5 Nasties That Lurk In Office Carpets Even If They Appear Clean

5 Nasties That Lurk In Office Carpets Even If They Appear Clean

Business Advice /

The phrase ‘seeing is believing’ is apt in many circumstances; however, when it comes to the cleanliness and the hygiene of office carpets, it most definitely does not apply. By that, we mean that if you look at the carpet in an office, see it is clean, and believe that it does not require any carpet cleaning, you could be very much mistaken.

The reason you would be mistaken is that whilst the human eye is a marvel of our physiology, it cannot see the microscopic world within the fibres of a carpet. Were it able to or were you to examine the office carpet using a microscope, you would see that, rather than it is clean and hygienic, it instead plays host to an entire world of microscopic unwelcome guests and requires the cleaning services – Let us examine 5 of these miniature nasties.

Food And Drink

Whether it is coffee drips, small spillages from juice bottles or crumbs from sandwiches and crisps, even with daily vacuuming, some of these remain deep within the fibres of an office carpet. Whilst they stay, they are a magnet for bacteria and mould.

Even the occasional rodent out looking for food scraps could be attracted towards your crumb-filled office carpet, which also means that as nature takes its course, the rodent has to deposit its solid waste somewhere. If that is also on your office carpet, the combination of this and the other nasties we mentioned make your office an extremely unhygienic place to work.

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Improving Your Dental Practice’s Google Ranking With Effective Website Design

Improving Your Dental Practice’s Google Ranking With Effective Website Design

Website Development /

Any dentist who wishes to have a new website created for their dental practice to show off their skills in dental implants, emergency dentistry and teeth whitening – does not necessarily need to know all the fine detail with respect to the technical aspects of building a website. However, it would serve them well if they did have some knowledge of what specific elements constitute a good web design.

The advantages of this would at first allow them to discuss what they want for their website with more clarity, and thereafter be more able to assess how well the web designer had met those objectives. Moving on from that, knowing how web design can impact search engine rankings, is also a huge plus.

If you happen to be a dentist who is, in fact, currently planning a new website, and with that last point about how web design can impact search engine rankings in mind, here are some of the key elements of effective web design to consider.

Ensure Loading Speed Is Minimal

If you have ever clicked through to a website then had to wait any more than a few seconds for it to load, what went through your mind? Most likely it was not wanting to waste your time, and you probably clicked away to find a quicker loading site. Well, that’s exactly what visitors to your website will do if it takes too long to load.

Loading speed is a vital consideration for any website owner that wants good rankings so you must ensure that your web design takes account of this. Too many initial functions and large files are usually the cause, so ensure these are eliminated or at least minimised.

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4 Ways A Business Can Relocate Its Office With Maximum Efficiency

4 Ways A Business Can Relocate Its Office With Maximum Efficiency

Business Advice / , /

Office relocations can happen for all types of reasons. Some can be negative such as a business downsizing due to poor results, but many are positive such as a business expanding, and needing more office space as it employs lots of new staff. Other reasons could be that the lease on a particular office space is expiring and not being renewed. or even that the building that the office is located in is earmarked for demolition.

Relocating to another office can be a considerable project and will most likely require cooperation across a number of departments within the business, requiring business management. There is also the planning and the execution of the move to consider and the potential of lost revenue on the days that office relocation happens, that you will want to minimise.

To give you some assistance in ensuring that everything that you want to happen with respect to your office relocation, happens, and everything you do not want to happen, does not, here are our top tips for an efficient office relocation with the help of office removalists.

Plan, Plan And Then Plan Again

You might have surmised from that sub-heading that we see planning as important, and it most certainly is. The key to your entire office relocation going ahead with as little disruption as possible is how well you plan everything, down to the smallest detail.

If you have departments within your office get each department head to make their own little mini-plan as to what needs to be done in order to move their department. Make updates and alterations as needed throughout the planning stage so that on the day of the move, you are simply checking each stage of the relocation from a checklist as it happens.

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5 Unusual Team Building Activities With Specific Objectives

5 Unusual Team Building Activities With Specific Objectives

Business Advice /

If you are a team leader, if you do even a little research, you should be able to find many unusual team-building activities that you can use to boost, enhance, and motivate your team. While those three objectives we just mentioned are desirable, there are many other benefits that team-building exercises can produce.

