Posts Tagged ‘funny’

Ranking for childcare?

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

You have to laugh really – I mean, how can I take people seriously when they send spam that is so off target?

Let me share the laugh with you!

I received an email from someone who tried to be my friend and show how good he is at internet marketing – mind you, he isn’t good enough to find my name on my website and use it in an email! He does point out that he has my contact details, including phone number, from my site though.

This email was about word constructions - a professional writing service in Australia and his email includes the following (in blue – the black text is my response!):

I see that you’re not ranked on the first page of Google for a childcare centre search. And this is a problem for me why? 

I’m not sure if you’re aware of why you’re ranked this low but more importantly how easily correctable this is. I’m guessing it’s because I don’t have a childcare centre or use that keyword? If he found me through that keyword, it says a lot for my childcare articles though!

There’s no reason you can’t have a top three ranking for the keyword childcare centre based on your site structure and content. You have a very nice site. Perhaps the fact I don’t have a childcare centre (or a website about childcare) is a good reason not to rank top three? And if you don’t know that, I have no reason whatsoever to believe you have looked at my site to know it’s good!

I didn’t send this email out to very many people (oh please!) but I am currently reaching out to a list of your ‘keyword competitors’ (If their keyword is ‘childcare centre’, they aren’t my competitors at all) as well. But I do favor your website because I can see your website monetizing the targeted website traffic the keyword childcare centre can deliver. If you truly believe my site is best placed to maximise this keyword, you REALLY have no idea about relevant content and keywords – and I REALLY don’t want to make use of your ‘help’ and ‘skill’.
 
He followed this up with four requests to call me, and one to call him. Sure, Jason, call me so I can tell you how little you really know, at your long distant phone cost!
 
Hopefully that gave you a laugh, too.
 
If you want a serious message from this, here are some real marketing tips:
 
  •  be relevant – don’t contact a business about something they don’t offer
  • be honest – adding blatant lies makes it likely you’ll be caught out and lose whatever credibility you may have had
  • if you claim to have viewed my site, then have the courtesy to find and use my name
  •  don’t overstate your importance – if Jason is so successful and owns the 1,000s of sites he claims, why does he need to spam people around the world to get further business? Again, it just destroys your credibility if your claims and behaviours don’t match

Here’s to lots of laughs and very little spam in our lives!

Mad libs to teach sentence contructions?

Tuesday, September 30th, 2008

Have you ever done some “mad libs”? Is this something you remember fondly from school days?

Personally, I hadn’t heard of mad libs until finding them mentioned in another blog, but apparently they have been widely used to teach children some grammatical terms in a fun way – maybe this is more common in the USA, or maybe I just missed out!

Anyway, a mad lib is where you choose some randoms words – nouns, adjectives, verbs and so on – and they are inserted into a piece of writing. The end result is usually nonsensical, but funny – and especially so for children I suspect!

I remember playing games where we each wrote a type of word, folded the piece of paper and passed it on so write another word on someone else’s piece of paper. The final result there was a funny sentence. Mad libs are similar to that game, but you don’t come up with the entire story with your words.

There is a website that actually creates the mad libs by asking you for the words and then producing the story for you. I tried it, inserting various Australian nouns, verbs and adjectives (in bold below), and got the following story as a result:

A Typical History Test
By: Roger Price & Leonard Stern  

Instructions: When the Australia rings, unfold your papers and answer the following Victorians.1. What general won the Battle of Adelaide.2. Which American river said, “Give me liberty or give me trees“?3. Who was the first president of the United animals of New Zealand?4. Why did Benjamin Franklin fly a/an bird during a thunderstorm?5. Who made the first beautiful flag?Answers to Test:1. Jackson2. Mel Gibson, when he was executed by Russell Crowe for riding.3. Ian Thorpe4. He was discovering koalas.5. Sigrid Thornton

Finding a fun way to teach children the different ypes of words (nouns, adjectives, verbs, etc) is important for them to be able to construct good sentences and stories – but it isn’t always a fun topic to study! Mad libs are certainly light hearted but do require some knowledge of word types to work. The mad libs site includes definitions of the word types, too, to help children learn as the select words.

Do you think this is a useful tool in teaching children what a noun/verb/adjective/etc is? I’ll be letting my children have a go at these stories and see what they think of them. If I remember, I may even ask their teachers how they view this from an educational point of view.