After large company changes – the company once known as SEO Marketing Workshop, has now become eight&four. But why?

Well as our old name makes fairly clear – back in 2008 we began as a SEO company. However our SEO clients kept asking if we could offer website support – and hence our website arm was born! And then it’s little sister arrived – the email marketing department – we suddenly had a wonderfully large and diverse internet family – with completely the wrong name!

And so after months of tussling over what to call ourselves – we went back to basics – and to specifically when our founders were born! The year of 1984 welcomed in Kate Ross and Amy McCulloch – and therefore we decided to call ourselves eightyfour. However then it clocked that sounded slightly Orwellian and creepy… we settled for the less scary eight&four. We hope you like the sound of it as much as we do!

With a new name, came a new brand, and with a new brand, came the new website. Through talking to clients, and doing lots of research, we’ve decided to opt for a much simpler, cleaner website this time round – less technical content (ie. Less chat) – and more concrete examples of what we can do for you. Sounds good to us – we hope you enjoy.

As we will tell you – websites are not static – they should constantly evolve along with your industry and your customer’s needs. Therefore please do give us your feedback on the website – we’d love to know how we can continue to improve it!

We will continue to offer the same great website design, search engine marketing and email marketing services - just with a brand new name! If you have any questions, you can contact us as normal on 020 8675 0846.

Our new website will be launching on 30th November - at www.eightandfour.com. We will keep you updated!

It is also our 1st birthday this week - so we would like to thank all our past and current clients for their support this year. We hope we can continue to be of service in year 2!

1. Integrate a Blog for only £279 (Was £349)

A blog allows you to keep clients up to date with all your latest projects and news - and is fantastic for SEO! We can integrate the latest Blog functionality into your site for only £279 this Summer!

2. Start Email Marketing for only £95! (Was £195)

The cheapest and easiest way to keep in touch with all your contacts? Regular email marketing!

• Promote new services, products and latest offers
• Increase likelihood of repeat business - and referrals!

This Summer we can provide your first email marketing campaign for only £95! And even better - it is only £95 a go after that!

3. Get a Favicon for only £49! (Was £69)

A favicon is the little icon that sits to the left of your URL in your browser bar (take a look at www.Google.com - you see their little G?) We will install your own customised one - for a lovely little bit of online branding!

4. Get a professional email signature for only £49! (Was £69)

Ensure that every business communication you send is professionally branded - with a professional full colour email signature. We will design, build and help you install for only £49 this August!

5. Facebook and Twitter icons for only £49! (Was £69)

Got a following on Facebook and Twitter? We will integrate Facebook and Twitter icons onto your website - so your Users can click straight through and start following you. Bring your social network marketing full circle for only £49!

Please note - we can do this work on your website whoever originally built it - so even if you’re not a current website client do get in touch!

In order to lock down these prices - we will need to receive your booking by 31st August. The timeline for when the work is done is then up to you! Get in contact to find out more!

Today we launch a brand new service called ‘Website Treats’!

Website treats are little extras for you to add onto your website to bring it up-to-date in an instant for only £69 each!

SMW Website Treats include the following:

1. Favicon - this is the little icon that appears in the browser next to your URL. It stays there wherever you navigate to within the site - helping to build your online brand presence!

Take a look at Google's FAB icon!

2. HTML email signature - do you communicate with clients and customers on email? Using a HTML email signature template you can include your company logo, branding and contact details on every piece of correspondance going out, again helping you to build your brand presence and create a great first impression!

Check out our SMW email signature!

3. Social Media icons - want to give visitors the chance to find you on FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn or any of the other social media platforms? If so then get us to create social media icons for you! All Social media icons are created from scratch to match your site!

Here are the social media icons we use on our website and email newsletters!

Pick and mix! £69 per treat; or buy all three for £179!

Like our treats? Get in touch now on 020 8675 0846 or email hello@seomarketingworkshop.com

A leading SEO commentator has confirmed something we firmly believe in - that a key component to SEO success is fresh, unique content. And more importantly - getting that content distributed to your consumers.

