Peter Handley's Blog

The First BrightonSEO

BrightonSEO has changed a lot since my first trip down to Brighton in December 2009 (I think) to go for a drink with some fellow SEOs. This was my first trip out into the wild that is the SEO community and I haven’t looked back since. That first night I got to meet some industry type folks that I still speak to today, such as Anna Lewis, Any Keetch & Kelvin Newman, although its still with some sadness that I remember it was Jaamit that persuaded me to actually get my arse in gear to go and visit it. Still missed mate, still missed.

Edit: Having been discussing this on Twitter, I wanted to shout out to Fresh Egg and Tim Aldiss as well for their efforts with this as well – BrightonSEO wouldn’t be what it is today without their efforts.

The First BrightonSEO Mini-Conference (but 2nd BrightonSEO)

This was the first conference of any description that I’d ever been too, and with a few short days warning and not a great amount of prep I was actually talking at it too!

I don’t think anyone really knew what to expect from it all really – it was upstairs in a pub called the Quadrant, which in many ways still feels like its spiritual home, although sadly the conference itself appears to have massively outgrown that venue now. It felt like I was talking in front of quite a large crowd, and it certainly got bigger as the day went on, although I suspect I spoke in front of far fewer people than I thought at the time!

(Thanks to Silicon Beach Training for getting me this picture)

I did quite a big write up of this at the time, and whilst I quite enjoyed speaking, I think I would do a better job with it now that I’ve seen a wide range of speakers on a wide range of topics. I’ve certainly learnt a lot more about SEO in the following years.

A mercifully brief section of my presentation is on YouTube if you are interested.

Growth of the Conference

Over the following couple of years, the popularity of BrightonSEO exploded.

I first met my now business partner Nichola Stott at the next one where she was talking, and met a wide range of hugely interesting folks within the industry over the course of them as a whole.

From the top of my head, I think the next event was about 150-200 people in a large room upstairs in a community centre, growing to 400 odd at a university building with the next, through to filling the corn exchange at the one before last.

I think this was around about 500 booked in, although there were some inevitable no-shows (and I could be totally wrong with these numbers).

A recurring theme for me at all of these events is the amount of people that I’ve met for the first time that already feel like they’ve been friends for years. Social media does a really good job of the introductions, and so many people I’ve gone on to meet, its just felt so easy and natural. In many cases we actually have been talking for years by that point, so perhaps that’s natural!

What has evolved at the BrightonSEO’s is a real sense of community as its continued to grow. Every time there are some familiar faces to catch up with (many that I’ve only ever actually seen at these events), and as each year goes on, its grown further. I really hope that this can continue as it continues to evolve in the future.

Spring 2012 BrightonSEO – Fun, Games & Karaoke

This one was the biggest one yet, with over 1000 people at the sold out in minutes event.

I won’t do a write up of the content as such of this event, as this has been covered in great depth in some awesome posts elsewhere, including these:

• http://delicious.com/stacks/view/EwV9qd (great stack of coverage)
• http://www.samosborneseo.co.uk/brighton-seo-2012-ten-key-things-to-take-away/
• http://www.seofosho.com/blog/brighton-seo-2012-round-up
• http://seono.co.uk/2012/04/14/my-top-10-takeaways-from-brightonseo-april-2012/
• http://www.shellshockuk.com/brighton-seo-infographic-april-2012/
• http://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/15-top-quotes-and-takeaways-from-brighton-seo/
• http://www.coastdigital.co.uk/blog/2012/04/18/brighton-seo-2012-thoughts/
• http://www.stateofsearch.com/brighton-seo-one-hell-of-a-free-search-conference-brightonseo/
• http://www.receptional.com/blogs/internet-marketing/brighton-seo-roundup
• http://www.vertical-leap.co.uk/blog/brighton-seo-round-up/
• http://www.siliconbeachtraining.co.uk/blog/brighton-seo-2012-round-up-morning-session/
• http://interactive.hotwirepr.com/blog_global/industry/top-five-memories-from-brightonseo.html
• http://www.freshegg.com/blog/brightonseo-spring-2012-review-2_12519

