A sweet little girl was waiting with her Dad in the M&S at Reading Station. I had gone in there to buy a bottle of water for my journey down to my parents.

She was waving a mouse stuffed toy. I asked her if it was an Emily Gravett mouse.

“No, it’s from Gruffalo.”

Opps, suitably corrected. Of course it was, I recognised it from the books.

She was enjoying herself standing on those circular stools that were available to reach products placed at the far back of the chiller cabinets, carefully watched by her Dad just in case she toppled. We remarked on how it made her taller so she could see what was going on.

“Are you the King of the Castle?” I asked.

“No, Queen of the Castle!”

This sufficient and apt correction proved to me it was time to move on. Stop digging before you can’t get out. Obviously I can’t compete with a five year old, and since it had been quite a number of years since my own were that age. It not only made me feel old, and out of touch with small children, I was certainly not ready for grandmotherhood – yet.

Luckily there’s still time to learn about gender equality from sweet little girls.

There is a fine line regarding showing appreciation and praise. My mother was very proud of herself, so suitable noises were required to celebrate this huge achievement. But these needed to be appropriate for a recovering 80 year old woman, lacking in self-confidence yet still very proud, definitely wishing to maintain her matriarchal position in the household.

Recovering from a major operation is an exhausting and a time consuming business. I suppose it’s a bit easier if you’re ‘older’, as you don’t expect everything to happen immediately, unlike the rest of the world. I remember talking to two ladies (in their late 50s) at the bus stop outside the hospital after visiting mum, and they were complaining that the bus display showed 5 minutes until the next bus.

It wasn’t that long ago we didn’t have the luxury of knowing when the next bus would arrive, 5 minutes or 5 hours!

I am very impressed at the way Brighton is set up to help old people, healthy, infirm or whatever. There are free bus passes, courtesy of my cousin Lady Dennington, Baroness of Stevenage, when she was in the House of Lords. I remember her telling me her tactics to get this proposal through without any hassle was to position the discussion right after a good dinner, when it was much more likely to be waved through. Which worked perfectly, of course!

The taxi service is wonderful. Of course my mother won’t be able to drive for ages, and she hid my dad’s driving licence since he turned 70 because she was adamant he was unsuitable to drive (that was over 20 years ago!). My parents only need to dial a local taxi firm’s number, and an automated message asks for confirmation of their address by pressing 1, and a taxi turns up within 10 minutes, letting them know with one ring on their telephone when it has arrived. Brilliant!

Another milestone: my mother received the plumber by herself, answering the door and showing him to the bathroom. She didn’t want me there, even hovering in the shadows. The nurses said to me that she should move about as much as possible, and five days after coming out of hospital she is doing exactly that. Of course it will totally tire her out, but the fact that she wants to do this on her own is exemplary.

But what really knocks her for six is when she has to attend appointments outside of the house. She is constantly reminded she could have home visits, but this has yet to sink in. Mum has been so independent, she doesn’t want to lose this because of her new pig valve – the very idea! The whole episode is an upheaval, causing unnecessary stress, but hopefully these will become less and less as she improves with time.

I got some very nice comments, and also a warning! The latter was justified, though. The last time I opened up to how I really felt, my (then) boss found out and told me to stop blogging! (I ignored her, of course.)

Why did this concern her? I had dreadful withdrawal symptoms from giving up my business, and wrote mournful and wistful posts about how I felt. They had nothing to do with her, but she felt that they were. It’s amazing how people can construe stuff that doesn’t exist.

Anyhow, this well-meant warning from a good friend brought this all back to me. Even though a blog is a place where you are supposed to be able to express yourself, there is still the problem of creating a potential offence.

I made the error of revealing my present financial constraints. I shouldn’t have mentioned that I have been turned down by referrers, neither should I have said what I thought about it and them. It was unprofessional and even unnecessary.

But – it did get me out of a dark space. I had been feeling particularly miserable until I had written that post. Somehow the method of getting how I felt off my chest, the very act of sharing to whoever could be bothered to read this, made me feel better.

Over the years I have been exploring and examining what makes popular blogs so, well, popular. All those mummy bloggers you find at BritMums or MumsNet who seem to have thousands of readers – what special formula do they have?

