On Saturday the 16th of April 2011 the poker community was shocked by allegations of serious fraud.
Three of the largest online poker businesses were indicted with allegations of fraud. This wasn’t a typical case of fraud – the sums of money that were claimed to be fraudulent went beyond $3,000,000,000. So what happened, why did it happen, and what warnings does it spell?
US Poker Legislation
Online poker has been banned in the US for the past several years. In the land of the free, people are unable to make the choice to gamble small or large sums of money on internet poker. Of course the demand for online poker meant that legislation was futile and whilst entirely illegal, US citizens continued to gamble through online poker rooms. The three largest online poker rooms that ‘allowed’ US players were PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and the Cereus Network.
Fraudulent Poker Rooms
US players knew that online poker was banned by federal law. The issue was discussed in poker forums across the world and it was often dismissed as a real issue. That was, of course, until the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) looked into the problem. It turned out that the largest poker rooms in the world were allowing US players to deposit in their online poker accounts by tricking the banks into thinking that these players were paying for clothing, gardening equipment and other irrelevant items. By fooling the banks into accepting these illegal transactions, PokerStars and co were able to accept US deposits and cater for the huge American poker market.
It emerged that a poker entrepreneur who had previously been sentenced to prison for over 70 years was put on bail after ‘ratting’ out the fraud committed by these online poker sites.
A Warning to the Business World
When businesses are dealing with billions of dollars it is easy to get caught up in the hype. Online poker has been banned in the US for several years and it was inevitable that the websites who openly catered for these US players would be unstuck. Businesses should seriously consider their long terms goals – as with the financial crisis, it is no longer acceptable for companies to make short term gains at the expense of others. Businesses will get found out eventually.
You can read more about the reaction to poker’s black Friday here.
Where does Social Media fit with SEO?
For a while SEO and Social Media were treated as two distinct strategies. However, with the changes to the Google algorithm over the last couple of years, particularly the resent panda/farmer update, that is notion is a thing of the past.
Social Media and SEO are intrinsically connected and it is actually now quite hard to be successful with one without any kind of input from the other. If I want to have a successful social media campaign and build an active online community online then I need to capture targeted traffic, and where am I going to do that if I have no presence on the search engines?
From the other angle the overlap is even more compelling. Of course everything surround the impact of social media on SEO is ultimately speculative. However, there is widespread consensus (a rare achievement for the SEO community) that social integration and social approval can have a very positive impact on rankings. In particular studies involving Twitter have been carried out that suggested Twitter links have at least as much value as traditional article and blog based links.
LinkedIn Company Profiles are another example of this trend. For example, if I provide SEO in the Leicester area in the UK, then I am up against all the other Leicester Search Engine Optimisation Companies. Google of course wants to provide users with the results from the company that is genuinely the best provider of that service in the Leicestershire areas, then two key factors are the social approval amongst the business community, and whether or not each competing business has a real world, offline presence.
LinkedIn Company profiles achieve this and therefore it makes perfect sense that it would be considered as part of the algorithm.
John Lewis Business Solutions
John Lewis is not your average department store. They have a good and moral values and a history of entrepreneurship. All stores are owned by The John Lewis Partnership, which is made up of the company’s employees. It is no surprise then that John Lewis has launched a number of business solutions for the corporate world.
Workspace solutions:
It doesn’t matter if you run a large company or work on your own from home, John Lewis has something for you. Having a well-furnished and well equipped workspace really does make a difference to productivity and morale .They can provide desks, chairs, computers, TVs, shelves and storage in bulk or as single items. There are a number of discounts available on both bulk buys and delivery options.
Educational solutions:
It isn’t just workspaces that have been considered by John Lewis but the class room too. They have a number of bench style desks, whiteboards and projectors that would be perfect for any training centre, lecture hall or council facility. As well as that they can provide sports gear and solutions for staff rooms, common rooms and kitchens.
Rewards:
Every great business person knows that it is a good idea to reward both your staff and customers. The John Lewis sale offers a number of great items that can be used as prizes in reward schemes and incentives. This could be a hamper, iPod, perfume or even a gift voucher. There are a number of discounts and savings available to commercial customers who purchase large amounts of gift vouchers.
This is only a brief glance into some of the business solutions that are on offer. They do have a full brochure with all of their business solutions included. John Lewis seeks to not only enrich themselves but the community and businesses around them. This is another string to their bow that really lifts them head and shoulders above the competition.
When it comes to your business, you have invested a great deal into whatever it is you do. You have probably put hundreds, or possibly thousands, of hours of your life into your enterprise, and possibly a great deal of financial investment as well. It just makes sense that you take proper measures to protect the investment, and a retail security system is a good one to have in your line up of business protection.
Retail security systems range from basic surveillance and alarm systems, to highly sophisticated systems that address nearly all your retail concerns from loss prevention to explosive detections and intruders alerts. Obviously, not every business needs extreme security measures, but nearly every business can gain from having at least a basic retail security system in place.