And below are most of the slides etc:

• Future SEO Vistas
• (Re)Launching a Brand or Product online Effectively
• Microformats and SEO
• Searchbots – Lost Children or Hungry Psychopaths?
• It’s Only Words? Working with A Content Strategy
• Advanced Search Queries for SEO
• 20 Tools You May Not Have Heard of But Should Be Using
• Sell the Sizzle Not the Search
• SEO & PPC Working Together in Harmony
• I Believed Authors are the Future
• Mobile Serendipity: How Google Plans to Send Search Results to Users, Before You’ve Even Thought to Look

Instead, I’ll look at some of the fun things that went on that day that I got involved with.

First of all, I raised my hand to get involved with an on-stage competition:

This involved being the first one to hit the target with an awesome nerf gun rifle. Fortunately my opponent didn’t quite manage to hit the target with their first three efforts, and I lined up the shot, had a loosener with the first, shooting just over, and hit the target smack bang in the middle with shot number 2.

BOOM – I was in the final, much later in the day (just before the day at the Dome finished up)

Whilst Kelvin was getting this setup we had to keep the crowd warmed up. For my bit I talked up the later Karaoke on the pier, and was nearly convinced by the crowd to break in to song A cappella, but fortunately I forgot the words of the main tune I’ve been practising for PeteStock of late, and my phone was mercifully turned off so I couldn’t jog my memory in sufficient time to have a go. But I did promise to sing Bohemian Rhapsody later that evening, and my later fate was sealed (although, I had already promised Kelvin when talk of Karaoke was first mooted a few months ago)

When Kelvin was ready for us, we found out that competition involving a head to head match up in Street Fighter 2…

I’ll confess I groaned when I saw this – I never had a console back in those days, and whilst my opponent had never played the game, I had and I knew I was bad at it! Needless to say, I put in an embarrassing show that would subject me (rightly) to mockery for the rest of evening (and for some time since).

Before leaving for the day, I also managed to get the ShitForLinks stuff that I’d bartered for ahead of the event:

I’ve fortunately never really been that fazed by a bit of banter, or doing silly things for the amusement of others.

So on that note, here is a little video of me singing Bohemian Rhapsody (badly as ever for those that have heard me sing it before), featuring some awesome accompaniment from some friends (Kelvin, the organiser of BrightonSEO, Ben “yesiamben” Pritchard and Dom Hodgson from EmberAds and clicknmix):

I think the incessant cackle of laughter tells its own story really – hope you chuckled too!

Thanks to the SiteVisibility Facebook page for the photo’s I stole, and Ben Norman for the hugely, amusingly embarrassing video!

Bigger thanks has to go to Kelvin for organising all these events to. Good work sir, and please, on behalf of all of us – please keep them coming! Now that you are finished here, go watch the “proper” videos of the presentations from the last event.

CONCLUSION (17/4/2012)
Well, it seems that I won’t be getting my parcel… Yodel have now sent it back to the retailer Sports Direct, who in turn told me that they will issue a refund when they have received it. I have asked for an immediate refund, as its only been sent back to them as Yodel appear incapable of actually organising delivery of this item, but this is being ignored. Net result – I will avoid buying anything from Sports Direct ever again, and will actively avoid purchasing from websites that will deliver with Yodel only… An entirely unsatisfactory result for all parties, that has left a rather bad taste in the mouth really…

So sad, as I really should be an evangelist for online purchasing.

It seems to me, particularly in light of recent media reports claiming Yodel want more money from their retailers, that they built a business model around pitching themselves to retailers at a price that was never going to make them money, undercutting competition to win contracts and are now whining that they are not profitable. I would suggest that this was always going to be a recipe for disaster – and one that was never going to have customer service as a central tenet. Ah well, I’ll have to head in to town when I get a refund and look for some shoes there!

