Writer's block? Too busy to blog? My clients need YOU!

It’s not always easy to find time to blog. You only have to look around this blog to see how neglected it becomes when I’m busy working on projects for clients (which is most of the time, these days).

If you have your own blog, perhaps you have the same problem. You’d love to keep your blog up-to-date with informative, well-written articles – but work, family or life just get in the way, or you’re struggling to think of things to write about.

If that sounds like you, and you’re based in the UK, I may just have the answer for you. 

An increasing number of my clients are looking for opportunities to build links to their websites, and don’t always want to use article directories (or any other type of directory, come to think of it). So, we’re looking for opportunities for them to provide guest posts on other peoples’ blogs, in exchange for do-follow links.

How it works

Articles will be written by me, or by someone senior within my client’s business, or by a specialist agency I often work with, whose team includes journalists and professional copywriters who can write great articles on a wide range of subjects.

We’ll always check with you before writing the article, to make sure we’re providing exactly the sort of content you’re looking for. We’ll provide a summary of the proposed article, or work to your brief (for example, if you want to commission an article that follows a very specific format, or covers a very specific topic, we’ll instruct the writers accordingly).

The article will be written for your exclusive use, so you won’t have to worry about being penalised by search engines for publishing duplicate content.

Best of all – it won’t cost you a penny. You can have professionally written, relevant, exclusive content on your blog  (either one-off, or on a regular basis if you prefer) for FREE.

In return, all we ask is that you include a brief biography of the author, either at the top or bottom of the article (we’ll provide this), and that this biography includes at least one do-follow link to the client’s website (again, we’ll provide this).

I should also clarify that these articles will not be self-promotional. We’re not talking advertorials here – we’re talking high-quality, informative content, relevant to your blog’s audience, for free.

Register your interest

If you’d like to get involved, please complete our survey as soon as possible so that we can find out a bit more about your blog and get the ball rolling.

It doesn’t matter whether your blog is self-hosted or is hosted by a blogging service like WordPress.com or Blogspot. Your blog can be stand-alone or part of your business website. The most important requirements are that you’re based in the UK, and that you can set links on your blog to “do-follow”.

We can’t guarantee that we’ll be able to provide content immediately – it really depends on the fit between your blog and any of our clients that are looking for blogs to write guest posts for – even so, please complete the survey as soon as possible so that we have your details on file when we need them.

Finally, it would be really helpful if you could share this blog post with any of your friends and colleagues who might be interested in getting involved. I’m hoping to build the database pretty quickly, so every share will be very much appreciated!

Sick or treat: not in my back yard

Over the years we’ve imported some amazing things from America into the UK. Like rock ‘n’ roll, for example, which I think is one of the best things ever to have found its way across the pond.

But there is one US import that royally ticks me off every year: the ‘tradition’ of trick-or-treating. 

I have no issue with celebrating the ancient religious festival of Samhain, the pagan new year (which is what Halloween is supposed to be about). But turning this festival into an excuse to send kids begging for sweets at neighbours’ doors really irritates me.

There are several reasons for this.

First, there’s nothing in it for me. If carol singers knock at the door, it’s a two-way thing: I get to enjoy a nice bit of festive music and am happy to reward the singers with a couple of quid. If a Jehovah’s Witness knocks, I get a fun 10 minutes talking about religion and all the reasons the caller is not going to convert me (more fun than it sounds; tell ‘em you’re somewhere between druid and atheist, and watch the confusion set in). If a charity collector comes a-knocking, I get the pleasure of helping someone in genuine need.

But when trick-or-treaters knock, I get nothing. Nada. Just the opportunity to give them sweets or have a trick played on me. How’s that fair?

It’s just begging, in my opinion – and parents are actively encouraging their children to do it. And from a stupidly young age, too. Mums with little toddlers who don’t even understand what’s going on trudge from door to door, with their little darlings dressed in silly (and probably expensive – isn’t there supposed to be a recession on?) costumes, making householders feel guilty if they haven’t stocked up on expensive, unhealthy ‘treats’ with which to fill their little bags and buckets. If one such mum turns up at your door and you’re stupid enough to open it and say “I’m sorry, but I haven’t got anything in” – prepare to be tarred and feathered, because you are very clearly a bad, evil person.

