How Google Brought My Business To Its Knees
If ever there’s a lesson to be learned in website optimization, this is it. Because Google, quite literally, brought my business to its knees.
I remember reading years ago (from Ryan Deiss or Perry Belcher) about the importance of correctly naming your images and image titles to optimise your search engine rankings. But, sadly, I didn’t really recollect this until a week or so ago.
Sadly? Yes. Because I inadvertently named and titled an image totally irrelevant to the message I was imparting in my post, which resulted in a flood of (unwanted) traffic that brought my entire web businesses to its knees because the server couldn’t cope.
At the end of April, I wrote a post about my fear of spiders (Wolf spiders, to be exact); but my message was about overcoming the fear itself and how anyone can do that if they have the right mindset. I had an incident with one of the big hairy beasts and, I thought, to convey to my readers just how scary they were I would include a big juicy picture of a Wolf Spider. I happily wrote my little post, plonked the picture in, aptly named ‘Wolf Spider’.
Let’s fast forward to almost 2 weeks ago (as I’m writing this, we’re almost at the end of August). I started noticing a spike in traffic to my blog, but as I was preoccupied in overhauling one of my main business sites I didn’t give it a second thought.
A few days go by and I receive an email from a prospective client, stating they signed up for my free eBook on one of my sites but it kept on coming up with an error message. Uh oh… I tried it, and yep, he was right. At the time, I was working on another site and it just so happened (almost simultaneously) that I couldn’t access it – totally caput!
I have a dedicated server that hosts about 15 of my sites – including my primary company website – so my heart skipped a beat and my fears were confirmed when I couldn’t access most of my sites!! My worst nightmare as my entire businesses are solely internet based.
Being after hours, I urgently dialled emergency support and the very helpful technician brought everything back on line very promptly… but he was unsure what had caused it. I was just thankful that everything was back on line!
It just so happens that the next day, I decided to do some analysis of my Google stats and was amazed at the spike of traffic I was receiving to my blog – not one of my primary sites! A 529% increase (and growing) each day! I started to receive warning messages from my server that my blog was going over limit in respect to traffic that I had allocated. Then within a day or two, the majority of my data-base driven websites were down again – for several hours – and continued to crash a few more times over the week. This was a nightmare for my business. No orders, complaints from clients because they couldn’t log in to download their purchased goods, emails because the project manager system was inaccessible… and it went on. This resulted in lost income and unhappy clients.
My blog’s traffic increased so exponentially that it was sucking a heck of a lot of extra Gigs a day! Now, my blog isn’t THAT intensive, so I knew something was going on. I thought, “Happy days; I’ve arrived! I’m a super mega star!!!” LOL (only joking!) 
But I knew something was up so I needed to delve back through my analytics.
So what did it?
Yes, you guessed it. That little teeny weeny Wolf Spider! And if you want to take a look at it, go here: http://www.tara-west.com/2010/a-big-spider-nearly-killed-me/
Here’s what I did wrong and how you can learn from my mistake:
- When naming your images include the keywords that relate to your post.
I named my beautiful spider image ‘wolf spider’, and it just so happens there’s a heck of a lot of folks in the world who are very interested in this hairy little fella. By naming my image ‘wolf spider’ (as well as the title of the picture), whenever anyone searched wolf spider in Google (worldwide), my little fella was right at the top in all his glory!
This is particularly important for WordPress-based websites that get higher ranking in the search engines compared to other websites.
Whilst I got a humungous load of extra traffic to my site, on the whole it wasn’t the right traffic I wanted to attract, as the folks who were searching for that type of thing were not necessarily looking to overcome fear (which is what my post was about). They were just interested in what it looked like and other information on the hairy spider.
To try and fix the problem, I had to rename the picture and title to something obscure (from memory 111), with the hope it would filter through Google as an error VERY SOON. As I am writing this post, it has now been taken off the first page; however, I am still experiencing a massive spike in (unwanted) traffic and I am trying to sort that out. How ironic that I wrote the post at the end of April, but it took almost 4 months to make it to above No. 1 spot (in images) on Google and only a few days to be bumped off first page! LOL Ah, the wonders and delights of search engines and optimisation.
- Check and double check your keyword accuracy.
The image name and image title alone didn’t just get me to that position on Google. It was also my post itself and the meta data I had included in All in One SEO Pack (oops!). Optimize, optimize, optimize. For the SEO plugin, grab it here: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/
- Don’t name inconsequential graphics.
If you include a graphic that is of no consequence – such as a bullet, or similar – then name the graphic as something obscure. Ryan Deiss (or Perry Belcher?) recommends naming those types of graphics as 1.jpg, 2.gif and so on.
- Protect your site.
If you own a WordPress blog hosted under your own domain, as per this site, then install a plugin to protect your images and content.
This will ensure a) people don’t steal your bandwidth and other images that may either be original or images you have paid for; and b) steal your content – i.e. copy and paste and pass it as their own!
A plugin I highly recommend is Blog Protector: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/blog-protector/ If you want to check it out, just right click anywhere on this blog and you will see what I mean.
As always, when you install a plugin, double check all aspects of your site to check its compatibility. There’s nothing worse than installing a new plugin and a few days later, realising that parts of your blog aren’t working as they’re supposed to! To be safe, do a backup first.
