It’s long. It’s laborious. It’s essential, so don't worry, we can work it out. What we don’t want to do is search the web for ‘directories’ or ‘link-farms' as this is ultimately going to be detrimental to your website (unless Google have spent the last 2 years cunningly throwing us SEO’s off the scent!). So let’s look at other ways in which we can build links for your website, ways which won’t leave your website exposed in future.

Social Linking

We have already spoken about the power of social media in a previous blog post. Here is how to use it to your advantage.

Social signals (the amount of re-tweets, shares, etc) are beginning to work in a similar way to links. Attract social linking through great content, content that people will want to share. Here are the various ways to create great content...

So you have the skills, the place - you’re all set to be great. Now what? There are more opportunities to market yourself today than ever before, as Macmillan once said ‘We have never had it so good’.

So although it won’t be revolutionary, listed below are practical, effective and relatively easy tips to attract clients to your business.

Field Sales

I know right? A Digital Marketing company promoting good old fashioned field sales! Well they work. Pounding the streets calling in at local businesses probably won’t bring you the large multi-national you may hunger for, but it will build your client base. Meeting potential business in person is an easier sell, makes an entirely more creative and effective conversation. Finally don’t forget to leave something visually appealing, it might do the work for you!

Appointment Setting

Could come before the above, but we will talk about it here! We usually deal with it in 3 sections.

1.       Research

Know who you are calling,...

The biggest part of making a company a success expands beyond marketing and sales, it covers every aspect of your business life, from the way you answer your phone, to the way you used colours in the headers on your website. This is Brand Recognition. 

Branding in essence is the image you are giving out to the world. A good brand creates loyalty from customer to business, if someone see’s your logo or business somewhere and is then given good service your chances of keeping that customer are high which in turn, leads that customer to recommend you to others.



If branding is the image you send out to the world of yourself then you need an expert you create a logo. This is vital as if anyone associates your brand with something negative they will not be interested in buying your product.



To show how big a part Brand Recognition plays in our lives, we have set an experiment in a normal suburban household (my house!), where 30 brands were spied and scrutinised within the...

If you are a small business, the situation may dictate that you can’t afford to employ an Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) agency or have the funds for a substantial ‘Pay Per Click’ (PPC) campaign. So you either do it yourself or you just don’t compete online, the latter hardly being an option for many businesses (or it shouldn'tbe). The problem with going it alone and having only a limited amount of knowledge, is finding real facts. Sure you will find opinion aplenty, but that is the problem, it is purely opinion and often it is conflicting. So to break it down, we have produced a list of items to look at which will directly improve your SEO. Actionable, accurate SEO which will improve your website.

1.    Don’t Market the Unmarketable

I’m talking about your website, there is little to no point putting effort into your SEO if the majority of traffic will be turned off by your website. Your bounce rate will probably be large, your conversion rate small, and your repeat traffic tiny. Just looking...

Ok so you're looking to do some marketing that has a cheap price per unit. Flyers are the obvious choice. Too obvious maybe? Research your market

Is your business suitable for a flyer or would it just leave your potential customers, potential. Ensure you have a good chance at conversion; takeaways target areas of lower affluence, such as student, because that is likely to convert – over and over again. Their product is cheap and so demands nothing more than a flyer Think about your business, if you are trying to sell an expensive product, don’t expect to achieve it through inexpensive materials.

Get Creative

What will make your flyer stand out? This will not be the first flyer they have received, and probably not even the first one from your sector. Make it the most impressive.

• Bespoke Cutting Forms • Spot Varnish • Thicker or Interesting Paper Stock • Fold-outs or Perforations

All of these are fairly cost effective, but could mean the difference between the bin and...

So you have a website? Nice. Now you probably know it’s time to begin your SEO journey, ultimately trying to get your website ranked for your appropriate keywords. Below we will talk about the main ways to do this in 2012. Choose your Keywords wisely Obviously you will want to choose the most obvious keywords and get going – well just hold on a second. Some things to consider are the saturation in the market of the keyword, the amount of searches it generates per month and whether it is refined enough to get you conversions. Adding a place name would be a perfect example of refining a keyword, the more specific it is the better your conversion rate will be – even if it is at the expense of search amount.

Content is King There are clear signals Google places more value on content these days. There were signals that they were wising up to the black-hat tactics many sites were taking advantage of, then the Panda update came along and beat it into us. Prominent sites like JC Penney were affected significantly,...

In December, there were 3 things that I was looking forward to: 1 – Christmas 2 – The Darkness reunion gig at the o2 3 – Def Leppard returning to Sheffield for their first gig since 2008

 The first item on the list went with a terrific bang and a fab Christmas was indeed just what I needed and had. The other 2 however, were like a wet and dreary organised bonfire night, where the hot dogs are cold, the tea is hot water and the rain has left the fireworks a mushy papery mess on the floor.

 The Darkness at the 02 academy should have been a gig where the crowd fizzled and sparked to see Justin Hawkins back in action with those extreme vocals, catchy chorus’ and great guitar riffs. However, standing near the back (because all the ‘true’ fans had pushed to the front) all I saw was a crowd standing there watching… no movement, not much singing and certainly no clear enjoyment.  Maybe they were in awe. Maybe shocked at Justin’s moustache, but from where I was stood it looked more like boredom. There...

You stare at the screen as the website design you once knew is suddenly gone forever, all that’s left is an ugly sister of what you once knew. This was a well known phenomenon sweeping through the Noughties – happening when you were left to update your designed website. Well not any more. CMS is something which you may hear a lot about without actually knowing what it is. It is a system implemented on many of today’s websites, allowing you to update the website yourself without compromising the design. Most companies, including ourselves, will give you training as part of your website package, meaning when you are left to do it, there is nobody to blame but yourself should it go wrong!

And even if it does go wrong, you can ‘rollback’ through to previous versions of your website, which will completely remove any disastrous attempts at updating you might be having. It offers the client real freedom to move forward with their website as they wish and tied to nobody. You could update from anywhere via...

Trending on Twitter? Taking over the Web?  YouTube views rising faster than the petrol prices? You have just gone Viral. So what does it mean to go viral? Well for a start you have just achieved something companies the world over would be jealous of – mass internet marketing and a ‘buzz’ about your brand. As with everything so laden with benefits, it is not easy to achieve. A Viral video is usually just a short clip, or pictures, which catch the attention of people sitting in front of their computer and actually want to share it with their peers. That’s the key; a viral campaign which doesn’t capture the attention of people will fail quickly. Funny, quirky and the downright unbelievable all work, although to have a shot you might need all three. You will need to spend money to put your campaign in the right places, think of it as planting a ‘seed’. Press Releases, Social Media, Blogs and News sites are places you will find fledgling campaigns. Then watch as the seed grows into a huge, digital media dominating...

  We recently completed a project which involved producing a folder with inserts for a Care Home Management company. GF Smith textured stock was used and a gorgeous gold foil block was used for the front of the folder, letterheads and business cards. Essentially that was pretty much it. Our client was pitching to blue chip clients themselves and, in reality, the quality of the stock would be the first thing noticed. Design wise we kept it simple and used a serif typeface which added a certain understated class to the brand, without detracting from the materials. On another day with another client, and more importantly a DIFFERENT target market, the outcome may have taken a completely different path. For a nightclub for example our strategy may have taken us to using materials of a lower specification, but spending additional time in the design of the materials,...