Anyway, don’t kids stuff their faces with sweets all year round? If I don’t give them any more sweets, I’m doing them a favour: I’m saving them from a future where they’d be riddled with tooth decay and gum disease, where they’re forced to visit the gym five nights a week to burn off the childhood obesity caused by knocking at people’s doors demanding sweets.

When my daughter was a child (she’s nearly 22 now), she was never allowed to go trick-or-treating. Sure, she hated that she wasn’t allowed to do something that all her friends were allowed to do; but she appreciated my reasons for forbidding it. Ultimately, she didn’t actually miss out on anything. She was still allowed to go to Halloween parties – it’s just the door-to-door begging I object to – and it didn’t stop her having fun. I did at least practise what I preached!

So tonight I’m going to do the same thing I’ve done every Halloween for as long as I can remember. I’m going to draw all the curtains before it gets dark, turn the TV up louder, and completely ignore any knocks at the door.

Unless of course it’s a religious group trying to recruit me, in which case I’ll enjoy telling them all about my pretend “weird religious views” for at least half an hour. There’s horror, and then there’s horror…

My dad and I have a history of giving each other silly presents. It’s almost like a competition to see who can give the silliest present, and one year I played the trump card: a toy hamster that when a button on its foot was pressed, danced and sang “I think I love you” by the Partridge family, in a high-pitched ‘hamster’ voice.

This year we weren’t able to be with my dad on his birthday to give him a proper present, so we made this video for him. Yes, that’s really us (me, Mr Doo, and my daughter) singing, playing the instruments, etc. I don’t think we’re ever going to win any awards for our musical ‘talents’, but we had a lot of fun making this, and who knows, maybe we’ll make another some day.

Hope it gives you a giggle – because every Friday should be fun

Last week, a client of mine forwarded this email to me:

Hi [client name],

My name is Uday and I represent Timgu, the only online marketing company in the UK founded by  ex-Googlers. Between us we have over 10 years experience working with Google and Google products.  

I am well aware that you currently do  your online marketing though debbydoo but I think you should hear me out.Let me enumerate a few points as to why I think we would make a better choice for an online marketing company.

1. In-house Expertise – Our CEO was the Account Manager – Retail at Google (Linkedin Profile). Another partner was the Adwords strategist at Google (Linkedin Profile)

2. Since we are small we can attention to all our clients. And since we don’t work by the hour , we are constantly thinking of ways to optimise your campaign. An example of our work can be seen here (Link)

3. Of the 280000 searches on keywords relevant to just [client company] just 5% comes from the UK * ( Source Google). We can help you tap this global demand by crafting native language ads in any European and Asian language

4. You aren’t advertising on your own name. This leaves the door open for any competitor to bid for your name and have his ad coming above yours in the search result. We can help you avoid such pitfalls and maximise your ROI on PPC

5. We do not tie you up in a long term contract. If within the first 30 days you change your mind – you give us a day’s notice. After that its just a month’s notice. This is how confident we are that we can make a difference

I will give you a call on Friday and we can discuss this further if you are interested.

Thanks & Regards

We giggled at the misspelling of ‘debbidoo’, and agreed it was cheeky but ultimately wasn’t worth wasting any energy on. Not least because my client does his own AdWords management (I’ve never seen his AdWords account).

Timgu targeted one of my partners on Wednesday, 30th March. This time, the email came direct to me, because the email address was one I’d created @debbidoo.com specifically for creating an AdWords account for the partner’s client. Timgu’s email was addressed to [partner name] at [partner company name], at an email address similar to [client company name]@debbidoo.com. The email read:

My name is Marcin and I represent Timgu Ltd. - UK’s first digital media agency founded by ex-Googlers.