ORIGINAL POST:
If you’ve followed my Twitter stream over the last 10 days or so, you will no doubt have seen me moaning about Yodel Delivery Problems, and I am getting massively frustrated with the horrifically bad service (it can barely be called service really) that I have been receiving from them.

I’m currently questioning if I actually want to purchase items online at the moment, as they have become the “cheap” courier of choice for the cheaper ends of the Internet.

All I want is my parcel and Yodel have made me question whether or not I want to continue purchasing items online.

I’m an online marketer, and have traditionally been an evangelist for all things ecommerce based. I find this a sad indictment of this company (who I know deliver for Amazon, a company that I have historically purchased from frequently and am questioning doing so again in the future). Does anyone know of a list of websites that use Yodel? As that is likely a list of websites that I will not be purchasing from again in the future!

A lot of the rest of this blog is going to be quite ranty – you were warned!

So, last Saturday (24th March) I purchased 3 pairs of shoes as well as some shorts ahead of my holiday next month from Sports Direct. Not a shop that I like to visit really, but they were cheap, they looked as if they’d look pretty good. I have a tendency to break shoes quite a lot, so I wanted to cover myself by purchasing a few different pairs.

Sports Direct dispatched this pretty much immediately, and it was “out for delivery” on the Monday morning on the 26th. Great I thought as I would be in all day to take delivery.

Waited around all day and nothing… No card, no attempt to deliver, no notification of it not being able to be delivered that day.

I gave them the benefit of the doubt and waited around on Tuesday too, though was somewhat perturbed that the tracking didn’t budge from “Parcel returned to delivery depot – 26/03/12″. Frustratingly as of the morning of the 04/04/12 this hasn’t budged.

By Wednesday I was starting to get a bit more irritated so I dropped Yodel an email before 7.30am, trying to find out what is going on (its seriously not easy to find a number on their website where you can actually speak to anyone). I asked, quite reasonably I thought:

“I’ve noted… that these items were out for delivery on the 26th March – which I was present at my property all day for. Was a delivery attempt made?

If so, why was there no card left behind? Also, why was this not taken out for delivery yesterday. Can you confirm to me when this is due to be delivered?

I will be at my property all day today

Thanks

Pete”

I got an auto-responder in return – and nothing back at all. I got busy and forgot about things until Friday, where I tried to call only to have to negotiate an auto-dialler. Seeing as dispatch hadn’t occurred that morning I looked to arrange delivery for Monday morning.

I followed this up with an email where I was getting more frustrated at this lack of communication with Yodel:

“I must start out by saying how frustrated I have been awaiting a delivery from Yodel this week…

…did not leave the house on Monday – if a delivery attempt was made, it was not to this address, and no card or notification has been left. I would imagine your order tracking system would have some form of notification that a delivery attempt had been made within this, so had initially assumed that another delivery attempt would be made on the Tuesday.

I checked again on Wednesday, and there had been no change to this status by the time my item left dispatch previously on the Monday. As a result, I used your web form to ask for further information and to ask if it would be delivered that day, or today being Friday.

As I had heard nothing back from anyone at all, I phoned this morning and have arranged for delivery on Monday.

Can you confirm that my delivery for the ***************** item will be delivered on Monday as I have just arranged via telephone?

If you cannot confirm this, can I have details on your complaints procedure please?

Thanks

Peter”

Of course, I got nothing back at all…

So, come Monday morning, I was starting to lose my patience when I saw that the “redelivery” that I’d instructed them to perform was not happening. I started writing another email to them, when lo and behold I got a response, to the very first email I’d sent on the Wednesday 5 days before:

“Dear Peter,

Thank you for contacting Yodel.

Our system shows that your parcel is located at our Southampton Service Centre.

Your enquiry has now been forwarded to the Service Centre where arrangements will be made to deliver your parcel as soon as possible.

Unfortunately at the minute wer are unable to advise you of a delivery date due to the Service Centre Experiencing operational issues.

Please accept our apologises.”

This infuriated me and I replied very quickly to this one – I started to get quite a lot snarkier, I won’t deny it, and I don’t envy the people that work in Yodel Customer Services.

