Skyrocket.be

Got this email message in my inbox today, it’s in Dutch:

From: Andrea [Stephanie.*****@gmail.com]
Sent: zondag 29 januari 2006 4:04
To: **********
Subject: Uw website helemaal vooraan bij Google Uw website helemaal vooraan bij

Wij brengen uw website op de beste posities bij Google, Yahoo en MSN Search!

www.marketingsnake.com

Met ons belandt uw website helemaal vooraan bij Google!

Met vriendelijke groet,
www.marketingsnake.com

Mocht u geen e-mail von ons wensen te ontvangen, stuur a.u.b. een e-mail
aan: snakeabmelden@yahoo.com.ar

Deze newsletter wordt naar het adres *********** gestuurd.

Do they really believe I can get to the top of google and the likes with this kind of junk? What kind of people are the idiots behind these companies? Spammers? Don’t think so since they have their phonenumber and address on their website. Talking about their website, it’s a complete soup of <font> <table> and <frame> tags, along with the nice but failed attempt to use definition lists for their forms. And the spelling isn’t that great either.

I just hope someone reads this and changes his mind on using these kind of companies for webmarketing, search for professionals instead, or at least someone who has read a book on SEO!

Little update, as of today 2nd of februari 2006 i can officially say that googling for marketing snake gives this very page as nr 1 result … and guess which comes in second? Marketingsnake, the professional SEO company. Duh! How’s that for free publicity marketingsnake?

Last year was the first year I worked as freelance webdesigner/developer, on my own, no boss, no arguments, no paycheck trouble, no strings attached. To my own surprise everything worked out very well, i’ve been able to attract a couple of customers and persuade a few of my former employers clients to have me continue work on their website (my employer went bankrupt so he can’t really care can he?). As starter I could also take advantage of a few business laws overhere in Belgium that makes it easier for young startups, I didn’t need to charge BTW (VAT) if i kept my turnover below 5500 euro’s and the paperwork is near to nothing. By the end of 2005 I finished several websites and I was confident 2006 would turn out equally great, if not better. But boy was this first month of 2006 a bugger …

It’s damn hard to get potential clients to call back, little work, little interest of former clients to rework or upgrade. But hey … today the struggle is over … I signed 2 new contracts (well the signing still has to be done but it’s a formality) and have 3 (!!!) others on the line … I think it’ll be hard to keep overhead below 5500 euro’s this year. Well i’m sure NOT gonna try to keep it below the threshold. Long live 2006!

Anyone has some work for me? Send it this way!

I’m looking for a good hosting deal for some small to medium websites i’m developing. Anyone has some suggestions or needs some reffers? Just leave a comment.

Little update, minimum requirements are controlpanel with at least the same ease of use as Plesk which means: Crontabs, Databasemanager, Detailed DNS settings, mailsettings (autoreply, groups, …) and subdomains.

Just a small sidenote: the theatre tour of Zornik is fantastic! Went to see them tonight (CC poorthuis, Peer) and they have a damn good live performance. Koen Buyse has a stunning voice and the drive in the concert was top! Gonna see them again at the next occasion.

Next on the wanna-see list … Admiral Freebee and dEUS!

While writing the previous post I made a staggering discovery. Spreadfirefox.com, the premier site dedicated to promoting the o-so-popular alternative browser, doesn’t have a single link to the firefox homepage or a downloadlink for firefox on their homepage. They are there for marketing firefox though, they say it themselves.

As a small, non-profit organization, the Mozilla Foundation has very limited resources at its disposal to market Firefox to the world. SpreadFirefox was created to fill this void, and was founded on the same principles of community involvement that drive the development and testing of Firefox. We believe there is nothing that a large community of enthusiastic volunteers can’t accomplish, and this site exists to unite the community into one cohesive marketing force that even competitors with unlimited resources can’t compete with. For more information, see our original announcement.

Ok, I agree that the site is dedicated to people looking for marketing material for promoting the browser but still it’s a little silly they don’t offer a link to the product they are marketing. The site is run by several members of the core Firefox and mozilla team. Maybe they have a reason they didn’t link there but I can’t think of one really. Can you?