27th February 2010

Doncaster Chamber Board Director Elections

This week I will find out if I have been nominated as a Doncaster Chamber board director at the AGM on Thursday 3rd March 2011. I am the only female candidate standing for election and the previous 2 female board directors have resigned/stood down. I'm not a women's rights activist or anything near, but I think we all agree there should be a gender balance on any board if at all possible. The Chamber needs to do more to encourage more women to step up to putting themselves forward for election so if I get in I shall be campaigning for that at the meetings. Anyway, i'll keep you posted and let you know if I get voted in this year.

Google Algorithm up for a BIG change soon.....

Well some websites may be in for a rough ride soon, once Google changes its algorithms in a significant way. It's already rolled it out in the USA where the impact has been felt, and they say they will roll it out elsewhere, presumably including the UK, over time.

So what does this mean in layman's terms? Basically you've got to start making your website a valuable commodity for your readers by making sure it is a useful resource. This means adding a decent amount of regular, good content which is unique. They are going to devalue websites which have copied content, is useless or of poor quality, especially the spammy sort of websites.

So, if you want to rank higher, you're gonna have to add more than a couple of paragraphs of text on your pages to get Google to notice you. Need content writing for you? Need existing page content editing, optimising, padding out (or all three!) then contact us now!

Read the full notice on Google's own website here.

Website Marketing

For 2 years now I have been delivering free website marketing courses for various organisations, which are free for people attending them. I regularly have run them for Deloitte who have been contracted to deliver the D100 project, a Sucess Doncaster initiative, which is part of Doncaster Council's skills, employment and enteprise programme for the town. The course is also shared to allow candidates from other Sucess Doncaster projects such as Business Buddies, a contract which has been delivered by Beta Technology, based in Doncaster.

I have also delivered this course for Doncaster Chamber of Commerce and Voluntary Action Rotherham, which is the support organisation for the Third Sector for the Rotherham area.

Unfortunately Doncaster Council has had to review the town's programme for enterprise support due to various funding, such as LEGI, coming to an end on 31st March 2011 so although we might not have the support on the same scale as this past few years, we are assured we will have a reasonable level of business advice and support available. It all remains to be seen what that is, but I guess we will find out come April time.

I will still continue to offer my free website marketing coureses to not-for-profit organisations who can market it to their client base, provide the training room, and fill the session for me. For that, I will deliver a 2-part course (though it can be done in one longer session but 2-part is easier as there is a lot to take in..... this isn't the usual boring garbage spewed out by some).

I am already a qualified trainer having delivered hundreds of hours worth of training courses since 2001 (wow, I didn't realise it was 10 years until I wrote that!) and last year I qualified for C&G 7303 Level 3 PTLLS - Preparing to Teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector. This qualification is now mandatory for anyone delivering any learning and devlepment sessions funded by the LSC who hasn't already got a full teaching qualification such as QTLS, Cert Ed, PGCE...so yes, it meets OFTSED requirements.

For a fee, I can also create a course specifically tailored to your needs if it's about business start-up including business planning (will meet SFEDI standards), marketing, internet marketing, social media, etc. I have also delivered a short session on website design to Hatfield High School Year 10 students (quite enjoyed this actually, some definite rising stars in that group!) so I can also deliver to school and college students too (especially now my PTLLS qualifies me to do so).

So if you are a N4P, Third Sector, Educational, Councilor other similar organisation and would benefit from free course delivery, contact me on 01302 288708 (ask for Sandra Edwards) and let's have a chat!