Our fourth ISPA win

Lawrence Jones, March 26th 2008, 9:38AM

On Friday 14th March at UKFast we won our fourth ISPA award for best hosting - an achievement I am immensely proud of.

UKFast smashed industry records by winning the award for four years consecutively.

Being recognised and praised for the hard work we have put in to the company is a wonderful feeling. I sincerely hope our victory proved the importance and necessity of excellent customer service as well as top of the range dedicated server hardware.

However, I for one am not willing to rest on my laurels. That’s not the attitude that has got the company this far.

So this year we’re going to keep pushing.

As a company we’re growing very quickly in size, knowledge and experience. The boundaries of the internet have never been closer but at UKFast we’ll never see them as closed- continuing to push them with all of our strength.

This year we have great things planned at UKFast. Our aim is to increase employee numbers to 100 before 2009 and continue to provide the most powerful and reliable technology, networks and support.

And of course to win the ISPA for a fifth time in 2009.

Tags: dedicated server, ispa, ukfast
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The power of the press release

Lawrence Jones, March 6th 2008, 9:19AM

I’ve been collecting information for quite some time now regarding what you think is the most important thing for your website.

Currently the trend shows:
• SEO at 46%
• Link building at 26%
• PPC at 20%
• PR at 9%

However, if this was reversed would it really be so bad?

The highest ranking is currently SEO – if there is such a thing. This made me contemplate things. What exactly is SEO and how do we use it?

Search engine optimisation has evolved with the internet and it relies on a series of complex rules to place businesses in order of relevance to your search.

However, what’s the point in attempting to optimise your site if content isn’t regularly changed?

If your content isn’t changed, Google probably won’t recognise it anyway.
Plus, if content is substandard, no matter how high you get in the search engines, you continue to find that leads don’t convert into sales. People won’t stay on the site long enough to buy from you if the pages aren’t interesting.

At 26% and 20%, link building and PPC came in second and third which I find strange. Pay per click can be the most costly solution and therefore you’d think it would rank more highly in public opinion.

Coming in last place with a vote of just 9% is PR. In my opinion this has many more online uses than a lot of people realise.

Online PR has even more benefits in addition to the traditional function of building your brand and getting your business in the press.

With online PR you can distribute your release across the web in various different portals.

There are a plethora of online publications just waiting for your release. Not only are these sites trawled by local, national and international media relations professionals, each one can be linked back to your site.

As you know, links to your site increase your Google page rank and your position in the search engines, as well as serving to build your company reputation and get some press. So that’s dealing with link building, SEO and PR in one fell swoop.

And sending a press release is free.

By writing press releases you are essentially killing an entire flock of birds with one stone and yet figures show so many businesses don’t hold the idea in high regard.

In my opinion, the sooner you embrace the press release the better for your business.

Tags: keyword, poll results, ppc, pr, seo, seo campaign
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