We operate across Northern Europe and have offices in London and Helsinki. Thanks to our Google background and vast experience in delivering the most efficient SEM strategies for companies across all major verticals we believe we could provide a top notch service to  [partner company name].

We like to think that we are unique in this field and we continue to strive for the perfect online solution for each and everyone of our costumers with dedicated, transparent and open solutions.

If it suits you I would like to give you a call tomorrow to tell you more about our approach and the services we offer.

best regards

My first reaction, again, was “cheeky gits!” Filed away under ‘annoyances’ and almost forgotten about.

Five minutes later, I realised something. That combination of details – the partner’s name and company name, with that specific email address – had never been used anywhere other than during registration of the client’s Google AdWords account.

Add this fact together with the fact that three of Timgu’s founders claim to be former employees of Google, specialising in search marketing, and alarm bells start to ring.

I replied to Timgu’s email, telling them what cheeky gits they are for trying to poach my clients, and asking them how they had obtained a combination of contact details that have only ever been used in registering an AdWords account. Some hours later, one of the founders replied, saying that they don’t generally go out of their way to target other agencies’ clients, but this will happen from time to time. Very sorry etc. But he very neatly sidestepped my question about the data.

So I replied, asking again how he had come to be in possession of data that should only be known to Google. To date, I have not received a reply.

While all this was going on, I forwarded Timgu’s original email to Google’s AdWords security team, explaining the situation and my concerns, but received no reply. So I emailed security@google.com, forwarding the original email but changing the subject line so that they would understand the urgency.

I received an autoreply, saying the standard “we will look into it” stuff – but since then, nothing. Not a sausage. I have since emailed security@google.com on a further two occasions, asking why they have yet to deal with what *appears to be* some sort of security breach – but still, they have not replied.

What I want to know is: if AdWords data like names, company names and email addresses have found their way into unauthorised hands, what other data might be at risk? Might my clients’ payment details be vulnerable? Come to think of it, might yours?

And if this data is in any way vulnerable, why the hell haven’t Google replied to my emails and told me how they plan to deal with the matter?

What to do next? I honestly don’t know. Perhaps the moment I hit the ‘publish’ button, I’ll receive an email from Google telling me they’re dealing with it, and how. I rather suspect, however, that I’m not going to get a reply at all.

Perhaps there has been no security breach and I’m just a paranoid old bag. Perhaps Timgu have a valid reason for being in possession of a combination of contact details that have never been used anywhere other than in an AdWords account. Who knows? It doesn’t smell right to me, though.

If you’ve ever fancied getting involved in the movie industry, or wanted to do a bit of corporate sponsorship with a twist – but always assumed such things would be beyond your budget – you’ll be interested to know that you can now do both, in one pop, for under a tenner. 

Film makers Gary Scullion and Nick Acott are making a short Christmas-themed action movie, and they need help raising the last bit of funding to get the movie made and released in time for Christmas.

Through their Indiegogo page, Nick and Gary have in just three days raised $345 of the $1250 they need to pay for the crew, location and equipment costs they’ve not already covered themselves. But with only a couple of weeks left before they need to start filming, the boys could do with a further boost. “I’m nervous our timescales are short but I know there are some good people here who are able to help either way,” said Nick, speaking on his The Night The Reindeer Died thread at UK Business Forums.

The film’s plot is mad, to say the least. While delivering gifts on Christmas Eve, Santa gets kidnapped by an evil toy executive. And is rescued from 200 of the toy executive’s scary henchmen by God and Jesus…

YouTube Embed: No video/playlist ID has been supplied

There are four levels of sponsorship you can go for:

• The Santa package: for $10, you get a ‘donator’ credit in the movie
• The Claus package: for $25, you get a ‘special thanks’ credit in the movie
• The Buddy Christ package: for $100, you get an ‘associate producer’ credit in the movie, and a henchman named after you (the idea of an evil Santa-bashing baddie called ‘debbidoo’ really tickles me )
• The Holy Roller package: for $250, you get an ‘executive producer’ credit, plus a henchman named after you, plus an official movie poster signed by the cast and crew.

