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Newspage Geosearch Goes Live
22 May 2023In case you haven’t noticed, the internet is local.
The web and the metaverse were supposed to kill off the local media. That was utter bulls*it, because local is making a comeback.
The majority of business generated from publicity for Newspagers comes from being featured in the local media, not the national media.
Sure, it’s great to be featured in the like of the BBC, Times, and FT, but if you want to generate money for your business nothing beats being featured locally.
Local media coverage is the quickest, easiest and longest-lasting SEO hack your business can get.
Search engines prioritise your location and credible sites. Local media hits both those like a one-two combo from Muhammad Ali.
Want your business to get oodles of organic search traffic? Get featured in the local media and the job’s done.
This is why local news has been a focus for us at Newspage UK since the beginning, but with thousands of businesses and journalists located across the UK our challenge has been bringing them together easily and quickly.
So we tasked our clever CTO Peter Vidlicka and his team to come up with a solution.
Peter’s come up with the goods and I’m delighted to announce that we have now launched Newspage Geosearch.
Newspage Geosearch enables local and regional journalists to effortlessly connect with businesses and charities in their towns and cities to source new stories and secure expert comment for the stories they’re working on.
So if you’re business is not on Newspage yet, get yourself signed up now (Free or Premium) and we can get you that all-important local coverage.
As for you existing Newspagers, make sure you’re address is added to your profile otherwise you’ll be missing out on LOTS of local media opportunities.
Big shout out to Peter Vidlicka for bringing Newspage Geosearch live.
Geosearch was only one of the reasons I was in London last week to meet with Dominic Hiatt and Jonny Stevens. We also made progress on our upcoming mobile app and our pet project, NIBs (news in brief), which will deliver a knock-out punch to the press release, making it possible for you to pitch stories to the media in a matter of seconds. But more about that later…
Jay Vaananen, CEO, Newspage
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Four easy PR tips for small businesses
1 March 2023Here’s a picture of a retro-feeling bog I took on the weekend in some random Bristol shopping centre.
Now that I’ve got your attention with this photographic masterpiece, 4 PR tips for you all — following some recent conversations I’ve had with users of Newspage UK.
Don’t just tell a story, add a story
A lot of you are unaware that there is a stories function to Newspage and have never used it at all. Like ever. If you add a story (and you can add unlimited stories even if you’re a free user), it will be looked at by an experienced journalist. If we believe it’s strong enough, it will then be sent onto all relevant media for free. So check out the Stories function in the left hand nav of your Newspage. It’s arguably more powerful than the News Alerts, as if you create a good story, you’ll often be the only business featured in it.
Boost your credibility
PR can ‘sometimes’ get the phone ringing and result in new business on the same day but it is not about instant leads per se. It is about credibility and findability. If you’re regularly quoted in the mainstream media, people will trust you, especially if you work within financial services. When they search for your name and company on Google, chances are that that hit on the BBC or in the Daily Mail or Evening Standard will be right up there on page one — which will make them more likely to use you rather than your competitor, who isn’t all over the media like a rash.
Don’t wait for traffic, drive traffic
PR raises awareness of your brand, drives traffic to your site and has massive SEO benefits, especially when you pick up backlinks from major news outlets, as Newspage does day in day out — backlinks that SEOs can only dream of. But the key is to generate media coverage regularly, not sporadically. That’s when the real value shows through and you start picking up new business from articles you’d forgotten you appeared in but someone found online. PR is a long-term play, not a short-term tactic.
Ignore the trade media at your peril
“I only want to be in the national media, not the trades.” Give me strength. All national journalists read the trades as a source of stories, and will see you in those articles. Also, a lot of trade journalists go on to work at national newspapers, and you’ll go with them if you are one of their trusted commentators. And lastly, getting trade coverage is still great for findability online and backlinks. Ignore it at your peril.
Right, on that note I’m off to a bog in Bath to take some photos.
In the meanwhile, you can upload your stories to your Newspage, if you’re out of ideas, then sign into your Newspage and click the “News Chat” button on the left of the page and you can book a 20-minute chat with a national news journalist who will come up with at least three ideas for stories about your business the media would love to publish.
Dominic Hiatt, Founder, Newspage
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WHO DARES WINS. 8 IN 10 SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS SAY THEY ARE MORE PREPARED TO TAKE RISKS DUE TO THE PANDEMIC
13 August 2021FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Eight in 10 small business owners (83%) say they are “more prepared to take risks” as a result of their experiences during the pandemic, according to a survey by free PR platform, Newspage.
Just 11% of the poll’s 1200 respondents, from a wide range of sectors and located around the UK, said they are “less prepared to take risks” in their capacity as a business owner, while 6% said they were not sure.
Meanwhile, a thumping majority of small business owners (93%) say the pandemic has made them feel “better equipped” to deal with uncertainty, with just 4% saying they now feel “worse equipped” to deal with economic and business-related uncertainty. Only 3% were unsure.
The ‘Who Dares Wins’ attitude among small business owners inspired by the pandemic is reflected in their approach to the year ahead.
Despite the looming end of the furlough scheme, potential tax rises on the horizon and the threat of interest rate hikes to contain inflation, nearly nine in 10 respondents (88%) said they plan to grow their way through the next 12 months. Just 7% said they were planning to “batten down the hatches”, while 5% were unsure.