Roger Janik, president of ServerSideDesign.com, has argued that online press releases are one of the most effective SEO tactics available to Users. This is where a news feed is created, and then its articles syndicated online to the search engines - for example Google News or Yahoo News.

So why news feeds?

Not only does a well written press release show you’re experts in your field, syndication of it exposes the material (and hence your company) to a global market - and millions of potential customers.

Janik writes,”Most press releases are distributed to both Google News and Yahoo News and once received many are featured in their news search engines. So if you distributed a press release on a new type of snowboard you produced and you went to Google News and searched using the keyword ’snowboard,’ chances are it would show up under the results.”

Below are just some of the benefits:

• Your company looks like an industry expert
• Massive brand exposure if picked up by news aggregator
• A new source of inbound links for your website

This is further support to the notion that ‘Content is King’ for Google - and backs up SEO expert Bruce Clay’s statement last month that getting original content into Google News is “worth its weight in gold.”

So how do you go about syndicating press releases? Well first you need a news feed. If you’re interested in talking more about our content creation service, find out more here, or just drop us a note now. ]]> http://www.seomarketingworkshop.com/news/fresh-content-do-you-need-it/feed/ http://www.seomarketingworkshop.com/news/which-should-you-choose-seo-or-ppc/ http://www.seomarketingworkshop.com/news/which-should-you-choose-seo-or-ppc/#comments Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:35:41 +0000 admin http://www.seomarketingworkshop.com/?p=940

Recent results from the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organisation show that over £8 billion was spent on search marketing in 2008.

However 88% of that accounted for PPC (paid search advertising) - whereas SEO took up only 11% of the total expenditure. eMarketer has suggested that internet users ‘trust’ organic search listings over paid search ads - and therefore it may be more cost effective to focus on SEO rather than PPC.

David Hallerman, a senior analyst at eMarketer, outlined how his company expects this spending trend to reverse in favour of SEO - as companies realise internet Users generally find organic listings more attractive, and are generally more accepting of them.

Similarly the long term benefits of SEO make it a more attractive proposition - once good rankings are gained, they can continue to deliver high volumes of traffic for a very long period of time - free of charge. In comparison, PPC bills continue to mount up.

If you want to invest in SEO, take a look at what we can offer with our SEO Packages - and then get in contact for an informal chat about how we might be able to help. ]]> http://www.seomarketingworkshop.com/news/which-should-you-choose-seo-or-ppc/feed/ http://www.seomarketingworkshop.com/news/start-email-marketing-now/ http://www.seomarketingworkshop.com/news/start-email-marketing-now/#comments Mon, 08 Jun 2009 15:48:16 +0000 admin http://www.seomarketingworkshop.com/?p=921 If you’ve got a client base, then you need an email marketing strategy.

When you have gained a client or contact - it’s critical to keep them aware of your company, and what you have to offer. Got a new product or service? Then make sure your client base knows about it! Just finished a fantastic project, or got a great testimonial? Then make sure your target market hears about it!

“54% of small businesses surveyed rated e-mail as the top online promotion to drive site visitors and customers to their web sites and storefronts.” DMA Interactive

Here’s our top 5 reasons for investing in email marketing:

1. It’s Inexpensive - No printing costs, materials or postage & packaging! On average email marketing is 20 times more cost effective than direct mail!
2. It’s Proactive - It allows you to proactively communicate with your exisiting client base - rather than waiting for them to return to you. It keeps you top of mind!
3. It’s Immediate - You can get an email built and sent in a matter of hours - and get it delivered to your customers in seconds! They can then respond immediately - clicking to find out more about an offer, or dropping you an email to talk further!
4. It’s Measurable - Unlike other types of marketing - you can easily measure whether your investment was worth it! You can see how many people opened the email, clicked through, and who clicked on those links!
5. It’s Easy - All you have to do is provide us with the copy you want in the email - and we’ll do the rest! We’ll manage your email database, build your HTML email, send it out, and track its performance to feed back to you!

Interested? We offer the following email marketing services:

Email Marketing Setup Package - £195

If you haven’t used our email marketing service before, then we’ll need to set you all up! This package includes everything you need to get your first email marketing campaign sent out:

• Full HTML template design & build
• Email database configuration
• 1 email shot
• Full performance report

Email Marketing Campaign - £95 per email shot

Already done our setup package? Then re-use your HTML template, and just pay a one off fee for every further email shot you do with us!