To find out more about The Night The Reindeer died and/0r put in your sponsorship offer, please visit The Night The Reindeer Died on Indiegogo.

I love Twitter and Facebook. Chatting random crap with strangers all over the world, sharing whatever nonsense happens to be in my head at any given moment, and staying in touch with real-world friends in as many ways as possible were always going to get my vote.

But there are times when Twitter and Facebook – or rather, the people using them – really annoy me.   

I can’t claim to speak for all users of Twitter and Facebook, obviously. But I think I’m fairly average, so chances are, if these bad habits that certain Twitter and Facebook users have fallen into get up my nose, they’ll get up the noses of other people too.

This post isn’t a guide to using Facebook for business, or the seven sins of Twitter marketing; it’s an idiot’s guide to royally p***ing me off, and other average Joes (or average Debses) like me.

1. Excessive affiliate links

I know you’re using Twitter as a business tool. That’s cool – so am I (though you’d never guess it sometimes, the amount of pointless crap I spout). And I know you’ll want to slip in an affiliate link sometimes, and make a few bob from people clicking it. That’s also cool; we all have bills to pay. I understand.

But DO NOT bombard my Twitter timeline, or my Facebook feed, with non-stop affiliate ads. If you do, I’ll unfollow you. I may even block you. If I’m really annoyed, I’ll even report you.

Listen carefully: I. Do. Not. Like. Spam.

Worth noting: If you follow me, I won’t automatically follow you back. I will visit your profile, see what you’ve posted recently, and if it’s all affiliate ads… that’s the one and only time I’ll see them, ‘cos I sure as hell won’t be following you back.

Tip: Say something interesting/funny/useful 95% of the time, and I’ll forgive you the odd affiliate link. If it’s a good one, I may even click it. I may even make a purchase.

2. Me, me, me (you, you, you)

Don’t get me wrong; I love knowing what people are doing. Random status updates can be very entertaining. The more random, the better (there are some wonderfully random ones in my Twitter favourites – they still tickle me).

But please don’t talk about yourself in glowing terms, non-stop. I’ll make my own mind up as to how wonderful you are, thank you very much. It’s nice that you’ve won awards for your sausages. Really, it is. I’m pleased for you. But could you talk about something else occasionally please?

Here’s an example of the sort of “me, me, me” posts that make me grind my teeth:

• Mentioning your award winning sausages at every opportunity. Examples: “…because people love my award-winning sausages (available at www.awardwinningsausages.com) so much…” or “ah yes, the same thing happened to me when I created my first award winning sausage (available at www.awardwinningsausages.com)”. Your bio already says that you create award winning sausages, and it shows your website address. You don’t need to go on about them.
• The vast majority of your posts are news about your business. If I’m following you, it’s probably because I want to know what your latest news is. But not all the time. And not the same link to the same news, over and over again. Intersperse news posts with fun stuff you’ve found, or conversations with other users (even me – I don’t bite!) and you’ll keep my attention for much longer.
• Excessive dull status updates/posts. For example: “Just popping down the shop for some sausages. BRB.” or “Eating a sausage sandwich.” Yes, I know it says “what are you doing?” – but that’s not an invitation to share the most boring details of your life. Don’t take it literally.
• Too much info. Unless I know you very well, I don’t want to know about your piles or your sex life. And even then, it’s debatable. Save ultra-personal stuff for your personal profile and your real-life friends. I’m a big advocate of giving business social media accounts a good strong dose of personality – it’s a great way to promote your brand and engage with your customers – but there is a line. Don’t cross it.

3. “Inspirational” quotes

This one irritates me so much, I could scream.

I hate ‘inspirational’ quotes at the best of times. Just because they inspire you, doesn’t mean they’ll inspire me too.

But there are some Twitter members who post nothing but ‘inspirational’ quotes. All. Day. Long. Aaaaarrrrrgggghhhh!

