Would life be better on a boat?

April 10, 2013

Narrowboat Wife Blogging, Clients , , , , , 3 Comments

BoatshedI’m delighted to introduce my newest client: Boatshed – the international boat and yacht brokers. I’ve begun contributing weekly articles to their blog and am assisting in the development of their Facebook page. You may already know I write for Boatshed Essex and Boatshed Grand Union.  This new client is the Boatshed head office and the idea is to provide interesting content for anyone interested in boating. Whether you already have a boat or dream of becoming a broker the blog covers everything from galley recipes to money saving tips.

Boatshed is one of the worlds largest yacht brokerage groups with services offered across an international network of over 50 offices.

Visit the Boatshed blog to read things like a day in the life of a yacht broker, a book review of a family boating the French canals, how Boatshed registered their 500,000th customer and the night a carbon monoxide alarm saved my life.

If you like anything related to the boating or sailing lifestyle join us on our Facebook page. Their tag-line is “Life’s better on a boat!” Do you agree?

Why did you start a business?

February 5, 2013

Narrowboat Wife Blogging, Books to Read, Writing , , , , , 2 Comments

Image

I seem to read a lot about the importance of finding ‘me time’ as a mumpreneur. The advice is often to schedule in some time to do something you enjoy; read a book, have a bath, or see a friend. The reality is very different. Sadly my default ‘quality time’ is often flopping exhausted in front of the telly with a glass of wine.

Ask yourself what are the important things in your life. Why did you decide to start a business? What were your goals?

I’ve just started reading a great book called I don’t have time to write by Nadine Hill. Quite early on in the book an interesting exercise caught my attention. She suggests playing a little game with yourself called, ‘Why is that important?’ Examine your answers to see if what you think you want is really what you actually want. This helps you to focus on your dreams. Start with:

‘I want to start a business’ (or write a book, create a new product or whatever your goal is.)

‘Why is that important?’

‘Because I want to be my own boss.’

‘Why is that important?’

‘Because I want to work flexible hours.’

‘Why is that important?’

‘Because I want to do all the school runs and be there for my children.’

‘Why is that important?’

‘Because I want to make the most of the time they are young.’

‘Why is that important?’

‘Because they will always remember their childhood and whether I was there for them or not.’

I started the game thinking about starting a business but it turned out my true desires revolved around being there for my children. This exercise helps you to discover your true aspirations so that you can prioritise how you invest your time. You can then look at your weekly schedule and your business plan while bearing in mind your true goal: the real reason you started your business.

Why did you start yours?

Move your business forward with business blogging and social media marketing.

How to Publish a Daily Twitter Newspaper

December 7, 2012

Narrowboat Wife Social Media , , , , Comments Off

I recently created a daily paper for the National Community Boating Association.  The Community Boating Times supports both waterways and community regeneration. We share waterways updates, charity news and current affairs. You will find videos, photos, education, politics, tips and advice.

If you’re on Twitter you may have seen other users tweeting their daily papers. You can quickly and easily create your own, to promote yourself, your  work, your blog, organisation or business. Paper.li collects tweets and other sources (that you specify) and turns them into a professional looking daily paper. You can choose to ‘feed’ the paper with your own tweets, tweets from your timeline, #hashtags, RSS feeds from relevant websites, YouTube channels and more. Paper.li only looks for tweets with links, so that each link is displayed as a snippet of a story. The content is displayed under different headings such as Arts & Entertainment, Health, Education, Business, and relevant #hashtags. It also displays your own live Twitter feed. The basic service is free but you can also choose a pro version with additional features such as a personalised header and no adverts.

To get started, you will need to sign into Paper.li with your Twitter account. If you’re creating the paper for an organisation or business make sure you sign in with that account and not your personal Twitter id. You choose what time the paper gets published each day and it will tweet a link to the paper @ mentioning a few of today’s contributers. You set  this up under the ‘promote your paper’ options. I publish mine around 1pm when Twitter is busiest.

The plus sides, for me, are that you provide plenty of interesting content for your followers, and whenever your paper features somebody on Twitter they are likely to 1) Look at your paper, 2) Re-tweet your paper. It’s nice to be noticed! However, Paper.li does choose content at random so be aware that not ever y story may be perfect for your audience.

If you work in the voluntary sector, are interested in canal boating or just want to help us raise awareness of our work why not subscribe to The Community Boating Times? You may also like my own paper, The Narrowboat Wife Weekly.

Community Boating Needs YOU!

