What makes a potential customer abandon a cart when shopping online?

As more and more people use the Internet for shopping, browsing and research, it has never been a better time to improve on your E-commerce website in order to maximise sales. What causes a shopper to abandon their shopping cart half way through an online order?

The following are a few things that can cause a shopper to abandon their shopping cart and change their minds.

Here is the list...

No security certificate - When shopping online, the most important thing about the website for a potential customer is that it is safe and secure. Potential customers want to feel confident enough to buy from a website. So, imagine that you have browsed the site and you are about to proceed to the payment step when you see that there is no security on the website and your credit card details could be stolen online. This is another deal breaker. Most people, including myself will not proceed with the transaction at this stage.

No search function - A number of times I have been on websites to buy something and I find that the website looks appealing enough but where is the search box? It is nowhere to be found. The absense of a search box makes it almost impossible to find what you are looking for and as a result a potential customer could abandon the website for another.

Too complicated and confusing to use - Online shoppers vary in their Computer and Internet literacy skills. So, if a customer comes across an interesting website and wants to buy something, it is so important that the website is easy to use. For a potential customer, the ease of use of a website is important. If the website is too complicated to use and there are too many steps to reach before the checkout stage, it is safe to say that your prospective customer will more than likely abandon their shopping cart. Your potential customer has just been lost to a competitor.

Business Start up Show at the Olympia - Thursday 26th and Friday 27th November 2009

If you are thinking or have been thinking about starting your own business for a while and you are stuck or need more help and advice on how to get started, then you really should attend the business start up show, which will be taking place at the Olympia in London in about a week's time.


Date: Thursday 26th and Friday 27th November 2009
Time: 10:00 - 17:00
Venue: Olympia (Directions to Olympia in London)


I have attended a number of these shows and they are excellent for information gathering, research and talking to experts who have successfully started their own business enterprise(s). You will be amazed at the number of business opportunities, information and knowledge you will gain by attending the business start up show. You can also buy books and there are magazines too as well and other freebies up for grabs. There are usually a number of workshops to attend as well as Seminars, so don't miss out. There will also be a number of successful entrepreneurs in attendance on the day.

If you are looking for information about web design for example, there will be a number of web designers on hand to give you help and advice. If you need help with your business plan, have questions on tax, accounting, advertising, business banking, franchising, legal issues affecting your business, finding property and premises for your business, making sales, branding your business and much more then you really should attend the Business Startup Show.

You can see my previous posts on the Business Startup Show at the foot of this post.

So, if you are one of those people who is fed up of your boss breathing down your neck like a dragon, get yourself down to the Olympia on the double and do something about it!...LOL

You can register online or obtain complimentary tickets from Business and Enterprise Centres. If you do not have the opportunity to book your tickets online, you can just turn up early on the day and register at the door.

Tickets are FREE - Register online at www.bstartup.com or call free on 0800 328 0467.



Related External Link

Business Start up Show 2009 Olympia


Related Blog Posts

The Business Start up Show May 2009 - Feedback and Pictures

Business Start up Exhibition 2008

Feedback Business Start up Exhibition 2007 at the ExCeL Docklands

Business Start up Exhibition in London April 27th and 28th

99 Businesses to start at home by Kim Benjamin

Some Work form Home Ideas - Jobs and Businesses - Make Money from your Favourite Hobby!

Vodafone broadband modem connection issues and their customer service

My Vodafone Mobile broadband has not worked for some months now and since I have other means of accessing the Internet now, I have not really bothered to try to see what was up with it as I thought the problem was actually with my laptop. So, I decided to do a clean install of my operating system recently. I formatted my hard drive and erased everything on it and tried to use the Mobile broadband afterwards, which I have had for over two years now and still I could not access any websites.

I have the old style Vodafone mobile broadband dongle, the E270, which you can see in my pictures. So, if your dongle appears to have given the ghost, before you throw it out or use it for spare parts, try and see if the information in this post helps you. If you don't want to read all of my long post, scroll to the the end for the possible fix to your connection problems.

In the meantime a friend of mine gave me a Linksys wireless-G notebook adaptor, which I have been using to connect to the Internet on my travels.