Actually it’s being transparent, honest, up front in your views. This is a difficult concept to grasp if you’ve been used to a professional or corporate life. It seems that these mums find talking like they do so easy and effortlessly. And it is exactly that, they are having a conversation with their readers.

And when you become relaxed enough to communicate like this, with or without a stiff gin to help you (or chocolate cake for those who are tee-total), all sorts come out. Stuff that really you should have buttoned your lip over. Stuff that might make your grandmother shudder (if she was that sort of woman).

And do you know what? People like reading this sort of thing. They can either relate to it, or are in awe of it (how did she have the balls to say that?). That’s why there are so many books that sell that are brimming over with sex, intrigue, bad manners, outrageous plotlines, or whatever.

Not that I read that sort of thing. Which probably means why I don’t get a huge amount of readers clamouring to read about beginner blogging – well, it’s hardly racy stuff, isn’t it?

Transparency and honesty is a difficult thing to manage if you want to maintain a professional front. But sometimes I think you should be allowed to let your hair down. That’s why I have this blog on the side. It was the first WordPress blog I created (right after my Blogger one) and it’s been here ever since.

It’s my dumping blog. Somewhere to vent my feelings. I can’t be allowed to restrain myself, or I would probably blow up! It is my safety valve. Here I will probably write stuff that would make people cringe, but if they don’t like it… well, there’s always the unsubscribe button.

And being allowed to express myself freely will show my transparent side as honestly as possible. It is what makes me human, brings me down to the same level as my readers, shows I’m on their side.

By revealing my warts and all, I could be putting my business into jeopardy. Or I could be doing it a service. Or I could just be building up another kind of following that has nothing to do with my blogging expertise.

I’m prepared to experiment and see…

Since this will be my ‘dumping’ blog, somewhere I can vent my feelings, it will be a mixture of all sorts of stuff, some rubbish (wallowing in self-pity) and hopefully some good (I have a load of posts from my forsaken blog to rewrite).

This is a wallowing in self-pity one today, so feel free to turn away.

I haven’t earned anything from my business since the summer, so I wanted to get a part time job to supplement my income, so I could continue to pay for auto responders, hosting, etc. Bit difficult to do if you have £0 coming in otherwise.

But – it seems I am unemployable.

I asked my previous employers for references, and they have declined. The first because she is basically a horrid piece of whatever and I didn’t really expect her to be forthcoming. The second I was very disappointed because I thought we had parted in good terms, especially since I did her a favour not long after leaving.

Perhaps if you haven’t worked for some years, you become invalid for a reference? I would love to know by how much.

And being stuck at my parents’ house at the moment looking after my mother after her open heart surgery makes it more difficult for me to sort this out. If I don’t get a suitable reference acknowledged by my prospective employer, I won’t get paid for the work I’ve already done!

Not much encouragement. Ladies, beware! If you do stay at home, and then want to return to work, you may find it difficult to get a reference from your old employer if you leave it too long.

This is particularly annoying, but I know the reason why. The majority of people who frequent that shop don’t eat healthily, as they are plebs and have no idea of what healthy is, so therefore it isn’t profitable for this particular branch of ASDA to stock healthy food.

We have been shopping there for 19 years and as soon as we find something nice and healthy to buy and enjoy, ASDA stop stocking it (for the same reasons as above). We could travel across to the other side of Reading to a much larger store to buy this cheese, but why should I waste my petrol doing that?

And when I complain to the staff, they just look at me as if I’m mad. They have no sense of customer satisfaction, and why should they? It’s not their shop or business, is it? All they care about is their wages at the end of the week and a reasonable sense of job security.

The answer is obvious: I’m going to the wrong kind of supermarket, I live in the wrong area, and I’m getting more and more crabby and snobby in my old age. But that doesn’t solve my Bavarian smoked cheese problem.

Go to another supermarket? Waitrose and Sainsbury’s do stock it, but in much smaller portions and at elevated prices. Even more annoying!

Many thanks go to Proofed by Linds for nominating me. Actually I’m going spoil things by saying she was the second person to nominate my nature blog, and I’ve only just got around to fulfilling the requirements of the Liebster Award.

