Ever wondered if SEO will work for your business?

Sheffield SEO

One of our fastest expanding services we provide at Seven Creative, here in Sheffield, is SEO, and there is one thing that nearly all our new SEO enquiries have in common – they’re nervous about the idea of embarking on an SEO campaign!

So, why is this? Firstly, not many people truly understand what SEO actually is. To me, it’s simply about making sure a site is of high quality meaning that it can effectively communicate with Google about its subject and purpose (which is a win-win for everyone). It’s certainly not about creating a million inbound links from poor quality sites to manipulate the search results! Secondly, the results seem to intangible. This was something we noticed early on so we made sure that an activity report was available to everyone – regardless of their budget – on a monthly basis. Thirdly, many people have been ripped off in the past. Even now, knowing what we know about how Google evaluates websites, poor quality companies with unethical sales people are still conning trusting people out of their cash by providing poor quality SEO that somewhere between little and no effect to how a site indexes – in fact, poor quality SEO will often have a negative effect on rankings; so don’t underestimate Google’s increasing ability to spot a cheap link!

It’s perfectly understandable why Google doesn’t like the current SEO industry – Google wants to be the one evaluating websites; historically, SEO has been about manipulating results to make a site appear more relevant and important that it would normally appear – so everything the search giant is doing in terms of regularly updating its algorithm is pushing site owners towards best practice and high quality content; and away from link building.

So, to refer back to the initial question, it depends. Of course I would say you should call us but if you don’t here are my top tips to make sure you pick a good company:

Avoid companies that outsource – it’s probably a sign that it’s going to be poor quality SEO
Ask to see examples of reports – this won’t give you an idea of the results you’re likely to achieve but you’ll be able to see the way those results are presented.
Speak to their current customers – happy customers are happy to recommend.
Avoid pay-on-results agreements – this incentives the SEO company to provide poor quality SEO for an immediate boost that wears of very quickly when you stop paying.
Go local – we all know how nice knowing that the person you’re relying on is available when you need them!

For more information about Sheffield SEO services, call Seven Creative on 0114 383 0711 or click here for more contact options

Attract Customers and Make More Money with a Shop Sign Sheffield

Having a good shop sign Sheffield is a must if you want to attract customers and make more money. Shop signs are great for attracting passing trade as they inform passers-by quickly and effectively exactly what you do and who you are. They also reflect the type of business that you would like to be perceived as, therefore, projecting a great image of your business onto customers.

Choosing a good shop sign in Sheffield is also a must for leaving a good impression of your business on passers-by. If you are looking for a custom sign maker in Sheffield, you may want to have a browse to see what people can offer you and at what price. A good sign maker in Sheffield will talk through all your options with you, helping you to decide exactly what you want to achieve with your Sheffield shop sign.

There are several types of sign that you should consider before making your decision about your Sheffield shop sign, and talking to an expert sign maker in Sheffield is probably a good idea. There are a number of different signs on the market today, and choosing the right one can be a difficult option.

LED signs are perfect if you really want to make an impact with your shop sign Sheffield. The great thing about illuminated shop signs is that they look brilliant at night as well as in the day time. That means that you can still attract passers-by in the evening as their eyes will be drawn to your shop sign. LED illuminated signs can be manufactured and installed from reputable sign makers in Sheffield and are great for making an impact.

You can choose from a variety of options when it comes to illuminated signs in Sheffield. There are many different types including internal illumination, external illumination, backlit signs and the effective halo effect. All of these great options ensure that you will get noticed on the high street, both at night and in the day time. Halo lit LED signs create a very modern and contemporary shop sign, and look really effective especially in the dark.

Another option is choosing a 3D sign in Sheffield for your business. Sheffield sign makers are able to manufacture 3D signs from a variety of materials including metal, plastic and even wood.

Read our latest case study on Taylor Taylor hairdressers in Sheffield, shop signs Sheffield >>

Choose a Ceiling Track Hoist Today and Greatly Improve Your Way of Life

Ceiling track hoists can play a great part in ensuring that as someone who lives with mobility problems or a disability, you are still able to keep a degree of freedom in your life. For those who have trouble standing and moving due to an illness or ongoing disability, a ceiling track hoist can mean a great improvement to that person’s quality of life. The product is fitted to the ceiling, and is therefore out of the way until it is needed. As a result it is quicker, easier and more efficient to use than typical mobile hoists.

