Most of us know that in order to attract new business through our web site, it has to be professional, attractive and present all the information our potential clients need, or do we? Many of us I’m sure are

A web site is your tool for presenting your business. You network online and offline, you hand out cards with your web site address on, you include your web site address in all your offline marketing information, advertisements, flyers, leaflets, headed paper etc. You do, don’t you?

The logical first step for any potential client is to check out your web site before picking up the phone to you to make an enquiry. In many cases this can be as far as the enquiry goes. Until you meet your potential clients in person, your web site is the only representation of your business they see, so if its looking a little bit out of date, is missing some vital information (pricing, customer testimonials?) or has (gasp) spelling or grammatical errors, what impression does that give about you and the quality of your work?

A full Web Site Audit from Enable UK is certainly a really good start at getting your web site into shape, and once you are happy that its giving a great impression of you and your business, don’t forget to include it everywhere: The ‘signature’ at the bottom of your emails – all of them, all of your printed materials, a sign for the window of your car, sign up for Smart Stamp from Royal mail and add your web site address and strap line to your postage label, everywhere and anywhere you can think of.

For more ideas and guidance, why not download the series of Internet Marketing Guides from Enable UK?

For more information, visit:
http://www.enable-uk.co.uk/html/diy_internet_marketing_guides.html

It was such a relief when I found this resource that I though it was about time I let you all in on a little secret. If like me you have an incomprehensible but still very real fear of solicitors, not only because you don’t understand half of their jargon, but also because before you walk through the door you know its going to be expensive, this web site is a little gem. Clickdocs produce a whole range of business documents for use by businesses based in England, Wales and Scotland from Terms and Conditions and Confidentiality Agreements to standard formatting and detail of what must be included in your Invoices. If you’re thinking of setting up as a Limited Company there are forms for this as well as advice on the differing legal entities for businesses. You can find a whole range of other documents you may also find useful including standard agreements for property letting, wills, power of attorney and financial agreements. There is practically a form for every eventuality and when they start from less than £5 and are emailed to you instantly, what could be more cost effective and convenient.

For more information about the range of documents on offer visit:

http://www.ukava.co.uk/html/inthenews_feb_08.html

At the UK Association of Virtual Assistants, our continued investment in Internet Marketing has meant that the UKAVA generates a large amount of pre-qualified traffic to our web site, which in turn results in leads for our members. If you have an Enhanced Listing in our Virtual Assistant Directory these potential clients end up on your web site. But now we have introduced a FREE service for prospective Virtual Assistant clients to look for the perfect VA to suit their needs.

Prospects can now complete a short online form giving details of the work they have available and this information is emailed to all our members allowing you the chance to pick and chose who you want to work with. This means that you will be able to put your proposals direct to would-be clients through out the UK and Worldwide, not just those within your local area – we do work virtually after all! It also means that that you can tender for work as and when you need it. So if you’ve just lost your biggest client, or you’re just starting up and looking for your first clients, now is the time to start putting in those proposals!

If you are already a member of the UKAVA keep an eye on your email inbox for these alerts and if you’re not already a member, click on the link below to find out all the benefits membership brings.

http://www.ukava.co.uk/html/join_the_uk_association_of_vir.html

Yesterday saw the launch of the UK Association of Virtual Assistants Google Group. A user group or forum was something that had been in the pipeline for a while here at the UKAVA but we wanted a group that could be open to everyone, newbies and veterans alike. The group is free to join and participate in and boy have you all grabbed it by the horns. There I was yesterday sitting in my Google Group all alone and today, BAM, virtual assistants are coming from everywhere and all crazily networking to find complimentary skills, telephone answering services, transcription services, holiday cover - you name it. What are you waiting for? Get over there and join in!

http://groups.google.com/group/uk-association-of-virtual-assistants

Working virtually can be a challenge when it comes to managing diaries, checking email (both yours and your clients), sharing files and details of contacts, etc. Wouldn’t it be lovely if it could all be in one place where both you and your clients, and your associates if you have them, could access what you need, when you need it, anywhere in the world from any computer? Now you can.

MyOffice is a subscription based internet-hosted ‘virtual office’ designed for small and medium-sized businesses. It combines diaries / calendars, contacts, tasks, email, file store, reminders and notes into an integrated suite of collaboration tools to help you keep in touch with your colleagues.

Using MyOffice you can share diaries / calendars, manage your contacts, access your email from anywhere, organise and schedule tasks, store files, and much more. You don’t need any technical expertise or a huge financial outlay. My Office takes care of all operational aspects including security, round-the-clock support, software upgrades, server administration, and data backup … leaving you with more time to concentrate on the important things - like running your business!

Sign up for a free 30-day trial or purchase now for our fantastic Two for One offer. Buy one license for just £45 for a whole year and get another one absolutely free. That’s one for you and one for your client.

For more information, visit: http://www.myoffice.net/index.aspx?agentreferrer=ukava

This years VA Conference and Awards started with a bang for those of us able to make the drinks reception on the Friday night. Then what a fantastic day! We had four brilliant and inspiring speakers this year and lots of chance to network and put faces to names.

Congratulations to everyone who entered the awards. I was one of the judges this year, representing the UK Association of Virtual Assistants, along with along with Jacky Workman of the IAVA, Gillian Richmond of EUMA and Linda Barton of IQPS. I’m delighted to say that out of the four finalists in the Awards, two were already members of the UKAVA and a third has since joined. Congratulations go to: Susan Moore of Moore VA and Emma Walker of CKPA in the Over 18 months in business category, and in the Under 18 months in business category well done to Sam Cannell of Versatile Assistant and Shelly McCaughey of Fultus. Brilliant work ladies.