After troubleshooting the problem myself as above, I decided to give Vodafone Customer Services a call in order to rectify the problem. I spoke to a male Customer Service phone operator and after listening to my query for a few minutes and asking me some questions he decided that the modem was faulty and needed replacing. I thought this rather odd as I have not used the modem extensively in the time I have had it, which is just over two years. I have the Huawei E270 modem which Vodafone were using 2 years ago. As I was talking to the Customer Services representative the phone suddenly cut out, I couldn't decide whether he hung up on me or whether the phone had genuinely cut out. I redialled, thankfully they don't have long phone queues or else I would have been walking on the ceiling. The lady I spoke with next was extremely polite and nice to speak with to the point that I was bouncing around after I got off the phone and grinning from ear to ear. However, my Vodafone modem worked for about 5-10 minutes before it packed up again. I was frustrated!

I had been away for a week and took my laptop with me but had been unable to use my Vodafone broadband at all, of course this is what I bought it for, travelling around.

On Tuesday 17th of November, I called Customer Services again and this time the person I spoke to could not make out what the problem was and asked me to visit a Vodafone store where they would be happy to do an exchange or repair. I was left with no choice, as the thing was not working so I decided to take my dongle along to one of their stores near Bond Street in Central London. Once inside the store, I was given a ticket and waited a few minutes to be seen. I honestly thought the experts in the store would be able to do something about the problem I was having with the modem, however, I was wrong.....

After speaking to a Customer Services/Sales Rep in the store, and then to three people over the phone explaining the problem in detail, I was back to square one, my modem was not working (it hadn't even been looked at or touched) and I had been in the store since 18:09 and it was now 19:00. I was getting frustrated again, an hour in the store and no solution. Again, I asked them to call technical support and I was told by a rather obnoxious and rude technical support person, who refused to give me his name, that the options open to me were to 1) Buy another modem (I have found out that they cost about £66 and in the store they could not give me this information) or b) Send my old modem away for repair which would cost me £40.

I was adamant that the modem was working and we tried the sim card in one of their demo phones in the Vodafone store and the Internet was accessible and was working fine. The problem was indeed related to the actual modem itself and not the sim card. I had already established this fact at home with one of my old phones and I also knew that it wasn't as a result of my laptop or computer not working. I left the store at approximately 19:35. My friend, who had accompanied me to the store was fast asleep and snoring *sarcasm* (however, she was sleeping), I went to meet her when she finished work and we had been in the store for over one and a half hours, so she fell asleep. I was completely furious and I told the customer service representative in the store, who was nice polite and helpful, but unfortunately could not help me. He offered his name but I was cross with the company, not him. as he had been helpful with the knowledge and information he had been equipped with. I shook his hand and left the store with the address for their head office in order to write a concise complaint letter.

However, I thought it was more fitting to write a blog post about my experience. I started out paying £30 a month on an 18 month contract for my mobile broadband to Vodafone and the least they could do was send the dongle off for repair free of charge. However once you read this whole post you will realise that this was not even necessary. While searching for information online, I have read of other people who have the same problem of their modem just not working suddenly. These people are busy trying to bid online for new modems when the ones they have are perfectly fine.

The above scenario happened on Tuesday of this week. I spoke to a few more people over the phone at Vodafone between Tuesday and today which is Thursday, I have spoken to nine Vodafone employees in total trying to resolve this problem. Kind of pathetic, don't you think?


So, what is the problem?

The Vodafone broadband dongle/modem connects to the Internet with the VMC lite software., which is pre-installed on the modem. When you try to open web pages with a web browser, Internet Explorer, Firefox, etc it appears as though you are not connected to the Internet when in fact you are connected with the modem software.

A quick look at the Vodafone connection software and I can see that the bytes or data sent and received in the up arrow fluctuates between zero and six and then back to zero again. The down arrow shows no data and is constantly showing zero. There is no data passing through the Internet connection at all, but the modem is on and showing either a constant blue light (3G) or a constant green light (2G). I know for a fact that the modem IS working. A modem which has given up the ghost would not even switch on. Besides, I hardly use it and therfeore it hasn't had much wear and tear. Let's face it the old brick mobiles I had over 10 years ago still work and I dropped those plenty of times and they still work 10 years later, although they have now been relegated to antiques.

