Link building is the process of getting another website to place a hyperlink pointing to your site. People have been using link building to help rank their sites for the last 20 years. And since then, the signal has only been getting stronger. If you’re not sure why you have to build links, or you…

More companies nowadays are taking the brave step of expanding globally. But, for this expansion to be successful, companies must ensure they hire the right candidates first. Below are a few tips to ensure your international recruitment run is successful. Have a Recruiting Website With recruitment scams on the rise, it is understandable for international…

Substack makes it possible for you to use Google Analytics to track conversions and get incredible data on how your email sign ups and paid subscriptions are performing. It only takes three steps and five minutes of your time. Here’s how… Step 1: Set up Google Analytics Make sure you have Google Analytics set up.…

The rise in social media and the increasing number of people accessing the internet has made digital brand building an essential step for any business.  Today, digital brand development has come to the fore, and every business seeks to establish itself before potential customers. Companies are adopting different digital brand building strategies to stay a…

During the Coronavirus epidemic, the UK Government has offered support for small and medium-sized businesses, and the self-employed. Freelancers (self-employed individuals) with trading profits of up to £50k can apply for a taxable grant worth 80% of their average monthly profits, up to £2,500 a month. HMRC will take your average profits from the last 3…

Any business worth its salt must have a business plan that outlines various things about the business, and a digital marketing agency is no exception. Certainly, a digital marketing agency business cannot be started and operated using the prepackaged business plans that come in templates, especially if your business is unique, calls for a lot…

We live in uncertain times. But one thing has stayed constant – the rise of the freelance workforce. Freelancers are more prevalent now than they have ever been before, and their rise shows little sign of slowing down. There are well over 2 million freelancers now plying their trades in the UK and they’re making…

Over at Flawless Buzz, Adam Lewis has been kind enough to tag me in his very first meme. The meme has three questions to it, with the aim of helping people looking to get into PR: If you’re hoping to get a career in PR yourself, there’s plenty more advice and insight out there from the others…

Social Innovation Camp 2 (The Revenge!) was an amazing experience – tiring, draining, seemingly unending, but fun, fulfilling and infinitely rewarding. Around 60 people descended onto 7 different ideas trying to make positive social change to bring them from the glint of an idea into a project that could be taken on past the weekend. The key idea…

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Despite years of people espousing the death of the “digital agency” the industry is thriving and confident. Amazing work continues to be produced by top digital agencies around the world, and clients continue to hire agencies to complement their internal teams, in particular when creative or technical innovation is required. And not only that, well…

You can subscribe to new content on this site by using a variety of available feeds. Feedreaders should be able to discover the main feed and responses feed on their own. But there are more feeds available than just those two. This is a WordPress site, so almost everything also has its own RSS feed.…

Love this from Matthew Rechs, a senior product leader, business and career coach for creative people. See more from Matthew at Business Letters. 1. We’ll have a weekly 1:1. I’ll never cancel this meeting, but you can cancel it whenever you like. It’s your time. 2. Our 1:1 agenda will be in the meeting invite…

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Getting started as a freelance can be hard, but I’m here to help you. If you’re new here, this is what I believe in: Every year, thousands of people have the confidence to start their freelance career. You can do it too. You can have the flexibility and freedom that comes from running your own…

I made a Visual CV for a job application a few years ago – scroll down to see the full infographic! When applying for the role of Head of Comms at FutureGov, I knew that the job posting would attract a lot of interest and high quality applications. Indeed, there ended up being several dozen…

So, it was December 2012 and I was travelling in South America (La Paz, Bolivia, to be exact). And I was on the interwebz, checking Twitter, as you do. And I saw a job post for a company called FutureGov. The job was for Head of Comms, which sounded good to me. The skills required…

Japan was always a must-visit country in my travels. And my two weeks there was everything I’d dreamt of and more. But many people are put off from travelling to Japan because of the expense. Yes, it is expensive, but there are ways to visit Japan on a budget and still see a lot of…

You might feel that you’re ready right now, but there is definitely a wrong time to go freelance and a right time to go freelance. Make the move at the wrong time and you could find yourself regretting your decision and wishing you’d thought through your decision more. Here are the reasons I think make it…

As a freelancer, maintaining work life balance can be a hard task. As well as juggling lots of clients and projects at once, there is the added pressure of taking care of all the housekeeping that comes along with freelance life. From finances and new business, to updating your social media profiles and chasing client…

Following on from my guide to being a freelance consultant, I’ve pulled together a list of essential freelance reads and top blogs so you can get up to speed on all the latest freelance thinking. These are presented in no particular order, but feel free to add your own suggestions by leaving a comment! Freelance…

Ben Matthews, Experienced Digital Marketing & Social Media Consultant Freelance digital marketing social media consultant for hire in London, with over 10 years experience in the tech, mobile, government, charity and startup sectors. I started my social career in the financial sector, moving to technology, government and charity social media agencies, before finally working as…

Becoming a freelance consultant is a dream for many. I’ve been lucky enough to have a successful freelance career as a social media and digital PR consultant for the last few years. There’s been some bumps along the way, but advice and encouragement from a wide range of people enabled me to go it alone…

A friend recently asked if I knew of any upcoming London tech events, so I sent them back a list of the sites I use to keep updated with the latest Tech, Startup and Hack Day events in London. Some of these events listings are for membership-based organisations, such as TechHub and Campus London. Please…

Online privacy issues are currently difficult to understand. Amid media headlines about NSA, Prism and Snowden, terms such as encryption, Tor and HTTPS are used extensively with the average person expected to keep up  with what they mean and understand how the issues affect them. For people who aren’t technically adept, the message about why online…

(This is the fourth in a series of interviews with freelancers, telling us their stories on how they went freelance. The aim is to help others who are thinking of becoming freelance learn more about what it takes, as well as get advice and inspiration so they can get the confidence and understanding to find…

