Give yourself a makeover
Your LinkedIn profile is the first thing your new contacts will see so make sure you stand out for all the right reasons. First impressions really do count! Be sure to update regularly adding any new skills and accomplishments. Don’t be shy, make sure you include a picture to truly personalise your profile, it will make you appear much more approachable.
 
Show your business some love
By creating a LinkedIn Company page you are giving your customers and contacts all the information they need to learn about your business, your products and the services you offer. It’s free for anyone to set up company pages and having one really will benefit your LinkedIn profile.
 
Share the love
The more connections you have on your Company Page the more people will see your published updates. With InMail Don’t just connect to anyone, make sure you know them or have at least some synergy. Be sure to add any employees as they are far more likely to share any posts you make. Promote your company page on your website, in your emails and blogs to help try and encourage more people to follow you.
 
Communication is key
It’s easy to keep in touch with your contacts especially using LinkedIn messaging. You can use it to organise meetings and keep in touch with your connections. Sometimes a friendly chat is all it takes to reconnect with a business acquaintance.
 
LinkedIn is just as important as all other social media platforms, in fact in the last year it has seen huge growth with lots more people engaging on here daily. In platform advertising could transform it further. Show it some love and reap the benefits!

Why do I need a website?
Think about why you want a website (not just because everyone else has one) and then think about what you want to achieve from it. Everyone wants to sell products or services and inform their customer and attract new ones, but other than these reasons why do you want a website?

The answer to this question will inform all your choices about how to develop your website. Always refer back to this when making every decision, having your target audience in mind.

An example
I would like a website to be able to display my finished designs and it needs to let people sign-up for my newsletter.

Q: What colour should my website be?
A: Who is my target audience and how can I appeal to them through my choice in colour?

A good plan to a website that succeeds is broken down into four parts:

1. Website Research
2. Website Build
3. Planning
4. Marketing

1. Website research

• Your target audience
• Your competitors
• Search engine marketing (SEO)

Before you start any business or even begin to think about your website, take a look at your target audience, your competitors and this is the time to be thinking about your search engine optimisation. Any keywords relevant to your industry and service should feature in the written content of your website.

2. Website build

• Navigation
• Content
• Structure (map/tree)

The website structure form the outline build of your website, this includes your navigation (how many pages to feature on your website). A tree or spider diagram can be drawn up to map out all the pages on your website. Your website content needs to be identified, from text to images and other media such as video.

3. Planning

• Design
• Functionality
• Specific requirements

People often make the mistake of starting with the design and shifting the content around to match. A better way is to collate all your content, develop the structure then think about the design when you know of everything that needs to be included. Functionality is anything that has a function for example email newsletter sign-up or a contact form. Specific requirements covers anything that isn’t strictly off-the-shelf e.g. a message board or a booking facility.

4. Marketing

• Publish
• Promote
• Measure your success

You publish your website and promote it through networking, word of mouth, on your business card, you direct people to it through emails but how do you know what content people are looking at and where they are spending their time? We install Google Analytics on every website we build, it is a FREE tool from Google and helps you find out much more than you will ever need to know!

Have you found any useful tools that could help others, plan, organise or build their website? Share your finds here:

• What does http mean? http (HyperText Transfer Protocol) is basically the protocol computers use to transfer information that form a website.
• What does https mean? Https in simple terms is the secure version of http, the ‘S’ standing for secure. It means that all the communications between your browser and the website are encrypted. This is especially important when dealing with ecommerce or submitting contact forms for example.
• July 2018 is when Google Chrome will start warning users when they visit a site that is not secure (http). It is estimated that around 50% of internet users have Chrome as their browser so the effect of these messages could be massive.
• How will this affect your business? If you don’t change your website protocol to https your business could suffer as a result.  Visitors could be put off by a security message popping up when they visit your website and this could in turn lead to reduced site traffic, a fall in online sales, reduced number of enquiries etc.
• Why does Google want businesses to change to https? https will protect your site and it’s users and uphold the integrity of your website. Google are working hard to ensure everyone has a safer online experience.
• Do you need to upgrade your site to https? It makes sense to think about upgrading to https if your site is currently http especially If you have a contact form or any data is transmitted through your website. Google Chrome can start to have an impact on your website and business from July.

Whether you choose to change your site to https is obviously a decision for you and your business. Ultimately Google set the rules and want to help us be more secure in our online activities. In the long run it will pay dividend to follow these rules to get the best results for your business. And given that such large number of users will be accessing your site via Google Chrome.

If your website is hosted by Creative Remedy on a CMS system, be sure to contact Sara for a chat about making your website secure.