Anyway, back to the topic...After visiting the vodafone website today to find out the price of a new modem and then visiting some online auction sites and browsing to see how much secondhand or new Vodafone modems were going for, I decided to call up Vodafone to find out exactly how much I would have to pay for a new modem. As I had stated previously, I was not prepared to pay £40 to fix an old modem, which may or may not be guaranteed to work afterwards.

I have spoken to three Vodafone Employees today. The first Customer Services guy I spoke to over the phone was again quite unhelpful talking over me each time I tried to get a word in. I was so cross I had to explain to him that the Customer Service was unacceptable and I expected better, considering a) I am an excellent customer and pay all my Vodafone bills on time, everytime and not a troublesome customer in anyway b) I hardly ever call this company c) how can you help me when I can't even explain to you what my issues are to you when you constantly keep talking over me as I am trying to speak? d) my other mobile phone provider, although they are not great, I have never had this kind of issue with them and I have been with them since I was a teenager. I told him I was completely and utterly dissatisfied!

After this conversation, he appeared to calm down and of course gave me the number to call in order to find out the price of a new modem. I rang off, dialled the number which he gave me and it was an incorrect number. *Big sigh and a deep breath*



After going online to try to get the number myself, I came across an 0808 number on their site for sales etc and I called it. The first person I spoke to was very cheerful and friendly and most of all, helpful. I explained to him what the problem was and he immediately told me that it sounded as though my sofware on the Huawei modem needed upgrading......Eureka, there was the problem. He explained to me that the old modems needed their software to be updated and told me that he would transfer me to someone in their technical team who would be able to help me....The call was transferred....

I spoke to another nice friendly voice and this time we got down to business. I am pleased to say that one of the guys in the 2nd level Technical Support team realised what the problem was and had a solution....I booted up my laptop and he talked me through exactly what I had to do in order to get my modem working again and was very surprised and disappointed to hear that I had spoken to 7 other people between last week and this week who were not able to rectify my problem.

Indeed, you have to wonder at the third world customer service in some UK companies at times.

The solution

The modem software needs updating and there is also a new server. the old servers have been turned off, therefore the older modems are not working because these are pointing to the old servers. You need the vodafone e270 firmware update.

In order to fix this problem, you will have to either download some software updates from the Vodafone website (Vodafone Mobile Broadband Software Update - Firmware) or adjust some setting on your Vodafone modem connection software as follows:

1) In your Vodafone Mobile Connect Lite Software, go to Settings

2) Select APN

3) Adjust your APN Settings manually as follows:

a) Change from Automatic APN Selection to Manual APN Settings
b) In the box labelled APN type internet
c) Enter your User Id and Password (If you do not know this, call Vodafone from your Vodafone number on 191 or 0n 0870 700 191 and they will give it to you once you have answered the security questions)
d) In the box labelled DNS1 type: 10.203.65.68
e) Click OK

Manual APN Settings

Remove your Vodafone software from your computer and then reboot your PC. Try to load up some web pages. If the settings and instructions do not work then you will have to download the firmware which will update the software on the modem/dongle.

Hopefully, this will be useful for somebody and will stop you wasting your money on a new modem when you do not need one.

If you have any other problems, call Vodafone on the number above or go to their website to get the information.

Related External Links

Vodafone Mobile Broadband Software Update - Firmware

Page Cannot Be Displayed Error with E220, E270, E272 modems and E870 Express Card, please see our fix guide here


Related Blog Topics

Mobile Broadband: The pros and cons

An open blog post to Royal Mail and The Post Office and a Review

I find this organisation, Royal Mail, to be disorganised and they really need to get their act together as things are going from bad to worse on a daily basis from my observations.

Some staff are rude, queues are long, their letter rates and prices are confusing, particularly if you have a heavy packet or bulky item to send, things become complicated as you now have to face long queues at every post office, their post offices are usually lacking in stock levels such as envelopes, bubble wrap and essentials, therefore customers are buying elsewhere. Immediately, you can see that the Royal Mail and Post Offices Counter Limited are losing money in a big way. Just a few days ago, I was talking to a post office user who saw some customers walking off with envelopes and stationery that they had not paid for after picking them up while queueing, apparently these people who had been seen walking out with Post Office stock were queueing for a long time before they decided to walk out with the goods. This again, to me is a sure sign of mismanagement leading to major shrinkage, again accounting for more loss of money for the Royal Mail and Post Office counters Ltd. To make matters worse, most Post offices have now been shut down causing massive queues at post offices, that is the ones that are still currently open. Most of the UK post office counters have been shut down leaving residents to travel miles to find their nearest post office.

