All posts by Rajan Flint

Family Attractions 2019

19/11/2019 Rajan Flint

Essential attended the Family Attraction Expo 2019 at the NEC.

Our Head of Search, Oscar, had the following to say: “Family Attractions was even bigger this year. We had a great time chatting to different businesses and trying out their products, from VR zombie shooting to Cornish Gelato.”

Our new business developer Wesley had the following to say:
“The expo was a great opportunity to eat chocolate, sweets and of course meet new businesses! It was great to see all different types of businesses ranging from Farmers to Arcade machines to Hot Tub Machine owners.

Our stand was situated in the perfect location, right in the centre of all the action. Our Spin to Win wheel managed to prove a huge success as who wouldn’t want to win a google home hub and an ice scraper?

The conversations we had and the amount of opportunities we came across in regards to helping these businesses with Digital Marketing and explaining how important it is to have an online presence, was definitely worth our time as it allowed us to create new business relationships.

I look forward returning in 2020.”

We even made it into the video for Family Attractions:

See the full video – https://www.linkedin.com/posts/family-attraction-expo_did-you-miss-out-on-the-family-attraction-activity-6601042846864719872-5wqM

Essential

Another Successful Insights Workshop

21/10/2019 Rajan Flint

Our Insights Into Your Website workshops are a huge success and growing in popularity – thank you to all the companies who attended our final workshop of 2019 last week. The next Insights will be 19th March 2020 with only 8 places left (at time of writing) – so book now to avoid disappointment!

The feedback we have from our attendees are testament to the professionalism and insight we offer, here’s a few examples….

Robert Shaw:

Insights Workshop: Emily from Essential Marketer contacted me about their free workshop on SEO, and although I usually decline SEO marketing this felt very different. They are local and offer in-person workshops for free which helped me enormously to understand SEO for my website and how to increase my google ranking via factors I knew very little about, such as trust scores, backlinks etc. The presentation was carried out by the Director within a small group and he was not pushing their business during the talk, which was a nice change. After breaking for lunch I had a one on one chat with Raj, a specialist who had already analysed my website and suggested changes free of charge. I would highly recommend their services.

The Wilkes Partnership Solicitors:

Big thanks to the guys at Essential Marketer for putting on a superb event. I found the breadth of knowledge within the business to be outstanding. The attention to detail of Steve and the team in pulling together a comprehensive and detailed digital strategy was highly impressive. The tailored one-to-one analysis of our website was hugely valuable. I would highly recommend.

Paul Valentine:

I would definitely recommend attending a marketing Insight Day. I found the event very professional throughout with some good current strategic web advice. If the day to day operations are as good as the Insight Day then you’ll be in safe hands.

About Our Insights

The October workshop hosted by Steve Feeney (Company Director) focused on each business, giving them dedicated time to review their website in detail. We teach the principles of SEO, showcasing the tools we use that is usually kept behind closed doors, and how they can take their websites to the next level. Being a Google Partner, we also share insights into new digital marketing techniques and methods of thinking outside of the box when planning an SEO strategy.

The event will help you develop your Digital Strategy as a whole, with a particular focus on generating leads! We will analyse, research and audit your website prior to your attendance so we can begin assisting you on building your plan of action. During the event you will have many opportunities to talk with our SEO specialists one-on-one.

There will also be time for a Q&A, you will learn…

Your website’s top performing pages
Keywords you rank for in Google’s top 100
Keyword Research relevant to your business needs
Backlink analysis of your website and competitors
Industry Secrets

Search News

New Google Search Console ( Webmasters )

30/09/2019 Rajan Flint

As many of our clients and those in the industry knows, Google has been creating a new version of Google Search Console (the New name for Google Webmasters)

On the 9th of September, Google announced via it’s official Google Webmaster Central Blog that it’s Goodbye to the old Search Console. Whilst most reports have been moved across to the new search console, some have been dropped and a few remain in a “legacy tools and report area” of the new Search Console.

