ACPR Blog

I’ve been using a site called Website Grader in the last few days. It will appeal to you if you know a few things about SEO but are unsure what to do next to improve your site rating. Website Grader looks at everything from your tags to your sites listings on directories, and makes suggestions about blogs and contact forms. It has helped me pick up a few things that were wrong on my site and hopefully improve the way www.acpr.co.uk is picked up on search engines. I’m also using it for www.familyfriendlyworking.co.uk, where I have started a new blog about flexible work and mumpreneurs. Hope you find it useful too.

I’ve been enjoying getting the feed from Problogger. He always seems to come up with interesting blog news and ideas.

I was feeling uninspired about what to blog, but got a nice boost this afternoon when I picked up a copy of Junior Pregnancy & Baby magazine, which contained an article about starting a craft business. I spoke to the journalist a couple of months ago and she mentioned my book, A Guide to Promoting Your Business, in the article alongside some PR tips which you can read below:

Wise up to PR. Mother of two and PR guru Antonia Chitty advises women with small businesses. Here are her top five tips:

1. Get inspired. Join online business forums, or find a parenting website with a section for work-from-home mothers like www.mumszone.co.uk, www.netmums.co.uk or www.babygreenhouse.co.uk.
2. List all your ideas for promotion on a wall planner so you have activities planned for each week. By planning ahead you’ll see when you need to start promoting an event you are attending, for example.
3. Do one PR task every day. Even when you are very busy, find 15 minutes to make a call or send an email. Attacking promotion in small chunks makes it more manageable
4. Build up good contacts in the media. Call journalists to find out what sort of story they want and send out press releases on a regular basis. It can take several mentions of your business name before people start to buy.
5. Cultivate your customers. Every time someone buys from you, ask if you may add them to your mailing list. Send regular newsletters to clients and potential customers so they know about your sales, events and promotions.

I went on a short Wordpress course today at the eBiz centre in Hastings. Wordpress seems straightforward, and I could probably have managed without the course, but it was fun to do and I met some good people and made a useful contact. I now have to decide about how to attach it to my site(s). I have three sites running currently, ACPR, PRBasics and Family Friendly Working. ACPR is simply the site for my PR Business, and the other two are the sites for my latest books. I have one further site which is deeply out of date, and I’m too embarassed to link to. I think in reality I need to update that and add the blog to it, and use it as a way of bringing the other three sites together. I could also do with creating a website for my Dad’s Glass Book, and another for a very sector specifc area of PR training which I don’t mention anywhere online yet!

Something to think about over Christmas perhaps! 

I’m enjoying reading The Greatest Freelance Writing Tips in the World by Linda Jones. It is in a lovely format – a small hardback, about 6″ by 4″ - and written in short snappy sections which makes it easy to read. It is inspiring and motivating, and reminded me how to sharpen up my pitches. However, the shortness of some of the sections can make some of the content seem a little disjointed. It can be frustrating just when you get interested to find that the book has moved onto the next topic. Jones is at her best in some of the longer sections. The chapter on Writing for the Internet is one of the best, and probably worth buying the book for by itself. I’m finally clear on exactly why blogging is such a good tool to boost your website’s profile, and what a Permalink is. Linda Jones is a prolific blogger, and this shows in this section of the book. Read her latest updates to her blog for parents of twins and more, You’ve Got Your Hands Full or find out more Freelance Writing Tips in her blog of the same name. 

The book is very practical, and you can see that Jones has years of experience in the media. She has written for local papers, worked in PR, and currently freelances for a range of newspapers and magazines. Buy the book if you want to get paid for writing, and need some pointers about the best way to achieve this. It will be £6.99 well invested.

Other useful books for aspiring writers which I’d recommend:

The Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook, The Writer’s Handbook, and the Media Directory are all handy references. Each has its strong points, they all have good information written by well informed people in the media, and will clue you in on how to get started. If you want to find a media contact the guides can be a starting place, although as they only come out once a year contacts may not be up to date.

Have you joined Facebook or MySpace? Are you blogging? These fast growing social media have been touted as a great way to reach new and different groups of customers. You may be wondering if they are going to work for your business.

Unfortunately, there’s no simple answer. Every time you add something like a blog, or set up a profile on a new networking site, you will definitely reach new people. Actively networking on Facebook by joining relevant groups, or linking up with likeminded folk on MySpace will put your business name in front of people who haven’t come across it before. But there’s not guarantee that this will lead to sales. Michelle Lawrie, who runs babysigning company Chelltune set up a MySpace page and says, “I haven’t looked there for weeks. I did get a phone call from a chap who had found my site from MySpace but it hasn’t resulted in any sales to my knowledge.”

However, what you are doing, is building potential customers for the future. The users of many social networking sites tend to be in the 16 to 30 age group. Michelle says, “I’ve had plenty of hits from Facebook but again no sales. I am yet to see if it is worth while or not. I’ve had more sales from forums such as those aimed at Childminders.”

And people who see your MySpace page may not be looking at some of the other media you use to reach new customers. Like every promotional activity, neither Facebook nor MySpace nor the best blog in the world will give you a booming business on their own. Successful business promotion is based on lots of small bits of promotional activity.