Major visual upgrade over at Google+ check out the new look
Google is really trying to go head to head with Facebook, and is including its own social network in its search results, something it does not currently do with Twitter of Facebook. This probably is the time to make sure your business is on there, as it looks set to become a “must have”.
This is probably the first of many upgrades over the coming months, so expect additional services and modules as Google continues in its quest for world (wide web) domination.
If you would like more details please call or mail us, we will be happy to advise or help.
Video for escorts and agencies posted: 07 Mar, 2012
This week we are focussing on what we believe is art least a part of the future of escort sites on the internet, video.
Firstly lets deal with a couple of myths and barriers you may be thinking of. 1) If shot correctly you do not need to show your face, it is quite possible to shoot just body or to crop video just as you can any photo. 2) Video can not be airbrushed, well actually yes it can, it is quite possible with sophisticated editing software to add a degree of retouching in the form of blur and colour enhancements to any part or full video.
So, where does that leave you and 69Design? Well if your considering a video for your site it can certainly add novelty value as well as allow you to directly address the client with an audio track as well as music. As for us we have invested a considerable amount of time and money in making sure we can offer professional service, professional software and an ongoing commitment to provide you with cutting edge and useful enhancements to your business.
Also don’t forget we also offer a “half-way” solution in our slideshows, a slideshow video of your pictures to form an animated collage.
Anyway we hope this has at least given you food for thought, as always we are here to help so please do not hesitate to contact us with issues and suggestions.
Two of the major social media players, Facebook and Linkedin have rolled out new looks and features for their business (brand) pages. If you have a personal profile on Facebook you will already be aware that the “wall” concept was recently updated to display a timeline in a far more friendly and intuitive way. This has now been extended to business pages as well.
Linkedin also allow the creation of business pages, and we have spent some time over the past day or so creating and adding content to enhance our profile and presence on what is the premier business networking site.
If you do not already have a profile on Linkedin it may be worth creating one, while these may or may not be picked up by search engines (depending on their current policies) it certainly can not do harm to make sure you are listed, and yes they do allow escort related profiles..
So, if your not already a member consider setting up a profile for yourself, if you already have a business related profile on either Facebook or Linkedin we would be very please for you to ‘“follow or like” us.
We can of course provide help and advice if your interested in promoting yourself more through Social Media, we already help a few clients, ranging from the simple setting up of the profiles through to actively managing them for clients. As always either call or mail us, or of course contact us through any of our Social Media Channels, including of course Twitter.. http://twitter.com/69DesignLtd
Our 69D Directory and main domain on which our pay-as-you-go escort templates are hosted has been off line for a bit while worked out what to do with it.. There are a lot of overheads in running a directory in the time stakes, and even though we restricted it to just our clients the upkeep was simply not worth the overhead, so it has been down for a few months.
OK thats’s the bad news out of the way, the good news is, it will be returning in a new format and with new features on Monday the 20th of February (or before if we have the time). We are not ring to say exactly what it will contain but it will have a much more defined focus, as well as providing value to our already feature rich templates. We are consistently being asked to stretch the parameters of these pay-as-you-go sites so hopefully this will provide an answer without additional costs.
Anyway, all will be revealed, of course we are not neglecting those will non-template sites, our services for you will be increasing as well, and again stay tuned for updates.
Meanwhile, any questions please as always either e-mail phone or “tweet” us, we are here to help.
As we announced somewhat previously, on twitter last week we are now pleased to announce two of our existing services have had a major overhaul in both what we offer and the skill sets now available.
Firstly we have considerably upgraded our Social Media package to include a much more complete service. Not only we will now cerate custom Facebook fan pages, but these can be set to display content directly for from your site, making updating a simple one change process as well as meaning a much more interactive and branded experience for your fans on Facebook. Have a look at our own page for an example of what we mean here
We have also upgraded our service to all those of you using out “we tweet for you” service. Not only do we now provide daily tweets but also monitor your account for mentions, messages etc. We will also interact with people mentioning or contacting through Twitter, creating a true “Social” element to the twitter experience.
We are also please to let you know we have upgraded our video capabilities, investing in high end state of the art software and a considerable upgrade to our skill set in this area, including the ability to mask out areas if you have piracy concerns. To give you an idea we have recut and enhanced our “promo” video on the about us page, so again please take a look. please take a look.
We believe that video both on sites and for mobile consumption is the future and as always we believe that investing now will only provide benefit in the future.
As always please contact us if you need further information on any of our services.
We have today upgraded our facebook presence, stripped out some peripheral stuff and added a facebook specific special offer.
The interface has been a good learning curve, working out how to code something a bit more than the standard, so please go and visit. If your thinking about a site upgrade or a new site, “like” us and you could receive a pleasant surprise.
The title really says it all, YouYube the popular video sharing site has a new look to reflect Googles’ general rebranding. The redesign messed up our carefully crafted background on there so we have reverted to a plain BG to compliment the new minimal look.
We are now offering image slideshows to embed in your site.. Something different and designed to grab attention. Available in standard or high definition (HD) versions, you can view the standard one below. The HD version can even be used on TV;s ideal perhaps for parlours?
we have prepared a tribute to our very own Mandy, surely one of the finest looking women for her age anywhere,
If you would like one for your site please contact us for details.
“The new feature was demoed at the company’s MAX 2011 event, drawing gasps of amazement from a crowd that witnessed a blurred photo, retouched and perfected in seconds.”
Not yet available but scheduled for the next release. Will this “unblur” faces?
A late tribute I know and I can not really add anything that has not been said a lot better by many others.
