This started off as a blog post from Jan 2010, and was about to do a new one, but most of the info is still current, so decided to amend this one!

Well after much deliberating, we decided to rebrand our USA Business Forum back in 2009 and bring it into line with the My Local Services Directory brand. We called it My Local Forums, and it combines the US, UK and anywhere else in the world into a single Business Forum, for business owners, entrepreneurs or anyone interested in business.

Our forum also acts as a bridge which link the UK and US Directories together, as well as allowing business people from around the globe the chance to discuss relevant issues. It’s also another medium for users to communicate problems, issues or praise.

But regular users of the forum also need to be rewarded, so we have a 10 post policy, after which you are allowed to add web links to your forum signature. In other words, every time you post, you are softly advertising your business, as well as generating a link back to your website. We also remove all the adsense advertising after you have your magic 10 posts.

So if you’re new to forums, then go and have a look around. It’s completely  free to join and use, and has a 30 second sign up process. Why not come and have a look? My Local Forums

The internet is awash with forums, covering every subject imaginable. There are a multitude of great, good and interesting forums out there, all with particular strengths, and looking at business and online business forums in particular, when I’m not attending to our own Business Forum, I thought I’d share my particular  favourites.

Free Business Forums

This is a UK Business Forum, and you can be rest assured of a friendly welcome. It has a large lively community and plenty of regular new threads and posts and is a wealth of useful information.

UK Business Labs

Another great UK Business Forum, well moderated, with a large and friendly community with regular posts and new threads. Definitely worth a look if you are a new small business owner.

The V7 Network

This is more of a website marketing forum, but has business forums within it. It is a huge international forum, it does have a lot of spammy posts, but there is a good sense of community on here, and if you post intelligently, you will be well received. If you want to learn how to improve your online business or learn about Search Engine Optimisation, this is a good place to visit.

Kashflow Business Forum (formerly A1 Business Forums)

Yet another UK Business Forum, although not as busy as it once was. A large membership, with lots of great information.

UK Business Forms

This has to be the largest UK Business Forum. It was taken over by Sift Media a few years ago, and has really grown in size, which some people  find a bit unwieldy, and there are rumblings that some of the community spirit seems to have been lost. But there is no taking it away from it, it is a huge resource of information, and a good way to soft sell your business via forum links.

Digital Point

This is a massive international Forum, which covers Business, SEO, all things online and everything in between. It’s success is also its problem, as it is full of spammy posts and people peddling get rich quick schemes. But it is another huge resource, and is very popular for North American businesses, as well as the UK, so another one that’s worth a visit from time to time.

———————————————————————————————-

There are many many more, but these are the ones where you can normally find me lurking, usually under my SJR4x4 username, so feel free to say hi!

Happy posting!

Steve

My Local Blog - Inside a Business Directory and Business Forum! Ramblings and Mutterings from My Local Services.

I’ve had a lot of positive feedback from my Feb post about scammers, and pressure selling techniques. So thought I’d update on another scam that’s been doing the rounds for some time, but people are still getting caught out.

This one is the Business Directory Renewal scam. Basically the scam is to call a company and try and convince them they are simply resubscribing for a directory listing they don’t have! They will use ambiguous language and familiar sounding  terms such as the UK Business Directory or the UK Directory, and may even send you to a web page on a bonafide Business Directory, just to add an air of credibility.

Even when someone has said they aren’t on that particular directory, the returning waffle has convinced them they are, but aren’t showing as the listing is up for renewal! Naturally, you need to pay there and then with a credit card, and it will usually cost you around £99.

But there is an easy defense. Don’t agree to anything. As with all these scams, they don’t want you to call them back. If they take you to a directory web page, then investigate that directory using the contact information on the site. Give them a call, see if they are genuine. Make sure you are comfortable with who you are talking to before handing over any hard earned cash!

Always ask for a contact number, ignoring any flannel, and if you are in the slightest bit suspicious, or not happy, just hang up.

As with all these techniques, do your 5 minutes of research on Google, and 99% of scams will soon become obvious.

If you hear of any more, we have an ongoing scambusters thread on our business forum. So feel free to let us know!

My Local Blog - Inside a Business Directory and Business Forum! Ramblings and Mutterings from My Local Services.

Last February, one of our forum members did a post about QR codes and had anyone come across them.

I can honestly say I had no idea what they were, and was intrigued. If you still have no idea, then here’s a good explanation and picture of one.

Well since then, they have been popping up everywhere, breathing life into traditional marketing, such as  train timetables, flyers, advertising signs, and one that caught my imagination, business cards.