What Are the Advantages of Using a Ceiling Track Hoist Including Minimizing Risk of Injury?

As they can be fitted out of the way, the use of a ceiling track hoist can therefore mean increased floor space in the room where assistance is required. They can also be fitted over the bed, so that the person who needs the aid can be moved into a wheelchair or mobile commode more easily. This in turn, can minimize the injury risk to the family member or professional providing assistance to the person who requires it. Repeated manual lifting can cause the carer minor injuries and back pain, so anything that can reduce the potential risk to those helping is well worth consideration.

A ceiling track hoist can be installed as a permanent fixture in your home for as long as it is required. As well as making caring much easier, choosing the product can reduce the number of carers needed from 2 to 1, which is highly recommended if the care is being provided by a local authority. As a result, the money saved from choosing one can be used to improve the quality of life for the person requiring it in other areas.

Any appropriate help that can assist in making daily life easier for those living with mobility issues or a disability, as well as the people caring for them should be given great consideration. Those using these particular types of hoist can gain the extra freedom that could make a real difference in their lives.

Things to Consider When Choosing a Ceiling Track Hoist

For security and comfort, as well as proximity to the person requiring the aid, a ceiling track hoist can provide the most efficient assistance needed. At ACS Healthcare Ltd we provide a whole range of care products from a significant number of leading manufacturers. These include profiling beds, mobile hoists, track hoists and pressure relieving mattresses.

It may be required for a thorough assessment of your home to be completed before a ceiling track hoist can be installed, to make sure that the product that you choose is best suited to your home. Careful training will ensure that the use of your ceiling track hoist becomes simpler over time, and any initial difficulties will be quickly solved.

Once installed we can provide subsequent servicing and repair for your product as and when it is required. So if you’re looking to greatly improve your quality of life, or that of someone you are caring for call us at 0114 2889912 for any more information that you require. You can also visit our website for more information on our ceiling track hoist products.

All about oil filters

Funny things, oil filters. Without them, your car wouldn’t work, planes wouldn’t fly, and industry would grind to a halt.. and I bet the majority of people have never given them a second thought!

Oil filters are designed to remove contaminants from oil – engine oil, transmission oil, lubricating oil, or hydraulic oil – and are used within many types of hydraulic machinery, naval vessels, internal combustion engines, and aircraft.

Early internal combustion engines didn’t use oil filters which, coupled with the low quality of the oil, meant that many oil changes were required. These days, however, better quality oils combined with widespread oil filter usage means that oil changes can be kept to a minimum.

Many different types of oil filter exist such as, mechanical – where the oil passes through a material such as cotton or pleated filter paper which traps the contaminants within the oil, cartridge oil filters – where a permanent housing with a replacable element is mounted directly on the engine, magnetic filters – use magnets or electromagnets to capture magnetic particls within the oil, sedimentary – which uses gravity to separate the contaminents from the oil, centrifugal – uses a rotary sedimentation device rather than gravity to separate the contaminents form the oil, or High Efficiency that use a kind of osmosis to clean the oil.

An example of an oil filter used within industry is the 3nine Blue Line oil mist separators designed to be mounted directly on enclosed machine tools (https://www.3nine.com/products/blue-line/lina-500/). Using a centrifugal approach to separating oil from contaminants (in this instance; air), this oil filter claims greater efficiency than other technologies such as cyclone, rotary, filtered units, or electrostatic filtration.

How to restore your HTC One S to factory settings (format HTC One)

Instructions to do an HTC One factory reset

How to restore your HTC One S to factory settings (format HTC One)

The following steps show you how to format, hard reset or factory reset your HTC One back to it’s original state – this will delete all files and settings except those installed by the company supplying the phone.

It’s actually pretty quick and easy to factory reset your HTC mobile, however, please remember that this action is irreversible and will wipe the contents of the phone so make sure that you have everything important backed up first

Turn off your HTC phone.
When the phone is off, press and hold the VOLUME DOWN button, and then press the POWER button.
Hold the VOLUME DOWN button until you see the ‘three Android robots’ image.
Now follow the on-screen instructions to reset the HTC phone i.e. Press VOLUME DOWN to select CLEAR STORAGE, and then press the POWER button. Finally, press VOLUME UP to begin the factory reset.

