Surrey

In which I attempt to boost my Google ranking through devious means

I was trying to explain to a non-journalist friend what search engine optimisation was, and why it could be important to a freelance journalist in Redhill or a freelance journalist in Surrey.

“Hm,” she said, when I’d finished, “sounds like a load of bollocks”.

Obviously I hadn’t done a very good job at explaining why being search engine optimised could be of interest to a copywriter in Surrey.

But I can see why she might have thought so. I mean come on, it does sound massively tedious, doesn’t it. I could almost send myself to sleep talking about it. It doesn’t interest me in the slightest, other than in its potential usefulness to a copywriter in Redhill.

It might be bollocks, I conceded primly, but it’s bollocks you need to know. In other words, BUNK. Rather like how to check your tyre pressure, or how to bleed your radiators. You’d rather not fill your mind with such things but, unless you have someone else to do them for you, you need to have at least a passing acquaintance with the subject.

Anyone who’s still reading might have noticed I’ve been trying to SEO this very article. Yes, those magic phrases freelance journalist Redhill, freelance journalist Surrey, copywriter Redhill and copywriter Surrey are the cheeky ones I need to get SEOd.

I was delighted, when I did that most egotistical of things, Googling myself, to find that the F Words name appears as number 3 on Google. And Sue Fenton (me, not any of the rest of the clan I discussed in a previous blog) comes in at position 2, 3, 6, 7, 8 and 9. An egoist’s dream.

But Google “freelance journalist Surrey” and I don’t show up till page 7 – and of course no-one ever gets that far. As “freelance journalist Redhill” I get one mention on page 2, and nothing else.

For “copywriter Redhill” I’m number 2 on the first page. But “copywriter Surrey” is simply nowhere.

One’s not supposed to post web copy blatantly and irrelevantly repeating phrases like “freelance journalist Surrey”. Apparently Google frowns on such carry-on when it sends its little spiders out to crawl about on the internet.

But I’m fascinated, far more so than the subject warrants, to find out if it works or not.

So, sorry Google, forgive me this little transgression of the SEO rules. I’ll try not to do it again – after all, I’m usually too busy waffling on about steam rooms and cats and things. Which might explain why I show up on Google when people do searches on phrases like “Italian cookware” and “swearing at police”.

I’m not convinced that it’s vital to be near the top on Google if you’re a freelance journalist – in Surrey or anywhere else – I think potential clients are more likely to search on the NUJ or LinkedIn. But it all helps.

And a quick plug for WordPress – I know it’s SEOd, cos a couple of nights ago someone was looking for a blog post I’d just written – and she found it on Google, less than an hour after it was posted. Well done, WordPress.

Pic credit: digitalart, http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=2280

The Boys refuse to take their knickers off for “Let It Hang” Day: and other piglet-related news

The Boys in the Steam Room displayed little enthusiasm when I told them they ought to go without underwear this Friday to mark “Let It Hang” Day, an event being held in support of the millions of piglets that are apparently needlessly castrated every year.

The event is being organised by a Belgian animal rights group, Gaia, which says vaccination could replace castration as a more humane way of preventing “boar taint”, an odour released when sexually mature pigs are cooked.

Gaia wants men to go commando for the day in solidarity with the piglets, to persuade supermarkets not to sell pork made from castrated pigs. It is targeting men because they are best placed to imagine the pain of castration, especially if they have ever received an unexpected football or stiletto heel in the crotch. “Be careful before you sit down,” the group thoughtfully warned participants.

The group says women can help too by hiding their men’s pants on Friday morning so they are forced to go to work with it all hanging free. Or, as the Google translation from the Belgian charmingly put it, “[women] can help by their husband’s underwear to hide”.

None of the Boys seemed keen to join up. Tim avoided the issue by arguing that the phrase “Let It Hang” sounded all wrong – wouldn’t “Flop It Out” be better? Nick said anyway the organisers probably meant trousers, not underwear, as they were probably using “pants” in the American sense.

Rory crossed his legs and begged me to stop saying “castration”. He added that he had no intention of not wearing his undies on Friday because “if I said I wouldn’t, you’d put it in that diary of yours”.

