How to grow your business: Online Groups on Twitter and Facebook

How to grow your business: Online Groups on Twitter and Facebook

 

This month at the SIMS meetup we had Gem L Thompson from Facebook group Suffolk Business Stars and Josh Seager, Caroline Shields, Kate Kelly and Arron Weight from #Suffolkhour in to talk with us about the importance of online groups and how small businesses can build communities of their own. So much of our everyday communication occurs through social networking sites and our guest speakers explained how important it is for small businesses to capitalise on this.

gemma_thompson-at_SIMS
suffolk_hour-at_SIMS

Before our first guest speaker, we had a not-so-small announcement to make: we have a new sponsor, The Beatons Group! We were delighted to have an introductory talk from Andrew Driver on the importance of correctly tackling VAT for small businesses. This included VAT policy on delivery charges, supplying goods & services to overseas clients and providing electronic services. Beatons will be giving more accountancy advice for small businesses at more SIMS events, and we're keen to make sure that it's relevant to you so let us know any topics you'd like them to cover.

Gem L Thompson, long time admin for the Facebook group Suffolk Business Stars, stressed the importance of maintaining a positive environment in a closed community. Suffolk Business Stars is a Facebook group for small business owners with the purpose of helping each other. A positive environment will not only reflect well on the brand of small businesses, but also encourage more users to join.

  • Set out rules and make sure they are followed. Don’t let a few bad eggs spoil the atmosphere of the community for everyone else.
  • Allow your group to grow naturally. Spamming people with invites won’t end well, so let the positive aspects of your group speak for themselves

The second half of the meetup saw the #Suffolkhour Twitter crew Josh Seager, Caroline Shields, Kate Kelly and Aaron Weight discuss the importance of interaction on Twitter. #Suffolkhour is a weekly chat on Twitter, on Wednesday evenings from 8:30-9:30pm, where small businesses are encouraged to network and have a friendly chat by using the hashtag #Suffolkhour. Here are some the key points that you need to know about #Suffolkhour;

  • The chat is casual and free-form, with topics ranging from business to cake.
  • #Suffolkhour allows businesses to chat with both users and fellow business owners.
  • The drop-in, drop-out format means anyone is free to join and/or leave at any time.

If you have any other ways which small businesses can use online groups to help expand, please feel free to share it with the SIMS group.

Here are some photo's from last week's SIMS:

See you all in the next one! 

 

March's SIMS Presentations

Hi all,

Here are the slides from March's SIMS featuring Gem L Thompson from Suffolk Business Stars, Darrell Smith, and Suffolk Hour Crew from #SuffolkHour.

Click to access #Suffolk Hour and Darrell Smith's presentations!

 

It was good to see you all!

Help Sam Raise £300 for Bail!

Parole 4 Papworth

 
 

Hello everyone,

Please help us raise £300 to bail Sam out of parole! Sam will be locked away this Friday (18th March) from
9:30am onwards and she can't be freed until she raises £300 for Papworth Trust. We need your help. 

Start: Friday 18th March
End: As soon as possible!

She has 3 donations so far and we would really appreciate your donation! 

This is a Parole 4 Papworth charity event and all your donations go towards a good cause. 

Papworth Trust is a leading disability charity. They support over 20,000 people each year through a wide range of services, including accessible housing, personal care, leisure and learning activities, employment services and rehabilitation. They support disabled people to have equality, choice and independence in their lives. To find out more, please visit www.papworth.org.uk.

We're going on the road with the Business Advice Roadshow

Giving advice to small businesses is second nature to us here at Measured Brilliance, as anyone who attends our monthly sessions at SIMS - Digital Skills for Small Businesses will know, so when we were asked to take part in a new initiative, the  Business Advice Roadshow, we were happy to help. 

A team of local business professionals who have the success of Suffolk at heart will be travelling around the county offering a supportive ear, advice and guidance to businesses. 

This is an opportunity to ask about business growth, funding, grants, commercial banking, accountancy, tax, legal queries or workforce development as well as website development, SEO and social media.

