Archive for the Guest Post Category

The Benefits of Social Networking for Businesses

By Bob Toovey on January 27, 2012

This is a guest post by James Williams who is the Community Manager for TM International, a Paris-based recruitment agency

Social networking is not a new phenomenon. This won’t be the first time you’ve heard the term and if you are like the many millions of “constantly-connected” professionals out there it’s probably something you do on a regular basis. Networking has always been a great tool for businesses to reap benefits from, and that hasn’t changed. What’s changed is the way we network – what we do and how we do it. As technology continues along its path to world domination it’s becoming much more common for the “traditional” methods of networking to be replaced by new “social” techniques. However, what’s become clear to me is that there are still quite a large number of people who don’t really understand the benefits. Some don’t know why people do it, some don’t know what to do, some are unsure where to do it and some have no idea whatsoever and appear to have missed the whole social media revolution. So this can just be a general recap for everyone on why social networking is so important for your business.

The first area of benefit for social networking is awareness. Now the reason I say area of benefit is because there are a large number of benefits that occur from increased awareness as a sort of “knock-on effect.” Awareness is really the umbrella term under which a multitude of other benefits lie, and I will go on to discuss those. Social networking is the easiest and one of the most effective ways of increasing awareness of your business. The days of advertising in the local paper or magazine are behind us, with TV advertising likely to follow in the next few years. As a business trying to get your name out there you need to be where the people are. And where are these people? On social networks! Facebook’s got 850+ million users, LinkedIn is approaching 150 million and Twitter now has well over 300 million, and that’s not even mentioning the newest social network Google+ which has the fastest growth rate of any social network in history. So if you want people to be aware of your company then, without question, you have to have a presence on social networks.

But people being aware of you is just the start. The more people you reach, the more people will visit your profile on whichever social network. The more people who visit your profile, the more people will visit your website (provided you have included a link to it!). And with drastically increased traffic to your website and social networks there is a much bigger chance of you winning new business. For example, say you have a fan base of 200 on Facebook, a Twitter following of 300 and 500+ connections on LinkedIn. You then choose to advertise your product/service on LinkedIn. This has already reached your connections on that network instantly, and because you’ve linked up your LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook accounts, your post has been published on your Twitter feed and on your Facebook page. So before anyone has done anything, in the click of a button you have potentially reached around 1000 people. But that’s nothing! Social networking gives you the perfect opportunity for what I like to call “the ripple effect”. This is similar to the process of things going viral (apart from it’s not a YouTube video of a cat dancing). Your initial reach of 1000 people can be multiplied to an incredible number. Your LinkedIn connections share the post/information with their connections. Your audience on Facebook clicks “like,” sharing that information with every single one of their friends. And finally the people who follow you on Twitter “retweet” it to their followers and so on. That means, providing you post good content, you can grow your initial network of 1000 people to 20, 30, 40 times that. Without sounding too dramatic the possibilities are literally endless.

The problem with increasing the number of people who know about your business is that you are also increasing the potential number of people who can criticize you. However, if you are choosing to opt out of using social networks for your business, what’s important to remember is that people are going to talk about you online whether you have a presence there or not. Therefore social networks give you the opportunity to manage your e-reputation. You can use your social networks as a platform for your customers/clients. You can develop a relationship with them and create a personable online experience which allows the customer to voice their opinion in a way that will not prove negative for your image. By managing your e-reputation you create a much higher potential for customer loyalty, and therefore retention, as well as gaining new customers who will see your positive and helpful image online.

Because of the connection to customers which social networks provide you, social networking can also be a great way to understand customer needs. This can in turn allow you to come up with new ideas for your business or simply improve on previous mistakes because you now have channels which allow constant feedback. And as you know, listening to feedback is one of the most important factors when it comes to business success.

Keeping the customer/client in mind, social networking provides the perfect opportunity to target the right people. Through your social networks you can target relevant industry professionals, whether it be in LinkedIn groups, on a Facebook page or by using the # tag on Twitter. So this means you can implement a targeted marketing effort which will drastically increase your efficiency and effectiveness. It may sound obvious but once you know where your customers are it makes it much easier to communicate with them and social networking allows you to do just that!

And that’s just a few of the benefits that social networking can bring you. It really can’t be stressed enough that social networks are the place to be for today’s businesses, they are essential to your survival. Who knows, in the future the social network may even replace a company’s website.

This entry is filed under Guest Post and tagged business, facebook, linkedin, social networking, twitter.

