Content has become one of those buzz wordy sounding things that it is trendy to bash, marketers can be very quick to channel their inner hipster in this way. Content marketing could be cast as crusty and old fashioned in the light of more technical, data driven ‘new age’ marketing techniques, but maybe all it needs is a bit of a polish. The reputation of content marketing has been dented, not because of it not ‘working’, but because a big chunk of the advertising industry has forgotten how to use it. You will have seen this in sponsored articles that are little more than text based adverts and sales features that look like they came straight from a brochure. To really work, content marketing has to be better than this. Content marketing now has to be useful; it has to be interesting, engaging or entertaining in some way. To cut through all the fluff pieces that usually sit under sponsored content banners good content marketing has to be…well… good. Content marketing should also not just be about words: video, photos and infographics all have a valuable part to play. Being ahead of the curve, we are transforming the way we create content marketing. Starting with a process of topic modelling, we are able to take a subject and research questions being asked online. Questions that start with ‘How do I…’ or ‘What is the best…’ can bring some interesting and useful answers. Good content marketing delivers expert answers to these questions and maybe even asks the questions in the first place. One of the things we have seen with our new content marketing approach is that it really does deliver results. It builds awareness, delivers visibility on search engines, it builds reputation and interaction on social channels and it really does deliver new customers. Done right content marketing is a really valuable, relevant and effective piece of the marketing puzzle.
Liftshare CEO calls transport sector’s efforts to reduce emissions ’embarrassing’ live on BBC Breakfast television
Liftshare Founder and CEO, Ali Clabburn, was interviewed on BBC Breakfast in the run up to the forthcoming General Election.
Speaking at the John Innes Centre in Norwich for the BBC’s flagship morning news programme’s coverage of how national issues are effecting business, Ali was invited onto BBC Breakfast to give his opinion on what government should be taking about when it comes to transport.
“Sadly transport is now THE most emitting sector. It produces more emissions than any other sector. The energy sector has reduced emissions by 60% in the last 20-30 years and the transport sector has done nothing and it’s embarrassing really.
There are plenty of things we could do right now to overcome this problem and sharing a is a key solution.”
Asked for his views on what he wanted politicians to be talking about, Ali said, “I want to see them stop pushing things off into the long grass, particularly when the environment is concerned. We’ve got solutions now that could help within the next 2-5 years. They should be investing in Future Mobility Zones across cities in the UK to start getting public and private sectors working together to solve these problems.
Things like more car sharing, more cycling, more walking, more car clubs in cities can help solve the problem really quickly, and if we can get it done now we can really start reducing the emissions and improve the air quality in our cities.
We’re killing 40,000 people due to air quality issues and we can solve it now.”
Branding your business is worth the effort. The colours and images that you use regularly will reinforce your company and what you do in your customers’ minds. And if you’re lucky they will begin to associate your brand colours with your business. Think about brands that use specific shades of purple or the Royal Mail and their shade of red. When you’ve spent the time and money on sending out information or communications by post you need your envelopes to stand out and using coloured envelopes is a perfect way.
Make an Impact on the Doorstep
You’ll want your business’s communication to stand out from all of the other mail your potential customer has received. An envelope in an unusual colour with an unusual finish, like a pearl or shiny finish, will be different. If you use the same coloured envelopes, then your customer will know that it’s from you before they’ve looked any closer.
Brand Association with Coloured Envelopes
If you are consistent with your approach and use the same few colours for all of your advertisements and communications you will claim those colours in your customers’ minds. This is especially true if you are focusing on your local area as you can have a big impact with only a little effort by using a well-planned brand strategy. All of your communication with your customers needs to be in the same format with the same colours, the weight of paper and paper and envelope finish.
Think About a Brand Envelope Size
Your official branded envelopes need to be the same size as well as the same set of colours. Consider what you are sending out and ensure that the envelope is the correct size and think about keeping the same size as a standard across your business. An unusual shape of envelope, such as square rather than a rectangle, will add to the impact of your mail along with the colour.
