Make the most of fans on BT Tradespace: http://tinyurl.com/yd8fek6 With comments from @TeesOnLine @ChiggsLtd @NitaJoy & @cambridgedesign # – View this tweet

RT @crystalweb 5million Google results for "Copywriter"& guess who's 1st on the list? Congrats @sallyormond http://tinyurl.com/ygfgf2c /YAY! # – View this tweet

Take a fresh look at your Tradespace!

Follow these simple steps to make your site look good to customers and other like-minded businesses:

• If you’ve never logged in on the new BT Tradespace, make sure you start by resetting your password (we need you to do this for security reasons). You’ll then be able to update your tradespace and start enjoying all the new features the site has to offer.

• If you are currently on a basic profile (site with just a name and address), enhance your site (it’s free!) so that you can start adding images, videos, post news and create your shop or list your services. It will also give you the opportunity to add a link on your tradespace for customers to visit your own website. See this month’s top charters for examples of good enhanced sites!

• Once you have an enhanced site, make sure you upload a logo and a header image as a bare minimum. You can also choose a colour theme that best matches your company’s profile. This will give your business a clear look and feel and customers will feel they’ve arrived on a site which has been taken care of.

• Company introduction, About us description and keywords information are all essential to ensure your site is well optimized and to improve your findability by search engines. Make sure you talk about your company, the industry you’re in, the products and services you offer when you fill in these sections as it will give customers who land on your site a clear view of your business.

• When was the last time you logged in to refresh your content ? Search engines favour sites that update their content regularly. Make sure you keep your site up-to-date by posting news, uploading new images or videos, getting customers to leave you testimonials,…It’s all about how customers and other businesses perceive your business when landing on your Tradespace. All of this is really valuable as to how well your site performs in the rankings.

Now, take an honest look at your Tradespace. Would you want to buy from you if you landed on your site? Log in and update your site now. And if you need a little bit more to be convinced, take a look at our Featured Tradespacer this month, Ella Annoucements, who tells us all about her experience.

So with that in mind, we’re hosting a live chat with Charles Conway of Scam Detectives and online payment experts, PayPal.

We’re holding the live chat on March 11th at 12.30pm. Charles and the team from PayPal will be on hand to answer any questions you may have on:

Phishing scams – including Facebook/Twitter/HMRC/Banking

Employment scams – what to look out for, work from home payment processing,
mystery shopping.

Safe shopping – Buying and selling safely online, Choosing a shop, where to
go for help if you have problems.

Plus any other online safety issues you’d like help with.

Scam Detectives was launched in January 2010 to help educate Internet users about increasingly sophisticated “social engineering” techniques being employed by scammers every day to convince them to hand over their bank details, credit card numbers and online banking passwords. Charles also holds “Scam Detectives Live” events within the community to show parents and their children how to keep safe whilst using the internet.

If you’re not familiar with PayPal, it’s the secure online payment solution, which we use right here on BT Tradespace It allows you to pay or get paid quickly and easily without sharing any of your financial information. You can find out more information on the Paypal website or drop them a line at learnmore@paypal.com if you have questions but can’t make it along to the
live chat.

We look forward to seeing you there!

I live in Coventry with my husband and our three children Ella (5), Joey (4), and Isabel (2). I run a number of businesses from home, and have been doing so for 3 years. While I never intended to be my own boss, I have since learnt that I was born to be entrepreneurial. Business comes naturally to me. I love networking with other business people, particularly other mums who juggle their business with bringing up their little ones.

By the age of 18 I was a stay-at-home mum to 2 children under the age of two. As much as I loved being able to dedicate all my time to being a mummy, spending all day with children who couldn’t actually talk back to you was draining. I wanted to do something that meant I could interact with adults in some way, and having been very academic at school, I wanted to be working. Finding a job was not an option. Childcare would have been impossible to fund, I had no previous work experience, and I loved being at home with my babies. So I started to teach myself graphic design and a bit of web design to keep myself occupied. I designed my daughters 2nd birthday invitations, and it wasn’t long before family and friends were commissioning me to design their invites too. With such an amazing response, I tested the market by selling through online marketplaces and soon realised that I was actually receiving a good number of orders… so it was a hobby which then turned into a business.

In 2007, at the age of 19, I launched Ella Announcements. It has been online for 3 years now, and is constantly growing. Ella Announcements offers announcements and invitations for any occasion, as well as wedding stationery and business design. I love that I get to interact with customers, create a vital income for the family, but still get to stay at home and be mum.