I ranted about response times being unacceptable and then pretty much wrote what I’ve written so far as this blog. This time I got a really speedy response “I do apologise for any inconvenience this has caused. We are currently investigating why you have not received your shipment.”

I waited a few hours for them to not get back to me and then followed up with another email:

“Clearly, there is no desire to be assisting me here, or communicating what might be happening with my package?

6 hours further on, no change to order tracking.

No notification that my item was not going to be delivered today as I’d arranged on Friday.

No real communication as to what is happening, or when this is going to be resolved.

When can I expect to receive these goods? Can someone call me to discuss these issues?

I am bitterly disappointed in the service levels I am receiving from Yodel”

In fairness, again, this time they responded pretty quickly:

“Dear Sir,

I can only apologise

Southampton do have operational issues at present and we are trying to gain a resoloution for you

We cannot pass on any more details than this at present as Southampton are doing all they can to try and receover these issues

Sincere Apologies”

I then reasonably asked “Has Southampton had “operational issues” for that entire time? I’m going to investigate with my social network connections if any others have had issues at that time, and I expect to be notified at the earliest opportunity as to when these issues will be resolved, and delivery can be arranged.”

I did ask my social network, and frankly no one had a good word to say about Yodel, though I didn’t really find anyone else that was having specific delivery issues like me in this area.

I left them alone for most of yesterday, and still heard nothing else, so come the evening emailed again asking a few pertinent questions:

“Any news on when I might finally receive my item?

Or when I can expect to find out when I might possibly receive this item?

Are there still “operational difficulties” in Southampton?

I will be in my property all day tomorrow, though cannot guarantee the same on Thursday.

Do I need to do anything to facilitate receiving this delivery?

If you cannot fulfil this delivery, at what stage can I get a refund?

Can someone call me to explain quite what the hell is going on here?”

I also asked how to complain – so if anyone wants Yodels complaints email address, here you go as the response I got was:

“Thank you for contacting Yodel.

We are currently investigating why you have not yet received your shipment.

The email address for our complaints department is customercare@vx.yodel.co.uk if you would like to log a complaint.

Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience caused.”

So… what do Yodel do when they are investigating this? I suspect not a lot, in the hope that you will just leave them alone.

Does anyone have anything good to say about Yodel? I’d experienced their delivery service in the past, and it was adequate but I never felt compelled to rant about it like I have done here (and like I did once with Royal Mail for an incident that seems like nothing in light of this).

All I want is my parcel…
Read the rest of this entry »

I was watching the BBC news this morning, and grew increasing irritated about repeated comments of “it’s easy stacking shelves”.

These people have clearly never done it! This was presenters as well as guests brought on to talk about the topics, one for it and one against. They all seemed to say exactly that though, and it really raised my hackles.

I’ve worked in retail for a number of companies – most horrifically Asda, when I took a job with them as a Christmas temp to get off the dole. I quit there about 5 months later (I grafted so they kept me on after the immediate Christmas rush) and moved to Co-op as it didn’t involve a 30 mile bus commute – I could walk instead, and it was just over a mile.

The job was not easy!

Working in the alcohol department, stock is heavy, it attracts dust, things get broken and require cleaning. You have to manage stock levels, prioritise stock to get out when you have limited staff to put it out in busy periods (and need to focus on getting stuff out that sells). You have to make sure the products are laid out in a sensible way, with similar items, and you have to make sure that the bottles face forwards (you would not believe how many people used to find this hard!). I’m sure I’m forgetting some bits, particularly from Asda, as it was a job I hated, and I’ve blotted as much of it from my memory as possible.

I took the job because I didn’t want to be on the dole. There was nothing else available that I had any skills for. I was 18 – I didn’t have any skills back then. I commuted for nearly 90 minutes, on crappy smelly buses. It wasn’t a proud time in my life.