It works by the nominator giving me 11 questions to answer, I add on 11 random facts about myself, and then I select 11 more questions for another 11 bloggers to answer in their Liebster Award post. You can see where the chain letter concept fits in. It is a bit of fun, and has no real function, but you never know, people might like what I’ve written. (And I do feel a little guilty that it’s in this blog and not the nature one I was recommended for.)

1. What’s your favourite food and why?

I’m such a glutton I want to say all kinds of food, which has caused my downfall with weight most of my life. So my attitude towards food has changed over the years, depending on whether it’s good for me or not. Of course my favourite would be what I’m not allowed to have, like chocolate, taramasalata and cheese (not all together at the same time), though even these in strict moderation wouldn’t be that bad…?

2. Where do you go when you want to “get away from it all”?

If it’s a beautiful day a walk in the countryside with lots of wild flowers (hence the nature blog). If it’s the midst of winter, somewhere cosy with a log fire. In both cases a valuable distraction is necessary to make it feel worth while.

3. What three things would you take to your desert island and why?

I suppose these would be skills as well as material things. Knowing how to make a fire, catch your food and build suitable shelter would be invaluable. Having a practical, sharp knife would be vital. A book about the properties of plants and how they can help you might come in useful.

4. People blog for a variety of reasons… What are your reasons?

This is a very good question. I blog because I have an overwhelming desire to tell people stuff. Sometimes it’s to get things off my chest. Sometimes it’s to explore an idea or concept. But mostly it’s to pass on knowledge to others so they can benefit from it, or to gain pleasure from what I enjoy talking about too.

5. Give three qualities that you believe make up a good blog post

An excellent headline to attract attention to your post and generate a desire to read it. A conversational style that flows easily and guides the reader effortlessly down the page. A totally worth-while subject that is easily grasped, understood and valued for what it really is.

6. What really makes you laugh – right from the belly?

Clever humour. It has to be subtle as well as downright silly. It has to be delivered in a way that’s not meant to be funny. It has to surprise and catch me unawares.

7. What annoys you more than anything else?

Bad form. Inadequacy passed off as superior. Undue inappropriate criticism. Unnecessary stupidity being given a higher prominence than it deserves.

8. What’s number one on your bucket list?

To visit all the countries of the world I haven’t been to yet.

9. Who inspires you?

People who have been successful through their own merit, hard work and perseverance. This doesn’t have to be in the world of business, but in self-discovery, helping others and changing the world for the better.

10. What would you say to King Henry VIII if you could?

It depends how much I could say without getting my head cut off! I suppose I would tell him that one of the greatest monarchs England has ever had came from his loins, but not who he thinks it would be.

11. What’s the best piece of advice you have ever been given?

To put yourself in the other person’s situation, in order to see the world from their point of view. Many disputes and arguments would be solved (or never arise) if this was taken into consideration; we are nearly always too self-centered to stand back and view the situation as a whole. This also includes listening, learning and appreciating before you open your mouth, even if it appears to undermine yourself; the benefits should outweigh the inconvenience created.

11 random facts about me

1. When I was 18 months old I burned my left hand so badly I was forced to become right handed.
2. I was wrapped up in my own little world until the age of 13.
3. I had a speech impediment and had speech therapy for 3 years. Also I find it difficult to read aloud due to dyslexia.
4. I studied music for my degree. I was rubbish at playing instruments, so I composed instead. I was never any good at music, but I didn’t realise this properly until I arrived at university, which by then it was too late!
5. When I worked at Sadler’s Wells, the administrative offices were situated in the house of my great, great, great, great uncle Charles Dibdin (Jnr) who was director of Sadler’s Wells in the early 19th century.
6. I can trace three of my family trees back to at least 1720.
7. I absolutely hate peanut butter. It is the most disgusting food ever!
8. I believe I am a Norman, whereas my husband is a Viking.
9. As a young girl I learned how to knit, sew, do cross-stitch and design samplers.
10. It seems at the moment my wardrobe mostly consists of various shades of purple.
11. I absolutely adore all kinds of fish, both to look at and to eat!

