I am delighted to announce that A1 Business Forums - A1BF - has acquired the assets of UK Small Business Forums - UKSBF - for an undisclosed fee.

The sale comprises the associated domain names and member database, which has been merged into A1 Business Forum, instantly swelling the membership from 400 to 3800 members at a stroke.

The threads and posts from UKSBF were not included in the sale, as these were unfortunately lost due to a hardware failure and corruption of the backup database. It was this factor that led to the recent temporary closure of UKSBF and subsequent sale of the remaining assets to A1BF.

Obviously this is a good strategic fit for A1, which is the fastest growing Business Forum in the UK.

A Warm Welcome to A1 for UKSBF Members

I’d like to extend a warm welcome to all UKSBF members and look forward to seeing you join in the friendly and helpful community at A1 Business Forums. We have imported the member database so you can simply login to your UK Small Business Forums account here and carry on posting. I’m looking forward to seeing you on the Forums!

Clearly there is the demand in the UK for another flavour of Business Forum, and that flavour seems to be A1!

An Update on A1 Business Forum Statistics

Lets update you on the statistics since the last post at the end of month 1:

Whichever way you look at it, those are amazing statistics which also demonstrate that the initial momentum is being maintained.

What makes A1 Different?

I’ve said it many times before - A1 is different because we focus on being a friendly business community first and foremost - with the quality of business advice, help and support equal to all other sources of online information in the UK. Clearly, it’s a winning formula!

Once again, a big thanks to all our wonderful members for making the A1 dream a reality.

I think a special word of thanks to our Moderators and Administrators is also in order, they do a terrific job both on the Forum and behind the scenes:

• Fuzzy from Fuzzydon
• Khalid and Gareth from Pixelcraze
• Sandra from Indizine
• Phil from Openmind
• Nickie from PremierPDS
• Kay from Calibre Designs

Thanks guy’s - you’re awesome!

But in reality this rarely happens in the real world of business. Some people will quickly give up because sales or Adsense revenues don’t come quickly enough and vent their frustrations to friends and family and maybe on online discussion forums.

If we step back and see what these folks do it’s no wonder their idea is not developing more business. For most startups the business *is* the founder. Whether they be an electrician, gardener or window cleaner. And these people have started a business and duly serve their customers. A typical small business at work.

But online a business is more like a much larger business because it requires all the disciplines that larger businesses employ and leverage. When thinking of starting an internet business you really need to be “jack of all trades” or at least know trusted people and companies that can help you out.

At the beginning you need technical expertise to register a domain, get a hosting plan and design your site. Then you need copywriting knowledge to write the correct message to entice people to purchase or get in touch with you.

Once live you’ll need to source product or know how to develop an electronic product to download then you’ll need a payment processor to take credit card payments and distribution expertise to deliver your product either online or via the post office or a courier.

But the above makes the assumption that you have people visiting your site and that requires marketing know-how and search engine optimisation expertise to get higher in the search engines or referrals from social networking sites and the like.

With this in mind it’s no wonder people give up after a few months, believe they are doing things wrong and start something else.

So what can do you?

First and foremost is probably to continue what you are currently doing but seek expert advice. And expert advice doesn’t need to be an expense or a paid investment. There are many sites to help small businesses online such as Small Business Pro and A1 Business Forums. Before you begin your journey for help it’s best if you stay focused and work through one area at a time - spend your time wisely and not keep jumping about. There are many experts on all the UK forums that provide excellent tailored answers to your specific questions. So rather than going online with a questions like “I need more sales” think about where you are in your development and say “what keywords should I target in the search engines” or “how can I improve my conversion from 0.2%” - but asking and searching for specific answers you can develop that specific part of your business and then move onto the next area.

Take one step at a time as Rome wasn’t built in a day and treat your online business like any other bricks and mortar business and you’ll see your own small business grow larger.

Let’s have a recap of the statistics:

I’m sure you’ll agree these are quite remarkable numbers for a brand new Forum aimed at the UK’s Small Business community!

It’s also nice to round off month one by welcoming our 200th Member, Jills. It’s great to see you here!

Visitor Traffic:

I only have 3 weeks of traffic stats as we didn’t set up Google Analytics until 10th March, but here are the headlines anyway:

The top referring site was my own Blog at A Local Printer - I didn’t realise so many people read it to be honest!

A Warm and Friendly Community

What I’m most delighted about however is the strong and warm sense of Community that is building within the Forums. It’s great to see such a close knit and friendly bunch of Members who go that extra mile to help each other out. At the end of the day it’s the Members that make a Community and I’d like to thank each and every one of you for making A1 such a brilliant place to be!

This is a crucial appointment for such a fast growing Community and Vicky, an A1 Business Forums member, is clearly the right candidate for the contract.

Our first Press Release is now published on the Forum and is being circulated to the agreed distribution list as I write this post.

I’m sure you will all agree that a professionally planned Marketing and Publicity campaign is vital for such a vibrant, fast growing Community and this Public Relations contract is another tick in the box!

As you can see in the header the Logos and Brand Identity for both A1 Business Forums and this Blog have been signed off and are live. I’m delighted with them - so a big thank you to Kay and Dan at Calibre Designs for a job well done!

This was the brief I gave in the initial A1 Branding Thread on the Forum:

I’m in favour of a professional look too, and agree a modern twist is good. Fee’s idea of incorporating something that conveys warmth - or better still, a sense of community gets my vote as well.

As for colours (and forum skin) - I’m leaning to predominately Blue, with a secondary colour of Taupe/Green??

This led to a Design Concept Thread where the initial designs were published, voted upon in a Poll and debated by the community, allowing the design brief to evolve into the finished article you see here. I think the brief has been met in full - I hope you agree!

The next stage is to create a Custom Skin for the Forums and Theme for the Blog which Khalid and Gareth from Pixelcraze are working on at the moment - watch this space!

It was great to mark this milestone by welcoming our 150th member, DaveArch, to cap a third week which saw us pass the 1000 thread barrier and exceed 14,500 posts - awesome.

Meanwhile, Kay and Dan at Calibre Designs have been busy working on the logo for A1, which we have all been following with interest and excitement on the A1 Forum Logo Thread. The project is nearing completion now as the latest designs show - so a massive thank you to Kay for a professional job as always - well done!

Here is the latest prototype:

I can’t wait to sign off the final version and get the custom skin for the Forum underway!

I’ll update you all with some more news soon!

How will the Blog Complement the Forum?

The Blog will complement the Forums in the following ways:

1. We will publish useful business articles, tutorials and guides written by Expert Authors drawn from our growing membership and from Guest Writers. The benefit of posting such content on the Blog rather than in the Forums is that really useful information will not get buried within the general day to day questions and answers within the Forums.
2. To Blog about Business, Sector and Economy News, and anything else that takes our fancy!
3. To keep our Readers and Members abreast of A1 Business Forums News and Developments

Thanks to all our Members for making A1 Business Forums and now the Blog a reality!