When did you last use Yellow Pages or Thomson Local to research phone numbers and businesses? Have you noticed how small both these publications are now? From weighty tome to thin, terribly difficult to read books. (Maybe that’s just me!) Researching people and places on your computer and now with mobile technology expanding rapidly, your business needs to be aware of Local SEO.

Google, Yahoo and Bing have added into their conventional search,the ‘where’ allowing people to search with postcode, town or city added to whatever they are looking for. Bypassing the previously dominant players with large directories with thousands of pages, search engines have moved towards Local business, products and services.

With mobile devices and smart phones increasingly being used to search products and then buy, if you are not appearing in that search, it’s a potential sale you have lost. Just Eat is a site where you put in your post code, find your restaurant, order your meal, pay for it and get it delivered. Needless to say, there’s an App for that too, so you can phone your order in on the way home from work, collect or have it delivered.

The Apps available for mobiles, tie in to Google maps, eliminate irrelevant listings and include niche lists only. They supply reviews, business details and directions to get to you, all at your customers fingertips. If you are not listed locally then you have lost another customer.

All of the search engines are vying for local information so now is the time to make sure you have your local SEO in place and your business listing is optimised. Studies show that organic traffic converts at better rates than most other channels as people are actively searching for you, they know what they want and need to find the right person to buy it from!

Do you need help to optimise you site for local SEO? Email us here, or telephone Tamara on 0203 468 8594.

If so, you need to stop thinking and take action now before Facebook make changes on March 10th. Facebook are changing the way tabs work on business pages by gradually phasing out FBML(Facebook mark up language) and using iFrames(the website code which builds the tabs) After the 10th March , even if you have Pages you will not be able to add tabs as easily as you can now. From the information available so far, we are not sure whether you’ll still be able to add custom tabs, this will mean, no more Welcome tabs, Newsletter sign up and Special offers tabs.

At the moment existing Facebook business pages with existing custom tabs (built with FBML) can still be edited. If you have been procrastinating about getting Facebook pages for your business you need to stop and take action now before Facebook introduce this change. With only just over two weeks left of the FBML style Facebook and pages taking a few days to build, make that decision and contact us now to get your Facebook business pages.

As one of the largest social networks with 500 million users worldwide, Facebook now directs more web traffic than Google. It shares and finds more weblinks, providing an incredible platform to advertise your business. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to spread the word about you and your company.

We can set up your Facebook Business page or fix existing ones. For those ready to take action and get ahead of the last minute rush we will install Google Analytics on two of your Facebook Business pages at no extra cost. So make that decision now and contact us to get your pages before it’s too late.

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I’ve recently stopped telling people I’m a virtual assistant when they ask me what I do. This could happen at business networking events or at a local playgroup.

Why? Because it’s a title (like an accountant or a coach) and doesn’treally tell them anything about what I do and how I add value to my clients’ businesses.

So what would I tell them instead?

My answer is that I’m a business problem solver (or a productivity expert specialising in online marketing depending on who I’m talking to). Because that’s exactly what I do. Let’s look at a few examples of problems that you could have and how we here at TJConsulting can provide you with a solution.

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Your WordPress blog and how a virtual assistant can help you get it published.

Have you lots of ideas and jottings you want to share? The thought of starting a blog appeals but learning all the necessary programs and jargon does not! A virtual assistant can take you through the various stages required to get your idea out on the internet.

From design through to maintaining your presence, we can assist. Your WordPress blog can be free or self-hosted. Self-hosted may well involve finding someone to host and pay a small fee for the service and registering a domain. If you have a website already, TJConsulting Virtual Assistant can arrange for your blog to be installed on your site, and if you haven’t , we can attend to the alternative.

If you have loads of ideas of things you want to include in your content but don’t want the hassle of learning another programme,we can transcribe what ever you send to us, convert it and upload for you. With a list of titles and topics you would like to cover, and no time to put them together, leave it to us and we will write them for you. Images can be added to your blog, whether they are your photographs (always a good idea, because there is no problem with copyright) or linked to a site like Flickr, we can also manage this.

Let’s liven up your post and embed a video or a podcast, both great ways to entertain your readers. If you find it difficult to put your words down on paper but enjoy talking to people, perhaps we can create a video which we can embed on your post and place on YouTube or Vimeo, for your followers to view.

If you want to make your blog more organised and SEO friendly, TJConsulting Virtual Assistant can, categorise, tag and keyword your post. We ensure that your blog has all that it needs to really make a splash on the internet.

WordPress has a very good spam filter which sorts the comments which have been made on your posts, into ones that they regard as spam and those you need to acknowledge. Comments are a good way for your readers and you to interact, and TJConsulting Virtual Assistant can respond and moderate the comments for you. It’s good idea to respond to all the comments, even if it’s just to say ‘thank you’. Responding to comments can start a conversation and you then make a connection with your readers.

In a nutshell:
You = idea for a blog

Virtual assistant =

You = published and followed

TJConsulting Virtual Assistant can help you get your blog up and running and maintain your presence on the Internet. Call us on 0203 4688594 and let’s chat about what we can do for you and your blog.

Guest post by Nichola Stott, the media flow

In this fourth part of a series guide to search engine optimisation, we’re going to look at SEO considerations for content. It is extremely important that you are familiar with keyword research, and I would recommend reading part 3 of this series (Keyword Research) to help provide a solid foundation.

Once you have identified your keywords you then need to implement them in the correct manner on your site, including in the user-facing content, and also the source code, or CMS for your site, (in the meta- data, header and other appropriate tags). Today we’re going to focus on content…

It is important to ensure that the keywords you have identified feature in your content. I mean… why wouldn’t they? Having your keywords in your content is the most natural thing to do, providing you got the keyword research stage correct. Although this will contribute towards ranking your pages for the terms you have identified; most importantly this provides a consistent user journey and helps to assure visitors that your page is indeed relevant for the query they have initiated.

Some SEO practitioners may advise you to consider and optimise your keyword density, (which is the number of times a keyword may be used in any given piece of content, expressed as a percentage of total content). Whilst having your keywords in your content is important, I would advise against this approach. Come on now – if all we had to do was drop your keywords a magic number of times then the web would be full of dull pages of auto-written crap. It’s not the 90’s anymore!

I strongly urge you not to obsess about an optimum density, and instead focus on writing relevant and attractive content for your users.

More on debunking the keyword density myth (amongst others)!

Also check out this excellent piece on “promotional vs informative” copywriting, from web copywriting expert Angie Nikoleychuk.

About the author: Nichola Stott is a highly regarded search and social media professional with over a decade of experience in online communications. Nichola is director and co-founder of theMediaFlow, a search and social media agency; and is a regular conference speaker and contributor to online industry media including Econsultancy, SEO Chicks and State of Search. You can contact Nichola on linkedin  or twitter.