Through discussions on business development at the local Jelly networking/ co-working event recently in Peterborough, the conversation turned to blogs and what would make great reading topics for the following months.  ​

I am a fairly private person and it was felt I could share some knowledge about myself… a sort of ‘Meet Your Consultant’. So here are a three and a few more things you may not know about me…

1. Vrruuuummm vrummm….
I ride a 600cc motorbike. About two years ago I passed my motorcycle test with a clean sheet. I do enjoy finding any reason to nip out for some milk! I have come a long way… thinking back to about 20 years ago when it took me three tries at passing my car driving test. With 28 minor faults on my first test, I remember clearly trying to do a hill start in neutral… I was that nervous.

2. Self Defence and Yoga
I am a 2nd degree Black belt in Tae Kwon Do and training for my 3rd Dan. I have been training for 16 years and attend 1-2 sessions a week. I help out at interclub competitions and teach at my local club. I officiate at two competition a year, one local and one national and attend black belt sessions across the UK. I am first aid qualified. This is my club: Annabel Murcott Schools of Tae Kwon Do

I attend Yoga about once a week, Hatha yoga is the style I practice, I have been doing this for about 4 years now. My instructor is Helen who adds a balanced mix of mind, body, theory and humour. Yoga gives me space to think, breath, time to focus on me and not take life too seriously. It has significantly changed my wellbeing over the years. The classes I attend are here: Equilibrium Yoga & Well-Being Centre 

3. Family life
Ben is my partner of 14 years, we have two girls of pre-school age who completed our family through adoption. We jointly share the care of our children which means we can both continue to work and pursue our interests.

And a few more things...

• Favourite drink: Ben tells me that he wouldn’t be confident ordering me a drink at the bar because I always choose something different dependent upon my mood!
• Likes: Snowboarding but not any good at it.
• I need: 8 hours sleep to function properly
• TV Programmes: The Mentalist, Six Feet Under, Dexter, Game of Thrones
• Music: Pink, Sia, Alanis Morrisette, Lissie, Celine Dion, Shakira, Lana Del Rey, Beth Orton
• Favourite food: Thai food
• Love: Technology and gadgets
• Jobs while studying: Nut sorter, melon grader, gala pork pie creator, flower wrapper
• 5 mins of fame: Songs of Praise and Trisha (in the audience)!
• Last book I read: And Then There Were Four by Emma Sutton
• Dislikes: Creatures (insects), kidney beans
• Best achievement: Tandem skydive for a charity
• Worst job: Phone box cleaner
• Pets: One beautiful Weimaraner called Kia
• Countries I’ve visited: Prague, Austria, Ireland, Poland, France, Spain, Italy, Tunisia
• What makes me laugh: Random things, Sarah Millican, the dog
• My friends know me for: My plinky plonky music
• Who inspires me: My children… observing their view and understanding of the world.
• Places I’d like to visit: Canada, Norway, Greenland, Korea, New Zealand
• Favourite colour: Purple, Pantone ref: Ultra Violet 18-3838
• Favourite films: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Lord of The Rings Trilogy
• Aspiration: To write a book

What does GDPR stand for?
General Data Protection Regulation (Previously Data Protection Act 1998).

What is the Purpose of the General Data Protection Regulation?
The purpose of the General Data Protection Regulation is to make companies large and small responsible and accountable for all data stored within your business. That means every single piece - including that stored on paper and electronic data.

What Businesses are Affected by GDPR?
If you answer yes to the following questions, GDPR affects you and your business:

• Do you store your customers’ contact information?
• Do you manage personal data on behalf of customer(s)?
• Do you create invoices with customers’ details?
• Do you send email marketing campaigns to your customers?
• Do you have a website with a contact form or newsletter sign-up form?
• Do you have an existing data policy? Is it up-to-date?

How Do I Get Compliant?
There is a very short time to get compliant - between now and 25th May 2018 (even though the new policy was released two years ago!). The consensus is that if you already have a data policy, as long as you are making steps to upgrade it to the new regulation you won’t have ICO knocking at your door. Similarly, if you don’t have a data policy in place, start work on it now. You need to show that you have made a good start by 25th May 2018.

Brief Guidelines For Creating Your first Data Policy?
If you are a small business, you need to create your own data policy document that describes:

• The types of data you hold
• The volume of data
• Whether it is sensitive, high or low risk data
• How you obtained your data
• Why you obtained it
• How long you plan to retain it for
• Where you store it e.g. what software and what hardware you use

You need to show you understand how to keep your data safe and the risks your business administers by holding the data. You also need to show that you know how to report any data loss if you have a data breech.

Support for GDPR:
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has many resources to help get you GDPR ready.

• GDPR: 12 steps to take now
• Guide to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)