Royal Mail’s recent price increase has left many small businesses fearing that their business may not survive this change. The cost of first class stamps have risen 30%, from 46p to 60p, and second class 38%, from 36p to 50p, a massive burden that many businesses, at least in the short term will have to absorb themselves.

Four in five small businesses in the UK believe this change will affect their business as well as the way they communicate with customers. Recent research conducted by Pitney Bowes revealed that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are concerned that the postal rate increase will have such a negative impact that their business may not be able to recover afterwards. These are businesses that were relying on Royal Mail to send out correspondence and orders to their customers.

Cut costs with electronic mail

The change in postal rates is actually forcing businesses to look for alternative methods to communicate with their customers. Sure, you cannot download a shirt or a bike, but you can try cutting costs by switching to electronic email to keep in touch with customers and send them special offers.

With email, it’s so much easier and a lot cheaper to send e-cards, bills or marketing material. Take our professional email hosting service for instance.  You can create your email address personalised to your domain, such as office@yourbusiness.co.uk, and you can access it anywhere, anytime you want.

With email hosting, you will be able to manage all your emails, calendars and contacts from a single location. Also, you can communicate easier and faster with your customers and ensure your messages get to their inbox and are not lost along the way.

How are you planning to cut costs?

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2011 may have been stressful with the economic downturn but a new Work-Life Balance Index published by workspace provider Regus suggests things were actually an improvement over 2010.

The index based on the views of 2500 UK professionals suggested that while most people are putting in longer hours than before, 60% of the people surveyed are enjoying their jobs more and 58% of them feel they have enough time to balance work with home life or personal pursuits. 69% even suggest they are being more productive at work too.

In all, the Index registered a 20% rise in the UK work-life balance between 2010 and 2012. However, in global terms the UK still lags behind, with an index now of 104 while the global average stands at 124.

The report surrounding the index suggests the findings show an increase in business confidence and people becoming adjusted to the fact that it can’t get much worse. It also suggests that happier staff are more productive, which is a good reason to making sure you treat your employees as your most important asset.

Has your own work-life balance improved?

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Search Engine Optimisation is probably the biggest investment you can make in tweaking your website but if you needed proof that it isn’t a magic wand, take a look at the top search terms using Google Insights for Search.

These are the top 10 searches via Google UK in the last 12 months:

It’s a trend that will take some time to change too, as the search for the top 10 in the last 7 days also shows.

Hardly rocket science searches! The same top 10 searches, pretty consistent for the last 12 months, just in a slightly different order. In each and every case you would have expected those searching for these terms to already have them bookmarked, but what we ‘tech-heads’ need to acknowledge is that the widespread use of the internet now means the majority of those using the tools we take for granted, don’t actually know how to properly use them. People use Google literally as their window on the world. The majority of those using the web don’t actually know how to use even the basic of browser tools, let alone advanced searching.

So what does that mean? Well, interestingly the popularity of ‘How To’ articles on YouTube coupled with its own web popularity means people are filling their knowledge gaps quicker than ever. That also means there is strong SEO value in investing in maybe creating your own How To articles, be they for YouTube, your blog or website. It’s a great way of capturing new traffic and what’s more if they like what they find, psychologically they will be more led to trust you and come to you in the future too.

It also suggests that over complicating your SEO strategy probably won’t help too much either. Certainly if you are looking for a high level of internet understanding or a certain amount of ‘expert’ traffic to come to your site, then specific keywords aimed at that may help, but trying to be clever with too many long-tail keywords to attract general traffic is only likely to waste your time.

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How building a wedding website can help you to save time and money

Summer is right around the corner and with hopefully warmer weather coming it also brings on the wedding season. Getting married is one of the most important and happiest moments in life, but the actual planning can be a hassle. There are so many things to take care of starting from the dress, the band, the flowers, the photographer and so many other details that cannot be ignored.

Back in the day, the bride and groom would get their pens and paper and write down all the details, from budgets, reminders, dates to phone numbers for various vendors. Nowadays it is so much easier to plan a wedding or, as we say, there’s an app for that as well.

