How does YOUR day go?
I never spend any time at all thinking about the tasks that I have lined up for the day. I mean, really, there’s no need to have any sort of plan of action for my websites, servers – and of course, those of clients. Raleigh SEO – ALL of this stuff just happens, right?
I just breezed through the 38 emails waiting for me since I went to bed and last checked my email at 10:30 last night. I’m sure that those server alerts probably don’t need checking on. There weren’t 7 user lockouts on sites amongst those 38 emails. I’m sure that the user from Russia that tried unsuccessfully to login with the username “admin” apparently about 10 times guessing passwords on 2 of my sites has nothing but best intentions for my sites – though of course, he has nothing to do with them. I’m sure he was just doing some gentle “whitehat security testing” for me. I really appreciate them. So there is no reason to need to go check any of those sites. At all. Whoa, at 4:09 am, it looks like he’s back at it – still trying that “admin” username. I mean seriously, if you’re going to test my security, you WANT to do a good job, right?
I didn’t need to review any of the other client SERP listings – because just putting up a client site pretty much guarantees that it will be #1 and seen everywhere and found for everything. But I did anyway, just to ensure that your site is still #1. For everything.
I know that you don’t actually pay me to do SEO work on your site, but you still feel the need to contact me and let me know that you’re not #1 for something – and that should obviously have been included in the cost of building your low dollar website. And then I get your shining email – what a treat. And today, you don’t rank for “herpetologists in Atlanta”? Mmm.. okay. You ARE such a breath of fresh air in my morning.
We have HAD such FUN!
Speaking of your low-dollar website, it was either use me or get that awesome GoDaddy website builder for a buck a month and do it yourself. And yes, I DO know that GoDaddy thing is only a buck a month. Sure, I KNOW you can get your own website EXACTLY the way YOU want it with that builder – as opposed to the way that will likely WORK based on OUR experience in the last 15-16 years of doing business websites. Of COURSE I can drop my price down to be competitive with a DIY website builder. I’d be HAPPY to do that. I haven’t spent 15-16 years learning my craft and all the ins and outs on a huge number of required skills required to turn out a professional Raleigh website, knowing SEO like a second language and getting that site to rank, or what quirks Google has up it’s sleeve this month. I really don’t require money – I just enjoy spending quality time with great clients – like you.
All those expenses that I have that cost me right around 3000/month – hosting servers across the US and beyond, anti-virus apps, anti-hacker apps, backup software that runs continuously, specialized software subscriptions, service subscriptions, additional help here in the office. I just throw those numbers out, none of that actually COSTS me money. Those suppliers just like me. And besides, it will look GREAT on my resume that I built this site for you. After the last decade and a half of building business websites, what I REALLY REALLY REALLY need is another website like yours to “pad out my portfolio” – you were SO clever to remind me of that. And of course, based on that great exposure I’ll get, I’ll gladly do it for almost nothing.
Back to your low cost website – Actually all you really NEEDED, according to you, was like a 1 page website and that should do it. Everything can be put on one page, right? And that way, you should really only have to pay for one page and that shouldn’t be more than that DIY GoDaddy thing, right? So, we can do it for like $100? Doesn’t matter that in your plan, that page would be about 27 and a half feet long when viewed and have embedded videos, photo galleries, and product listings from some guy in Oklahoma that apparently has cases of old “The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas
My mind keeps going back to that herpetologists thing… I didn’t realize necessarily that you might expect to be found for “herpetologists in Atlanta” and of course, you’re actually a quasi-flintstones school supply ecomm site in Raleigh, but now that I know… Oh, hold it, Dino is a dinosaur. And since they don’t have “dinosaurologists”, you want to be found for the next best thing? Okay! I can be SOOO dense at times. I’ll go ahead and work on that whole herpetologists thing. That way it will save people time – they shouldn’t need to qualify their search term by typing in something applicable like “flintstones lunchboxes” or something – they can just tap in “herpetologist” and your site will be #1. That’s a lot of characters though. Search engines are supposed to be smart, yes? Maybe I can even get some other similar terms and misspellings in there to make your low dollar site just rocket to the top. Of everything.
Make it eCommerce
Now that we’ve got THAT cleared up, back to your website yet again. Oh, and you want those product listings to actually be available for online sales too? SURE, no problem. Of COURSE, that doesn’t cost extra. And you want it to spit out tax reports for you on a daily basis? For every state. Because of all the sales you’ll have. And we can go ahead and add in the piece about you shipping it to a seasonal office in downtown NYC for local delivery and adding on pricing specifically for that option – but only if it’s between September 15th and March 15th – because that’s when your cousin Gretchen is there to do the deliveries. I’m sure there’s a plugin for that. Just NOT a problem.
More helpful Whitehat Assistance
Whoop – 4:33 am – looks like I have a new whitehat hacker probing my server directly. I love these guys. How ELSE would I know my WordPress website security is working??? Germany this time. It’s like there must be a whole NETWORK of these people out there trying to help me out. Looks like 20 failed attempts – I’m sure that didn’t use up any server resources.
We are SOOOO Dense!
