Archive for August, 2009

Have Web Contact Directories Had Their Day?

Monday, August 31st, 2009
.tel is an exciting new development. Unlike the existing offerings it has the support and approval of all of the major NICs (top level domain name registrars). It is this coupled with its global availability and highly consistent format which makes it very likely to succeed. In fact, with that level of support there is an element of certainty about it.

  • No need for a new web site
  • All your details in one place
  • Edit your own details in real time
  • Viewable immediately

There are many web based directories which charge you lots of money for inclusion. Even the lower cost ones add to the overall bill to be listed in all the places you need to be. Each emphasises its value for your particular target audience. But how effective are they really? Some of our customers have subscribed to Yell among others and report few if any responses. Even the best results do little more than cover costs. Well it now looks as if those directory days are numbered. We should not mourn their passing. Many were well intended, others were merely money making ideas, effortless cash cows, for their owners. Yet more were attempts to transfer what were useful old fashioned paper based directories to the web.

Put simply, the new .tel domain a way of having all of your contact details in one place so people can easily get in touch with you. There’s information including a video on how to use it in business and a video about use by an individual. Click here but follow the greyed out information for businesses link and not the blonde! Unless, of course, you are interested on an individual level.

You can put as much or as little information in as you wish. We have only entered the the most basic of our contact details so far on ours but we can add or change information and it will be updated in real time. We will not be adding anything which puts us at risk of being defrauded or having our identity stolen such as bank account details, credit card numbers or home addresses. You are strongly advised to follow that example.

As with the existing directories, no web site is needed. .tel is already web based. You can have multiple profiles and you can even go in and edit, for instance, the mobile or other contact number for the duty support person in your team. There is a private section where you can issue a password and username to people you know may look for you, to protect confidential information or sensitive contact details.

For £15 plus VAT per year, you can have your contact details in one place and everybody will be able to find you. This will become the recognised way to stay in touch and to be found. Book yours quickly before it goes. Don’t forget it is first come first served. Cyber squatters are already believed to be taking a keen interest. If somebody already has a different version of your site name, or the one you first wanted, grab the .tel version before someone else does. If you are already in possession of your favoured domain names, protect them and add to their SEO value. Keywords can be added to your .tel domain name. Register yours and Google continues to be your friend.

Do we sell them? Of course we do. Get in touch via our website to book yours today.

Tags: ,
Posted in News Items | No Comments »

How Green Is My Postroom?

Monday, August 31st, 2009
If you can find simple, low cost and no cost ways to save time and to save money doesn’t your business benefit? Especially in times of recession and financial constraints?

Many people today are genuinely concerned about threats to our survival presented by global warming, carbon pollution and other environmental matters. Which means it is quite legitimate to let them know you are aware of their concerns and are doing something.

If you can then find a way to turn your new-found frugality to promotional and public relations advantage, why not?

All good reasons for following the tips below to

Save Money, Save Time, Improve Your PR

Which parts of our activities can we save money on? How much will we save? Where can we benefit in our pubic relations, advertising and sales efforts? Do we save management time or staff time? How do we go about it?

There are a number of areas you can save both money and time, mostly administrative. For instance:

  • Postage
  • Printing
  • Packaging and labeling
  • Bank charges
  • Stationery
  • Courier services

The amounts of each will depend upon your current spend and the time taken for each. Unless you are already maximising use of your existing technology in each area there will be at least some saving and an opportunity to tell your market place that you are employing environmentally friendly practices in your daily activities. Let your audience know by telling them in:

  • Advertising Footnotes
  • Email Footers
  • Your Printed Stationery
  • Press Release Footnotes
  • Online Publications
  • A Statement on Your Web Site

To some of your potential customers this will be a significant element among all those messages you give out telling them yours is a business worth dealing with.

From now on, instead of printing and posting invoices, proposals, reminders, cheques, anything you would normally send by post, stop and think first. Is it practical to send that as an email attachment? If not, why not? Remember the software is already at your disposal. You can convert to PDF format with most documents and send them quite safely.

Timely and Safer, Too

Are you late sending that document? Are you afraid of missing the deadline? Emails generally take moments to arrive at their destination once sent. It is very easy to ask for confirmation of receipt by either telephone or email. It is also very easy for your IT department or hosting service for the smaller business, to sort it out quickly if there is a problem. This level of tracking and audit trail is simply not available with traditional post and you need never miss another deadline.

How about the element of trust, inevitably lost when a cheque goes missing in the post? Do you really believe that’s what happened, or do you question in your own mind whether the sent it? Your suppliers feel exactly the same way. With electronic payments if a payment you make goes astray you call your bank and they push it through in a matter of a couple of hours. Your relationship with your supplier is unharmed. For a payment inwards, you ask the customer to call their bank. A couple of hours later you can see the money in your account. Confidence is restored all round.

In conclusion, with a few clicks you have saved an awful lot of stamps, paper, ink, envelopes, signing, trekking to the postbox, bank charges and valuable staff time. Few banks charge for electronic transactions. On a business account most charge you both for drawing cheques and for paying them in. For the smaller business this is what internet banking is all about.

For the larger business postroom costs are a serious overhead. Proportionately even more serious savings are to be gained using these methods. You probably have BACS facilities already. Why not extend them for smaller and irregular payments? For almost any level of large business transactions, serious money can be saved over any reasonable period.