As the team leader, this means that before you organise a team-building activity, even one that is considered unusual, you should first determine your goals and objectives for it. Obviously, you want it to be fun for your team, but more importantly, what benefits do you want the activity to produce, and what positive outcomes do you want for your team?

Without first establishing these and then arranging team-building activities that can facilitate your objectives, the activity will be nothing more than a day out, and whilst it may produce some positives, it may not have satisfied the needs of that team as you see it with regard to making it a stronger and more focused team.

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Facebook To Promote A Dentistry Practice

Using Facebook To Promote A Dentistry Practice

Website Marketing / /

If you are a dentist, you presumably have an interest in how your practice or clinic markets itself in order to attract new clients and patients for cosmetic dental procedures. Obviously, the size of your practice may dictate the budget you have for marketing, but in truth, it is not so much the size of your budget that dictates marketing success, but rather, how effectively it is used.

One of the most popular means of promoting dental practices is social media, and the prime social media platform that businesses use to promote themselves is Facebook. As well as being somewhere where family and friends stay in touch and post funny videos and photos, it is also where literally millions of businesses find new customers.

In order to be one of those businesses, the first thing that your dental practice needs to have is its own page. This is basically your own little piece of real estate within the Facebook platform.

To use your page effectively you need to create useful content that you can post there. For a dental practice, these should obviously relate to subjects like oral hygiene, information about looking after teeth and gums, and news about new treatments, to give just three examples.

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Office Needs CCTV

Five Reasons Your Office Needs CCTV

Business Advice / , /

If you own or manage a business, you probably already know just how important it is to have a high-quality, reliable alarm security system. Things like 24/7 monitoring and CCTV surveillance are crucial parts of looking after your business and preventing theft and vandalism.

However, not all businesses have CCTV surveillance or a professional security team included as part of their security system. Generally, this leaves you open and vulnerable to intruders, especially if the rest of your system is neglected or poorly maintained. In the rest of this article, we’ve outlined our top five reasons why you should always install security cameras and/or CCTV to protect your office.

  1. CCTV Reduces the Risk of Theft and Intruders

The simple action of installing visible CCTV cameras can help prevent theft and vandalism of your business premises. Visible cameras are a natural deterrent for intruders and can make burglars look elsewhere for an easier target.

This is logical and our primary reason for installing CCTV around your business. Really, why would an intruder target secure premises when there are so many easier and more vulnerable options out there?

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Terminate an Employee’s Contract

When Can I Legally Terminate an Employee’s Contract?

Business Advice, Legal Advice / /

In Australia, both employee and employer rights are clear and comprehensive. In general, Australian employment law is fair and provides adequate protection for all parties. However, it can also be extremely confusing and figuring out what your rights are can be time-consuming and frustrating, to say the least.

Fortunately, though, the information is readily available. An experienced employment lawyer will be able to help you figure out your exact rights, and it’s often worth spending a little money to hire one if you find yourself stuck in a complicated situation.

Contract termination is one such complication area, so we’ve decided to provide a brief overview of the subject from the employers point of view. With this in mind, let’s have a quick look at when you can legally terminate an employee’s contract.

  1. If There’s a Termination Clause in the Contract

Many employment contracts contain some sort of termination clause that provides a way out for those who want to terminate their employment early. Sometimes, these come into place if a particular event or action happens, or they may be triggered at an employee or employer’s leisure.

For example, a particular employee’s contract could have a clause that allows early termination without penalty if particular performance targets aren’t met. Note that it’s extremely important to read all contracts before signing them to ensure you know about and are comfortable with any clauses or other termination details they contain.

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Using Email

7 Benefits Of Using Email in Your Marketing Plan

Website Development /

If you are not using email marketing as part of your marketing and sale strategies, then we have one simple question to ask you, ‘Why not?’.

Hopefully, the reason is that you simply were not aware of the benefits of email marketing, rather than not believing it can work. We assure you email marketing does work, and in fact, it works wonderfully well for businesses, large and small, and at a global or a local level.

To reassure you if you have doubts, or to educate you if you have not seen what the benefits of email marketing are, here are seven of the most significant which can make the biggest difference to your digital marketing campaign.

Simple To Implement

Of all the online marketing tools or strategies that you might wish to start, email marketing is one of the easiest. At its very simplest, all you need is two email addresses: yours and the person you wish to email.

