I’m really busy. So when I got a domain renewal notification letter yesterday I almost renewed my blancminge.com domain without thinking twice. 

Luckily something didn’t feel right and I double checked first. 

According to the letter ’privatization’ means I can choose who to renew my domains with. I don’t have to stick with my original domain Registrar. Anyone and his dog can renew my domain at any price they choose. And consumer choice is always a good thing, right?

Not in this case. The Domain Renewal Group are offering me:

• 1 year renewal for £20
• 2 years for £35
• 3 years for £65

Buy my registrar, Go-daddy, provides renewal for £7.41 a year. No contest.  

Presumably the Domain Renewal group is operating within the law. But I get the feeling they know they’re being naughty. Skating close to the edge, not quite within the spirit of the law. Perhaps it’s an outright scam – I’m no legal expert.

My domain doesn’t renew until January 2011. They’ve approached me far too early, way before necessary, so my Registrar’s automatic email reminder campaign hasn’t kicked in yet. And because £20 for a year’s registration doesn’t seem desperately unreasonable, the pricing probably wouldn’t put your financial brakes on if you were in a rush.

Plus… they allegedly have a UK office but the offer is made in American English, which is downright rude as well as a clear sign that something’s not quite right.    

The moral of the story? Look before you leap. If I’d gone ahead I’d have spent almost £45 more than I needed to renewing my domain for three years with a company I know nothing about and – on reflection and research - wouldn’t dream of trusting. It isn’t a huge amount of money in the scheme of things. But it’s the principle that counts. 

Toxic direct marketing at it’s worst. From unpleasant individuals with no sense of Karma. To be avoided at all costs. 

Once you’ve renamed your files, don’t forget to do a 301 redirect. Otherwise you’ll break all your inbound links, lose valuable link ‘juice’ and drop page rank.

There are loads of good 301 redirect tutorials online.

I heard a bloke in the supermarket queue humming the tune from WeBuyAnyCar.com‘s brilliant direct response TV advert yesterday. If I’d created it I’d be chuffed to bits. Why? because it’s obviously powerful enough to become an ‘earworm’.

What’s an earworm? It’s when you get a persistent, looping tune in your head that you can’t shift. You wake up singing it. It’s on your mind when you fall asleep. Blasted things. A recent Seasick Steve earworm almost drove me to tears.

Not only is WeBuyAnyCar‘s advert a creative masterpiece – boy, has that guy got some moves! It’s also a work of direct marketing genius. It drums the company name and site address into your head with the force and subtlety of a lump hammer. To the tune of relentless hard house. What a little beauty.

Will I forget the brand? No. Do I love the brand? Yes. What’s in my head right now? WeBuyAnyCar.com, WeBuyAnyCar.com, WeBuyAnyCar.com, WeBuyAnyCar.com… if I could drive I’d sell them my car on the spot, just to shut ‘em up!

The problem is, I can’t find a copy of the ad on site. Their latest advert’s up and running but not the one I’m talking about.

Hm. That’s a significant missed SEO opportunity because it means people like me can’t link to it. And links are desirable little beasts. Love it or hate it, the ad has generated loads of comment online. So it probably would’ve generated plentiful, potentially valuable backlinks too.

Never mind. Here’s the ad on the actor’s site instead. He’s called Mark Savin-Vernon. You’ll find it in the left hand red column. Well done Mark, have a link on me!

Thanks to Fuzz One for  this excellent piece of infographics describing the SEO hierarchy of needs, discovered in their archives:

We switched to EON last year. I’ve been really impressed by their direct marketing in general – and their copywriting in particular. 

Their website is written beautifully in perfect plain english. Their tone of voice is full of personality. In fact everything they’ve sent so far, whether by email or snail mail, has been a triumph in rock solid customer communications.  What’s so good? Here’s the email they sent me a few weeks ago… short but very sweet. Well done EON! 

Important information about access to your online account

We’re always looking to improve our service to our customers and give the best online experience we can.

To ensure that we can continue to provide this great experience we need to upgrade our systems now and again. We’ll be doing this on the evening of Friday 16 July until lunchtime on Sunday 18 July. While we’re doing this you won’t be able to access your account details online.

As we’re updating all our systems and not just our website, we might not be able to help with your query over the phone either as we won’t have access to all your account details.