You can find us at:

THU 17 MAR, 09.00 – 11.00 – MILDENHALL
THU 14 APR, 09.00 – 11.00 – LION BARN, NEEDHAM MKT
THU 12 MAY, 09.00 – 11.00 – BOSS HALL, IPSWICH
 
WED 8 JUN, 12.00 – 14.00 – MILDENHALL
WED 6 JUL, 12.00 – 14.00 – LION BARN, NEEDHAM MKT
WED 3 AUG, 12.00 – 14.00 – BOSS HALL, IPSWICH
 
TUE 30 AUG, 09.00 – 11.00 – MILDENHALL
TUE 27 SEP, 09.00 – 11.00 – LION BARN, NEEDHAM MKT
TUE 25 OCT, 09.00 – 11.00 – BOSS HALL, IPSWICH

For venues email sam@measuredbrilliance.com

Setting Up Online Groups & #SuffolkHour

Setting Up Online Groups & #SuffolkHour

 

March’s SIMS focuses on groups and communities in social media and how it can help your business create and develop it's own online community. It’s an opportunity for to get your brand out there for potential customers to see.

For this month we have Gemma Thompson from Suffolk Business Stars and the SuffolkHour crew from #Suffolkhour talk to us about how you can utilise social media and turn it into a communication path to your future customers.

Suffolk_Business_Stars-Suffolk_Hour


A social community that anyone can reach. Online communities are becoming more popular. Facebook groups or pages can be used to reach out to your audience and reach them to a personal level.

It’s another way to communicate with  your potential customers and tell them all about your business and what services you offer. The more members there are in a group means there are more opportunities for you to offer them your services.

Why come to this SIMS?
It’s a free event where you can find out how to become successful from learn how to be successful by learning from the experience of experts and beginners. If you’re planning on starting your own social community, SIMS is perfect place to hear the best advice from the best people.

This month’s talk will cover:
Suffolk Business Stars

  • How Suffolk Business Stars began
  • How are they useful
  • Setting up your own online group
  • Managing online groups

#Suffolkhour

  • Talk about how #suffolkhour started and what #suffolkhour is.
  • How online communities can help build relationships and communities.
  • Helping non Twitter users understand why it can be helpful in business.
  • Hear about some of the #suffolkhour regulars.
  • Find out where #suffolkhour will go next.

29th March, Tuesday 7pm, UCS Waterfront Building Ipswich.
See you there!

 

What happens at SIMS?

SIMS is meet-up event where small and growing businesses can improve their online presence with the help of industry experts and fellow businesses. Every month, we have speakers from different areas of digital marketing who happily share a few tips and lessons to teach businesses how to approach their target audience. 

SIMS is a community where businesses can meet and network with other businesses and learn from their experiences. Everyone is welcome! 

February's SIMS Highlights

Here are highlights from one of our meet-ups this year. Watch the video below. Enjoy!

February SIMS: http://bit.ly/1Ye70bf SIMS Website: http://bit.ly/28LoJXm Sign up for SIMS: http://bit.ly/1OcYpn4 (What is the video about?) February's SIMS featured Google Streetview for Business by Carl Lamb from ambientLight and Drone Photography by Pete Kyle and Darren Illston from UK Aircam. Our speakers showcased their astounding photographs and videos.

 

SIMS is a monthly meet up helping small businesses learn more about SEO and their online presence. It's open to all and free to attend. Everyone is welcome. Find out more here simsdigitalskills.co.uk

Join us every month. 

Max's Round-up from February's SIMS

Max's monthly round-up is back and here are a list of changes that he mentioned from last night's talk. 

Every month at SIMS, Max provides a brief run-down of just some of the tech-related news that may affect small businesses, and agencies that work with small businesses and we post the links here. If any of these catch your interest, but you're not sure how they would affect you, feel free to get in touch and ask!

