We are proud to announce that we are now working with the international children’s charity EveryChild on their PPC and social campaigns.

As their official marketing partner, we will be providing advice on the implementation of their social strategy whilst also managing their Google Pay per Click advertising campaign – all with the aim of increasing their brand reach, raising awareness of the cause and to increase the number of online donations.

Jonah Klein, who is the Digital Editor for EveryChild, said: “From improving our PPC advertising to offering expert, strategic advice on how to build our social media presence, Liberty Marketing have been a great help to our organisation. Liberty’s support will help us reach and improve the lives of more vulnerable children across the world.”

PPC Account Manager, Amy Lyddon, who is taking care of the EveryChild PPC campaign said: "It’s a pleasure having EveryChild on board. PPC is a very effective way to help raise awareness of their services, such as protecting vulnerable children and getting children back into families. PPC has helped drive relevant traffic to their website, building charity awareness and encouraging online donations. Knowing that we are helping to influence change through PPC is great."

More than 24 million children grow up without parental care; EveryChild aim to put an end to this so that these youngsters don’t grow up vulnerable and alone.  They set out to protect these children from the threat of malnutrition, violence and exploitation, and to keep families together wherever possible.

We’re thrilled to be working with such a fantastic charity to help them make a difference to the lives of vulnerable children, and we are eager to work with additional charities in the future … so watch this space …

What were you doing in May of 2008? Madonna and Justin Timberlake had hit Number 1 with 4 Minutes, the top film at the box office was Iron Man, Boris Johnson was the new Mayor of London and Britain looked forward to another wet, miserable summer. There was also something brewing in the marketing scene here in Cardiff...Liberty Marketing was born and today is our 5th birthday.

The company was started in a home office but after just a few months and a handful of happy clients, word of mouth ensured that we quickly grew and needed to move into something a bit more professional. Our first office was in Cardiff Gate Business Park, which we moved into in December 2008. That office was just big enough for two desks but by the time Kris Davies and Chris Gurner, future heads of Operations and PPC respectively, joined the team in 2010, we were a team of 7 and had taken over the room next door.

As more companies came to us for their SEO, Pay Per Click and social media campaigns, we outgrew our Cardiff Gate office and bought our current home in Llanishen Business Park in February 2011. Here, we developed ways in which we could offer more transparent and more effective services to our customers, including the Apollo project management system, which gives clients up-to-date information about what we’re doing on their projects.

A couple of years on and our 28 members of staff are spread over three different teams and span a wide range of personalities and specialities – from SEO experts and inventive copywriters to trained PPC professionals, social whizzes and much more. On a daily basis, we’re working with some interesting brands, such as Millennium Stadium, ConstructaQuote, Fiorelli, University of Hertfordshire, London Women’s Clinic, Wales Millennium Centre, Folly Farm and Visit Cymru. And we’re very proud that 12 clients from our first year of business are still using us.

We’d like to thank you for your support and custom so far – here’s to the next 5!

Our amazing cake, thanks to Lianne.

We have just discovered a lot of very dodgy links pointing at our site. It looks like, within the last few months, thousands of links have started pointing in to us from adult sites, irrelevant blog comments and low quality directory listings.

One of our local competitors has obviously had enough of us ranking well for their target keywords, so is running a negative SEO campaign to try and wipe us off Google. Classy.

Negative SEO is where someone tries to push your site down (or even out of) the Google rankings by building lots of bad links to your site. Since the Google Penguin update launched and showed us that low quality sites and over-optimised anchor-text can cause serious SEO problems, the negative SEO industry has thrived and now even has a nickname - Google Bowling. By employing these tactics, you can outrank your competitors not because you are any better than them or Google prefers the content on your site, but because you have no morals and can only do well when others fall.

We are being targeted heavily for the keyword SEO Cardiff, meaning one of our local competitors has had enough of us winning a lot of the local projects and wants to hit us here. The ironic thing is, the decent SEO projects very rarely come in off local Google searches! Almost all of our work comes as word of mouth recommendations or from events we attend, so even if this campaign works and you no longer see us in Google for local keywords, it isn't going to harm us as a business. We will continue to grow and win SEO projects because of the quality of our work and the hundreds of happy clients who regularly tell their friends.

