LittleBizzy Review: Technical SEO Web Hosting
When I re-launched LittleBizzy, a managed WordPress hosting company, in early 2015, my business took off like never before. It was the direct result of narrowing my focus, emphasizing quality above all else, and making sure that customer service was fast and actually solved problems. While I’m not particularly “good” at business nor do I see myself as some sort of entrepreneurial figure, I’ve been blessed with success in the world of WordPress hosting, and wanted to share some of my perspective.
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Building an “online” business is ALWAYS tough.
However, growing a business on the web is often a challenge for different reasons than many people might think; after all, the only difference between an ONLINE business and an OFFLINE business is sometimes just that: the internet itself.
Sure, there are typical issues like cash flow, scaling, finding customers, hiring staff, and so forth, but one of the most challenging things is this: REPUTATION.
Reputation, although not something that every customer checks before ordering from you, is enough of a concern that it can greatly influence the growth and longevity of your business — online OR offline, of course. But there is a special tendency for online businesses to attract a higher amount of negativity, perhaps…
Growing LittleBizzy “All By Myself”…
According to a widely-circulated 2013 report by Dimensional Research, customers who feel they’ve had a negative experience with a brand are 50% more likely to tell other people about it than if they’ve had a positive experience. Not only that, but these “angry” customers are also 52% more like to post that “negative” experience somewhere on the internet, such as Yelp, Crunchbase, LinkedIn, past clients, or otherwise.
Now, I’ve always kinda sucked at math, but if you factor in that a brand is already an online-only business, and that, by nature, all of their customers must be web-savvy in order to become customers or initially seek out the business in the first place (i.e. LittleBizzy), I’m pretty sure the above 52% figure becomes something more like 82% (disclaimer: not a scientific conclusion whatsoever). That is, whether or not your online company’s “quality” is good or bad, the chance of certain angry, jealous, or otherwise entitled people trying to hurt your image on the web is pretty strong.
This is precisely why online businesses have such HUGE risk when it comes to reputation. And when 90% of consumers say they are influenced by online reviews when making their decisions, well… boy oh boy, the odds are truly stacked against you.
Growing LittleBizzy as a brand “all by myself” was both a blessing and a RISK, because while it gave me more say over decision making and quality control, it also meant that Jesse Nickles (that’s me, folks) WAS LittleBizzy for the first few years…
“I am not associated with the cookie. I AM the cookie. My personality is part of that cookie; the cookie is an extension of my personality. It is infused by my warmth, spirit, and love. Being made with the highest-quality ingredients, it represents my beliefs.” — Wally Amos, Famous Amos
Unlike Wally Amos, however, who is quoted above, I’m usually not described as being “warm” and “loving.” While those who know me, even many customers, often describe me as being compassionate or extremely attentive to their needs, I can often come across as overly blunt, direct, or “unfiltered”, perhaps due to my background in analytical research, and my affinity for political and philosophical discussions… (oops?).
Thankfully, I’ve always known this about myself, and though I’m not ashamed of my INTP personality type, LittleBizzy has grown quickly enough to afford hiring on a few people more in tune with being “service-minded.”
But why does any of this matter?
LittleBizzy Review: Flipping A Weakness
In case you haven’t noticed, this entire article is carefully crafted to rank high for search terms such as “LittleBizzy” or “Little Bizzy” or maybe even “LittleBizzy reviews” or “Little Bizzy review” type searches on Google.
Huh!? You see, I’m a huge believer in accomplishing multiple goals within the same article; this one is no different. Please allow me to explain a bit further…
GOAL #1: Ultimately, the goal of this piece is to rank toward the top of Google results to catch the attention of any potential WordPress website owners who are considering ordering hosting from LittleBizzy. Interested? → Hosting Plans
GOAL #2: Alternatively, however, for those who aren’t necessary in the market for web hosting but who just want to know some background on myself or the business, this allows me to get my voice out there, in anticipation of other negative or critical feedback that is sure to come our way, eventually. By being pro-active and constantly seeking out positive attention, we can defend against potential haters and complainers. (Hell, LittleBizzy has already survived a frivolous $1 million lawsuit from a diploma mill without spending a dime, so we are ready as we’ll ever be, I suppose…)
GOAL #3: Lastly, this post serves to prove my expertise. This is a perfect example of turning a weakness into a strength, because while online businesses are more susceptible to reputation problems, they are also more CAPABLE of defending themselves with facts, figures, and online case studies (unlike the local pizza shop). Because CollegeTimes is hosted on the LittleBizzy cloud, and to demonstrate our phenomenal infrastructure and SEO expertise, if this post can rank high on Google for topics related to LittleBizzy it will be a fantastic example of our hosting cloud’s potential.