We’re sorry if this causes you any problems. You will be able to log in as normal before or after these dates.

If you’d like to talk to us about this you can contact us before Friday 16 July at eonenergy.com or call us on 0845 301 5933.

A website is very much like any other piece of direct marketing. But it isn’t a one-off campaign, it’s permanent and ongoing.

So it’s a good idea to revisit your site with DM in mind every now and again to make sure your focus is correct, especially when several people have their fingers in your website pie!  

If you’re doing a proper job of it you’ll be updating your site regularly with fresh content, making frequent amends to existing content, removing and adding special offers, links… etc etc. Here’s some sensible guidelines to help check the fundamentals of your website are still working hard from a DM perspective:

• can visitors still navigate easily or has it all got a bit too complicated?
• does every link work?
• are your calls to action in the right place / still there?
• has essential information fallen below the fold when it should be above?
• are your key words and phrases still in place, in the right density?
• is your content in priority order for SEO?
• are you focusing on the right key words and phrases or have things changed? 
• is your message clear or have you muddied the water with too many edits?
• are your images still relevant?
• does your meta data need updating in line with your key words and phrases?
• could your source code do with tidying up so it complies with web standards? 
• are your footer links up to date?
• is your sitemap up to date? 

If it’s relevant, check it. If it doesn’t seem relevant, check it anyway just in case! At least you’ll know you’ve shone your direct response torch into every dark corner and put everything possible straight.

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Like most business owners I’ve had hosting issues in the past, some of which have been horribly stressful. When your site disappears for no apparent reason and your host isn’t answering calls or emails, it’s hard to stay calm. And if they ‘forget’ to renew your url, solving the issue can be a real pain. So a good host is like gold dust.

There are thousands of hosting companies, all of which make the same claims about brilliant efficiency, customer support and up-time. Word of mouth is probably the best way to identify a rock solid host for your commercial website. Here’s my contribution.

Unlike many hosting company sites, Heart Internet’s interface is beautifully simple and clear. Their facilities are excellent, it’s easy to find everything, there’s a choice of flexible deals and the prices are pretty good. Not the cheapest… but hosting is far too important to cut corners for the sake of a few quid. Plus they’re UK based, which feels good. If the worst happens I can always turn up on their doorstep and weep uncontrollably until they put things right!

If you’re looking for a great UK host, here’s a link to Heart Internet.  

The WordPress team releases regular updates and it’s wise to upgrade your blog every time  a new version is launched. 

Why? Because if you don’t you leave your blog at the mercy of hackers, infections and other malicious mischief. I know two people who’ve been infected via weaknesses in old versions of WordPress.

As well as security fixes, updated versions include fresh functionality. And it’s easy – as well as free – to upgrade your blog in one click via your WordPress Dashboard.

If you haven’t done it before, check the instructions on the WordPress website first.

Great special offers are strong medicine. They draw publicity and attention as well as driving sales.

Here’s my latest, a Karma-driven offer that’s completely genuine, provides a valuable service and makes me feel good into the bargain. 

I’m devoting one day a month to free charity copywriting.

If you’re a charity in need of direct marketing and direct response focused expertise, a keen eye for SEO and masses of experience just email me at info@helpinthecity.com with the details of your copywriting project and we’ll take it from there. 

First come, first served.

I usually charge £60 an hour so you’ll get £420 worth of copywriting  / editing expertise for free. That’s enough to:

• write or edit a twelve page website av. 350 words per page, or create twelve 350 word web pages
• create ten press releases of around 500 words each
• write eight articles about 750 words each
• create twelve 350 word blog posts
• edit a twenty page corporate brochure

All written beautifully, delivered by 5pm the same day.

My first slot is August 12th 2010 so I’ll need your brief by the end of play on 10th August to give me time to digest things.

You’re very welcome!

Images don’t contribute much to SEO because search engines can’t ‘see’ pictures or analyse their content. But you can make the most of your on-site images by ensuring their ALT attibutes make sense.

Provided your images’ attributes are descriptive and accurate, search engines will find it a tiny bit easier to rate and classify your website correctly. 

It always helps to have a suitable tool handy. This one checks your website images and tells you how clearly - or otherwise - they can be’ seen’ by Google and co:  http://www.feedthebot.com/tools/alt/