If you are looking to engage an SEO agency within the Cardiff and South Wales area then make sure you do your homework. There are obviously some very dodgy people locally who cannot be bothered to market themselves properly, rather resorting to tactics like this.

We will be keeping an eye on the links and will speak to our contacts within Google to highlight this issue. One upside of being big enough to get targeted by competitors with this type of SEO campaign is that we are also big enough to have numerous contacts within the search engines who will help us when needed.

I’ll be seeing what tools they have to help us identify who did this and when I know, I will be publishing their details on this blog for everyone to see. What we will also do is record our activity and then blog about it. We have seen this type of work happen to a few of our clients who are in very competitive markets and it could easily happen to you too, so watch this space to see the impact of negative SEO and what we will do to take care of it.

We will be visiting and speaking at a number of events over the next few weeks...

BrightonSEO

Kris, Rhodri, Ben, Monique, Dean and Rachel will be attending this great event on Friday. They will be there all day sitting in on the seminars and will also be staying over, to take advantage of the after party. If you are also going to be there, make sure you join them for a beer.

Carmarthenshire Tourism Summit

On Wednesday 17th April, I will be at the event in the Parc Y Scarlets Stadium. I'll be giving a workshop on SEO and improving website performance. The synopsis is:

"Get the most out of your website: 5 search engine marketing tips

Learn the five main things you need to be doing to take advantage of search engine traffic. We will look at how to choose the right keywords to focus on, and then how to use those on your site. We will then examine the benefits of blogging and how to get other websites linking to yours. We will also look at how you can attract local visitors with Google+ Local. All of which will increase the amount of business you get from Google, Yahoo! and Bing."

Torfaen Digital Enterprise Festival

On Tuesday 23rd April, I will also be presenting two slots on SEO to the tourism and hospitality sector. The synopsis is the same as the above event. 

If you are based in South West Wales or South East Wales and fall within the tourism industry then these two events look like they will be time well spent, so it's worth you checking them out. 

Sorry that we’ve been quiet on the blog of late; 2013 so far has been a very busy one, with plenty of exciting new clients and projects to get our teeth into. 

We’re also delighted to welcome six more fresh and friendly faces to Liberty Marketing. This year, James Cavanagh, Rosella Pollard, Cher Cheung, Laura Mackenzie, Pooja Parab and Monique Allin joined us – while we’ve even more joining over the forthcoming weeks.

James and Monique are both joining us as SEO Account Co-ordinators, and will be helping a number of different clients with their day-to-day online strategies. James is a recent digital graduate, with experience in web development and digital animation, while Monique’s social media background has seen her work with The AA, the National Trust and the fashion brand Internacionale.   

Having graduated from Newport University with a degree in Business & Marketing, Cher has worked for charities and public sector clients across England and Wales, and joins our PPC team as a PPC Account Executive. And Pembrokeshire-born Laura, who’ll be joining us as an SEO Specialist, has worked in web development, online marketing and database analysis for a number of clients since graduating with a Business & IT degree in 2006. 

Rosella, our new SEO Copywriter, is an English and Creative Writing graduate who has written for More Magazine, NME and a digital agency in Prague, and keeps herself busy by reviewing gigs and festivals in her spare time. Last but not least is Pooja, who comes to us as our new Social Media & PR specialist with content marketing experience in the entertainment industry in her native India. 

Are you interested in working for one of Britain’s fast-growing agencies? We’re always looking for talented marketers with a passion for digital. For more information about working at Liberty Marketing, visit our careers page today.

2012 has been a very interesting year. Lots of great new projects came on board, many new talented marketers joined the team and we saw a lot of changes in the SEO, Pay Per Click and social media markets.

We want to thank everyone who made it such a special year and wish you a merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous new year.

Our offices are shut from 6 pm this Friday (the 21st) and will re-open at 8 am on Wednesday 2nd. We look forward to seeing you in 2013.

