Some Financial Pros And Cons Of Practicing Search Engine Optimisation Specifically For And In The Uk.
Friday, November 03, 2006
Economic pragmatism would be the main reason. If I have a
dispute with a client having an office in the UK - not that t
his ever happens, of course! - I can go to court in the UK and
in the first instance get my case heard locally and in the
second instance have the further option of sending the bailiffs
round when the defaulter simply ignores any court judgment
against them.
If the client is based abroad, then the chances of bringing
them to book are remote and improbable if they exist at all.
Being a one-man band, I don't deal in the sort of figures that
make extradition a realistic proposition, and suggestions of
invasion or all-out war evaporate when I wake up. Nor,
reverting to pragmatism again, is it feasible to sue them
locally and, while the local public bar would no doubt be
packed with eager volunteers, it's an expensive effort sending
the boys round.
So from the point of view of resorting to legal redress,
sticking to UK based clients makes sense.
It can be embarrassing, though, working in the UK and trying to
explain our archaic and exploitative banking system. Clients
from more enlightened countries (read; anywhere else on the
planet) find it hard to believe that the money they sent by
bank transfer a week or so ago has yet to emerge from that
mysterious bourne where money temporarily vanishes to when it
enters the British banking system and appear in my account.
"Certainly we paid it", they indignantly assert in response to
my timid query about, er, actual payment for my services. I
feel like an idiot trying to explain that despite the interim
period I still haven't seen hide not hair of any remittance.
I've known my bank to indignantly deny any knowledge of any
monies being in the system the very day before it appears in my
account, right up till closing time. I've logged into my online
account the next morning and there the money is, in some cases
to my intense relief. Paypal money can be transferred between
international accounts in a matter of moments, so how can the
banks possibly justify not operating at the same speed? My
guess would be that they can't justify it but a succession of
supine governments allows them to get away with this, bad for
all other business though it is.
This regularly presents me with a dilemma - has the client paid
me for the work already carried out or not? Should I do more
work for them effectively on their say so - and remember, this
is likely to be someone I've never met or spoken to even on the
telephone, that's the nature of the business, you communicate by
email - or do I do work instead for a known and reliable client
who lives, relatively speaking, just up the road? Obviously, I
have to do work for the known client as I can't live on
assurances, which in some cases can mightily displease those
whose patronage I would dearly love in order to be able to
expand my business. Rosy visions of future prosperity have been
known to gloomily recede under these circumstances.
So there's good and there's bad aspects to practicing search
engine optimisation in the UK.
About The Author: Bill Kruse is a UK-based SEO with a site at
http://www.kruse.co.uk
posted by Dennis Cheesman @ 6:48 AM,
