One of the most rewarding, frustrating, enriching and infuriating aspects of working in a service agency is dealing with clients. I often joke that my job would be perfect if it wasn’t for clients – but truth be told, I love our clients. Without our clients I would very literally not have a job. It’s that simple. But the affection I feel for my clients goes far beyond the sober realisation that they pay my salary. Clients enable me to work in this magnificent industry of ours, with all its beauty and creativity and companionship and cutting edge technology. Clients empower me to create amazing things and tell powerful stories. Clients drive me to constantly improve and deliver the very best work I and my team are capable of. Clients are, in a very real and tangible sense, the reason I do this job. And yet clients can also be excruciating to deal with, impossible to please, and obtusely difficult to communicate with. It’s that client-agency dynamic that makes agency life, in varying degrees, both profoundly awesome and mind-numbingly depressing. The Best Clients It’s easy to describe the best type of clients, because all the clients we love collaborating with have one thing in common: They understand digital. For us the best clients are those that have at least a passable understanding of what websites and digital marketing can do. Generally speaking we find that the more educated a client is on all things digital, the stronger and more successful our partnership with them is. This image is supposed to invoke happiness The more advanced a client’s understanding of digital marketing, the better for us, as invariably this will be a client that knows exactly where agencies can fit in to their overall marketing. More importantly, these clients have realistic expectations of what can be achieved, and a very clear framework within which our creative ideas can flourish. This actually makes them demanding clients as they simply won’t settle for anything but the best, but that is an expectation we wholeheartedly strive to live up to because these clients understand the value of quality work and will pay appropriate rates. The Worst Clients It’s equally easy to describe the kind of clients we’re now actively trying to avoid: clients that treat agencies like cheap labour. These are the clients that move the goalposts all the time and don’t expect to see an increased bill. These are the clients that call you up with inane requests and demand you to drop everything to fulfil their needs instantly. These are the clients that do not see an agency as a partner, but as a servant to cater to their every whim. Not a good conference call These types of clients are also very demanding, but in very different context. Rarely will these clients have an in-depth understanding of the digital realm, and never will they truly appreciate the value of an agency’s time and expertise. These clients often want front row seats for a dime and do not understand the concept of ‘billable hours’ – the very foundation of agency economics. Invariably, these are clients that end up costing you more than they pay. Spotting such clients in the prospect phase is hard, so you’ll probably end up with one at some stage. But once you get them to sign on the dotted line, they become easy to identify as these clients sap your team’s morale, are rarely willing to compromise, and consistently have that big red mark against their name when you compare hours billed to hours worked on their account. The Agency Proposition Several years ago when I was made the digital director at what is now The Tomorrow Lab, we made a conscious decision to focus on clients we want to work with. This was a logical result of what we defined as our foundational principle: attract and retain the very best talent we could find. For us, it all begins with great people. With great people who possess the right skills and, more importantly, the right attitude, we’re able to deliver awesome work for our clients. And to keep our talent happy and productive and engaged, we need to give them challenging work to do and wonderful clients to do it for. A hard-working agency team Bad clients that treat us like unworthy servants erode our people’s morale, diminish our creativity, and undermine our commitment to quality. Bad clients result in our best talent not feeling appreciated and valued, and thus increase our risk of staff turnover. For me, that is an unacceptable situation. We work hard to find the very best people to strengthen our team, and we don’t want to risk losing them. No single client is worth that. So for us, clients that treat us with respect and appreciate the value we add to their business are not simply wishful thinking – they are an absolutely crucial aspect of our agency’s success. We go out of our way to find those clients; businesses that want to excel in the digital realm and understand that an agency built on passion, commitment, and an uncompromising devotion to quality can help them scale those heights. [Image credits: Getty, Getty, Brand Etiquette]