 

Max's monthly round-up at SIMS

Here's what Max spoke about:

http://blog.instagram.com/post/138938416772/160208-accountswitching

It's finally happened. You can now handle multiple accounts within Instagram.

 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/publish-on-twitter-instagram/id927931359?mt=8

After Sam's talk on Instagram, there were questions about how to schedule posts to go out on Instagram, here's an app that does that for you. I haven't had a chance to try it out, but according to the description they have over 1 million users, so it could be worth a look.

 

http://adwords.blogspot.com/2016/01/introducing-adwords-app-for-ios.html

For those that want to run their ads on the go (or check what their ad agency is up to!), then the new Adwords for iOS app is here.

 

http://analytics.blogspot.com/2016/01/announcing-ga-support-for-accelerated.html

If you are thinking about implementing AMP, then you need to know how many people are viewing your content, otherwise you don't know if it's worth it! Official Google Analytics support will help.

 

http://thenextweb.com/apps/2016/01/29/firefox-tests-warning-when-any-form-is-sent-over-http/

http://thenextweb.com/dd/2016/01/26/googles-new-security-panel-in-chrome-will-push-developers-into-an-https-future/

Don't panic, this won't affect your users any time soon, they mention that there is no plan to roll this out to users browsers, but the Chrome team have been making similar noises and all signals indicate that encrypted-by-default is the direction that everything is heading from now on. If you're about to build a new website, bear that in mind.

 

http://www.adsvise.com/

A really handy resource with all of the latest social media image and media sizes. Rather than a blog post that goes out of date, this resource promises to be a single location that can be kept current more easily.

 

https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/shopkey-ecommerce-keyboard/id1081041575?mt=8

We know a few of you use Shopify. This is just a neat little app that provides you a custom keyboard with all your products in it, making linking to them from anywhere in iOS.

 

http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/17/11027594/facebook-instant-articles-all-publishers

Facebook are reportedly opening up their “Instant Articles” feature to all publishers. If you publish content, this has to be worth a look.

 

http://analytics.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/introducing-autotrack-for-analyticsjs.html

There are a few things that Google Analytics does not do, but that a lot of people want. Up until now, people have been using plugins, or writing their own version of some of these features. Google have now produced an official add-on that supports these features.

 

https://blog.twitter.com/2016/making-customer-service-even-better-on-twitter

Twitter are providing a built-in way to ask people to DM you. All you have to do is include a link in your tweet to your special DM link and Twitter's apps will add in a button for the users to press.

 

http://searchengineland.com/google-no-ads-right-side-of-desktop-search-results-242997

It's been part of a long-running test, but Google have confirmed they're getting rid of the right-hand column of adverts, this may mean there's less screen real-estate to fight for with your ads, which may drive up prices for some of your search terms, or it may send your ads under the search results depending on your bids.

 

http://searchengineland.com/google-letting-official-representative-of-knowledge-graph-boxes-to-suggest-changes-in-search-results-242121

You can now make edits to your Google+ / Google My Business in the search results themselves. When you're logged in to your Google+ account, it'll save you the time of logging in to Google My Business.

 

http://searchengineland.com/google-search-console-adds-amp-error-report-240572

Google have historically indicated that things are important to them by building a tool that lets you check what they think. Their new AMP system for content publishers is apparently no exception, with a new report being added to Search Console for people to see any errors in their implementations.

 

http://adwords.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/test-with-confidence-using-campaign.html

Google are letting you apply some of the A/B testing techniques that some people may be using on their website to their adwords campaigns, discover if the changes you want to make to your ad campaigns are going to have the desired effects.

 

https://developers.google.com/structured-data/local-businesses/

http://searchengineland.com/google-tests-markup-for-managing-local-business-data-for-knowledge-panel-238951

Potentially useful for those that don't have access to their Google My Business account, there is now a way of providing that information to Google using structured data (microdata, people still use lots of different terms for this), and a Google My Business API for developers.