The easiest way to plan a wedding is online. Most of your friends and family are already online so what better place to put your wedding together than on the Internet? Your wedding website will provide your guests with the information they need, such as the wedding schedule, directions to the venue, travel arrangements etc.  Furthermore if you have a gift list you can also link to this – making it easier for people to get organized.

So, here are a few simple steps to help you to build your wedding website:

Step 1 – Create a website

Register a domain name personalised to your wedding – so it’s instantly recognized as yours. You can build a site quickly and cheaply – you can even use our easy to use website builder if you don’t have the time or the skills to build it completely from scratch.

Step 2 – Use collaborative tools for planning

You want to have all your wedding information in one place, easy to access no matter where you are. To do that, you can use Google Docs, Dropbox or Google Tasks to manage the things on your to do lists.

Step 3 – Invites

Getting printed paper invitations and save the date cards can be very expensive. So, why not save money, and be eco friendly by saving paper as well.  Create them online , email them out and  then link Google Form to your website to allow people to RSVP.

Step 4- Registries

All major retailers offer gift list services – so it will be very easy to link to them and share your reference details saving your guests time and giving them more time to shop!

Step 5 – Photography

Search online for the photographers you like or go through online portfolios and pick the one you think would fit you perfectly. Once you get your digital wedding photos, you can easily create an album on your site and upload them for anyone to see. You can do the same with the videos taken at your wedding.

Anyone else got any good tips on what to do to help build your perfect wedding website? 

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While much on the internet is about today and instantaneous matters, its biggest asset is probably the immediate reach and accessibility it offers to expert collections, opinions and thoughts.

This week saw the launch of the virtualisation of cult and sadly missed DJ John Peel’s private record archives. Being released in stages, the project aims to share the knowledge, wealth of understanding of popular music that Peel spent years putting together and that millions paid and continue to pay much creedance to. That’s where the internet is so fantastic. You can show things on the internet that are fragile, or that in reality couldn’t be handled or experienced by thousands of people day after day. Using modern animation and filming techniques  you can bring to life the objects on a laptop screen and also go beyond just the object itself.

The Peel archives is just one of many projects set to launch  over the next few months – thanks to increased cultural funding hinging around the Olympics – as people begin to realise that the internet has so much to offer those wanting to set about recording and preserving the past in a much more interactive way than any real museum could offer.

The John Peel Record Collection lets you pluck album covers straight off of Peel’ very own record shelves and view Peel’s re-created record cards. Yet there is more interaction too. There’s the image of the album cover, the ability to listen via Spotify and the now common place social share buttons. You wouldn’t get that in a dusty traditional museum. Elsewhere beyond the collection you can watch Peel in action via online video clips, photos and even listen to the much beloved John Peel Sessions radio archive.

In many ways traditional museums suffering dwindling visitor figures could probably learn a lot from virtual museums like this. The modern world is all about engagement and interaction and a web archive offers all of that and more, if used correctly. Of course the server space may change over time and that is always the danger that these virtual creations could disappear at a click of a button without proper back ups in place by their owners, yet the virtual museum is set to become an ever more common feature in our lives and in our culture as we seek to preserve but provide a legacy for what we once enjoyed and for those memories to continue.

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There are a growing number of bloggers across the globe earning a proper and respectable wage from their online writing projects and understandably more and more bloggers or would be bloggers or content creators are keen to collect their slice too.

Until now that has been a bit difficult. Positive comments are nice but don’t pay the bills and pushing a link towards a paypal donation is never looked upon as the most professional approach to ask for some reward. A number of microdonation services have sprung up in recent years, claiming to hold the answer, some have been and gone, others appear to have more longevity.

One that appears to be getting a foothold is Flattr. A service aimed at all those positive comment leavers to leave a monetary tip for the content creators too. This week they have announced a deal that could at least put there service under the noses of more and more potential users, and they hope, lead to a groundswell and movement towards tipping for online content your have enjoyed. The deal is with Dailymotion, the biggest video portal behind the giant that is YouTube. Those uploading to Dailymotion now have the option to include a Flattr button onto their channels and on the credits of each video, so you can appeal for donations or tips to earn money from your shared content without the need for a pre-roll ad that so often frustrates.