I am sitting in our office typing this on a macbook pro, with a mac pro and iMac sitting at the moment switched off, the iPhones are currently quiet (for once). An Apple fan, yes, but no mindless Apple “fan boy”. We made the switch from PC’s just about four years ago and have never looked back. The attention to detail in all aspects from the design aesthetics of the actual machinery to the rock solid operating systems which power them. No blue screens of death, crashes are very rare and viruses virtually non-existant.
However the impact of Steve Jobs is far wider than that, we now take tablet computers and touch screen phones for granted, something while he did not actually invent he honed into a useful tool, making us all realise we actually needed what before we did not appreciate.
His great vision and drive has changed the world we inhabit, he spent much of his life fighting the establishment, and ended up bigger than them. he refused to live his life the way others considered the norm.
I have been amazed at the strength of sentiment expressed on the web as to how much his death touched people, myself included. I never met him, I never had any contact other than through buying his products, yet a feeling of loss exists. I guess this is the true mark of a genius that his life indirectly touched so many people.
Mobile internet access and the escort industry posted: 25 Sep, 2011
Firstly some pretty impressive statistics in respect of growth and Apples dominance of this market.
1) In September 2009, just 0.02% of all UK web traffic originated from a mobile device. In January 2011 this figure was a staggering 8.09% (representing a growth of over 4000%)!
2) iPhone traffic accounts for around 4.5% of all UK website traffic – not just mobile traffic!
3) iPhone traffic accounts for more than half of mobile traffic.
4) More people browsed UK websites in January 2011 from an iPad than from all Android powered devices put together. In fact, that’s been the case since September 2010, just over 3 months after the first iPad was launched in the UK.
5) In January 2011, Apple devices accounted for more than 70% of all mobile traffic in the UK.
6) If growth continues at the rate it did for the latter part of 2010, by June 2011, 13% of UK web traffic will be of mobile origin.
OK so how does this affect you and the escort industry in general? Which is of course why you are reading this..
Firstly, be very sure that the mobile market is here to stay, often it is a triumph of convenience over ease of use, when it comes down to it browsing the net is not really that fun on a mobile, but it is often very convenient.
Secondly, if your site is wholly written in Flash or has flash components in it these will not as a rule work or be visible on a mobile device. This is the main reason we dropped the development of Flash sites although we still use Flash for image galleries, however we do provide a fallback for mobile users.
Thirdly, check how your site actually looks on a mobile, amateur designers often assume, or do not know better that Internet Explorer is the only browser, it isn’t. Google Chrome, and Firefox have been stealing market share for a considerable time, plus Safari on a mac (Safari is the default browser on iPhones and iPads) and Opera all these have their devotees, all display content slightly differently. In fact IE is the least Web Standards compliant browser out there and often sites designed only for IE will fail or degrade in other browsers or other devices.
Fourth, and this is aimed mainly at agencies, if you have an information heavy site (or even a blog) consider serving a specific mobile version. We already offer this both for our blog clients in the form of a mobile detection plugin, or for agencies a stripped down mobile friendly channel with basic info, designed to load quickly.
Finally to wrap this up with the bit where we extoll our virtues. Here at 69Design we check all new sites in all major browsers, we optimise and hand write our code to be efficient as possible, we try to provide help and advise here on the blog free of charge so that standards can rise, and everyone, escorts, clients, designers etc benefit. We are moving to HTML5 based sites and Media Queries to display (the same) content based on the display resolution of the device it is being viewed on.
So, check your site, or ask someone to check it for you. If you need any help or would like more information please contact us either by phone or e-mail or talk to us on twitter @69DesignLtd. We will always try and help.
Google Local Search (escorts and agencies) posted: 23 Sep, 2011
Your business has powerful partners that are working hard to help you increase brand awareness and generate new leads. Are you taking advantage of Google, Yahoo and Bing’s new focus on Local SEO?
Google Places is the #1 place for local search marketing on the Web, and it’s largely free. Google Places gives your business visibility to potential customers even if you don’t have a website.
Local search queries differ from conventional searches in that you are adding a “where” component such as an address, a city or a post code to the “what” component (keyword, product, service etc) that you are looking for. For years, these searches have often been dominated by national competitors: large directory sites with thousands of pages and other non-local SEO powerhouses. Now, the game has changed and search engines want to feature your local business, your products and your services.
Google’s focus on local businesses has resulted in a dramatic change in search results compared to the past. Geo-targeted searches return Google maps listings that level the playing field for small businesses that have one huge edge over national competitors: a local address.
Without that all important street address it makes little difference how much money these companies throw at SEO. You can rank well and get in front of potential clients when and where they are.. This makes local search one of your most powerful tools for building awareness and establishing credibility and authority.
Whether you’re an iPhone, Droid or Blackberry user one thing is clear– the user experience on mobile puts everything at your fingertips. Apps that tie into Google maps or other local listings will often eliminate search listings altogether and only pull from these niche listings. Your business details, reviews and driving directions are at your customer’s finger tips and the only way you miss out is if you aren’t listed locally.
So how to feature well…..
Completion – Complete your Google places listing. So many businesses go half-way and provide the bare minimum but a thorough, complete Google places listing will rank better and provide a stronger user experience. This means photos etc – Google allows you to include a lot of information and remember: It’s ALL FREE.
Positive reviews are a powerful motivating factor for Google users deciding which business to buy from. First your reviewer must locate your business in Google Maps, click “More info”, and then click “Write a review”, then write the review, choose a rating, and click “Save”.
Remember, we are here to help, we will provide free advise here via the blog, or talk to us on Twitter @69DesignLtd. if you would like further information please just call or e-,mail.
Richard and Mandy
Flash Tablets and the bitter Pill posted: 16 Sep, 2011
“Windows 8 will have two versions of Internet Explorer 10 — a desktop version and the Metro version, which is optimized for tablets.
