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I think a bit of both. And that in many areas, traditional work is so unstable that the whole 'little security' argument against being self-employed doesn't really hold water any more.

I think some - like VAs - has a lot to do with the ease of mobile working. However, it's always boggled me the cavalier way the govt seem to assume that any can just become self-employed as a response to being unemployed without any business knowledge!

And I wonder how many people are mixing self-employment with part-time work too.

Thanks for pointing out my error.

So many of my American friends swear by Yelp, but here it seems to be a very poor runner up to TripAdvisor and other more niche review sites!

Yeah, I agree that you need to be subtle!

I've found that the best way is to be genuinely knowledgeable, helpful and enthusiastic - i.e. within reason be willing to talk about what you do and answer questions and give opinions.

I agree with technical followed by graphic, although obviously ideally both need to work, and especially if you have a highly visual product. (I don't necessarily mean products that are themselves visual, e.g. photos, but also products like clothes or food where visual presentation is very important.)

In my experience a good website starts with thinking about and answering the needs of customers - i.e. making sure for a bricks and mortar premises that the opening hours and location are prominently displayed and then designing to incorporate that.

Otherwise, I've see way too many 'pretty' websites that look nice at first glance, but actually fail to have vital information or are difficult to navigate.

Well, I suppose they have to do something to make-up for disappointing Christmas profit margins!

Their sandwiches are pretty grim too as I remember!

The best advertising of all is word of mouth referrals - and is free! If you get on particularly well with a client and it feels right, you can try asking them if they'd be happy to refer you. Although if they really like your work, most will do it unprompted.

Similarly face to face networking and getting to know people can be effective, even if you're web-based.

I've found good quality review sites that are directly relevant (i.e., TripAdvisor for restaurants and hotels) to be very effective.

Facebook ads have worked very well for some clients but not been so relevant for others - it really depends who you're targeting and where they congregate. One benefit with Facebook and PPC is that at least you can start experimenting with quite small amounts of money.

I've seen a couple of people do this when it seemed to be genuine - or at least they had the nous to only do it once, making it look genuine.

But I too have noticed that more small-to-medium businesses doing this and sometimes I feel embarrassed for them. After all, if you've signed up for the newsletter, presumably you have some interest in their goods so why not just be clear and send a straight forward email letting people know that the offer, etc, has 24 hours left. Or just improve your marketing funnel a bit!

Doesn't massively surprise me - they seemed to move through the digital age like a dinosaur and Hibu's customer service left a lot to be desired.

Shame they bought out Qype though, I used to get quite a bit of traffic from our Qype profile for one of the bricks and mortar business I worked for.

Thanks. I just know that my weekly shop has definitely increased by more than

"The momentum seems unstoppable" - hate to think what they'd think of as being stalled! Also interesting that the average customer spend has gone up by only a