Blog
Working with Pro Fit Consultancy
Recently I have been lucky enough to work with a newly established company, Pro Fit.
They are a services company offering employee health and well-being management packages to office-based businesses and they’re based in Liverpool. They’re philosophy is simple;
by improving the health, fitness and overall well-being of your workforce, will in turn, result in better organisational performance.
They are a great team with a true passion for what they do, and I wish them the best of luck with their new business venture. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the gym.
Free SEO e-book for small businesses
Lets Cut to the Chase is a free e-book by Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) expert Craig Killick. The author claims the hints and tips provided in the e-book are suitable for small businesses, large businesses and charities and social enterprises.
Wonderful photos America’s next President
Callie Shell’s fantastic photos of Barack Obama over the last two years - and micro stories to go along with them.
Keep clicking Show More Images at the bottom to see them all.
Can people still find you with pay-per-click?
The Internet is evolving at a frighteningly fast pace, and to keep ahead of your competitors you need to understand and strategically integrate the Internet into your marketing mix.
But there have been some important recent changes to the search engines and you need to stay ahead of the game to keep ahead of the competition.
Google recently altered its pay-per-click strategy to allow firms to bid on their rivals’ previously protected trademarks for the first time. With 85% of all searches on Google including a brand element, this shift has created one of the largest battles for online presence the market has ever seen.
The policy change will affect the search engine marketing strategies of businesses throughout the UK. It will also have a longer-term effect in that when a business launches a new product or service, it will no longer automatically be guaranteed to own the brand search terms.
Before the change came into effect, businesses had strong brand protection, which meant only the brand itself could use its trademark terms in pay-per-click ads. After the changes, a flood of bids from rival firms dramatically raised the cost per click of trademark terms and vast sums of money had to be paid to buy them back.
So will this affect your website? The answer is yes. Your closest rival now has the ability to bid on your brand terms and divert potential customers to their site - potential customers who were intent on finding you.
Fortunately, the change to Google’s policy presents a chance for you to bid on your competitors’ brand terms as well, increasing your visibility at their expense. Act quickly to get ahead of your competitors. If you re-allocate your search engine marketing budgets before they do, you can free up more money to buy your own terms back and out-bid competitors on theirs.
Courtesy of the EnterQuest team
Review: Apple Airport Express
Recently I have moved into a medium-sized georgian style terrace house. First thing first, I needed an internet connection. For a number of reasons I opted for Virgin Media as an ISP.
I then found out that the package I chose didn’t ship with a wireless router, only a modem. Previous to this I had been running some research on Apple’s Airport Express and had found the reviews motivating - powerful enough to run your home network, small enough to take with you, stream your music over the air with AirTunes and so on.
So, I decided to get one.
In a nutshell, it’s a great little tool, offering quick connection speeds over the wireless 802.11n (for those of you that have this built into your machines), a reasonable range and the ability to stream music to your preferred speakers / stereo system. The capability to share any given USB printer over the air is also a great feature, however I would have liked to have seen the option to share a USB external drive.
One other niggle was some coughing and spluttering from AirTunes, I managed to resurrect the issue here.
All in all it receives a good 7/10 from me.
Business Plan for the web.
The guys over at Airbag have formed a great tool to help potential clients clearly map out the scope of work required.
A great article, all developers / designers over to: Airbag »
New Office / Home for Online Expansions
Recently I have moved Online Expansions into a small office in the centre of Bath.
Following lots of research and searching I managed to find a great studio just off of the beautiful Queens Square. The criteria was for it to be small, in the centre of the town and general flexibility offered by the landlord was also a big one. Luckily I struck lucky and now Online Expansions has it’s own new little home.
So now, I can get used to going somewhere to work every morning again, and things feel a bit more legitimate — like there’s room to think and grow.
Now if you’ll excuse me, there are some dusty shelves around here.
Stack Up Cool
Here’s a great tip that creates a nice hover effect when your mouse goes over an application (or folder) within a Leopard stack. Why this isn’t enabled by default in Leopard is beyond me, because it makes navigating within stacks a whole lot easier. Don’t miss out, here’s how to activate it:
Launch the Terminal and type the following command:
defaults write com.apple.dock mouse-over-hilte-stack -boolean yes
then, you’ll have to restart the Dock by issuing the following command:
killall Dock
To disable the hover highlights, type:
defaults write com.apple.dock mouse-over-hilte-stack -boolean no
Domain Mistakes
Domain name mistakes and how to fix them
Domain name mistakes are common. The trick is to not be fooled into picking a dud that no one will remember or bother to find. There are still a lot of domain names available. With some creativity and research you can land yourself a great one.
Remember the number one rule when getting a domain name. If someone wants to find your business on the web, the first thing they’ll do is type your business name into their browser without shortening it or punctuating it. The closer you get to a domain name without abbreviating or adding hyphens etc, the more likely you are to be found by a customer surfing the net. Here are some of the most common mistakes.
Using an extension other than a ‘.com’ or ‘.co.uk’. There are several domain extensions such as .org, .gov, .net, .info, .biz. The .com was the first extension to become popular. In the UK people will search for ‘.co.uk’ so try to have a domain name with a .com or.co.uk extension rather than a .biz or .info.
Using hyphens in your domain name. Hyphens are used to separate words in some domain names but they can also confuse people because most Internet surfers don’t expect to see them.
Using unnatural abbreviations. People often want to abbreviate their business name to use as their website address. When you abbreviate your business name to use as your domain name you risk confusing customers, as most people don’t know how you will abbreviate it. Just spell out your business name - or keep it just short enough so that it still makes sense.
Not using a keyword in your domain name. This is probably more of an issue for businesses that ship nationwide or globally than it is for very small or micro businesses that deal locally. If you want to ship your products UK-wide or internationally, you’ll want your business to be found by search engines. Put a keyword in your domain name and the search engines will pick it up and give the site a higher ranking.
Not making the domain name easy to remember. Let’s suppose your business name is taken. What will be your next move? Ours would be to find a catchy phrase that people will remember easily. Then people can type in the phase and try and find you that way.
More and more
Almost 16.5 million households in the UK now have internet access, an increase of 1.2 million since 2007, the latest official figures show.
