The Ladies being Australian women in business and female entrepreneurs – of course.
I’ve just released the advertiser kit for womeninbusiness.com.au. There are opportunities to advertise on the website and in the weekly newsletter.
I designed the advertising spots to be affordable and give options for micro businesses and up.
Check it out here or drop me a line with any questions.
Have you heard about Project 365?It’s a photo/blogging project that popped up a few years ago. Basically you take one picture per day for 365 days – effectively documenting your year in photos. You can read more about it here and here.
Looking back over a year in pictures sounds absolutely delightful so I decided to take part in the project this year.
I decided to create a set in my Flickr account to log the photos and am using my iPhone and the Flickr app to upload them daily. I know a few people who are dedicating their Posterous to the project which would also work really well.
Are you taking part in Project 365? Would love to follow it if you are – leave a link to your site or Flickr set in the comments below!
Image credit: Meshel
Welcome to 2010. It’s The Future! Otherwise known as the year of wealth, health and happiness for one Ms Clare Lancaster.
You know what I love? A blog that stumbles and then, after a few makeovers, finally finds its way. Ok, I don’t love that BUT that’s what I’m hoping will happen to this little place this year.
I tried to go tutorial based, I tried a bit of news and a bit of personal – and what I’ve decided on is something for me. Writing about my life for me. Ta da! No – really. Now that I’ve got this fun place to offload my best online business finds, tips and tutorials I’ve decided to use my blog for something a little more personal.
I’ve been planning this year, in one way or another, for the past 10 years. If things go as planned, this year will be pretty exciting and rewarding. I’d love it if you share it with me.
Image credit: Anitacanita
As the final version of womeninbusiness.com.au comes closer to completion my thoughts have turned to its launch.
Specifically, how it should be launched. I’m so excited about this site and what it will offer women in business so I want it to launch with a bang.
I received some movie double passes to giveaway on the site – this got me thinking – maybe I should celebrate with a launch competition.
I thought it might be useful for other online business owners if I went through the process of organising a website launch competition. Of course, you don’t have to be launching anything to run a competition on your website.
I’ve decided to run a competition to launch Women in Business for a couple of reasons:
So now that I’d decided on a competition I started thinking, how would I reach businesses to source the prizes?
That’s where Source Bottle came in.
Source Bottle connects bloggers and journalists to businesses and PR for mutual benefit. I had never used the (free) service before but thought I’d give it a try for this purpose.
The results have been incredible – with over 65 businesses offering prizes for the launch competition.
The primary objective that I want visitors to meet is to signup to be a member. Membership is free and I wanted to use the competition prizes as an incentive for signup.
In addition, the businesses offering the giveaways also want some return – in the form of entry email addresses.
So in order to enter the competitions, visitors are required to signup for membership and accept entry terms and conditions.
I’m planning on using random.org’s Third Party Draw service. This works by uploading a list of identifiers (in this case, email addresses) for each prize to randomly select a winner.
I’m assuming that the prizes will be delivered to me – for me to send to entry winners.
I’ve come across a few challenges in organising the website launch competition including:
Don’t know the answer to this one yet! Will report back once the website is launched and the competition has closed.
Image Credit: Flickr
I’ve decided to run a competition to launch womeninbusiness.com.au for a couple of reasons
1. People love winning things, will draw attention to the website
2. I want people to sign up as a member. This is a good incentive for people to join, and then be able to see the benefits once they’re logged in.
3. To gauge the interest of advertisers in this space.
Helloooooo? Is anybody still there?
If you are – you might have noticed that I’ve been missing in action. The thing is though – I haven’t been missing. I’ve been spending time with my other love.
I don’t know how I’m going to juggle them both just yet but I thought I better pop in and say Hi.
It’s been heads down, shoulders hunched for the past two weeks while I’ve been working on Women in Business.
I’ve been quietly adding content to the site while I’m making it beautiful inside and out (whatever that means) getting it ready for it’s spectaular launch coming up next week.
So while I’ve been working away I found out yesterday that I’ve been included in Forbes.com list of 30 female entrepreuers to follow on Twitter.
Wow. What a great surprise and I have the fabulous Natalie MacNeil of She Takes on the World to thank for it. So – Natalie – thank you!
Now there are a several great things about this but as one clever Twitter friend pointed out. I can now put “As featured in Forbes Magazine” in my bio. I’m so down with that.
I’m writing this post from the sunny Gold Coast – I’ve got views to the beach on one side and views to the shopping Mecca Pacific Fair on the other.
Their proximity has highlighted how important it is to be productive while you’re working away from your usual location. It’s all business – no busyness! If you want to enjoy your location, you get your work done promptly!!
We’re down here for a holiday break but I’m using it to live out a little location independent experiment.
I’ve always dreamed of being able to work from anywhere in the world.
Most recently, my dream found form in creating a business that consumed my passion and was driven by a desire to make a difference to people so they can change their world for the better. This business is being built on a model of processes and automation.
