I got offered a deal from Safari Wise to help them launch birding day tours at the coast (Swakopmund and Walvis Bay.) As a result I have put Frantic Naturalist on hold. The company exists (on paper) and will certainly be revived in some form later on.
For now, I really have a great opportunity to get my name in on the birding scene in Namibia - and in the world of commercial birding. So, that's that side of things.
Well, I still have a registered domain, http://www.frantic-naturalist.com/
I had thought to just take the site off for the time being, but was advised by my father-in-law (swakop.com, who hosts frantic-naturalist) not to take it off. As the web geeks know, there are things like pagerank to consider. So, I thought, while I haven't been doing much, I will start changing it.
I really enjoy doing web design, and decided that since I don't have to make it make money for now, I could play around with it. Actually, same goes for blogging. Without worrying about Frantic Naturalist Tours and Safaris hanging over my head, I can be a little more free, and write what I want to write.
So, I started banging away. First I made it more hobby like (didn't change it on line, only on my hard-drive.) But I did think that I needed (and wanted) to keep it optimized for the search terms that it has done well with so far.
So I did some Google digging and I still do very, very well with the search terms "naturalist tours." I often get it above the fold on the front page on google search. That's really something. Just a two word search, to get within the first ten pages is tough. I mainly did it by submitting to free directories and blogging.
So, Frantic Naturalist isn't on hold because I didn't get requests through the website. Other reasons (money being a big one...) but anyway, the website gets hits and I wanted to keep that as it is. Thanks for all of you who have helped by listing it and so on.
Anyway, so as I got working on it, I started to look around at directories for 'naturalist tours' since that is what I seem to be doing well for. I don't find much. Not world wide.
So, it may be biting off a lot, but for now I am bending the website to be a completely free directory of naturalist tours (naturalist, in terms of nature - passionate and questioning interest in the natural world.)
It's coming along well. I have been busy with boys and birding during much of the days, and have been cutting code (or html mark-up - I'm a nature nut, so it's almost code to me) at night. I have had a lot of fun. I have done the whole website in a pure text editor, just for fun. I have used cut and paste to check spelling (please, I torture the English language, when I put it up, help me with spelling so on.)
I have done the website in pure html and the styling with css. I have to use Frontpage to load it (that's not my fault, it's the only access I have to the server.) Even though I have taken lots of images lately, I have still kept it very clean and image free. I know some of you don't like that about my websites, but I like it. They are easy to use, clean and fast loading. I really like clean easy pages, that don't make me push things and don't flash and beep at me. Reminds me of a quote from a movie I watched many times:
Buck Murdock: Oh, cut the bleeding heart crap, will ya? We've all got our switches, lights, and knobs to deal with, Striker. I mean, down here there are literally hundreds and thousands of blinking, beeping, and flashing lights, blinking and beeping and flashing - they're *flashing* and they're *beeping*. I can't stand it anymore! They're *blinking* and *beeping* and *flashing*! Why doesn't somebody pull the plug!
Aeroplane 2:the sequel
So, towards the end of the week, have a look on Friday (Oh, it's going to be the 13th!It will only have a few entries for Naturalist Tour companies to begin with.
I will be adding frequently after that. I will build a little database with Python (using SQLite for those who know that stuff.) I am not a programmer. Just enjoy torturing computers a little. How big it can get will depend mainly on support people give it. For me, to list on free directories was a great way to get free marketing for Frantic Naturalist. Let's see. Share this post
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