(This is the fifth in a series of interviews with freelancers, telling us their stories on how they went freelance. The aim is to help others who are thinking of becoming freelance learn more about what it takes, as well as get advice and inspiration so they can get the confidence and understanding to find…

(This is the third in a series of interviews with freelancers, telling us their stories on how they went freelance. The aim is to help others who are thinking of becoming freelance learn more about what it takes, as well as get advice and inspiration so they can get the confidence and understanding to find…

(This is the second in a series of interviews with freelancers, telling us their stories on how they went freelance. The aim is to help others who are thinking of becoming freelance learn more about what it takes, as well as get advice and inspiration so they can get the confidence and understanding to find…

(This is the first in a series of interviews with freelancers, telling us their stories on how they went freelance. The aim is to help others who are thinking of becoming freelance learn more about what it takes, as well as get advice and inspiration so they can get the confidence and understanding to find…

I’m starting up a blog series where I profile different people who’ve gone freelance, how they made the jump to becoming a freelancer and how they have found the realities of freelance life. I get loads (well, quite a lot) of people asking how I went freelance and my recent how-to guide on how to…

(This is a full version of an article I wrote for The Guardian’s Local Leaders Network on digital innovation in local government. You can read the edited version on the Guardian’s site.) When working in digital innovation and local government, it’s helpful to stick your head above the parapet and see what others are up to. There is…

(This is a full version of an article I wrote for The Guardian’s Local Leaders Network on how councils can measure the success of social media. You can read the edited version on the Guardian’s site.) According to the 2013 BDO Local Government Social Media Survey, 98% of UK councils are using some form of digital or…

My previous post on personal privacy following Prismgate, "My Privacy Plan", sparked a fantastic discussion over on Hacker News. The comment that most resonated with me – and had the most upvotes – questioned what the political aspect of a privacy plan would look like: "My privacy plan will involve learning more about politics. Who…

Crowdfunding is a well-known concept for most people, thanks to sites such as Kickstarter. Headlines of consumer products, such as the Pebble, to films, apps and games getting funded – with no apparent downsides – are everywhere. So when I was asked to write a piece on the "negative" side of crowdfunding, which would be…

(Note: I get the irony of writing about a digital diet on a blog, which you will undoubtedly read on some kind of digital device.) It’s a fact of modern life that we spend most of our days looking at digital screens. From checking tweets on your mobile, to doing email on your laptop, to…

Glamping at Leeds Castle is a little luxury in stunning surroundings. Set in the beautiful grounds of Leeds Castle in Kent, UK, the Knight’s Glamping was a Bank Holiday escape from the city for us – and it worked out wonderfully. We’ve never been glamping before (have been camping) so weren’t sure what to expect,…

(Photo via Sean MacEntee) I’ve decided to come up with a privacy plan for myself. After hearing about the NSA’s surveillance scandals and now the details about Edward Snowden, the whistleblower behind the NSA surveillance revelations, I’ve been kicked into action. These events has got me (and several million other people) spooked by who is…

  I’ve always been interested in Japanese culture – both traditional and modern – and my recent trip to Japan has furthered my interest. But living in London means I am lucky enough to be exposed to Japanese culture and traditions on a regular basis, whether it’s through visiting the Japan Centre on Regent Street,…

It’s happened to lots of us at one point and is becoming increasingly more common. You’re working on a project or come up with a fantastic web project to get started on, so naturally the first thing you do is run to your favourite domain registrar or Twitter itself to see if the domain name…

David Foster Wallace is one of my all time favourite authors. From the hilarious and varied essays of  

(Thanks to Neil Grayshon for the image!) Building an excellent communications team requires lots of equally-excellent strategy, hiring, people management and culture building – and more. I knew when I started at FutureGov that I didn’t have experience in this area, so reached out to the good and the great of the UK PR industry…

How to build long-term client relationships is a follow up to yesterday’s post on finding freelance work in the summer slump, and a longer term goal to write more about freelancing in general. I’ve written quite a bit about what I’ve learned from freelancing, but if there’s any topics you want to cover just let…

Get my best content on how to be a confident, creative and happy freelancer.   Enter your email below to sign up to my free 5-day course, delivered free and straight to your inbox: [mc4wp_form id="1526"] No spam, easy to unsubscribe. You’ll learn: How to get the confidence to go freelance How to work out…

There’s plenty of posts out there on "How To Learn To Code in Just One Month!", but not a lot for why you should learn to code. One of the problems is that you get articles like this,  with the following unhelpful insights into how others have learnt to code: "I slept an average of 5 hours a night, had…

Finding freelance work can be difficult during the summer months. When school is out and the kids are at home many clients take time off for their holidays, meaning new projects and work is put on hold until the autumn. There’s a reason why freelancers call it the "summer slump". But finding freelance work while…

(This is the sixth in a series of interviews with freelancers, telling us their stories on how they went freelance. The aim is to help others who are thinking of becoming freelance learn more about what it takes, as well as get advice and inspiration so they can get the confidence and understanding to find…

Growing up in the seaside town of Brighton, I never thought I would meet and mingle with "famous" people (famous in the form of well respected icons – not the here today, gone tomorrow celebrity variety). When I was small, just going to the local park or the walk to school seemed like a big trip.…

I’ve written about my reading habits before, using apps like Tweetbot and Pocket as a system for saving interesting content to read later. So when the Cronycle team got in touch to offer me a test drive of their beta product, I was interested enough to take a look and see if it could be…

I love being productive and the feeling that comes from getting the right work done at the right time. A recent productivity hack I’ve been following is to save all reading – including articles, newsletter and books – to outside of work hours, when I have downtime and can concentrate on the material. There have…