Leitrim Business Network

Via Damien, See Improve SEO and user experience: 10 Useful Tips…

Check out the 92 network members by clicking on their name below.

Get to know who they are, link to them and even get to know who they know!

Join the Leitrim Business Network today.

The AIB have launched the “Better Ireland Program” under which they are offering €10,000 funding to qualifying Community Childcare Groups in Carrick-on-Shannon.

The full grant of €10,000 will be given to the community childcare group who receive the most Text/SMS messages!

A number of such groups are in the running to receive the much needed funding including Annaduff Community Childcare which is located in the Community Hall in Jamestown. Annaduff Community Childcare provides Playschool and Afterschool services for 30 local infants and children. €10,000 would secure our groups existence for the near future and enable us to do some work on the hall and buy some much needed new materials.

To support the Annaduff Community Childcare bid please do the following:

Text CARRICKS followed by A to 53099

Texts cost €0.60 including VAT plus standard network charges.
The proceeds from each text vote go to Annaduff Community Childcare.
Closing date for receipt of texts is 6th June 2008 - Winners announced on 30th June.
You can text in as much as you like or can afford!

Click HERE to download and print our Flyer if you would like to circulate it yourself.

Thank you for your support.
Eimear Walsh
Annaduff Community Childcare
0879314970

With help from Reverb Studios, we have now set up an online discussion forum to discuss business related topics. We encourage you to register and  start dusicssions on topics of your choice and/or take part in existing discussions.

If you need any assistance with using this forum, please contact me.

From Patricia O’Hara of mycounty.ie

CD Business Card v Business Card……is it worth what I assume is the extra expense?

On 12th June we hold the third and final ‘Get Business’ in the Killyhevlin Hotel, Enniskillen. Funded by Sligo and Leitrim County Enterprise Boards Get Business aims to assist businesses from both sides of the border to establish links and business opportunities with buyers and other businesses.

Get Business will be held on Thursday 12th June at the Killyhevlin Hotel, Enniskillen from 10am – 4pm and offers businesses the unique opportunity to:

· Have private pre-arranged one-to-one meetings with key NI & ROI buyers from a wide range of sectors;

· Showcase their product and explore collaboration with other businesses;

· Hear from Peter Quinn of The Quinn Group and learn how their family owned business has become so successful;

· Participate in an ‘Ask the Expert’ session where they can ask experts in the fields of business and marketing for advice and help with issues affecting their business.

If you have any queries or require further information please contact Hilary Feeney on 071 916 22934 or email businesstransition@eircom.net

From Mary Dolan at Carrick on Shannon Chamber of Commerce..

Do you think that a street presence (office, shop) is necessary for a business or is work-from-home replacing it as ‘companies’ become more single proprietor based?

Do you have a business related question you would like answered or a topic you would like discussed? If so, send it to me and I will post it here as part of The Experience Club.

I will then invite network members for their input i.e. by leaving comments.

Experience Club Information

I’ve known about blogging for a couple of years now but only fully understood what it was and what benefit it could be to me last autumn.

Since then I’ve caught the blogging bug and now do it regularly. I used to write a lot as a younger man, mostly short stories, poems and songs but had lost the ability over the years, now I’m finding it again and re-kindling my love of writing through the blog.

From a business point of view, I’ve noticed that it has benefited my business greatly. There are roughly twice the number of visitors to my blog versus my main site and I’ve just recently gained a google rank of 4 after being on 3 for way too long! I attribute this to the blog, so its a great way to get your website noticed in google.

See my blog here

Leon

Experience Club Information

Top Ten Tips for building a national web portal.

1. Ensure your developer understands what your looking for.

2. When building your site make sure you have access to it to make changes etc (called a content management system “cms”)

3. Make sure your URLs are search engine friendly i.e do not contain any question marks.

4. If you are planning to sell or charge online use a secured services e.g Realex, Paypal etc

5. Update new content on a regular basis.

6. Use analytics to monitor progress e.g Google analytics

7. Google also have a “webmasters tools” which will show you broken links, short meta tags, missing titles etc.

8. Get your site listed on Internet directories to improve rank.

9. Use Google adwords to improve weak keywords.

10. Be patient there are millions of websites and search engines may take time to acknowledge that your site is providing unique and invaluable information.

“Always imagine your website as a business card in a box with 1000 others. People will take the first few from the top of the box and will call the ones that explain the services they provide in the most efficient way.”

So always ensure that

1. You can be found in the top of the box.

2. The information you provide is displayed in a simple but efficient way.

Martin