I then moved to the Co-op where I ran the frozen department of the Hayling Island store. That job was slight better, if only because I could walk to work. But, it was in freezers, at temperatures approximately -36 degrees. There wasn’t much in the way of specialist equipment. I used my own gloves for several months before finally convincing my employers to purchase some that were designed for that situation. I always used my own coat, as there wasn’t one provided.

You think its easy working at -36 degrees? Doing a stock take in there for 4-6 hours? Do me a favour!

Anticipating demand on sale stock. Making sure you ordered the products that ran low. Making sure your actual stock levels matched up with what the computers said. Locating stock that was hidden away at the back of the freezer. These things would still challenge me today!

I still clearly remember the day I passed my probation there. They told me I was an excellent prospect for management training, and that if I wanted to, I could start supervising at nights and weekends. I said that what I wanted in the future was a more typical job, perhaps not necessarily *just* 9-5, but where weekends were sacred. My manager said “that doesn’t exist any more”.

My response was thanks, but no, and I signed up to go back to college the very next day. Working at the Co-op and Asda spurred me into having some drive in my life. If that hadn’t happened, who knows, I might have been a manager of a Co-op by now. Would I be happy? Probably not, but I’d be employed.

I worked 35 hours a week minimum to put myself back through college. I’d broken my ankle the first time I went to college and didn’t have the grades to get in to University. So, I went and got them, working hard throughout both on my studies (well, sort of, the qualification was mostly stuff I “knew” but couldn’t prove) and at work. I paid my parents rent throughout this too – why should I get to live there for free, on a handout? They weren’t exactly rolling in the cash, and I ate a lot of food, so fair was fair!

I got to university and took a job at HMV. I loved this job, but it wasn’t that easy either. There were very defined section standards that were to be adhered to at all times. No more than 6 CDs per pocket, no more than 4 artists per pocket either.

Plenty of staff couldn’t grasp those simple rules years in to working there, as it was too easy to take short cuts. Chart walls were always to be laid out in particular ways. Store card sign ups (god I hated selling those, but sometimes people asked for them) involved some stupidly complex forms, and then involved using a crackly phone line to speak to someone in a really thick Scottish accent that I could barely understand.

Particularly at HMV, customer experience was paramount. You’d bend over backwards to help people find what they were looking for, suggest alternatives or additional recommendations. Manning the tills at Christmas time was bloody tough too. You try and serve 50 people per hour, every hour for an 8 hour shift and tell me that’s easy!

These are physically demanding jobs. They are mentally exhausting. Yes, they can be horrible. But, you know what – I am really glad I did them! I’ve worked labouring at a concrete construction yard and as a gardener too. They were pretty tiring as well, but “stacking shelves” was up there in being tough. It really shouldn’t be belittled in the way I am constantly seeing at the moment

I don’t really know enough of the details of these schemes to pass comment on them specifically, but I will say this. My experiences got me ready for the world of work that I find myself in today.

These days I am self motivated to get things done. I haven’t needed people to tell me what to do for years. I just do it – it gets done. It does seem to me that some people today “expect” to get given things on a plate without putting that graft in. But that perception of mine is almost certainly warped by the same media that irritated me to write this post

I don’t really know that people should be doing this work for free. The premise of doing 2-4 weeks work experience, giving you a chance to impress, work well in the team, learn some useful skills is a good one. My own experience from doing work experience at school for free suggests that this probably isn’t the reality of the situation. That’s sad, and probably why it’s getting so much media attention.

If I had one message to the younger than me folks of today though, it would be this. Don’t turn your nose up at any opportunities. Take them, excel at them – get what you can from it. Move on and develop. It’s all down to you though, no one is going to “give” it to you.

UPDATE: Based on some conversation I’ve had on Facebook, I should clarify I lived in a comfortable house with my parents throughout most of this period. I mostly used the money for entertaining myself. If you define “easy” for a job in a way that means “if most people could do that job” then yes, stacking shelves is probably easy. I just don’t think its helpful to belittle the effort that people put in to work hard in these roles.

