Paul Squires

Official Website of Paul Squires - Entrepreneur & Digital consultant at Finsbury Media

Welcome to my Website

I’m Paul Squires, Digital Consultant at Guildford's Google Premier Partner Agency, Finsbury Media.

Here I will write about things I’m involved in, upcoming events, and also what interests me.

I appreciate you spending your time checking it out.

Read More About Me

What’s happening in December?

By

Well we are fast approaching the end of the year, there’s lots of Christmas Parties and stuff going on. But there is still some networking to be done in the last few days.

This Thursday December 6th I will be attending representing Finsbury Media at the Guildford Silicon Drinkabout.

Find details below:

Silicon Drinkabout Guildford

Thursday, Dec 6, 2018, 6:00 PM

The White House Pub
8 High St Guildford GU2 4AJ, GB

42 Members Attending

First timer? Don’t be shy! Come along and meet other like-minded tech and startup folk in a relaxed environment over drinks! Silicon Drinkabout Guildford is on the first Thursday of every month. Great news – Guildford Borough Council have kindly renewed their sponsorship of the event! We’re now sponsored for the rest of the year. The sponsorship he…

Check out this Meetup →

 

And the following week I will be donning my funny Christmas jumper (I’ll have to buy one?!) and attending on the Woking Winter Warmer with the Surrey Chambers at the HG Wells centre. Full details here:

https://www.surrey-chambers.co.uk/event-listing/event-detail/?eidQS=1CABD27E-64DC-4175-BA6A-BCAA35561047

 

This is probably the last chance to meet me this year – particularly useful if you want to chat about your marketing in 2019 and set a date for a formal meeting – I’ll show you how our tech platform can generate you leads that and make the most of your budget.

Cheers

Paulie x

The Guildford Innovation Awards 2018

By

I will be representing Finsbury media at The Guildford Innovation Awards 2018 – designed to celebrate what Guildford does best – innovate! There are a number of business awards, but none focusing specifically on innovation in and around Guildford.

The awards are aimed at building upon the success of the 2017 Innovate Guildford programme, celebrating inspirational innovation across a spectrum of sectors in the borough and promoting Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (‘STEM’) subjects.

Open to individuals, businesses and social enterprises located in the Guildford Borough, with eight categories and a ninth, special award for ‘Most outstanding innovation’ whose winner will be drawn from all categories.

Should be good night 🙂

 

Paulie x

SSL Certificates – what’s all the fuss about?

By

What are they? 

What do they do?

And why should you have one?

You have a website, then you have probably heard all the fuss about SSL certificates. So whats the deal?

SSL is an acronym for ‘secure sockets layer.’ All sounds a bit techie?

Not really

Any business with an online presence should have one as it’s the key to protect your visitors data.

OK – how do they work?

When your visitors information is submitted it goes through a channel of computers before it reaches your website.

Information being compromised is much higher if SSL is not applied. Clever encrypted information technology (readable only to the party it is intended for with an encryption key) renders this information is useless to anyone who doesn’t have the key.

If you take payments on-line a SSL certificate is a requirement for any website that accepts payments with an encryption of at least 128-bit.

But to show your visitors you the value their data, you should have one on any site. I’m staggered how many professional service companies have not adopted SSL.Solicitors, Accountants, Tax Advisors, and so on.

Perhaps they don’t know. Or don’t care. Who knows?

They probably don’t realise Google flags website that doesn’t have SSL certification.

How to easily check if you use SSL on your site.

Open your website in a Chrome browser and see which of the following situations apply to you:

  • If you see a green lock icon to the left of the URL, then your site supports HTTPS.
  • If the lock does not appear, try re-entering your website URL with “https://” instead of “http://”.
  • If the page doesn’t load, then your site does not support HTTPS.

Why you should definitely have one

Privacy is a matter of the highest importance for Google. But there is another really important reason why you need SSL. If you use Google Ads then you definitely need it.

Google Ads recommend (and in some cases, requires) that all URLs use the HTTPS protocol instead of HTTP to protect customers’ personal and financial information. Not only that, Google Ads speed-enhancing parallel tracking feature requires that all click-measuring URLs (URLs contained in the “Tracking URL” field) use HTTPS.

From October 30, 2018, parallel tracking has become the method for click measurement. Because of this, all Tracking URLs need to use HTTPS.

Having a good presence on-line is tough at the best of times – you don’t have to be making it harder by getting your ads dis-allowed, or having a poor ranking for organic results just because your site is not secure.