• Update of your HTML template (new copy and images)
• Update of email database
• 1 email shot
• Full performance report

We can also organise email newsletter sign up forms on your website, or add ‘Sign up to our Newsletter!’ buttons - just get in touch for more information!

To get your email marketing campaign up and running, simply get in touch with us now!

SEO is all about optimising your website to match what your potential customers are searching for on the internet. Therefore the first thing you need to do, is find out what words and phrases your target market are actually typing in.

For example, for our website, we need to know what businesses interested in SEO are typing in. Is it ‘affordable SEO’? Or ‘low cost search engine optimisation’? Or ‘ UK SEO services’?

In reality, with 1000’s of potential customers, your target market will be typing in a vast range of keyword phrases. And that’s why comprehensive keyword research is so important - as it allows you to focus your SEO strategy on a small number of keyword phrases, that have the best chance at bringing you SEO success.

So how will we pick these keyword phrases for you?

After collecting all possible keyword phrases for your target market (through competitor anlaysis, brainstorming, SEO software etc.), we’ll whittle the vast list down by analysing 3 key factors; relevancy, number of searches, and level of competition.

• Relevancy - We’ll find the search phrases that are being used by your potential customers that are most relevant to your specific services. This is crucial, as SEO is only worth it if it drives in tailored traffic - ie. traffic with a high propensity to convert. Ensuring you’re optimised for only highly relevant phrases, will ensure you get high quality traffic, which will ensure you get great ROI.

• Number of Searches - There’s no point optimising your site for keyword phrases that don’t ever get used! We’ll ensure we find you highly relevant phrases that are being typed in regularly - ie. drawing a significant amount of traffic. This means when your search engine rankings do begin to improve, there’s plenty of Users around to click through to your website.

• Level of Competition - SEO is a very competitive playing field, and it’s crucial you don’t just try and optimise for the most popular search phrases - as you’ll have less chance of getting onto the first page of the search engine results. Instead it’s key to compete for keyword phrases where there’s less competition - so you can achieve higher rankings there, and hence drive more traffic to your website. We’ll analyse SEO competition levels to ensure we go after realistic first page rankings - and you get real results.

Through careful analysis of each of these 3 interlocking factors, we’ll come up with your ideal ‘keyword strategy’. We’ll create a keyword matrix, with around 10 top-level primary keyword phrases for your site, and the alignment of 2-3 secondary, more specific keyword phrases for each of your main pages.

This matrix will represent the highly relevant, popular and accessible ’search space’ we will optimise your website for - providing you the foundations for your SEO success.

Interested? Get in contact now to find out how we can help.

There are 3 key SEO areas that businesses need to consider when optimising a website; their on-page content optimisation, off-page optimisation (eg. link building), and the actual technical structure of their website.

Here we give you 5 top tips to ensure you structure your website design correctly:

1. Keep your code clean - remove any unneccesary or corrupted code. Use a HTML validator like The W3C Markup Validation Service to regularly check for errors.

2. Ensure your page URLs are unique - and contain keywords relevant to that page - rather than session IDs, or unnecessary punctuation ie. www.seomarketingworkshop.com/latest_news rather than www.seomarketingworkshop.com/pagedetail.asp?pagecatalogue=470

3. Use 301 redirects - Whenever you move a page or amend a URL, to redirect your old page to the new one (so User’s and search engines aren’t presented with an error message).

4. Use a navigation structure that search engines can crawl - ie. avoid Javascript and drop down menus, and use text HTML links instead.

5. Use a web server that supports the If-Modified-Since HTTP header (this tells search engines if you’ve changed your site’s content since it last crawled you). Also ensure you use the robots.txt file to ensure search engines don’t index content you don’t want them too (for example admin pages).

All this best practice and more is covered in our Launch package - as part of our full content and structure optimisation - so if you need to get your website structure sorted, then get in touch with us now. ]]> http://www.seomarketingworkshop.com/news/structure-your-website-right-for-the-search-engines/feed/