11 nominated bloggers
(who can participate only if they want to, no pressure…)

Birds on the Blog

Maria Hastings Personal Stylist

Success Network

Zest Lifestyle

Socialable

Nikki Pilkington

Ace Inspire

Diksha Fix Me

Tom Evans

Doreen Gowing

Fiona Humberstone

11 questions for my 11 bloggers

1. What was your favourite pet and what was its name?
2. What was your school life like?
3. Have you visited anywhere exotic?
4. When you say the word ‘scone’, does it rhyme with ‘stone’ or ‘john’, and does this really matter?
5. Which famous person would you have liked to have met, and why?
6. What makes you get up enthusiastically in the mornings?
7. What’s the colour you hate the most, and why?
8. What’s your biggest phobia (if you have any)?
9. Do you prefer winter, spring, summer or autumn?
10. If you won a £million in the lottery, what would you spend it on?
11. Who in your family do you mostly resemble, and in what way?

Phew, that was actually a very difficult post to write – I hope it was worth it!

I’ve created a new blog called http://alice-online.co.uk which is basically another version of this blog. This is because I believe I have more scope with a self-hosted WordPress blog, so I am concentrating on that for a while.

Meanwhile, if you subscribe to this blog, please renew your subscriptions with my new blog. It still has all the old posts which I have transferred over, and will have all my new posts from now on. I’ve even made it easy for you by changing the details in the sign up box in the sidebar.

So don’t miss out – transfer and subscribe now! And get all your friends and colleagues to do so too!

See you on the other side!

Alice

One of them is perfection – it isn’t always possible and it certainly isn’t necessary. Believe it or not, if you constantly strive for perfection you will never get anywhere, and you will waste so much time trying to attain it.

And even if you did manage to get there, who would notice? The majority of your clients or followers wouldn’t know perfection even if it hit them in the face! The only thing that does get noticed is when something is rubbish, of poor quality and not worth its value. Then the public start to complain, and all attention is drawn towards the mediocrity of the service or product.

Perfection is something that only comes to the fore when promoted with somebody with the right callibre to do so. Even so, it is still dependent on personal choice: what some people think is perfect may not be what others think, and if perfection relies on the masses to make an impression, then sometimes you have to give in and go with the flow.

Another side of perfection comes with practice, and when analysed you find that the majority of your perfection is attained in the first 80% of completing the task. The final 20% only achieves what you think is improvement, when probably it makes very little difference at all. By learning to let go, you will create material that certainly gains the right level suitable for your public without impairing your performance.

Nevertheless, this isn’t an excuse to not strive for perfection. After all, you will always want to do the best for your clients, and offer the best solution to their problems. But remember there isn’t enough hours in the day to create total perfection in your business, so offering something that is really close is the next best thing.

Over a year ago I was approached by a man who wanted me to market some books he had published. This project sounded too good to be true (and in fact this was the case, as you will read later).

So I redesigned his website (with the minimum of information), set up a shopping cart and autoresponder, plus a blog and other social networking accounts. I tried so hard to promote his terrible books (learning that you need to have a good product that people actually want to be able to succeed), tried to get them redesigned so that they actually looked nice both inside and out, fielding his awful adverts in expensive magazines that were so bad they were a complete waste of money (not designed by me of course), and coping with a torrent of emails and telephone calls from this persistent and annoying person.

Of course he never paid the invoices I sent him, always coming up with excuse after excuse. I stupidly carried on working for another month, amassing more money owed, until I’d had enough. I downed tools and refused to work any more until I was paid. More excuses, and no payment. Then silence…

The next thing I had was an email from his cousin saying my client had died and since his business was illegal and he had no money, it was highly unlikely I would get my invoices paid. I actually rang up the crematorium the day of his funeral to see if he really had died and had not done a runner. I also heard that all the bailiffs for his other debts had totally stripped his flat, so there was certainly nothing left for me.

The moral? There are several. Draw up a contract at the beginning carefully laying out exactly what you are supposed to do. Calculate a price for the amount of work decided upon, and get at least 50% deposit in advance. No deposit, no work: it shows good will and commitment. Form a strategy for work to be done, including when contact is to be made (don’t tolerate constant interruptions) and confirmation of drafts before the final product is published or produced. And above all, make sure the project you undertake has a possibility of success – go with your gut feeling about quality, consistency and – above all – get a credit check done first to learn the liability of this new project.

And don’t put up with this trash for 3 months, only to land up with nothing at the end. No wonder my business has gone to the dogs…

I like the way Clark’s the shoe shops now offer a personal service to their customers: I saw a pair of purple (well, that is my colour) shoes that I liked, and asked for a size 5 and a half. The shop assistant arrived back from the stock cupboard to say they hadn’t any in that particular size.