I don’t use ads for this website – but I do have SSL on it.

After all, as I tell my clients they need it whether they transact on-line or not – so I practice what I preach!

In conclusion – if you want to get a SSL certificate on your site – Finsbury Media can help.*

*(We will need to host your site on our dedicated server – but we can definitely help.)

If you need your under performing ads to be fixed – we can help.

If you want to fix your appalling SEO, you guessed it – we can help.

We can’t help fix your broken office coffee machine or do the lawn.

That’s your call.

But the other stuff, sure we can help.

Drop me a line paul.squires@finsburymedia.com and let’s chat

Paulie x

 

 

Finsbury Media attending local events this September

By Leave a Comment

So summers over – and I’m back attending various local events.

First off I will be representing Finsbury Media at the Demisting Digital Marketing Seminar

The event on Wednesday 19th September features presentations from James Wright from Fruitful Marketing Ltd – James has a passion for marketing and believes in its benefits for all businesses, helping achieve increased enquiries, sales and importantly profits.

Living in a world of constant technological changes, it’s important you keep ahead of the game.

It’s all about progression and how to make business work for you using the most up-to-date, advantageous technological processes.

The event will be beneficial it will focus on the LATEST digital marketing techniques and explaining how to implement them in your business.

You will leave this event feeling more confident about digital marketing, enabling you to apply relevant, successful techniques to your business to increase leads, sales and profits.

Also speaking will be Michael Man  – covering how to make ground-breaking videos for your business.

Michael is an award nominated co-founder and Managing Director of ManMade Group Ltd, who provide high quality video production services to the UK and beyond.

He is passionate about telling stories through video and is a self-taught videographer and business owner who likes to share his insights.

Should be a good event – there may be some free tickets still available here

And I will also be representing Finsbury Media at The Surrey Chambers Of Commerce Networking Event at the beautiful Weybourne House in Guildford on Thursday 20th September.

 

 

Full details can be seen online here

I’ll post other events as and when I can – enjoy the rest of this beautiful Autumn wherever you are.

Paulie x

 

The BIG question….Is Cold calling dead?

By Leave a Comment

So is Cold calling ‘dead’?

Depends on your strategy.

I make a point to call potential clients daily.

If I have experience in their industry I know I can add value.

Case in point I called a local client and noticed that there was an issue.

We met the next day – the agency working with them were ‘winging it.’

I looked over the monthly report they had been sent – total fluff.

There was no way of knowing any benefits their marketing budget was delivering.

Zilch.

I showed what Finsbury offer.

Call recording, optimisation and bidding software.

And showed our results.

As a performance agency we live and die by RESULTS – happy to say I now have a new client and looking forward to really improving their ad campaign (and SEO)

If you have a Google AdWords campaign and don’t know what it delivers – or just want to find out more.

Get in touch – 07415 192898 ✅

And cold calling?

Yes it works if you offer a superior service, and are consultative ✅

Cold Calling Dead ?

 

 

Summers here – busy time at Finsbury Media

By Leave a Comment

Wow, busy time at Finsbury Media – we exhibited at the Surrey Business Expo – and I am due to speak at a few upcoming events.

I’ll post info here but do check the twitter feed for more up to date details.

I also did the second podcast looking at tips for a business that want to exhibit at a show – plus a FREE way to gain exposure for your company.

Interested?

Then listen to the podcast. https://anchor.fm/paulsquires/episodes/Finsbury-Media-summer-podcast-e1qa15/a-a4d5ot

Paul_Squires___Anchor_-_The_easiest_way_to_start_a_podcast

Success for Finsbury Media at KentVisionLIVE

By Leave a Comment

This past Wednesday Finsbury Media exhibited at the amazing Kent Vision LIVE – some of the team and our CEO made the trip to sunny Kent and met hundreds of businesses.

I will be doing a podcast on how I put together the show – exactly and who I used to create such an awesome stand.

image5

 

We met and chatted to a wide variety of business – everything from media agencies, solicitors, accountants and sole traders. It was a long day but the turnout was strong and organisation excellent. We came away from the show having demonstrated to local business what we do and how we do it – we even showed potential clients the platform and back end – and safe to say they were blown away!

