Lollipop Local

The FSB Conference sponsor, Visa, gave some clues as to the possible future on small business payments. Life will remain tough for SMEs as recession becomes the new normal. However, business owners will become more comfortable about being online and using the internet to run their business through Read more [...]

Google I/O announced the end of search as we know it. Google’s engineers realised that there is not only a need to answer, but also to converse and anticipate. Last year, the advent of the knowledge graph saw a huge advance in search technology. It enabled Google to move beyond keywords and understand Read more [...]

Further to my post on the irritation that is the cost of 0844 numbers and yesterday’s on 0800 numbers for business, I received another unsolicited email on the subject of phone numbers: 03 numbers for business Good morning Lollipop Local, I recently came across your website and I am wondering Read more [...]

I received an unsolicited email asking me to ‘consider 0800 numbers for your business’. The email said that there were three ways in which my business would benefit More sales. Research by the Institute of Direct Marketing has shown that 080 numbers can increase enquiries by up to 185%. Your Read more [...]

Many people would like to know how to stop spam texts. The advice in the past has always been to text back stop. But that may not work for some type of spam texts. For some, this can result in them being able to send you more texts for which they can charge you £1.50 or more. It takes a while for Read more [...]

I received an email from 38 Degrees recently about their successful attempt to stop the so called Snoopers Charter – The UK Communications Data Bill. Late on Thursday 25 April, Nick Clegg announced that he will not allow the Government’s plan to spy on everyone’s internet use to go ahead. Fortunately Read more [...]

As a business owner, it’s often hard to leave the office even to get a sandwich. What happens if the telephone rings and there is no one there to answer it? Yes, we can easily have answerphones set up but how many clients do we use because they do not want to leave a message with an automated device? This Read more [...]

When it comes to how to get top of Google for Free, we need to start at the beginning with what most people see as the first step of getting onto the internet. Building a website. Hope Marketing Most business owners use a tactic called Hope Marketing. They work on the basis of ‘If you Build Read more [...]

Further to my post yesterday about Mobile Phone Use and Social Media, it was alarming to see this news report from the States. I don’t think many of us realised just how vulnerable posting pictures on-line makes both us and our kids when it comes to internet safety. With the right equipment, that Read more [...]

I wrote about Google Wallet Phones in May 2011 – does anyone know if these are actually available in the UK yet? Has anyone actually used one? There does seem to be an Android app for Google Wallet into which you can add details of your credit cards. I’m not sure how I feel about the whole security Read more [...]