You know the quotes I’m talking about. They’re lines from scripture, or from philosophers, or ‘great’ marketers, or business giants, or ‘gurus’ of any sort. I’m sure Confucius was a jolly nice chap, with an interesting view of the world. But if I wanted to know his philosophy on successful sausage making, I would use Google to search for it.  I don’t need you ramming Confucius, or Gandhi, or Kennedy, or Branson, down my throat 24/7, thank you very much.

As far as I’m concerned, there is only one ‘inspirational’ quote that anybody needs in their life:

“Wherever you go, that’s where you are.” – Mike Brady, the Brady Bunch Movie, 1995

4. If it can be automated, automate it

I can’t emphasise this enough: I only want to engage with human beings. Don’t auto-Tweet stuff at me; I’m not interested. If I decide to follow you, don’t “reward” me with an auto-DM thanking me for following you and reminding me of your website address. If I mention that I had sausages for tea, don’t auto-Tweet me your latest sausage wholesale prices.  Don’t automatically follow me just because I mentioned sausages once, two months ago;  it doesn’t mean that I want to hear about your sausages every time I’m online.

There are some fantastic Twitter tools which do some really clever and useful stuff. I use a couple myself. But please: don’t over-use them. Learn to balance automation with being human, and you’ll have a much better chance of keeping my attention.

5. DM spam

As far as I’m concerned, me following your business on Twitter is a special privilege. Don’t abuse it by sending me DM spam. If you do, I’ll probably un-follow you. And possibly have a good moan about it, publicly, if you’re a repeat offender.

Direct messages on Twitter, and inbox messages on Facebook, are for sending me things that can’t be shared publicly, as far as I’m concerned. Email addresses, phone numbers, juicy gossip about some rotten cow I used to work with, that sort of thing. There’s nothing private about your spam. If you want to advertise something, do it – but not in my inbox. That’s an invasion of my privacy, and it annoys the hell out of me.

How to get it right

Again, I can’t speak for anybody else, but if it’s my attention on Twitter or Facebook you want (and God knows why you do, but it’s nice to feel wanted, so thank you) there are a few very simple ways to not only get it, but keep it.

• If you can get me to engage with you, the person, you’re well on the way to getting me to engage with your brand. I want to know you’re human, you have a sense of humour, and are paying attention to me as much as I am to you. Having said that…
• …know how to string a sentence together without excessive misspellings. If your writing skills are really that bad, get someone literate to manage the account for you instead (hint, hint).  Yes, I want to know you’re human. But that doesn’t include writing like you only picked up a crayon for the first time two days ago.
• Talk about your news, share your latest blog post, or tell me about your new product, by all means. But no more than 20% of the time. Otherwise it gets really tedious. Share some fun stuff sometimes too. Or tell me about something mad that happened on the way to work. Or join my discussion about sausages that look like Barbara Windsor. Engage me!

If there’s a point to this story, other than highlighting what a grumpy, self-important nit I can be at times, it’s this:  Auto-tweet your spam, your affiliate links and your ‘inspirational’ quotes all day long, if you want. Talk about how wonderful you are, and tell us about your bloody fabulous sausages until the cows (or pigs) come home. But try to remember that people who use social media for business are still, on the whole, people.

And if they’re anything like average old me, they’re un-following you as we speak.

Today is St David’s day, a day when the Welsh celebrate being Welsh, and all things Welsh, and general Welshness.

Google made a very nice gesture, by adding a little drawing of Caernarfon Castle to its search page.

Nothing wrong with that, you might think – after all, you don’t get much Welsher than Caernarfon Castle.

Except, Caernarfon Castle was built by the English king, Edward I, to subdue the Welsh.

As one of my Facebook friends said: “I hope they put an Indian takeaway there on St George’s Day.”

Nice try, Google, but… FAIL!

I recently blogged about preparing to give debbidoo.com a big facelift.  In this post, I said that my plan is to do away with the services I rarely get asked about, and to bring in some new services that I do get asked about.