The concept behind Flattr aims to avoid the barrier of constantly re-entering card details or the like, and takes on the strength of the like button of Facebook by tipping from a pre-paid ‘pot’ with a minimum of just 2 Euro investment per month of which Flattr takes a 10% service fee.  A relatively small investment but in the world of social media, becoming known as the person doing good deeds and genuinely rewarding others could have almost unquantifiable long-term benefits.

Whether this latest move by Dailymotion will kickstart the concept remains to be seen, but in a world where the debate over paid-for-content still rages, this may be the next ‘acceptable’ step for many, especially if the correct ‘well-meaning’ spin is put on the regime.

Are you using Flattr or any other micropayment service? Are there enough ‘good-hearted’ people about for the scheme to ever take off?

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The battle of sexes continues in the virtual world and it’s the fairer sex that leads the way according to the latest report from Nielsen.

STATE OF THE MEDIA SPRING 2012 – ADVERTISING & AUDIENCES PART 2: BY DEMOGRAPHIC released today is a US-centric study on who is engaging and where and it throws up some interesting stats, suggesting a big shift in the online audience in recent years. The report shows that women are now significantly more likely to engage with social media than men.

Women are also 8% more likely than the average online adult to build or update a personal blog and 6% more likely to have created at least one social networking profile

If advertisers needed more proof that their target engagers are female not male the report also suggests a lady is 12% more likely than the average adult to purchase a product featured on TV.

A pretty clear definition and pattern that advertisers will no doubt no longer ignore. So don’t be surprised to see more fluffier, pinkier or simply more feminine websites and networks springing up in months to come as the strive for social media returns enters a new chapter.

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OK, so you won’t learn how to cook gourmet meals or how to fly a space rocket from reading this blog, but you hopefully will at least be on the right road to success. The key to success is being more effective in what you do and the key to being effective is by being more efficient in what you do. If you can be more efficient, achieving results in faster time, you will have additional hours in your working week either to apply yourself to get more done or look into new projects or ways of doing things. In fact time is the key to becoming a millionaire. Of course for some it’s timing – right place, right time – but even for those, it is usually a fact that they have striven hard to achieve even if that hasn’t been possible.

So being more in control of your time is the golden ticket to being better at just about everything so here are our 6 tips on how to improve your time management.

1. Acknowledge that ‘Time Management’ is just a meaningless buzzword

Don’t think of this as a magic wand. However good you become, there are only 24 hours in every day and you can manage that how you like, but without sleep, food and simple brain down time your success will be thwarted. Time is a set thing, what you need to manage is yourself. You need to create the balance between, work, life, and everything else.

2. Identify inefficiency

Working 24 hours a day won’t help you in the long run, in fact you are better stopping and re-appraising what you are doing for an hour or so to identify where you can be more efficient. In fact, to do it properly try to keep a time diary for a week. Note what you are doing and when. You will be surprised at the number of hours you spend ‘surfing the net’. Do you spend too long doing basic admin tasks that could be done by another less experienced person. However, big or small your business having a Man Friday or Woman Monday type person who can deal with the more basic tasks can often make a massive difference and give you more time to be doing the things that will actually earn you money.

3. Rate your tasks

From your time-use diary have a look at what you have been doing and properly assess what is most important to your success and to making money. This is probably the toughest part of the operation, but most important. Everything will be relevant and it is important to getting a fine balance. Don’t just choose the easy bits, or the fun bits and don’t narrow your focus too much either. However you also need to be realistic, remember this is a time management task, so you can’t cram everything in every day  and do it justice.

4. Structure your day

Have set periods throughout your day. Do creative things when you are usually most creative, and mundane tasks when you are less creative but also less likely to make silly mistakes. Make sure you set an admin period too, so that those need to do tasks don’t get missed off. Realistic is important though. You probably won’t get even get all your priorities covered in a single day so as well as structuring your day also structure your week.