It appears to me that the the management in this organisation has lost their way and do not seem to know what they are doing. The whole organisation is falling apart.

A few years ago, they changed their name to Consignia and had to change it back, this was a disastrous and ill thought out business move, which affected their profits drastically. In turn they increased the price of stamps and services to make up for their terrible business decisions, which has had a detrimental knock-on effect for the business ever since.

Letters, magazine subscriptions and documents do not arrive at all, or they arrive opened and mishandled or several weeks late. Credit cards are lost in the post opening up the owners to the perils of fraud, yes, I have had my credit card statement stolen in the post and been a victim of £539 fraud due to the Royal Mail's bungling in the past. They sent me two books of first class stamps as a sign of guilt, this is extremely pathetic.

Additionally, I moved house and paid for a redirection service only to find that all my letters were still going to my old address. Additionally, I only received my letters for three months instead of the six months I had paid for. Again, to me, this is more evidence of a disorganised business.

Business owners who are reliant on this organisation for quick service are suffering under the weight of the major mismanagement currently going on within this organisation and its failure to reach an agreement over working conditions and pay with its faithful employees who generally work extremely hard in the warehouses. Incidentally, I have worked for the Royal Mail for several weeks, I was the only female there and it was a brief encounter as a number of staff walked out after a few days of doing the job leaving those of us that were left to struggle on and try to get out the Christmas packages to Europe and International destinations out on time with only a handful of staff. This was night work and I had classes at University in the morning.

This organisation is losing a lot of money to their competitors and is indeed a genuine chance for competitors and other alternatives to Royal Mail to really take a hold of the market share and deliver the quality service that is clearly lacking within the Royal Mail's current management structure. I have observed that a number of letters have been sent through alternative courier services as the Royal Mail cannot currently be trusted for a fast, efficient service.

For a well developed nation, the UK is currently running "third world" services in many ways. We do not expect this type of fiasco in "Great Britain"!

Below you will find some damaged and extremely late post (took over a month to arrive). I have a magazine subscription and when the magazine did not arrive at the expected date, I contacted the company, they advised me that they had sent the magazine, I have now received two copies of the same magazine as a result of the extremely poor service by the Royal Mail due to these ridiculous strikes, which have been labelled 'the worst postal strike for two years'.

When both of these letters arrived, they were soaking wet and the envelopes on the outside were torn to pieces. I have taken some pictures for illustration...

Royal Mail damaged mail

One post office, which has been open for more than 30 years on one road was closed recently, when asked why the post office has now become a one pound shop, the Manager told me that he had become tired of waiting for a replacement machine from the Royal Mail as the one in the post office had not been working for months, as a result of the lost business the owner of this post office in South London decided to turn the shop into a one pound shop enterprise. additionally, this Post Office was notone the ones that had been earmarked for closure.


Some possible solutions to this mess for the Royal Mail

Making use of technology that is clearly available, they need to invest in some self-service machines as a matter of urgency, this will help to cut down the horrific queues currently being experienced in the Post Offices.

Come to an urgently required agreement over pay and conditions. How can the Chief Executives in these organisations obtain huge salaries when their businesses are in a downward spiral and major decline due to mismanagement? This greed has got to stop.

Some staff members need to be trained in the art of customer service. They have some really polite members of staff, but there are many rude ones at the same time. They appear to forget that without customers, there is no business. At the moment customer service is clearly lacking and there are many angry customers who have no choice but to continue to queue up in these horrid conditions.

If we can put an end to six figure salaries for the people who do the least work, we can get the United Kingdom back on track. Greed and mismanagement is ruining this place!


Royal Mail, please get your act together, your customers are fed up! All I hear in the queues are grumbling customers who are extremely sick and tired of this poor service.