Then she asked whether I would like to order them in. I could then try them on and decide whether I liked them. There was no obligation to buy them, and if they didn’t suit they would go back into the stock cupboard for the next customer.

Then she asked me for my mobile number so the shop could text me to say my shoes were ready to try on. I know this is a very simple procedure and extremely common-place, but I consider this to be extremely convenient, more so than finding a message on my answerphone.

It dawned on me as I walked out of the shop that I wasn’t leaving unfulfilled. Clark’s really wanted to sell me those shoes, and they were doing the utmost to relieve the inconvenience of not having any available at that time. I now look forward to my mobile phone beeping with the good news.

Anyway, back to the marketing issue: what are you doing within your business to provide similar excellent service for your customers?

Lots of friends have been very supportive during my decision, and surprisingly once I had accepted my new fate, I received three requests to speak about marketing at various networking groups. Why is it that suddenly I’m seen as an expert after I had decided I wasn’t good enough to continue with my own business?

The main reason I quit being self-employed is because I wasn’t making any money. The recession had hit hard and marketing is (stupidly) one of the areas companies cut down on, and a fast declining bank account does nothing for one’s self-esteem.

Another reason is because my own marketing messages were confused. I had a lot I could offer, yet was unable to untangle them into a coherent presentation. I was just beginning to do this when the job offer came along, so I chickened out and jumped ship.

Another blow was from one particular marketing directory I regularly post into, had managed to attain some respect and become one of the most frequent bloggers. But this particular position was usurped by someone else who posted a huge amount of extremely informative posts and pushed me unceremoniously down the pecking order. Nevertheless, I have picked myself up out of the dust and will continue to post, even though this has severely shattered any notions I had of being a reasonable marketer.

But the title is: don’t let insecurity rule. My new job will give me the opportunity to learn new skills, work within an organisation that is doing well during the recession, and will give me plenty of spare time to think, blog, twitter and unravel my overloaded brain. And this subject will be the fodder for more posts in the future… so watch this space.

The first free marketing method is networking. Go to as many meetings as possible, particularly the free events or those that don’t require a big entrance fee. But to make these successful you must arm yourself with a good pitch, both 10 and 60 second versions, the first to grab attention to yourself, and the second if you get a chance to address the whole room. If you can create something that is different, easily understandable, poignant and relevant to your listeners’ needs, then you have a head start above many others.

It is important to get yourself as visible as possible in the business world. There are two possibilities: blogging and social networking group pages. It is very easy to create a free blog, and social networking sites allow you to create groups or fanpages which you can devote to your business.  In these you must regularly post up information about your business, and then, as with the blog, use RSS feeds to inform your followers of your new posts, or email through the social networking system to your followers that you have recently contributed new material for them to read.

And then there’s Twitter, equally free, which is an excellent way to promote your business, not forgetting that you can feed your blog to it, and now your posts can be automatically replicated on your Facebook and LinkedIn profiles.

Writing articles and publishing them around the net is another way to spread your expertise. Make sure the resource boxes direct the reader back to your website, blog or social networking profile pages, so they can find out more about you.  Take advantage of keywords to improve your search engine optimisation, and careful attention to the headlines and first paragraph will increase the likelihood of a response.

If you do have a website, get as many links back to it as possible from other websites and web directories. The more high profile the link source, the more respect search engines give your website, not to mention providing more portals for the spiders to crawl over your site and report back pages for indexing.

Create a good signature for your emails, to publicise your website, blog and social networking profiles. Don’t forget that the space at the bottom of your communication is just waiting to be filled with promotional written material and links, and everybody you write to will get a chance to see them.

Originally she asked me to advise her on search engine optimisation, so I gave her a quick summary over coffee. She had a website that her company had provided, with the limitations self-editing within a template allows, and hopefully my advice on keyword research would spice up her copy a bit more than it would have done.

But since blogging was not an option she was willing to undergo, I suggested creating a Facebook Group instead. She already had a Facebook account and enjoyed using it, so this was just a natural progression.

