Hello Wilderness,
Since it is the last day in August and everyone seems to be enjoying the day off (except here in Scotland) I thought it time for a quick post.
Back to School has been quite a challenge for everyone at "Personalised Gift Ideas" with our Gold Blocking machines working constantly on Personalised Pencils. Since the closure of the Staedtler warehouse in Wales we have been unable to source HB Pencils of the quality our customers expect but worry not ... We have decided to continue using Staedtler for our HB ranges and are now buying direct from Germany!
On the Website upgrades both "Personalised Children's Gifts" and "Personalised Gift Ideas" are now fully upgraded though we are still considering a new Home Page design for "Personalised Gift Ideas".
In terms of new products we have a whole range of new products for our Anniversary, Baby and Christening categories but are currently backlogged on our Photo Studio schedule due to our customer focus on our Back to School ranges.
Another exciting development is the addition of our Photo Jigsaws. We have taken presentation to such a great level with Presentation Boxes Gold Blocked with our very own Jigsaw Logo.
Once again it's been a short update but the next year or so will see more frequent posts and more resources diverted to our Newsletters also.
Keep Well everyone until next time.
Robert O'Rourke
Personalised Gift Ideas.
Monday, 31 August 2009
Tuesday, 28 July 2009
July Update
Hello Wilderness,
We have been contacted by a few people who have kindly let us know that we appear to have disappeared from Google!
Not to worry as this is because of major website upgrades that offer many new features - such as the facility to allow our customers to write reviews and post comments without having to Email them to us. As for Google .... Watch this space as we will be back very shortly!
What else is new? We have been expanding some of our ranges, adding new products as well as new categories. We are the company who offer choice so if you are looking for a Wedding Certificate Holder (for example) then you will see we have added a range that offers a choice from five designs rather than just one. We will go into a bit more detail in a later Blog regarding our website updates ... This little "Hello" was just to let everyone know you will soon find us back up and running in Google as well as all the other major search engines!
Keep Well,
Robert O'Rourke
Personalised Gift Ideas
We have been contacted by a few people who have kindly let us know that we appear to have disappeared from Google!
Not to worry as this is because of major website upgrades that offer many new features - such as the facility to allow our customers to write reviews and post comments without having to Email them to us. As for Google .... Watch this space as we will be back very shortly!
What else is new? We have been expanding some of our ranges, adding new products as well as new categories. We are the company who offer choice so if you are looking for a Wedding Certificate Holder (for example) then you will see we have added a range that offers a choice from five designs rather than just one. We will go into a bit more detail in a later Blog regarding our website updates ... This little "Hello" was just to let everyone know you will soon find us back up and running in Google as well as all the other major search engines!
Keep Well,
Robert O'Rourke
Personalised Gift Ideas
Friday, 5 June 2009
What's new in June?
Hello again wilderness and my appologies for the lack of contribution so far for 2009. So what is new since the last Personalised Gift Ideas Post? It's been a busy time for the team with many new products added to the website. As professional engravers we have have been asked to work on commisioned projects for companies such as Microsoft, USC, and the BBC but our main focus still remains on our retail sales to our every day customers.
We have been strengthening our team and have some exciting new developments in the pipeline so watch this space and see where it takes us.
We have been strengthening our team and have some exciting new developments in the pipeline so watch this space and see where it takes us.
Sunday, 18 January 2009
Personalised Pencil Promotion
With a reputation for the fastest UK Delivery of Personalised Pencils we thought we should start advertising and promoting our strengths. We have started with this 10% coupon code which can be used for our Coloured Pencils. Product Code: PGI098 Coupon Code (at checkout) PGIPROMO1 Offer valid until 28th February 2009.
Video Promotion takes about 30 seconds to load.
Video Promotion takes about 30 seconds to load.
Wednesday, 24 December 2008
Merry Christmas from Personalised Gift Ideas
Hello Wilderness,
Before we reflect on the year let us first of all wish all our customers a very Merry Christmas and a great 2009 to come. Our thanks as always for your custom and many kind comments you have given us over the year.
So what was 2008 like for ourselves? Well if I ignore the "too many hours and no break" routine and reflect on the positives then we have continued to expand both our product options, website portfolio and Personalisation Machinary.
On the website front we have added a "Trade" website as well as a Personalised Fantasy Gifts website - The gaming type of fantasy ... not the other type! Neither of the websites are fully up to speed and the Fantasy Site isn't even live yet but both will progress next year.
On the new machinery front we have added another engraving machine as well as purchasing Sublimation Equipment which will allow us to add mousemats, mugs and a whole lot of other less predictable gifts.
