Cloud Computing and What It Means to You

One of the buzzwords in IT at the moment is cloud computing. But what is it, how does it affect businesses and what does it mean to you?

What is Cloud Computing?

Put simply, cloud computing represents a new way for businesses to get access to software and services from vendors across the internet using just your web browser. The ‘Cloud’ word comes from the standard diagram symbol used to represent the internet in technical drawings.

The types of services on offer through your web browser include:

• Office applications such as Google Docs, Google Sheets etc...
• CRM and Project Management tools
• Photo and Image Editors
• News and Media services

How does it affect businesses?

The reasoning behind cloud computing is to make systems and services that are usually expensive to invest in and install, much more cost effective and easier to access. Customers do not need to invest in hardware or software licenses. Instead the Cloud service provider will have already made this investment. The advantages are:

• Less cost to you – you are “renting” the use of the software, which is provided as a service by the vendor.
• Less IT support and a shallow learning curve – you are not required to have an IT network or learn how to manage or install software.
• Latest Facilities – You get access to the latest version of the service and generally get free upgrades and options with your packages.
• You pay for what you use – Most vendors provide pricing options that are based on your usage level. Most also charge on a rolling monthly basis.

What do this mean to you?

Cloud computing is a growing phenomenon and is ideally suited to small and medium businesses that want access to professional and useful digital services without investing in IT. All you need is a basic computer and access to the Internet.

There are disadvantages however. Firstly, you can only operate a service when the vendor allows you. If they go offline or decide to shut down their service, you lose access. If your business is dependent on the service then this may add an element of risk.

If you lose access to the Internet (e.g. your broadband goes down) then you cannot access the service. Cloud computing does provide the advantage that you could go to an Internet Cafe or another location and access the service elsewhere.

All you business information involved in the service is stored with the vendor. You have to rely on their security and data protection policies to ensure your information is in safe hands.

The Dangers of Search Engine Optimisation Firms

If you have a website, you may have come across the term search engine optimisation. This is the process by which the information hidden behind your website is altered so search engines like Google and Yahoo can find you. Doing this makes it easier for potential customers to find your website when they search for your services online.

Many businesses put a lot of emphasis into search engine optimisation (or SEO). This is a good thing, but this focus will bring businesses into contact with firms that claim they can make your website appear on page 1 of Google or increase traffic to your website with a monthly fee. These people are misleading you. Let me explain why.

How do search engines work?

Search engine websites like http://www.google.co.uk or http://www.yahoo.co.uk use and store many billions of information records about the all the websites on the internet. This information is to work out what results to show you when you type in a search term. These data records are collected by the search engine through software called “web crawlers”. Only the search engine company has control over how these crawlers look at your website. They employ complex calculations to then show the results of a search on their website based on the information collected.

Only the search engine provider can control how and where your website is displayed in the search results. No one company can manipulate these results or guarantee where you will appear. Some companies have tried in the past, but this causes the website to get blacklisted on the search engine results (sometimes up to 2 years) which makes things even worse. See the Google vs BMW case.

Even if a search engine provider could manipulate results so you do appear high up the results, you cannot guarantee another company in the similar line of business doing the same and beating your result ranking.

What can you do to improve your search result rankings?

While you cannot guarantee where you will appear on the results of a search engine, there are things that can be done to make your website more appealing to the web crawlers. This ensures the search engine gets as much data about your website as possible, giving you the best chance of someone finding your website in the search results.

The top tips to help your website include:

• Modify the website code so that a description and title of your business in shown in the title of each page
• Add code into your website that lists related keywords and descriptions to your business
• Modify the website so that important text headers read correctly and are not in image format
• Check for spelling mistakes within the copy of the website
• Use important keywords in your content across the website
• If you have a large site, use a Site Map written in a special XML format
• Try and get other websites to link to you; this will increase the number of visitors that come to your website which highlights to Google the importance of your business

At Productive Inbox, we always employ these techniques and more in our web design work to help improve your chances of getting your website online. We can also implement these features onto existing websites. If you would like us to review your existing website and to improve your rankings on search engines then contact us for a friendly informal chat and a one-off quote with our recommendations.

IT - How Can It Help You Beat The Recession

Times are hard for businesses. Everyone is looking at cost savings to reduce overheads, and usually the first reaction is to cut marketing budgets and IT expenditure. If done incorrectly, you could seriously jeopardise your business. Done properly and cost savings can be achieved through careful reuse of your existing assets and minimal spend in the right places.

We know a lot of pressure is put on businesses to cut costs wherever possible, but it doesn’t mean you have to make do with any less of a service. See our top 4 tips that can help you:

• Re-assess your current suppliers. This includes your website and email hosting provider, your web design company, and the hardware or software you purchase. There are lots of suppliers willing to give good deals to you without sacrificing your service levels. Get it right and you may even find the levels increase giving you better value for money.
• Spending your budget more efficiently. It’s easy to get carried away spending your cash on lots of nice to have features for your office and business. We’ve all done it, and before you know it you can’t afford the essentials. Instead try and prioritise what things you really need to keep operating in your business. Spending your money on a website to encourage more customers to buy with you maybe more important then you realise.
• Don’t cut your costs totally. A lot of businesses take a knee-jerk reaction to the spending on IT and marketing. This can be a fatal mistake. Without any investment, you risk making your business operation less organised, slower and less effective. It will impact on the service you provide your customers; and with poor customer service comes a bad reputation. Without any marketing spend you stop any way of getting new customers to notice and spend with you. The message here is not to cut costs, but to get the best value out of what you do spend.
• Digitalise your business operations. Your business won’t reach its full potential if you spend most of it searching through pieces of paper looking for old orders and invoices. Let us give you an example. We see customers who still run a paper based booking appointment systems. While on the surface the cost of setting this up is minimal, within a month bookings were getting lost, people within the business couldn’t read the hand writing of the appointments and there was no coherence between the booking and the details of the customer (because this was stored in filing cabinets in a separate room). All this adds to your stress and your employees, wasting time and money. Moving your appointment system across to your own simple database system means all your information is together in one place. The system does all the hard work, the searching, the checking of appointments and even the communication.

How can Productive Inbox help you? We provide a series of great products and services that can help you get the most out of your money. Our consultancy services help you re-asses your businesses needs and what elements of IT you can improve, get rid of and re-supply with more cost effective suppliers.

We also provide great website and bespoke development services to help you automate those manual processes.

Productive Inbox is a great partner to have with your business, whether you are an one man band or have 250 employees+.

Read more about us here

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