OSWS - Profile

I want to know where January went?  It passed me by in the blink of an eye!
Can only hope February is a little less manic, otherwise I'll begin to panic, life is speeding up  . . or maybe I'm just slowing down!!

I think Emilie may be trying to get to grips with Woocommerce having just taken another look at HorseboxBits. It is in the process of a makeover but very much in the early days of a redesign. 

Originally Posted by Steve Richardson

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<snip>....Have many others moved over now to Windows 10? If so are you happy with it, or is it no different to Windows 8 or any other operating system? ie as long as your apps work, you're happy.”

Having made the move I can't notice any discernible benefits once the initial shiny new system syndrome wears off. I thought about installing the Shell on top as it is SO ANNOYING to find Microsoft have yet again hidden all of their useful core system utilities under a new menu layout but felt that beat the purpose of the upgrade. Thank goodness for Windows key+X!

Yes, I agree Steve.  For any business considering whether to invest in social media as a means of promotion it's worth reading this post on the merits of various social media platforms for business by Avinash Kaushik.  For those who don't know the name, Avinash is a web analytics expert, and former Google employee. Most SMEs don't have a fraction of the following of major brands so bearing in mind the ability to scale up your 'social-voice' its a tough nut to crack and achieve any form of ROI.

Yes, page rank has long been a dead dodo.  Its a little harsh suggesting PageRank score ruined the web (SearchEnglineLand's lead in) as it was (and is) the cumultative effort of SEOs seeking to leverage search engine algorithms to boost their / clients website rankings.  I think it will be interesting to see whether content marketing survives in its current form over the next few years.  The volume of content being created in an effort to boost search rankings is simply building a vast volume of (mostly) average and sub-standard information, with little ROI and little prospect of attracting customers. At some point people will realise for the most part they are putting the metaphorical cart before the horse and actually start pruning, focusing and improving their quality of their content, but I don't think the point has sunk in for most marketers yet.

I find the junk button avoids receiving this kind of email ;)

Hi Richard and thanks for the welcome.  I agree, review platforms such as CheckATrade and Feefo offer similar options to an extent - in that you can only leave reviews if you have used the business / traders service.  The model you use for Edinburgh Trusted Trader is perhaps the ideal but from experience it difficult encourgaing smaller traders to buy-in.

BTW, I am surprised ETT covers costs as the rates look reasonable (compared to some alternatives) - is the Edinburgh scheme subsidised?

In addition to Steve's comments I would also suggest taking a look at your website.  When people visit, does it sell your product / company? Will 'horsey' people (sorry for the term!) immediately warm to it and want to explore more? Is it really search engine friendly? A little bit of upfront investment with a redesign may pay for itself with improved sales.  What do you think?

Good! That is, it is good to see that the US Courts took this stance.  Of course this is a limited victory in the fight against false and fake reviews, helped by the fact that a) the Couple were based in the USA and b) they crossed the line to libel which gave the courts power to act. Defaming the wife's lawyers might have also been a driving factor!

The larger issue is the ever increasing volume of fake and 'paid for' reviews plagueing overwise genuine online review sites and marketplaces such as Amazon.  While fake negative reviews can be combatted to some extent (if your can prove he review to be false or misleading) positive reviews are seldom flagged.  A certain amount of scepticism is healthy when checking reviews, as the saying goes 'buyer beware' but it is a shame that a genuinely useful online resource is being spoilt by those who seek to manipulate the process.

Fortunately, with machine learning improving and more sophisticated algorithms becoming available a large number of fake reviews can be filtered out but it is far from a precise science.

I have also seen another issue, that of mis-appropriated reviews.  A client with a similar name to a larger regional organisation received a number of bad reviews on Trustpilot, simply because siad client shared a similar trading name as their larger competitor.  What you do to combat that I don't know!  Fortunately the reviews were spotted and manually removed (& reassigned) by Trustpilot as it was easily proved the person leaving the review had picked the wrong company.