Google’s not making things easy for themselves. Many people want to like the search giant for the great search engine it offers and all the cool things it builds. But Google makes so many mishaps, from small oversights to major PR catastrophes, that even their most dedicated fans are having a hard time staying loyal. 2012 has been a hallmark year for Google, when the world woke up to the fact that Google is just another profit-chasing corporation. Its products and services are not there purely for the betterment of mankind, but there’s a growing element of commercialisation inherent in Google’s offerings. For SEOs and digital marketers, this has of course been blatantly obvious for years. For the general public, not as much. But 2012 changed that, through a range of media storms that caught the world’s attention. Below I’ve listed the 34 perception-altering events that befell Google in 2012: 02 Jan: Chrome Link Buying Google is caught buying links to promote its Chrome browser, a practice which is against their own search quality guidelines. 10 Jan: Selling Illegal Ads After expensive legal settlements for earlier offenses in 2005, 2009 and 2011, Google is yet again caught selling AdWords ads for illegal products, including cannabis, fake IDs, and fake Olympic tickets. 10 Jan: Search Plus Your World Google launches ‘Search Plus Your World’ and is greeted by widespread criticism for favouring its own Google+ product and decreasing search result relevance. 13 Jan: Google Kenya caught in SME scam Google’s ‘Getting Kenyan Businesses Online’ programme is caught red-handed scamming small businesses. 16 Jan: Open Street Maps Vandalism Google contractors are caught vandalising Open Street Map data. 25 Jan: The Google Sting A WSJ article reveals more damning details of Google’s business practices that lead to the 2011 $500m DOJ settlement. 29 Jan: Google’s New Privacy Policy Google announces a new unified privacy policy which receives widespread condemnation. Microsoft seizes the opportunity to launch an anti-Google advertisement. 02 Feb: Google Maps fined in France A French court convicts Google of abuse of its dominant market position with its Maps service and fines it €500,000. Google appeals the judgment. 17 Feb: iPhone Tracking Google is caught circumventing Safari’s built-in privacy settings to place tracking cookies in mobile users’ browsers. 20 Feb: Internet Explorer Tracking In light of the 17 Feb iPhone tracking issue, Microsoft investigates how Google’s tracking cookies behave in their Internet Explorer browser and discover a similar problem. 01 Mar: Google’s Privacy Policy As Google’s new unified privacy policy takes effect, the European justice chief issues a warning and France asks European data authorities to investigate. 30 Mar: Expedia files an antitrust complaint Online travel agency Expedia accuses Google of breaching EU rules with a formal complaint to EU antitrust regulators. 03 Apr: TripAdvisor complains to EU about Google Holiday review site TripAdvisor joins travel firm Expedia and 11 others in accusing the search giant of abusing its dominant position in Europe. 03 Apr: Australian court find Google ads ‘misleading and deceptive’ The Australian Federal Court has found Google guilty of allowing false and misleading advertising and orders it to institute a compliance programme. Google is considering an appeal. 16 Apr: Google fined by FCC for impeding investigation The Federal Communications Commission fines Google $25k for deliberately impeding a US investigation into its collection of wireless network data for its Street View project. 27 Apr: Google under investigation in Argentina and Korea A regulatory filing reveals Google’s business practices are under investigation by the Argentinan antitrust agency and the South Korean Fair Trade Commission. 30 Apr: Shareholder sues Google over stock split Google is being sued by one of its shareholders in an attempt to block the company’s announced stock split, which the shareholder feels would give too much power to Google’s founders. 21 May: EU gives Google last chance to end antitrust concerns The European Commission commissioner has written to Google warning there are four areas “where Google business practices may be considered as abuses of dominance”. 12 June: Google to be investigated over data cover-up claims The UK’s information commissioner launched an investigation into claims that Google orchestrated a cover-up of its capture of emails, passwords and medical records of people in the UK. 22 June: Texas accuses Google of withholding information The Texas attorney general is accusing Google of improperly withholding evidence to hinder an investigation into whether the company has been abusing its dominance of web search. 05 July: Google criticised for hiring former UK data privacy official Google UK’s privacy policy manager held a senior role at the UK’s data privacy watchdog ICO during the time of its original investigation into Street View. 27 July: Google fails to comply with ICO order After having been ordered in 2010 by the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office to delete all data illegally gathered in its Street View privacy breach, Google admits it has still failed to do so. 08 August: Google criticised for tax avoidance Having paid just £6 million in corporation tax on £395 million of UK profit in 2011, Google once again faces criticism about tax avoidance. 