How to install Dropbox on Kindle Fire HD

It’s actually not that difficult to install Dropbox on your Kindle Fire HD – here’s how we do it:

First of all, to install Dropbox on your Kindle Fire HD, you need to Make sure that you allow the installation of apps from ‘unknown sources.’ What this actually means is do you want to install apps on your Kindle that are not downloaded from the Amazon Appstore.
Pull the menu down from the top, select ‘more’, select ‘device’, then turn on the ‘allow installation of applications from unknown sources’ option.
Next you need to get a copy of the Dropbox installer onto your Kindle Fire HD. Either do a Google search for ‘Dropbox Android’ or go to ‘https://www.dropbox.com/android’ and click the download link.
Once Dropbox has finished downloading onto your Kindle Fire HD, open your downloads folder. To do this, open the Kindle web browser and select the Silk settings by clicking the little ‘three horizontal lines’ icon to the left of the internet tabs at the top.
Open the Kindle web browser and select the Silk settings by clicking the little ‘three horizontal lines’ icon to the left of the internet tabs at the top.
Now you should be able to see the Dropbox ‘.apk’ file within your Kindle Fire HD downloads folder. Click on the file and install it. Dropbox will now be available as a native app on your Kindle.
Now you should be able to see the Dropbox ‘.apk’ file within your Kindle Fire HD downloads folder. Click on the file and install it. Dropbox will now be available as a native app on your Kindle.

How to find your email signature folder in Outlook

…and how to edit it

If you use Outlook to send and receive emails, you’re probably also using the ’email signature’ facility that allows you to create a custom bit of text and images that appears at the end of the emails you write.

The problem is, the in-built email signature editor in Outlook is very basic! If you want to create something a bit more complex, sometimes the only option is to do it manually.

Each email signature is made up of three files – signature.rft, signature.html, and signature.txt. These are three different versions of the same signature but used for different types of emails, for example, plain text or rich text. (Note: where I’ve used the word ‘signature’ in the file names in this paragraph, for your email signature, it will be whatever you have named it e.g. ‘My Email Sig.txt’)

Together with these three files there is usually also a directory (aka folder) which contains the corresponding images.

If you can find these files, edit them manually, and save them as they are, you’ll be able to do a lot more in terms of layout and functionality than if you’re just editing these through the Outlook email signature editor.

Firstly, create the files (the signatures folder is created when the first email signature is saved):

Open Outlook, click the ‘tools’ option from the top row of options, then click ‘options’ from the drop-down menu
From the ‘Options’ dialogue box that pops up, click the ‘mail format’ tab then click ‘signatures’
from within the ‘Signatures and stationery’ dialogue box, click ‘new’, give it a name, then press OK then save.

from within the ‘Signatures and stationery’ dialogue box, click ‘new’, give it a name, then press OK then save.

Now to edit the files:
To find these files we’ve just created:

Go to file explorer – either press ‘Windows key’ + E or go to my computer
Type ‘%APPDATA%’ (without the quotes) into the address bar at the top and press enter or from My Computer navigate from C: to ‘Users’, ‘Your user name’, ‘appdata’
from ‘appdata’ click on ‘Microsoft’ then ‘signatures’ (please note this folder won’t exists until you’ve created your first email signature through Outlook)

Open the file explorer, and type ‘%APPDATA%’ (without the quotes) into the address bar at the top then press enter

Go to file explorer – either press ‘Windows key’ + E or go to my computer

The text file can be easily edited using Notepad or similar. This is the signature that is included when the mail format is ‘plain text’ meaning you can’t have any pictures included and you have limited control over formatting and fonts.
The HTML file can be edited using Notepad if you know HTML, or alternatively, you may need a visual HTML editor to make changes.
The RTF file can be edited using MS Word or similar. The RTF anf HTML files are included when you send your email in rich text format
Don’t forget to stick to the hyperlink format and include any images you include in the respective folder within the signatures folder

Hire Jungle is a new peer-to-peer platform

Hire Jungle

Hire Jungle is a new peer-to-peer platform that allows either businesses or individuals to hire out both goods and services. Listings are free to post and concept has been touted as game-changing.