The team at Essential use Google Search Console extensively has part of our client’s SEO Campaigns. We use the console directly as well as pulling in data to our reports. Whilst we are sad to see the ‘old’ search console go, we are excited to how the new console evolves over time.

Since then Google has launched a number of changes to Google Search including: how reviews snippets work; confirming what Schema Mark up Google will display; and new link features for websites – rel=”sponsored” and rel=”ugc”.

The latest update allows for Fresh data to be shown within Search Console, a highly requested feature.

This data may change over time after it has been added to search console.

Another important change is Google has confirmed that Google Search Console reports in the Pacific Time Zone, the time zone of western America and 7 hours behind GMT.

Events

West Midlands Business Expo

09/07/2019 Rajan Flint

Our Director Steve created the short video above.

Emily, Oscar, Sophie, and Steve all attended the West Midlands Business Expo at Villa Park on the 4th of July.
Head of SEO, Oscar was very excited to be at the “Mighty Villa Park”.
The expo was good, we were able to speak to a lot of interesting businesses and people, generating a lot of leads.
We plan to attend next years Expo, so if you are at the expo come by and say hi and have a go on the spin-to-win.

Events

Insights Event June 2019

25/06/2019 Rajan Flint

Our Insights Into Your Website workshops are a huge success and growing in popularity – thank you to all the companies who attended our latest workshop in June 2019. Our final workshop of the year will be 16th October with only 8 places left – so book now to avoid disappointment!

The June workshop hosted by Steve Feeney (Company Director) focused on each business, giving them dedicated time to review their website in detail. We teach the principles of SEO, showcasing the tools we use that is usually kept behind closed doors, and how they can take their websites to the next level. Being a Google Partner, we also share insights into new digital marketing techniques and methods of thinking outside of the box when planning an SEO strategy.

There will also be time for a Q&A, you will learn…

Your website’s top performing pages
Keywords you rank for in Google’s top 100
Keyword Research relevant to your business needs
Backlink analysis of your website and competitors
Industry Secrets

The feedback we have from our attendees are testament the professionalism and insight we offer, here’s a few examples….

Out and About

Joe Joe Jims

25/06/2019 Rajan Flint

Over the weekend a number of us visited Joe Joe Jims bar in Birmingham to take part in Burton Fest. A gig dedicated to local musical legend Trevor Burton founding member of The Move.

Our Head of Search, Oscar played drums in his band The Temple Street Resistance, with our vary own Rajan Flint working as his roadie. Our Director Steve brought out the professional camera equipment to snap some amazing photos. They where also joined by Kathryn and Emily.

The venue was well decorated and had a great atmosphere. Entering the building you had a the three areas of interest. The arcade and slot machines on the left, the main stage at straight ahead the back, and the bar on the right. Their bar offered a great selection of beers, and gins which various members of the team enjoyed. They also offered a selection of sandwich.

Website: https://www.joejoejims.co.uk/

Events

Supporting the Bobby Moore Trust

26/04/2019 Rajan Flint

It’s football shirt Friday again and team Essential is out in full force, ready to take on any local 6 aside team.

Even Digital Marketing Excutive Scott Wood has his Shirt on, even whilst he is on holiday in Australia!

For the second year, we are supporting the Bobby Moore Trust & Cancer Research UK’s fundraiser.

You can join into by visiting our sponsorship page:

https://fundraise.cancerresearchuk.org/page/essential-marketer

So far we have raised over £150

Events

Exhibiting at the Midlands Business Network Expo

28/02/2019 Rajan Flint

Essential will be exhibiting at the Midlands Business Network Expo at Edgbaston Stadium on Friday 8th March 2019, from 10am – 3pm.

This is the 8th expo run by the Midlands Business Network and Essential Marketer are proud to be attending this year spring expo on the 8th

of March.

The exhibition is being held at the Edgbaston Stadium, which has a rich history of cricket and has been part of the character of Edgbaston since the 19th century.

The Team at Essential is excited to attend the expo, meet new business and hopefully see some familiar faces.

