Welcome to my blography, i have been working in the online world since 1997, starting out in the early days before the big boom and bust.

From humble beginnings working for a software company in my sandwich year at university, i started with  some very simple web pages and information sites about companies and things i was interested in. Building these was all great,  but there seemed little point without anyone to visit.

In 1998 i started getting interested in traffic generation and the technology to drive visitors from search clients to specific pages across the web. This was in the early days when Google was emerging, but sites such as alta vista, Yahoo and the home growns of AOL et al, had most of the traffic.

My studies soon moved me on the manipulation of search results to create higher rankings and more traffic, what we call today Organic SEO. Back in the early days it was easy, there where only a few of us and we where basically creating the laws of Black and White SEO. It wasn’t leaps and bounds, more like steps and falls, however we managed to create a framework.

As the commercially minded of the early days, like myself, who was from a marketing background rather than a tech background, slowly started to see ways of creating a commercial entity, selling online, the initial boom of SEO and SEO led companies began to explode. I had just finished by degree in Marketing and went to work in the finance industry, insurance mostly. The opportunities where endless, the potential was amazing, but the bigger and even SME based companies could not get themselves aligned with this new route to market, and back in 99, the route to customers was highly expensive.

After a year working around the market, looking at the online environment and the link to offline, i decided now was the time to go alone. With a group of friends we created an online agency, specifically targeting the financial services market. One of the first of its kind, we offered everything from SEO to usability, ROI and then on to PPC models and new media based alternatives. Working with some of the major brands of the time and launching alongside some of the big names in the insurance industry, we learnt a lot and we made a lot of mistakes. The game started to change, more people where entering the market and Google was becomming dominant. Business could build and die overnight, the big bang had killed major investment and the market was changing for all of us.

We took advantage of this change in the market, moving to a business that owned the brand, using affiliate, white labels and other partnerships to create SEO, PPC and online modelled business, whos only source of customer came from the online world. We moved heavily in to the world of SERP manipulation bust also had to take on all the other aspects of running a business, we learnt quickly, we had the whole online spectrum from technology, to ROI, to defining new business prospects. We built a range of sites that where #1 in their industries from travel insurance to airport parking, anything that could be sold at a profit, was.

This was a turning point in my life, where i went from an online marketing expert to someone who intersted in the full realm of online. I became an evangalist of online technology and was interested in the full raft from strategy to build, through design and out to market. It was time for me to move on.

For 4 years i was an independent consultant working across many industries, but mostly modelled on Travel, Travel services or finance.  Working across some major online brands and creating others, i moved with the flow, picking up web 2.0 in its infancy, working on usability, user interface and across to social media in the early days of transition. I started to work with blank sheets, with nothing more than just a brand name, to create end to end business concepts, from development to launch.

As we come more up to date, working on some larger blue chips and ending up for the past 2 years running the online strategy and team for a worldwide FTSE 50 company.

My working life so far has been interesting, but it is only just the beginning. I am now working across many different platforms and solutions and my love of the online world has never fained.

Welcome once again, come in, sit down and lets talk!