May 21, 2012

Narrowboat Wife Clients , , Comments Off

NCBA

Let’s pull together!

Imagine if there was one organisation supporting both community and waterways regeneration. Well there is! Canals are for boating and there are a lot of local projects out there using the waterways for socially inclusive activities and community cohesion.

“The National Community Boats Association (NCBA) is the umbrella organisation that supports and represents community boating organisations across the inland waterways network.

Community boating organisations (CBOs) provide access to and services on the UK‟s waterways for the benefit of their local community. They often work with youth and other community based groups as well as individuals and may provide specific services for disabled, disadvantaged or excluded people in our society such as those on low incomes or from minority groups.

The aim of these organisations is much more than just access to a leisure facility. It could be working in areas of social inclusion, education, rehabilitation (health or offending) and issues of wider community cohesion. They are usually charitable in nature and are often registered charities. They are predominantly voluntary organisations themselves relying on donations, fund-raising and sponsorship from within their operating area. The NCBA‟s vision is a network of well resourced, well managed community boating organisations that promote access to UK waterways as well as promoting the safe use of community boat services as a resource that promotes social cohesion, protects the environment and supports economic regeneration.”

I am delighted to welcome the NCBA as my newest client. I will be raising the profile of community boating using blogging, Facebook and Twitter.

What can you do? Start by following our shiny brand new Twitter account @CommunityBoats

What is your perception of community boating? Who do you think the projects are there for?

Getting a buzz out of blogging

May 2, 2012

Narrowboat Wife About Me, Blogging, Clients , 1 Comment

Busy business blogging.

Image credit: MarilynJane

Well I have been a busy little bee; which can only be a good thing. In the wonderful world of business blogging, social media and getting traffic I have been writing lots of articles for my clients’ websites and I ate free cake at a blogging conference.

Anyone who follows this or my personal blog (The Real Life of a Narrowboat Wife) will know I am always moaning about the challenge of time management. I shared some tips about time by guest posting on the Alexander Residence blog: You Don’t Tell Time, Time Tells You.

For business blogging tips check out what I learned at BlogCampUK.

I really enjoy writing for Canal Voyagers hotel boats. Have you ever thought about how canal boats travel in an alternative time zone? Time can stretch, slow down and stop. Have you heard of Indian Stretchable Time?

For Boatshed Essex I am working on an ebook; more about that later. The post I most enjoyed writing for them this month was, They Got No Use for a Shanty Man, all about how boating and sailing has changed with technology.

“Floating computer dressed up like a ship
Skippered and crewed by a micro chip”.

Bob Watson

On the Boatshed Grand Union blog I wrote about narrowboats for sale, historic narrowboats and the Crick Boatshow.

I am also told that I have an article published in The Waterways World Annual 2012, published at the end of March but I’ve not seen it yet…

Coming up next week: Look out for my guest post on the parent bloggers network BritMums.

How to Get More Website Visitors

April 10, 2012

Narrowboat Wife Blogging, SEO, Social Media, Virtual Assistant , , , 1 Comment

Getting traffic

We are often told that a social media campaign can increase web traffic and search engine ranking, but how is it done? How can you increase your search engine ranking and start getting traffic? What is SEO? Welcome to the wonderful world of search engine optimisation.

The idea is to get your website, blog and social media profiles appearing on the first page of search engine results. Longer search queries are more likely to lead to conversions. Try creating a list of search terms using relevant keywords. Include words that you think your target audience will be searching for, your company name and your products and services, any industry specific terms and jargon, and your location if you sell locally.

There are also a number of keyword selection tools on line that are free to use. I use the Google keyword tool which generates associated keywords and statistics. As it’s difficult to compete with the high competition out there that are using your more obvious keywords, make sure that you include the ones that have low competition but a high number of monthly searches. Test your selected search terms to be sure that sites like yours end up in the search results.

Getting traffic
Search engines use metatags to help rank a website, blog or social media page. They appear in the pages source code, and you can choose View/Source in your browser to see them. You can insert metatags and tags for photos if you use a content management system or blog software. If not you may need technical help from your web site developer.

Tip: Most search engines don’t check entire websites or blogs so it’s best to put your search terms into the first paragraph of what you are writing.

Try this!

If you find it difficult to commit the time to building an on-going relationship with customers through blogging and social media then you could consider outsourcing this. I love writing and can write posts with your business needs and aims in mind.

Get in touch if you’d like me to draw in readers, build your brand and reputation and increase visitors to your website.

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