How to Improve Your SEO

By Bob Toovey on January 13, 2012

This is a guest post by James Williams who is the Community Manager for TM International, a Paris-based recruitment agency

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the most important things to consider when building an online marketing strategy. The challenge lies in maintaining relevance in the eyes of search engines, and as Google is by far the largest and most influential search engine (with over 1 billion hits per month) one of the most important aims of your online marketing strategy has to be to dominate Google’s Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). Without implementing solid SEO strategies you’re website will be about as useful as a shop with no windows and no sign. You want, or should I say need, people to find you and with a few simple strategies you can.

So here are some things that we have done, and that you can do, to improve our website’s SEO strength.

Firstly, you need to think about your URL with regard to two things: Format and Content. Now I’m going to assume you know not to use spaces in your URL but what is quite a common mistake is putting in an underscore to separate words. Due to the algorithms embedded in a search engine like Google, this will cause it to identify the URL as one big word and therefore will reduce your chance of people finding you in a keyword search. However, what you can do is use dashes – problem solved. The content of your URL is also crucial. If you include what are known as “stop words” such as “the”, “what” or “it” the chances are most search engines will actually ignore them and therefore weaken you’re SEO. So take a look at your URL(s) and make sure they are formatted correctly and remove stop words.

Another classic (and essential) trick to improve your SEO ranking is by identifying and utilizing keywords. By using keyword rich title tags on each page of your website you can give yourself the best chance of dominating SERPs and therefore maximize potential income. It’s important to take <title> tags (found in the title bar of the browser) into consideration as search engines use them to ascertain what type of content appears on the page. If you enter keywords into your <title> tag instead of your company name it will prove advantageous for your SEO ranking. Be careful not to exceed the 60 character limit though, as it would be cut-off. You can also add a list of keywords to your back office which site visitors cannot see. For example we specialize in the recruitment of bilingual assistants and secretaries and therefore have identified every relevant keyword and added it to our list.

To track the progress of your site rankings you can use an analytics program, the largest being Google Analytics. Using the different tools involved you will be able to track which keywords, search engines and traffic sources are proving most beneficial in terms of bringing in business. This information is invaluable when it comes to identifying how to improve your SEO ranking. As a Community Manager I use Google Analytics to know where to spend my time. I can understand what works well, what needs improvement and ultimately I can measure the benefits of my efforts.

It can also be very beneficial to add a blog to your site. If you regularly update your blog with new posts and fresh content you can drive traffic to your site through an improved SEO. This is because search engines love fresh content. So, I try to update our blog about 3 or 4 times a week to give our site’s SEO the greatest advantage. Blogs can also be a great way of interacting with customers, and potential customers, which not only helps you in a marketing context but also increases the value in an SEO context. Now more than ever “the fresher the better” applies to your website and its SEO ranking, as Google have recently announced a change to its search algorithm. So keep it fresh!

So there are some simple SEO tips to get started with. And if that wasn’t enough, it’s now becoming more and more apparent that you need to stay up to date with potential future trends so you can adapt and maintain and improve your SEO ranking. With the buzz around Google+ being “the next big thing” for business the result is sure to affect SEO in a big way. I won’t go into too much detail or attempt to predict the future but it seems that the “+1” feature is likely to become particularly important when developing an SEO strategy. Companies will have to adapt their strategy to optimize for recommendations to stay ahead of competitors. Searching is becoming social; Make sure you stay ahead of the curve.

This entry is filed under Guest Post, seo and tagged james, keywords, search, seo. | 1 Comment

Google+ vs. Facebook: Google’s battle plan

By Bob Toovey on November 25, 2011

This is the second part in a series of guest posts by James Williams who is the Community Manager for TM International, a Paris-based recruitment agency. You may want to read part one first, part three is here.

In Part 1 I focused on the explosion of Google+ onto the social business scene. I talked about the ever-increasing rivalry between the two tech giants, briefly mentioning some benefits and ultimately recognized Google+ as a force to be reckoned with. What I didn’t do was go into too much detail or discuss the future implications. Now unfortunately I cannot predict the future, but what I can do is explain what is happening right now and offer some suggestions on what I think is likely to happen in the next few months and the New Year.

Already, since Part 1, things have changed. Google+ was getting a lot of negative attention, and had been since its launch. Many people had written it off before even giving it a chance. But, in the last week or so, opinions and attitudes seem to have gradually changed. People are recognizing that Google+ is not a fad and it will not just disappear; it is something that has to be taken seriously. I mentioned a few of its benefits in Part 1 but the key focus was its potential, and its potential is huge.

