Why not let us register your website with 100 directories for just £40!

Gaining valuable links and making sure your website can be found online in a variety of places, directory submissions are a great way to build your profile!

All submissions are done by hand and they’re not identical!

Order now by clicking the paypal button below.

Please note:

• You will need to provide 3 different descriptions for your business.
• Some directories can take up to 2 months to accept your listing.
• Some links will be “no follow”
• You will recive a list of the directories you have been submitted to within 1 week of the process starting
• Any questions email Leigh on leigh@leighquantrill.com, find her on skype: leighquantrill or on Twitter @leighquantrill 

Check out this great Twitter Management Offer – For a limited time only!

For a month you’ll get:

• 10 follows a day – we’ll follow people who may be interested in your business/your products
• 5 Tweets a day, to get you more visitors to your blog or website
• A report each week to show the increase/decrease of followers to your Twitter account
• Promotion & retweets through my other Twitter accounts

The truth is, you could let it all go for a week or so and just carry on once Christmas is over – but this could mean you’ve lost a few potential clients. Instead there’s another solution – Get a Virtual Assistant to do it for you.

Updating your website:
Rather than worrying about that blog post you were supposed to publish or that page that needed tweaking slightly for the new year – get this information over to a Virtual Assistant a few weeks before and they will be able to make sure everything is done on time without you having to keep nipping back and forth to your computer when let’s face it, you really don’t want to!

Updating your Facebook business page:
Don’t worry about keeping your Facebook page up to date – A Virtual Assistant can do this for you in a short time to make sure that there’s something new for your Facebook business page fans every day of the week.

Updating  your Twitter Account:
I know how important Twitter is to business these days as most of my clients come straight from Twitter! So instead of missing out on those potential clients for the start of 2012 – leave it in the hands of a virtual assistant to update your Twitter account every few hours in the day with useful tweets to generate business and new visitors to your website.

Email:
You could add an auto responder so all your clients/potential clients know you’re out of the office for a while, but this may mean they find someone else in the mean time. So why not hand over your email to a Virtual Assistant for a few days so they can respond to the important emails and get rid of the spam so when you’re back you don’t have to worry!

So if you want to keep business going this year over Christmas without having to miss out on the fun – Email Leigh or find her on skype: leighquantrill & Twitter.

1) I’m quick

I’ve grown up with technology, so it’s second nature to me. Whether it’s adding a blog to your WordPress site, finding you the best plugin for your blog, updating a Facebok page or setting up Tweets, I workly quickly and diligently.

2) I’m well priced

Most VAs charge around £25 an hour – I charge £10 an hour. As a VA, you could take on more clients and sub the work out to me, in the knowledge that it will be done well and on time. That’s £15 an hour you make for next to nothing!

3) I’m hard working

Need something doing at short notice? Updates done late at night? I’m your girl! I practically live on the Internet so I’m available outside of normal working hours.

4) I’m a stickler for detail

I believe that if a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well, and the little details make all the difference. I’ll go the extra mile to make sure your job is done well.

5) I don’t answer phones

Because I don’t do phone answering, you can be sure that every minute you pay for is dedicated to you and your clients, with no interruptions.

6) I’m knowledgeable

My mum is Internet Marketing and Social Media expert Nikki Pilkington. The Internet and Social Media is in my blood and what I don’t know, she does!

7) I’m good

Blowing my own trumpet? Maybe. True? I hope so. My clients say so, see my testimonials here. My aim when working for you is for you to have good things to say about me, and with that in mind, when you get me, you get the best of me.

Are you a VA looking for someone else to work with? Or maybe you want to take on more clients but have realised there are only a finite amount of hours in the day, and you’re working them all? Drop me a line to leigh@leighquantrill.com, or find me on Twitter and let’s see if we can work together!

“When my son died I almost died too. During the following few years I had several miscarriages, was grief stricken and went through a rough time on many levels as I lost my business, got into debt and felt like my life was collapsing around me.

Having worked as a brand image designer in agencies across the UK during my fifteen year career before becoming self employed, I set my business back up from scratch with no budget or funding in 2008. Purely by being innovative, self marketing and creating a biz brand buzz online I have taken my business from struggling to flourishing and I want to help other multitasking mums to do the same!”.

To celebrate the launch of www.supportivebusinessmums.co.uk and www.biz-brand-buzz.co.uk Ces is giving away £750 worth of design and print. The print of business cards and flyers is being sponsored by Dorset Digital Print. Everyone who applies to #WIN will be given a fantastic free promotional feature on www.supportivebusinessmums.co.uk

TOP 5 TIPS FOR COST EFFECTIVE BRANDING
1. Look at your branding from your ideal customer’s perspective. Do you stand out and give them good reasons to choose you?
2. Build credibility through a professional image, compelling content, savvy self promotion and great reviews. Make it easy for people to find and recognise your brand.
3. Be innovative and look for niche angles, collaborations and ways to promote yourself.
4. Maximise your potential to win business through your branded online presence with effective microsites, blogs, twitter usage and facebook fan pages.
5. Remember to engage. Great conversations lead to great opportunities. When people like you and your brand stands out in a positive way they will advocate your business.

So whether you have an existing business or a new venture you can choose any of the following #WIN : professionally designed logo, twitter page, facebook fan page, flyer design and print, business card design and print, website or blog design, banner design, ebooks, and more.

HOW TO ENTER:
Email Ces via ces@creativelyminded.co.uk and request an application form which will form the basis of a feature to promote your business on www.supportivebusinessmums.co.uk All those who

enter will be sent details of further opportunities to create a Buzz for your business through Biz Brand Buzz and Supportive Business Mums. Closing date for entries 22nd August 2011.