Our flagship website "Personalised Gift Ideas" has seen the introduction of not only a new logo but several modifications aimed at improving both the look and making the site easier to optimise for search engine rankings.
Well that's a far from complete summary of the year but it's Christmas Eve and I'm not convinced I should even be at work today as there isn't even any postal service and I can see the tumbleweeds floating past my desk!
Again our thanks for your continued custom and we look forward to seeing what the new year brings!
Until Next Year!
Robert
Before we reflect on the year let us first of all wish all our customers a very Merry Christmas and a great 2009 to come. Our thanks as always for your custom and many kind comments you have given us over the year.
So what was 2008 like for ourselves? Well if I ignore the "too many hours and no break" routine and reflect on the positives then we have continued to expand both our product options, website portfolio and Personalisation Machinary.
On the website front we have added a "Trade" website as well as a Personalised Fantasy Gifts website - The gaming type of fantasy ... not the other type! Neither of the websites are fully up to speed and the Fantasy Site isn't even live yet but both will progress next year.
On the new machinery front we have added another engraving machine as well as purchasing Sublimation Equipment which will allow us to add mousemats, mugs and a whole lot of other less predictable gifts.
Our flagship website "Personalised Gift Ideas" has seen the introduction of not only a new logo but several modifications aimed at improving both the look and making the site easier to optimise for search engine rankings.
Well that's a far from complete summary of the year but it's Christmas Eve and I'm not convinced I should even be at work today as there isn't even any postal service and I can see the tumbleweeds floating past my desk!
Again our thanks for your continued custom and we look forward to seeing what the new year brings!
Until Next Year!
Robert
Saturday, 1 November 2008
So what's the latest from "Personalised Gift Ideas"?
Hello Wilderness,
So here we are on the 1st day of November writing a Blog on a freezing cold Saturday morning. So what's been happening since the last update on 21st October 2008?
Things started off well with some whirlwind website photography on our Photo Studio followed by some photoshop resizing and web uploads of amongst others a bit of "Bling" in one of our "Gifts for Her" sub categories: Presentation Gift Boxed Engraved Hip Flask Sets. Diamonte and More.
Due to our High Google Rankings for "Personalised Money Boxes" we thought we would add a Silver Plated Camper Van Money Box to our range Childrens Personalised Money Boxes
There have been several other updates with more than 200 more still planned and we will point out a few from time to time just to keep you updated.
Since we resized the website a month or so ago we have been able to add a bit more text to some of our main category descriptions. Why bother? Because the average website visitor doesn't always hang around long enough to appreciate that our prices include free UK delivery and full engraving and other personalisation as standard. Many if not most sites are happy to display attractive purchase prices but hide the additional costs until the customer is at the advanced stage of the checkout.
In the space of a few days we have have had the sad demise of two "much loved" laptops. Engraving Station 1 is currently out of action pending repair. Engraving Station 2 has a new laptop but the loss of saved engraving jobs and other software is a setback. All other stations are working fine.
Did you know .... ? that many laptop suppliers realized a niche in the business market and it's all down to just how bad windows vista is? It's true, My engraving machines just don't work reliably on windows vista and I have totally given up trying. Initially I bought some old xp laptops but they were sooo sooo slow. My latest laptop is a Toshiba that comes with windows vista fully installed but also with a special windows xp professional disc that totally wipes the hard drive and reformats for xp! This is a Toshiba disc as well .. not some 3rd party workaround!
Anyways, time to sign off and go do some work in this cold cold business unit. We have some exciting new products in development so hopefully we will update you all in due course.
So here we are on the 1st day of November writing a Blog on a freezing cold Saturday morning. So what's been happening since the last update on 21st October 2008?
Things started off well with some whirlwind website photography on our Photo Studio followed by some photoshop resizing and web uploads of amongst others a bit of "Bling" in one of our "Gifts for Her" sub categories: Presentation Gift Boxed Engraved Hip Flask Sets. Diamonte and More.
Due to our High Google Rankings for "Personalised Money Boxes" we thought we would add a Silver Plated Camper Van Money Box to our range Childrens Personalised Money Boxes
There have been several other updates with more than 200 more still planned and we will point out a few from time to time just to keep you updated.
Since we resized the website a month or so ago we have been able to add a bit more text to some of our main category descriptions. Why bother? Because the average website visitor doesn't always hang around long enough to appreciate that our prices include free UK delivery and full engraving and other personalisation as standard. Many if not most sites are happy to display attractive purchase prices but hide the additional costs until the customer is at the advanced stage of the checkout.