At last you can now make the humble business card interactive, by adding a QR code and giving a link to your website, or maybe a promotion, special offer etc.

Having just done a 2 day exhibition, we realized our signage is looking a bit out of date, and our business cards old fashioned, so time to update everything, and start trying out those QR codes!

We’ve got a good thread on our forum about QR codes, so be great to hear how anyone else has successfully implemented them, or maybe even some horror stories or things to watch out for!

QR Code Thread on My Local Forums

My Local Blog - Inside a Business Directory and Business Forum! Ramblings and Mutterings from My Local Services.

No doubt this has been 15 times round the internet by the time you see this, but one of our forum members posted this Satire SEO You Tube video today, and I thought I was going to hurt myself laughing!

SEO PIMP Music Video

My Local Blog - Inside a Business Directory and Business Forum! Ramblings and Mutterings from My Local Services.

An open question from a very lazy blogger!

I’ve been accused of being the worlds worst blogger in the past:
http://www.mylocalforums.com/take-break/1436-steve-worse-blogger.html

But as the business world slides further into a social networking melee of various forums, social sites and tweets, is there still steam left in the good old blog?

Forums are good fun, and a good place to get a fairly quick conversation going, whereas blogs (or at least so it seems to me) are more laid back, a place to muse and chew things over. There are some great blogs that I regularly visit as a source of information, and others which are just little more than content scraped link bait.

But I’ve not been fair to the humble blog, so have given this one a fresh lick of paint, and will endeavor to ramble and mutter away a lot more often. It will be interesting to see what happens in 12 months time, when the next super duper social site has opened it’s doors.

I suspect the humble blog will keep rolling along for many more years to come, maybe no longer sexy and exciting in this social world, more middle aged and reliable… hmm sounds familiar

My Local Blog - Inside a Business Directory and Business Forum! Ramblings and Mutterings from My Local Services.

Like a lot of people, any Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) knowledge I’ve picked up over the years is completely self taught, plenty of trial and error, copying techniques from so called experts, some good, some bad, and had plenty of advice that gets contradicted by other “experts”.

So as a small business owner, fighting to keep your head above water, grow your business, plough through all the usual red tape, when do you get a chance to address your own SEO and online marketing?

Looking at  your website, is it a fully operating lead and sales generating device? Or is it visited by just you and your family and maybe the odd bit of digital tumble weed?

The basic principles of SEO are not that complicated, and forgetting all the propaganda you might hear about the latest Search Engine Algorithm update,  if you stick to the original basic practices, and don’t opt for shady shortcuts, then nothing really changes.

The reality is it is incredibly time consuming, which is why most businesses at some point in their lives, will decide to outsource it. When you work out your own cost, and the time it frees up, paying someone else to do it for you may not seem that expensive.

But it’s always good to at least understand the basics. So where do you start if the world of SEO is new to you?

Well Googles a good start. Google SEO Help and predictably, the first result is from Google themselves (or was when I searched) - www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35291

After that, it then comes down to personal choice. There is a huge array of SEO support and advice sites, some superb, some awful, and they will cater for every level of technical expertise.

But for the business owner, sometimes you just want a simplified high level approach, and this is where business forums come in. There are plenty to choose from, again just Google uk business forums and take your pick.

Our own business forum has a fairly straightforward SEO new starters guide – The Basics of SEO but most if not all business forums have a similar guide, and once you are familiar with a particular forum, you can then stop and ask any relevant questions.

Even if you decide to outsource, you will get a good idea of the quality of SEO companies that hang around on forums from both feedback and the way they answer your questions.

SEO can be badged as a dark art, and does get a lot  of  press, but there are some superb SEO consultants out there that can really generate your business a serious return. But knowledge is power apparently, so time to test drive the grey matter

Steve

My Local Blog - Inside a Business Directory and Business Forum! Ramblings and Mutterings from My Local Services.

In marketing terms, the internet can be seen as a hunting ground, and small business is the prey. It can seem that every Tom, Dick and Harry wants your money. They want to sell you something, maybe promise to get you on Google page 1 or just tell you how to spend your precious marketing budget.

Unfortunately, in-between all the hype and too good to be true offers, is some really good stuff from various websites and sources.

So defend yourself!

If you are new in Business, or in fact unfamiliar with sales processes, here’s the one bit of advice you should never forget.

Never agree to anything from a cold call!!

Sound obvious?

Then why do countless people get it wrong, and why are online sales pressure tactics so effective and rogue companies so common?