So you don't forget who we are in the meantime, here's a snap from our office Christmas party:

And for good measure, here's an instagrammed picture of our Christmas trees, courtesy of Rachel:

I am pleased to say that we are continuing to grow well, with recent news including us doubling the office space and adding five new staff members.  

During October, Liberty saw the addition of Thomas Bentley, Dean Coombes and Ben Magee (who are joining to manage SEO and Social Media accounts), Lianne Jones (who joins us as an SEO Team Leader) and Ceri Williams (our latest PPC Account Executive).

Lianne is now responsible for overseeing one of the SEO teams. Lianne graduated with a degree in Journalism and has worked as an ecommerce manager for a number of websites, including ones in the hair and beauty markets. Her experience in content production and PR allows the team to focus on creating high quality content, essential for achieving strong SEO results. 

Dean, Thomas and Ben have joined Liberty as part of the SEO team, responsible for delivering SEO and social media campaigns and working closely with the copy team to produce engaging content.

Dean has over 5 years online marketing experience and was previously responsible for the SEO of an ecommerce where he helped to grow website sales by over 20% year-on-year. 

Thomas brings with him a wealth of experience, having been responsible for the online marketing of a new insurance aggregator. Thomas has experience in a broad range of SEO including link building, content creation and data analysis, which will add real value to client campaigns.

Ben has a background as an online marketer for ecommerce and hotel booking websites, where his search engine optimisation, social media skills and time as a webmaster were highly valued. 

Joining the Pay Per Click team is Ceri, who has run large and complex PPC accounts including one with an annual budget of over £1m. Ceri has an in-depth knowledge of Google Analytics, meaning he is able to identify trends and spot opportunities, which will really benefit our paid search clients.

It’s great to have these talented new people on board. We have already seen improved results for some clients so the future is looking very rosy.

We were at the October Search Seminar held by Figaro Digital at the Hospital Club in Covent Garden yesterday.

Our Managing Director, Gareth Morgan, was the first presenter of the day, with the topic "What we learnt about search in 2012" - a look at the main Google algorithm updates and AdWords changes to take place over the past 9 months and what people now need to do differently.

The reaction to the presentation was very positive, with a lot of people asking for the slides, so here they are:

Other presentations included Doubleclick and Kenshoo talking about tracking and using software to improve decision making, and HomeJames talking about integrating online and offline marketing. GiffGaff was also there, showing a great little case study on how they used their community to boost SEO. It was a good event and we will definitely be attending again.

Members of the Liberty SEO team are attending the BrigtonSEO event today, so if you are there, make sure you say hello.

Siddhesh, Adam and Andrew are there to learn more about the latest changes to search and social media.

Rhodri, our Business Development Manager is also there, playing chaperone, keeping these three out of trouble and performing picture taking duties.

Here at Liberty Marketing, we’re always looking for new talent to boost our ever-growing young company. So, naturally, we’re delighted to welcome a few more SEO specialists to Liberty HQ. 

First off, meet Siddhesh Shroff, our newest SEO Account Coordinator. After over four years of online marketing roles, from social media to SEO and PPC, Siddhesh has arrived at Liberty ready and eager to move clients straight up the rankings. He may also have claim to the title of ‘the most talented Liberty chef’, if his envy-inspiring lunches taste as good as they smell. 

Dean Coombes is the next new recruit to our SEO team. As a new SEO Account Coordinator, Dean arrives at Liberty with 5 years of SEO, website building and technical support E-commerce experience in tow. When he’s not weaving his web wizardry, Dean loves F1, bike riding, music festivals and, like any true Welshman, supporting the rugby boys through thick and thin. 

Last but not least, a very warm welcome to Philip Woodward, a brand new SEO copywriter here at Liberty. After 3 years of client-side copywriting and PR experience with a number of e-commerce companies, Philip’s moved to the fun, fast-paced world of agency life. When he’s not being a word geek at Liberty, he loves his football and going to gigs. 

So that’s our new recruits all introduced! Want to be the next one? We’re always on the lookout for talented, passionate online marketers, from SEO to PPC, copywriters to social media gurus. If you’re interested please see our careers page and send in your CV.