As a business you’ll obviously want to do it professionally,  so you will use an autoresponder service that allows you to set up your campaigns, run them and measure them, and it does so via one single log in.

Campaigns Can Be Set Up In Advance

The autoresponder service that we just mentioned is one that allows you to create a series of emails and have them delivered at a time and date that is predetermined by you.

What that means is that in a single afternoon you could create all the emails you wish to send, but instead of you having to physically press ‘Send’ for each and every one to go out to your subscribers, the autoresponder does it for you automatically.

That means you could be earning requests for information or sales from the emails you send out, literally whilst you are asleep.

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5 Team Building Mistakes to Avoid

Business Advice / /

If you’re serious about building a successful business or company, you need to make sure that you build a cohesive, functional team of employees. Unfortunately, this isn’t always as easy as it sounds, so you might need to implement some team-building strategies.

However, according to Team Works Development, team building can go seriously wrong if you’re not careful. In our experience, there are a few common mistakes that a lot of team leaders make, and they should be avoided at all costs. The five most common include:

  1. Assuming Everyone Is Equal

Although we shouldn’t have to say this, your employees are not equal. Everyone is different, with unique skills, emotions and learning abilities. Assuming everyone is equal, you won’t take advantage of their unique traits.

Additionally, this assumption can be dangerous because it can lead to some members of your team underperforming and not performing to the best of their ability. Ultimately, assuming every team member is equal is a surefire way not to achieve the results you want.

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eCommerce Plugins

What Are The Best eCommerce Plugins For WordPress?

Website Development / , /

WordPress is, without a doubt, one of the most versatile website builders and content management systems available. It’s great for everything from personal websites to massive eCommerce stores, largely because of its customizability and the huge range of plugins it offers.

If you’re thinking about creating an online store, experienced digital agencies will tell you that you should consider using WordPress. If you do decide to use WordPress, then you should look closely at some of the eCommerce plugins available to entrepreneurs around the world.

I’ve done some research and come up with a list of the best eCommerce plugins for WordPress. They include:

WooCommerce

If you ask anyone who knows anything about WordPress eCommerce, they will tell you that WooCommerce is the best plugin on the market – and it’s completely free to get started!

WooCommerce powers almost 10% of all eCommerce website, and an unproportional number of the most popular sites. It offers a huge range of free features, with premium extensions to expand your store’s functionality.

Since WooCommerce is owned by the same company as WordPress, it integrates perfectly with WordPress website designs. It is very well managed, offers beautiful themes, and lets you add as many products as you want.

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SEO for New Websites

SEO for New Websites on a Small Budget

Website Marketing / /

For business owners who have large or even unlimited budgets, it could be that they overlook SEO and go straight to paid advertising to drive traffic to their website. Alternatively, they might employ the services of a large SEO agency and get them to undertake every ranking tactic in the book. However, not every business starts out with an endless supply of money, so what to do?

SEO Sydney Pro advise that if you are starting a new business, with a new website, and are operating with a small budget, there are plenty of actions you can take in relation to the site’s SEO and subsequent ranking. The key is that you take a logical and planned approach to this so that each tactic you employ, compliments and supports the others.

The first part of the plan should focus on setting up all the technical elements, which using automobile terminology, could be referred to as the workings under the bonnet. You should sign up for, and set up, accounts for Google’s Search Console and Bing’s Webmaster Tools, which you’ll be pleased to know costs nothing. These tools will provide you with lots of essential data to help your SEO activities.

The next step is to create an optimized XML sitemap and submit it to Bing and Google. Before submitting this, you must ensure that your website’s ‘robot.txt’ is set to allow the search engines’ spiders to crawl your website rather than disallowing them. Another element you should have in place is that your website should have an SSL certificate so that it has ‘https’ rather than ‘http’ protocol.

If you have already started building your website and adding content, then there are two additional technical aspects of your website that you should start to implement. One is the linking structure and whilst there may not be many links and URLs in a new website, even at this stage you should be optimising internal links with regards to SEO.

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Drug Rehab’s Search Engine Ranking

5 Simple Things You Can Do To Boost Your Drug Rehab’s Search Engine Ranking

Website Marketing / /

According to SEO marketing company Oxygen Marketing appearing high in the organic search results for relevant keywords should be a priority for every drug rehab facility. The keywords and search terms that you focus on will depend on what sort of services you offer and how big your firm is, but there’s one thing you need to remember:

SEO is about the technical details.