Everyone wants to know who will win the battle for social dominance. Marketers are dying to find out so they can plan their strategy and know how they need to think. So, will Google+ overtake Facebook? And ultimately can Google beat Facebook?

As you are probably aware by now, this is not a question with a simple, or definitive, answer. The reason it isn’t as simple a question as: who will win the battle? is because the competitors are fighting for different things. Google and Facebook work in completely different ways and they have very different ideas when it comes to what makes the best social site. However, despite these differences, the rivalry between the two will continue to escalate and will without doubt impact you as a business.

So, in this part I am going to focus on what Google are doing (and planning to do) to “beat” Facebook.

Firstly, we have the +1 button. This is the fastest growing social recommendation widget in history, with over 5 billion impressions a day. Not bad. These +1’s are going to be connected to your Google+ brand page. This will allow Google to extend your brand on a global scale; and by analyzing who is recommending you and where you are being recommended, Google can put your brand where people are.

The +1 button is revolutionizing the world of recommendation. You should never forget the fact that people trust people. A recommendation could become more important than your advertising strategy, a reality that becomes a lot more real with the growth in influence of +1’s.

Now, I mentioned Google Direct Search in Part 1 but what does this mean for the future?

“in ‘+YouTube’ goes straight to the Google+ YouTube Page< and automatically adds YouTube to your circles on Google+ for easy following. An on-going relationship gets established through one Google Search. This isn’t about Google — it’s about Plus and your brand, putting you at the center of everything on Google.”

So, Google is giving you the ability to connect with customers in the easiest possible way. You will be able to develop much deeper relationships and this will prove invaluable because relationships are the most important thing in business. Google+ aims to transform your relationship with Google; they want to give you the power.

Another benefit I underlined in Part 1 was the importance of Google+ for SEO, but how will that become influential in the future? This is quite simple. Google+ will become more and more important for businesses because it is your Google+ page that will appear when customers search for you. Google’s updated search engine will ensure that all features of Google+ are inter-connected with all things Google, something which is quite simply going to become crucial to your company’s SEO.

If your business isn’t on Google+, it quite simply should be. But will Google+ beat Facebook? Well, Google+ is going to win but that doesn’t mean that Facebook is going to lose. As I mentioned, they are fighting for different things. Google+ will transform marketing and search branding. They are going to have an influence on you; that much is certain.

For now Facebook remain in the lead, and in Part 3 I’ll look at what Facebook are doing, and what they have to do in the future, to make sure that there remains more than one social superpower.

This entry is filed under Guest Post, Social Networking and tagged facebook, google, Google Plus, social networking.

E-commerce for the faint hearted

By Bob Toovey on October 4, 2011

This guest post is by Nick Garnett who is a web designer and developer based in the UK and the Haute Vienne, France.

E-commerce is no longer the swamp of impenetrable code it used to be, it scared us all for many years forcing us to either not sell things on the web (by us I mean small businesses) or resort to crude alternatives like sending cheques and PayPal’s own ‘buy now’ buttons (these work well if you only have a few products). Continue reading E-commerce for the faint hearted

This entry is filed under Guest Post and tagged ebay, ecommerce, online shop, wordpress.

Mums in business – Can we do it? Yes we can!

By Bob Toovey on July 14, 2011

This is a guest post by Sally Walker who is the owner of www.sallywalker.me.uk – web design, brand manager, systems and tech support.

My day starts at around 7am when I perform my first email check of the morning, schedule any work I need in for that day, arrange my to-do list and plan my calls. All part of my job as a web design, WordPress engineer and tech support. However at 7.15am the real work starts…I call my children to get up for school.

In 1996, I had been married for a year, had an amazing career and fantastic job as a financial adviser for a well known high street bank here in the UK. I worked in the centre of London and thrived on being busy. This came to a very sudden halt when I was struck down with Meningitis and ended up having a serious of strokes which left me in a wheelchair. I was told I there was a high probability that I would never be able to walk, talk properly, work or have children. My life was about to change significantly.

Being the stubborn woman that I am and with the unbelievable support and love from my husband, I decided that the Doctors had no idea what they were talking about and I started physiotherapy and occupational therapy. After 6 months I was out of the wheelchair but still had to have a lot of help around the house. After a year my speech was almost back to normal, 2 years later I suddenly felt better, out of nowhere. I was pregnant. The pregnancy hormones had kick started something and I was blooming. After a traumatic labour which last 46 hours and ended up with myself being unconscious, my new born daughter being whisked away because she was not breathing and then being told she may have a heart murmur, my husband and I knew we had another fight on our hands. But we fought. Another 2 years on, and I became pregnant again with my youngest daughter and we had to fight all over again. And we did. We now have 2 beautiful girls.