Part of that optimization will be a plugin free experience, meaning Metro IE10 will be primarily HTML5 and will not support browser plugins, including Flash.
“The experience that plug-ins provide today is not a good match with Metro style browsing and the modern HTML5 web,” writes Dean Hachamovitch, head of the Internet Explorer team,”
So, Apple do not support flash on the iPad and Microsoft is heading the same way, does this effectively mean the end of Flash for websites?
As a standalone product or end format probably yes, it certainly has use as a development tool or in the pre production process for sketching out interactive concepts for presenting ideas. It’s probably best use will be for creating adverts which can then be output as HTML5 which will work on all platforms.
We will be publishing an article on why you should plan your sites for mobile devices shortly, meanwhile if your site is in Flash, without a fallback you may be heading for trouble.
If in doubt talk to us, we will be happy to help and/or advise.
You have a good looking website, you have invested in professional photos, all with the object of promoting yourself in the best light to your clients both existing and prospective, however there is another very important element, the site text.
Firstly write text for people not for search engines, your clients will not want to read unintelligible text stuffed with “relevant” words.
Next pick your key words that you want to be found for, escort in some town” or “some town escort” for example. While meaning the same, Google will treat these as different search terms so choose carefully, stick with these and be consistent with the keywords. Also limit yourself to three or four words or phrases, too many will dilute the ability to target effectively.
Do NOT over use these key phrases or words however, “Key word stuffing” as it is called is frowned on and can lead to the reverse of what was intended, a downgrading of the site, additionally highlight key phrases in bold, search engines give some additional weight to text formatted this way.
Lastly be unique, Google compares text, if it finds duplicate text it has to pick which is most important and discards or downgrades the other, this could be yours!
Hopefully the above helps, check your profile page(s) on your site, and (if your a client) send us any changes you want to make. Alternatively ask us for advise or to rewrite for you, we are here to help!
Excessive and Badly thought out links posted: 30 Jun, 2011
For the title above read massive heavy multiple text links masquerading as banner exchanges.
The simplest way is to quote from Google.
“Your site’s ranking in Google search results is partly based on analysis of those sites that link to you. The quantity, quality, and relevance of links count towards your rating. The sites that link to you can provide context about the subject matter of your site, and can indicate its quality and popularity. However, some webmasters engage in link exchange schemes and build partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. This is in violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and can negatively impact your site’s ranking in search results. Examples of link schemes can include:
Links intended to manipulate PageRank
Links to web spammers or bad neighborhoods on the web
Excessive reciprocal links or excessive link exchanging (“Link to me and I’ll link to you.”)”
Another major factor of these banners that seem to be cropping up now from some directories is the sheer size of the code they are composed of. Google now takes page size (read well crafted code) into account when ranking sites. Again to quote from Google.
“We encourage you to start looking at your site’s speed (the tools above provide a great starting point) — not only to improve your ranking in search engines, but also to improve everyone’s experience on the Internet.”
I have been meaning to send an email to say thank you for the website. I have loads of feedback on it and all very very positive, with comments saying how professional it looks.
I thought the whole website thing was a myth but now get it completely, if I was busy before I could clone myself 3 times over and still be busy.
Any way thank you for doing such a fab job, you are right a good web site will pay for itself in a short time. Thank you.
Kris xx”
As we replied “Thank you very much, kind words are rare but always appreciated and we are glad that your experience has been so positive.”
It is always very nice to receive such good feedback, or main buzz is to see our sites work for clients.
Building Relationships with Twitter posted: 24 May, 2011
Why should your business use Twitter to build relationships? Let’s count the reasons:
It’s free
Your target audience is likely using it
Your competitors are probably using it too
It helps you increase your online presence
It offers a range of other benefits too (e.g. reputation management, increased web traffic, market research, etc.)
Of course, there are right ways and wrong ways to go about building business relationships on Twitter. Here are some simple dos and don’ts to help you get the best results.
DO identify your ideal audience—Who is it that you want to communicate with? Your customers? People within your industry? People in a certain geographic area? Identify your ideal audience and focus on connecting with these people where they frequent online. It is important to understand where your clients both existing and potential typically go online to gather information and be sure to be ready and waiting to inform and assist them there.
DON’T follow too many people—One of the biggest mistakes companies make when they sign up for Twitter is to measure success by the number of people they’re connected with. The truth is that if you follow too many people, you won’t be able to keep up and you won’t build any good relationships at all. Keep your list of people you’re following lean and focused.
DO take time every day to interact with your followers—You can’t expect to build strong relationships if you’re an absentee Twitter user. You need to be around on a regular basis, actively interacting with your followers.
DON’T be an annoying self-promoter—Yes, Twitter can be a good tool for promoting your business, but the old way of promoting by shouting at your audience doesn’t work very well on Twitter. Sure, you can occasionally mention your promotions and link back to your website, but you have to balance that with non-promotional Tweets and meaningful conversations with your followers. Abby Gilmore, the author of Twitter for Business: A How To Guide advises that “your tweets should follow a certain motif, but stil be different and diverse enough to keep people engaged.”
DO listen—You can’t build a strong relationship if you’re doing all the talking. You have to listen too. Hang back and pay close attention to your Twitter feed. See what your connections are talking about, and whenever you have something useful to add to the conversation, respond to them. Here’s another piece of advice. Listening is the best way to truly get to know your target audience. And the better you know them, the more effectively you can interact with them. You may just be amazed by the insight it provides and that insight can inform your other marketing decisions. There are number of free tools available to assist you in this endeavor. One of my favorites is Socialmention.com but there are many other useful twitter tools worth checking out.