Now not all cold calls are bad. A lot of telemarketers work long and hard making contacts and try to win you over, and a lot of businesses starting out have to resort to cold calling to get off the ground.

But, and a big but. Never agree to anything from that first call. If you like what you hear, get their contact details, say good bye and do some research. Spending five minutes doing a bit of due diligence without having a salesmen waffling in your ear will save you a lot of costly mistakes.

If a companies product/service is as good as they say it is, then spending 5 minutes on Google looking for testimonials and feedback, and making sure there are no pages of “they’re a con, run away” shouldn’t make the slightest bit of difference.

Trust me, that offer that is only valid if you agree now, will still be valid tomorrow!

Some of the shadier cold callers you need to watch out for.

Unfortunately, as soon as you start marketing yourself, from forums, directories, blogs, articles etc, then the unscrupulous cold caller will strike at some point.

Ones to particularly watch out for are so called Charity or Police Magazines. Be very wary of anyone trying to sell you advertising space in publications that you have never heard of, or allegedly using charities.

The scam is you pay for an A4 advert, it has dubious artwork, you are bullied into a payment plan, which you wont have to pay for x number of weeks/months. You won’t be happy about the exposure you got from the magazine (which will be zero), so you will refuse to pay your bill. You are then passed over to a debt collection agency, which will all be operated by the same company…

Another scam is the SEO one. You will be offered an Google Page 1, all sounding too good to be true, payment plan etc…

The sad fact is, Trading Standards are fully aware, and try and close these guys down when they can, but they resurface under another guise.

The only cure is down to the consumer, ie you.

• Never agree to anything on a first initial cold call.
• If the sales call gets aggressive or the caller isn’t listening, put the phone down.
• If the call sounds interesting, get as much information as you can, get their contact details, do some research and agree to call them back if you are still interested.
• Remember this offer really will be available tomorrow!

From time to time we set up advertising honey traps to catch rogue cold callers and scammers, and regularly pass information onto Trading Standards. If you ever think you have been treated unjustily or think you have fallen prey, then speak to your local Trading Standards.

Don’t be another victim.

My Local Blog - Inside a Business Directory and Business Forum! Ramblings and Mutterings from My Local Services.

5 years is a long time in this bizzare world of cyberspace (can we still call it that?).

5 years a go, life was simpler, My Local Services was a shiny new website, in what we thought was the latest web 2.0 design. The word twitter didn’t exist I had no idea what a facebook was.

5 years on, our shiny site has bred a couple of other sites, but is now due a marketing and cosmetic makeover. Web 2.0 still seems to be the in thing, although it seems mean something completely different to 5 years ago, and now we need to interact with twitter, digg, stumble, exploit our Linked In profiles, pipe in RSS feeds from our favourite forums and god forbid build a facebook fanpage for your business.

I’ve started calling web 2.0 – web 2.5 or maybe web 2.75

How about web 2.we don’t do any work any more…

So what’s the next 5 years going to bring, web 3.0 with any luck, internet piped into my glasses, an office full of professional Social Media Consultants which used to be called web surfing, and maybe a new coffee machine.

Always need something to look forward to

cheers
Steve

My Local Blog - Inside a Business Directory and Business Forum! Ramblings and Mutterings from My Local Services.

It always amazes me why people scrimp and save on their webhosting. You are a professional business, you are trading online, have gone to the time and trouble to develop your website, and boom, you go off the air… again…

For an online business, uptime (ie your websites availability) has to be one of the most important factors that influences any potential customer, and is a key reason why online reputations get damaged.

Now it maybe your website is available but running very slowly, that it frustrates users, or it could be that your website is completely off the air. Either way, it’s all about uptime and transaction (response) times.

Options

 1. Shared Hosting

We all have to start somewhere, and for most of us, this is on shared hosting, or in other words, this is a server that hosts multiple customer websites. Pro’s, it’s very cheap. Con’s, you are at the mercy of the other websites on your server.

A common problem is one of the websites consuming all the resources of the server, which can then impact performance or worse of your own website.

A lot of cheap deals you see banded round, are from very small “hosting” firms. The reality is, web hosting servers need to be located in a professional data centre, which will have infrastructure, resilient power, backup generators etc, and is out of the price range of small businesses. So a lot of hosters “rent” space from datacenters in the form of racks (literally a rack of servers). Before you sign up with your web host, just double check to see where your server will actually live. Hopefully in a proper datacentre, and not somebody’s garage!

Larger companies may have their own datacentres, but as with all suppliers, just do a Google check to look for multiple negative feedback. “XYZ Hosting is down yet again…” kind of thing!

