn reacted?

Herein lies the problem, the website is essentially a black hole for time and anyone who is looking at the posts or whatever is simply not doing their job and so probably isn't very important to be getting the attention of anyway. So why do it?

Well lots of social networking comment gets you noticed by search engines as a subject that is being discussed and so you can climb search engine rankings such as Google. So all this activity is helping someone else get more customers on your company time.

The simple truth is that the value of opportunities for business on LinkedIn no longer outweigh the time your staff are wasting by commenting on inane, premieditated nonsense and if LinkedIn don't react, they will find the next big thing will overtake them liek wildfire. Well, actually more like a viral fire really.

Whenever it comes to interacting with anyone else, people are mostly attracted by one single thing, excitement. A good looking member of the opposite sex is a truly exciting thing and most of us find that pretty compelling. If someone is exciting then that is where we want to be. So how do we make ourselves exciting? Well the honest truth is by being excited. Being excited by who we are and what we are doing, where we are going and what might happen. Being excited is like being scared, it is truly infectious. So when it comes to doing business, being excited is te number one rule. We all love to work with people who are truly professional because it makes us feel like we are alongside someone who has seen it all and is therefore unswayed by whatever may happen. It is also that these professional people deal with he best of the best which is a by exciting prospect. When you are dealing with the best I'd the best then sooner or later you are going to be hanging out with famous and exciting people, and this is something we all aspire to.

It is very important that we are excited about what we are doing if it islet Hong that other people may experience such as making a film. Making a film might sound like an exciting prospect but it is often a very repetitive experience that requires real effort to endure, especially to remain excited by the process of filmmaking from beingnning to end. This is an important skill that the best filmmakers learn very early. Being excited motivates the crew, ensures that everyone respects your vision and avoid arguments by keeping people positive.

Exaactly the same goes for when you are writing. JK Rowling always said that she was excited for two years whilst inventing Harry Potter and if you ever decide to try reading that first book (and I recommend you do just to experience this) you can feel the energy in every page. 

Excitement is infectious for many reasons, firstly it is infectious because people wish to share the excitement with other people to increase their enjoyment and also to be a source of other people's enjoyment. It is also a state of mind we long for every day and which is not always fulfilled. Excitement is a state of mind though, and so can be created by our own intent. This is very important to remember - most of us are usually as happy as we decide to be. I find a good exercise is deciding to be happy in order to stay in practice at self control. Every day things go wrong or are forgotten and if can maintain happiness throughout - or even excitement - then you are going to be the person that people will invite back. 

This is never more important than when you are writing copy for any kind of marketing such as a website. If you can communicate just how excited y are about your product then you will retain reader attention and increase engagement. As soon as Google begin to see that engagement ruse they will be attracted to your pages (yes, excitement works on robots too!) as they see that your copy is inspiring people to read more. I use that word carefully - inspiring - as that is the feeling we so often long for - to be inspired. All art and music inspires us when it is at its very best and this is why these practices have endured the lifetime of the human race. If you can excite and inspire then you will suceed.

Getting excited requires a good state of mind, you should eat well and excersie. This may sound a little off-topic but looking good and feeling good are great and easily accessible source of excitement. If you look through LinkedIn then very often the social networking marketers all know how to look their best and how to look aft themselves. This is very important no matter what your age as looking good is a source of inspiration to others and that helps people become excited by your company and therefore your actions and your coywriting etc. A good image is a powerful marketing tool and it gets people onside before they even know what it is you are planning.

The morning is a good time to write coy - preferably when the weather is good. A good coffee or tea or juice in the early morning sunshine is a great source of mental nutrition and it will help you enthuse your readers with your services or product. Little tricks such as these you will learn for yourself, the important part is to continue remaining positive and excited.

visual aids are very useful. Positive messages on the wall or as a tatto orr on a bracelet etc. Are all very effective as happiness comes with practice. Good offices always have positive messages on the wall. Mediocre offices say things like 'you don't have to be mad to work here but it helps.' And it is true - why work there when you can work somewhere with a great attitude? Positive comes with practice, just like playing an instrument. It's not magic, just a lot of hard work. Once you have mastered staying positive and then excited you will see that more deals begin to come your way. Everyobody wants to be on the excited team...