A free training programme is being launched to help businesses in Loughborough town centre make the most of the digital world. Love Loughborough is launching the Digital Training Hub which will include online workshops, in-person courses and one-to-one support. A digital engagement officer has also been appointed to support the three-year programme and work with businesses. The initiative is part of the £2.87 million Living Loughborough project which is being led by Charnwood Borough Council, in partnership with Love Loughborough. The project will also see more events held in the town centre and investment in the town markets and the CCTV system. Free wi-fi in the town centre has already been extended as part of the project. The funding has come from Loughborough Town Deal which secured £16.9 million from the Government’s Towns Fund. It is backing 11 projects which in total are worth more than £40 million of investment for the town. Cllr Jenni Tillotson, the Council’s lead member for Economic Development, Regeneration and Town Centres, said: “This is a great project which will help local businesses enhance their online presence and increase trade. For some, that means it will also increase footfall for them as well which can create benefits for neighbouring businesses. “It is one of many parts of the Living Loughborough project which has already delivered an augmented heritage reality trail and expanded wi-fi in the town centre. And there is much more to come!” Lisa Brown, Love Loughborough manager, said: “We are very excited to work with a local business LikeMind Media on this training programme. They will be able to develop bespoke courses for Loughborough companies, through all sectors dependent on their needs. “We feel that it is a great opportunity for Loughborough companies to receive free training thanks to Loughborough Town Deal.” Dr Nik Kotecha OBE DL, chair of Loughborough Town Deal Board, said: “We live and operate in an increasingly digital world so it is great to see this support being offered to local businesses thanks to the funding provided through Loughborough Town Deal. “The Town Deal continues to deliver investment into Loughborough and bring real benefits to residents, businesses and visitors.” The free training is open to the hundreds of businesses that are members of Love Loughborough BID. The Digital Training Hub will launch in the autumn but Love Loughborough digital engagement officer Sam Berry is already in place and working with local businesses. The hub will be supported by Loughborough-based LikeMind Media and courses may include social media support, web design, videography and digital marketing.

Derby City Council’s Trading Standards team has successfully prosecuted a man for the sale of counterfeit printed t-shirts. Mr Juri Frolov appeared at Derby Crown Court on Wednesday 6 September 2023 where he was sentenced to 14 months imprisonment, suspended for 18 months with 100 hours unpaid work. He had previously pleaded guilty to eight offences under the Trade Marks Act 1994, and two offences related to Section 329 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. The defendant had admitted the offences at Derby Magistrates Court on 28 June 2020. He left the court on unconditional bail and the case was deferred to Derby Crown Court. Mr Frolov had been printing and selling T-shirts of famous known brands without the consent of the trademark owners. The investigation discovered he had been selling the T-shirts for around four years leading up to December 2019, when a search warrant was carried out at his home in the Arboretum area of Derby City. Trading Standards seized equipment including a T-shirt printer, a large amount of blank T-shirts, and customer returns. The shirts were advertised on eBay and printed to order from Mr Frolov’s home address. Previously Mr Frolov had received a letter from an anti-counterfeiting organisation requesting him to stop selling T-shirts which were produced without the consent of the trademark owner. He had failed to acknowledge the content of the letter and take appropriate action to stop producing and selling the T-shirts. Cllr Baggy Shanker, Cabinet Member for Housing, Property and Regulatory Services, said: “We take any illegal business activity very seriously and I’m pleased that we’ve finally been able to secure a prosecution in this case. I’d like to thank our Trading Standards team for their continued hard work in successfully finding and prosecuting illegal traders in our city.”

Having a strong online presence is crucial for the success of any business and one of the key elements of a successful online presence is search engine optimisation (SEO), which plays a significant role in determining where your website ranks on search engine results pages (SERPs). While traditional SEO tactics like optimising your website’s content and using relevant keywords are essential, incorporating high quality marketing videos into your SEO strategy can be a game-changer. In this article, we will explore how videos can improve Google ranking for your business and why you should consider integrating them into your digital marketing efforts. 1. Enhanced user engagement Google’s algorithms are designed to prioritise websites that provide valuable and engaging content to users. Videos do just that. When visitors spend more time on your website watching videos, it signals to Google that your content is relevant and engaging, which can result in improved rankings. To maximise user engagement through videos, consider the following tips: • Create informative and visually appealing videos that resonate with your target audience. • Keep videos concise and to the point, as shorter videos are more likely to retain viewers’ attention. • Only embed high quality videos onto your website to ensure that visitors won’t be turned-off. Consider having your marketing videos created by a video production company. 2. Reduced bounce rates Bounce rate refers to the percentage of visitors who leave your website after viewing only one page. High bounce rates can negatively impact your SEO rankings, as they suggest that visitors are not finding what they were looking for on your site. Videos can help reduce bounce rates by providing engaging content that encourages visitors to explore your website further. Here’s how you can use videos to reduce bounce rates: • Place videos strategically on landing pages to capture visitors’ attention immediately. • Ensure that the video content aligns with the topic of the page and provides additional value. • Include calls to action (CTAs) within your videos to encourage visitors to interact with your site further. 3. Increased dwell time Dwell time is the amount of time a visitor spends on your website before returning to the search results. Google considers dwell time as a ranking factor, as it reflects the quality and relevance of your content. Videos can significantly increase dwell time by keeping visitors engaged and on your site longer. To boost dwell time with videos: • Embed plenty of videos throughout your site – ideally at least one relevant video per webpage. • Create playlists of related videos to encourage viewers to watch multiple videos on your site. • Monitor video analytics to understand which videos are most effective at retaining viewers. 4. Backlinks and social signals Backlinks, or incoming links from other websites to yours, are a crucial part of SEO. They indicate that your content is trusted and valuable. Videos can help you earn backlinks when other websites link to your videos or embed them on their pages. This can improve your website’s authority and overall SEO ranking. Additionally, videos are highly shareable on social media platforms. When your videos are shared on social media, they create social signals that can positively impact your SEO efforts. These signals demonstrate that your content is relevant and valuable, which can lead to higher search engine rankings. To leverage backlinks and social signals from videos: • Promote your videos on social media platforms and encourage sharing. • Collaborate with influencers or industry experts to create and share videos related to your niche. • Reach out to relevant websites and offer your videos for inclusion in their content. 5. Rich snippets and video SEO Google often displays rich snippets in search results, which include additional information like thumbnails, video duration, and publication date for video content. When your videos appear as rich snippets in SERPs, they can attract more clicks and improve your click-through rate (CTR), another crucial SEO factor. To enhance your chances of getting rich snippets for your videos: • Use schema markup to provide structured data about your videos to search engines. • Create compelling video titles, descriptions, and tags that accurately reflect your video’s content. • Submit a video sitemap to Google to help the search engine index your video content effectively. For more information on how high-quality marketing videos can improve your Google ranking, speak with our local recommended production company, Glowfrog Video Production. Head to www.glowfrogvideo.com or call 01332 492 465.