I like to think we opened up many people’s eyes about what is possible with Finsbury Media technology.

image4 image3image2

Special thanks to our awesome client Amore Bakery who provided us some amazing branded cupcakes that were handed out to grateful delegates on our stand. You can check them out here http://www.brandedcupcakes.co.uk

/

We will be doing another show next month, the Surrey Business Expo – but before then we have some very exciting news with Finsbury Media up for 2 awards at the Eagle Radio Biz Awards – I’ll give updates next week.

That’s all for now – enjoy the sun and keep safe

 

Paulie x

Finsbury Media wins Theo Paphitis #SBS competition :)

By Leave a Comment

Theo Paphitis SBS

This week I’m delighted to announce Finsbury Media became one of the lucky 6 winners of the Small Business Sunday competition, organised by Theo Paphitis, the renowned retail magnate and entrepreneur.

As the owner of the stationery chain Ryman, homewares specialist Robert Dyas and lingerie retailer Boux Avenue he knows a thing or two about business –  his twitter profile humorously lists him as ‘Shopkeeper.’

Theo has been an inspiration to me over the years, I always enjoyed his appearances on Dragons Den on the BBC, and his no-nonsense approach to business is refreshing.

One of his quotes is

‘There are three reasons to be in business. To make money, to have fun – and to make money.’

It’s a very cool and fun competition – each week between 5 pm and 7.30 pm business’s are invited (after following his twitter accounts) to tweet Theo with their details and why they shine…and he chooses his 6 favourites (retweeting the ones he likes best on Monday evening.)

Those lucky winners are now members of #SBS.

Hundred’s of companies take part each week – and I was keen that Finsbury Media had a chance to win.

As a new business that is just 3 years old, Finsbury Media has suffered many of the pains and challenges that a startup would expect – and from 2 staff we now employ over 20.

0BCF415A-9E72-45F7-8991-385674860191

Based in our HQ in Jeffries passage in Guildford, we help our clients be found online with our cutting edge SEO tactics – but it is our unique Adwords optimisation we are best known for – our tech is amazing.

Many people have used AdWords – maybe they tried to do it themselves, had unrealistic expectations – or maybe they just didn’t know what the campaign ACTUALLY generated them.

We’ve changed all that, and we don’t have the ‘fluff’ that some people have had from marketing agencies.

We were awarded Google Premier Partner status as a testament to our success. We record everything (even calls) and our super clever algorithm will actively increase and lower bids based on results (an email, form or call) and not just a click!

Finsbury Media live and die by our results. No lengthy contract.

If what we do works – you’ll stay with us. The only companies that tend to tie you into a lengthy annual contract typically deliver poor service (and yes – mobile phone and satellite tv providers – that’s probably you!)

We have a diverse portfolio of clients – from new home builders, professional service, e-commerce and even a chimney sweep! All our clients get the same no-nonsense service and most importantly …increase in business.

This is what Theo says about the SBS competition on the official website.

Theo Paphitis

“I admire people who have passion and energy. If you cannot bore your friends to death about your own small business then something is seriously wrong. I was struck by the number of business owners on Twitter who wanted to tell me about their new products and services. Small Business Sunday was born so that people have a specific time slot to tweet and can pitch their ‘sell’ directly to me.

All my businesses are privately owned and entrepreneurial in spirit. My stationery firm Ryman has thousands of small business customers, which is why they are now kindly sponsoring #SBS. I want to offer benefits to #SBS winners, past and present and the link with the stationery retailer allows me to do this, so thank you CEO Kypros Kyprianou and Co.

My vision is that everyone who has ever won an #SBS re-tweet from me becomes part of a friendly club. Like-minded individuals can share successes and learnings. This website will give a valuable profile to the winners chosen to date and should help those who have not yet won but want some tips on how to do so. You will find news about the latest winners plus events and activities of interest.

I know I have been lucky in business and I am keen now to spread goodwill to others, of course not forgetting that very often, you make your own luck by making use of every opportunity

Theo Paphitis”

I think using  SBS is a great way to let people know what your business does – so if YOU want a great way to increase exposure, engage potential customers and market your small business you should definitely give it a try.

Remember  – you will need to be diligent and keep trying. I decided to use humour with our office Frenchie and a poem – here’s our winning tweet.

Finsbury_Media___FinsburyMedia____Twitter_1Finsbury_Media___FinsburyMedia____Twitter

Winning SBS is a great way to increase your exposure and I applaud Theo and his team for running it. I entered the competition every week, changing the tweet and message,  let your personality and passion shine through and be persistent.

And don’t give up!

You can find out more about SBS here – and best of luck!

Paulie x