Related External Links

Postal strike: Postmen demand pay increase

Royal Mail boss to break cover after 'going missing' for 31 days during postal strike

Anger over mail chief's 'Immoral' salary

LRB - Roy Mayall - Diary

Criticism of Royal Mail chief executives pension

Government must tackle Royal Mail strikes

Mr Site Takeaway website - Set up your shopping cart for online sales

I will be writing a proper review of the Mr Site Takeaway website soon. I am just trying to do 200 things at once. I actually have one of these sites and I am in a position to write a proper review about it, and how it works.

If you are looking to set up an online shop or you need a website to showcase your business, maybe a simple website with a few pages to let people know about your offline business and where to find you, or you need a website to showcase your products in a gallery format or maybe you just need a full blown E-commerce website where you want to sell your products online, then check out Mr Site Takeaway website.

This package gives you everything you need to set up a professional dot com website (eg www.yourname.com) in a box or via email. There is no technical knowledge in designing websites needed and it includes email, your own secure online shop, guest book, blog, forum, hosting, support forum and more.

To take advantage of a special discounted rate off your website package, click on the banner below and start building your site today, prices start at just £14.99...

Alternatively, visit www.mrsite.co.uk/friends and type in the discount offer code 81505-FRIENDS to receive your discount on all the packages (25% off Beginner, 20% off Standard and 15% off Pro).

www.mrsite.co.uk/friends and type in the offer code 81505-FRIENDS

Have you ever obtained or attracted work or employment through your blog?

I was browsing through some news articles online a few days ago and came across an article about blogs and employment. The article was asking the question, has your blog ever attracted work? I tried to vote on it but voting was closed so I thought I would set up my own poll.

Well, my blog has never attracted any work, but then again I have never used my blog to attract work or advertised myself as a potential employee through my blogs.

However, it would be interesting to know if anyone has actually got a job or any type of work through blogging.

I have a poll at the top of this blog in order for you to vote whether or not you have ever obtained work through blogging or Social Networking in general.


Related External Links

Twitter as a career launch pad

Business Startups Awards 2009 deadline 31st July 2009

The Startups Awards gives recognition to UK business start-ups and gives entrants the opportunity to gain recognition for their business achievements.

The top 10 reasons to enter the Startups Awards are listed below:

1. Receive national and regional press coverage for your business
2. Get your business endorsed by a number of judges in the panel
3. Increase your customer and client loyalty
4. Shine above the competition
5. Impress potential investors with an interest in your business
6. Attract quality new staff for your business
7. Raise your company's profile
8. Association with the leading UK awards scheme
9. Gain credibility in your industry
10. Increase the growth of your business

There are a number of award categories open with a prize of £5000 for the crowned winner of the Startups Awards with the title of Startups Business of the Year. The awards ceremony will be held at the Marriot Hotel, Grosvenor Square on Friday 13th of November 2009.

To be eligible to enter, your business should be less than three years old, privately owned and should currently employ less than 60 staff.

Deadline for receipt of award applications is 31st July 2009. To enter and for more information, visit the Startups awards website here.

Tips for Blogging - Some top tips to get you started out with writing a blog

Sometimes I wonder where to put articles as they do not necessarily fit into the topics of the blogs I have so far. So, here are the blogging tips I have put together based on my blogging experiences. I will update this post from time to time with new and relevant information relating to blogs....

1. Write or add information, articles or quality content to your blog at least once or twice a week in order to maintain interest with your readers, and to let them know you are still around, although this is not always easy to do.
2. If you are serious about blogging, register and buy your blog domain as soon as you set up your blog to prevent domain name pirates, cybersquatters, copycats, talentless, greedy and lazy people from stealing your domain and profiting from all your hard work. Going out and registering someone else's domain in order to profit solely from Google advertisements, adding no value whatsoever, is greed to me. This is so annoying! I guess what I am trying to say here is that a site with content adds a lot more value for the visitor than an empty site bought or stolen with the sole intention to profit from the efforts of another hardworking person.
   
3. Make your topics interesting and relevant to your blog.
   
4. Put some advertisements or sell ad space on your blog or join some affiliate programs so that you can make some money with your blog, if you are interested in making some money that is.
   
