Category: Top Tips

Here at Get Ahead VA our team includes experts in a wide variety of fields.  From accounting to admin, Hootsuite to holiday cover, email marketing to Excel, our VAs can add value to many aspects of your business.  In our Expert Showcase series our team deliver some of this expertise to you, with a series of ‘How to’ guides to help you get the best bang for your buck in your business.

In this guide our founder and director Rebecca Newenham talks about how to work effectively from home, drawing on her experience since setting up Get Ahead VA over six years ago:

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It is just 3 weeks to go until the Self Assessment deadline so if you haven’t already got your tax return sorted, now is the time.  Under current tax rules, if you run your own business and are registered self-employed you may need to submit a tax return online, along with other people who are required to file returns such as those whose annual income is over £100,000 per year, who have Capital Gains Tax to pay, who live abroad or who are trustees.  The deadline for filing online is Tuesday 31st January and there are fines to pay for every single day that you file late – however good your excuse is!

For some of you this might be an easy task.  Your accountants may already have everything in hand, you may have already set the money aside to pay the tax owed and you are simply waiting to press the ‘go’ button.  For others this might be the first time you have had to do it – or the annual panic. (more…)

Here at Get Ahead VA our team includes experts in a wide variety of fields.  From Accounting to Admin, Hootsuite to Holiday cover, Email Marketing to Excel, our virtual assistants can add value to many aspects of your business.  Each month we like to share some of this expertise with you through our series of ‘How to’ guides to help you get the best bang for your buck in your business.

In this guide one of our Digital Marketing experts Carrie talks about what keyword planning is and how you can integrate into your online marketing.

Carri-Jones Get Ahead VA

Keyword planning is a vital part of your online marketing strategy.  It helps to tie together everything you do – to reinforce what you want to say about your company and to help get you noticed online.  Done well, it helps you to rank higher in the searches that you want to be found for, driving more customers to your website and more sales through your business.   But first things first, what really is keyword planning?

Keyword planning is the process of researching and evaluating the words and phrases most relevant for your business and formulating a plan for how to integrate those into your online activity.

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This Saturday 3rd December is Small Business Saturday.  Small Business Saturday UK is a grassroots, non-commercial campaign, which highlights small business success and encourages consumers to ‘shop local’ to support small businesses in their communities.

As a small business you can visit the website www.smallbusinesssaturdayuk.com and download and print free marketing packs and logos to advertise that you are part of the nationwide campaign.  You can also get involved online by listing your business on their ‘Small Business Finder’ for free.

On social media you can get a free shout out for your plans for the day on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, using the hashtag #SmallBizSatUK.  Last year #SmallBizSatUK trended at number 1 all day on Small Business Saturday with over 100,000 tweets sent in support of the day, reaching more than 25 million people.  That could provide fantastic exposure for your business.

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We are really excited to introduce you to our new email newsletter. Each month we will be asking our readers to ask us a question that they have not got around to finding the answer to.

This month one of our contacts asked us….’How do you set up a webinar?’

So here goes…Carrie one of our Marketing Specialists explains how do you set up a webinar?

You’ve watched webinars yourself or seen them advertised across the web. Everyone is talking about them and you would like to give one a go.

It just seems like far too much trouble and you don’t know where to start. There’s the huge cost and research to be done into creating one and hosting one!!!

I promise you, it is affordable, easy and you will be able to do it, I’m here to help you!
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Here at Get Ahead VA our team includes experts in a wide variety of fields.  From Accounting to Admin, Hootsuite to Holiday cover, Email Marketing to Excel, our VAs can add value to many aspects of your business.

In our Expert Showcase series our team are delivering some of this expertise to you, with a series of ‘How to’ guides to help you get the best bang for your buck in your business.

In this guide our award winning social media expert Angela talks about how Linkedin Company Pages are changing and ways in which you can make the most of the new format:
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For any business managing staff sickness can be a key issue.  But particularly if you own a small business, absence can become critical.  If you employ two waiting staff and one phones in sick, how will you manage being 50% down?  If you only employ one skilled designer and do not come in, what happens to client work that is due?

A recent study by FreeOfficeFinder found that 30% of people have actually lied about being sick, compounding the problem.

“Out of the 10,000 participants, 3.097 admitted to lying about having time off sick in the past twelve months.”

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Last year, Twitter made a number of changes to Direct Messages to expand their functionality and increase their usage.  They made it easier than ever to have a private conversation on what is essentially a public network.  So Direct Messages could now form an important part of your social media marketing, if you are not using them already.

In case the changes slipped under your radar, here are some of the key alterations and some ideas for how you could now use Direct Messages:
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We all know that in small businesses every penny counts.  Sufficient cash flow is vital to make your business run effectively.  Adequate funds to pay your bills and invest in your business are critical.  But when it comes to investing in your business there are so many demands.  From money for marketing, PR and social media, to new technology, premises or stock, the ‘wish’ list can seem endless.

In this ‘How to’ guide one of our virtual assistants Kimba talks about how something like training doesn’t have to demand cash from your business, due to the wide range of free online training courses available.

Training for yourself or for your staff can easily be put to the bottom of the ‘to-do’ list.  But continuous professional development (CPD) is vital to ensure that you continue to stay at the top of your profession and deliver real value for money for your customers and clients.

In some industries such as accountancy, this CPD is non-negotiable.  It has to be completed in order to maintain your accredited status.  For other industries it can seem a nice to do.  But in this digital age, training doesn’t have to take up a lot of your hard earned cash.  There are lots of online resources that will only need an investment of your time.
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Here at Get Ahead VA our team includes experts in a wide variety of fields.  From Accounting to Admin, Hootsuite to Holiday cover, Email Marketing to Excel, our virtual assistants can add value to many aspects of your business.  Every month we deliver some of this expertise to you, with a series of ‘How to’ guides to help you get the best bang for your buck in your business.

In this guide one of our social media management experts Jenny talks about how awareness days can form an effective part of your social media strategy.

Did you know today is IT Professionals Day, celebrating the contribution IT professionals make to modern business?  If you run an IT business, today could be a great day to spread the word about how your company can benefit and support others.

Awareness days can be an excellent reason to talk about your business online and an important part of your social media strategy.
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