A Whole New Perspective for your Business: Google Street View & Drone Photography

A Whole New Perspective for your Business: Google Street View & Drone Photography

“Wow!” was probably the expression in everyone’s face during last night’s SIMS meetup as we had professional photographers, Carl Lamb from ambientLight and Pete Kyle & Darren Ilston from UK Aircam talk us through the nature of their industries showcasing their astounding photographs and video which you can actually have for your business. Why not use these flashy features and amaze your customers coming to your website?

Carl Lamb showed us some of his fine work with Google Street View for Business. He’s done work for local businesses in Ipswich one of which is the New Wolsey Theatre. Google Street View for Business is a whole new way of enticing potential customers as a more and more business use this. A quick run-through, some notes and reminders from Carl’s demo:

  • Google Street View allows you to actually go into your office or work space.
  • Google Street View for business ties in well with you Google brand page.
  • They can be added to your website for your visitors to see.

For the second half of the night, we had Pete Kyle and Darren Ilston discuss the limitations and the preparation needed to become a fully registered Drone Pilot. They also gave us an insight of what drones can do and what use it can be for your business. We also had a fascinating Q&A session where a number of SIMS attendees asked curious questions of the do’s and don’t in drone photography. A few things to keep in mind preceding the talk:

  • Only fly drones commercially (or for money) if you’re fully qualified.
  • Drones can be used to capture photos of wide properties or survey industrial buildings.
  • They could be used to to showcase your business in a massive scale (if it's relevant to what you do).

As Sam mentioned the drone photography industry is still growing. If anyone discovers a way which drone photography can become useful for small businesses then please feel free to share it with everyone amongst SIMS.
 

G

A few photos from last night:

Google Cardboard Virtual Reality kit. 
Did you get to put these on? 

See you in the next one!

Raspberry Jam Event

Hi all,

We've got an event for you. Raspberry Jam is a chance for you to find out more about Raspberry Pi. Raspberry Pi is a computer system that teaches coding and a good understanding of a computer. Open to all ages!

Date & Time: 27th Feb 10am – 4pm.
Where: UCS Waterfront Building Ipswich

SIGN UP

 The Raspberry Pi computer has the ability to interact with the outside world, and has been used in a wide array of digital maker projects, from music machines and parent detectors to weather stations and tweeting birdhouses with infra-red cameras. We want to see the Raspberry Pi being used by kids all over the world to learn to program and understand how computers work.

Raspberry Jams are events organised by the community to share knowledge, learn new things, and meet other Raspberry Pi enthusiasts. They’re a great way to find out more about the Raspberry Pi and what you can do with it, and to find like-minded people.

Raspberry Events

This is the second event for the showing the Raspberry Pi computer and its impact on a wide range of people here in Ipswich. The first was held at the 3rd floor Carnegie Room in the Ipswich County Library in 2015 and restricted to 100 people and almost sold out. The Ipswich Jam organisers have been putting the word out about the second event and Andy’s connections with the Atrium Space at the University in Ipswich lead to the Waterfront Building as the home for the second Raspberry Jam in Ipswich. This event is for children, young adults and older people looking for inspiration and even motivation to make stuff happen with the Raspberry Pi.

Other Information.

ALL CHILDREN UNDER 16 must be accompanied by an adult.
We are not providing food or drinks. 
Free car parking in the Long St car park on the UCS campus on the day.

Social Media Links

https://twitter.com/ipsraspberryjam
https://www.facebook.com/raspberryjamIpswich

A video of the first event has been uploaded here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XMRH3jhJeE

There is also the: 
http://www.ipswichraspberryjam.co.uk/ supporting this. 

Pricing

Tickets are £1.50 per person and any children under 16 must be accompanied by an adult. The money from ticket sales goes to the Ipswich Maker Space - a not for profit organisation.  

Contact information.

