Two more sleeps 😉
It has been a busy and frustrating few days. Most of the Battle of the Brits matches gave us opportunities to make some money. That was the easy portion of the work.
Even though a lot of new members signed up during Covid the number was understandably well below the number I would expect in normal times. I thought that with a week to go before the main tours kicked off again that the rate of sign up would also increase. If anything it DEcreased. It would be easy to think that there is something wrong with the site but according to Google Search Console the number of people searching for tennis trading products took a nosedive.
It is always tricky to work out how potential customers are thinking. No one searches for tennis trading on Google if there are no proper matches on to trade. I am always tweaking the site to find the “sweetspot” of the various parts of the site. Site title. H1 header tags. What the customer sees above the “fold” when they click on the site. (what is on screen before they start to scroll). The meta description that people see in search results. You don’t have a lot of space to describe your site to entice someone to click on it.
All of those items help but the difference is tiny if no one is looking for your type of site.
I had to conclude that people were waiting until the last minute to sign up for the guide. The trading tips emails were completely different. I advised people not to sign up until Monday as that’s when the first email goes out. People started signing up on Friday.
The flood of new TradeShark Tennis members started early this morning. It would appear that the site works fine!
Sue’s working all weekend. I can’t say I’m not relieved. Some days by the time I finish work she has had a “couple” of drinks. It is worse when she is coming up to a work day. She gets very snippy. There was a news programme on the radio while we were sitting outside which was another doom and gloom piece about a second wave. She made a comment that “this is never going to end”. Here we go.
Her bad mood went from 0 to 60 in 3 insults. She said you can’t just look on google or twitter to find out the truth. I mustn’t ask her about details but next year when Covid mixes with the Flu it will possibly wipe out all civilisation. Scary stuff huh? Until she then added that she and I would probably be OK. Oh god am I going to have to father the new human race? She was pretty sheepish the next morning.
I can’t remember the last time we had the windows cleaned. The downstairs ones get done from time to time but I don’t have a ladder to reach the upstairs ones. Sue found someone on Facebook who came recommended. A tenner to do all the windows. Bargain. They came this afternoon. I opened the back gate so they didn’t have to come through the house. One guy started cleaning the living room windows. I had the dogs in that room to keep them out of the way. Charlie thought the guy was trying to break in. He was going nuts at the window. His bark is really loud. Even before social distancing when we got a takeaway delivered and Charlie barked when they knocked on the door they would move back to the entrance to the garden. “Shit he sounds big!” was a common comment. Anyway when the head window cleaner came round the back of the house he nervously knocked on the back door to ask if he could get some water. Charlie was watching him through the dog gate. He wasn’t happy. When the guy knocked on the door again when they had finished I opened the dog gate. Charlie and Molly followed me through. Molly went up to him for a bit of fuss and Charlie moved in to sniff the guy. Charlie backed away growling. He REALLY didn’t like this guy. He’s usually a very good judge of character. I’ll have to watch this one if we use them again.
Now that the outside of the windows were clean I had to clean the insides. I got them all done before the FA Cup final started apart from the living room and my office. They looked fine until the sun shone on them. Streaks all over a couple of them! I recleaned our bedroom windows and the bathroom one. The window by the back door was a nightmare. I nearly lost my mind over that small window. Everything I did made no difference to the streaks. In the end the sun went in and they looked ok. It will keep until Sunday.
I’m expecting a busy day with new signups on Sunday. Then it’s finally back to business as usual on Monday.
Stay safe.