I never pay to advertise my business anywhere. There are so many fantastic resources which mean you do not HAVE to splash out. My main source comes from word-of-mouth… past customers, customers friends and family, people who have received an invite, recommendation from my own contacts. I really try to take advantage of all online tools for promotion including social networking, particularly twitter! I build profiles on websites such as BT Tradespace, Linked In, Facebook, etc. As an online business, it’s important for me to find as many places online as I can to shout about Ella Announcements. I also find that networking is a must for any business, online, but also importantly offline. Building relationships with other businesses may not always provide you with immediate sales, but I have had many referrals through this, as well as the obvious benefits of getting to know likeminded people.

A lot of juggling! I have three school runs every day, and this actually enables me to slice up my day well. I have allotted “mummy time” each day, three loads of laundry, general tidying around, and at least 6 hours of work, often more. I get the bulk of my work done in the afternoons when my eldest two are at school/nursery and my youngest is taking her afternoon nap! I also have to collect printing orders, dispatch orders to the post office, and somehow squeeze a little me time in there. I actually have a daily schedule (the same routine each day) and alarms are set on my phone at various times to tell me where I should be and what I should be doing! Having so much to do each day, this really helps me to stay focused and ensure I am devoting enough time to my family and not working 14 hours a day, which would be so easy to do.

The evening before this event, I spotted a tweet from the Tradespace team. After finalising childcare, we quickly booked our places and after a quick sleep we travelled down to London from the West Midlands. This event was fantastic and the journey was well worth it. The people we met, and the information we took away with us was invaluable. We heard from eBay, Microsoft and of course BT Tradespace. I knew of BT Tradespace, but wasn’t clued up on how it all worked. We spoke to Ivan Croxford, BT Tradespace General Manager and looked at examples of good Tradespaces, and then, when we were about to look at a bad example, I suggested that maybe we type in MY business name. I knew I had signed up, but was aware I done nothing with it…

A few seconds later, I was red as a beetroot. We stood, staring blankly, at my Tradespace which simply said “Ella Announcements”. No contact details, website address, images, logo, communities, NOTHING. Just… Ella Announcements. It was rather humiliating to be stood in front of the team and for them to know how much love and devotion I clearly put into my Tradespace. Zilch. And for that reason, I then spent the next morning caring for my Tradespace, adding much more than just a business name. The team were great, really helpful, and being a fan of making online contacts, it was clear that utilising BT Tradespace properly could only benefit me. I’ll be attending the next event, for sure.

The most important tip I could give to anyone is to be yourself. Part of social networking is about building up relationships with others. It’s only possible to do that successfully, if your personality shines through. Don’t be afraid to let people see a glimpse of your real life every now and then!

The Mumpreneur Conference and Awards is an event aimed at supporting and celebrating mums who juggle business life with bringing up a family.

The first event took place in October last year. Being the first event, we were not sure how it would be greeted, but when we oversold on tickets, and received fantastic feedback (as well as having a great time ourselves) it became clear that this is an event that is very much needed in the business world, and in the “mumpreneur community”.

It’s an event that welcomes business mums from right around the UK to come along and meet like-minded people. There’s seminars, guest speakers, an exhibition, networking opportunities and of course The Mumpreneur Awards.

The awards are now open for nominations. Any mum in business can nominate herself (or be nominated) to be in with a chance of winning one of 8 awards. The award categories are:

• Best Start Up
• Best Business Support
• Best Green Business
• Best Saleswoman
• Best Interactive Business
• Best Online Business
• Most Unique Product
• The Inspirational Business Mum

You can submit a nomination through the website www.themumpreneurconference.co.uk where you can also see which seminars and speakers will be joining us on the day. The event is on Saturday 18th September 2010 at the Heart of England Conference Centre.

In fact, studies from comScore reveals that 50% of internet purchases are immediately preceded by a search on a search engine, and that 85% of all internet purchases start with a search. Furthermore, it is common knowledge that people searching for services or goods on internet don’t go further than the 2^nd or 3^rd page of the search results, often no further than the first one. Therefore, it does make sense to make your website rank high, and for many small businesses good rankings are the difference between commercial success and commercial failure.

The first thing you should do when building your SEO strategy is to set your targets. To do that, you need to have an understanding of what internet users are searching for in your field of activity, and how strong the competition is on these searches. Some tools can help you: Google Keyword Tool, Google Insights, Yahoo! Site Explorer (these are not exclusives, just examples). Depending on how many results and how strong the competition is, you’ll know how difficult it will be to rank above them, and therefore how much time and effort you should put in.

• Beware that SEO is not an easy thing, and often many companies are competing for few places at the top. Hence why it’s important to target not only the most searched keywords but also long tail keywords, for there is less competition.
• Also remember that achieving good rankings cannot be done overnight, it will often take a few weeks to see an impact, and a few months to achieve your targets.