Envelopes to Protect the Contents
Once you’ve put all that time and money into working out the perfect set of brand colours and writing an ideal mailshot you need to protect the contents. If you’re sending out something that is easily damaged, use a bubble wrap lined envelope or one with a cardboard backing to prevent bending. No matter what you’re sending have it all in the same coloured envelopes to unify your brand and keep your business at the forefront of your customers’ minds.
Freebridge Community Housing’s Placeshaping Team has again teamed up with the East of England Apples and Orchards Project alongside national charity Garden Organic to breathe new life into the garden at the Discovery Centre in North Lynn.
Following on from work with the East of England Apples and Orchards Project to plant a number of apple trees for a new community orchard in the village of Great Massingham earlier this year, this new planting sees Freebridge working with the Orchards Project and Garden Organic to revitalise the outside space at the Discovery Centre in North Lynn.
Director of Housing at Freebridge Robert Clarke said “Freebridge’s vision is to support a better West Norfolk, so in addition to all the work we do in developing and maintaining good quality homes we know that we need to join with partner organisations to work on projects to help improve the communities that people live in across the borough.
“We’ve completed a lot of work on improving and updating the Discovery Centre buildings in the last six months which has been great to see, so we thought that now would be a good opportunity to do some work with alongside some of our partners in preparing the garden for the year ahead.”
Volunteers from Garden Organic will be continuing to look after the garden at the Discovery Centre with help from Family Action who run support sessions for local families from the Centre on Friday mornings. Family Action will also be offering a number of horticulture training courses delivered from the Centre details of which will be available soon.
For more information on what’s happening at the Discovery Centre, please contact the Placeshaping Team on 01553 667777 or email [email protected].
Having a clean home or working area is a very important aspect of everyday life. Mainly, it makes the place where you spend most of your time look neat and comfortable to live in. Secondly, it is a lot healthier if the quarters you dwell the most are clean.
Whether we are talking about an office area, a commercial place or even your home, cleaning it thoroughly is necessary. This needs to be done on a regular basis and we don’t mean just taking out the trash, we do mean some thorough scrubbing. Your area of work sometimes needs a professional touch and you will not have always a lot of time to clean out your house because of work.
Enter professional cleaning services! There are a lot of benefits to hiring a service that will take care of all the hard stuff for you. Office areas will benefit from it as it will make your place of work look professional and acceptable for your clients.
Commercial areas often need a touch up as they deal with a lot of materials that can leave you with a lot of debris. Professional disposal may work better and you will not have to deal with it by yourself. Finally, if you are constantly busy with work and everyday life affairs, cleaning is probably the most difficult thing on your task list. Fortunately, the UK has some great companies that provide office cleaning services which can take care of your working space. You can even have them come by at designated hours so you can organize your other affairs.
These are just some of the benefits that professional cleaning service can offer you. But let’s look at it in a more profound way. We promise you that once you learn more about the advantages that professional cleaning offers you will not hesitate to hire one.
Professional Tools and Equipment
Every professional needs its tools. Professional cleaning services come with their own equipment that regular people do not own. This is one of the biggest advantages that they pose compared to regular cleaning that every one of us can do. This raises the cleaning level too much greater heights and will also get the job done much faster. You will immediately notice how different it is when a place is cleaned with special tools compared to regular cleaning appliances.
Most importantly, special tools and equipment can allow the cleaners to deal with some harder problems. If you have a certain situation which is impossible to deal by yourself, a cleaning company that comes with their own special equipment will resolve the issue in no time.
Environmentally Safe Cleaning Services
Most of the companies that are present in today’s market provide eco-friendly services. This is mostly because of the current laws. All of the companies involved in cleaning and removing waste need to conduct their business according to a certain code. Safe disposal is what makes the face of most cleaning companies. Additionally, most companies pride themselves in being able to remove the waste safely and dispose of it without damaging the environment.
If you are an environmentally-aware person and are trying to protect the environment, you should make sure that your waste is disposed of in such a way. No matter how the area you are personally, professionals can still do this type of disposal better than you. So no matter the waste you have and no matter the place that has to be cleaned, professional cleaning services will employ a safe removal method which will, in turn, be safe for the environment.