5. Prioritise

This is the key. Priority tasks don’t necessarily mean they have to be crammed in first, it just means they are more important to be done properly. So plan your priority tasks across the week, but make them the most important things you address in each of those days. In that way you will be able to give each of those priority tasks the proper focus, time and attention they need.

6. Re-assess

Don’t think that your first attempt at organising your life will be perfect. If it was that easy we’d all be doing it. It should be an ongoing process. Your priorities in life, in business and in the world in general will change over the time, so should your prioritised list. It is worth looking at it every week. Set a time, either at the end of the week or very start of the next. Choose your priorities and plan your week ahead. You will be surprised at how much extra your will get done.

Finally good luck, we didn’t say it was easy.

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Love them or loathe them the London Olympics are set to have an impact on everything we do this summer and with just over three months to go until “London 2012” the impact on business is beginning to become clear.

UK parcel delivery companies are already preparing to cope with traffic flow issues across the London road network. Many of the big name delivery companies are thought to be considering surcharges during July and August to help cover additional costs such as even sending staff out on foot to skirt around the disrupted transport networks. With nearly a fifth of all deliveries in the UK made to London-based addresses the forecasts suggest that the number of deliveries made per driver may even halve.

Yet it is not just parcel delivery agents and couriers that need to be worried. Almost every trade and business is likely to be affected. Retailers will have to work hard on customer service to manage expectation of customers waiting for urgent deliveries that may not be able to get through.

Transport for London (TFL) and Olympic officials have been consulting for years to assess the impact and have designed a 109-mile “Olympic Route Network” and “Paralympic Route Network” . The aim is to allow participants at the games to travel quickly between event venues, but with each network expected to cover 2.6% of London’s roads, the impact on the local and national communities could be massive. The route networks will add waiting restrictions, various checkpoints, traffic flow modifications and even complete road closures to non-event traffic.

That may have a massive impact on people travelling to and from appointments, even commuters getting to work. While the roads are likely to be the most affected, the railway and London Underground network will be hard hit too, with

While the main event only runs for 16 days days from 27^th July, the disruption is likely to be from the day the torch relay his London on 21^st July until the 10^th September which is the day after the Paralympics closing ceremony. That’s longer than the traditional school summer holidays when Londoners normally heave a sigh of relief that peak-time traffic has dropped off. It’s not just Londoners who will be affected either. The parcel delivery issues will have nationwide impact, as will people’s movement restrictions in the capital, but in addition the Olympic torch relay will be travelling the length and breadth of the country from 18^th May when it arrives in Cornwall, bringing with it days of local disruption too.

So how can you Olympic proof yourself? Here’s a few ideas from us:

Avoid the Capital

If you don’t need to be in London during this time, it is probably wise to avoid it, the biggest disruption will be in the capital city.

Be flexible

If they are going to be affected by traffic issues, consider allowing your employees to work from home or at least work hours that will avoid the worst of the issues.

Be pro-active

Give your customers a heads-up that you may be affected, especially if it is not obvious – ie you are not located within a few miles of the Olympic park.

Promote social media as a communication tool

If you run into problems you will want to let your customers know as quickly as possible. Twitter and Facebook are proven to work in this regard so make sure your customers know about your channels and that you will be using them.

Replenish stocks now

While it may impact on cash-flow now if you rely on parts to be delivered on a regular basis you will save a lot of headaches in the long-run by buying ahead and stockpiling now, as deliveries in a few months time may not be able to service the demand. The same is true regarding your own offices stocks such as paper and ink. Think ahead and save time and hassle.

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You might remember that in May last year some new EU rules came into force. Dubbed the ‘EU cookie law’, the legislation says websites have to get permission from users before storing pieces of information called cookies on their computers.

What are cookies?

Cookies are small text files which websites place on visitors’ computers. They’re typically used to identify that particular visitor and provide them with a better experience. Cookies are a crucial part of many website functions which we take for granted.

