Helen Foster

Want fun and quirky travel tips worldwide AND all the helpful tips on Japan this is where you come! By the makers of Differentville and

[Helen Foster @Differentville]

What are the most unique, cute or just plain weird things you can do in Tokyo? Well, it took us a few visits, but here's the top 47 we'd choose. https://t.co/8h5orCXx8Y

[Helen Foster @Differentville]

@betweenengland @AmazonUK Are you on Threads? Go on Wicked Threads if so there’s lots of people talking about problems with extras and some fixes.

[Helen Foster @Differentville]

@mrdavidwhitley St Albans roman stuff for me

[Helen Foster @Differentville]

@betweenengland It sucks. And there’s no reason to it. Dville is up but I haven’t touched it for a year for boring leg reasons (it takes a lot of walking). It’s set up the same as Japan, has worse ad layout, no social traffic, nothing. And yet the line is upwards.

[Helen Foster @Differentville]

@Warriorne @Marie_Haynes Same here. The one I havent posted on, that I don’t control ad placement on, that has no social media, that I can’t actually write right now for health reasons is up. The one I pour my heart and soul into daily is dead in the water.

[Helen Foster @Differentville]

@Marie_Haynes I get messages and comments from my FB group who read my posts every day saying how I’ve reduced their stress, explained things simply, answered their question. I don’t know how to be more helpful to actual humans than I’m being.

[Helen Foster @Differentville]

@Okayy_Dan My site with the upward graph (so far) is the one I haven’t touched for a year. It has random ad placement, no social media, nothing. Annoyingly I can’t even work on it as it requires me being able to explore more than I can right now!

[Helen Foster @Differentville]

@lilyraynyc Thank you. I get FB messages every day saying how my site helped reduce their trip planning stress, but it’s been obliterated from search. It’s the not knowing why that sucks, especially when in some cases I’ve been replaced by sites that do use AI or with huge numbers of ads.

[Helen Foster @Differentville]

@strijdhagen @lilyraynyc Nope. My Japan site is down 97%. No AI, I’ve visited 7 times, all written with personal experience.

[Helen Foster @Differentville]

@Okayy_Dan Yep. I’m just me and writing is the bit I enjoy, but I’d just started using another writer to help me out with one of my other sites while I focused on my Japan site. He had to go. My plans to employ a Pinterest VA went out of the window. Many friends have also let their VAs go.

[Helen Foster @Differentville]

@mondaydotcom @LauraJDawson26 Thankyou. I’m playing with it now and love it. So easy to use.

[Helen Foster @Differentville]

I need a system to organise my tasks, but I am not a system person. I’ve looked at Trello, Notion, Clickup. My brain does not work like that. Is there a simple system where I can just list all my jobs, dates and tick them off in one place without it feeling like I’m running ICI?

[Helen Foster @Differentville]

@tspadventure I don’t have a Mac unfortunately. And I literally bought a new PC yesterday as mine keeps crashing!

[Helen Foster @Differentville]

@emiliesyverson @Okayy_Dan I now have digital products but at the time I got hit, I wasn’t there yet. My site was still a baby. It’s now 3 times bigger, has digital products, 28k FB followers etc but none of that counts because of the classifier. It’s like taking a toddler and damning it for life!

[Helen Foster @Differentville]

@TheFearlessFor1 If only, but Google made my income go away! That’s why I now have so many tasks to try and get it back.

[Helen Foster @Differentville]

@Okayy_Dan @emiliesyverson I’m trying hard to move on and if I was being replaced by sites I genuinely thought had better content or UX, I’d hold up my hands, but I’m not & that’s what I don’t get. Yes, I can do FB but it’s exhausting to earn a 10th of the income and I just don’t have it in me much longer.

[Helen Foster @Differentville]

@Okayy_Dan @emiliesyverson Exactly. That was the bit that hurt. For two specific keywords I’ve looked at I’ve been replaced in search by someone leaving in the AI prompts and someone with literally one paragraph of copy sandwiched in between 6 ads. Yet I’m unhelpful.

[Helen Foster @Differentville]

I had suspicions a site that outranking me after HCU-pcalypse hadn't been to the places they're writing about. There's no first-person experience in them. I've just read a post I'm not longer in the top 100 for. It has this snappy line of 'Helpful Content' in the middle. Grrr...

[Helen Foster @Differentville]

@mountainweekly @CharlestonCraft @Katie16282772 @searchliaison If they named it the ‘your site isn’t set up correctly’ update I’d have taken it far less personally. No, they probably aren’t, I’m not a website guru. But don’t just tell me I’m writing worthless crap when that isn’t the case - and then replace me with exactly that.

[Helen Foster @Differentville]

@shesabroadagain Friends I know who are giving up had to back to full time work after the HCU. I’m lucky I have savings and some other income or I’d have done the same.