This is a blog that I write with a heavy heart and misty eyes whilst equally filled with excitement. I wasn’t quite sure how to start writing this post, but had some things I wanted to say, so I’ve been listening to a mini playlist of tunes that are helping me put this down into words. Press play on this for starters (you might want to stop it before moving too far on, as there are a few others on here):

After nearly 5 ½ years at Vertical Leap, I’ve decided that it’s time for me to take a plunge and try something different. Coming to this decision was far from easy – it’s probably the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make in my life…

Vertical Leap has been great to me over this time and I really can’t thank the company enough for everything that they’ve done for me over the years – I just hope I’ve managed to give back just as much in that time.

I started as a graduate, with few responsibilities initially and a brief to learn SEO sharpish. I was fortunate to have done a degree with skills that I thought would be relevant; HTML, image manipulation, the odd bit of flash (which I appear to have completely forgotten) and a bunch of other stuff – but it was the project management items that have been most in use in my day to day life since really.

Vertical Leap took a chance on me at the time. I was raw and enthusiastic, but I wasn’t an expert back then. I grew up really quickly. I got over my fear of the phone. I pushed to get more involved in retail (which had been my part-time work whilst studying) style customer interactions and meetings, rather than “hiding” behind emails.

I learned a lot, really quickly and before I knew it really, wasn’t just the graduate – I was managing a full portfolio of campaigns, getting results, keeping customers happy (until last week when I moved them on, I still had 5 clients that were among the very first I was given all those years ago).

I built long term relationships with clients as often as I could. I’m pretty sure that I was doing fairly well, as 2 years or so into my career I started overseeing the company’s activities in the SEO world, determining updates to processes strategies, helping determine who we would recruit for that department, becoming active in interviews.

I became a manager of people, as well as process for the SEO department – and I relished it.

My time at Vertical Leap has been the Best of Times:

The team we built there are awesome, a truly cracking bunch of people who I will be friends with forever, and that I am going to miss my daily interactions with dearly. All the people that I work with at Vertical Leap – every single person – are my friends.

All of them I will happily spend time with in the future. I’ve not had a hell of a lot of different jobs – but for those that I have had in the past, this was not always the case.

The office banter, the cutting humour, the fun going out for drinks and meals… Laughs are a plenty, there is a great team spirit, both within the specific teams and the company as a whole. Leaving you guys behind makes me feel a little lonesome inside:

I know we’ll still see each other. I know that I will see everyone in just a short week at the Christmas Party which I was really grateful to still receive an invite to. But whilst things will be different, I’ll look back on these times fondly forever.

Thank You All at Vertical Leap, staff past and present, friends that I’ve made for life…

So, I’m moving on… I know some people already know what I’m doing next… But I’m not going to announce it just yet, I want to let someone else have the pleasure of the first public announcement of that.

Suffice to say, its one hell of an opportunity to have encouraged me away from what I already had. I’m super excited, can’t wait to get stuck in, and can’t wait to learn everything that I am going to need to do moving forwards. There will be some different challenges, likely some similar ones, and I’m certain that there will be ups and downs that I can’t predict right now… The time is right for me to seek a new challenge. So…

Roll on Monday morning, and the challenges that will bring…

In the meantime, it’s time for me to Hit the Road Jack:

Adios Amigos, Au Revoir Mon Amis, Farewell for now my friends – but I will see you all soon

This is a blog that looks mostly at online marketing, you might think that this is a blog post about a Google Panda update? Well, no,a bunch of online marketing types have seen The Panda Made Me Do It campaign, being run by the WWF, and thanks perhaps in part to the links with some of the algorithm updates so far this year, its something that the search community has decided to get involved with.

Well, seeing as it’s getting close to Michelle’s birthday, and I am being uncharacteristically rubbish at organising her any presents, I’ve decided to adopt an Orang-utan for her.

Don’t worry, I might find something else for her too before then, I still have a week or so to go!

So as part of this campaign, if you can, go adopt an animal, pledge to buy good wood, sponsor an acre of forest – anything to help these guys out