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Small business secrets for improving your SEO ranking in 2020 - new frontiers

Small business secrets for improving your SEO ranking

By New Frontiers blog
Small business doesn’t have to mean small website. We’re starting this SEO blog with some gusto by telling you: You CAN rank on the first page of Google. Yes, with a bit of guidance, ranking high on Google is very much within your capabilities. The only issue is time. SEO can seem like a bit of a slog if it’s not your area of expertise, so before we dive into our tips for improving your website’s SEO ranking, we have some friendly advice to share. The key to SEO success for small business owners who just don’t have time for this is to set yourself achievable goals. Schedule SEO tweaks into your calendar just as you would anything else and...
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A strong employer brand is essential for attracting top talent - New Frontiers programme Ireland

A strong employer brand is essential for attracting top talent

By New Frontiers blog
At the beginning of 2019, the unemployment rate was the lowest it has been in 10 years, at 5.3%. This is good news, but it also means that Irish SMEs are struggling to attract and retain top talent. There is no denying that a high salary has a reliably magnetic effect, but it is far from the only reason why people choose to work where they do and how long they stay with a company. FDI companies are enjoying a large slice of the talent pie with 229,057 people currently employed in the sector, making competition fierce for smaller indigenous businesses. For Irish SMEs wanting to attract the right people with the right skills, it is vital to tap into...
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Richard Mc Manus Exhibition tricks and trips New Frontiers

Exhibiting your startup: a 25-step checklist for excellence

By New Frontiers blog
Trade shows and exhibitions are an invaluable opportunity that's often underused by early-stage startups. However, it's a mistake to view them solely as a sales tactic. In this blog, Richard Mc Manus looks at other reasons to exhibit at shows and fairs, the lessons he has learnt from attending some 40 events with his startup, and gives us a 25-step checklist for exhibition excellence! You must be mad! Unless you are selling food for the hungry or hurley sticks at the Ploughing, you do not make money at exhibitions. Since graduating from the New Frontiers programme in 2015 my start-up, Cara Mara luxury seaweed baths, has participated in around 40 exhibition events. I hope that many business owners and managers, especially...
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If you don’t have a story you are just another commodity New Frontiers

If you don’t have a story, you are just another commodity

By New Frontiers blog
A single bead of sweat rolled down my forehead as I mustered up the courage to say the words. We had been coming to this coffee shop for years. We had argued over football scores, TV programmes and politics as we sipped our coffee and took in the world passing outside the large window. I was telling my best friend I was gay that day. Of course, he didn’t care and soon enough we were back arguing over football, TV and politics. Six years later in the same seats, he would tell me he was having his first baby. Same seat, same coffee, same place. My local coffee shop doesn’t just sell coffee My local coffee shop doesn’t just sell...
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becoming an expert in your field new frontiers advice

Startup PR: increasing awareness and becoming an expert

By New Frontiers blog
For new businesses, raising brand awareness is the key to building a community of fans and driving sales. A good way to do this is to highlight the expertise of the founder or co-founders with public appearances and authoritative content.  When I started Mummy Cooks, there was no such thing as a ‘weaning expert’ in Ireland. By virtue of being the first person to start talking about this topic, I became the weaning and feeding expert - initially for Eumom and then for MummyPages. I also became the weaning expert for the Pregnancy & Baby fair; talking at events in Dublin, Belfast and Cork. In order to promote my fledgling business, I started to work on my PR. I have...
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Growing your business the value of networking New Frontiers

Growing your business: the value of networking

By New Frontiers blog
For me, the idea of networking conjures up images of sharp shooting business professionals bedecked with a ready smile and the catchy opener: So, what do you do? They ‘listen’ as you tell your story, nodding their head robotically; interjecting with the occasional Ah ha..., Very interesting... and I see... You, knowing full well that within 20 seconds they had made up their minds whether or not you were 'of interest’ and if not were already scanning the room over your shoulder for their next target. But good networking, effective networking, should never be like this. It’s about being in the right room, with the right people, at the right time. It’s about listening and being listened to, and of course finding...
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video content marketing startups New Frontiers

Online video: the future of content marketing

By New Frontiers blog
Video is undoubtedly the future of content marketing; we have all seen the rise and rise of video online. Currently, a third of all online activity is spent watching video.  Video is a great way to attract new customers, set your business apart from the competition, announce new products or services, or as a recruitment and training aid. Video can also help to educate customers by demonstrating how to use your product or service. The growth of video marketing According to a recent survey on global internet traffic forecasts, conducted by Cisco Systems, video will account for 69% of all consumer internet traffic by 2017. Video on demand (VOD) traffic alone will have increased threefold at this point. Furthermore, video traffic will increase from 64% in...
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Marketing: should your business bother with social media?

By New Frontiers blog
It doesn’t take a genius to realise that social media marketing is becoming almost as important as, if not more important than, the traditional marketing tactics that most businesses are accustomed to. In today’s world, competition is fierce, so how do you get your voice heard and your brand noticed? Yes, your business needs social media marketing! It simply isn’t enough these days to have some physical collateral and a website for your business – your storefront must also extend to social media sites like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Pinterest. Why? Because that is where your potential clients are spending their time! In fact, over a quarter of the time spent online is passed on social media sites. If you're not there...
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Words to avoid when writing for your business

By New Frontiers blog
There are some terrible expressions in daily use in the business world. It seems to me that whoever is writing content for companies (generally an employee rather than a professional copywriter) looks at a few similar websites and then picks out what they think are the best expressions. But those sites probably didn't use a copywriter either. And so the circle begins. Now that you’ve set up your new business, you are probably in the process of creating your website and writing for Requests For Proposals (RFPs), documentation or brochures. Like a lot of things happening right now, this is something you probably haven’t done too much of before. Be careful not to use all those buzzwords you see around....
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Storytelling in business: how to connect with your customers

By New Frontiers blog
Marketing is based on the notion that if people really understood what you do - what you are really good at - they would want to buy from you. The trouble is that getting them to give up their personal time to try to understand you and what you’re good at. Most businesses make their prospects do far too much work in understanding them. They forget how busy, impatient and indifferent they can be. Cutting through bland, clunky business jargon is often boring, usually underwhelming and at times exhausting. Nonetheless, your business solution or product is aimed at customers whose lives you can make much easier. So how do prospects get to understand you before they have worked with you? How...
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