As part of the survey, Newspage users were asked how they felt they had changed as a small business owner since the beginning of the pandemic. Select responses are included below.
Dee Featherstone, founder of Peterborough-based The Little Sensory Box: “Since the pandemic, I am more prepared for growth but also more capable of adapting much quicker if need be. I am no longer scared to take the risks needed to scale further. The pandemic has made me more resilient as both a person and as a business.”
Gillian Jones-Williams, managing director of Fareham-based Emerge Development Consultancy: “Our business has changed immeasurably since the beginning of the pandemic. As a face-to-face training company, we lost everything in March 2020 and had to reinvent ourselves within the field of virtual delivery. As challenging as it was, we are definitely stronger as a business and can see how we can grow in the future.”
Maddy Alexander-Grout, CEO of Southampton-based My VIP Rewards: “The pandemic made us realise that our business model wasn’t working and we changed everything in order to grow. We rebranded, changed our product and re-aligned with our target audience. Ultimately, the pandemic gave us time to think everything through and we are now ready to grow and scale in a more efficient way.”
Andrew Deighton, owner of Derby-based AWD Development Solutions: “In a strange way, the pandemic has helped me longer term. I’m definitely more aware of what I do and how I want to do it. The whole pandemic experience has given me a stronger foundation.”
Sandra Wilson, director of Ipswich-based recruitment and HR company, Cottrell Moore: “Nothing has ever made us focus more on the need to evolve and embrace change than the pandemic. I have personally learnt that taking risks in certain situations can often be the best way to ensure success. In the business world, fortune very often favours the brave.”
Sam Sutton, director of Hampshire-based New Forest Activities: “Navigating the pandemic has brought us together as a team. We now collectively feel more responsible for the results we achieve and are thinking much bigger as a result. As a business owner, I’m now looking at acquisitions and start-ups in order to take full advantage of the opportunities open to us.”
Kelly Smallcombe, founder at Bristol-based Evolved Creative: “As a small business owner, the pandemic has been a time to rethink everything I’ve been doing and look at things through a completely new lens. Covid-19 has taught me to be prepared and be willing to adapt to changing circumstances. I won’t be waiting for the next pandemic, but will use all I have learned over the past 18 months to see it through.”
Tina Judic, CEO of London-based digital agency, Found: “The start of the pandemic was a concerning time but we recognised early on that it provided an opportunity to seize the moment and that future plans could be rolled out sooner than intended. We’ve made a number of hugely positive steps to business growth that we perhaps wouldn’t have taken so quickly under normal circumstances.”
Commenting on the survey results, Dominic Hiatt, founder, Newspage, added: “Based on this evidence, the past 18 months have fundamentally changed the psychology of small business owners. They’re a lot more resilient and able to cope with uncertainty, more prepared to take on risks to grow and more bullish generally given that they have managed to survive. This confidence bodes well for the future and the economic uncertainty that lies ahead.”
— ENDS —
Notes to Editors
For more information, please contact: Dominic Hiatt, Founder, Newspage: 07595 221604 | dominic@newspage.co.uk
Newspage polled its user base between 6 and 8 August 2021.
About Newspage
Newspage gives small businesses and charities the ability to be featured in the local, national and trade media for FREE, while also acting as a fully branded ‘media centre’ where they can be found by journalists in need of expert comment. Simply create your own Newspage in a matter of minutes and then be alerted to relevant stories you could contribute to as they break. #BeTheStory
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SMALL BUSINESS OWNER? YOUR VIEWS DON’T COUNT FOR THE MEDIA.
13 June 2021On Friday morning (11 June), the Office for National Statistics published the April GDP data – the latest snapshot of the UK economy. It showed the economy grew by 2.3%.
We issued comments on the economy to the national news media from a wide range of small business owners around the country. Not one was used, as these types of stories are often seen as above the pay grade of the ‘everyday’ business.
Instead, the national newspapers – as they too often do – quoted macro-economists, politicians and think tanks. People in the ivory towers of the City of London and Westminster bubble. Not the small business owners on the front line. People who are the economy.
People like Andrew Deighton of Derby-based AWD Development Solutions:
“The light at the end of the tunnel started to get a bit brighter for me in April and May. April saw things start to pick up and in May I invoiced more than for the final eight months of 2020 added together.”
People like Gillian Jones-Williams of Fareham-based Emerge Development Consultancy:
“For us, in April and May, it felt as if the world was waking up. We are a training company and have gone from losing huge amounts of money last year to feeling extremely positive about our future.”
People like Andrew Elcock of Nottingham-based Xynomix:
“April and May saw our bookings return to pre-Covid levels, as business confidence continues to increase. “During the same period last year, we saw our bookings plummet by 60%, so April 2021 has certainly shown reassuring signs of life in the wider economy.”
People like Larry Morgan of Bromsgrove-based Trojan Consultants:
“As an SME providing software to the public sector, the seismic impact of Covid-19 on Local Authority finances is becoming ever more apparent. Huge budget cuts announced by councils up and down the country are having a massive impact on our business, and doubtless many other suppliers to the public sector.”
Quality insights all, but not a column inch given.
The entire purpose of Newspage is to change this. To give a voice to the people who are the economy rather than those who simply talk about it. To ensure your views are heard.
Because currently, all too often in the national media, your views don’t count.
#smallbusinesseswillbeheard