Initial lead
Andy Proctor
Andy@andyproctor.co.uk
07968700516
 

Steve Chalkley head of Ipswich Maker Space Stevebf63@gmail.com 

Carol Gant of UCS Atrium Studios c.gant2@ucs.ac.uk

Vincent Willcox member of Ipswich Make Space Talking@talktech.info

Opportunity for Businesses to Support Local Apprentices

unnamed.png

Hi all,

We have had a request from a SIMS member Carl Stickley, who works with the Opportunities Workshop [http://opportunitiesworkshop.com/] who take on trainees/apprentices for a 12 week course. The first 4 weeks we give them lessons here in Customer Service, IT, Money Management, Job seeking skills etc. They get a certificate and a CV boost, along with hopefully increased knowledge.

Once the trainees/apprentices have done, they try to help find them places for work experience to gain some valuable experience which boosts confidence and improves their CVs. The course is voluntary and the age range is currently 16-18 year old.

They are looking for businesses that had a big project on and could use a group of trainees for the 8 weeks, followed by another eight on a rolling basis hopefully. If not a whole group then just individual learners is fine too. 

 For inquiries and information contact Carl on carlstickley63@gmail.com.

Google Street View for your Business & Drone Photography

February's SIMS is on it's way and for this month's meetup we're getting a glimpse of modern day technology through camera lenses.

Our SIMS speakers for February are Carl Lamb from www.ambientlight.co.uk and Pete Kyle from ukaircam.co.uk and they're here to share their knowledge on how to implement Google Street View into your business and how drone photography can become a part of your business in the future. 

See your business inside and out.  Google Street View has made a breakthrough since being launched for more than 8 years ago. Launched in May 2007, Google Street View gave us the opportunity to see places around the world by simply clicking and looking at a computer screen. People have had their share of fun with Google Street View like having a tour around the Eiffel tower, virtually walking through New York's Time Square and even looking at the street where they used to live. This technology gives us the freedom to roam the world but the real question is, how are businesses going to take advantage of this new technology? 

What we failed to realise is how it's only matter of time until businesses benefitted from Google Street View, and it's finally here. Google Street View now gives business owners the ability to show their customers a virtual all-around view of their physical business and have website visitors interactively explore inside a location and really get to know the business on an unprecedented level. Google Street View for your business is a snazzy and extremely useful feature for businesses who want to showcase their physical shops or work place through their online webpage. 

Reach for the skies. Drone photography is a new and growing variation in the photography industry. Drone photography show us the world in a different yet stunning perspective at a much higher view. We now have the chance to go beyond what our eyes can see as drones soar the skies. Drones help people take photos of beautiful horizons, city skylines and magnificent terrains that couldn't have been captured by any other land-based optical device. Drone photography isn't for every business but it would useful to see what it could possibly do for you in the future. 

February's SIMS is slightly tech-filled but we at SIMS always aim to bring you speakers that can help you think of ways to stand out to your potential customers. We feel that either of these topics, if not both can help your business do better online. 

Carl's talk will cover: 

  • What is Google Street View for Business? 
  • Where is it seen?
  • How to best showcase a business with Street View
  • Some weird and wonderful examples for inspiration! 

Pete's talk will cover:

  • What is drone photography?
  • How does it work? 
  • Advancements in drone photography and its future. 
New Wolsey theatre usingGoogle street view for your business

New Wolsey theatre using
Google street view for your business

Drone Photograph of Suffolk's Fields

Drone Photograph of Suffolk's Fields

If you'd like to see more details for this event, here's a link to our SIMS Meetup page and SIMS Event Page. We hope to see you there! 

Free Events for Local Businesses

SIMS-Waterfront_Ipswich.jpg

Hello everyone,

February has begun and we have several networking events for you to attend. All these events are free and open to businesses, UCS academics and professional services staff, students, alumni and the public. Simply click on the links to find out more about each meeting and register to confirm your attendance. 

Engage with, Expand into Europe – Business Opportunities and Funding Seminar with Enterprise Europe Network.