Make Your Life Easier

These are just a few of the more obvious ideas which spring to mind. Every business is different. Take a little time out to analyse your own company’s processes and work flow. Use this as an opportunity to identify areas for further savings and PR openings. We believe it will also make life that little bit easier for you and your staff.

Your Correspondents Can Gain, Too

Do your correspondents require multiple copies of what you send them? Are they having to photocopy for distribution or scan for electronic use? Why not make their lives significantly easier by sending documents, audio clips, video clips as email attachments? Your correspondents will appreciate your consideration. They will be able to distribute and reproduce far more easily. You will enjoy improved working methods and cost savings.

Posted in Money Saving With IT | No Comments »

Keywords & How To Find Them

Monday, August 31st, 2009

It seems keywords are the jargon of the web these days. Everywhere we look somebody is telling us we have to use our keywords, we need to write keyword rich pages, load our links, our headings, our everything with keywords. Our online adverts need to use the right keywords or they won’t work, we’re told.

But what, exactly, are keywords? Doesn’t it mean expressions as well as words, or have I misunderstood something? Will our website make sense to our visitors if we fill it with words designed to attract search engines? What about all the other businesses using the same or similar words, how can we all be different?

Keywords are the expressions people type into their browser search bar when they are looking for something on the web. Which means it can be anything from unhelpfully vague to absolutely precise. Our keywords, the ones we use on our web sites, are our best guesses at what people looking for our products or services may type into that search bar.

Somebody new to using the web looking for a book might type in the word “book” and hit the search icon. Try it. You will get something near one and a quarter billion responses using Google. Perhaps you should narrow it down a little? A search on the keyword book will give you responses regarding actual publications, booking to go on holiday or anything else you can book as well as being booked by an official for an offence.

Someone else may know exactly what they are looking for including the book’s publisher. They may type in “CSS Cookbook O’Reilly” and be offered only 120,000 pages with the most relevant right at the top. Clicking on the O’Reilly link to the relevant page on Monday 20 April 2009 shows it is out of print. You need to buy the new version.

We have gone from a confusing mire of over a thousand million pages to choose from to a clear and concise way to find exactly the information we need

Visit our website for more on keywords and how to find the ones you need for your website, inward links and Google Adwords campaigns.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Web Site Marketing | No Comments »

Securing Your IT

Monday, August 31st, 2009

Stop Watch Web Director Mike Goodman addressed the Federation of Small Businesses on the matter of IT Disaster Prevention and Recovery. Here he addresses some of the main points raised both in the problems reported by the audience and the advice and facts given in the talk.

The Main Points
There were two points which were stressed over and over again:

  1. When a small or medium enterprise suffers seriuos data loss 80% of them never recover. They go out of business, mostly within a matter of a few weeks.
  2. Get a bckup copy off site.

Plan Carefully
The important thing is to have two strategies in place and to act upon them. The first is all about disaster prevention. Taking adequate security measures to prevent theft of data and careless loss of data is paramount. Most data loss, more than half, is engineered internally. That means disgruntled or careless staff or others with access to your premises and equipment. It is very easy to put a memory stick into a USB port and download a list of clients or other important data.

The second strategic factor is to plan for what happens when your prevention measures fail. How will you recover? How long will it take? How can you best phase your recovery plan so the mission critical data is operational first? The linchpin of such a strategy has to be yuor backup routine. You need a backup copy on site for quickest recovery, such as after a hardware or software failure. You also ned to know how you will replace hardware. Who sells hard disc drives in your close proximity? Where can yuo get a new computer if the one with the important data on is stolen? You also need an off site copy. If your uilding is sdestroyed by fire, flood, subsidence, you need a plan in place to set up in alternative accommodation. Your existing resources may not be available to you.

Test Your Plan
Will your strategy work in practice? Waiting until a disaster happens to find out is not a wise strategy to adopt. Test the plan thoroughly. Your Business survival may depend upon it.

Some Practical Tips
If you have several computers within your organisation it can be best practice to network them together using a server. The server can hold all the data and act as a file server and collaboration software repositary. This gives you one central point for backup operations and is the easiest and most efficient to organise. Linux is a very efficintt server platform and is also free. All you need is the hardware to install it on.

Add a tried and tested backup software application such as Amanda or Bacula and you cannot go far wrong. These applications help you set up an efficient routine for backing up. There is a fuller but not exhaustive list of Open Source and proprietary backup software at wikipedia. I strongly recommend you pay a visit and get your routine started. If you need help setting up and supporting a server to do the job please do get in touch. We charge for the service, but then that is how we earn our living.

For much smaller operations such as the single computer owning sole trader, it is often as easy as deciding what to back up, how often, and to use portable media such as memory sticks, writable CDs or DVDs or portable hard drives. Be consistent and back up to a proper, regimented routine. What is important is that the backups are made and one copy is taken off site.

Getting a copy off site can be done either by removable media or you can use an online backup service. If you have a lot of data do bear in mind that it can take an awfully long time to initialise an online service. Upload speeds on ADSL are far far slower than download speeds.

One final piece of advice: when changing the software you use for any purpose, ensure old data which needs to be kept can be moved onto an accessible platform before it becomes obsolete. Discovering a few years or even months down the line that your old data is no longer accessible can have very similar effects to losing it or having it stolen.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in IT Security | No Comments »

East or West? Which IT is Best?

Wednesday, August 5th, 2009

This article has been moved to the Stop watch Consulting blog.

Posted in Consultancy | No Comments »