09 August: Google fined over Safari privacy breach Google is to pay a $22.5m fine to the FTC after it circumvented privacy protections on the Safari web browser to track users of Apple’s iPhone, iPad and Mac computers. 21 August: Google fails to comply with Judge’s disclosure order On August 7th Google was ordered to disclose any paid journalists or bloggers writing about the ongoing Oracle-Google patent dispute. Upon receiving Google’s submission, Judge William Alsup stated it failed to comply with the order. Google then filed a new submission on August 24th listing their paid bloggers and commenters. 04 September: Google accused of racial profiling in ad targeting After repeating an experiment conducted by the Huffington Post in 2011, a Telegraph journalist argues Google still uses racial profiling in its Gmail ad targeting. Google vehemently denies the charges. 16 October: Google forced to change unified privacy policy EU data privacy regulators have told Google it needs to make changes to its unified privacy policy if it wants to avoid legal action. 18 October: Google shares suspended after earnings leak Google’s shares were suspended after its third-quarter earnings results were accidentally released early and showed a radical slowdown in revenue growth. 27 November: GWT security bug re-opens access to old accounts A bug in Google Webmaster Tools allowed previously authenticated accounts renewed access to webmaster tools data. Google fixed the bug approximately 12 hours after initial reports. 28 November: Italy launches a tax investigation against Google Italian police launch a probe in to Google’s tax affairs, investigating an alleged failure to declare over €240 million of income and a potential tax debt of €96 million. 03 December: Google’s tax evasion practices scrutinised The pressure on Google’s tax evasion practices continues to grow as investigations in to how Google minimises its tax payments are launched in Australia and the UK. 10 December: Google’s global tax avoidance scrutinised Bloomberg reports that Google – headquartered in California – has avoided paying over $2bn in taxes by funnelling international revenues to off-shore accounts in Bermuda. When queried about these practices, Google’s chairman Eric Schmidt simply calls it ‘capitalism‘. 12 December: Consumer Watchdog seeks Senate hearing In response to Google’s unapologetic tax avoidance schemes, the American Consumer Watchdog organisation is calling for a Senate hearing to investigate Google’s “morally bankrupt” practices. 19 December: Google given EU anti-trust deadline Google has been given a month by EU regulators to address complaints that its search results unfairly favour Google’s own services. Failing this, Google could face a fine of up to $4bn. Google Noose image credit: freelance SEO Alex Moss

You can get a special discount on your SMX Advanced London pass by using my special blog partner code. Simply fill in BARRYADAMS011 as your promotional code and you’ll get 15% off your registration price! Super Early-Bird registration further lowers the price, but this is only valid until March 1st. So don’t hesitate and get your SMX Advanced London registration done today! Update: SMX Advanced 2011 has come and gone. To all who attended, I hope you had a great time and learned much!

One of the issues I come across most often when reviewing the websites of our clients, is that the website doesn’t immediately make clear what its purpose is. The average web user has a very short attention span. Your website has about 4 to 6 seconds to make an impact, or the user will click that back-button and go somewhere else. So you need to grab that user’s attention and not let go. The first thing a user will look for when he lands on your site’s homepage is the headline. That headline will tell the user what kind of site he’s on and if it fits with his current needs. If the headline falls short, chances are the user will go somewhere else. So the headline on your homepage is very important. It needs to describe what your site’s goal is and how a user can benefit from sticking around. Just putting your company slogan there is usually a bad idea, unless you have a really good slogan that perfectly nails your core business. Usually this is not the case. Let’s use an example. Imagine you’re looking for a special travel arrangement to take your spouse on for your 10th anniversary. You come across a website that has this headline: Simple Enjoyment This might work fine as a company slogan, but it doesn’t tell you anything about what that site’s purpose is and whether or not you can find what you’re looking for. Now let’s try a different headline: Great Travel Arrangements For A Unique Holiday That already tells you a great deal more. It’s obviously a travel site and it sells arrangements. Seems like this is a worthwhile site to take a closer look in. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different headlines to see which one works best. Many aspects of building a better website aren’t an exact science, it’s about trying out different things until you hit the right formula. There are many more factors that come into play when turning a user into a customer, but it starts with getting the user’s attention. And a great headline does just that. P.S. A good headline that contains relevant keywords will also help you with getting found in search engines.