For instance, it’s usually cookies which allow online shops to remember what items you have in your shopping trolley. They’re also used to keep you logged in to a website, or to provide valuable usage statistics and information to website owners.

If you run a website, it almost certainly uses cookies. Their most likely function is to monitor visitor numbers and behaviours through tools like Google Analytics. They may also be used to display relevant adverts to visitors, or – if you sell online – to power key parts of your online shopping system.

What the cookie law says

Although the cookie law came in last year, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) decided to give websites a year to implement the rules. The deadline is 26 May 2012 – after that date, websites which don’t comply with the law could be fined up to £500,000.

The implications of the new cookie law could be far-reaching, yet there’s still a lot of confusion about how the rules should be interpreted and what websites need to do to comply. As a result, many websites are taking a ‘wait and see’ approach.

In short, the new rules require websites to get permission from visitors before placing any cookies on their computer. Permission must be informed and overt, which means you have to ask visitors outright if you can put cookies on their computer, and explain clearly what the cookies are used for.

You can’t bury the information in your website’s terms and conditions and leave it at that.

The only exceptions to this are cookies deemed essential to providing functions visitors have asked for. But you can’t rely on this to cover many of your cookies.

The ICO guidance on the new law (PDF link) says that “this exemption is a narrow one”. It’s certainly not likely to cover cookies for analytics purposes, which is one of the most common uses of cookies – particularly for smaller websites.

Implementing the cookie law

Even with the May deadline fast approaching, hardly any websites have done anything obvious to comply with the cookie law.

The few which have begun seeking permission tend to use messages displayed at the top of the screen or overlaid on the website’s pages.

As you’d expect, the ICO website has an opt-in message at the top of every page. And BT has begun displaying a message (right) to explain a bit more about its cookies, although it’s debatable whether this is a proper opt-in.

But by and large, most websites are keeping their cards close to their chest. That’s understandable, when you look at the commercial implications: when the ICO added an opt-in message to its website, measured visitors dropped by about 90%.

That didn’t mean the site was receiving fewer visitors – it just meant people weren’t opting in to cookies, so the ICO couldn’t track what those people were doing.

For sites which rely on accurate visitor data to make money, the implications are significant. Adding an opt-in could leave them at a disadvantage to competitors, which is why there’s a real reluctance on the part of website owners to be the first to move.

The bare minimum

It’s looking very unlikely that many websites will have implemented a cookie opt-in by 26 May. But that doesn’t mean they won’t be doing anything at all. In fact, the ICO – which is responsible for enforcing the rules – has suggested that the most important thing is to take steps in the right direction. If you can show you’re moving towards full compliance then you’re unlikely to be targeted.

As a bare minimum, it’s important to have an understanding of what cookies your website uses and plan how you might implement an opt-in.

It’s useful to know exactly what cookies your website uses anyway, and you can do this relatively easily using tools like Bitstorm View Cookies or Attacat Cookie Audit. These will show you what cookies your website creates as you move through the pages.

The harder bit is working out how you would create an opt-in function on your site. As we’ve seen, most websites display a message to users – but the tricky bit is creating the back-end logic to ensure cookies are only set once people have given their permission.

If you’re not adept with computer code, you might need some help from a web developer to accomplish this. There are some ‘plug and play’ tools available, like Optanon and this tool from Wolf Software (designed for sites using Google Analytics), which could make things easier.

Don’t do nothing

Although there is still a fair amount of uncertainty around the new law, it’s fair to say that doing nothing is not a good option. In the long-term, people’s attitudes and understanding of cookies may change – and web browsers may include settings to help provide a consistent opt-in.

But for now the onus of complying with the law falls very much on individual website operators. And while the chance of being prosecuted may be small (at least to begin with), doing nothing at all is a dangerous move. To start with, review guidance from the ICO (PDF link) and try and establish what cookies your website currently uses.

• Even Europe doesn’t understand the cookie law
• That’s the way the cookie crumbles

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