About

We tackle anything digital, taking a problem-solving approach that’s a cross between mentoring and coaching to best suit our customers’ needs.

We offer web and social media consultancy and digital mentoring, ranging from web design to blog writing, SEO, web copy and social media management and training, but also covering basic computer skills and other digital aspects such as volunteer management and email software.

Our target customers include micro businesses, small community groups, charities, small scale public sector bodies such as parish councils and schools, as well as startups and private individuals.

We are based in Yarm in the heart of the Tees Valley and North Yorkshire.

Commercial web design and digital marketing services are usually priced way beyond that which small communities can afford. Greentreeonline Ltd is different. We step outside of this overpriced market to build high quality websites, and provide social media consultancy and training, at low or no cost to small organisations, startups, individuals, and non-profit groups with a limited budget.

We keep costs low by helping communities break the barrier of digital inclusion. Rather than holding the keys of a complex website that needs constant input from a developer, we help you to learn to access for yourself the free and low cost self-service tools that exist online, with the option to leave you completely in charge, or to move to an arms-length ‘hand holding’ support.

And if you’ve got trustees, volunteers, staff or family around to help, through group and one to one tuition we will accompany you to become autonomous in digital marketing.

We work in partnership with funders including the Good Things Foundation to provide fully funded training.

Our other fees are kept low through the non-profit nature of the company, which is built in to its legal structure. ‘Limited by guarantee’ means that, with no shareholders, all profits are put back in, enabling our fees to remain low while guaranteeing to customers that they are dealing with a company run in an ethical way.

We are able to offer fully funded, free support through our partnership with the Good Things Foundation. A certain number of commercial contracts also subsidise the company financially. Notably, Victoria works for part of the week as a French language support consultant for Automattic, the parent company of WordPress.com.

Greentreeonline Ltd is a local business operating in North Yorkshire and the Tees Valley in the north-east of England. Face to face support is particularly important to us, because in an increasingly digital world, nothing replaces human interaction.

However, if you’re further afield, do get in touch, as we may still be able to help. During the 2020 coronavirus crisis we moved to a 100% online offering.

Greentreeonline is run by founder Victoria, an experienced web designer, writer, editor and social media consultant who is also on the autistic spectrum.

Victoria is very happy indeed to help support, train or mentor autistic people in the area to help with digital skills, training and employability and can do so in an autism-friendly way in line with each person’s needs. She would also love to provide autism consultancy services.

In 2020 Victoria became an Enterprise Adviser for the Tees Valley Combined Authority, working with Beverley School for Autism in Middlesbrough to help support their careers programme.

We are mostly plant-based and love to support vegan businesses: we operate ethically so as not to take advantage of humans, either. We like to support ethical organisations wherever we can.

An academic art historian by training, ten years ago while living in France Victoria discovered a taste for third sector entrepreneurship when she founded and ran for three years a charity offering bilingual literacy classes for children. After a move to the UK, Victoria volunteered then freelanced in web marketing and digital communications working with organisations such as the National Trust and Making Music.

During this time, she did a lot of pro bono work, having discovered a real need for digital marketing services among very small community groups, such as village hall committees, for whom funding was a genuine barrier to digital inclusion and growth.

Five years spent working in North Yorkshire’s library service, particularly during the time of the restructure towards a community-based model where she trained and supported the new cohort of library volunteers, deepened Victoria’s understanding of the importance of, and challenges faced by, the 21st century voluntary sector. The experience also reinforced her desire to be of use at the coal face.

In 2018 Victoria spent 10 months at the heart of North Yorkshire County Council’s communications department, editing the council website and writing web content. She gained a solid understanding of writing for the web, keyword optimisation, and honed her skills in translating complicated processes into appealing, user-friendly, logically ordered and helpful web pages that serve the customer rather than reflect the obscurities of corporate council-speak.

Victoria’s diagnosis on the autistic spectrum in 2015 put both her difficulties and strengths into perspective. Working for greentreeonline represents a move to a format of working – flexible, home-based, self-driven – which suits her personality, needs and work ethic and motivates her to develop the enterprise in the future to be neurodiversity friendly.