Social media is a catch-all phrase that encompasses all websites that offer interactive functionality and user-generated content. Social media ranges from social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn) to video sharing sites (YouTube, Vimeo), social news sites (Digg, Reddit), social bookmarking (Delicious, StumbleUpon) and everything else that claims the tag ‘social’. Social media is often hyped as a means of generating a lot of buzz for little money. And part of the hype is certainly founded in truth. Every company of respectable size needs to have a profile or group on social networks, and if you do anything with video at all you’ll need to upload it to YouTube at the very least. But social media is not a replacement for a good website. On the contrary, your presence on social media sites should stimulate visits to your website, not replace them. If your website isn’t as good as it can be, you should invest your time and money into making it better first before you start experimenting with online projects. The core foundation of all your online activities should be your own website. A social media project isn’t something you should just jump in either. A successful entry into social media requires a solid grasp of what social media is and what it isn’t, and realistic expectations of what you can achieve with it. Generally speaking, social media doesn’t lend itself very well to commercial exploitation, as the very nature of the phenomenon is non-commercial. Don’t expect users to come flocking to your social media presence unless you’re willing to throw some serious incentives at it. A recent blogpost from B.L. Ochman about social media myths delivers some much-needed realism – read it and consider if you’re willing and able to step into social media just yet. If you’re in doubt, it’s probably better to spend your efforts on improving your website and gaining traffic the old-fashioned way: SEO, SEM and good content.

It’s the World Cup and I needed ideas for a new blog post on State of Search, so I compared the SERPs for the ‘world cup’ keyword on five different search engines to see which one provided the best information. State of Search: Battle of the World Cup SERPs Yahoo pulls out all the stops – after two sponsored results there’s a table of recently played games with links pointing to Yahoo’s Eurosport pages. Yahoo also knows where I am and shows me results for England and the Group C where England is a part of. Up next is a plug for that monstrosity known as the Yahoo Toolbar, followed by organic results for FIFA.com with a lot of useful sitelinks.

Web widgets – little pieces of code, often JavaScipt – can add a lot of fun features to your website. Widgets come in all sizes and shapes; sports widgets showing the latest scores and standings, weather widgets with accurate forecasts, widgets that connect to social networks like Facebook, the list goes on. You can find them all over the web. Nearly every major content provider offers widgets that allow you to show their content on your website automatically. Sometimes a widget can really add useful information and functionality to your website. For example of you have a physical store, a routeplanner widget will help website visitors find your store’s location. If you organize travel trips around sports events, a widget showing the upcoming fixtures will save you the trouble of maintaining this information yourself. But often widgets are detrimental to the quality of your website. Widgets, especially when used in abundance, tend to make your site look amateurish and cobbled-together. Be wary of this when you see a cool widget and decide it would look awesome on your own website. Widgets should be used sparingly and only when they add genuine value to your website experience. Don’t just put widgets on your website for the sake of it. For every widget ask yourself if it’s just something you think is cool, or if a user can really benefit from its functionality. And most importantly a widget need to be relevant to your website. Showing weather forecasts is pretty useless if your website is about providing interim management. However for a website about day trips, a local weather forecast in the day trip area could be handy – though if the weather there is consistently bad, it might actually hurt your business. In short, if you want to use widgets on your website, do so with caution and awareness.

