Bad Robot is now recruiting agents across the UK to promote the business.
Interested in earning unlimited commission?
Working on a commission only basis you will be responsible for selling our services to small and medium size companies in your territory.
Sales leads will come from a combination of company marketing campaigns, self generated appointments and existing clients. Product training and all sales materials will be provided.
Don’t forget to register your interest
http://www.badrobotuk.com/agents
For those that missed it, and for those who have never seen them, Google did it again this year. On the 1st of April Google announced its joint venture with Virgin: Project Virgle, the first permanent human colony on Mars.
For thousands of years,
the human race has spread out across the Earth, scaling mountains and plying the oceans, planting crops and building highways, raising skyscrapers and atmospheric CO2 levels, and observing, with tremendous and unflagging enthusiasm, the Biblical injunction to be fruitful and multiply across our world’s every last nook, cranny and subdivision.
An invitation.
Earth has issues, and it’s time humanity got started on a Plan B. So, starting in 2014, Virgin founder Richard Branson and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin will be leading hundreds of users on one of the grandest adventures in human history: Project Virgle, the first permanent human colony on Mars.
Previous Projects
2007 Google TiSP - home WiFi through your toilet system
2006 Google Romance - ‘Dating is a search problem. Solve it with Google Romance’
2005 Google Gulp - a drink to optimize one’s use of the Google search engine by increasing the drinker’s intelligence
This is just a little blog I have put together listing my favourite pieces of open source software, which are available for free to download over the internet.
Mozilla FireFox
FireFox is an award winning web browser and is currently the second most popular web browser used on the internet behind internet explorer.
There are many reasons why I love FireFox, I love the way I can really personalise it. I can make it look the way I want it to; I can add or take away features and tools. Its integration with the Google search engine is very clever, it is not as intrusive as the Google tool bar and the predictive search really speeds up the search process.
My personal favourite thing about FireFox is the add-on ‘Developers toolbar’. This add-on is perfect for web developers and budding developers. It allows you to view website’s CSS and HTML code; it also allows you to validate HTML and CSS code at the click of a button. What I find most useful about this tool is that it allows you to see how sites are constructed and put together. This is a great learning tool as you can recreate aspects into your own sites.
Download from:
http://www.mozilla-europe.org/en/products/firefox/
PHP
PHP is a server-side scripting language used within websites to make them dynamic. What this means is that a user can input information into a website and a result or output is produced. PHP is used to calculate the result.
PHP is a very sophisticated and powerful programming language, and the best thing is its totally free to download and install on your server. Its main advantages are allowing you to create these dynamic pages allowing the user to interact with your site, weather it is just for a simple email subscription or more complex e-commerce website PHP can take care of it.
The reason I like PHP as it is nearly limitless with what you can do with it and your skill and imagination are the only boundaries. As far as programming languages go PHP seems to be easier than others to learn and to grasp hold of the basics, but like all languages it will takes years to master.
Download from: http://www.php.net/downloads.php
VLC Player
The VLC player is quite unique from most media players as it will play virtually any format; from Windows wmv formats to Apple’s mov, the VLC player is truly multiplatform. The player is jam packed with features which will allow you to manipulate the media, it will allow you to split, rotate crop and add images.
The VLC player has one final trick up its sleeve as it can also be used as a server side multimedia streaming media server. When used as a streaming media server it can stream all compatible formats so as a developer you are no restricted to what format to use, also the VLC player can steam live video ideal for gigs or sporting events.
The VLC player is really the only player you will need. It will play most video formats including DVD without the addition of installing any extra codec packs. All this along with the ability of also being installed on a server to become a streaming media server makes this one hell of a bargain at the price of ooh erm let me think, oh that’s right it’s free.
Download from: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
Bad Robot has been retained by Business & Domestic Insurance Services Ltd to provide marketing expertise and support.
Launching this week Business & Domestic develop insurance products and services which protect businesses’ and consumers’ most valuable assets: their customers; health; family; home; autos and possessions.
“We were delighted when Bad Robot agreed to help launch Business & Domestic. Raising the company profile and portraying a professional image are key to our success in the first year.” Chris U’Dell, Managing Director
Business & Domestic Insurance Services Ltd is part of The Motorway Direct plc. Group of Companies.
For more information see their website: http://www.businessanddomestic.co.uk
An inbound or back link is a hyperlink link from an external website to a page on your site.
So why the fuss?
Google and many other search engines use backlinks as part of their ranking calculation (part of how they determine the order to display search results). Inbound links from sites which already rank highly and which are relevant to your site will improve your rankings.
Getting listed in search engines can take some time. Having a single link from a highly ranked site is usually the fasted way of getting listed.
Tips for increasing inbound links
- Press Releases - always include your website URL
- Relevant Anchor Text - provide people with the text you want them to use to link to your site. Always include keywords
- Web Directories - An important source but be carefull not to waste time and money listing in every directory you can find.
Confused by terms banded around by your SEO people? It’s understandable. Technical people think nothing about throwing technical terms around like ninja throwing stars.
There are many factors which influence the results you see on search engines. These factors can be split into a few basic categories:
On Page Visable
This is basically what you can see on screen when you visit a page on your website. Your copy (written content), alternate text (displayed when you put your cursor over an image), anchor text (text you use for links to other pages) and links to 3rd parties.