In the space of a few days we have have had the sad demise of two "much loved" laptops. Engraving Station 1 is currently out of action pending repair. Engraving Station 2 has a new laptop but the loss of saved engraving jobs and other software is a setback. All other stations are working fine.
Did you know .... ? that many laptop suppliers realized a niche in the business market and it's all down to just how bad windows vista is? It's true, My engraving machines just don't work reliably on windows vista and I have totally given up trying. Initially I bought some old xp laptops but they were sooo sooo slow. My latest laptop is a Toshiba that comes with windows vista fully installed but also with a special windows xp professional disc that totally wipes the hard drive and reformats for xp! This is a Toshiba disc as well .. not some 3rd party workaround!
Anyways, time to sign off and go do some work in this cold cold business unit. We have some exciting new products in development so hopefully we will update you all in due course.
Tuesday, 21 October 2008
A Fly On The Wall look at Personalised Gift Ideas 21/10/08
Hello Wilderness. I've decided to change the focus of this blog into a "Fly on the Wall" account to the running of my business. So to the occasional tumbleweed floating past my way ... here is an update.
Today Tuesday 21st October is the day Celtic Fc face Manchester United in the champions league and if I'm being honest then I fear the worst for Celtic - If we somehow win then I'll amend this blog.
On the business side of things, I worked quite late last night on engraving software to design a 4" x 2" Brass Plaque for a frame maker which incorporated some fancy text and a logo with nice borders - Looked a treat even if I do say so myself. This has got me thinking that I could add a category to my Trade Website for designing large scale A4 Brass Plaques for businesses, after all our Engraving machines are top of the range. Here is a category from the Trade Website (click homepage to see a fancy plaque being engraved). Baby and Christening Gifts
In terms of Personalised Gift Ideas updates, I have finally added a description to another of my Presentation Gift Products (The Cocktail Shaker) Personalised Boxed Drinks Presentation Gift Sets
Another late night product update was adding the Personalised Newspaper Football Books to our Personalised Birthday Category. I really really like this product as the stories go back over 100 years in most cases and have reports from reporters of the day - not some tampered with "wise after the event" account. Here is the product ... The Essential Personalised History of your Favourite Football Team in Print
Today we will be working on our main website www.personalisedgiftideas.co.uk we will be going into the E Commerce software and looking at the Browser and Meta Description Tags, no small job with dozens of categories and around 1000 products.
For those who are interested, the Browser and Meta Descriptions on a websites are the descriptions a website owner supplies to the search engines about page content. If these are not completed then google will have to try and work it out for you .. usually with drastic results. Remember this if you ever build a website - you have to do a lot of things well to get rankings they don't just happen.
Todays author has been Robert (The Boss) It's like throwing a "message in a bottle" and waiting to see if it's found. (yes we do sell Personalised Messages in bottles as I recall!
Today Tuesday 21st October is the day Celtic Fc face Manchester United in the champions league and if I'm being honest then I fear the worst for Celtic - If we somehow win then I'll amend this blog.
On the business side of things, I worked quite late last night on engraving software to design a 4" x 2" Brass Plaque for a frame maker which incorporated some fancy text and a logo with nice borders - Looked a treat even if I do say so myself. This has got me thinking that I could add a category to my Trade Website for designing large scale A4 Brass Plaques for businesses, after all our Engraving machines are top of the range. Here is a category from the Trade Website (click homepage to see a fancy plaque being engraved). Baby and Christening Gifts
In terms of Personalised Gift Ideas updates, I have finally added a description to another of my Presentation Gift Products (The Cocktail Shaker) Personalised Boxed Drinks Presentation Gift Sets
Another late night product update was adding the Personalised Newspaper Football Books to our Personalised Birthday Category. I really really like this product as the stories go back over 100 years in most cases and have reports from reporters of the day - not some tampered with "wise after the event" account. Here is the product ... The Essential Personalised History of your Favourite Football Team in Print
Today we will be working on our main website www.personalisedgiftideas.co.uk we will be going into the E Commerce software and looking at the Browser and Meta Description Tags, no small job with dozens of categories and around 1000 products.
For those who are interested, the Browser and Meta Descriptions on a websites are the descriptions a website owner supplies to the search engines about page content. If these are not completed then google will have to try and work it out for you .. usually with drastic results. Remember this if you ever build a website - you have to do a lot of things well to get rankings they don't just happen.
Todays author has been Robert (The Boss) It's like throwing a "message in a bottle" and waiting to see if it's found. (yes we do sell Personalised Messages in bottles as I recall!
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