DON’T hide behind business speak— If you want to be successful on Twitter (or any other social media outlet for that matter), you need to have a personal touch so your audience can feel like they really know you. You absolutely must commit to sharing some parts of yourself with the audience. If you aren’t ready to do this, I’d advise you to save the time and effort and do something else.
Putting the Social in Social Marketing posted: 22 May, 2011
Twitter, Facebook etc have become an integral part of peoples on-line lives, many spending ours socialising with friends and generally joining in the background noise of the day to day social networking sites.
Why then is the escort industry (tempted to use twitter hash tags then, such is the twitter habit) still languishing in a backwater?
Many reasons probably, of course it is still “minority” interest but also one still mired in the 1990s in many ways. Having run some tests, most escort tweet are advert based, that is they simply announce, they do not encourage interaction or have any great relevance in the wider twittersphere. yes they are still picked up by Google which is one aim, but the ability to engage with clients in meaningful dialogues is far more valuable.
Previously this was the provision of the message board where owners could dictate policy or lack of it and run them as their own private fiefdoms. While these still exist (although declining in relevance), the ability of a twitter account to create your own personal forum is one which should be embraced. When do clients want you be available? When is the busiest times? What uniforms (if thats your thing) get the most reaction? Any idea, the answer is probably no, use Twitter and Facebook to ask these questions, project a personality and pick up feedback, clients love to feel useful!
The industry is changing, meaningless cloned escort directories continue to proliferate, each new one takes a share of the others, and decrease the overall relevance of the whole, apart from of course the very few big players who continue to dominate. (We have stopped offering directories because we consider them a waste of clients money). The Social networking scene has yet to really reach many escorts who even if they use, perhaps have not thought through the best way to actually add value from them.
There is a well known design blog called “signals versus noise” make sure your sending out signals clients want to listen to, not just contributing more noise.
Need help, contact us here, we will be happy to help.
The first of our new services has now been rolled out, our new 69D templates are up and running on three new site launched today.
Rewritten from the ground up in HTML5 the sites also feature javascript smooth scrolling and lightbox image galleries. We have removed the reliance of flash for image displays as the continued rift between Apple and Adobe makes the use of flash more and more problematic. The new HTML5 sites will work on iphones, blackberries and android based phones and have been tested on all modern browsers, with backward compatibility as far as Internet Explorer 7.
The Pay-as-you-go templates are now an even more viable option to a full site as well as the ideal stepping stone on to the internet without an upfront financial commitment. The sites are also acceptable by the major listing directories, so ideal for those only using adultwork or paid for advertising sites such as rare escorts, which the larger directories will not accept for a listing.
New site, new service, new templates posted: 06 May, 2011
Quiet, not a bit of it!
We continue to provide a steady stream of new sites both for independent escorts, agencies and parlours, In the pipeline and launching next week we have one new parlour site, one major redesign, one new independent site and two new templates, all before next weekend.
Meanwhile we will be rolling out a revised and upgraded pay-as-you-go template (launching Sunday), as well as finally launching our new commercial hosting business designed specifically for the escort industry. A regular monthly newsletter is set to be launched both for existing and prospective clients. We are also rebranding our 69D directory with new features new content, and with exclusive features designed to provide even more reasons to use our 69D templates.
Important as these are (and will be we hope) to the escort industry we have also decided to take our proven design formula here and apply it to the wider small business market. We have always had a separate “non escort” design arm, this is now being expanded and promoted with a new web site, launching within the week. This site has already procured business based on the strength of our escort web designs, we expect the two businesses to help each other grow both in terms of quantity as well as quantity.
As they say, stay tuned, all will be announced here as it happens.
Our first HTML5 site as a commercial job is now on-line. OK no big deal you may say but it marks another step forward for both us here at 69Design and the sites we can provide for our clients.
We decided last year to adopt the powerful but experimental markup language HTML5 when redesigning our site here, this proved a steep learning curve and a whole new mindset when considering structure and layout for the site. However things move on and we felt that the time was right to at least subject our own site to the experimental HTML5 if not risk it for our clients.
The result while causing a lot of tantrums and frustration here, was a distinctive site, and a new set of skills which we have now decided to utilise for in our day to day workflow.
The first commercial client site is now on-line written in HTML5 (http://www.moulinrouge-maidenhead.co.uk). The site also features CSS3 progressive enhancements such as drop shadow, rounded corners, image rotation, all dynamically created through styling and without the use of special images. This speeds load time, a factor Google now assesses when ranking sites. If your using an old browser, these effects will simply not be shown but the site will still display correctly and still look good (we hope)..
If your interested in finding out more on how 69Design can help your web site move to the next level of web design then get in touch today..
A slippery slope indeed but for today at least we scaled the ladder which is Google and reached the number one spot for the search term “independent escort web design”.
Probably tomorrow we will have slipped again but for today at least there we are. However this post is not about bragging but about how difficult and time consuming battling with Google is….
Over the past few months (since launching our new site here) we have been tweaking a couple of sites including this one to try and improve their rankings, and despite what others may promise let us tell you it is a long job requiring patience, dedication and a lot of obsessing over the smallest .1 percentage point change.
So first the myths, and the crazy promises many of you will have in their inbox every day.
Google, Bing etc will not accept paid listings (ad-words) for escort or escort related sites so many of the “we guarantee etc” promises can be binned straight away.
There really is no quick fix, the promise of a zillion back links overnight usually means the use of inferior sites, link farms etc, which a) Google will penalise you for, and b) will arouse Googles curiosity if many links suddenly appear overnight.
So what strategy have we adopted? Well firstly we concentrated on a clear site with no broken links, simple navigation and clear and correct mark up code, Google now actually assesses load time as well as everything else.If your site is still using tables and bloated code for layout you will be penalised.