9th February 2.30pm – 4.30pm, Waterfront Building

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/engage-with-expand-into-europe-business-opportunities-and-funding-seminar-tickets-20919894969

Agile Networking Introduction – Agile in a regulated environment with IJYI

11th February 6.00pm, Waterfront Building

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/agile-networking-introduction-agile-in-a-regulated-environment-tickets-21062610836

Sustainable Futures UCS Lecture Series – More Personal Computing: Machine Intelligence and I with Microsoft

23rd February 6pm, Waterfront Building

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ucs-lecture-series-sustainable-futures-more-personal-computing-machine-intelligence-and-i-tickets-21080618698

Knowledge Transfer Partnerships Funding Seminar

15th March 5pm, Waterfront Building with Innovate UK

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/knowledge-transfer-partnerships-funding-seminar-tickets-21057165549

Quay to Growth Business Breakfast Series – Creating employees: employing creatives with Nigel Ball, UCS and Atrium Studios

18th March 7.45am, Boardroom, Waterfront Building

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/quay-to-growth-business-breakfast-series-creating-employees-employing-creatives-registration-19751944598?aff=ebrowse

East of England Agile User Group presents: An Audience with Iain McKenna with IJYI

28th April 6pm, Waterfront Building

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/east-of-england-agile-user-group-presents-an-audience-with-iain-mckenna-tickets-21062837514

On a side note, the SIMS competition is still running and will end on 16th February 2016. Enter your business to get the chance to win £1000's worth of digital services (T&C's apply). 

SIMS COMPETITION SIGN UP

SIMS Be Brilliant in 2016 Competition (Closed)

SIMS Be Brilliant in 2016 Competition (Closed)

 
 

SIMS and Measured Brilliance are proud to present our first competition for small businesses with support from Ipswich Borough Council.

The idea behind all this comes from our experience. Measured Brilliance has been providing websites and digital marketing training to small business for over 3 years. We pride ourselves in our work and the impact of what we’ve done to improve our clients’ businesses. We're inspired by the idea of small businesses thriving locally and boosting Suffolk economically and we see this competition as an opportunity to further motivate local businesses. 

How long will this competition run?
Entries will open on 26th January 2016 and close at midnight 16th February 2016. All details are on the SIMS website.

Why a competition? 
The purpose of this competition is to bring you a step closer to what you want to achieve for your business this year. We want businesses to become brilliant, bold, and confident about themselves in the upcoming year and fearlessly implement new ideas to their business. To do so, we’re giving away £1,000 worth of digital services to turn your next idea into online reality.

Why should you enter?
One of the things we see our clients struggle with, time and time again, is integrating their ideas into their business, and especially into their web presence. There are several reasons for this, it may be that the scope of the idea is so large they're not sure how to implement it, or it may be budget. If these things apply to your business, then this competition seeks to help you resolve those limitations within your business, to help you visualise what your ideal online presence in 2016 would look like and raise awareness of SIMS to help everyone achieve this.

About SIMS
Started two and half years ago by local digital agency Measured Brilliance (that's us), SIMS is a free monthly meet-up where businesses, individuals, students and digital enthusiasts meet to learn how to work more effectively online. 

SIMS meet on the last Tuesday of each month and invite guest speakers from different industries to talk about experiences in their field that may be valuable to your business. 

 
 

Wordpress and Web Accessibility presentation

Hello everyone, 

We were really pleased with the turn out at last night's SIMS. It was definitely pleasing to see new faces along with our regular SIMS attendees. As promised, here is the lovely content from last night's talk, made available to us by our speakers Andy Proctor and Angie Vale. Thank you all for coming!

Click on Andy and Angie's names to access their presentations!

It's all about your website: Wordpress & Web Accessibility

It's all about your website: Wordpress & Web Accessibility

Andy Proctor (www.andyproctor.co.uk) and Angie Vale (www.purplebabyhippo.co.uk) were our speakers for January's SIMS. Andy and Angie are two of many small business owners who operate their businesses using Wordpress but luckily our speakers are able to provide possible areas of focus in your website with a few tips and tricks to use to your advantage. 

Two speakers for January's SIMS!