This London-based start-up simultaneously displaying search results for both products and services, allowing users to properly determine their best choice when it comes to either hiring skilled workforce or finding the right products to do it themselves at a cheaper cost.

Hire Jungle aims to empower both the owners of the services that are being hired out (who can start earning extra income from hiring out products/services) and the hirer who are better able to make

informed decisions when searching for the most cost-effective solution.

Users have the ability to list their goods and services at no cost in any of the categories, for example, ‘hire electronics‘. Hiring contracts are then formalized between the owner and the hirer, with no participation from Hire Jungle, which only provides the connection interface between the two parties. Commission-free transactions and publications are some of the core values the new start-up promotes.

Hire Jungle addresses the concern of possible damaged or lost items by encouraging owners to request a deposit on all items that are hired out. A sample hiring contract is provided so those users who are hiring out their items can operate safely.

No pre-payments are required for securing transactions. Owners’ emails are not disclosed for privacy purposes. Interested hirers are required to fill in a form in order to place their enquiry, and owners will review all forms before getting in touch with potential hirers.

Two main categories are available – one for products and one for services. Users of the site can publish free classified ads to promote their products or services respectively. Searches can be completed by browsing categories or by using the powerful search bar found on the top menu.

Product and Services categories are linked in a fashion that ensures relevant search results, displaying the services classifieds on the left-hand side and the products classifieds on the right. For instance, a search query for “builders in London” will not just display results for the builders’ services available in that area, but also building-related products such as drills, ladders, screwdrivers, just to name but a few.

How to disaster-proof your photos, music and important documents

A very easy way to make sure all your files are backed-up

You should always have at least 3 copies of your important files, the mantra says, but it’s not as simple as you’d think!

If you’ve never had a digital disaster that has meant you’ve lost something important then you’re either very savvy or very lucky as there are a whole host of potential disasters that could mean you lose something important forever.

The most common potential problem is a ‘dead’ hard drive. The ‘knock of death’ (as it’s known, referring to the clicking noises a dying hard drive makes) might give you a few hours or so notice to get everything backed-up, however, that’s a very risky position to leave yourself in!

Trying to get information back from a ‘dead’ hard drive is also very expensive and not particularly likely to work either!

Fires, floods or thefts, etc. are probably less likely but they still mean those important documents are probably gone forever.

So how do you make sure everything is backed up to the most recent version?

If you’re mitigating for the worst you’re obviously going to need an offsite copy of everything and an external hard drive seems like the logical solution, doesn’t it? The problem comes when you have to get into a routine of backing up every-day and, besides the time that would take, you still run the risk of the hard drive dying or you still not having the most recent versions of your documents.

Emailing the documents to yourself is obviously not an option due to the volume of documents and making your computer accessible outside of your office network is a very risky thing to consider!

The best solution, therefore, is a real-time, off-site, secure backup. This is where Backblaze comes in.

Backblaze is a little application that sits on your computer and constantly backs up your photos, documents and files in real-time to a secure off-site data centre.

No need to have any involvement anymore – it just happily sits there checking for new documents, photos and files and then simply transfers them to their secure off-site data centre.

And if the worst happens, simply log into their site and get your files back.

The best bit is, however, there is no limit of the amount of storage meaning you’ll never need to worry again!

I’ve been using automatic off-site backups for years and I can honestly say that Backblaze is the best in terms of price and reliability.

Backblaze is only £3.25 per month ($5 USD) complete with unlimited backup and tools to help find your computer in the event of it being stolen.

Visit this link for more information or to try out Backblaze

Google Doodle Celebrates Thomas Chippendale’s 295th Birthday

Here at Seven Creative web agency and Sheffield SEO company, we’re big fans of the Google doodles. You’ll often hear a little yelp and the words ‘Google doodle!’ from behind a computer whenever we come across one.

google-doodle-chippendale-furniture Today, we are treated to a Google doodle commemorating Thomas Chippendale, the English 18^th Century cabinet maker and furniture designer.

He would have celebrated his 295^th birthday today and holds the record for the most expensive piece of furniture ever sold – The Harrington Commode, a chest of drawers that sold at auction for £3.8 million.

It’s a very elegant doodle too, with the Google letters delicately surrounding 2 chairs, a dressing table and an ornate mirror. The ‘G’ sits on one of the chairs, and appears to be applying make up in the mirror!