Ultimately, when it comes to the online reputation of your business, don’t hide your weaknesses, but publicly address them. While QUALITY should arguably be your first priority, TRANSPARENCY can serve you wonders in the long run.
The Best Managed WordPress Hosting
“That’s nice,” you are thinking. “But… um… why is LittleBizzy the best?”
Maybe you take our word that our infrastructure is top of the market, and that we’ve found a way to seamlessly pair together some of the best technologies on the web into a stellar web hosting service, such as CloudFlare, DigitalOcean, and CodeGuard.
But what REALLY sets LittleBizzy apart is how pragmatic it is.
The reason we pair together various technologies isn’t just for fun — rather, it’s because after nearly a decade of doing SEO and web development consulting, I finally realized that the biggest issue affecting small to medium business owners (SMBs) was the instability caused by CONFUSION as they cycled through dozens of freelancers screwing up their DNS settings, server configurations, and otherwise.
Week after week for several years now, hundreds of apps, services, and technologies have been coming out, trying to sell businesses on their usefulness. From web hosting, to DNS management, to email services, to calendars… you name it, they keep on coming out with new things, while meanwhile, business owners are still trying to figure out how to login to all their various “dashboards” and “control panels”…
“We hired Jesse to speed up our WordPress website but what he’s done has way beyond exceeded our expectations. He has improved our entire hosting and server set up and he’s taken on more projects beyond this one for us. Jesse, it’s been a wild ride. Thanks for all your help as I grew my business and watched you grow yours. Here’s to the future!” — LittleBizzy client, via Upwork
By taking on a more centralized role in these processes, and partnering with the best technology providers on the web, LittleBizzy seeks to be a true source of speed, stability, and security for not just WordPress websites, but for businesses as a whole.
If this interests you, check us out, and thanks for clicking :)
St. Francis School of Law
Rap Song ‘Sallie Mae Back’ Goes Viral
Department of Education employees are chuckling this week after a new rap song dedicated to paying off student loans went viral around the web.
New Orleans-based rapper Dee-1 is the lucky star, after his new track ‘Sallie Mae Back’ — which recalls his real life story of being able to finally pay off his student loans after signing a recent recording deal — struck a welcome (albeit perhaps bittersweet) chord across the US among millennials and beyond.
Sallie Mae is one of the largest student loan services in America, a quasi-government entity in charge of loaning federal money to college students.
“For those that doubted me yeah this is payback. And I been on my grizzy {yeah} since way back. And no sir and I don’t drive a Maybach. But guess what I did?
I finished paying Sallie Mae back… Mae back.”
— Dee-1, Sallie Mae Back
Although the YouTube video achieved over 100,000 views within a week of being released, it fared even better on Facebook where it’s already been watched over 1+ million times (in other news, it looks like Facebook’s recent focus on video content is paying off handsomely for content creators).
The team at Sallie Mae were quick to pay notice to the viral hit. One of their loan officers, Temeka Easter, posted on behalf of the company in the comments section of the video on Dee-1’s Facebook page:
“We’re all in the office singing along with you! Love, love, love the hook. Congratulations on your success!” #SallieMaeBack #Dee1Nation Temeka & the Sallie Mae team
Dee-1, whose real name is David Augustine Jr., graduated from Louisiana State University and became a Middle School teacher for several years in order to fund his musical dream. His new album also features a darker-themed track apparently inspired by one of his students who was tragically murdered.
The music video starts off with a disturbing reminder that current student debt in the US stands at over $1.2 TRILLION as colleges continue to raise tuition fees and increase the salaries of their presidents, while meanwhile very little is being done to halt the fraud and abuse being perpetuated by for-profit diploma mills.
Lambton College : Nanchang (China)
Case Study: ‘Thompson Career College’ Reveals What’s Wrong With Canadian (American) Higher Education
PHOTO: A group of Filipina “student” immigrants play a lingerie game apparently at the site of one Thompson Career College campus in Canada during May 2015. The school, which changed locations several times in its short 15 year existence, apparently lost control of its Facebook page which fell into the hands of these ladies. TCC was recently purchased by for-profit Stenberg College under tightly guarded terms.
Chances are, unless you are an aspiring pharmacy technician from the Philippines, you’ve probably never heard of Canadian for-profit Thompson Career College (TCC).
Founded in 1999, the secretive career college was recently bought out by Surrey-based Stenberg College, another small for-profit college brand in Canada. The exact date and details of this acquisition are, of course, a complete mystery, as is now so common in the for-profit higher education “industry” that grows bigger every day. However, extrapolating from a brief “slideshow” that now appears on TCC’s former homepage, thompsoncc.ca, the acquistion happened sometime during the last several months (early 2015).