But what has all this got to do with running your own business? Everything. Us Mum’s have this magical spirit inside us that a lot of other non-Mum business people don’t and its maternal instinct. Whatever we give birth to, whether it be a baby or a business, we protect it and fight for it.

I began to teach myself how to design websites in my spare time back in 1995 when we bought our first computer the week after we got married. I had always been creative and it seemed a natural progression. After I was ill and had to give up my position at the bank, I used the design work as a way to get my hands moving again after the strokes. I treated it like therapy. I enjoyed it at it brought in a small income.

In 2002 we decided that we could no longer survive on my husband’s salary and my small design work so we founded a children’s entertainment business Funkalicious Faces. It went off like a rocket, at its peak doing large-scale gigs, such as Walt Disney’s ‘Finding Nemo’ UK launch and The Lord Mayor’s Show in London. We ran for 3 years when one day I just got up and said “I can’t do this anymore. I see everyone else’s children at weekends but not my own!” So rather than doing the sensible thing and selling the business, we just stopped it and gave up. I then went back to the design, and that is where I have been ever since. I also adore ‘all things natural’ so in the evenings I studied to become a complimentary health therapist and qualified at advanced practitioner level in 2007.

Where am I now? Now, I am 34. I have 2 daughters who are 12 and 10, both extremely bright and beautiful, I have a husband (coming up to our 16 years wedding anniversary this week too) who I cherish and adore, I can walk, talk, I have my children and I own my own successful business. In fact later this year we will be launching our second business.

Business Idea – Find an idea that interests you. It will be easier for you to start your business if your business idea is something you really enjoy or have interest in.

Training – if you need training for your business idea, there are plenty of ways to do this. If your children are small and need a lot of your time (actually, all children do!) then try evening classes, online training or even a correspondence course. If your children are at school age, you could become a mature student and go back to college during the day.

Support – Everything in life is easier if you have support. Business is no exception. You need support from your family and friends and also you need professional support from people who have been there and done it. Like me. There are also many support organisations, such as Government led ones that are free for you to get in touch with and ask all business related questions.

Hours – Limit your hours of work and stick to it. Whether you only want to work when your children are asleep so working in the evenings, or maybe work during the day whilst they are at school (like I do), set you hours. Let all of your customers or clients know that your hours from the outset.

Scheduling – Use calendars, task lists and appointments booking to schedule work around your family.

Use a VA/PA – If the idea of working for yourself excites you but the thought of all the admin and book keeping doesn’t, hire a VA. A VA is a virtual assistant that does the same job as a secretary, book keeper and a PA, but all virtually and therefore cheaper. Even if you only use them for an hour a week just to give you hand, it will allow you to concentrate on your business and family more.

So, if you are a Mum and wondering if you can ‘fit it all in’ and thinking that perhaps you just couldn’t run a business, you can. You really can. It’s not easy, but then again, neither is being a Mum

This entry is filed under Guest Post and tagged business, family, mom, mum, website, women.

Jelly! When lone-working can become co-working

By Bob Toovey on April 20, 2011

This is a guest post by Annette Morris. She co-runs Languedoc-Midi.info and the Languedoc group of the Survive France Network. In 2011 she started “Languedoc Jelly”, co-working events for entrepreneurs and expats working from home in the Languedoc-Roussillon region of southern France. When not working online she switches off by getting out into the Languedoc countryside with her Weimaraner and enjoying ‘the real south of France’.

Jelly started in New York in 2006 when a couple of IT freelancers were chatting about the drawbacks of working from home. They recognised they missed having contact with people in a ‘normal’ office environment and the opportunity to share creative initiatives or develop new ideas. They decided to organise a ‘co-working event’, and as they were eating Jelly Beans at the time, decided to call it “Jelly!”. Since then, “Jelly” co-working events have developed across America and more recently in the UK and various European cities.

The increased availability of Broadband has enabled many of us to work remotely and from home. ‘Being your own boss’ or not having a daily commute both have numerous benefits, but the common drawbacks of home-working can include the isolation, the long hours, domestic interruptions and lack of training or creative input. I have been self-employed for several years and through talking to other entrepreneurs and freelancers in France, I have seen how the typical challenges of self-employment can be even more testing for expats. Online networking offers a great way for individuals to connect and develop relationships, but there are very few opportunities to actually work alongside other like-minded people and share a coffee and chat through a new idea.