Andy gave us a live demo of a Wordpress website to demonstrate what Wordpress can do, such as creating pages and ordering navigation which Wordpress beginners within the SIMS audience found very useful.  A quick run-through, some notes and reminders from Andy's talk:

  • Do you have analytics? (Every business website should have this)
  • Do you have ownership of your analytics and data? Ask your developer. 
  • Install (reasonable) widgets that help your website's design and functionality. (Don't use too many) 
  • Editor access can be used to see how powerful Wordpress is.
  • Speak to your developer and make sure you have right amount of data you need to improve your web presence.
SIMS-Audience

Angie's presentation on Web Accessibility asks the question, "How accessible is your website?".  Angie's talk gives light to assistive technology and how they are commonly used (assistive technology includes things like your glasses! How well does your website work if you take your glasses off.) and many more. Here are few notes on Angie's presentation:

  • Check the accessibility of your website. Can everyone use it?
  • Try using your website without a mouse! 
  • Google is blind and deaf! It's not always about design. 
  • Use semantic markup (Page Headings).
  • Make links stand out. Show what's clickable and don't confuse your visitors. 
  • Use good colour contrast in your website. Tell them the difference instead of making them look for it. 

All tools recommended by our speakers can be found in their slides available in the presentations blog post on the SIMS website (www.simsdigitalskills.co.uk) along with news and updates about SIMS. 

Finally, don't forget about SIMS "Be Brilliant in 2016" Competition. All details of the competition are available in the SIMS competition page. We're eager to expand SIMS and reach out to more businesses so please share the competition to family, friends, and other businesses.

We'd like to thank everyone for attending January's SIMS. We love to see how SIMS is reaching its potential to build a community of small businesses that will thrive together. We want everyone to be a part of this community and we greatly appreciate it.

Here are some photos from January's SIMS. We almost filled the whole room!

We hope to see you all at the next one.

Understanding Wordpress & Web Accessibility

SIMS with Measured Brilliance, is proud to present two speakers for January's meetup. We're more than excited to start 2016, bringing more topics, facts, figures, new technologies and latest development in the online industry to our valued SIMS audience. 

This month's topic is on Wordpress and Web Accessibility. Both Andy Proctor and Angie Vale specialise in Wordpress and run their businesses through Wordpress. They are only two of over 2.1 million businesses that run their websites through Wordpress and perhaps even you. It started as a blogging content management system that has become something bigger similar to the likes of a fully functioning website. In this evening Andy and Angie will go through how you can optimise and effectively use your Wordpress website to the fullest.  

For startup businesses. If you're thinking of creating a website to start up your business then this is a good opportunity to see one of the most commonly used Content Management Systems out there. For existing Wordpress users, this is an opportunity to improve their websites and other features or functions of Wordpress builds that you can use to make your website smarter and wonderfully designed. 

Help people find your website.  Web accessibility means that people with disabilities can use the Web. More specifically, Web accessibility means that people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with the Web, and that they can contribute to the Web. This also includes people with changing abilities due to aging.

Web accessibility also considers the technology used to view websites such as browser choice, broadband speed and mobile devices. Websites and applications that don’t consider these needs may be missing out on potential business. Web accessibility takes all users into account which means more customers for you!

Whichever standpoint your businesses needs some advice or experience in, it'll be worth it to come and take a look at what our SIMS speakers can offer you.

Andy's talk will cover:

  • Free tools and services to help you with your website, with the focus on a WordPress website. 
  • Elements of functions, layouts and marketing to show you how a website should be more than something you should have, but a tool that gets brand awareness and contact. 
  • How to ‘properly’ add and amend pages.
  • Using the Widgets and changing the home page.
  • Editor access and how you can use any developer.
  • What you should remove from a website and why.
  • All important Google Bounce explained in 90 seconds.
  • Links to keep Google happy while measuring sales/contact.
  • How much can you control yourself without your developer.
  • What to make sure your developer promises to do ongoing.
  • The basics you need to do if you make the website yourself.