Out came her laptop, and we soon created her a brand new group, much to her surprise and enjoyment. My preliminary explanations about SEO made the process a little easier, as she was primed with suitably keyworded copy from her company’s literature, plus a few of her own.

During this exercise I needed to find a simple way to explain how to optimise a Facebook group, so I created the three main actions required: collate, paste and tell.

It really is very simple:

• Collate: get together all the information you need to promote a new event or product from your company, such as words, pictures, recommendations, videos or whatever.

• Paste: go to your Facebook group page and put in the material you have collected.

• Tell: then don’t forget to tell all your fans about your new entry through the link underneath the photo, not forgetting to tell their friends and Facebook contacts to visit the group, add in their comments and suggestions, and sign up themselves.

Never expect the popularity of your group to grow on its own. You need to ask your friends to help you with your viral marketing, don’t expect it to happen automatically. And if you provide good material for them to recommend to potential new recruits, then that makes it all the easier for them.

Oh, and there’s a fourth action just to complicate things: schedule in a time each week to put in new material. If you have an ‘update urge’ within the week, don’t resist it, but why not create a folder to store possible fodder for your Facebook page update so when the time comes you are ready. This makes the process all that much more enjoyable.

As a result it is a task that is never ending, always requiring you to be one step ahead of your competitors, and any successes tend to be short lived, as Google responds to all new material that is posted online, and it is always the latest contributions that are indexed at the top.

But it is a process that should not be ignored. Even if your website or latest blog post reaches its desired placing for a short time, it has got there, and who knows will look at it or read it while it resides in its lofty position. The more times you manage to attain this prize, the higher the chances of recognition, acknowledgement and conversion through response.

To explain simply, SEO work on three main elements: new content, links and keywords. I know all SEO experts out there will be saying ‘Oh, but you’ve forgotten this element’, and of course they’re right, as experts they should have many tricks up their sleeves to attain the final goal: get as high as you can in Google. But if you understand these three elements, there is no reason why anybody can’t give it a try.

New Content: search engines rely on their spiders: mathematically driven robots that ‘crawl’ the net looking for new material that has been posted. Once found, they feed greedily on it before passing it onto their master, the search engine, to be indexed. If your website or blog, especially the blog, has regularly published new content, it stands a better chance of being placed higher than any old material from your competitors.

Links: spiders need to have a method of entering and leaving your website or blog. Think of links being the doors or portals spiders use to find new content. Incoming links allow spiders to enter and feed, and outgoing links (especially if they are relevant to the content and final destination) will enable them to leave and visit other suitable sites, giving you brownie points as they do so.

Keywords: relevance is vital for spiders to work effectively. Keywords should be relevant to the content, destinations of links, and popularity of searches, eg what people are searching for at that moment. It would be wise therefore to properly research suitable keywords that are not only popular but truly reflect your new material and business. It’s simply like a game of snap, and the best results are attained through correct recognition of a match!

Now that you know these three elements, take them into consideration next time you post up something new on the net.

http://www.designyourmarketing.co.uk/How to create submissions in the BinB LinkedIn group.pdf

Let me know if it helps to make it easier to contribute. The more activity there is in these groups, the more there is to read, the more promotion members can make, the more new material there is for the internet spiders, and the more interaction from members also contributes to search engine optimisation.

So how about it – go on, give it a go!

The result was that some malware was put into the code of my theme of my website.  This activated links to hundreds of pornographic sites whenever I uploaded new material.

Recently I have been quite busy uploading new pages about my blogging beginners self-help e-courses, so all my activities had been blasting off all this pornographic stuff left right and centre throughout the net.

I do have a wonderful brother who is a wizard in website programming, and he worked his magic behind the scenes, locating and removing the malware. Let’s just hope it doesn’t have secondary programming to reappear again later.

Meanwhile I have tried to submit my website for reconsideration by Google. I have contacted my server and have closed all my FTP access (which I will have to temporarily open every time I want to upload something). That was the back door that was wide open and allowed the hacker in.

So check all the portals of your website to make sure they are secure. Change all your passwords to everything regularly and use combinations of letters, numbers and punctuation to make them stronger.

Keep an eye out for anything suspicious or out of the ordinary with your website. This malware was totally invisible on my website, so it was the fact that I couldn’t see my theme that alerted me that something was wrong, but only after all the damage had been done.