Secondly we tried to pick just a few key phrases we wanted to be found for and targeted those and those alone, ensuring the descriptions, and text were all aimed at those phrases. The text of the site while written for the reader (important, if the site is unreadable or uninteresting then what point top spot?) not the search engines, although we were careful to use the key phrases where we could.
Thirdly we drastically upped our Social Media presence, making use of Twitter, Facebook, Flickr etc all of which are searchable by Google, Bing etc.
We also invested in some high end SEO software, and spent the time both working it out, then interpreting its recommendations.
The other site we have been experimenting on is a small independent escort site with much less content, even this (so far) has risen from just appearing in the top 100 for very competitive key terms to just scraping the front page, all within three months, and this fighting some large directories using the same key terms! We will report more on this when it gets even higher..
Can we so the same for you? Yes we believe we can, although we will not guarantee overnight results, or make wild promises. What we can do is promise to invest the time, and resources and work with you on creating structured, interesting content targeted to both your clients and the search engines. This will show results, this will drive good quality traffic to your site, this will improve enquiries, the rest you will have to do
Google will do it all for you… posted: 09 Jan, 2011
The first stop for anyone looking to work their way into google is Google Webmaster Tools. First of all it’s free, Google doesn’t charge anything!!!!.
The video above will cover here the basics to get you started with Google Webmaster Tools. What is it?. It’s a one-stop-shop for webmasters to get detailed reports about their visibility on Google. It will tell you what if any pages are indexed and alert you to some possible errors.
The end of the year seems to be a time for tidying up, finishing jobs and clearing the decks for the new Year, be it in your personal life or in business and here at 69Design we have been doing both..
We have upgraded our Social Networking Profiles to reflect our business better, our YouTube Channel has been rebranded and our introduction video re-uploaded., plus we will be adding a couple more promotional and information videos over the coming couple of weeks. http://www.youtube.com/user/69DesignLtd
We have also enhanced our Facebook Profile to show Twitter updates, our Flickr photostream and the latest Blog posts, as well as creating a welcome page with the latest information from here at 69Design. This will hopefully make our clients on Facebook be able to interact and keep up to date all from within Facebook itself. Why not check out our revised page now.. Facebook.com/69DesignLtd
Talking of Flickr we have now rationalised our photostream there by uploading our portfolio and keeping a consistent size for all the images there. Again, why not see our Portfolio in a different way by visiting us on Flickr.. http://www.flickr.com/photos/69design/
Both of us are also on LinkedIn http://uk.linkedin.com/in/69design, so if you would like to network with us we would be very pleased to here from you.
We will be utilising Social Networking to interact with our clients, post news and spread the word. We believe this is not only the present but the future, so join us for the ride.
10 Reasons to Advertise during tough economic times..
Originally a mailer we sent out to clients earlier this year, we thought it might help to make it publicly available…
1 YOU ARE ALIVE AND TRADING
You still work - why not invite people to avail themselves of your services? If you are trading at all, you must market yourself to keep the money coming in.
2 OPPORTUNITY
When the pool gets smaller, your visibility increases, as do your odds of being the escort or agency of choice and seizing share from your competitors.
3 STABILITY
When your business gets quieter, increase advertising in your services. Your website and internet directories offer a variety of advertising and marketing options to suit your needs, as well as an already established name.
4 RELIABILITY
During tough times your advertising needs a “return on investment” and not other nice options. Internet advertising is a proven return on investment vehicle, partnered with a structured links campaign and the expertise of 69Design this will provide trackable results.
5 FISH WHERE THE FISH ARE
Use newspapers for local advertising partnered with your website and its internet links. This offer the best local exposure plus an effective on-line brochure. These are the key areas you should use when targeting new clients.
6 SELECTIVE CONSUMERS
Clients research their spending more during tough times. Be among the considered choices. The internet is the marketplace for quality clients, and if you are not there and visible, you may not be considered as a choice for those who are considering spending.
7 CREDIBILITY
Advertising in a credible places is an indication that you are credible as well.
8 BRAVADO
Never show your fear. Advertising indicates your confidence in your business.
9 CONVERT WANTS INTO NEEDS
During tough times clients are far more selective. It is up to you to convince clients that your services are the one they should be looking at. Advertising will bring your website in front of them.
10 PLANT THE SEED
Even if clients are not spending today, they will tomorrow or the day after, advertising is your opportunity to start people thinking about which escort services are out there, and why they should use them in particular. It will pay off later
Never never never, let some one “handle” your e-mails… As a business we have been asked several times to answer clients mails for them and have always refused.
Your business is just that, yours. the abdication of responsibility no matter how tempting means that promises, and even upsets are being made apparently in your name, and often privately without any way for you to know what is happening, and in the end, your name is everything. We know of several people offering this service and apart from the proceeding example it simply creates a conflict of interest. What happens if they also handle the emails for other clients in the same area? Who gets precedence, when a potential client mails both of you?
There are numerous other problems, but principally by letting someone answer your mail you are misleading a potential client, and that can come back and bite you. If discovered the bond of trust is gone and everyone feels a fool. Apart from the person of course who put you in this position and takes your money for the privilege.
Simple advise, run your business like you do your bank account, carefully and securely. Hope that helps…
We are please to announce we will be rolling out a new links display system building on our previous innovative method.
We have completely revised this to reflect the new 69Design corporate look, made it much neater, more branded and consistent across all sites. We will be rolling this out across all our sites in the next week, meanwhile you take a look at any of our latest sites for an example.
WHY WHY WHY That is the question posted: 09 Nov, 2010
WHY WHY WHY That is the question
Why do 69Design give SEO information free? .. because we care that is why.