Through my own online marketing work, I was familiar with various ‘Jelly’ groups establishing in the UK. After doing some research into co-working groups and spaces in France and talking to a few of the UK Jelly organisers, I decided I really wanted to give Languedoc Jelly a try. Also before launching Languedoc Jelly I spoke to Judy Mansfield. Judy runs the Normandy Business Group and we discussed the possibility of Jelly events starting in Northern France too. Judy is equally enthusiastic about the co-working concept and following her visit to the UK Big Jelly event in March, Normandy Jelly will be taking place soon.

Jelly is simply the name of an event. Jelly is not a business – a Jelly organiser does not get paid and attending a Jelly is free. These facts seem to surprise a lot of people.

A Jelly is open to anyone – it is not restricted to expats or English speakers. Its aim is to offer a place where home workers or freelancers can work alongside each other, maybe share ideas or just enjoy working in company instead of isolation. New collaborations may come from people meeting at a Jelly, but networking and selling your business is not the aim of the event. You go to a Jelly to work, check emails, sketch a new design: In the course of your own activity you may chat, make friends, learn about something new, do your accounts or update your blog.

There are no real rules about attending a Jelly, no group to join or obligation to take part. Perhaps the flexibility of Jelly is part of it’s wider appeal.

Several Languedoc Jelly events will be taking place this Spring & Summer – for dates/locations see http://languedocjelly.eventbrite.com – free tickets are released 14 days before each event takes place. And with European Jelly week in January 2012, perhaps ‘France Jelly’ could be on the cards …

This entry is filed under Business ideas, Events, Guest Post and tagged business, co-working, jelly, languedoc.

Guest post: Having a website designed and getting it out there

By Bob Toovey on June 16, 2010

This guest post was written by Jason Roberts. He is an artist that has made a progression into designing websites. He specializes in the design and layout aspects of websites using rich colours to produce dynamic designs. He also creates Facebook business pages and Twitter accounts, for more details visit his website.

For anyone out there thinking about having a website designed here are just a few key things you should prepare and consider. These are just some of the things I as a designer require from a client to help me produce a good and functional site. Before you go hunting for a designer firstly make sure you have thought of the name for your site, create a list of all the sites that you have found that you like. Save the links and write what you like about each site as this will give your designer some idea of what you want.

Make sure you have an idea of how many pages you would like and prepare in advance all the text that will be need. If you have photographs prepared make sure they are full size and have not been compressed. Most designers will have state of the art software to do this which will produce better results.
Keep it simple! You can do great things with designs and have a multitude of flash components within your design. Now my advice is keep sites simple and clean, the less complicated a site, the easier the user will find it. The more hi-tech you want a site the more money it will cost as not all designers create databases and such like. Some designers will out source work that requires coding and solely look after the design aspects. Larger design companies will probably cover all aspects in house but larger design companies can be more expensive than some of us freelance designers.

Getting your site seen:

Do not forget about such online resources as Facebook and Twitter, I as a designer make sure I tell my clients about getting a presence on both these sites. I also create and set up Facebook business pages and Twitter for my clients so that it matches their website design. Then once the design phase is finished the client has a good presence online and does not have to worry about trying to set it up after.

Google: Now please remember to allow up to four weeks for Google to index your new site. This means basically that if someone types in the name of your site in the Google search bar they will find you. For example just typing “profizik” in the search bar no http or www bit.

Keywords:

Now when you write your front page make sure you think about keywords. More does not mean better results. If you are writing about say a B&B business that offers the best cycling holidays for beginners in France. Now some of the keywords here are B&B, bed and breakfast, holidays, France, cycling, cycling for beginners, etc …

Your email signature:

This is one of the most powerful marketing tools that cost you nothing. Make sure you have a link inside your email signature. Everyone you ever contact then can see this and you just never know who they might pass it onto.

Friends and Family:

Make sure your friends and family get to see your new site and ask them to pass it onto their friends for feedback.

Hosting of your site:

Now if you live in France one thing you might want to consider is what type of hosting company the designer uses if he or she hosts websites. If you wish to access statistics about your site how many visits you have had or other information. Then if you are not fluent in French make sure the designer hosts with a company that has English control panels. I for example rent sever space from a UK company to host the sites for my clients that way they have access to Cpanel in English and also support.

Remember that once you have your site is online the work does not finish there, you cannot rely solely on the internet to bring in business. You will need to be clever and market your site via every means possible thus directing people to your website.

This entry is filed under Guest Post, Marketing, websites and tagged design, jason roberts, website.

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