One of these is web design. Since building debbidoo.com 18 months ago, I’ve since built websites for clients as well as for other debbidoo projects, and for another business of which I’m a director, Petha Ltd.

As web design is something I seem to be doing more of – and something which I really enjoy doing – I’ve decided to add it as a service to clients. And as it’s brand spanking new, I’ve decided to launch this service with a cracking introductory offer… but it’s limited to the first FIVE people to apply.

I’m offering FIVE people/organisations the chance to order a bespoke, CSS-styled, W3C-compliant brochure site for just £295.  We’re not talking about a freebie template, downloaded from the ‘net and modified a bit to reflect your brand identity…  when I say ‘bespoke’, I mean I will code the site, and the style sheet, from scratch. And there are tons of features included, as well as a load of optional extras at hugely discounted prices.

If you’re interested, please read on… there are a few terms and conditions, so please make sure you read the whole article before making a decision.

What’s included in the price

• A bespoke W3C-validated XHTML website, with separate bespoke W3C-validated CSS style sheet, built to your specification with your branding, logo and appropriate images (see Note 1, below). We’ll test the template in these browsers: IE8, Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Safari.
• A .co.uk or .com domain name (see Note 2, below)
• A year’s hosting on Open Mind’s Windows Home package (see Note 3, below)
• Up to 10 Pop3 email accounts, up to 10 multi-recipient forwarders and unlimited single-recipient forwarders, which we will set up for you (we will provide instructions for setting up in Outlook etc, and webmail login details, in our welcome document when you’ve paid for your website)
• We will create a Google account for you, then a Google Analytics account; we’ll include your Google Analytics code in your pages so that you can measure visitor activity on your website
• Your website will have up to 5 pages including home page and contact us page, populated with copy and images supplied by you (we will proof read your copy and adjust your photos as necessary, without further charge).
• If you have PDF brochures or other documents that you’d like visitors to be able to download from your site, we’ll add these to the server for you and include links where appropriate
• Basic on-page SEO is included in the price – e.g. unique and relevant page titles and meta tags, optimised link anchor text and link titles, ALT tags on images, H1/H2 for headings, optimised page URLs, etc
• If you want one, we’ll include an ‘add to any‘ button to every page, so that visitors to your site can share pages they like on a huge number of social networking/bookmarking sites including Twitter, Facebook, Delicious etc as well as by email (there’s one at the bottom of this blog post – give it a try!)
• If you use Twitter, we will also include a Twitter gadget of your choice, if you want – for example, a ‘follow me’ button from twitterbuttons.com, a ‘number of times tweeted’ button from tweetmeme.com, a twittercounter.com button or a ‘latest tweet’ widget from twitter.com
• We’ll also create a Google Webmaster Tools account for you, and when the site is ready, create an XML site map and submit it to Google for you through your Webmaster Tools account
• After the website is fully paid for, we’ll send you a personalised welcome document containing all your passwords, FTP access details, control panel details etc
• Once your site is live we’ll send a tweet out to our Twitter followers, with a link to your new website
• Sorry – no Java or Flash, and no e-commerce sites. If you’re looking for an easy-to-use, easy-to-customise, great value for money e-commerce site, we recommend Shop Maker.

Optional extras

Order these optional extras at the same time as you order your website, and take advantage of some fantastic discounts!

