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.
Internet Success: marketing your opportunity on the Internet
When marketing your opportunity on the Internet, it is vital you approach it from a business perspective.
With a bricks and mortar business, you would be branding your business name and offering value to your potential customers. Your online business should be approached in the same way to guarantee your success on the Internet.
So how do you ensure Internet success?
- Personal Branding: use your own domain instead of your company’s replicated site. Consider registering a domain with your own name (eg: johncitizen.com or workwithjohncitizen.com) and setting it up as your personal blog. Your blog gives you the opportunity of positioning yourself as an expert by providing high quality, free content to your readers / visitors in your niche area. This in turn builds trust and relationships; a vital step to branding yourself and becoming an authority in your field, thus, attracting people into your opportunity.
- Attraction Marketing System: without systems that can be duplicated, you will be spending too much one-on-one time with your team in showing them the ropes. Of course, personalised team coaching with your key people is a must to ensure your team grows; but you shouldn’t be spending hours teaching people how to setup their domain, autoresponders and the like. This is why an existing system is paramount to Internet success. Whatever system you have in place, it should be linked back to your blog.
- Building Your List: once you have setup your blog and marketing system, it is essential that you have a form on your sites to build your list and maintain relationships. But it’s important to offer something for free to your visitors to encourage them to join your list. Make an attractive offer that will provide quality value and of which positions you as the expert in your field. If you have the right attraction marketing system, you would be offering your visitors free training or similar; and this will be delivered to them automatically through your autoresponder. Your blog could offer the same or something different.
- Maintaining Relationships With Your List: in the offline world of marketing, as a general rule of thumb it takes 7 contacts with a prospect before they take notice of what you’re saying… after 7 times they feel a bond and trust and are more motivated to purchase or join whatever it is you are selling. The online world of marketing is no different. To guarantee Internet success, constant contact with your list is a necessity to form a bond and trust. Autoresponders are a great tool to use and, as long as you are providing value, make it a goal to email your list every week.
- Social Media: networking via social media sites is an excellent forum for you to discuss your ideas, share some quality content, and interact with others. Be sure to never spam your business to new contacts or friends. Would you walk up to someone you didn’t know at a party and ask them to join your business? No. The same etiquette and courtesy needs to be applied to the online world – just because you don’t see them face to face doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be treated as such.
Have you noticed a theme here?
The key to Internet success is in providing value and building relationships. When you take the time to correctly setup your online presence by using the right mix of tools, understand and realise that your online business is long-term (not short-term), then interact with others in a genuine way (as you would your best friend), people will be drawn to you and want to do business with you – if not now, then later down the track.
What are your 3 most challenging aspects of marketing your business on the Internet that you presently possess? Share with me your top 3…
Free eBooks
Throughout my personal development journey, I’ve been blessed to come across some fabulous books that I would love to share with you!
Choose a category of your choice to access and download free eBooks.
Happy reading! 
- Personal Development / Professional Development
- Internet Marketing * coming soon *
- Network Marketing * coming soon *
