SCentral - Profile

An interesting post. I was trying to explain this to my wife just this morning, but I'm sure she thinks I'm just getting lazy when I talk about not being able to make the business work because I'm too busy working in it.

This is close to my heart at the moment as I've been searching for funding for two seperate projects.

Both would require employing people, both show strong cash flows and one even has unencumbered land as collateral. I still can't seem to get anyone to part with any cash though.

It would appear that such government incentives follow the same rules as the banks; you can only have it if you don't actually need it.

I had an admin day.

It was planned as a short day, since everyone else was on hols but turned out I'd rather more admin backlog than I thought.

Thank you to all who contributed here.

As a website design company we obviously have the necessary skills to deal with SEO and link building etc. but I was hoping to short cut the usual 'suck it and see' approach necessary to try out new advertisng routes.

My own experience of newspaper advertising, as I was once employed as an advertising salesman for a daily newspaper, is that its effectiveness has been diluted by online options. But it doesn't hurt to get corroberative evidence from other sources.

As for online ads; there are now so many options that I suppose I was hoping someone would come forward and say "I've used this and it was great". Adwords appears to be the only option that has merited that type of response.

Looks like I'll be contacting them to see about a voucher.

Actually I think allowing staff to use the internet for personal reasons is totally acceptable and can even increase productivity.

Whatever job a person does, they have a certain amount of work to do in a day. That level should be set by their manager regardless of other considerations.

It is my experience that, as a general rule, people gradually become complacent and over time will do as little as possible for their wage. By introducing an extra reward it is possible to motivate them to focus on the job in hand.

If staff are informed that so long as all their work is completed on time and in a satisfactory manner, the rest of their time may be spent in other pursuits, then it is my experience that they will work harder and faster to gain the free time that is offered.

The monitoring should then be on how long it took to perform the necessary tasks.

Using this information, it will be possible to increase the workload gradually, so if the employee wants to maintain the same amount of "free" time, then they will need to work faster or more efficiently.

It is surprising how much more a person can do if the motivation is right.

In my opinion this is just another pointless waste of UK taxpayers money by faceless, unelected european beaurocrats.

Most people who use the internet understand that certain sites will leave cookies for various reasons; some intrusive, but most perfectly innocent.

And like in all things, those who have a sinister motive will continue regardless, but will simply cover their tracks more efficiently.

The main outcome of this rule will be to cause ordinary people more grief and add more annoying junk to an already cluttered internet. However there is also a real danger that some people may feel safer using the internet because they expect to be protected by the new cookie legislation and will be less stringent in their protection methods.

Thanks for your input Richard. When you say display ads, do you mean in your local newspaper? I'm a little confused as you talk about conversion and cpc.

@Azolla. I haven't used google ads yet but it's one of the options I'm considering.

TBH I only have enough cash to do a fair job in one area. I feel that if I try to spread the budget around, there won't be enough to do justice to any of the options.

This is an interesting point and my first thought on reading the title was death.

However, although it wasn't really something I'd given a lot of conscious thought to, I now realise that I've always had the idea that I'll employ a manager to take over my job and semi-retire to somewhere warm.

In fact the whole system I've put in place will make that a relatively simple option.

I doubt I could retire completely as the boredom would drive me insane and I'd also hate to completely relinquish control of my creations, but working when I want rather than when I have to would be nice.

I have a small advertising budget and I'm not sure what to do with it so I'm interested to learn what types of advertising everyone here uses.

Are you still using newspaper or magazine ads and have you noticed their effectiveness waning?

Do you use paid for ads on national listing sites like Yell.com and if so do you think they are value for money?

Do you simply rely on free to advertise sites or do you believe they are a waste of time?

Are there any portals you've tried that worked really well and did you see any significant SEO benefits for your own website?

Are you of the opinion that business type has a direct bearing on different types of advertising effectiveness?

Any info or suggestions will be gratefully received.

I find it interesting that people would actually buy this, as in the show Duff beer is represented as something that turns intelligent people into morons.

Even the name is derogatory.

I know all alcohol has that potential, but you normally see it advertised as making you look cool, not stupid.