As well as running a digital marketing agency, I'm also a retained or on-call firefighter. This means I wear a pager and, when my services are required, my pager alerts me and I respond to it. I do this because I live in a rural community and want to help protect the people with whom I live.

More and more companies are embracing digital marketing including SEO, PPC and content marketing. However, based on my experience there's a big difference between what digital marketing costs and what people think it costs. In this post I'm going to explore and explain that.

I'm a fan of Mercedes-Benz cars but my experience with them as a company over the last few months leads me to the conclusion they are confused when it comes to using digital technologies for marketing. A bold statement I know so let me explain.

Every week we have conversations with potential new clients that don't go anywhere. The reason for this is, primarily, cost. They think hiring us is going to cost circa £150/month when the reality is our SEO services start at 10 times that amount. There's no meeting halfway with this kind of differential.

If you've read any of our blog posts in the past you'll be well acquainted with the importance of understanding your potential customers' problems, and researching what they search for, and creating useful content to attract them to your website. Unfortunately, that's not the end of it. How do you turn them into customers?

Although it's 2018 business owners are still confused about Search Engine Optimisation or SEO. Being a little controversial, it's also clear to us many web design agencies are equally as confused, or perhaps they just don't care, bless 'em.

I read a very interesting anecdote on social media recently. A former expert had been heard to say that "SEO doesn't work any more - we can't trick Google any more".  While we totally agree about the latter statement, we definitely don't agree with the first one. It's still working for us and for our clients.

We've got a track record of explaining SEO using simple non-technical language, we've even created a comic strip where our own super-hero SEO Man, outlines the basics of SEO. With this post, I'm going to put all that advice into the context of small and medium-sized or SME business owners. So if you're a business owner this one is for you.

Many people mistakenly confuse the term long tail keywords as meaning search terms with lots of words in them. In fact, many search terms containing lots of words are at the head of the search graph, long tail means something completely different.

Remember that time you decided to run a marathon, didn't train, rocked up and nailed it? Or that time you bought a guitar and within 10 minutes you were knocking out killer riffs and writing songs despite never having played before? Thought not. Digital marketing, Search Engine Optimisation and web based lead generation are a bit like that and here's why.

A recent conversation with a potential client reminded me of one of the main reasons businesses fail when they embark on a project to increase the leads or enquiries they get from their website. In this post, I'll outline those reasons and show you how not to fall into the same trap.

Understanding SEO is like chasing a crisp packet on a windy day. Every time you think you've nearly got a hold of it, it flies off out of reach again! 

As an agency who help people with inbound marketing and SEO, we get to work with some great people at some fantastic businesses. Unfortunately, we also have to pass on some opportunities because of unrealistic expectations and budgets. In this post, I'll outline the difference between the SEO realists and fantasists.

Thinking back to the last time you redeveloped your website, was the end-result the site you wanted? If your answer's yes, there's a strong possibility it's not the website you need. Confused? Then I'll explain.

The cost of creating a website is contentious. At one end of the scale, it's free, think companies like GoDaddy who provide DIY website building tools, while at the other it can be a six figure project or more. All price points in between are also covered. For my own amusement, I decided to work out the cost of developing a website using contractors instead of an agency. The results were quite surprising.