Which are the best advice blogs for entrepreneurs, small businesses and start-ups? With so many experts sharing advice for business owners on succeeding within a highly competitive landscape in 2016, you could spend your whole working week reading them all.

To save you time and help you refocus, we've sifted through and picked out some of our favourite best entrepreneur blogs for 2017. Enjoy!

You’ve relocated to a new city; you’re establishing a business in unfamiliar territory. Naturally, you’re keen to meet people and make new contacts. What you need to do is get networking!

Alan Sugar didn’t start pointing the finger at terrified suited professionals overnight, and Richard Branson didn’t become the go-to name in everything from home media to air travel within his first week on the job. 

The virtual office is on the rise. More and more small business owners and freelancers are opting to invest in a virtual office space rather than a ‘real’ one.

The reason for this is simple: many micro business owners, especially solopreneurs, have almost everything they need in their home-based office. Choosing virtual office provision can give them the extras they require without having to forgo what they see as the financial and personal benefits of working from home.

If you’re thinking of choosing a virtual office, here’s everything you need to know on the advantages of a virtual office.

(1) Virtual offices aren’t all created equal

The first thing you need to know about virtual offices is that they’re not all the same! Different providers will offer a very different level of service, so it’s important to be clear right from the beginning what you and your business needs.

(2) A virtual office can make you look more professional

Home-based businesses often reach the stage where they want the professionalism of a corporate office but aren’t quite ready to make the necessary investment.

A virtual office gives you the right to use a dedicated business virtual address and use the services of secretaries and PAs. This means your business can appear bigger and more professional, all without moving from your present set up.

(3) A virtual office helps keep on top of communication

Answering the phone, dealing with emails and handling post can all be time-consuming. This is especially true if you don’t have a member of staff that it makes sense to delegate these tasks to.

The team behind your virtual office would be able to manage all these communication channels on your behalf, making it much easier for you to focus your time on important work.

(4) A virtual office space offer ‘real’ space when you need it

Working from home can be great… until it’s the school holidays, you’re having building work done or you have an important meeting.

When you choose a virtual office, look for one that offers ad hoc work space when you need it. It can be invaluable to have a backup workspace and to have a professional base to meet clients.

(5) A virtual office will give you greater privacy

Many business owners don’t feel comfortable using their home address on business documents such as business cards, invoices or contracts.

A virtual business address would enable you to keep your home address private… and would mean clients get a very different picture when they look you up on Google Street View!

(6) A virtual office comes with SEO benefits

If you work from home, you probably don’t want to take advantage of services such as Google Local or Yell that allow you to ‘plot’ your business on the map. Missing out on these, however, can mean that it’s more difficult for customers to find you through search engines.

A virtual address can allow you to make use of these services and improve your SEO without having to compromise perceived professionalism or privacy.

(7) A virtual office can help get you started in a new location

Virtual offices aren’t just for small businesses! We know many larger businesses who make use of services like ours to create a base in a new area.

Having a local office, even if it’s a virtual one, can help you to reach out to a whole new geographical group of customers.

Could a virtual office be right for you? Take a look at our Leeds virtual offices packages and pricing options.

Did you know Leeds is the largest centre for financial and business services outside London? Did you also know that more than 300 recruitment agencies now operate in Leeds? Or perhaps you weren’t aware that Leeds City Region has a workforce of 1.9 million and a business base of over 106,000 companies, collectively generating five percent of England’s total economic output?

Our point? Leeds is a thriving business community, the commercial hub of the North, a truly inspiring entrepreneurial city.

Playing such a vital role in the UK’s commercial and economic landscape, the savviest of businesses are keen to be associated with the pulsating city of Leeds. It’s the businesses that are void of such an admirable association that run the risk of being commercially left behind.

In short, a business in West Yorkshire without a Leeds business address, could be being unnecessarily held back.

We say ‘unnecessarily’ because almost every business can benefit from a credible business address, such as a Leeds’ postcode, thanks to the unique opportunities virtual offices create.

Whilst Leeds’ business community might be flying, those entrepreneurs, small business owners, freelancers and SMEs without a professional address could be seriously missing out.

An SEO no-no

You might not think a physical address would affect Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), after all what’s great about the internet is that it creates a globalised, boundary-free world, right?

Not exactly!

As Work Webb Net notes, search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing actually use the address a business has on their website to provide their results to people that make search queries to find a service or product.

“When your website is void of a physical address, you don’t have much chance of being found online for your services. Basically it’s a big SEO no-no,” writes Work Webb Net.

Consequently, a business working remotely from a home office in a secluded village in the Yorkshire Dales could be seriously missing out if they don’t have a lucrative business address present on their website.

Professionalism

Having a business address in a city like Leeds creates a professional impression for comapnies of any shape, size or form. By contrast, a business with a home address, a P.O. Box, or no address at all, crafts a significantly less professional impression and could even be viewed as being an organisation that is dodgy, unreliable and unprofessional.   

If your company is making the leap and leasing new office space, you have a very important decision to make. How much space do you need? Choosing the right size is absolutely crucial, for a number of reasons:

You may not realise it, but many of your business contacts, colleagues and associates are making use of virtual offices.