Not only is there no page or blog post mentioning the transition on TCC’s or Stenberg’s websites, but there is also ZERO mention of the deal across all typical PR, news, or media channels in Canada or beyond. The buyout of TCC seems to have been an intentionally secret deal presumably hoping to avoid scrutiny. So, let’s dig deeper, shall we?
Race To The Bottom, Then, A Secret Buyout
In the business world, buyouts happen all the time, and are a normal part of a company’s existence. Unfortunately, as readers of CollegeTimes should be well aware of, the rapidly growing for-profit education “industry” is quick to take advantage of “public” benefits, such as student loans or government grants, but then often turns around and leverages “corporate” strategy against students, their families, and tax-payers.
Take, for example, TCC’s domain registrar, SiberName, who has stripped all ownership information from the thompsoncc.ca domain, which is not only illegal in Canada, but also breaks the international terms set forth by ICANN, the non-profit organization that manages internet domain names (and if you think that CIRA, the Canadian government-backed regulator of domain names gives a s**t, they don’t). In other words, members of the public have no idea who the owner of TCC’s current website domain actually is, or if the owner recently changed, or anything else of the sort. It would seem the Canadian government continues to play catalyst to this cocky game of secrecy and corruption among for-profit colleges by refusing to enforce not only their own laws, but international laws, not to mention the accreditation “standards” that the Canadian government professes to monitor (but let’s not get ahead of ourselves).
1999-2015. That is exactly 15 years (or a little bit more), which, although a relatively short lifespan for a college, should at least have generated some basic chatter across the web. Bizarrely, however, almost no information can be found when searching Google or other web search engines for TCC related topics. Out of the mere 11 pages of results found on Google for “Thompson Career College” you can only discover:
- a handful of “spam” from Canadian business directories
- a January 2015 events calendar from the city of Kamloops, where TCC’s most popular campus resided (the last known mention of TCC)
- several marketing videos uploaded on YouTube, apparently produced by one Mastermind Studios (TCC doesn’t even have their own YouTube account)
- an abandoned Facebook page with dozens of blog posts aimed at recruiting Pharmacy students, which garnered ZERO likes, comments, reviews, or interaction
- an immigration consultant who helps foreigners move to Canada who mentions using Thompson Career College as a way to do so
- the only known Canadian citizen talking about TCC via Yahoo Answers
- a free resume generator that mentions listing TCC on your resume
- let’s not forget this toddler on LinkedIn who claims to be an employee of the school
- a (defunct?) “Christian university” from Ghana who claims to be affiliated with Thompson Career College for unknown reasons (lol, what?)
Amazingly, in less than 15 years, TCC managed to have one, two, three, four, five, six locations that I could personally track down, with constantly changing phone numbers, addresses, and program information.
Then, out of the blue, TCC was “acquired” by Stenberg College, and panties start flying all over their Facebook page. The word “surreal” is an understatement.
Diploma Mills, Visa Fraud: Everyone Wins?
The school, also formerly known as Thompson Career College of Health and Business, is utterly a ghost. It is literally so insignificant across its 15+ years of existence that attempting to rank it, compare it, or even analyze it at any level is virtually impossible.
But if you think that the Canadian government cares whatsoever, you don’t understand a thing about modern higher education in North America.
In short, Canada continues to prove itself a major player in terms of diploma mills. Arguably, the country has more diploma mills per-campus than any other developed nation in the world, and that is exactly how their government likes it: at the end of the day, more diploma mills means more student visas, and more student visas mean keeping that insane GDP ($7.7 billion at last count) that students bring in to the Canadian economy. And if you think the “students” give a rat’s ass, then you are forgetting they are only using their visa as an excuse to never leave Canada after they first arrive from countries such as India, Pakistan, Philippines, and beyond.
“But how on earth do these places remain accredited!?” one may wonder. Well, that’s easy! When the directors of your school are also in control of the “career school” accreditation agencies, well… let’s just say they don’t even try to hide it:
Thompson Career College was founded in 1999. Our focus is to help train the workforce needed to deliver high quality health care services to Canadians.
We believe in the Canadian universal access health care system and in the important role that educational institutions have to play in that system. We also believe that private colleges should work in a spirit of cooperation and mutual support with public institutions and the health care community to deliver high quality education and training at a reasonable cost. We select the programs that we offer based on research into the job market demand for graduates in these areas.
Thompson Career College is accredited by the Private Career Training Institutions Agency (PCTIA) of British Columbia.
We are members of the BC Career Colleges Association (BCCCA). Our School Administrator is on the board of the BCCCA, and is also an active participant in the BCCCA Health Care Educators Committee.
But it gets better. Not only did TCC fly under the radar for 15 years while aggressively recruiting foreign nationals, but their programs allow students to “study from home” and not even attend a physical campus for instruction. Right from their brochure:
Oh, Canada. My, have we trained you so well.