Last week I attended a lunch with Michael Luscombe, organised by the Australian Israel Chamber of Commerce.

When Mr Luscombe spoke about the working culture at Woolworths, he gave an example how dedicated Woolworth’s employees are, by explaining that if you come as early as 7am, the parking lot is close to full, and the same applies at 7pm. He also said that if you visit on a Saturday morning, you won’t find the car park empty

He then went on to tell a story about an employee who joined the company and declared that he wouldn't be doing extra hours (which of course no one is getting paid by the hour at head office). Well, you know what happened, after a few weeks on the job, that employee was sucked into this “amazing” work culture where everyone was working more and more hours.

If you ask me, this is not something that Mr Luscombe should be proud of. It is very easy to demand your employees do more and more hours. I find it very hard to believe that these employees are working these extended hours because they like the company so much. They are staying so late because:

1.      They can’t handle the amount of work they have in the regular working hours.

2.      The pressure at the work place is just growing and they have to prove themselves.

3.      Everyone else around is staying late so the employee feels bad leaving before the others (especially if you are new to the company).

4.      The company overloads its employees with work and instead of hiring more employees to handle the work, they just demand more from their existing employees.

Is it really something to be proud of? What is the affect of this on our communities? Is the fact that mum and dad are staying until 7pm at work and then arriving home at 7:30pm or 8pm to spend the very little time they have with their kids, making our community better and our future brighter? Is the fact that parents are spending less and less time with their families, jeopardising our future in terms of education, crime and other sustainability factors?

I think so.

So, it might make business sense to build a working environment where employees stay more and more hours, but no one is taking into account the affect on the future of those families and our community in general.

Companies should try to find ways in which they can allow their employees to finish their work on time. That may be by demanding more efficiency at the work place, introducing technological solutions and most of all, hiring more employees to handle the increasing work load instead of asking the existing employees to do it. After all, at the end of the day, the employee who stays the extra hour, will ask to be compensated in some way. The monetary compensation will never compensate a kid for the loss of quality time with dad. Yes, he might get a new Xbox but, playing violent video games is not the solution.

In some countries, and thankfully not yet in Australia, the work culture is that everyone works until 7pm. So, if we don’t want to be there, we should all wake up and not congratulate companies who pride themselves in ruining our community.

You can also read this story about stress driving workers from job published by Inside Retailing on the 27th of Feb.

Choosing a domain name is as crucial as choosing a trading name for any other business. Let me correct myself. It is even more important than choosing a trading name for your business. Reason is, it doesn't only affect the branding and perception but also your search engine placement.

Let's start from the beginning. If you are thinking of a website for your existing company you have two eligible choices:

1. A domain which is an exact match, acronym or abbreviation of your business, products or services

2. A Domain which name is close and has a substantial connection to your business, products or services

The first choice is just using your existing company name (assuming it is available). It is best suited for companies trying to keep and enhance their existing brand and those who would like their website to come up under a query for their name in a search engine.

For example, if my company's name is: Soho Projects, then if I would register www.sohoprojects.com.au as my domain, it is very likely that under a search for "Soho Projects" my website will have a good placement under the organic results (not paid).

Nevertheless, the domain name says nothing about what Soho Projects does as a company or the services it provides.

The second choice means that a company like Soho Projects, which I can tell you are Shop Fitters, can choose a domain name which has a close connection to the title of the website and its services and content. For example: ShopFittingSolutions.com.au (BTW, I just checked it and it is up for grabs if anyone wants it - probably won't be after a shop fitter reads this)

Using a domain name which bares a connection to the title and content of the website will help your SEO efforts (search engine optimisation). Why is it good is a topic that goes into SEO methods, and will be discussed in a future posting.

So assuming you have made the right choice and decided to go for a domain name which will be better for SEO  these are the guidelines that I would reccomend:

1. Research the most popular keyphrase - there are many research tools available. But start with the natural search query that you would use to search for your products. Then, start using research tools. The following link will help you to see the popularity of specific keywords: overture. In the future I will probably write a more comprehensive guide to keyword research.

2. Ask your friends and collegues for suggestions - I have done so with my friends from the office. I actually offered a prize for the winner and I got more than 40 suggestions.

3. With or Without hyphen -  Hyphenated domain name is more search engine friendly. Nevertheless, it is less friendly and natural for our human memory. People find it hard to remember the hyphen where it's not used in a natural way.  

4. What if the name is taken - Well, I say that there is always a domain that someone did not think of. If you are considering .net or .org you must take into consideration that people usually search for a .com first. If there is already a website with that domain, then your customers are on their way to your competitor. Think about that.

5. With or without numbers - that doesn't have much affect except that it is hard to remember and not so user friendly. For directories purposes, some directories actually list the websites by their first character and a website with a number before the name will be listed at the top.

6. Using a few domains - you can have a few domains pointing to one website, but you must make sure that you only use one domain for your marketin purposes. Otherwise instead of making one domain strong, you are divising it between a few.

Now, since so many domains are already taken, I suggest that when you come up with a domain that you think can serve your business in the future, go and buy it.

Search Engine Marketing is proven to be the most effective way to do online marketing today. Very easy to monitor, analyse and see the return on investment.

To get started, 

If you need help, or would like to have this done for you, contact me and I will be happy to help.

Regards, Nati.