So for the final time here is our plea, Kelly is running to raise money for the Cardiomyopathy Association. Cardiomyopathy, which literally means “heart muscle disease,” is the deterioration of the function of the myocardium (i.e., the actual heart muscle) for any reason. People with cardiomyopathy are often at risk of arrhythmia or sudden cardiac death or both.

Kelly has currently run 20 miles in training, and besides worrying about where the extra 6.5 miles is going to come from on the day, is all but ready to complete the run. We have in the past offered the opportunity to purchase t-shirt advertising on Kelly’s and all of our team’s (who will be there supporting Kelly) t-shirts, we are getting these printed on Saturday 17th April so you still have time to get your logo on her shirt if you wish.

All we are asking is that you sponsor Kelly Frew for her run, any amount you wish, and you claim your space. I’ll also chuck you a fair few links back from this blog as a way of saying thanks. T-shirt advertising and links! What more could you want?

If you are interested please sponsor Kelly here: http://www.justgiving.com/Kelly-Frew and then email me your logo and site details: paul@ozido.com

Again a huge thanks to everybody who has already sponsored Kelly, I’ll report back how the run goes afterwards.

So let me start by saying you can sponsor Kelly Frew here: http://www.justgiving.com/Kelly-Frew

Cardiomyopathy is a weakening of the heart muscle or a change in heart muscle structure. It is often associated with inadequate heart pumping or other heart function problems.  You can find out more here.

Kelly has to raise £1500 minimum to enter the marathon which is no easy feat, so we thought it was time to get creative. Firstly every company / website / individual who makes a donation will recieve a logo printed on Kelly’s running T-shirt, I’ll also be down in London along with the rest of our team who will be wearing the same logo’d up T-shirts, so it’s a nice bit of exposure.

Secondary, everyone who donates will be plugged in my next 10 posts giving a fair bit of exposure and a few good links, T-shirt advertising and links? What more can you ask for.

No minimum donation required, every penny will be going towards the Cardiomyopathy Association
so it really is a worthwhile cause.

Interested? Make your donation here: http://www.justgiving.com/Kelly-Frew and email me at paul@ozido.com and let me know you’ve done so, we’ll take it from there.

Thanks for reading     )

Sponsorship Update

We have our first sponsors who have claimed their space on Kelly’s running T-shirt, so a big thanks to the following:

George Marshall who runs the Bras website Bras.co.uk

Joe Conner who runs the Promotional Codes website cantbarsed.com

It’s not been a bad year for the GGUK site. We built the site in late November 2008 and have left it virtually untouched until October 2009 when I added a bit of content and built a few links for it to see if it had aged well enough within the mighty G. Some of the content we added got some good results so I decided to push the site further over the last couple of months and have achieved some pretty decent results.

The site generated about £60k revenue for merchants across all networks with an AdWords bill of exactly £82,06 for the last quarter of 2009. Nothing to write home about in comparison with the big players in the industry but for little me, that’s a healthy profit margin.

So with an eye on the natural SERP’s where most of its traffic is generated I can see the site is on the verge of some decent generic rankings, and this is enough to spur me on and make the site one of our main projects for 2010.

Things to come will be personalised gifts category or mini site, we need to firm up the experience days section and get some real content on there and we recently added the gifting community which is starting to take some shape. I’ve a couple of ideas which I’ll reveal more about once we’ve developed them, but all in all, I’m happy with the results for this final quarter given the effort. I predict if we work on the search rankings for most of 2010, this time next year I’ll be reporting 10 times this figure, that’s the aim I’ve set the guys anyway.

If I don’t post again beforehand, Merry Christmas all and a Happy New Year!

I was about to send out my usual begging letter to our featured merchants for competition prizes and thought this might be a good opportunity to build relations with some new merchants too.

The site I’m looking for competition prizes for is: Gifts Guide UK – Presents & Gift Ideas

We run competitions for one month periods and I am currently looking for prizes to run for the months of October, November and December.

Typically this year we have received between 2000 and 5000 entrants per competition but would expect more during these peak Christmas months, I’m happy to run datashare so you can add the entrants email addresses to any prospects mailings you run.

With regards to prizes I’m open to ideas, if I don’t get any interest from here I’ll run with our usual merchants but wanted to at least try and attract some interest to the site from some retailers we maybe haven’t worked with yet.

You’ll undoubtedly have questions and want more information, so send me an email at paul@thelittlesearchcompany.com or reply here.

Thanks All.

Paul

Please stop the muppet merchants from suspending me for not promoting them,
It’s not that I have no love for their brand,
It’s not that we’re not working to the same cause they are,
Frankly it’s beginning to get out of hand.

We sign up to programmes with an intention to promote them,
And we’re sorry it takes time to develop our sites,
If they provided the resources we needed,
We’ll promote them with all our might.

There are many reasons that our stats will say no sales,
It doesn’t mean we’re showing them no love,
But when we receive the email saying goodbye from their programme,
It’s not nice to have been given the shove.

Someone once said “it’s all about the relationships”,
It’s all about the communication,
But kicking me off for no reason,
It’s hardly going to leave me with dedication.

“Fewer affiliates makes our programmes easier to manage”,
It’s not an excuse that we accept,
Treating me with a little courtesy when I’ve gone to the trouble of joining you,
Is the very least that I expect.

So before they hit the “your suspended button”,
Please ask them to think just for me,
Is there more to this affiliate than in their stats?
Maybe I should email them and see….

Amen

I’ll shut up now…

A local newspaper recently said of our leader:

Paul Smith boasts a glittering career in online marketing, a passion which grew from an intriguing eye cast over the online market from an early age.

His hunger to be the best took him to London, where he was snapped up by leading online retailer I Want One Of Those and made head of marketing.

The Little Search Company was founded in 2008 when Paul, aged just 25, decided it was time to cement his specialist online expertise by establishing his own company.

In line with Mr Smith’s successful career path, in the first eight months The Little Search Company has secured contracts with major brands and online retailers, such as Subside Sports, I Want One Of Those, Gifts Guide UK and has branched into the not-for-profit sector on a consultancy basis for Peterborough-based charity Deafblind UK.

We named the blog “I’ll Shut Up Now” as that is the signature sign off of the man who has just shared his wisdom with us for far longer than we’d have liked.

So we hope you enjoy Paul’s rants as much as we have,

Amen to you!