Trained Staff
The staff that you have working fro a professional cleaning company is specifically trained for that purpose. So let’s say that you are an amateur athlete. You train every day and can run fast and jump high. But one day you just so happen to have the opportunity to play against a professional athlete who has all the current technology of the world and professional training facilities available to him. You are fighting a losing battle.
The same thing goes with cleaning. No matter how well prepared you are and how importantly you view regular cleaning a professional will always be able to do a better job than you. This is particularly beneficial for office areas where you meet your clients. Having a professional cleaner arrange your office space will make the company look professional in the eyes of the clients.
Tudor Lodge Consultants are currently working with Nineteen5 to help boost their visibility in the online world. Nineteen5 are a company that offer dynamic marketing and design services for businesses; this includes branding in addition to digital, print and presentation design. We help to boost their online visibility through our team of trained professionals, implementing various different SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) strategies to help bump up their rankings with Google. Tudor Lodge Consultants have achieved this through various different SEO tactics, including the following:
Getting new links – one of the many ways in which we have been helping to promote Nineteen5 online via Google is by acquiring links from reputable, trustworthy websites. In getting these new links for Nineteen5’s website, we have helped to build up a trustful reputation of the site, thereby making it easier to crawl and improve the position of the site on the search engine’s rankings.
Keyword research – we also took the time to understand and develop a list of our client’s prioritised keywords, and made sure that these keywords were included and fully optimised on the site through such methods as meta-titles and descriptions, including internal links, writing up image alt-text as well as creating dedicated landing pages.
Creating new landing pages – another great way to help in building up a distinctive and reputable online presence is through landing pages. This not only helps to show that the business has a wealth of knowledge within their chosen area, but also helps in optimising a site. We optimise the landing pages by structuring them to be relevant topics that also include H titles (e.g. h2s) and internal links. Including these features into the structure of a landing page can help to get it picked up by Google’s algorithms, improving the site’s rankings on the search engine.
Palpitations, sweaty palms, a sudden pounding in your head – it can mean only one thing: the threat of an impending visit from a regulator.
The recent <a ll undertake a review of your insurance programme to give you peace of mind against unexpected regulation inspections – 01603 218000 or email [email protected].
On January 14 2020 Microsoft switched off support for Windows 7. This means there are no longer software updates, security updates or technical support for any issues you encounter. This leaves your Windows 7 PC, and your business vulnerable. If you are still running Windows 7 on your business PC, you have a greater risk of viruses and malware.
At Breakwater IT, we recommend upgrading to Windows 10 as soon as possible. With Windows 10 you get built-in, ongoing security protection, increased efficiency with a faster, better connected PC and upgraded preferences to give you a unique work style. Whilst you can make the switch to Windows 10 on your older device, it is recommended to upgrade your PC as those originally built with Windows 7 are running 10-year old technology. Ageing PCs should be replaced with their newer, faster, more lightweight and powerful equivalents. A new PC will enable you to take full advantage of the latest capabilities a modern operating system such as Windows 10 has to offer. Microsoft have provided some handy tools and tips to aid you in the transition to Windows 10:
Back up your files and photos to OneDrive or to an external hard drive. Learn more.
Get tips on Windows 10 – offering free tips and tutorials on how to use it. Learn more.
Download the new Microsoft Edge and sign in to easily transfer your ‘Favourites’ to any Windows 10 PC. Learn more.
Support for Office 2010 will end on October 13 2020. If you haven’t made the switch yet, get in touch with our expert team at Breakwater IT today to discuss your transition to Windows 10 and how we can support you through the journey.
Tudor Lodge Consultants are working with Alex James London, a photography business specialising in Fashion Editorial, Fashion Commercial, Portraits and also Moving Image. With our team of SEO professionals, Tudor Lodge Consultants have been helping to promote the online visibility of Alex James London by improving their site’s rankings on Google.