Most stores and businesses where there is a great traffic volume will want a surveillance system. This can do two things, record all the comings and goings of your business, as well as any illegal activity. And, in case of customer complaints or safety violations claims, it can offer factual documentation of your establishment’s condition and actions, depending on the complaint, of course.
Another retail security system to consider, namely if you have many small and highly portable items, like a clothing or accessory shop, is a loss prevention system of some sort. There are various tag systems where items are fitted with a tag that will cause an alarm to sound when the item passes a certain point unauthorized.
Do not hesitate to contact a security specialist who can help define the weak or vulnerable areas of your business, and suggest the best methods and products to help secure them. A retail security system tailored specifically for your establishment’s needs is well worth the initial investment, as it protects your business investments long term.
Goal Setting Tools
For businesses, especially SMEs, it is always important to make sure that you have efficient and effective goal setting tools in place. By setting effective goals, you are able to measure the progress and growth of your business and any deviations from these goals can lead to positive restructuring of an organisation. So let’s take a look at the best ways to go about setting goals.
Actionable
When creating a goal that you want to achieve, make sure that you have the actions needed to achieve it in place from the start. Once you have finished setting your goal, there should be something that you can instantly pursue from that very moment.
Realistic
Goals can only ever be constructive if they are attainable and realistic. Being ambitious is great, but being too ambitious will lead to monumental disappointment. Conservative goals are usually the most effective for a lot of people as the end goal doesn’t appear daunting. Don’t set too many goals at once – even modest goals can be unachievable if you set 200 of them!
Pointer: Apply the 20% rule when setting goals; be as ambitious as you can without being too unrealistic and then chop off 20% – this should leave with you a fairly modest, powerful and most of all attainable goal.
Measurable
What is the point in setting a goal if there’s no way of measuring if it has been achieved? The internet has a whole bunch of free goal setting tools that can help you measure your results. For instance, Google Analytics is completely free and gives you exact numbers for different types of goals – perhaps your goal is attaining a certain level of traffic from search? Perhaps it’s the conversion rate of one of your funnels? All of this stuff can be measured online and shared amongst colleagues at absolutely no cost!
If you’re a businessman or woman with a mobile phone, most likely you need mobile phone insurance. Without an insurance plan, your phone has no protection if you drop it, misplace it, somehow get it wet, it gets stolen, or for some other reason goes on the fritz. With a protection plan, your phone will get either replaced or repaired by your insurance provider.
Many people carry around phones that cost a considerable amount of money. And, what’s more, those phones are used for much more than just calls. Phones are mobile internet access, agendas, cameras, and MP3 players, and more. A lot of people are under the notion that mobile phone insurance is too costly for them, and therefore leave their phones uninsured. The fact is that very affordable and comprehensive insurance is readily available and can save phone owners a lot of grief.
Mobile insurance is especially necessary for anyone who has a history of losing or damaging phones, or for those who have high end phones, such as smartphones. The price of a new phone as compared to what you will pay in monthly premiums makes phone insurance seem a very sweet deal indeed! Most good insurance companies will offer a replacement within 48 hours for a phone that is lost, stolen or damaged. An especially appreciated feature of a good insurance plan is the water damage coverage, as well as protection against fraudulent calls made from your phone, should it be stolen.
Every mobile phone insurance plan has different stipulations and their own set of pros and cons, so shop around to see which plan suits your coverage needs. Be sure you establish that the company you are considering going with is a reliable company with a good customer service record. You can do this by looking them up online, or talking to friends and associates.
Lean Manufacturing is a practice that is focused on eliminating any process or procedure that doesn’t improve the end value of a product, or removing anything that a customer would not be willing to pay for. While this does sound obvious, it sometimes takes out-of-the-box thinking to evaluate how a company or organisation is run and producing in order to see if there is a better way. Preserving value while reducing cost is the core element of lean manufacturing.
There are several ways to go about this. Some of the methods can almost be seen as competing methods, as they go about things from opposite perspectives, but the end goal is still eliminating non-value-adding work. Lean manufacturing is basically a set of tools that helps organisations to identify various forms of waste. Some of the tools that are often used are Value Stream Mapping, Five S, Kanban and poka-yoke. These methods focus on eliminating waste, because a waste eliminated improves production time, and eventually reduces an items cost, therefore increasing its value to the customer.
The second method focuses on production flow, keeping things flowing smoothly and evenly and not specifically on waste reduction. So, while these methods may almost seem contradictory, they both do improve the final product, which is the essence of lean manufacturing.
A simple way of summing it all up is that lean manufacturing aims at making work simple to understand, do and manage. A mentoring system has been implemented by some companies, and this has proven a very effective way to help employees to grasp their job, understand their objective and being able to deliver as expected. Other Companies have found that bringing in a coach to help identify areas where improvement could be made has been effective in “leaning” their procedures and improving their products.
Previously we posted about how you can secure your business with Security Cages. This time around let’s look at whether or not you should even consider them!
