Internet Courses Available

February 25th, 2009

Label Media has recently launched two courses due to increased demand for our consultancy services.  Grant funding is available for these courses up to the sum of £1500 if your in the Yorkshire area and have over five employees.  Fore more information please see below:

Course 1: 

Online Strategic Planning and Management Course

The correct online approach can transform an Internet presence into a 24/7 results-generating mechanism and give businesses a whole new way of working and communicating with their clients.

As the world wide web is still a relatively new phenomenon that is changing at an extremely fast rate many businesses find it hard to keep up with current technologies and get the best solutions short and long term for their business needs. 

Whether businesses need to expand its streams of communication, create fantastic web sites, develop relationships with clients or enhance business efficiencies, Label Media can produce an online strategy designed to empower businesses to fulfill their long term business goals.

Course Structure

Successful web solutions are about the clever application of new technology to solve every day company needs and challenges.  Our processes enable us to review your online business position, assess your online needs and priorities, and build a clear picture of where your strengths and weaknesses lie.

We then work very closely with business leaders outlining all forms of solutions available, how to effectively use them and manage them long term.  Both Label and the company directors collectively create a personalised online strategy for the long-term development of their business.  Importantly the company is left with this information to enable them to manage their online development efficiently and pass the information onto staff.

Questions we ask are:

Your business and industry environment: What are the trends? How to capitalise on good opportunities and evade bad practice?

Your brand: How will this online strategy support your brand and make it better? How it will work with your offline marketing material?

Your long-term company goals: How to achieve them, how much will it cost, what resources are available and how do you get them?

Who is your end user and what do they want from you?

The course will be delivered via a one-on-one workshop in Label Media’s studio. Hands on practical demonstrations will be given directly relating to the client’s business requirements.  The client can either have an existing web presence or none at all. 

Course 2:

Planning a Web Marketing Strategy

Course covers: Reviewing your products and services. Sizing up the competition. Evaluate your USPs. Review your website. Natural SEO. PPC and other paid promotion.  Using Google AdWords. Review and Maintain your campaign using Google Analytics. Managing your online marketing team.

The course will be delivered via a one-on-one workshop in Label Media’s studio. Hands on practical demonstrations will be given directly relating to the client’s business requirements.

For more information on how to apply for a course please contact a member of the Label Team on 0113 2458870.

 

 

Microsoft quote of the day

December 12th, 2008

Many people who use IE are not the most tech-savvy people. If you ask them about what security they have in place, they think you’re talking about your house. It’s more ignorance than anything else.

- Matt Crowley, Microsoft program manager for IE “extensibility.”

Summer Fun

September 5th, 2008

Over the summer Label Media has been very busy working on various R&D projects, SEO projects and plenty of client based work.

Our recent client wins have been producing a multi language website for the Sheffield based Gripple, working with the Director of Research and Development at the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators in London and producing a brand new website for one of our oldest and best clients Tetra Consulting Limited.

Finished projects will be naturally be put into our portfolio in due course.

Over this year we’ve been working with Go Driving Tuition in pushing up their natural rankings in localised Google searches.

Go Driving Tuition is a driving school based in Yorkshire and over the past few years they’ve expanded into London and Nottingham. We’d already achived great success in Leeds based searches such as “Driving Lessons Leeds” by staying in the top three for over a year.

Now they’ve expanded further a field there is the need in coming up under “driving lessons nottingham” driving lessons north london” and other locations.

Label Media built into the existing website individual driving school home pages that were geographically optimised for it’s chosen area and since it’s launch we’ve already seen a vast improvement in area’s Bradford, Nottingham and London within the Google searches.

To view the work please goto:
Go Driving Schools

and to view the geo optimised pages goto (two examples)

Bradford Driving School
Nottingham Driving School

If you have any questions regarding our services please contact us on 0113 2458870

How do I get into web design & development – Info for Students

July 11th, 2008

We get allot of emails here from various students young and old asking about what path to take to become a web designer or developer and how can I get a job?

Being a Leeds based web designer of 10 years I thought I’d try and pass on some of my wisdom for anyone looking for a bit of advice. Just for the record their are no vacancies here at the moment but still send in your CV’s as we’ll keep them on file if anything arises.

For students looking for a job:

1. Online portfolio is the key, we are busy people and don’t have much time to read through every covering letter and CV. Portfolio sites however take 1 minuet to look around and we can easily gage what you can do. If you get this right straight away you’ll stand out from the rest and your CV will become more interesting.

2. Don’t be afraid to call, we are just people at the end of the day, if you find a studio you want to work at ring them and ask. Remember again we are busy so don’t try and recite war and peace over the phone, keep it polite, concise and courteous.

3. Once your in and have a interview try not to panic, be confident, interesting and foremost know your what your talking about as this will reassure your prospective employer that you’ve got your head screwed on and your not trying to blag yourself a job.

4. If you don’t get the job remember their are 100’s of great web design companies in Leeds and Bradford, keep on trying, keep on design and developing in your spare time and eventually you’ll get your foot in the door.

Remember every company is very different, in a small business you’ll more than likely have a very varied role and close working relationship with you colleagues. In a larger business you’ll have a very defined role and be a part of a large team. Both have their advantages and disadvantage, think about which one suits you.

Good luck to you all and if you found this helpful please send me a post.

Rich – Designer

Mobile Website

June 23rd, 2008

Did you know that over 5 million people in the UK are using their mobile devices to access the internet?

Mobile web users already total one-fifth the size of people using their PC to access the internet and so it is not surprising that it is fast becoming a dominant internet platform. For these reasons more and more companies are looking to develop mobile websites to make the most of this growing audience.