Latest figures show over 30.5 million people visited Leicester and Leicestershire in 2022. This is an increase of 2.38 million on the previous year and up 18.64 million since the pandemic, proving that one of the hardest hit sectors is making a strong recovery. According to new figures published this summer, the city saw over 9.91 million visitors whilst over 20.6 million visitors came to the county in 2022. The tourism economy is worth £2.07 billion to the city and county, an increase of £440 million since 2021 and £108 million up on pre-pandemic figure of £1.962 billion. The figures show that the city and county have surpassed Nottingham and Nottinghamshire combined in their respective recoveries with the value of the Leicester and Leicestershire visitor economy up by 27.1% on 2021 figures, compared to 15.6% growth for Nottingham and Nottinghamshire. The new figures also show that the number of tourism-related jobs is on the rise, with more than 21,000 people now employed in the sector across the city and the county – an increase of 20% on 2021. Non-serviced accommodation including self catering, camping and glamping, has surpassed pre-pandemic 2019 figures, showing the strongest recovery in the accommodation market with an economic impact of £95.12m to the region. The tourism figures for Leicester and Leicestershire are taken from the 2022 Scarborough Tourism Economic Activity Monitor (STEAM) survey. The city and county are promoted nationally and internationally through a series of tourism campaigns delivered by Visit Leicester, the destination management organisation for Leicester and Leicestershire. The campaigns are jointly funded by Leicester City Council, Leicestershire County Council and the Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership (LLEP). The LLEP provided £185,000 from the Repurposed Growing Places Fund and £105,000 match funding came from the city and county councils. The positive tourism results have been welcomed by City Mayor Peter Soulsby, County Council Leader Nick Rushton and Phoebe Dawson, CEO of the LLEP. Leicester City Mayor Peter Soulsby said: “This is excellent news. The economic value of tourism in Leicester has grown by 36% since 2021, and investor confidence in tourism is high, as demonstrated by the huge increase in the number of hotels in the city. “The growth we’ve seen in tourism-related jobs gives a huge boost to our economy, as do the millions of visitors who come here every year and spend their money in local businesses. It shows that our investment in making the city easy to get around, and an attractive place to be has been well worth it. It also reflects the huge efforts of all those working in the tourism and hospitality sector in our city.” County council leader Nick Rushton said: “We’re naturally delighted to see the strong growth in our tourism economy, and the creation of an extra 2,000 jobs in the county by the sector in 2022 is particularly welcome. With nearly 14,000 now working in the tourism sector it highlights just how important tourism is to the county. “Leicestershire has an incredible history and story to tell and we’re glad to see this post pandemic resurgence in visitors, which is translating into increased spend in the local economy and new jobs.” Phoebe Dawson, CEO of the LLEP, said: “We know that Leicester and Leicestershire have much to offer and investment in spreading the word is having an effect on increasing our reach. “We’re pleased to see LLEP funding achieve the desired outcome of helping Leicester and Leicestershire – one of the areas hardest hit by the pandemic – to recover.”

The Superbia Group, a financial services organisation encompassing the advice firm Furnley House and investment firms Asset Intelligence Research and Asset Intelligence Portfolio Management, has revealed its certification as a B Corporation (or B Corp), joining a growing set of companies reinventing business by pursuing purpose as well as profit. The Superbia Group has been certified by B Lab™, the not-for-profit behind the B Corp movement, as having met rigorous social and environmental standards which represent its commitment to a range of goals besides shareholder profit. The B Corp certification addresses the entirety of a business’s operations and covers five key impact areas: Governance, Workers, Community, Environment and Customers. The certification process is rigorous, with applicants required to reach a benchmark score of over 80 while providing evidence of socially and environmentally responsible practices relating to energy supplies, waste and water use, worker compensation, diversity and corporate transparency. To complete the certification, the company will legally embed their commitment to purpose beyond profit in their company articles. The Superbia Group is now part of a community of just 7,000 businesses globally which have certified as B Corps. The B Corp community in the UK represents a broad cross-section of industries and company sizes, comprising over 1,500 companies and including well-known brands such as The Guardian, innocent, Patagonia and The Body Shop. Co-founder and Managing Director Stefan Fura said: “Since we started, we’ve always done our best to do the right thing, whether that’s through helping clients achieve their dreams with Furnley House or the work we’ve done for the community through our charity The Furnley House Foundation. “Becoming a certified B Corporation really cements our ethos as a business and I’m incredibly proud that we’ve achieved it.”