If you are visiting the exhibition come over and speak with one of the team. Our director Steve Feeney will be attending alongside; Head of Search Oscar Ireson, Emily Taylor and Sophie Eastwood.

Essential

Seasons Greetings from Essential Marketer

24/12/2018 Rajan Flint

It has been a busy year at Essential Marketer, and we would like to wish all a Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year!

Party Time

This year we held our office Christmas party at Rodizio Rico, at The Cube Birmingham. It was an unforgettable experience.

Earlier in December,

We’re proud to be participating in the ISO QSL Bingo Box Challenge – the Essential office has teamed up to collect food and gift items which will all be donated to a local food bank or charity!

Events

Family Attraction Expo 2018 Review

15/11/2018 Rajan Flint

On the 7th and 8th of November, Essential exhibited at the Family Attraction Expo 2018 with our sister company Diamond Branded. The team members who attended the events were: Oscar (Head of Search), Rajan (Digital Marketing Executive), Emily (Business Development), Sophie (Digital Marketing Executive) and Scott (Digital Marketing Executive). We were joined by Kim and Philip from Diamond Branded.

The expo was a great opportunity to meet new businesses and share ideas in a creative environment. Our stand gave us room to showcase ourselves and our services. Our “Spin to Win” game proved to be a success with many people and businesses winning prizes and giving us chance to create new business relationships.

Exploring the venue, we also had the opportunity to meet with existing clients. As for the other exhibitors, all were extremely friendly and accommodating. Happy to talk to us, allow us to interact with their stands, and even let us hold their snakes!

Essential shall certainly be attending similar events in the future.

Essential, Search News

10 Years of PPC

31/10/2018 Rajan Flint

PPC was and still is an excellent way of generating traffic and leads for your website. Historically a smaller area of our work, we are using this marketing tool to help more and more of our clients.

Over the last 10 years, Essential has worked with a number of different clients, each with their own PPC strategy. We have worked with large companies selling thousands of products; hotels across the country; local tradesmen and even national charities.

This month we reached a new milestone, a total of One Billion Impressions. The ads we created have been seen 1 Billion times. These ads have been clicked Ten Million times and lead to over One Million conversions.

Essential

Painting Upstairs

25/10/2018 Rajan Flint

Renovations of our upstair’s office are ongoing, however, today several members of the SEO team got their old clothes on and gave the walls a fresh lick of paint.

Changing from the old ‘cream’ colour, the team plastered the walls with a couple of coats of matt white.

Search News, Web Work

Chrome Updates and Symantec SSL/TLS

05/09/2018 Rajan Flint

Google announced earlier this year that they would deprecate Chrome’s trust in the Symantec certificate authority (including Symantec-owned brands like Thawte, VeriSign, Equifax, GeoTrust, and RapidSSL)

Starting with Chrome version 66, any Symantec SSL/ TLS issued before June 1st 2016 will stop functioning. The stable release of Chrome 66 was put into place April 17th 2018.

Following later in the year. Chrome 70 all remaining Symantec SSL/TLS certificates will stop working. The first beta are scheduled for September 13th 2018 with the stable release launching around October 16th 2018.

The Google announcement continued to say that as early as July 20, 2018 some chrome users might be blocked from sites using any Symantec SSL / TLS.

Here at Essential Marketer, we use chrome on most of our computer and many of these have updated to Chrome 70 (Dev Version) – We were interested to see which major sites would be blocked due to having a Symantec SSL / TLS .

Only one of the major site we checked were affected by the update… Paypal! (See below)

Unless Paypal update their certificate before the stable launch of Chrome 70, any user using Google chrome will be unable to access the site.

With 49% of internet users in the UK, using Google Chrome – this SSL issue could have a major impact for online transactions and e-commerce businesses.

Here at Essential Marketer, all the site we host use Lets Encrypt Authority. We are advising our clients who have their own hosting arrangement to check their SSL / TLS certificate and update where needed.

Edit:

Since writing this post, Paypal has updated their SSL certificate.