5. Exchange legitimate links with relevant and similar sites and blogs so that your website or blogs can be seen more often. You can also use the followers gadget so that interested parties can follow your blog. This in turn can help you to get more views for your blog.
   
6. Add your blog to relevant directories so that people searching for specific information can find your blog.
   
7. Mention your blog to people in conversations - Tell them what you write about especially if you think they can benefit from reading it. Many years ago, I used to work as a Beauty Consultant with a lot of the large companies and I learned a lot about skincare, I also used to have acne so I took a special interest in skin care, so I talk to a lot of people about how they can improve their skin, the types of products they can try etc, so find your niche.
8. Add the link or URL of your blog to your outgoing emails in order to reach a wider audience and receive more hits and visitors to your blog. You never know who may benefit from reading about what you have to say.
   
9. If you have a business, put a link to your blog on your business cards
10. Add pictures to your blog - many search engines including Google and Yahoo as well as search portals on the Internet index pictures and images, this allows the images to be found easily, it also has the added bonus of allowing your blog to be found easily too! Watch the size of your pictures as they can affect the loading time of your blog, this can frustrate visitors to your blog as they will not want to wait too long for your site to load up.
    
11. Post videos on your blog relating to the topic you are writing about as this helps to make it interactive providing visual, verbal as well as textual information for your readers. Also visitors may want to leave comments about what they have seen in the videos.
12. If you are allowing comments on your blog, moderate your comments before they are posted online in order to keep spammers from adding malicious spam comments to your blog. (Please read the external links below this post for more information on the effects spam comments can have on your blog).
13. Put a counter on your blog so that you know how many people have visited. A counter is useful as it can tell you if anyone is actually visiting your blog or reading it.
14. Cross-link your related articles and blog posts - Once you have written a topic, add related links either from your blog or from other websites with relevant information as your readers may be interested in reading the related articles. Also, your blog posts are a lot easier to find if you add them to the foot of your previous posts and saves your readers having to trawl through your blog for relevant information and related articles.
15. Crop your pictures - Cut out unnecessary scenery in your pictures and scale down the size in order to keep the focus on what you are trying to show your viewers/readers. This will also help to reduce the size of the picture.
16. Compress your images - This will also lessen the size of your images, making them load more efficiently with your blog. If you are wondering how you can compress or make your images smaller, you can use Microsoft Office Picture Manager, this image management software is quite good because it allows you to rotate, flip, compress, remove red eye, adjust contrast and colour, resize your pictures as well as a host of other things, although it is not an advanced picture or image management software like photoshop or irfanview, neither is it as complicated to use.
17. Add watermarks to your images as some people will visit your blog or website and take pictures without permission, or some will hotlink your pictures.
    
18. Get more traffic - There are a number of things you can do to increase traffic to your blog, here are just a few more...
19. Update your blog often, this will allow your content to change regularly and allow search engine spiders to visit your blog and review changes on the blog for indexing.
20. Add a privacy policy. This now appears to be essential. I have added a link to a privacy policy generator at the foot of the post. To add the privacy policy to your blog, add a link and place it at the footer (bottom) or in the sidebar of your blog. The search engine crawlers can find it once you have done this.
    
21. Give the link of your blog to people online and offline and tell them to show it to their friends too, word of mouth is an excellent way of reaching new people.
22. Add a link of your blog to the signature of your outgoing emails in your personal email account with a brief introduction to what your blog is all about. If people are interested in taking a look at your blog, they will click on your link.
    
23. If you have business cards, put a link to your blog on them.
24. Add a Search function to your blog - Any good website, blog or web page should have a search function. Adding a search box to your page makes it easier for visitors to search for and find information on your blog or website without having to trawl through all the pages on your site. You can have the search box at the top, bottom or on the side bar of your blog. I think it is easier to have a search box at the top as this is more convenient for visitors. It is also easier to find a search box if it is at the top of the page. I visit a number of websites and one of the main things that will make me leave a site is the lack of a search function or search box as it makes it very difficult to find what you are looking for.
25. Add a feed to your blog - Burning a feed will allow interested readers to follow your blog or subscribe to your blog or website's feed. This allows your readers to receive updates each time you add articles and posts to your blogs.
    