Escorts and affiliates in the sex industry are paying out their hard earned money when all they need to do is surf the internet it is all free.
Google has information regarding keywords and what they require for you to position yourself higher in the rankings. Think about this How can a company promise you and 10 or 20 other girls to get to the top of Google there is only one top spot and one front page with about eight or nine others on that page it takes time time time slow but sure wins the race and you have to stay there and the competition is fierce, be one step ahead of the competition write good blogs have lots of content.
Content is King
Have a blog use it every day if you wish but write articles that correspond with your web site, write copy your clients and prospective clients want to read, but be mindful of keywords and the focus of your site.
Keyword Density and Placement posted: 08 Nov, 2010
There is no magic keyword density formula. There are only some guidelines to consider when deciding how heavily to place keywords on a web page. Use the tools available—keywords in page titles, bold text, site maps and more—to increase the rank of your site.
Most website owners talk about their most important keywords, but very few really do anything about them. Those often overlooked search terms that are so important to a website’s placement in the search rankings are a vital component of any search engine optimisation (SEO) effort.
Without keywords for the search engines to index, there is literally nothing to find in the search engine results pages (SERPs). Keywords are the function of the search engines. As a result of those searches, your most important keywords are what lead potential customers to your web pages. Take care of your keywords, and they will take care of you.
Location and Density of Keywords on the Page
The importance of keywords to a website is felt in two ways. The first area of consideration when writing the on page and off page content is keyword placement on the page. Where the keywords are located is important, to varying degrees, with the major search engines.
The second area of importance for keywords is their density on the page. How many keywords appear on the page makes a difference to all of the search engine algorithms. The choice of which keywords to target on a page is often of vital importance, especially for highly competitive keywords.
We (escorts) have come a long way from the victorian escort who would of been in constant danger but as you read below be vigilant. Read Below.
1827 -Napoleon claimed in 1827 that prostitutes were a necessity because without them, men would attack respectable women on the streets. And despite this idea that men are seen as innocent victims of their biological sexual desires being sheer rubbish,
1864 - In 1864 Parliament passed the Contagious Diseases Act. This legislation allowed policeman to arrest prostitutes in ports and army towns and bring them in to have compulsory checks for venereal disease. If the women were suffering from sexually transmitted checks for venereal disease. If the women were suffering from sexually transmitted diseases they were placed in a locked hospital until cured. It was claimed that this was the best way to protect men from infected women. Many of the women arrested were not prostitutes but they still were forced to go to the hospital.
1888 - The murders have dominated headlines in recent weeks, with echoes of the mysterious 19th century east London prostitute killer Jack the Ripper, who killed five prostitutes with terrible violence escalating for each killing in 1888 but was never found. Police believe the murders ended abruptly simply because the culprit had‚ sated his blood-lust
Jul 5, 1975 - It was on July 5 1975, just 11 months after his marriage, that he took a hammer and carried out his first attack on a woman. Sutcliffe is said to have believed he was on a “mission from God” to kill prostitutes - although not all of his victims were sex workers ...
Jul 2003 - Two prostitutes were murdered in Anfield in July 2003 by 26-year-old Mark Corner , who dumped their body parts in a bin bag in an alleyway. He is currently detained indefinitely at Ashworth Hospital under the Mental Health Act.
Oct 1, 2006 - When he moved to Ipswich on October 1, 2006, he started to pick up street prostitutes because they were cheaper, Ipswich Crown Court was told. His wife worked night shifts, and he said that they became like, ships in the night‚ and their sex life‚ petered out.
May 28, 2010 - Stephen Griffiths remanded in custody over prostitute murders May 28 2010. Criminology student Stephen Griffiths, who has dubbed himself the “crossbow cannibal”, was remanded in custody today charged with the murder of three prostitutes
Its gruesome but it happened don’t let it happen to you. Makes you think. Be aware and vigilant at all times.
Yes we have been quiet on the blogging front. Busy in several areas, which we will be unveiling shortly, meanwhile a lot of sites bubbling up and nearing completion..
A major rewrite for a large London agency is nearly completed, independent templates for three ladies in London are just waiting for the final information from the ladies. A site for a Central London Oriental Dominatrix should be on-line tomorrow, and another Oriental lady in London is waiting for her domain to start working.
Also in progress, a site for a lady in Birmingham plus a new parlour site in the same area, a domination site for a client in Peterborough, a new site for a brand new client in London, plus two sites for another new blonde client in Central London and one for a lady in the US of A. All in all pretty busy
Also in the pipeline are some changes here, but more of that another time…
Blogging for escorts part one posted: 19 Jul, 2010
The Two Primary Excuses
1) I Don’t Have Time to Blog
The truth is you don’t have time *not* to blog. You probably already write blog articles, you just don’t call them that. Blogs are the new email newsletters. Most anything that could go in your newsletter can go in your blog. You can still send the content out via email, and readers can subscribe to your blog to get posts via email. But a blog is better than a newsletter because readers can join the debate and be positioned to respond to other “calls to action” you may place adjacent to or within posts. In addition, readers will be able to navigate your blog to read older articles that would otherwise be in a deleted newsletter. Best of all, each blog article you post will provide lasting benefit because it is a web page that can be optimized, indexed, and drawing natural search traffic for you ad infinitum.
In addition, quality blogging engines can support multiple authors, so for agencies more than one person can post articles, perhaps one of the escorts as well as the site owner. This takes the pressure off any one individual, and remember that a good blog post might just draw a parallel between two or three recent industry articles, or suggest a new article for the industry A good article doesn’t have to be a PhD thesis.
2) What if My Clients Actually Find Out What I’m Thinking?
