Archive

Author Archive

What Did We Do Before The Photocopier

August 20th, 2010 Miranda Jacobs No comments

Did you know the photocopier machine was invented by Chester Carlson in 1937?, I think It has had a vast impact on office tasks, In todays world many of the tasks are based on paper work. You might say that his invention kick started the office automation business by proving that many tedious tasks can be handed over to machine.

Similar to all inventions of its type though, it took a while for them to be accepted and it was a decade before they became common in offices America. It took even longer for them to make their way to the UK where we have sometimes lagged behind our colonial friends with regards to accepting new methods and ways of working. Considering we were the birthplace of the industrial revolution, it seems odd that we should be so adverse to taking on new ideas these days.

However, they’re now popular almost worldwide (certainly all Western countries and the East) and they are almost essential in today’s office. But what did we do before them? Well, the most common method of duplicating any kind of work was by using carbon copy paper. This was an extremely efficient and efficient way of getting an exact duplicate of the document you were currently working on, but only one copy. You could try multiple pieces of carbon paper but eventually the thickness made it impossible for the pressure of the hammer to get through to the bottom. It was quite common to see three or four times copied documents that were unreadable.

A lot of places (including educational establishments like schools and colleges) took to using lithograph duplicators. For example If you were at school in the 70s and 80s you may recall the smell from these machines that seemed capable of only creating copies in a feint purple colour. They were bulky machines that were operated by hand and if you’d been playing around in class one day – it was probably you that had to do it.

There was one issue – it wasn’t an instant copy!. You first had to make a ‘plate’ which was the master from which all other copies were made. This wasn’t a difficult task, but it also wasn’t a doddle and meant a plate had to be made for each page. So, when photocopiers came along, they were seen as the ultimate in convenience, but there was one big problem with them – they were expensive.

But one thing’s for sure – things that are useful don’t stay expensive for long and the laws of supply and demand soon made it economic for everyone to get one. This was simply down to the fact that during the ‘desk top publishing’ boom of the 80s and 90s, lots of people wanted high quality printers and that meant laser printers. Since the innards of a photocopier was essentially a laser printer, the two technologies could be developed together and so the cost of them came down drastically.

However, when scanners became popular, they started to be attached to printers themselves and so suddenly ink jet printers were able to copy. Why scan and print when you could simply copy with one press of the button? Photocopiers are now incredibly popular in all offices and also very cheap to run. Luckily we’ve embraced technology and the office has become and easier place to work.

Want to find out more about photocopiers, then which-photocopier.net to choose your photocopier supplier for your needs.

Promote your Website through Search Engine Marketing Techniques

March 26th, 2010 Laura Wimble No comments

All those managing the online marketing strategy for a business know the pressure of the question: How do you get your website promoted? Search engine optimisation consultants understand the need of website promotions, because it automatically leads to driving traffic to your website, increasing the importance of the site as seen by search engines and finally getting higher rankings. Businesses are trying to get high rankings in search engines, as to improve the number of leads/potential customers and therefore the impact on the ROI as well.

We have compiled a list of search engine marketing techniques for your website’s free online promotion:

1. Use SEO techniques to promote your website. Search engine optimisation, both on-page and off-page, is the best way to promote your website. As we have explained in our previous blog, strong SEO will increase your ranking in search engines and will therefore greatly help in its promotion

2. Reciprocal linking techniques. Since the biggest search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN) are all using inbound links as part of their algorithm to determine the page rank of your website, this is a good way of promotion! However, keep in mind it is the quality of the reciprocal links that matters, not only the quantity. Therefore, try to focus your efforts on relevant quality links.

3. Write articles to get free website promotion! Writing articles on relevant topics for your business’ industry is a good way to prove that you have the knowledge as well as to promote your website/business. There are a number of article submission sites where you can promote them. They allow you to add in the resource box link back to your website. Nevertheless, keep in mind your articles need to have good content and be well written.

4. Use social networks for your internet marketing. Social media has become of great importance, and therefore using social networking sites is a very good technique to find and target your audience. The number of Internet users being active on social networking communities’ increases with every day, making it a very good channel to market your website. Use Twitter, Facebook Fan Pages or LinkedIn as part of your social media marketing strategy. Make sure the network communities you choose are relevant for the audience you are targeting.

5. Use social networks. Social media has become of great importance, and therefore using social networking sites is a very good technique to find and target your audience. The number of Internet users being active on social networking communities’ increases with every day, making it a very good channel to market your website. Use Twitter, Facebook Fan Pages or LinkedIn as part of your social media marketing strategy. Make sure the network communities you choose are relevant for the audience you are targeting.

6. Submissions on online directories for website marketing. Submitting your sites to online directories is a very simple and efficient technique to promote your website online. As search engine optimisation consultants we highly recommend submissions on niche and local directories to get quality traffic to your site. In today’s scenarios, there are millions of sites coming up daily, we suggest focussing on location based internet marketing is very important.

7. Actively participate in discussions on forums! Find forums and discussion boards that target relevant topics and start participating actively in discussions. It is a good way to promote you website and show expertise on topics.

8. Use Social Bookmarking! Social bookmarking needs to a part of your search engine marketing strategy. This is a very successful tactic to promote your website successfully. Submit your links, blogs, articles to social bookmarking networks such as digg and del.icio.us.

9. Use E-Mail Newsletters! Sending weekly/monthly e-mail newsletters is a great technique to keep your prospects, build brand awareness as well as build future business. Therefore, it is a must in your search engine marketing experience.

SysComm is a social networking company, online reputation management and search engine marketing company. Click here to contact us.