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I’m happy to say that my sites have now been fully operational, with no hassles, for the last few days. I am still amazed that one tiny mistake caused such havoc with my businesses. Still, GREAT lessons to be learned and I hope you’ve gotten something out of it too… and, oh yes, at least I can now sleep easy 
Ah, the wonders and delights of operating in the online world
Happy blogging!
PS: Want to share your horror story about websites? Just add your comment below.
Defining Your Wants & Needs For Business Success
Part 2: How to define your values, wants and needs so you can create a road-map and mindset that is crucial to defining who you are, where you want to go, and the Entrepreneurial vision to succeed.
Once you’ve clearly Defined Your Values For Business Success (Part 1) you’ll then want to work out what your wants and needs are in alignment with your Values.
Now you know what truly matters to you and makes you fulfilled (aka your values), how does that fit into the whole business plan? How can you fit that into your business life?
Next step is in defining your strengths; what you love doing and that makes your heart sing with joy… incidentally, can you see how this is starting to fit with your Values? Think of it like a jigsaw puzzle 
The first piece of the jigsaw puzzle is your Values, the next piece is listing out what you’re good at or love doing. Everything can be learned, so don’t be concerned if you’re not a ‘master’ of something you love doing or would love to do… when you consistently apply that skill and continuously upgrade your knowledge, you WILL become a master and leader.
Below is a Worksheet to help you out, but hang on to your horses… don’t open it yet. Because there’s another piece of the jigsaw that makes it all fit together.
And that is your Needs.
When you’ve identified what you love doing and of which speaks to your heart, the next piece of the jigsaw puzzle is to define what your needs are at this point in time. For instance, given that you want to find or start a home based business, one of these needs may be flexibility and freedom to work the hours you want. Complete this part of the Worksheet and jot down all the reasons you are starting a home based business; and I mean EVERYTHING, no matter if you feel something is trivial – jot it down.
You’re nearly there…
Final step of the jigsaw puzzle is to define your Wants.
And I want you to dream BIG here. What do you REALLY want out of life, out of your business? Your home based business will determine the QUALITY of life you have, so consider your personal life as well, not just your business wants.
As an example, one of your wants for a home based business may be to earn $250k annually; so this would affect your personal life too in what you want for yourself and your family. DREAM BIG. Imagine this part of your Worksheet as your Life & Business Canvas; here you can design the life and business that you REALLY want – not just need.
Once you’re done defining your Values, Strengths, Needs and Wants, you will start to see an emerging pattern of what really matters to you.
Only then can you can start to put all the jigsaw pieces together to map out your future life and identify a business that is in alignment with all four areas.
Once you do, and once you find or start that home based business which is in alignment with all four areas, then you will truly step out with passion and purpose and enjoy the LIFE you created for yourself.
Have fun piecing it together! 
Defining your values for business success
Part 1: How to define your values, wants and needs so you can create a road-map and mindset that is crucial to defining who you are, where you want to go, and the Entrepreneurial vision to succeed.
“Values are who we are. Not who we would like to be, not who we think we should be, but who we are in our lives, right now. Another way to put it is that values represent our unique and individual essence, our ultimate and most fulfilling form of expressing and relating. Our values serve as a compass pointing out what it means to be true to oneself. When we honour our values on a regular and consistent basis, life is good and fulfilling.” (Ref: Co-Active Coaching, 2nd Ed.)
Your Values will resonate deeply within you and define who you are, as a person. They are your anchor, your sail, and your rudder as your traverse the seas in your life and business journey.
Your Values will also change over time – or their order of relevance will alter. This is normal as life never remains the same and you are not standing still. It’s therefore important that you check in from time to time to see if the path you continue on is still aligned with who you are.
Your Values also play a huge impact on your business endeavours; whether you are currently in a home based business or considering starting a home based business.
Why? Because your values are what make you jump out of bed with vigour and excitement! Think about it. If you are in a home business (or if you are currently in a job) where your heart just isn’t in it, then it’s hard to jump out of bed, excited to start the day, wouldn’t you agree?
When we lose passion for what we are doing in our life, then it usually comes back to a misalignment with what we believe in and what we hold close to our hearts – which in turn, equates to our Values.
Only once you have defined your Values can you then identify your wants and needs – what matters to you, what motivates you both in your personal and work life. Once defined, you can then create your roadmap based on your wants and needs and identify the business route which closely matches your Values.
Choosing your business route first without defining your values, wants and needs is akin to embarking on the holiday of your life without a map and without first giving consideration to where you want to go, how you’re going to get there, and the “style” of holiday you would like to enjoy.
It might be exciting at first to be on a trip with no itinerary or map, but after awhile it would wear a little thin when you get lost all the time and end up in places you don’t really like. The holiday of a lifetime may turn into the holiday of disasters and you would be miserable!
Well, your business route or journey is just the same. Once you have discovered your Values and what matters to you, then you can step out with a vision to find or start a home based business that is aligned with who you are so you can then truly live life with passion and purpose and embark on a business journey that sets you up for success.
I’d like to challenge you in spending some time in evaluating who you are and what matters to you. Download the Values Worksheet to help you in defining your Values. I recommend you print it out so you can work on it.
Remember, you are not standing still; you are always evolving, so take the time now to go through the Worksheet, even if you feel you know your Values well. You may be delighted at what you discover.
To your success!
Download Your Values Worksheet (PDF file)
Go To Part 2: Defining Your Strengths, Wants & Needs For Business Success