I know it was grudgingly that you stretched yourself to come up just a bit on your price and allow us to maybe break that site up into a few pages and not just 1. It’s all our fault that your well-laid plans are not workable. We’re just not smart enough to know how to put everything on one page. If we were more giving, and REALLY understood the brilliance that is/was your marketing plan you drew up on a cocktail napkin over 12 beers last Friday, surely your original plan would work just fine. We obviously just don’t understand anything about the web.
We’re Overpriced
And I’m sure that my initial quote was just way too much overall. I mean, seriously, you’re JUST a startup company with no track record whatsoever and that shouldn’t be an impediment to you starting off with only the absolute BEST site you can possibly have. This is the way Amazon started off, right? And you need EVERY bell and whistle that Amazon has. And of course, I can do all this work for you on the serious cheap, cause, like I said earlier, I don’t need money. And I don’t have any OTHER responsibilities other than to you and your low dollar site.
It’s not like you demanded special graphics or pretty much demanded we bring in a graphics person to create them for your special site. And again, after we pushed you grudgingly into maybe having more than one page, you decided that each page should be completely different with different layouts and the menu would randomly appear all around the page. SO fresh and cool! I’m sure the website visitors won’t be asking themselves “WTF?”, they’ll just revel in that coolness that is YOUR special site. I’m sure they’ll be impressed with each and every page as we had to rework each and every page at LEAST 12 times to meet your exacting knowledgeable specifications, so I’m absolutely certain that it’s the best that it can be!
Only The BEST!
And of COURSE, you wanted it to look better than the OTHER ecomm sites out there. Coincidentally, I know another dev that just built a site similar to what you want – and that was 8300. But I know I will be happy to do your site for $500 with all those bells and whistles. And of course, take all your phone calls and respond to all your emails pronto. And STILL get it done. Sure, I have staff that can do all that and CERTAINLY, I can tie THEM up too for that two week period devoted completely to you to the exclusion of all other customers. It’s all about YOU!
No-Cost Business Startup Financing
Did I mention that I also offer no-cost business startup financing? I didn’t? I mean, if you’d just asked me, I could have just arranged to do the whole thing as a free business startup thing for you and we wouldn’t have had to worry about the peskiness that is a nagging invoice! Beside running our own business, we’re TICKLED to finance YOUR operations for YOU! FREE. If you’d just told us that you don’t make any money, don’t have any money to put into a site, or pay us for our work, and all that…
We Understand You Hate Paying For Our Work
But not knowing that we had that no-cost option, we DO hate it for you… Maybe that’s why it took you 4 months to pay after demanding 2 weeks of my time exclusively with incessant phone calls and non-stop emails. So, yeah, that 4 months to get payment was not a problem – we’re just SO glad you’re happy with your site. That should almost be payment enough, shouldn’t it? I mean, after I called two months ago to see when you might grace us with payment for our work, and you telling me that the check had been sent the week before, but you felt like the site was just too expensive and we were just charging too much. Would I be willing to accept half of that $500 because you felt like you had already “paid enough”? (But the check was already sent, wasn’t it??)
Oh and BTW, could I change just one more thing for you? Sure, what? Just because we haven’t received any money at all, and are not sure we ever will, that shouldn’t stop me from wanting to do MORE on your site, should it?? You want to change ALL the prices on your 250 products? Of COURSE! Surely we can go through the complex screens – 5 of them for each product – to change all those prices for you.
Again, We are SOOO STUPID!
That should be a no-brainer. I mean any TIME something needs doing, please call me or send an email – which you actually seem to have little problem with – about what else should be included for your one-time payment of $500. Obviously lifetime changes should be included and it’s just obtuse of us to not realize that. Even if it means we have to REBUILD THE WHOLE THING! By golly, once you’ve gotten a website from us and paid us once, you should NEVER be expected to pay for ANYTHING again!!! Even if new technologies come out – like responsive design, new browsers that react completely different… Even if it was built either perfect or near-perfectly according to all best practices at the time of build, it’s a given that we’ll go back and make your website work perfectly for that at no extra charge!
Seriously, like whenever Ford releases a new car model, they always call you and ask you to bring your vintage car in so they can replace the body and swap out that tired old interior – at no charge, right? Upgrade the onboard computer – even put a new computer IN if your car didn’t originally come equipped with one! We are SOOO stupid.
Herpetologist – Just too many characters
Trying to be even more forward thinking, it seems like people just shouldn’t have to be bothered with the whole “herpetologist” thing. I mean, if they’re looking for Flintstones stuff and all. You just seriously need to be THE site that comes up when anyone types in anything, right?
Told Google You Need to Be #1
I went ahead and just called Google and told them that YOUR site needs to come up #1 for all Flintstone stuff and the herpetologist thing and any other related terms. Geez, the more I think about it, even if someone just types pretty much anything in – it really should be YOUR site that comes up. They were only too eager and happy to comply. That’s the hallmark of Google – always happy to just shove your site where YOU think it should be in relation to the other 946,980,173 websites out there as of this writing.
I guess they also decided to get your special site to come up for other associated or similar terms and they took the herpet.. how DO you spell it?? So many misspellings out there. Oh – they’ve got it covered. You are now ALSO number 1 for “herpes” – how appropriate. The gift that keeps on giving. And keeps coming back just often enough to remind someone that it’s still around – just like you! That’s just how we feel about having a great customer such as you – such a gift.
Just a breath of fresh air this morning. Thanks for your email!