26. If you are thinking of deleting a blog, do not just delete it and think that the blog has been deleted. To make sure that your blog has been completed deleted, submit the blog to Google for complete deletion and removal from the search engines. You can do this in your Google/Blogger account.
27. Personalise it - From time to time, add your personal experiences of situations, events or products or opinions as people can relate to this, well I do anyway.
    
    
    Related External Links
    
    
    Is your blog getting hijacked through your computer? - The Real Blogger Status
    
    Stolen Computers - The Real Blogger Status
    
    Protecting Against Script Exploits in a Web Application
    
    PChucks Network: Bots and you
    
    Blog hijack - How to protect yourself - Blogger tips and tricks
    
    Protecting your online images
    
    Who is stealing your photos online?
    
    Digital photography and posting photos online - Yahoo answers
    
    My divided soul - Stealing my pictures
    
    What to do when your online work is stolen - Forthelose.org
    
    What I learned in my first year of blogging
    
    What blogging platforms do we use?
    
    Privacy Policy Generator - How to construct your privacy policy
    
    Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Quick Security checklist for webmasters
    
    Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: My site's been hacked - now what?
    
    Use Twitter and be a Better Writer
    
    The Blogging Bonanza - Blogging for Profit!
    
    How to use a free blog to help you sell your house
    
    StopBadware.org

Free Live Webcast: Surviving and Thriving - Controlling costs to boost your business Tuesday 14 July 2009, 18.30 GMT

Free Live Webcast: Surviving and Thriving
Controlling costs to boost your business
Tuesday 14 July 2009, 18.30 GMT

- Watch our Inspiring Entrepreneurs event online
- Put your questions to our panel of experts

Now, more than ever, you need to understand your key numbers. In a recession, only the canniest entrepreneurs will survive.

We've invited four successful entrepreneurs and experts to talk about the crucial financial skills such as managing your cash-flow; budgeting; cost-cutting and working with your suppliers. If you can't make the event, you can still join in the debate by watching our live webcast.

Go online to watch the whole event as it happens, put your questions to our speakers, and get live responses.

In partnership with HSBC, the world's local bank.

Our speakers

Heather Gorringe, founder of Wiggly Wigglers
Johnny Martin, business finance expert
Doug Richards, former 'Dragon', business guru and founder of the School for Startups
Nick Wheeler, founder of Charles Tyrwhitt shirts

How to watch the webcast

How: Visit the website www.inspiringentrepreneurswebcast.co.uk/
Date: Tuesday 14 July 2009
Time: 18.30 - 20.00 (GMT)

Don't worry if you can't make this time; you'll be able to view the webcast after the event.

Forum3 Recruitment and Volunteering Event 10 Sept 2009 - 11 Sept 2009 at The Business Design Centre, Islington

If you are looking to work in the charitable, not-for-profit or voluntary sector, add this date to your diary...

Forum3 recruitment and volunteering event

When: 10 Sept 2009 - 11 Sept 2009
Where: Business Design Centre, Islington (Nearest tube station is Angel)
Time: 10am- 6pm Thursday 10th Sept and 10am-5pm Friday 11th Sept

forum3, the UK’s biggest recruitment and volunteering event for the charity and not-for-profit sector, attracts 100+ recruiters and 11,000 visitors. An unmissable event for anyone looking to work, volunteer or network with the not-for-profit sector.

Information Line: 0845 603 1419

Contact Name: Debbie Hockham

Contact Email: deborahh@forum3.co.uk

Related External Link

Forum3 website

The South London Business Property Database

The database has been designed to be easy to use, and you can access information on various different types of property (office, retail, industrial, restaurant, workshop, warehouse, serviced premises) across all the participating London Boroughs, by particular borough or even by particular town. By simply typing in the type, size and location of the property required, the database will provide you with a list of properties that match your requirements.

For more information, visit here

Competefor FREE Service for Business

CompeteFor is a free service and is the chosen site of London 2012 for the publication of Games-related contract opportunities. It acts as a brokerage service between buyers throughout the London 2012 supply chain, and potential suppliers.

CompeteFor also provides access to business support services; building skills and capacity to ensure that businesses across the UK can access opportunities linked to the hosting of the London 2012 Games.

For more information, visit here