I’ve got soul but I’m not a SEOldier

I don’t often put real life bits on my blog, well unless I’m on the national and international news in which case I figure I may as well! The last two months however I’ve been updating my company website for Ye Olde England Tours.

I’ve not really updated it since 2012 when I became the first private guide in London to do tours this way and I got thrown off the biggest travel websites because back then it was a closed shop and the big travel corporations didn’t like the idea that little old me and people like me could do things better than they ever could.

So much has changed since then. We now have a Queen not THE Queen, it’s now next to impossible to drive in London and I’m no longer the only private tour guide, there are dozens of good guides of various reputable qualities and several hundred rip-off wannabes who blag there way through a private tour or memorise a script for a group tour.

You see them all the time. Larger groups with very bored looking tourists led by someone more interested by what’s on their phone as they trudge dejectedly from one point to the next and totally ignoring the dozens of incredible things they are walking right by that they know nothing about, if they are even aware of them at all.

Sometimes the tourists look over to me mournfully as my own family or individual jokes that they are glad they aren’t with ‘that’ lot or stand even more incredulous than I as they all walk right by.

Occasionally a tourist will try and gate-crash our tour (not as scary as when Prince Philip did) or a group will come in, look at something for 20 seconds and wander off after their guide spouted such nonsense that even my tourist wants to pick them up on it.

There are really two reasons why my website work has led me to doing SEO (search engine optimisation) on it too. Well, three I suppose but lets ignore the dozens of people who write every week asking me to pay them to do SEO on my website as I’m not ranking very highly on google or whatever.

Aside from the fact that I always have more than enough work to know what to do with and my main problem is not having the team I did before Covid or indeed a competent government. Somehow the VIPs, TV companies and what have you manage to find me as the wheat amongst the tourism chaff.

That being said, it is so much easier for the big groups to garner reviews. If you have 12 people or even 50 people then thats more reviews in a day than I may get in a month or a year and they generally just do one ‘thing’ rather than the 70 or so different experiences I do. So much depends on reviews for generating business. Yes many who are looking for something special find me anyway but so many just book what are in effect pale imitations of what I do.

Before Covid I was approached by several foreign big companies wanting to buy my business? Why would I do that though apart from the initial payment? I’d be bored for years and unable to do anything in the same field for 5 years. I turned them all down flat as I’m happy becoming a millionaire the old fashioned way, by working my guts off for it and not thinking to myself that ‘this will do’. No it won’t, I’m brilliant at what I do, unique in what I do also.

I would always play things down on the old website as I’m not one for blowing my own trumpet but as tourists would always say, you should at least say that you have a trumpet! So if I’ve been featured on the TV or radio or in a magazine, written a #1 book on a subject and its pertinent to the tour then from now on, it will be mentioned even if the big names or famous people won’t be.

Due to the changing nature of the business generally and in Britain in particular, bookings have increased this year but the income from each has gone down. So I’m working 30% more than last year but not making 30% more. It seems partly as car tours are a thing of the past for myself at least but also this year has had more single and couple tours than big families. I don’t think it’s price related as many things in London have gone up hugely since Covid and mine have generally stayed the same or only gone up slightly.

The other reason I’ve spent 2 months working on my SEO is that the worlds big booking websites generally charge huge commissions. Like farmers who have to deal with dodgy super-markets, we all know who it is who does the hard work and has the special skills or products and who it is who makes huge profits off them and consumers.

If my customers who book through other sites end upping 30%+ to third parties, in effect I could work work 30% less days for the same money if they booked directly with me… or as the workaholic I am, work the same days and make 30% more profit 🙂 For I do have 2.5 years of zero income to make up.

Also they have progressively become harder and harder to work with as they become ever more profit driven and more concentrated on samey and banal mass-market tours and even want bookings up to 2-4 hours before the tour which of course may be ok if you’re doing a coach tour day after day with no changes and 50 places on a bus 2 or 3 times a day but not if you’re doing something special and unique. Besides, you can’t even cross London in 2 hours! Besides, how rubbish a guide would I be if I was sitting twiddling my thumbs waiting for a tour to come in in 4 hours time, tomorrow or even next week?

I’ve read it takes 3 months before the first stirrings happen on the google rankings but that true change only takes place after 6-12 months.

I’m not even sure what I expect out of it, I suppose I just didn’t want to give the big companies an easy ride. I know I’m getting a few more direct inquiries and bookings than before and July and August have had the most site traffic in 10 years so hopefully in 6 months times it will be on another level.

Also I am looking to make a few changes in 2024.

For a start I will be 50 years old in this coming December and I’ve barely had a day off in 10 years and definitely haven’t had a holiday or even a weekend away. Many of those days are 18 hour ones and even now I do the equivalent of about 3 marathons a week just walking around and running up and down escalators.

So as the saying goes, work smarter not harder.

In the next year I want to buy a house that I like, not just the only one I’ve ever been able to afford. I want to travel and see places and also write more books, which is still work but a different sort of work at least.