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Zendesk Helpdesk – I Would Be Lost Without It

In 2009 I went looking for a web based helpdesk solution to help one of my companies (Ridebooker) deal with the massive amount of email requests that we were receiving.  We needed a way to ensure that requests were being answered in a timely fashion, and to ensure that nothing was “falling through the cracks”.  I found a young startup company called Zendesk that looked really promising.  We signed up and have been growing with them ever since.

We *LOVE* Zendesk.  It allows Ridebooker to manage and respond to email, Twitter tweets, Facebook messages and wall posts, and even records and transcribes our voicemail into support tickets.  I honestly don’t know how we would function without it.  In fact, I look back at our 2008 shared inbox and wonder how we ever managed at all! Continue reading →

Google Adwords Consulting

Google Adwords can be an *AMAZINGLY* powerful and affordable way to grow your business.  Or you can waste an enormous amount of money for very little return.  It takes a while to figure out what works and what doesn’t.

I have been using Google Adwords for many years and I’ve learned all the hard lessons already.  I currently manage around $1500/month in ad spending on my sites at Ridebooker.com and Salmonboats.ca and I’m seeing significant results in both traffic and sales. Continue reading →

Long Tail Search, Business Blogging, and You

Long Tail Search & Web Analytics

I’ve been watching my Google Analytics statics lately and I’m amazed at the amount of traffic that Google sends my way. The funny thing is, a lot of my traffic comes from people who are entering some pretty detailed and obscure search terms that match up with one of my blog posts. These detailed searches are often called the long tail of search.

Not surprisingly, my site doesn’t rank very well if you search Google on “FreeBSD” since there are tons of high ranking sites that deal with FreeBSD. However, if you type “FreeBSD Consulting in Calgary” I currently come up in the #1 and #2 positions.

If you type “mac os x” in Google I wouldn’t have a prayer of ranking well in Google. However, type “gparted mac os x” and I come up #3 as a result of this post.

If you type “ltsp” I don’t show up at all. However, I come up #1 with “ltsp linux thin client” as a result of this post.

The Good News
I get between 50 and 100 people per day who visit my site as a result of doing a Google search using terms that I’ve talked about in my blog. You don’t have to rank well for super popular search terms in order to generate Google traffic!

The Really Good News
People that are typing detailed queries into Google are looking for specific information. In many cases, these people are looking to solve a problem or make a purchase.

For example, somebody that is searching on “Linux” in Google is looking for some pretty generic information. If my site were to rank well, and they clicked on my link, they’d probably be pretty disappointed in the results. There are a LOT of sites that are much better sources of information on Linux.

However, if somebody were to type “Linux Consulting in Calgary” (I currently show up in the #3 spot) then they would probably be quite pleased with the results. Linux consulting is one of the things that I do and I am in Calgary. The odds of that person contacting me are pretty good because I’m what they were looking for!

Attention Small Business: Get Blogging!
Here’s the thing about my business blog: I post about what I do on a daily basis and the things that interest me. The posts contain all sorts of keywords and phrases that people who might want to hire me are typing into Google every day. The more posts I make, the more pages I have that contain relevant, rich, meaty key terms that Google loves. Every time I post an article I increase the odds of a potential customer finding me in the search engines and that is never a bad thing…

If your goal is to generate business via the search engines, a business blog is a GREAT way to participate in the the long tail of search and start generating web traffic that is highly predisposed to becoming your next customer.

School District Ditches Windows For Linux

Microsoft Windows ousted at California school district

As far as I’m concerned, Linux thin clients are a no-brainer for education, non-profits, and many businesses. The costs associated with purchasing, maintaining, and administering Windows based PCs is prohibitive even with the heavy discounts from Microsoft.

Scenario: High school with 200 Windows PCs.

  • Admin Costs – How many IT personnel is it going to take to properly administer a network with 200 PCs running Windows XP? I’d say at least 2, if not 3, full time equivalents.
  • Hardware Costs – How much is it going to cost to purchase those PCs? Minimally configured machines are going to run $500-600 (Canadian). You could beg for old donated PCs, but they are dog slow and break down pretty frequently which increases your admin costs.
  • Microsoft Licensing? A minimum of $10-15K per year.
  • Hardware Lifespan – What will be the average lifespan of those PCs before they have to be replaced? They get abused pretty badly so I’d put it around 3-4 years. Now you have to go out and replace them with new or donated hardware, configure them, roll them out, etc. This costs a lot of money.

Add it up and the school is looking at an IT budget that is easily $200K per year. Not cheap, especially for schools that are always trying to cut costs.

Scenario: High school with 200 Linux Thin Clients

  • Admin Costs – A Linux thin client network of this size can be managed by 1-2 individuals. Huge savings here.
  • Hardware Costs – Linux thin clients are half the price of new “thick” client PCs. Or you can just take donated PCs, pull out the hard drives, and then PXE boot them. Any way you slice it, you can save a lot of money on hardware.
  • Microsoft Licensing – You’ll never totally rid yourself of Microsoft, but the licensing can certainly be cut by at least 75%
  • Hardware Lifespan – The life span of Linux thin client hardware is going to be double that of comparable thick client hardware.

Schools, non-profits, and businesses that move to a Linux thin client infrastructure can easily cut their IT spending by 25-50%. Not only do the costs go down, but the performance and user satisfaction increases because the students and staff are now longer dealing with slow, unreliable, virus-ridden, computers. Linux thin clients are fast and reliable.

Like I said, in my mind it’s a no-brainer. What do you think?