Author Archive » Jason
Jason is CEO and co-owner of
SiteVisibility . Jason is passionate about working with ambitious entrepreneurs and businesses to achieve their goals online and was voted into the Courvoisier Future 500 in 2008. Jason’s career has included roles in corporate strategy, finance, sales and marketing at Carillion, Tarmac and George Wimpey culminating in dotcom excitement with BuildOnline.com which raised £45m from international VCs in 2001.
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Like all internet-based companies, digital agencies such as ours “get” social media. We see it as a key part of our marketing mix and we encourage all our clients to do likewise. All of our team are encouraged to use Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc during their working day, but should we insist they separate their work personas from their private ones?
The way we all behave and act at work is guided by our company’s values, contracts and policies and, ultimately, Employment Law. In addition, all businesses should have a policy to cover social networking, setting out when social media can be used at work and defining employees’ responsibilities regarding the company’s reputation and intellectual property, both while they are at work and in their private lives.
Digital agencies, however, have a further problem in that employees use social media at work on behalf of both the company and, sometimes, its clients. Who “owns” these accounts, who is responsible for them, who has access to them and what happens when employees leave? Read on
SiteVisibility has been busy in 2012; we’ve grown our customer base, published more SEO and Social Media case studies showing huge RoI for our customers, attracted more top Search talent into the SiteVisibility team, the Internet Marketing Podcast has reached 1 million downloads, BrightonSEO exceeded 1000 delegates for the first time and now we’ve opened up our office in England’s 2nd largest City.
SiteVisibilityKeane is a joint venture with one of the UK’s top creative marketing agencies, Keane Brands whose HQ is in Birmingham. The new venture combines the “digital brains” of SiteVisibility with the “beauty” offering of Keane Brands to provide a full suite of digital services to businesses in the Midlands and in particular to manufacturers and leisure sector operators.
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The UK Search Marketing sector has a great reputation around the world for leadership and innovation as well as quality. Yet in the midst of a financial meltdown, I believe that a good old fashioned quality service will not go out of fashion.
But what underpins a reputation for quality, especially in the world of Search Marketing? When you “lift the hood” off your Search Agency, what is it that drives the consistency of service and reliability of results? Why is it so hard to find a quality assured Search Marketing service in the UK? What justifies a reputation for being a “leading search marketing agency”? The most employees? The highest revenue? The most profitable? The loudest marketing? Or the most satisfied customers?
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SiteVisibility sponsors the Digital Media course at the University of Brighton and on 27th July we were delighted to announce Anna Fletcher is the 7th annual winner of the SiteVisibility trophy for “Best Student” and a cheque for £100.
A recent PwC report forecasts that the digital marketing sector will continue to enjoy the fastest (double digit) growth within the UK marketing industry. The Search and Social Media marketing disciplines are also growing rapidly and this has resulted in shortages of people with appropriate digital skills and experience both locally in Brighton and nationally within the marketing industry.
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Your search agency is now charging you £5k per month so it makes sense to invest in your own in-house SEO Manager and pocket the change. It’s not that simple…..
Taking search marketing in-house seems like a logical step for many businesses as an increasing digital marketing spend begins to dwarf the importance and value of other channels, but the reality is that doing so can be time-consuming, expensive and risky. While clients often appreciate the planning, processes and technological innovation of search agencies, I’ve started a list of other factors to consider when evaluating the business case for taking Search in-house.
Cost
Among the most important issues to consider when taking digital marketing in house is cost. Remember to factor in the cost of recruitment, training, personal development and employment costs. Search specialists have an insatiable desire to learn and that requires an ongoing investment if you want to retain your new recruits. Read on
I was invited to explain Search Engine Marketing to the construction marketing elite at the CIMCIG annual strategy conference on 2nd December.
Having started my career with George Wimpey in 1991 in the pre-internet days, my first experience of internet marketing for the construction industry was commissioning the www.tarmac.com website in 1997 using a London agency to design the site having retrieved the domain name from a Hong Kong based cyber squatter.
The site was an (expensive) online brochure site. Moving through Tarmac and Carillion I don’t recall SEO or online lead generation being mentioned and even whilst at www.buildonline.com , the website marketing objectives were more focused on email marketing and newsletter list building than the online reputation of the websites for search engines. I’m pretty sure that when I left BuildOnline in 2001 the building industry had not yet woken up to SEO so I was both surprised and excited when doing a little research prior to the 2009 CIMCIG conference that Search Marketing in construction remains a relatively underexploited online marketing channel.
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Most businesses budget for 0-10% revenue growth per annum; in fact, many shareholders and company Directors might be pleased with 5% revenue and profit growth in the current uncertain economic environment. SiteVisibility’s parent company, AI Digital Ltd, achieved a 5 year compound annual growth rate of 725%, which resulted in being awarded 45th and 234th place in the EMEA Deloitte Technology Fast 50 and EMEA 500 company rankings last night. It is our third year in the rankings.
The winners achieved truly incredible growth; I can’t imagine what the owners of Turkish software company Biotekno felt about achieving growth of 42,4186.82% (I’m not kidding), but given they’re a husband and wife team, I hope she (the boss) books in a major celebration of their awe inspiring partnership.
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I was invited to join a panel discussion and presentation a few days ago on data scraping by our esteemed legal friends at DMH Stallard, “the business people who happen to be lawyers”.
I joined speakers from Sentor who introduced the audience to their data scraping monitoring service called Assassin as well as their customer www.yell.com who explained how they have overcome and now manage the data scraping issues they face as a business.
I was uncomfortably placed on the side of the “scrapers” whereas Sentor and Yell were defending the “scrapees” with Frank Jennings adjudicating from DMH Stallard. It’s clear there are strong arguments for and against scraping……
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I ran a PR and Marketing workshop with Rob Shepherd MD of The Press Dispensary at the Really Useful Business Show in Brighton yesterday for members of Sussex Enterprise.
It was flattering to be asked by the organizers to explain how SiteVisibility and previously AI Digital and Academy Internet had punched above their weight in terms of press / media exposure but I thought it would aid the credibility of the presentation to have a PR Expert like Rob to explain some of the science.
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I recently had a letter published in NMA which recognised the strategy the bookstore called Borders had implemented, namely closing 5 of its high street stores but keeping its recently relaunched website open for business. I wondered if anyone had any comments or anecdotes of other retail businesses preparing for the upturn by, amongst other things, fine tuning their SEO. If consumer demand continues to grow into Q1/Q2 2010, that’s 6 months away which means SEO strategies being implemented now are going to be coming on stream in Spring next year. It sounded like a timely online strategy to me.