There are many current and progressive advances in the use of security cages for business, warehouse & packaging, as well as industry that the scope is literally breathtaking. Wire Mesh Security Cage firms employ engineers with fresh innovative approaches capturing up-to-the-minute designs that increase productivity. Crafting equipment, systems and technology to make more efficient use of manufacturing and warehouse space while employing safety features using such cages exhibits breakthrough technology and uses for wire mesh today.
Retail security is another arena to explore when considering using wire security cages. With security products and equipment being costly, they also require no tampering. Using wire mesh or steel cages to protect expensive surveillance and specialized security equipment such as CCTV, video servers, projectors or other electronic devices is lucrative and profitable for retail business owners. When you invest in a business or retail shop, profits are paramount to survival in this economically volatile market, so any equipment that will help to maintain your security and protection is a valuable asset that’s highly touted. This kind of cages fall into the all too important category of first line of defence in stopping pilferage for concerned retail business professionals.
When looking over your business or residential needs, for instance, the size of the area you want to secure is an important factor to consider. If the environment you’re looking into securing is reasonably sized, an advanced wire mesh security cage can be an ideal solution. Larger environments such as a large yard or compound may be far too big and there are other solutions available.
Wire mesh cages are excellent when you considering partitioning off a particular environment to secure it, as security cages offer different constructions and design. Some construction designs include upright cages, mobile cages, permanent structures, as well as shelving designs and small equipment enclosures as is used for housing air conditioning units.
When you’re looking to hire an SEO for your small business, you’re probably unsure of the best way to approach it. There are three real solutions for an SEO campaign and each of them are appropriate for different situations.
Inhouse SEO
The most expensive and the most valuable option of the three. An inhouse SEO works full time for your business and leads the way with SEO strategy and implementation. From keyword research to link building and on-page optimisation, an inhouse SEO will know the ropes and can have a pretty rapid impact on search traffic. If the person hired is very capable and requires little management, you can find that they will always be busy making sure that every hour of every day is well spent. If for some reason they manage to find time that is free, then you can use their knowledge of SEO to teach and train other members of your company.
As with all the other search solutions, you can use some simple metrics to measure the SEO success rate.
Agency SEO
Agencies that provide SEO as a service have suffered years of skepticism. Many companies now offer ‘guaranteed seo’ that actually cannot be guaranteed at all. While other companies bind you into long contracts that can be a drain on finances with no real return. However, now that SEO is more popular than ever – ethical link builders have appeared across the world with huge portfolios of experience to prove their efficacy. As long as you pick a good SEO company, you’ll see these benefits:
An SEO agency is almost always the lowest cost option with very little need for management. Monthly reports allow you to measure success of the SEO campaign and discuss potential changes in strategy. Let’s say you wanted to rank for “SEO Leicester”, by handing this job over to an agency you are able to simply get on with the most important aspects of your business and at the same time dramatically increase traffic.
SEO Consultancy
Consultancy is the option for the more technically savvy business who is able to implement a lot of changes themselves. An SEO consultant will have a huge understanding of the field and therefore some website changes can become incredibly technical. Do you have canonical URL issues? What’s your indexation rate like? Use of dynamic URLS? A good internal link structure? All of these questions are ones that would go over the head of 99% of businesses. Take on a consultant if you are able and willing to make changes based on the gobbledegook above.
It’s true, SEO (search engine optimisation) is the most underrated marketing tool of 2011. Which is a shame because it’s also one of the most valuable and rewarding service for businesses that operate online. After much research, it’s clear that there are a number of reasons why this is the case.
Skepticism
SEO has never had such bad press. With so many people flooding into the business of SEO, the market is filled with a whole lot of unskilled workers who are learning on the job. It’s not something you can just pick up – it’s technical, requires years of expertise and needs a whole lot of creativity. Because SEO requires a substantial investment from the business owner, it’s easy to see why a poor service can give this great opportunity a very bad name.
SEO Guarantees
Guaranteeing SEO results is like guaranteeing the lottery. There is no way to say with 100% conviction that this is where you will be ranking on this date. There are huge external variables that fall outside of the SEO’s control. You should be careful of any SEO company that offers guaranteed rankings (even if includes a money back guarantee!).
Why though? Surely if there’s a money back guarantee it’s risk free? Right?
The above is a common misconception. Some things in SEO require no effort at all. For example, if I say to you here are 5 keywords, if none of them are ranking #1 in 2 months you’ll get your money back! What you would fail to see is that one of these keywords has zero competition – i.e. an obscure keyword that no one has bothered to rank for. And why haven’t they bothered? Because there is no search traffic for that keyword. Great – you’re now #1 for a keyword that has and will have no visible impact on your business; and you can’t get your money back!
If you’re looking for an SEO company then you want to make sure it’s one that is trusted and respected. One that has proven results and doesn’t only care about search traffic but conversions too. When measuring the effectiveness of an SEO campaign, you should be looking at three key metrics:
Keyword Rankings
Organic Search Traffic
Search Traffic Conversion Rate
These three metrics will give you a complete and full understanding of the success of the money you’re paying for SEO.
Related Resources:
SEO Leicester – Training resources and live chat support.
SEO Training – More training resources largely related to SEO.