Improving Google’s ranking of a site can be done through a range of different SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) tactics. We have implemented a range of these different tactics to improve Alex James London’s position on the search engine’s rankings, including the following:
Fixing up the site
One of the many ways in which we help to optimise a site is to conduct a site clean-up, also known as fixing up the site. In this process, our team ensure that all meta-titles and meta-descriptions have been fully optimised with the correct keywords for the site. The keywords for the site were discussed with the clients, and have been fully integrated throughout to ensure effective optimisation.
Keywords are integrated into a site for optimisation through, as previously discussed, meta-titles and descriptions, as well as via the internal links between pages in the site. In addition to this, we ensure that pages include internal links, and that all of these internal links are working and load as smoothly as possible through fixing response codes.
We have also ensured that the image-alt text for all media in the Alex James London website is fully optimised. By conducting a site clean-up, Tudor Lodge Consultants has helped to make this client’s site easier for Google to crawl, thereby helping to bump up its position in the search engine’s rankings.
Maintaining the Alex James London design
Whilst conducting this optimisation, we have also had to ensure that the images and overall design of the site maintains its stunning artistic feel.
Authority
To strengthen the Alex James domain, we have looked for link opportunities across other business, arts, photography and news site. Every link back to the site is like a recommendation in Google eyes and we use a combination of links to the homepage (hyperlinking the brand name) and exact words like ‘fashion photographer’ to create a good balance and maximise the site’s authority for Google search results.
The England and Wales Court of Protection has recently set out guidelines for persons appointed as Attorneys under a Lasting Powers of Attorney (‘LPA’) to use when deciding whether they can spend the donor’s funds for the benefit of other parties.
These guidelines have been presented by the Court of Protection in the form of a decision tree, setting out the thinking process to be followed in the day-to-day context of a lay person acting as Attorney, making arrangements for management of the funds and contemplating whether they can use the donor’s funds to benefit someone else.
Dawn Parkes, Private Client Specialist and Hatch Brenner Managing Partner commented: “The decision tree produced by the Court of Protection will form a very useful tool for Attorneys who may be considering the correct actions concerning gifting. It is often assumed by Attorneys that they cannot benefit themselves or give away donor money, but there are exceptions to this. If the donor has habitually given funds to charity, or passed on monetary gifts to family members, friends or the Attorney themselves, perhaps at Christmas, it is acceptable for the appointed Attorneys to continue to use the donor’s funds to benefit someone other than the donor, providing there are enough funds available.”
Click here to read more information about Powers of Attorney and to find the decision tree as a downloadable pdf file.
For any queries relating to Lasting Powers of Attorney, or gifting, please contact Hatch Brenner Managing Partner Dawn Parkes on 01603 660 811 or at [email protected]
Trading Standards has received details of Coronavirus (COVID19) related community scams. We will continue to issue alerts through our email service and social media channels of any scams or information we receive so this can be shared within communities.
To see our recent alerts and subscribe to our emails visit www.norfolk.gov.uk/scams
To find us on Facebook visit www.facebook.com/norfolktradingstandards
To like us on Twitter visit www.twitter.com/NorfolkCCTS
You can report scams you receive to us, via our partners, the Citizens Advice consumer helpline on freephone 0808 223 1133 or through their online reporting form.
We are also recommending that everyone completes the quick and simple Friends Against Scams online training. This allows everyone to better understand and spot scams, and recognise when people are being scammed in our communities.
You can find out more and access the training at www.norfolk.gov.uk/friendsagainstscams and become more scam aware.
The Making Tax Digital deadline for the June VAT return is fast approaching – if you are not already signed up and registered you need to act fast. There is currently a potential delay between people signing up to MTD and being able to then submit their MTD return. Once you sign up to file your MTD VAT return you need to wait for a message from HMRC with confirmation that you’ve been signed up, this will also include your VAT number. Normally this message will be received in 72 hours, however on some occasions this is taking up to 6 days to come through, and until the message is received the return cannot be submitted. The returns are due by 7 August, so if you have not yet done this, please do make sure you act now. If you have any questions or concerns please do contact us.