Angie's talk will cover: 

  • What is web accessibility.
  • Why web accessibility is important.
  • How you can make your website more accessible.
  • How you can test your website for accessibility.
  • How web accessibility can help your business.

If you'd like to see more details for this event, here's a link to our SIMS Meetup page and SIMS Event Page. We hope to see you there! 

A lovely thank you from a (soon to be award winning) Suffolk blogger!

Many people thank us for the work we do at SIMS, it started as a passion project to help more people connect and learn and has grown into a rather lovely community of business people who take what they do seriously. 

We recently got a thank we are especially happy about as it's shows that what we're doing is working! Jason Alexander from Wildlife Gadget Man is collecting votes for his wildlife blog. Jason is a regular SIMS attendee and I'm sure he'd love to share any tips, if you come to SIMS and ask him. 

Please vote for Jason and watch this space for good news! 

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SIMS is a free meet up group for small businesses organised by the digital marketing team at Measured Brilliance, SIMS is an opportunity for small businesses to learn about digital marketing from experts speakers. We have been working hard behind the scenes to finalise the SIMS 2016 schedule and we’re proud to announce that this January we have two fine speakers about Wordpress. Free to attend and open to all.

Sign up and RSVP here: http://bit.ly/1ZLrXti

The Power of Podcasting Presentation

Even with the offer of free biscuits we know that not everyone can make it to a live SIMS event so we try and make videos and presentation available whenever we can.

Here are award-winning UK podcasters, Kathryn Bryant and Julian Illman from the Changeability Podcast sharing insights and tips about podcasting. The footage was kindly filmed and arranged by Carl Stickley of Films for Websites.

If you'd like to attend a future SIMS events sign up for updates. 

Julian Illman and Kathryn Bryant are awarding winning Podcasters based here in Suffolk and we are proud to say regular attendees at SIMS. They gave an entertaining and enlightening talk at our SIMS meeting in November. The pair have a few podcasts including their Changeability podcast at www.brilliantliving.com and the new Podcast Divas available at www.podcastdivas.com.

Spotting Blackhats in SEO

Spotting Blackhats in SEO

SEO expert Daniel Somers from www.seomers.com was our guest speaker for December's SIMS. Daniel talked through his experience with Blackhat SEO techniques in his profession and outside of it. Blackhat SEO is the “easy” way of having your website rank highly in search results but it's definitely not worth the risk of Google ‘punishing’ your website by removing it from search.

SEO Blackhats and their cheeky tricks 

SEO Blackhats and their cheeky tricks 

Daniel Somers shed some light into the world of SEO blackhats. Small businesses shouldn't be afraid of SEO blackhats but it's good to be aware that they exist, to make sure that your business stays away from them and be aware of the questions to ask your SEO. A quick run-through some of last night's notes:

  • 'Parasite Hosting’ hacks your website through bots or using plugins. Research what you download e.g. Wordpress plugins.
  • Buying link building tools simply isn't worth it. 
  • Dropped domains are still useful as google trust them more than the newer ones. £5 can save you £1000's.
  • False "Right To Be Forgotten" requests can put out your website out of Google searches (but this rarely happens). 
  • Negative SEO is when other businesses spam your website with backlinks for money or simply just to put your SEO in trouble with Google.
  • Local SEO cheats like virtual offices can affect your local business.
  • Social media blackhats exist. They could be fake accounts or fake stories used to generate likes, shares and traffic to their website. 

If you'd like to get in touch with the speaker about SEO blackhats, you can visit him at www.seomers.com. Thank you to everyone who came to another month of SIMS. We'll soon be posting details for the next SIMS talk in January 2016 and details about the upcoming competition for small businesses attending SIMS, but for now we'd like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.  

Get news and updates about SIMS at our newly-launched website, www.simsdigitalskills.co.uk. Also click on the link to see Max's round-up for December's SIMS.

See Daniel's SEO blackhats presentation in the SIMS website. 

Here are some photos from last night's SIMS. Everyone's feeling very festive!