The challenge faced by these companies is finding ways to present their information in a mobile friendly way. Accessing the internet via a mobile device requires an entirely different user experience; we tend to use our phones whilst on the move and so accessing the information quickly and easily is paramount. The screen on a mobile phone is considerably smaller, and typically mobiles tend to have alphanumeric keypads that restrict browsing capabilities.

Label Media have spent much time developing the best mobile website solutions. As a result the conventional graphic and flash animations synonymous with Label Media have been substituted by sites that are predominantly text based and use thumbnail images.

However, a mobile site designed by Label Media can perfectly compliment your existing marketing collateral, providing users with an alternative to easily accessible information. There are so many possibilities, for instance, you can use your mobile site to provide your users with regular news and RSS feeds, even provide simplified catalogues of new products.

For more information and a free consultation do not hesitate to contact us.

Streamlining the way you trade online.

June 23rd, 2008

More and more business are looking to increase sales revenues by selling online to an ever increasing customer base. However the process of setting up an E Commerce website and accepting payment over the internet can seem quite daunting.

We have recently been asked to conduct some research on the preferred methods for accepting payments online by some of our E-Commerce businesses.

By following some simple steps your e commerce shop can be up and running in no time at all.

Setting up your website for accepting payment
Label Media can help you to build a website and set up a shopping cart. Shopfront is aimed at small business and is the ideal entry level E Commerce shop. The system will allow you to add an unlimited number of items to your website, presenting them in a way that will entice your customers to buy.

Choosing how to accept payments
Payment Gateways or Payment Service Providers (PSP) provide a secure link between your website and your merchant bank. The PSP do not handle the money, they just ensure that customers’ personal details are kept secure during the period when they are sent to the bank for authorisation. To use a PSP on your website you will need to obtain a Internet Merchant Account for your card payments to be deposited into. You will be expected to pay a fee for both the use of the PSP and the Merchant account. Both are usually based upon the number and value of transactions and so it is worth shopping around to find the most competitive rates.

Protx and SECPay are our preferred suppliers. Both of these PSP can be seamlessly integrated into your website, and their systems can be branded to look the same.

Mals Ecommerce is a FREE shopping cart solution, that will securely accept your customers details, but will require you to manually enter the information into a PDQ machine.

Sometimes; if you are a start-up business, it can be tricky to obtain an Internet Merchant Account until you have an established credit history and so you may need to consider alternatives. PayPal, PayPoint, Google Checkout all offer a combined payment gateway with Internet merchant accounts to offer a complete card acceptance solutions.

Contact us for free impartial advice on how your can integrate an E Commerce

May – June Update

June 23rd, 2008

The latest news is over the past two months we’ve been very busy with our Research and Development of LabelED 3 the third version of our constantly evolving CMS based software. It’s had a complete design and development overhaul and I can safely say, Simon and the guys have done a fantastic job with it. It will shortly be implemented into a number of CMS driven websites, which I’ll post up for everyone to view.

We’ve launched two showcase property websites for a well know agency in Leeds and London, due to our contract we cannot advertise the work but rest assured our clients are very happy with the results.

Our new office has now been re-decorated and we are in the process of moving into it, hopefully we’ll be in by the end of the month.

March / April Post – New developer joins Label Media Ltd.

April 8th, 2008

It has been a couple of months since my last post, since then we’ve been up to our eye balls in projects, appointments etc.. and will shortly be posting our “Spring” collection of new websites.

The latest from Label Media is…

LABEL HAS RECRUITED.. The main news is we’d like to welcome our newest members to the Label team – Tom and Maddie.

Tom joined us in early March as a Junior Developer and has made a very positive impact within the company. Currently working on the new version of LabelED 3 with Sam and various other projects, Tom’s showing great promise and attention to detail, we are looking forward to producing some great work with him in the future.

Maddie joined us in the middle of March as our New Business Executive looking after new and existing clients. Coming from a established web design company in Bradford she’s brought a wealth of experience with her and added a whole new dimension to the company with her hands on experience in web marketing.

LABEL IS MOVING….A SHORT DISTANCE..

Label Media has acquired new office space which we’ll be moving into in May this year, we’ll be in the same building increasing our office size to 1000 sqft to accommodate the extra staff. We’ll also be renovating a chill out room so we have somewhere to sit and come up with original idea’s or just kick back.

LABEL IS…Currently we are working on a multitude of projects, being large developments websites in Leeds city center, game translations for a well know brand, new identity for Sunderland College, Research & Development project on our own in house software and lots of web design & SEO work.

Please get in touch if you have any feedback or questions,

All the best

Rich

February Post

February 15th, 2008

We are recruiting!  A position has arisen for a Junior Developer to join the team, so far we’ve had a great response from our advert on Monster and will be holding interviews over the next few weeks. If your interested in the position please apply through www.monster.co.uk.  

January Update

January 31st, 2008

The Label Media team has just sent three ideas to the BBC in the hope of securing a place at the up and coming BBC Labs. We’ve entered one idea based around mobile and web based content and two around social networking within the music genre. This year over 2000 ideas were submitted which means the competition is high as ever, hopefully we’ll tick the right boxes.

Other news is we’ve secured three new clients so far in Jan, Explosion Promotions, Right Angle PR and Sunderland College, the team is looking forward to working on these new projects and producing some great work. Sunderland College is another fantastic education based client for us along with Kings College London and Aim Higher Yorkshire and Humber.

We are recruiting a new Junior Developer; the job advert will be up on Monster soon, applicants please send your CV’s to jobs@labelmedia.co.uk.

Lastly I’d like to welcome Maddie to the Label Media team. Maddie will be starting in Feb as an account manager; we are all looking forward to working with her and hope she enjoys her time here.