Copy you wrote for your website six months ago may not be as accurate and relevant anymore as when you first published it. It’s necessary to regularly review your website’s content and rewrite parts of it where necessary. This keeps your content fresh and accurate. Updated content has several advantages: Accurate content shows your visitors you keep up with the latest developments in your field. This will help establish your reputation as a competent organization. Search engines like to see new content. It tells them that your website is being kept up to speed. Search engines prefer to send their users to active websites. By regularly checking your content for required updates you will also spot errors and inaccuracies. This will enhance the overall quality of your website. Don’t let your website’s content get stale. Keep your site alive and fresh by regularly updating your content and maintaining the accuracy and relevancy of your website’s copy.

As of today, Google has started showing credit card affiliate links in its (UK) search results. Do a search for ‘compare credit cards’ on Google and chances are you’ll see a box below the ads, and above the first organic result, with some credit card deals on which Google earns an affiliate commission: There are several other similar types of comparison ads active now. This is yet another example of Google injecting certain functionality directly in to its own search results that are basically copies of services offered by other websites. Some examples of recent times: Local: Websites who offered maps and driving directions took a huge hit, as did local business directories, when Google Maps became the default option in search. Travel: Travel comparison sites are bracing for more pain now that Google has implemented Flight Search, and is putting hotel booking forms straight in its SERPs. Finance: Search for a stock ticker and Google will try to guide you to its own finance site. Also, in the USA users can compare mortgages using Google’s platforms and never need to visit mortgage comparison websites ever again. Retail: Shopping comparison sites are dying because Google’s own shopping platform is taking over all the action. All of this is, according to Google, intended to improve the user experience. The fact that Google makes truckloads of money off of these types of ‘improvements’, and in the process kills off entire businesses, is just collateral damage. The problem is not so much with Google expanding in to other areas. A business like Google, so utterly dominant in search (especially in Europe, boasting market shares well in excess of 90% in many countries), needs to diversify its business if it intends to satisfy its shareholders’ demands for ever-growing profits. The problem is that Google uses its monopoly in search (and I dare anyone to claim that a 90% marketshare is not a monopoly) to shoehorn its way in to other business models. Google is leveraging its search monopoly to give it a huge advantage in other areas of online business. Some people say this is all perfectly fine. ‘It’s Google’s business’, they say, ‘and Google can do whatever they want’. And that is actually not true. Using a monopoly in one business to give yourself a competitive advantage in another is against the law. There are many examples of antitrust lawsuits filed over exactly these types of practices – most memorably when Microsoft used its Windows monopoly to give its Internet Explorer browser a leg up – because in every single instance of monopoly abuse it’s been shown that competition is decreased, innovation is stifled, users are given less choices, and entire businesses go bust as a result. So while at first glance all these improvements might look like they’re genuinely helpful for Google’s users, in the long term they are actually incredibly damaging and serve little purpose other than pad Google’s pockets even more. We’d all do well to keep the Microsoft example in mind. Without that successful antitrust lawsuit in the 1990’s, we’d all be using Internet Explorer. Scary thought, isn’t it?