On Page Invisable
The information which is behind the scenes on the page you are visiting. The code used to create your website. The information (or meta data) used to describe the page
Off Page
Everything else! Mainly inbound links from reputable, high ranking, related sites.
Sound can be used in a several ways on your website. Firstly it can be used as background music so when the page loads a theme will play automatically. This can be useful if you have a theme or jingle instantly recognisable or synonymous with your company, think Coronation Street.
Secondly and probably the most popular use of sound on a website is using sound bites. A Sound bite is normally a small piece of sound which is attached to a player or button so when the user clicks it the sound bite plays. This is used mostly on sites such as www.amazon.com and www.hmv.co.uk were the user can actually listen to clips of tracks before they buy them.
Although not as common in use sound can also be used as a navigation tool within your website. By including a tiny sound clip behind your sites navigational links or buttons it will confirm to the user that a link has been clicked reassuring them.
Have you read Alison’s post about putting your real-world address on your Contact page? I was so pleased to find out that it’s a legal requirement because I’ve been trying to get people to do just that for ages. It’s such an easy way to build up trust with the visitors to your site. And being trusted is crucial when you’re operating online, in a virtual world.
People do business with people. And that’s why its wise to let personality shine through on your site. Slick, shiny and glossy is fine. But people will trust you far more if they know there’s a face behind the machine. So ask yourself these simple questions:
- Do we know who you are? Tell us a little bit about the people behind your business. You don’t have to write too much — just make your people come alive.
- Are there any photos of you and your staff? You wouldn’t believe the difference it makes when visitors can see real human beings. And I don’t mean stock photos of models. I mean good quality photos of you and your people.
- Is the tone-of-voice of your copy conversational? People really like to feel they’re being talked to personally rather than talked at. Avoid hard-sell, in-your-face copy. Better to offer solutions rather than quick fixes in a loud voice.
- Are there contact details on every page? And I mean, every page, not just the Contact Us page. If people can’t get hold of you easily they’ll start by being irritated and end up wondering if you’ve got something to hide. (Personal pet peeve showing its colours, there!)
Remember — you need to give visitors to your site reasons to trust you before you can convert them into customers. Adding that personal touch to your website is a powerful first step.
Posted on January 31st, 2008 by Alex in
Design A Great way to boost user interactivity and to enhance your website is by including video. People say pictures tell a thousand words; well if that is the case then a thousand moving pictures tell a million words.
An embedded video can be a great way to advertise a product, or to get a message across to the viewer without them having to scroll through pages of text. Sound and moving objects will attract the user’s attention and keep them interested and entertained, especially if they been trawling the internet for hours looking at nothing but text over the last several sites.
Using video is becoming increasingly popular throughout the internet with big corporate companies such as Audi, Nike, Adidas and Levi’s all using video on their home pages. The effect is stunning integrating the video with the rest of the page gives the site a whole new dynamic and certainly separates them from their competitors.
The examples above use video in a very bold way to advertise a product, but video can be used more subtly just to enhance the look of your site. This can be done by using a Flash animated banner or company logo. Animating these elements should make them stick in the viewers mind.
Just before you start thinking that you want a completely animated site with all the bells and whistles, be warned there are a couple potential problems. Video and animation are not entirely browser friendly and additional software called plug-ins must be installed before the browser can display the video. You could potentially loose a huge chunk of your target audience by including too much video and animation for this reason.
My tip with video and animation is that less is more. Don’t saturate your site with them as that will increase page load times and deter potential viewers. Use it subtly and integrate it with the rest of the site to create an improved user experience.
Posted on January 31st, 2008 by Jane in
Networking Business Networking is a boon to solo professionals and SMEs. In fact, for some of us it’s our main way of getting new business. ‘Word-of-mouth Marketing’, as they call it, is very powerful indeed.
But there’s more to effective Networking than a row of jollies in your diary. There’s a skill to learn. An etiquette you need to perfect.
The first and, in my humble opinion, the most important rule is this:
Networking is NOT selling.
It’s about building relationships and growing a network of people who you can help and who can help you. The work comes from those relationships.
There is nothing more off-putting than going to a networking meeting and having someone pin you in a corner and try and hard-sell you.
Equally irritating – and stupid – is being ignored because you’re not an obvious, immediate customer, as this story from my friend Michelle McDines, the House Coach, illustrates.
‘A guy came up to me at a networking meeting and asked who I was and what I did. I told him, and he said: “Well, there’s no point me talking to you. You won’t buy anything from me.”
‘So I stared him straight in the eyes, smiled and said, “Try me!” He gave me his spiel, and I replied: “You’re right, I won’t. But I know about twenty people who might be very interested in what you’ve got to offer. And that’s how networking works!”‘
Indeed, it is.
It’s about building up trust, being remembered and being referred. It is not about coming away from a meeting with a list of done deals.
Don’t forget, people refer people they like, respect and get on with. Michelle admits that she can’t remember a thing about that obnoxious guy’s business. ‘And with an attitude like his’, she told me, ‘I wouldn’t refer him to anyone I know, anyway.’
So, now you know.
RSS Feeds