Some escorts don’t like the idea of blogging because it means relinquishing control over some elements of their “brand”. A blog is less formal than a web site profile or an email message, and the comments left by readers cannot be predicted. The point here is… too bad! In today’s world, consumers have access to thousands of opinions about your brand, and a lot of articles, commentaries, reviews, etc. that will certainly impact their decisions. The idea that you can control exactly how you will be perceived or keep clients in the dark is outdated. The truth is your best option is to engage clients in an honest, open dialogue. Be confident that transparency is the best policy, and clients will reward your candor.
SEO tips for escorts, Meta Tags posted: 12 Jul, 2010
HI
More tips on SEO . Hope some of you read my last blog regarding Title Tags and found it of some interest. This Blog will cover Meta Tags
The Meta tags are used to provide extra information about a web page. There was once a time where a good search engine ranking could be achieved by simply changing the value of the META tags. However these days are long gone. Nowadays the META tags are decreasing in importance in the eyes of the search engines who are using more sophisticated methods of ranking pages (namely link popularity).
There are many different types of META tags but the one that can affect ranking are the keywords META tag and the Description Meta tag.
This tag contains keywords relevant to a page. In the past search engines referenced this to determine how to ran a particular page. However many people started to abuse this and stuffed the tag with keywords that were not relevant to the content of the page. This confused search engines and subsequently returned weaker search results. To combat this less and less emphasis has been placed on the Keywords META tag, however this does not mean that it is entirely useless. Here is a reason to still include it.
In the past this tag was used to specify the text that would appear in search engine results alongside the link to your site. Keywords could be placed into this text to influence ranking. However it was abused similar to the Keywords META tag and has befallen the same fate, meaning it is not as useful as it once was. Some search engines do not display it in there results ( notably Google which retraces the text from content on your page) and do not use it to rank a site, Having said that some search engines do still use it so again it is a mistake to ignore it completely. Descriptions placed into this tag should strangely enough be very descriptive of the page or site they reside in. Include a few relevant keywords/key phrases that you are optimising for in the description and try to keep its length to 25 - 30 words. Also try to use no more than two sentences.
1. Although most search engines do not use the tag there are undoubtedly still some that do. For this reason place around 15 to 20 keywords relevant to your site or page into the tag. Do not attempt to cheat the search engines by repeating keywords as this is considered spamming and they may look unfavourably on this.
2. Do not fill your page with lists of keywords or attempt to Cloak pages or put up crawler only pages. If your site contains pages links or text that you so not intend visitors to see, Google considers those links and pages deceptive and may ignore your site.
3. Do not feel obligated to purchase a search engine optimisation service. Some companies claim to guarantee high ranking for your site in Googles search results. While legitimate consulting firms can improve your site’s flow and content, others employ deceptive tactics in a n attempt to fool search engines,. Be careful if your domain is affiliated with one of these deceptive services, it could be banned from Googles index.
Specific Guidelines
Avoid hidden text or hidden links.
Do not use cloaking or sneaky redirects
Do not load pages with irrelevant keywords,
Do not create multiple pages, sub domains or domains with substantially duplicate content.
Thats it from me until next time.
Backing up. yes we all know we should, we all know how important it is, we all forget to do it sometimes and yet in some ways it has never been easier and there has never been so many different options, so, here are some tips which we have tried to tailor to the escort industry.
Work out what you actually need to back up, remember hard disks fail and CD’s can get lost or damaged. A very common problem is loss of photo disks, or moving computers.
How do you want to backup your data, is a simple copy of a disk sufficient, or indeed multiple copies, or do you need to keep copies of data which is regularly changed, i.e. website text, advertising details and receipts which you may need to access quite often.
Back up e-mails in an external programme, PC Mail programmes fail, and corrupt data as we have found out in the past to our cost.
Once you have established the basics it is time to look at the various options.
At the very least burn of a copy of your pictures and important documents to disk, and try to do this regularly if the information changes, a collection of CD’s is better than lost and irreplaceable data.
Another option for content which changes regularly is to buy an external and portable hard drive, copy important files to it and store it securely. The cost of storage has dropped considerably in recent times so this is a cheap and flexible option.
There are a number of programmes depending on your operating system to help with these, search back up or file sync utilities on download sites such as tucows.com
Recently the move has been towards “cloud” computing, that is placing information on multiple redundant servers on the internet, rather than have your information on one server or your own computer, it is spread across multiple backups to ensure if one fails there is no loss of data, and there are many web services offering options, both free and paid.
Firstly back up important images to a photo service such as Flikr (http://flikr.com). A free account will allow you to store a large number of images and selecting the “private” option keeps others from viewing them.
For mail set up a Google mail account (http://mail.google.com) and copy any mail sent or received to it (or of course use it as a primary mail account). Google offer a massive amount of free storage, 7.5 gigabytes, with every mail account and this is a simple and effective way of archiving e-mails and address books.
Google also offer a free on-line set of applications to mimic Microsoft office, you can import your word processor or spreadsheet documents into them and again store (and access) them on line. http://docs.google.com.
So the obvious question is what do we do? The answer is a combination of most of the above, as we use apple macs here we have access to their mobile.me servers for image storage and synchronising address books and calendars (although we have switched file storage to Amazons excellent if very techie S3 storage) as well as some excellent small programmes for backing up data such as mail and password logins. We have also moved a large proportion of our client management systems onto the “cloud” it allows us to work more efficiently, and from different locations if we are travelling without disturbing our work flow. We also have a large archive of old files stored securely off site.
The moral is, whatever you do, do something, a crash or loss of data can be very painful as we have found out before, for independents and agencies the loss of photos can be impossible to replace and very costly to recreate in a new photo session.