Once you’ve set up your targets, you need to start your SEO activity. This splits in two: on-site (optimisation of your website’s content and structure) and off-site (link building).  Given the high volume of work required by SEO, it’s sometimes difficult to do it all. You then need to know what the most important ranking factors are, and focus on these ones for a maximum impact. Here is a list of what is commonly accepted by the SEO community as the most important ranking factors:

Page Titles: include your target keywords in your page titles but remember that searchers will view a page title before selecting which website to visit so make it appealing to the user as well as the search engine.
Use of headings and sub headings: use H1 and H2 tags for headings and sub headings within a page to help tell the search engines what your content is about.
Internal linking and navigation: in order to ensure the search engine crawlers can find the pages of your website and index them accordingly it is important to ensure you website navigation is usable and that where useful you link from one page to another. Navigations built in flash or using images are less accessible for the search engines so you should aim to use a menu system which uses a text link based system for maximum accessibility.
File names and URL structure: Many people starting out in SEO pay little attention to the URLs where their website pages sit but the search engines use the URL content as an indicator of page relevancy. A page on a plumber’s website about boiler repair for example should be placed at www.website.com/boiler-repair rather than www.website.com/services. This is just another opportunity to indicate to the search engines the topic of a page’s content.
Content: too often websites don’t have enough content on their website, or don’t make the most of their existing content. Make sure your content includes the keywords you’re targeting, but don’t get keyword crazy – make sure your content makes sense both for the search engines and for the users reading it
• Relevant links: a large part of the current algorithm of search engines is based on links. You can see links to a website as a testimonial of its “popularity” and relevance to web users, and so does search engines. Generating relevant links is one of the most impactful SEO activities and thus shouldn’t be overlooked.

Making changes such as these should help you build a platform for your websites SEO to grow from.

Don’t forget what your main objective is: to generate more revenues for your business. Therefore you need to measure the impact of your SEO activity as your search ranking evolves – and to make the most of your SEO, there is nothing better than a website that delivers.
So rankings are not the only thing to monitor, but how do you measure the impact of your SEO – and more generally of your online marketing and website success? You do it through web analytics. Have a look at my previous post on this subject, Web analytics: improve your website’s revenues. For SEO the main things to watch are the quantity and quality of visits generated through organic search, and if you have a transactional website the sales generated.

SEO is a great way to generate traffic and revenues, but is not the only one in the online marketing toolbox. Pay Per Click (PPC), display, affiliate marketing, social media are worth the consideration, and web analytics are a must do for anyone serious about building an online business. So make sure you don’t become a “ranking junkie”.
Finally, if you don’t have time to do it all yourself, you might consider outsourcing your SEO activity. Whether you just need to be led or you need a full service, the experience and knowledge of a SEO consultant or an agency having worked on many websites will definitely help your success, and will save you a lot of time. However, selecting a consultant or an agency is not an easy thing to do. Beware of false claims such as guaranteed positions on Google, or promises of surprisingly fast results. Make sure the agency / consultants you hire have a proven track record, adhere to your objectives and are totally transparent in regards to what they are going to do to improve your rankings.

Robert Weatherhead is Operations Director for BT SearchSmart. BT SearchSmart provides affordable Pay Per Click, small business SEO and analytics services.

As it happens, this has also become one of the most popular features since the new launch and the number of businesses with fans has trebled since the New Year!

This tool proves to be extremely valuable if well used and is there essentially to help you build and manage your online reputation. So how do you use it? How can it help your business and what are the do’s and don’ts of fanning on BT Tradespace?

Using the tool

You can become a fan of another business by going to Tradespacers you’ve engaged with in the past, those that are relevant or local to you, and simply click on the ‘Become a fan’ button at the top of their site. You will automatically be added to their fan base.

Similarly, the business you’ve become a fan of will appear on your site under “Businesses I like”. You can therefore share with your network the businesses you would be happy to recommend.

How can it help my business?

Getting fans is brilliant for your online reputation as it immediately raises your profile. However, it also helps you increase your online visibility and not just on Tradespace. The more links you create, the better your findability by search engines. So why is that?

• When you become a fan of a business, you’re automatically part of their network and they become part of yours. This means that you will be visible on their Tradespace under their fan base and in turn, they will be on yours, under “Businesses I like”.
• Also, you’ll get the opportunity to appear on their homepage for a while under their recent activity feed, which will give you additional link equity and visibility.
• Last, if you decide to fan a business, they will receive an alert letting them know they’ve been “fanned” and there’s a very great chance that they’ll fan you back, which in turn will increase your own fan base and raise your online profile.