While this year I’ve had success with consulting – one on one and groups – the face to face nature of the model wasn’t helping me reach my goals.
Also, while consulting is great – it didn’t fulfil the passion side of my dream equation. However – if there’s anything I’ve learned this year is that patience is golden and allows you time to figure out what you want among other things.
While I will continue consulting – I’m looking at a more effective way to deliver my knowledge and experience to those who need it. But that’s another story.
I acquired the domain womeninbusiness.com.au late last year. Every time I thought about it I’d lose concentration from excitement.
I knew this was going to help me achieve my dream.
So here I am – the Women in Business website is up but still in development – getting ready for its official launch in a couple of weeks.
I’ve had a taste of managing the business while I’ve been away and it’s worked like a dream (oh <- that’s appropriate!)
I’ve spent roughly 4 hours a day working on the business – 2 in the morning and 2 in the afternoon. Posting to the blog, handling enquiries, approving comments, managing the LinkedIn group and building features behind the scenes.
There are a couple of process I can see need to be refined but overall, if I could live my life like this I’d be one happy woman (in business).
I just came across this video on Mumbrella featuring an interview with Australian Anthill’s founder.
When I interviewed James Tuckerman I was so impressed with what he said that I’ve been keeping an eye on his opinions ever since.
This is probably the best summary I’ve seen yet about where media is heading and how individuals can take advantage of it.
Do you know if your website is included in Google?
Are all the pages included or just the homepage?
The first thing your SEO consultant will check when reviewing your website is search engine accessibility.
Here’s why – search engine robots need to be able to crawl through your website before it can start reading your optimised web pages to increase your rankings.
Did you know it’s easy for you to find out if your website is included in Google?
You can do it right now – go on.
Go to www.google.com and type in site:yourwebsite.com.au – for example I would type in site:clarelancaster.com.au
Click search and hey presto – the results you see are the pages that are included in Google.
You can quickly see how many pages Google knows about by looking at the “Results” in the bar at the top right hand side.
The super early arrival of Christmas trees in our shopping centres has got me thinking about how quickly this year is coming to an end. It’s also got me reflecting on my first ten months of business.
Generally – the first 6 months were incredible – exciting, I got some great exposure, made some fabulous relationships, established my blog, consultancy business and first eBook, secured a regular gig with Nett Magazine etc etc.
Then, around August something happened – I’m not sure if I was burnt out or it was Just One Of Those Things but I started to lose focus.
I found myself questioning what I was doing – jumping from one project to the next - strategising endlessly, designing logo’s – re-designing logos, writing content – re-writing content.
I was telling my husband about all of my big ideas and how everything’s going to be so great.
Meanwhile I had this little niggling thought that I didn’t want to admit to myself.
I was talking a lot more then I was doing. Don’t get me wrong – I’ve been busy – but not busy doing the right things.
I came across this post from Darren at Problogger and one day later I’ve set myself a 3 month deadline to get several large projects up and running.
The first was to set womeninbusiness.com.au live. I’ve got big plans for this site – and like all of my online businesses I’m developing it myself. I had a couple of features nearly ready to go but not quite.
I kept thinking of things to add and rationalised to myself that it should be one big launch with all the features included. Meanwhile, the 1/2 finished website sat behind the scenes while the holding page was getting a solid amount of traffic every day.
Now – I’ve got the site up and am adding the features as I go – the result? I’ve now got advertisers lined up ready to advertise to my audience. Today I’m working on the home page and will continue to add features weekly.
Moral of the story? You win when you stop dreaming and start doing.
What actions have you taken recently to take you a step closer to achieving your goals?
Today I want to introduce you to two people that I’ve been following for a while. They’ve both inspired me and represent ideas that are close to my heart.
Chris is a writer and traveller – his blog is a place for people living their life according to what’s important to them.
The blog chronicles his journey to achieving a big goal – to travel to every country in the world before he turns 35.
Chris also offers practical advice and encouragement for anyone who isn’t content with a 9-5 existence.
His two free eBooks are well worth the read – A Brief Guide to World Domination and 279 Days to Overnight Success.
Gwen Bell writes about social media, creativity and entrepreneurship in a fresh, accessible way.
She’s a partner at Kirtsy, a brand enthusiast for Nintendo and owns a yoga studio in Yokohama, Japan.
Gwen always has interesting thing to say – visit her blog here or follow her on Twitter here.
I’d love to know who’s inspiring you right now? Any people that you regularly listen to or follow? Please share them below and spread their goodness around!
I've been working online since 2001, started my consultancy in 2008 and am the owner/editor of Women in Business.
I write a regular column for Nett Magazine and am a huge fan of big dreams and big actions. More »
Twitter Update
The November issue of Nett is out now.
Read about how you should think small to make it big by Clare Lancaster.
Learn how to build your brand, improve your customer service, and create your own word of mouth marketers using Twitter.
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