Late last year I decided to use my quiet time in the holiday season to set up my own URL shortener. I like bit.ly a lot, but the idea of having full control over my own URL shortener as well as a ‘personal brand’ short URL – along the lines of yoa.st – persuaded me to try and get one of my own. First of all I needed to find a good URL. This was probably the easiest choice: once I discovered the .ms (Montserrat) TLD existed and the bada.ms domain was still available, I didn’t hesitate for a second. Secondly I needed to find the right software. I could have gone for bit.ly pro, so that the people at bit.ly would be doing all the hard work for me. But instead I opted to set up my own shortener and not rely on an external third party. Somehow that felt more like it would be mine, instead of something I leased from someone else. There are a few solutions out there but the Yourls.org package appealed to me most: it’s open source and based on PHP and MySQL, and there are plenty of plugins for it. It also easily integrates with Tweetdeck (my preferred Twitter app) and I found a great installation guide for it on Lifehacker. Once I had it up and running I installed the Random Keywords plugin so that instead of having to choose my own short URL every time, I just let Yourls generate a string for me. And there it was, my own URL shortener: bada.ms. January Statistics I started using the shortener on December 31st but didn’t unleash it in the wild – i.e. on Twitter – until January 1st. I only used it on links I posted on my @badams Twitter account, and then only for links that didn’t use a branded short URL themselves. It’s been running for a full month now, so let’s see what kind of cool stats Yourls can give me. Click Activity In January I shared 74 bada.ms short URLs on Twitter. These URLs achieved an average of 68.44 clicks, and a median of 41.79 clicks. The top three most clicked URLs were: http://bada.ms/rxd – (Jan 06) 286 clicks. This points to a Slideshare deck by Eldad Yogev which explains Mobile SEO in great detail. Not coincidentally this was also my most RT-ed tweet of the month. http://bada.ms/4ou – (Jan 21) 282 clicks, points to one of my own blog posts. http://bada.ms/vbn – (Jan 12) 215 clicks, points to a blog post about the dangers of free WordPress themes. The least clicked publicly shared URLs were: http://bada.ms/thg – (Jan 03) 26 clicks, points to a story about spam in Google’s SERPs. http://bada.ms/9s6 – (Jan 21) 29 clicks, points to one of my columns on the Belfast Telegraph site. http://bada.ms/rw6 – (Jan 06) 30 clicks, points to a news article about the MMR vaccine scare. In an attempt to find a pattern I looked at the time when these URLs were shared. Interestingly the top five best performing URLs were all created between 9:23 am and 12:45 am. This could indicate that URLs shared on Twitter before lunch in the UK get the most clicks. However, of the five least clicked URLs four were created in the same time frame, and only one fell outside it (4:27 pm). Additionally most clicks don’t originate from Europe (see below), so there doesn’t appear to be any solid correlation between share time and popularity. Next I looked at the day of the week when the URLs were created and shared. Again I found no correlation – the five most clicked URLs neatly spanned all working days of the week (Thu, Fri, Wed, Tue, Mon) and the five worst performing URLs were also shared across most of the work week. The only notable issue here is that there are no cases – best nor worst URLs – that were shared on a weekend. This is almost certainly because I rarely tweet on weekends anyway. The Spike It’s quite interesting to see that many URLs continue to receive traffic for weeks after they’ve been created, accumulating the odd click here and there despite no longer being actively shared on Twitter. Sometimes a short URL may seem ‘dead’ for a week and then suddenly it’ll receive a few clicks again. Traffic Sources The traffic sources report in Yourls makes one thing abundantly clear: people in my Twitter network (my followers and their followers) make extensive use of third party Twitter apps. Clicks from these apps register as direct traffic as there is no referral string sent along with the click. At least 90% of all clicks on any given short URL registered as direct traffic, with the remaining clicks mostly composed of twitter.com referrals and a few others (HootSuite, Netvibes, Wikiwix, etc.) Apparently I have at least one cautious user in my network: Longurl.org consistently pops up as a referrer. This is a security service that allows you to un-shorten a long URL without actually visiting it, thus ensuring you’re not being sent to a hazardous webpage. I’m not sure whether this is an actual user or an automated check. Other countries that are strongly represented are the UK, the Netherlands, Canada, Germany, Ireland, and France. Russia, China, and Japan occasionally show up, as do nearly all other European countries. Africa and South America are notably absent from most URL location charts. Next Month I installed a new plugin today – Feb 1st – that filters out the clicks generated by automated bots such as the Googlebot, the LongURL api, and Twitter’s own bots. This should help make the numbers more accurately represent actual user behaviour and might also clean up the traffic locations report. However, I am getting married at the end of February and will be offline for well over a week, so my stats probably won’t be sufficient to dedicate a whole blog post to. I’ll likely wait until March has come and gone before I publicise my next set of short URL stats.