Editors Notes:

About Ces : Ces Loftus is a brand image designer, brand buzz creator and author based in Poole Dorset. Having trained at the UK’s premier university for brand image design she has had a fifteen year industry career and now runs her own local design business.

About Supportive Business Mums : Ces has set up www.supportivebusinessmums.co.uk and www.biz-brand-buzz.co.uk in order to provide free promotion, give aways and advice on creating a brand buzz for small businesses in a cost effective way.

Contact Details :
email: ces@creativelyminded.co.uk
tel: 01202 381 538
mobile: 07906 751 524
www.biz-brand-buzz.co.uk
www.supportivebusinessmums.co.uk
www.creativelyminded.co.uk
www.the-light-direction.co.uk
www.the-light-direction.co.uk/blog

Print Sponsor : Robert McCarthy Dorset Digital Print
Robert@dorsetdigitalprint.co.uk
www.dorsetdigitalprint.co.uk
tel: 01202 332 042
mob: 07584 501 898

Rather than spending half your holiday on the computer on Twitter, Facebook, Linked in and various other social media sites you might use for your business, why not get a Virtual Assistant to keep things running smoothly while you make the most of your time away?

Whilst you’re chilling by the pool, we’ll be able to make sure your blogs are going out on time, you’re still active on Twitter, your Facebook business page is being updated regularly and your Linked in connections know all about the latest offer on your website!

So if you want to make the most of your holiday this year without having to worry about what’s going on back home – contact Leigh & she’ll be able to take care of things for you!

How To Write A Post

On the right hand side of your dashboard, you’ll see a “Posts” section, if you click on this you’ll get a drop down menu with these options:

• Posts
• Add New
• Categories
• Post Tags

Click “Add new” to start writing your post.

Add your title in the first box that says “Enter title here..”

Add your text.

To add pictures to your post, click on this icon, find the image on your computer and click upload, you’ll then be given options on how you want to position your image:

If you want to save your post as a draft to continue later, click the save draft button on the left of your post.

If you want to publish the post, click the blue publish button.

If you’d like to schedule your post to go out on a particular date then click the edit button here:

You’ll then get this:

Set your date and time, and make sure you click “schedule”

You’re done!

If you have more questions about wordpress or would like to have a wordpress site setup for you, please contact Leigh.

This someone was Chris Cox of Renaissance Design, a web design company based in South Wales who contacted me at half past twelve offering his help, once I’d set him up as an admin so he could ‘do his thing’ it took him a whole three minutes to fix it – Bonus!

So now I can get back to blogging as usual, with my nice ‘slidey’ front page!

Thanks Chris!

You can find out more about Chris Cox & what he does here

Image via Wikipedia

Since the introduction and popularisation of the internet, the way that businesses can and do market themselves has changed dramatically. Whether it is websites, blogging or social media, every week seems to bring a new spin on how you can promote your business to the masses online.

Sometimes, something comes along that is just huge – the advent of social media as a marketing toolwas a big development, and the next stage could be just about as big.

What’s Coming Next?

The next stage in the evolution of online and offline marketing is undoubtedly local and mobile marketing. Over 30% of Google searches now include a Town, County or Post Code, and Google is throwing its full weight behind the Google Places and Google Maps Programmes.

Google now shows local searches in a more prominent way, following a change to the way the results will appear when Google predicts you are looking for local search results.

Google is also a key player in mobile marketing, that is, marketing to people via their mobile phones. What many experts won’t tell you is that for local marketing to work most effectively, it has to be fused seamlessly with mobile marketing too.

Google Places

Google Places pages are a fantastic way to promote your business. A Places page is unique for your business and the best part is that Google will do all the hard work for you.

And yet of the 50,000,000 Places pages Google has created for businesses, only around 4% have been claimed Worldwide.

So what does that mean for your business? It means that your local competitors probably haven’t claimed their Places page yet. And if they have, they certainly aren’t making the best of it.

Who Can Help Me With All This?

It is not too late to get ahead of the curve. All you need to is to get your Places page claimed and optimised. This is a pretty simple process to carry out yourself, if you want to do that.

The other option is to talk to a specialist who can do it for you. There are a number of marketing companies who can do this for a reasonable fee, including my own company, ABC Multimedia (there is a link at the bottom of the page to my site).

Anyway enough self promotion! The important thing for small businesses is to remember that the internet is your friend – it really can help level the playing field for companies to advertise market and promote on the same platform as the multi million pound corporations.

Don’t take my word for it, take a look at Google and see what is happening out there. Carry out a local based search, e.g, Restaurants in Southend, and see what happens. Google your own business, Google your competitors, and see what results you come up with.

If you’re looking at your smartphone and you’re outside two restaurants, and one has a lot of testimonials and the other doesn’t, which one are you likely to pick?

Another huge added bonus is that a Places page is like an independent free website, hosted by Google, so it is even possible, if you don’t yet have a website, to have a Places page as your presence on-line.

Obviously I don’t recommend that long term, but it is a very good short term stop gap.

So What’s Next?

If you’re a business and you don’t have this, you need to get involved now. Take a look at Google now to see what I mean, and get in touch if you’d like any help.

Phil Clark is a Blogger, writer, marketer and owner of www.abcmultimedia.co.uk, with a focus on local and mobile marketing. I also clearly don’t own a professional headshot yet either…

I am currently a full time nine to fiver, planning an escape very soon from corporate life, former mortgage broker, lover of marketing online and offline, internet business bore, cricket obsessive, frustrated marathon runner and a Manchester United Fan (fully paid up member of the prawn sandwich brigade)