Anyone who would like to join in can register on the Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=221483921232834. And anyone who’d like to see how piglets are castrated without anesthaesia can see a film clip at http://vimeo.com/25771292

Meanwhile, here in England, in another piglet-related incident, Surrey Police announced today that it had released from bail four people previously suspected of having pinched micro-piglets from an address in Capel in March.

Four micro-piglets have been reunited with their rightful owner, but police continue to appeal for information regarding the whereabouts of the remaining animals, named Squiggle, Dotty and Spotty.

This tickled me; obviously it’s not funny when loved pets are stolen, but I found it quite charming that the police, who events of recent years have led us to believe are primarily concerned with protecting the interests of government and big business, rather than those of the community, are willing to spend time on tracking down a householder’s piglets. Sweet.

Pic credit: Tina Phillips, http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=503

It’s not what you say, it’s who you are: my MP never tweets yet has 6x as many followers as me!

My MP has amassed six times as many followers on Twitter as I have – despite the fact that he never tweets! It just goes to show, it’s not what you say but who you are when it comes to gaining a Twitter following.

I discovered this when I decided to follow Tory Crispin Blunt (Reigate) only to find that he has not uttered a word since he commented “test” in September 2009. I and his other 352 followers are eagerly sitting by our PCs waiting for the next utterance from our parliamentary representative.

Blunt’s not alone in his lack of interest in the internet. His fellow Surrey Tory MPs Chris Grayling (Epsom and Ewell), Paul Beresford (Mole Valley), Jonathan Lord (Woking) and Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton), don’t appear to be on Twitter at all – though Raab is on Facebook.

Other Surrey MPs toy half-heartedly with Twitter; perhaps someone’s told them to do it but they’re not convinced. Kwasi Kwarteng in Spelthorne went through a spell of tweeting in the run-up to the elections in May last year but hasn’t uttered since.

Education minister Michael Gove of Surrey Heath has issued only 15 tweets, most of them last month.

Of the remaining Surrey MPs – all Conservatives – culture secretary Jeremy Hunt (south west Surrey), Anne Milton (Guildford) and Sam Gmiyah (East Surrey), are all active on Twitter. Gmiyah seems to be a particularly keen user.

I accept that being a social media user is not necessarily a qualification for being a good MP: Twitter is fairly new to all of us and we all managed our jobs perfectly well without it in the past. I daresay those MPs who don’t use it would say they are too busy handling parliamentary business or dealing with constituents’ problems to sit down and mess about on the internet. But it would certainly seem to be a way for politicians to raise their profiles and to communicate quickly and easily with constituents.

Be that as it may, I’m still a bit peed off that my 57 followers @susanfenton – actually not bad for a newbie and growing slowly but steadily all the time – can be so easily beaten hands down by someone who’s only ever tweeted once.

Blunt’s 353 followers pale into insignificance against higher profile politicians like Ken Livingstone, with 14,000, Diane Abbott, with 22,000, George Galloway, with 37,000, and avid tweeter and “cyber warrior” John Prescott, former Labour deputy leader, who has an astonishing 92,000 followers.

Ed Miliband, leader of the Labour Party, also has 92,000 while Nick Clegg, deputy prime minister and leader of the Lib Dems, has 65,000. Boris Johnson, London mayor, outdoes the lot of them with 192,000. Interestingly, David Cameron has only 6,000 in his own name, though 1.8 million as “prime minister”.

As a newcomer, I’ve totally revised my previous opinion of Twitter as being an outlet for the intellectually vacant to talk about what they had for breakfast. Some do Tweet frequent updates on what train or café or airport they’re in, apropos of nothing in particular. But if you want interesting, intelligent, challenging or alternative views – and instant, informative updates on topics that interest you, you can easily find them on Twitter. Maybe more MPs should try it.

PS Have just spotted that @PhilipHammondMP, which purports to be the Twitter account of transport secretary and MP for Runnymede and Weybridge Philip Hammond, is actually a spoof. Do go and have a look – he says some funny things, like “William Hague wears underpants made of tweed. He suffers terribly with chafing”.

Pic credit: Naypong, http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=2617