Do’s and dont’s

• Do choose businesses that are relevant to you. This may be businesses that are in the same industry, suppliers you’ve dealt with, businesses in your local area that you bought from and like; any Tradespacers who could help you build a relevant and good online network for your business.
• Do enhance your Tradespace site and add relevant content. Businesses with enhanced Tradespace profiles have a higher propensity to be fanned. Remember, if you’re being fanned, it’s also a testimonial that you’re being recommended. It’s therefore less likely that people and businesses become a fan of a site that is just a name and address. You can get tips on how to make the best of your site here!
• Don’t forget to fan back! If someone decides to become a fan of your business and is relevant to you and your company, don’t forget to return the favour.
• Don’t become a fan of businesses just for the sake of it. Make sure they’re relevant to you and your network. “Fan spamming” will not do your network or business any good.
• Don’t forget to link your Twitter account. If you are on twitter, you can now enable it on BT Tradespace. It is another way to get your activity noticed and if you’re fanned by a Tradespacer who’s on Twitter, it will appear on their twitter stream for all their followers to see!

What people think

I’ve been using the ‘become a fan’ function for a while now, on the ‘old’ BT Tradespace and on the new improved BT Tradespace. I like the feature, it’s easy to use and I particularly like that it helps build up a picture of how businesses interlink; for example I have become a fan of businesses that stock my products, so people can find out about my company, read about the products I make and then build up a picture of the businesses stocking my products by looking at the BT Tradespace pages I am a ‘fan’ of. http://chiggs.bttradespace.com

The fan feature is a really helpful addition. I use it to connect to old contacts. But also its a way of making first contact with new suppliers/partners. I have made a couple of really good new contacts this way. I just wish more of my existing contacts were on there! http://cambridgeindustrialdesign.bttradespace.com

The fan feature, is a great way to meet and connect with other businesses. I think it’s a great feature and I hope that many businesses will use this facility. http://nitajoycraftdesign.bttradespace.com

Using the ‘Fan Feature’ is great for my business and that of Fans because it shows customers who you know and trust. If used the way it is intended for you can build a valuable link for both yourself and your customers and your Fans. Therefore, it is a win-win-win situation for all. http://qualiteet-shirts.bttradespace.com

Heading over to #TFMA today with @videobloke @rebeccaswann and @b1an # – View this tweet

Last chance to get featured in our newsletter – Are you using the new fan feature on BT Tradespace? Let us know: http://tinyurl.com/y8nuxnx # – View this tweet

Happy Monday everyone # – View this tweet

RT @BirdsOnTheBlog Do you agree? Comment on What’s letting your business down? by Bian http://ow.ly/16Cgse # – View this tweet

RT @StartUpDonut Emma Jones of @e_nation provides tips about setting up a home-based office for your new business http://bit.ly/10oVTD # – View this tweet

RT @BTOpenzone Third Tw-easure Hunt clue coming this afternoon…. Reminder to see http://www.bt.com/thanksamillion for details # – View this tweet

RT @PaulGormanCFP pleased to see we another fan @BTTradespace http://bit.ly/6ODKWk // Fabulous Fans, that's what we like to see # – View this tweet

RT@Schofe Thank you thank you @BTcare amazing service & lovely people. I'm back online and it's all thanks to you and your twitter power # – View this tweet

RT @NikkiPilkington: Posted: I want to run a competition – what is the law? | Internet Marketing Tips & Help http://ow.ly/16it7 # – View this tweet

We're writing an article about the fan feature on Tradespace. Are you using it? Any comments? Pls get in touch, we may feature your biz! # – View this tweet

RT @spinnakercafe I've just written the news post 'Opening Day' on my #BTTradespace http://bit.ly/borfN4 /Hope all went well! # – View this tweet

RT @EssexEmergency see my #bttradespace if you have the time many thx say hallo http://bit.ly/coDRrE // Looking good! # – View this tweet

RT @RubyVizcom BT Tradespace worth a shot – http://tinyurl.com/ycn686h //Top tips! # – View this tweet

RT @PaulGormanCFP We have our 1st fan @bttradespace http://bit.ly/6ODKWk /Great! Article on importance of fans: http://tinyurl.com/y9764jx # – View this tweet

Are you interested in using video for your business, looking for tips? Come to our live chat 5/2 12.30 http://tinyurl.com/ycwmyce # – View this tweet

Try the advanced versions of our online bookings tool free! Offer open until 5th February 2010 http://tinyurl.com/y9d8jc3 # – View this tweet

RT @NikkiPilkington Posting – Brand trashing: what to do if your reputation takes a beating online http://ow.ly/11xlc // Very useful tips! # – View this tweet

Do you use video for your business? If not, is there any reason you don't? Posted # – View this tweet