But shared hosting is only for very new or low traffic websites.

2. Dedicated Servers

Once you have outgrown your shared hosting, or you have optimistic traffic projections, or just want reliability from day one, then it’s time to look at dedicated servers.

As the name suggests, this server is yours and yours only. It will be looked after by the hosting company, but as part of your monthly/annual fee you will lease the server, which in turn will include server support and security patching. Normally, any website coding will be yours or your web developer’s responsibility.

Things to remember, you are looking for first class service. Price should be secondary, so do your homework. Moving a live website to a new hosting provider is a painful experience, which is something you won’t want to do very often, and hosting companies know this!

Again, google searches, recommendations, forums etc will help with any decision, but always factor in the revenue your website is bringing in, when deciding on your budget, ie if your website went off the air for 24 hours, how much lost revenue would this cause?

Other factors to consider are backup options. Most dedicated server packages incorporate some kind of backup plan, even if it’s an extra option. Do you have a disaster recovery plan?  Will the hosting company offer some kind of SLA if your server suddenly develops a hardware fault and needs replacing. Eg we operate on a 12 hour DR plan, ie if one of our servers fails, we would have a new server in place and backups restored within 12 hours.

As you grow, you may want to consider some resilient solutions, such as load balancing between a pair of servers. All things to consider, and depending on the worth and value of your business.

3. Virtual Private Servers

These have become very popular over recent years, and are a cheaper way of having your own server. In reality, it is similar to shared hosting, except the server is divided up into portions, so your virtual server has an agreed amount of Disk space, RAM, processor and bandwidth just like a physical dedicated server. But because it is one big server divided up amongst a few clients, this keeps the costs very low in comparison to a dedicated server.

Pros, it’s cheap, and much better than shared hosting, Cons, it’s not a single server that’s unique to you, so there are increased chances of a failure. VPS’s get more and more reliable, but they are a compromise, but can and do match dedicated servers for performance and uptime.

4. Other Options

I’ve assumed that the above options are all managed, ie they are looked after (at least at the server hardware and operating system level) by the hosting company, as well as managing bandwidth, power etc.

You can opt for something called Co-lo or Co Location. This is where you put your own servers into a datacentre, so you have access to their infrastructure, but the servers and are maintained and supported by you. This would only suit businesses with adequate and available I.T. server resources.

…and you can always plug that server under your desk and into your office broadband, but I wouldn’t recommend it !!

I hope this has been helpful, and if nothing else, made you think about your current hosting arrangements. I haven’t put any links to recommendations, as these tend to be personal opinions, and most people know how to use a search engine, but happy to discuss in more detail on our business forum, My Local Forums

Steve

My Local Blog - Inside a Business Directory and Business Forum! Ramblings and Mutterings from My Local Services.

As a business owner, I’m no different from anyone else when it comes to online advertising, and listing my websites with multiple directories.

Obviously everyone has their own preferences and favorites, but I’ve often been asked what are mine. So here goes, in no particular order, the ones I personally rate, and have bought me the best return or traffic.

DMOZ – This is the Open Directory Project, and is used by the search engines to help build their own databases. Its importance is argued by different people in the SEO world, but it’s free. The downside is it can be notoriously hard to get listed, so try it out, you have nothing to lose.

Best of the Web – The BOTW directory has been around for a longtime and is one I always think you should be listed with.

Qype – A quality directory and social networking site. They have a large database that is regularly updated to include all new businesses, so the chances are you are already listed, so you just need to “claim” your listing by confirming your details.

FreeIndex – As it says, it’s free! Your listing page will have other advertising on there, and it doesn’t use direct web links, but worth signing up.

UK Small Business Directory – Another quality directory that’s been around for some time and well worth signing up with.

Yahoo Directory Listings – These are paid listings, and will cost you $300 per year, but if you can afford it, I think it’s worth it. There are varying opinions on how effective the Yahoo Directory is, but it has always worked well for me.

Google Local Listings – A good resource from Google themselves and free! So make the most of it.

UKBN – A new comer to the scene, thats currently being improved, but one that has a big future.

That’s my personal top list.

Obviously I would also have to include My Local Services, but then I’m biased! There’s plenty more out there, and directory lists regularly circulate around various forums, so for the rest, you need to make your own minds up.

But signing up with these should kick start your online marketing campaign and send you in the right direction.

Steve

My Local Blog - Inside a Business Directory and Business Forum! Ramblings and Mutterings from My Local Services.