Search engine optimisation is focused on boosting your website’s organic search rankings. You can create the best content in the world and have the best drug rehabilitation website on the internet, but you still won’t rank highly if you ignore the simple technical details.

With that in mind, I’ve put together a quick list of the top 5 things that drug rehabs often forget about when trying to improve their search engine rankings. They include:

  1. Make Sure Your Page Load Times Are Low

People don’t hang around to wait for websites that load slowly. Slow page load speeds are also seen in a negative light by Google and other search engines. It is therefore essential to make sure that you minimise your page load times as much as possible. Choose a fast hosting provider, make sure that you’re following content best practices, and only use plugins when they’re really necessary.

  1. Get Backlinks

The importance of backlinks can’t be underestimated. They are essential for building your website authority and therefore for SEO. Focus on building high quality backlinks through forum posting, online business directory listings, and guest posting.

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Link Building

The Importance Of Link Building For Law Firm SEO

Legal Advice, Website Marketing / , /

Link building is a vital component of SEO for any online business or website. It’s no different for lawyers or law firms who are looking to improve their SEO ranking. In fact, an SEO strategy without link building is very unlikely to succeed simply because backlinks are such a big ranking factor used by search engine algorithms.

But What Is Link Building?

If you haven’t heard of link building before, don’t worry – it’s pretty simple. In fact, it’s almost as easy as creating decent content for your own website. It refers to placing the link to your website on other high authority sites across the internet. This can be done in a number of ways, but the most popular is through guest posting.

The most backlinks that your website has from other sites, the more credible it will appear in Google’s eyes. Well, this isn’t actually completely true, because it’s a bit more complicated than this. Backlinks from other high-quality sites are worth more than backlinks from poor-quality sites, while backlinks from very poor-quality sites could even result in penalties. It is better to have one link from a number of sites than a number of links from one sites, because every new site that links to you will increase your credibility.

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Google Updates

Google Updates and What They Tell Us To Avoid

Website Marketing / , /

Google dominates the internet search engine industry, so if you want your website to be ranked as high as possible, you should pay close attention to what Google says it is looking for. Over the years Google has sought to make its results the very best they can be and in doing so, have introduced several updates in terms of what they see as a positive and negative SEO practices.

Some of these updates had a devastating effect on thousands of websites who saw their ranking plummet overnight. The majority of these were websites whose SEO optimisation techniques had become undesirable to Google. By moving these sites down or out of their results completely Google expected that the people using their search engine where seeing higher quality results.

Here are the main updates Google have introduced in recent years and what they mean in terms of SEO practices.

Panda

Released in 2011, and still part of Google’s primary algorithm, the main objective of Panda was to tackle the number of websites with low-quality and spammy type content. Specifically, it penalised:

  • Content stuffed with keywords
  • Plagiarism and copyright infringements
  • Duplicate content, especially within a website
  • Low word count pages, or ‘thin content’

To avoid any of these penalties you should always ensure that any content on your website is good quality, is original, has at least 300 words, and reads naturally.

Penguin

Whilst Panda dealt with spammy content, a year later Google decided it wanted to address the issue of dubious backlinking practices. They sought out websites whose backlinking profiles were unnatural, and which seemed to be trying to manipulate Google linking algorithm. Penguin’s main targets were:

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Apply For GST

Do I Need To Apply For GST For My Business?

Business Advice / /

When it comes to tax in Australia, it can be hard to get your head around all of your obligations, especially if you are starting your first small business or something similar. Goods and services tax (GST) experts Accountants Australia advise that GST is an area of confusion among a lot of first time business owners, and is something that gets brought up at their offices regularly.

Additionally, contacting a commercial lawyer can help you with your business taxes. GST in Australia is very confusing. Some small businesses have to have it. Some small businesses don’t. So how do you know if you need to register for GST? Basically, it all comes down to how much money you expect your business to turn over each financial year.

Firstly, what is GST?

GST, or goods and services tax, is basically a small fee that the government puts on top of all purchases and sales in the country. It currently sits at 10% of the price of the item, which means that when you sell something, you will actually have to collect 110% of the amount that you actually want to sell it for – if your business is registered for GST. The 10% tax rate then needs to be paid on to the Australian Tax Office (ATO).

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