Client Spotlight: aci™

This week we’re turning our client spotlight on to one of our long standing clients, aci™. aci™ stands for Advanced Commercial Interiors, and they specialise in creating inspirational workspaces for their clients, whether that’s in a commercial office, retail or industrial premises.

aci™ offers, among other services, full office fit outs, and give their clients the options of having as much or as little involvement as they want in the process. They manage the full office fit out process from the initial discussions through to completion.

aci™ looks at every project individually, giving their clients a unique, personal and tailored service. aci works with their clients to maximise the potential of every work space to give the best use of space possible as well as the best looking work spaces possible. They also work within their clients’ budgets and timescales, so that they get the best office possible for the money and time available.

aci™’s experienced designers offer free of charge consultations, surveys, designs, drawings, CAD plans and quotations meaning that you have nothing to lose by giving them a call and seeing how they could improve your business for you.

Men of DBS grow moustaches for Movember

Four male team members at DBS have been growing moustaches since 1^st November in order to raise money and awareness of prostate and testicular cancer. These are the two largest male specific cancers in the UK.

Movember is an annual event, the name being a combination of the word “mo” which is short for moustache, and November.

The aim of Movember is that men start on the 1^st November with a clean shaven face and then grow a moustache throughout the month.

Movember aims to change long established attitudes that men have about their health as well as educate them about the risks they face in order to increase their chances of early detection and diagnosis, thus giving them a greater chance of effective treatment and survival.

The four men taking part at DBS are David, Matthew, Allan and James.

David said: “We are delighted to be playing a small part in helping to raise awareness of men’s cancers. Many men aren’t really aware of the symptoms, and often prostate, testicular and other forms of men’s cancers go undetected until it is too late. This is a fantastic cause which just keeps on growing, and we really hope it is successful in its goal to ‘change the face of men’s health’. We have been growing moustaches for just over three weeks now, and they are starting to just about look acceptable!”

To contribute to DBS’s fundraising efforts please make an online donation here

Client Spotlight: LSPS Wood Briquettes

Following our previous client spotlight on the heat logs on offer at one of our clients, LSPS, we are delighted to add that they are now also selling wood briquettes just in time for the cold winter nights and weekends when you want.

These wood briquettes are ideal for open fires, stoves, boilers and cookers, light quickly and easily with kindling wood or firelighters, and burn for a longer period of time if you keep the draught as low as possible. Wood briquettes get hotter than coal, and get hot faster than coal.

Wood briquettes are smokeless due to their low moisture content and radiate more heat than coal. As well as that, wood briquettes are clean and easy to handle, and produce a minimum amount of ash, as most of the product becomes heat rather than waste product. This also means cleaner, safer chimneys.

Wood briquettes are also environmentally friendly, as they are made from the waste products of environmentally friendly saw mills.

Google Checkout merging with Google Wallet

Google announced on 16th November that it has started the process of merging Google Checkout into the existing Google Wallet to “create a single wallet, whether you’re buying online or in-store”.

The aim is to provide one simple and safe way to make online purchases. If you make a purchase from an online merchant that accepts Google Wallet or Google Checkout, all you have to do is enter your Google Wallet username and password without having to enter your credit card number or address.

A statement from Google said, “If you’re a current user of Google Checkout you can automatically transition your account to Google Wallet the next time you sign in or make a purchase online. All users can now access online purchase history and payment information at wallet.google.com/manage.”

Google said they are committed to ensuring that merchants will be able to continue to process payments without interruption over the holidays despite the upgrade. They added that “shoppers using Google Wallet will be able to make purchases seamlessly on merchant sites that accept Google Checkout. Early next year, we will work closely with our merchant partners to switch to the Google Wallet logo and share details on new and upcoming features.”

Google Analytics Keyword Data

Google Analytics is a free and powerful tool for website owners. A simple piece of code is inserted into the “backend” that powers your website.

Analytics is really useful because it shows how people get to your website and what they do when they are there.

It looks like Google are considering not showing some data in its analytics reports.

At the moment it’s possible to log on to Google Analytics and see the keywords that people have typed into search engines to get to your site. The keyword report looks like this:













Google’s Matt Cutts says that keyword reports will be withheld on google.com. DBS’s David Clarke feels it’s only a matter of time before keyword reporting via analytics is withheld in the UK.

The news is a little brighter for businesses who are Google pay per click advertisers. They will still be able to get pay per click keyword data via analytics.

Google states that the reason they are doing this is “in regards to privacy”.

Client Spotlight: Time For You

This week we're throwing the client spotlight on to another one of our longstanding clients, the cleaning franchise Time For You Domestic Cleaners.

Time For You was founded in 1993 by husband and wife team Freddie and Ruth Rayner. They are now the UK's premier house cleaning company, with over 165 local franchises cleaning over 1200 homes each week in different areas all over the UK, such as Time For You Cleaners Knowsley and Time For You Cleaners Sandhurst & Bagshot.

These local cleaning franchises provide an honest, reliable, friendly, dedicated, affordable house cleaner each week. The same house cleaner comes each week, ensuring that things are done the way you want them done, and is thoroughly vetted before being employed by the cleaning franchise.

They do the cleaning tasks that you want them to do, and some franchises even offer ironing services. All of this frees you up and allows you to spend your free time doing what you want to do, not cleaning. All in all, it makes more Time For You.

Yahoo! and Microsoft provide update on their Search Alliance

Yahoo! and Microsoft have sent out emails updating users on the progress of their search engine alliance which uses Microsoft’s back-end technology to power both the paid and organic results on Yahoo!. They say that the continued point in their alliance is to “provide consumers with a competitive choice in search, while offering search advertisers a cost-effective way to connect with a high-quality audience.”

Providing an update on the progress of their alliance, they say that Yahoo! Search users in every country around the world apart from Korea are now seeing the results of their organic searches on Yahoo! being powered by Microsoft’s Bing. They say that this gives searchers “a better experience and greater relevancy”.

They also note that Yahoo! Search Marketing advertisers in North America and India are now using the Microsoft Advertising adCenter platform to manage their search marketing campaigns, advertising on both Yahoo! and Microsoft through the one account. They anticipate that this will roll out to the UK and France in the second quarter of 2012, with other European countries making the transition later in 2012.

To put it succinctly, for users of Bing and Yahoo! in the UK, the organic listings on both search engines are now tied together, and from mid-2012 the online paid advertising campaigns should be linked too, if all goes to plan.