So we’ve already established that getting quality inbound links to your web site from industry related web sites is brilliant way to leapfrog your way up the search engines rankings. But how can you also get noticed specifically by potential clients within your target industries?

Testimonials. How does it work? Simple.

As an example lets say that you have chosen to work with aromatherapists. Have a chat with your aromatherapist client (or potential client!) and explain that you are intending to write a testimonial about them that they can add to their web site. Customer testimonials on a web site improve the credibility of any business and they will be glad to include your unsolicited one. Book yourself an aromatherapy massage and then write a testimonial saying how great the experience was. Don’t forget to include at the end of it your name, business name and WEB SITE ADDRESS. Send it in an email to your client so that they can easily cut and paste the testimonial onto their web site.

You can also ask for reciprocal testimonials. If your web site could do with a few more client testimonials, ask your clients for a reciprocal one in an “I’ll write one for you if you write one for me” fashion. If they are too busy, ask if you can write both, yours and theirs, and send them back to the client for approval before publishing “their” testimonial to your web site. This is great as you can highlight any service or industry you want to focus on within the text, and the client can just approve the content and their quote before you add it to your web site.

Inbound links to your web site keep the search engines happy and testimonials are great for establishing credibility with any potential clients visiting your web site so using testimonials for inbound links is a real win-win.

For more information, hints and tips for virtual assistants visit www.ukava.co.uk

Any virtual assistant who has a little inside information on how the Internet search engines work will tell you that the most effective way to get your web site picked up and listed high within the search engines listings, and particularly in Google, is to have lots of high quality inbound links.

So what is an “inbound link” and what makes one high quality?

An inbound link is simply a link from someone else’s web site to yours. But the key is what makes that link high quality? Now I could bore you for hours with the intricacies of how a search engine spider reads and interprets the detailed visible and background information contained on a web page then decides - in its robot wisdom - the theme of what the page is about. The key is it will then leave that page by following one of the links it includes. That could be a link to your web site. If it has decided that the page it has just visited is all about the Virtual Assistant industry and then it ends up following a link to your web site and it sees that your web site is about the same subject, it will deem that your site is an important resource in this area as the first web site has effectively “voted” for yours by linking to it and therefore list it higher in the results it returns for associated searches. Have I lost you yet?

The crux of it is this, the more links you can get to your web site from web sites within the same field so much the better. Now this article could be seen as self-serving because an obvious connection here is the UK Association of Virtual Assistants web site. Become an Enhanced member and your web site will be linked to from our Directory, thus making your web site look “important” to Google and the like. (More information about how to be listed in our Directory can be found here:
http://www.ukava.co.uk/html/join_the_uk_association_of_vir.html )

But think a little further on; who are your target clients and what industries are they in? How could you get them to link from their web site to your web site? Answers on a postcard!

Seriously, we will cover this neat little trick next time so stay tuned.

Those of you that know me will know that I am a huge supporter of humanitarian charities, and particularly those that work in Africa. I’ve trekked in the Peruvian Andes to raise funds for Oxfam and sponsor two orphaned sisters in Kenya to provide them with a school uniform, shoes and socks and their school lunches for a whole year - all for less that I spent on two pairs of shoes for myself last month. I’ve been looking for a smaller charity to support for a while and am delighted to say that I’ve finally come across The Mango Tree, a UK registered charity THAT SPENDS NOTHING ON UK ADMINISTRATION, yes really, no UK overheads what-so-ever, nothing, nada. Every penny of every donation goes directly to where it’s needed. You cant argue with that can you?

Did you know that £2 can make the difference between an African child getting an education or not? In Kenya and Tanzania primary education is free but children need a uniform to be allowed to attend school. The uniform costs just £2.

Please help me support The Mango Tree by providing essential help to orphans in Africa, enabling them to make a better life for themselves by getting an education. Please forgo the Starbucks just for today and donate the £2 to buy a child a new uniform so they can go to school, or donate £70 as a company and buy a whole year of secondary education for a committed student wanting to make a better life for themselves and their family.

 Whether its £2, £70 or anything in-between, your donation will make a huge difference to the people who really need it.

Thanks - http://www.justgiving.com/justinecurtis

We all know that in order to work virtually, we need to have an online presence, a web site. But it’s amazing how many virtual assistants don’t have one. There can be many reasons, or should I say excuses, including “a web site’s too expensive”, “I want to see if I get any interest before I spend a lot of money on a web site”, “it’s too hard to get someone to update it”, “I don’t know anyone who can build me one”, “my brother/cousin/friend said they’d make me one, but they haven’t done it yet”, the list of reasons why a web site is missing from your armoury is endless. It’s also absurd when getting your web site up and running is as easy and inexpensive as this.

You need to have a web site to run a “virtual” business; it’s as simple as that. And now it’s just a simple to build one yourself, quickly and inexpensively. We recommend Do Your Own Site as you can build your own web site, add your own images and text and be up and running in minutes. It’s simple and from £5.88 per month including hosting what more could you ask for? Once built you can update your pages whenever you want to, and if you want to add additional features later on, such as a shopping cart or additional password protected pages for your clients, you can upgrade when and if you want to.

What is more, Do Your Own Site offers a thirty-day free trial so you can see what the package has to offer before spending a penny. Genius! 

For more information and to claim you free trail, click the link below:

http://www.awin1.com/awclick.php?mid=295&id=59276