• Extra pages – if you need more than 5 pages, we’ll create extra pages for you at just £20 per page. What’s more, we’ll honour this price for as long as you remain a debbidoo client, so if you decide you want additional pages in a year’s time, you can still have them at this fantastic low rate
• Copywriting - if you would like us to write your website copy for you, we’ll do this at a rate of £100 per thousand words – a saving of 20%
• Sourcing and editing images - if you don’t currently have any images that we can use on your website and you’d like us to find some for you, we’ll do this for £10 per image. Includes editing/cropping/resizing the images as necessary
• Contact form, request a quote form, etc – if you need a web form that collects information and sends it to you in an email, we’ll create, test and implement this for you, to your specification, for £20 per form
• Google AdSense/AdSense For Search – if you’d like to earn some extra cash by displaying Google ads on your site, or if you want to include a Google Search box on your site, we’ll set up the account for you, create the appropriate ad units/search box and search results page, and integrate these into your website for a one-off fee of £40
• Privacy/terms and conditions pages – we’ll download the appropriate templates from Website Law, personalise them for you, and add them to your website. This costs £20 per page (i.e. if you want both privacy and T&Cs, this will cost a total of £40)  – see Note 4, below
• Blog - we can set up a wordpress.com-hosted blog for you (including creating a custom header image), and link to it from your website. Order this at the same time as you order the website and we’ll charge just £90 (usual price: £120)
• Self-serve email newsletters – order a self-serve newsletter account at the same time as you order your website, and we’ll integrate the subscription form into your website for FREE, create and integrate your subscribe/confirmation/unsubscribe pages for FREE, PLUS give you 25% off the setup fee (see Note 5, below)
• Fully managed email newsletters – order a fully managed newsletter account at the same time as you order your website and we’ll integrate the subscription form into your website for FREE, create and integrate your subscribe/confirmation/unsubscribe pages for FREE, PLUS give you 25% off the setup fee, PLUS give you 25% off the management fee FOREVER! See Note 6, below.

For price comparison, you might like  to check out our price list.

Super-duper extra extras package

Order a minimum of FIVE of the above optional extras, and we’ll give you a FURTHER 10% DISCOUNT against the total cost of your optional extras! See Note 7, below.

Notes and conditions

1. Images: you will need to supply your own images. If you want us to source images for you, there is a small additional charge for this – see ‘optional extras’.
2. Domain registration: .co.uk domains are registered for two years, and .com domains are registered for one year. Renewal invoices will be sent to you by debbidoo on the appropriate anniversary, charged at the prevailing rate in force at our hosting/domain name registration partners Open Mind Hosting – we do not make any profit from this.
3. Hosting: one year’s hosting is included in the £295 fee. A renewal invoice will be sent to you by debbidoo annually, with payment due on the anniversary of the package being bought, again charged at the prevailing rate in force at Open Mind Hosting – again, we do not make any profit from this.
4. Privacy/T&Cs pages: as the templates are free to download, you need to agree to include a link to Website Law in the pages when you publish them. If you don’t want to include this link, it will cost an additional £20 per template (approximately) to buy link-free templates.
5. Self-serve email newsletters: the broadcast fee of £5 per campaign plus £0.01 per recipient will still be charged. See http://debbidoo.com/self-serve-email-newsletters.html for features and usual prices.
6. Fully managed email newsletters: the broadcast fee of £0.01 per recipient, per campaign, will still be charged. See http://debbidoo.com/fully-managed-email-newsletters.html for features and usual prices.
7. Super-duper extra extras package: to clarify, any number of additional pages counts as one “extra”, any number of images counts as one “extra”, any number of forms counts as one “extra”, and either one or both terms/privacy pages counts as one “extra”.
8. To take advantage of the optional extras and the super-duper extra extras package, you MUST order your extras at the same time as you order your website. If you order them later, our prevailing rates will apply.
9. Payment: 50% of the total fee due will be invoiced, and must be paid, before commencement of work. A further 25% will be invoiced, and must be paid, on sign-off of the template and before your website goes live. The remaining 25% will be invoiced once the website is live, and payment must be received within 30 days or we will disable the website and email addresses, and withhold all relevant passwords until payment is received. After the final payment is received, we will send out the welcome document containing all relevant passwords and access instructions.
10. Amendments: to ensure your website is built in a timely manner, we will ask you to provide a detailed brief before work commences (we will help you with this). Before building the website template we will send you a JPG mockup of our proposed design; we include one set of amendments to this mockup in the £295 fee, and any further amendments will be charged at £40 per hour.
11. Case studies: you agree that in exchange for receiving a bespoke website for £295, you may be asked to participate in a case study, to be published on debbidoo.com or any other debbidoo website. This is in fact a positive thing for you, as in any case study we will link to your website, using your chosen keyword/phrase as anchor text (effectively free advertising and free linkage).
12. Copyright and ownership: you will own your domain, your website and all copyright of the website text, but you agree to have a discreet “website by debbidoo” link at the bottom of each page.
13. Our “bespoke website for £295″ offer is strictly limited to FIVE websites, and is issued on a first come, first served basis. To apply, please contact us using any of the methods outlined on our contact page.
14. Should this offer prove extremely popular, we may re-introduce it – or a similar offer – at a future date.