Yesterday afternoon, after months of preparation, Bas van den Beld finally flicked the switch and State of Search became State of Digital. Originally State of Search was founded as a blog about SEO and social media, but it quickly evolved to incorporate much more than that. Bas managed to gather an eclectic team of expert bloggers (and somehow I managed to hitch a ride as well), and the topics covered ranged from the basics of blogger outreach all the way to formulating digital strategies and building agency teams. As a result the State of Search brand no longer accurately encapsulated what the site was about. In fact, the perception of the blog as SEO-focused was becoming a hindrance, holding us back from expanding the site in the direction Bas has envisaged. So Bas decided on a rebrand, and State of Digital was born. This site is much more than just a 2.0 version of State of Search, as it has a much wider scope and ambition. Bas explains it in detail here: “State of Digital isn’t just a website or just a blog. It is a platform which will help get people forward. […] You could summarise the direction we want the site to go in, in these key points: Getting the right content to the right people at the right time Getting organisations to the next level in digital marketing Getting people from different backgrounds in their jobs talking on the same level and looking in the same direction when it comes to Digital Marketing” I’m exceptionally proud to be part of the editorial team of State of Digital. I hope we can continue to grow the site’s value through great content and expert advice, and educate digital marketers across the globe to become better professionals and help their careers flourish.

When a few months ago Rand Fishkin let slip that he was going to be visiting Northern Ireland as part of a whirlwind tour of the emerald isle, it seemed too good an opportunity to pass up. I and my buddy Kevin McCaffrey (who runs the successful Conversion Rate Services business here in Northern Ireland) decided to organise a small event and invited the whole NI digital marketing scene to come along and meet the man. It’s an exciting time to be part of the digital industry in Northern Ireland. There’s a lot going on at the moment which is helping to boost this niche. First of all, there’s an excellent education system in place which provides superb courses in various aspects of digital marketing. The University of Ulster has a great Digital Media Communication course (disclaimer: I contribute modestly to that course) and the Digital Marketing Institute has a range of courses and diplomas in digital marketing (disclaimer: I lecture for them as well). Queen’s University also has a digital marketing programme, as does the Belfast Metropolitan College. So anyone who’s interested in digital marketing in Northern Ireland will have an abundance of top level courses to choose from. Secondly, companies in Northern Ireland are increasingly embracing digital marketing as a way to grow their business. While compared to the likes of London we still have a ways to go here, overall we see more and more success stories arising when companies embrace digital marketing wholeheartedly. These success stories are shared and celebrated through events such as the annual DANI Awards, which rewards the best digital campaigns across Northern Ireland (disclaimer: we won two DANI Awards a few weeks ago). The recent CultureTech festival in Derry/Londonderry is another example of a great digitally-themed event featuring top speakers and drawing big crowds. Lastly, fuelled by all these growth factors we see more and more agencies establishing themselves in the digital marketing arena. Some are small specialised agencies focusing on one aspect of digital marketing, where others are more holistic agencies that offer a wide portfolio of services. My own employer The Pierce Partnership is the latter, having grown from a print & design agency in to a full-fledged creative agency with core strengths in design, web development, and digital marketing. With all these digital companies trying to establish a foothold, Kevin and I thought it might be a good idea to have Rand discuss his approach to running a successful digital business. While it’s no secret I have on occasion taken issue with SEOmoz’s output, I have huge respect for Rand as a businessman. The company he’s built and the corporate culture he’s fostered are highly admirable, and Kevin and I wanted to take the opportunity to have Rand explain his company’s TAGFEE culture to the Northern Irish digital scene. In front of a crowd of around 30 of Northern Ireland’s finest digital marketers (we had 78 registrations, but as seems common with free events only around half showed up) Rand explained, in his usual enthusiastic speaking style, what TAGFEE meant and how his company embraced these ideals. Afterwards pints were had, photos were taken, and stories were shared. On a personal note I got along great with Rand and his lovely wife Geraldine, and want to thank them both for taking the time out of their busy sight-seeing & event-speaking schedule to meet with local digital marketers. Rand said he’d definitely be back to Ireland, and when he does I’ll make sure a fresh pint of Guinness (without the nasty syrup!) will be waiting for him.