Jan 10, 2008
How many blog posts start with something like "It's been a while since I posted anything, sorry about that, I promise I'll be posting more soon bla bla bla..."?Apologizing at the start of anything really takes the shine off things...
- Apologizing for being late to a meeting
- Apologizing for your hourly rate being so high
- Apologizing for software being in beta
- Apologizing for not blogging for a while
Stand tall
Be proud of what you do, and don't apologise for everything that isn't quite right. I have a general policy of not Apologizing for things that aren't my fault, and instead being professional about dealing with the problem. I can accept the fact I'm not perfect, and I expect people I deal with to accept this too.- I don't apologise when hosting goes down, if it's out of my control.
- I don't apologise for bugs people find in free software I write.
- I don't apologise when I'm busy on billable work instead of blogging for free.
- I do apologise when late for a meeting - that's just common courtesy.
Positive thinking
The point of this post is that you shouldn't dwell on the negative, and instead focus on making things right. Don't remind people that you are slack at blogging, and instead remind them why your content is so great.If you haven't blogged for a month, don't apologise for it, just post something decent. People don't mind irregular postings if the signal to noise ratio is good.
5 Comments
Lynn Bishop (SEO) - NZ's Best SEO-Self Proclaimed - Jan 14, 2008
I've never really thought about apologising, not that doesn't sound right, I mean I hadn't thought of the negative vibes created by saying sorry for whatever at the start of a conversation but as usual you are right, good post....
Seeing the comment above, I might think about writing a post asking for questions people want the answers to. Problem is when it comes to google, who really does know the answers to why they do anything. I'm pretty sure though that "pages from NZ" are either .co.nz type domain names or sites hosted in NZ. cause when I do a search for "NZ's Best SEO" (no quotes)in the pages from NZ our domain local domain name comes #2 and when I do "the web" search our .com website shows #1. I only ever did those words as a joke but am amazed how many people search for them.
Google is focusing more and more on customizing search results based on region. It would be fair to say that most people searching for "road safety" would want information that is correct for the current country - seeing as driving on the right hand side of the road is not considered "safe" in this country like it is in the USA.
Google.co.nz (pages from NZ) will return only .nz domains, sites hosted in NZ, or sites set to NZ region in Google webmaster tools.
Google.co.nz (the web) will return results from all around the world, with a reasonable bias towards NZ websites (as defined above).
Google.com (from a NZ IP address) returns worldwide results with a very slight (but significant) bias towards NZ sites.
Google.com from an American IP address will bring worldwide results with no bias towards NZ sites. I use a proxy to view these kinds of results.
As of recently, you no longer need to host in NZ to get listed in NZ results. If you have a .com or generic TLD, Google webmaster tools lets you pick the country focus of your website. Definitely easier than hosting your international sites all over the place.
Aidan Rogers - NZ's Best SEO <-- LOL :D - Jan 16, 2008
The power of positive thinking - 100% with you on this one.
Great post and seeing some great comments coming in too - Excellent to see.
Also nice little sum up of why people get different results from Gooogle.
"..seeing as driving on the right hand side of the road is not considered "safe".."
Classic :) Keep it coming Harvey. Oh and "proxy" supposed to be a link?
Totally agree with the positive thinking vibe! Having recieved a copy of "The Secret" DVD from santa and trawled through 90 mins of over enthusiastic americans basically all saying the same thing "If you think positive and visualise the best outcome, you stand a good chance of succeeding".
I prefer the kiwi version "she'll be right"!!
A quick thanks again for your tips on how to move my martial arts site up the google rank. before I emaile you we were at 12, second page... now we are 5th!!
Good work fella
Pennine - New Zealand angle on SEO - Jan 11, 2008
Great Blog.
Can you explain the difference in the "search the web" and "pages from NZ" in the Google results ?
When I do a "search the web" on Google.co.nz I get different results from a "search the web" on G.com and different again on G.co.uk.
My test search phrase was "road safety" (no quotes).
Google gives a local NZ flavour to the results for the "search the web" - this may be good or bad. For some subjects you obviously want the local stuff - eg government road safety laws, etc. But there may be some real kick-ass site with really good new relevant content about road safety that is not local and is pushed down by a lame NZ government press release.
Maybe you can also discuss whether hosting in NZ is necessary or just the .NZ tld ?
Thanks.