Any questions? Please leave a comment below. Thanks.

The services I’m being asked to provide by my clients have turned out to be quite different from the services I expected to provide when I first started my business (no rude comments, please!) so I’ve decided that it’s time my website was overhauled. Time to weed out some of the stuff that I never get asked to do, and bring in the stuff that I do get asked to do. And have a general tidy-up, add some extra functionality, change the look and feel a bit, that sort of thing.

My new site is going to work quite differently. I won’t say too much now – I’ll hang on until release, and mither on about it then instead – but while I’m in the planning stages, I thought I’d ask around and see if anyone has any suggestions for things they’d like to see added, removed, or improved at debbidoo.com.

There is also a specific situation that I want to address – and I need your input,  so please do me a favour and vote in the poll, so I can get an idea of what to do.

The situation is this: Mr Doo is a shareholder in the company, and we’ve always planned that one day, when the time is right, we’ll employ staff. However, it’s me that’s the public face, if you like, of debbidoo. If you talk to debbidoo on Twitter, UKBF, WeCanDo.biz or any of the other business and social networking sites that debbidoo is on, it’s me you’re talking to.

Now, on the debbidoo website, I never talk about “me” or “I” – it’s always “we” or “us”. Not because I’m trying to make out that the company is bigger than it is, but because of the fact that Mr Doo is a shareholder and we’ve always planned to take on staff – so, it feels natural to say “we”.

What I want to know is… when I build the new website, should I continue using “we” or switch to “I”?

Personally, I don’t feel overly comfortable talking about “me” and “I”. It feels too egotistical for comfort. If I’m honest, it feels a little twatty. However, I don’t want visitors to the site to think that debbidoo is a bigger company than it is, or that I’m trying to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes.

I just feel comfortable saying “we” – maybe that’s because I’m a gemini, and as we all know, geminis have multiple personalities…

Anyway… what do you think? Could you please use the poll to let me know whether I should stick to “we”, change to “I”, or you don’t think it matters either way?

And if you have any other suggestions for improving debbidoo.com, they’ll be gratefully received… just use the comments box at the bottom of this post.

Thanks

Many businesses go bust in their first year; look around the web and you’ll find articles which claim that anything from 25% to 80% of businesses won’t be around to celebrate their first birthday.

What a relief it is to be able to say that debbidoo isn’t one of them!

For today, 7 April 2009, we’re celebrating one year to the day since we launched debbidoo to the big wide world (in fact, the anniversary of incorporating the business slipped quietly by at the end of February; launch-birthday is the biggie).

To celebrate, we’ve made a little stop frame animation video, which you can see below. I say “we”, but actually most of the work was done by my dear friend Michelle, who’s been my best pal since we started secondary school together over 28 years ago. By day, Michelle is a mild-mannered crime scene investigator; by night, she’s a bit of a whizz with a camera, photoshop and movie editing software.

Mr Doo wrote and performed the soundtrack. And the warbling “debbidooooooooo” at the end was “sung” by yours truly

So, you can’t really read it in the little newsletter on the video – but we’re offering 20% off all email newsletter setup fees during the month of April 2009, because it’s our birthday and we can. To find out more, pop over to www.debbidoo.com and click the special offer image. Easy peasy

Anyway – as promised, here’s the video. If you like it, please rate it and leave a comment

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