Is the link-banner model dead? posted: 05 Jul, 2010
Still very prevalent among the escort industry (which often is a way behind in certain areas due to the amateur status of most designers) the 468x60 banner both as a concept and as an marketing medium I believe is, if not dead heading that way..
Firstly lets deal with the concept fuelling the system… historically it worked like this, escort swaps a profile on a directory in exchange for placing a simple web banner on the “links” page of her site. Escort receives a profile on a directory, of which there were few, so relatively easy to find in search engines, directory gets content and possibly a paid advert if the escort goes for a featured spot.
For the directory the “business” model (although most were and are amateur ventures) is that the more content, the higher the potential search engine positioning, and the more content that generates, some of which may choose to pay for a listing. The most successful example probably being punterlink.co.uk
Over the past eighteen months though small and relatively low traffic directories have become greedy, insisting on a front page banner and providing bloated code (for which can seriously slow down load times on a site purely to benefit the directories SEO strategy). Let’s be clear on this, a large and garish front page banner is simply an invitation not to enter the site but to click away to a competitor, and this should be seriously considered before agreeing to any front page banner. This model benefits the directory far more than the escort who can quickly become lost in a mass of perfect and airbrushed pictures while the directory benefits from a back link (or many given some of the code being used) for SEO purposes.
Specialist escort directories have also mushroomed in recent years, being seen as a easy money earner, most provide little traffic and are populated often either with the same few faces who go everywhere or with stolen content, in the forlorn hope of generated paying listings. Most in my opinion should be ignored, the exceptions being sites such as Eros.com Vixen, london escort guide etc, in other words sites which actually produce business for the escort.
Secondly banner designs have stood still.. the humble 468pixel web banner has long since vanished on the general internet, being replaced by flash animations and more and more frequently video adverts addressing the potential client directly. In addition the standards in respect of advert sizes has also moved on. The Internet Advertising Bureau defines several acceptable sizes, ranging from wide banners 728pixels wide, through rectangular 336x280 (ideal for video) and skyscraper banners 600pixels high and 160pixels wide, plus the new overlay formats seen on certain sites.
Why then does the escort industry seem stuck in a time warp? Innovative advertising gets noticed and ultimately generates business, boring banners do not, most directories can not even cope with animated flash banners, although with the current spat between and apple and adobe meaning that flash will not display on iphones these may be less important in the future.
Until directories understand this and find alternative marketing strategies independent sites will continue to get bogged down both visually and in load time with garish and often irrelevant front page links. The escort industry needs to revise its thinking, directories if they wish to survive need to innovate, independent escorts need to evaluate the benefit of front page links and look beyond the traditional directory model outlined above.
Next time I will give you our take on the way forward…
SEO Tips for escorts, the Title Tag posted: 28 Jun, 2010
Hi all you Techno Savvy individuals and Oh dear the ones who may be ripped off for not being so Techno Savvy.
I Have a few free tips for the people who are not on the cutting edge of technology (who cares we have better things to do) it either turns you on or off.
Most people do not have the time for this so are tempted to pay out lots of their hard earned money for information that is mostly on the internet free (just have to search it is there in cyber space) seriously though you can find a lot of free helpful information regarding your business (escorting).
Welcome to the first article reference tips regarding the marketing and optimisation of your website. Some companies charge inflationary amounts for information some of which you can access, the amounts these companies charge are mostly for their time as it is very time consuming I know because I do it myself.
Firstly may I say that no one can guarantee to get you to the top of Google, also there is an excellent little number from Google titled Google Analytics it will let you know how many people have visited your web-site where the traffic is coming from a Graph for the weeks figures as in the case of agencies which girls page was viewed the most, and a map informing you of the visits from other countries all this free.
How to make a title tag search engines will like making the following changes in your title tag can help improve ranking increase targeted traffic to your site.
Include keyword phrases in your title tag .
Think of a title tag as the name above a shop. Imagine you are walking down a street with shops on either side of you but all the shops windows are boarded up and all that is visible is it its name. you wanted to buy an electrical item say a Television you look at all the names but are getting confused as to which one is for you . All of a sudden you see a store with Television and Electrical Items in its name you purchase you new super duper Television but it was a bit expensive you realise the store next door also sold Televisions but a lot cheaper but its name did not indicate this “(Round Sounds)” does not sound like an electrical store.
A search engine is rather like a shopper in the above example it sees the title on each web page and determines whether this would be a good result to return based on its text if you search for television it is highly likely that some of the results returned will have television in their title Some search engines penalise the use of text all in capital letters.
EXAMPLE
1. Round Sounds Electrical
2. Televisions and Electrical at Round Sounds
Both of these examples are acceptable to the human eye but in the eyes of the search engines the second is see as more relevant if Televisions are being searched for. because it appears at the start of the title. Generally it is best to place company name or the name of the web-site to the end of your title tag.
As each page on your site should be unique so should your title tags
COMMON TITLE TAGS MISTAKES.
Do not leave your title tag blank ever.
Do not write tittle tags that are not relevant to the content on your page. if the two are not related this will decrease your ranking.
Do not stuff your title tags with repeating key words, search engines may look on this as spamming it may penalise your ranking.
Do not use untitled or default text in your title
SUMMARY
Ignoring title tags is definitely a mistake if you aim to achieve high rankings. Although it takes a lot more than the title tag to propel you to the top of the search engines it can be very effective in making search engine more secure that your site’e content is more relevant than a competitors.
Tune in next week for my next instalment Deadly Sins- mistakes that reduce web page ranking and it is all free.
Major visual upgrade over at Google+ check out the new look 
This week we are focussing on what we believe is art least a part of the future of escort sites on the internet, video.
The result while causing a lot of tantrums and frustration here, was a distinctive site, and a new set of skills which we have now decided to utilise for in our day to day workflow.