Reading: 0118 322 4395 | Manchester: 0161 706 2414 | Oxford: 01865 479 625 | info@sharpahead.com | Office hours: Monday-Friday 9:00am - 5:30pm

 | Office hours: Monday-Friday 8:30am - 5:30pm

 | Email  | Office hours: Mon-Fri 9:00am - 5:30pm 

Jennifer Esty

Google yourself and your company – It’s Friday afternoon!

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It’s Friday afternoon, so make yourself a cup of tea and Google yourself- and your company.

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Why?

Narcissism aside, it’s a good idea to find out how you and your company look to potential customers Googling you for the first time.

First, make sure you use an incognito window so you won’t see personalised results- a better simulation of what potential customers will see if they haven’t previously visited your website. (In most browsers, just click the top right hand menu and choose ‘New incognito window.)

What are you looking for?

Let’s start with you. Depending on how unique your name is, it might be more likely that a lead will Google your name plus your company. Try that- does your LinkedIn profile come up? If it doesn’t, update your profile immediately (this definitely counts as work in case anyone spots you) and make sure your most recent experience reflects the company you work for and the relevant responsibilities that a potential customer would be interested in.

Keeping in mind this can can sometimes signal to an employer that you’re looking for a new job (not to mention attracting unwanted attention from recruitment agents), consider warning your manager first and/or selecting No for ‘Notify your network’ on the right hand side of your profile page.

Now to Google your company.

Here’s a quick checklist:

1. How does your site rank for your branded search (i.e. searching your company name)?
2. Are any of your competitors running paid ads against the search?
3. Are sitelinks displayed? (Sitelinks are navigation links into specific parts of your site, i.e. your products or services.)
4. Can you see phone and address information?
5. Can you see your social media links?
6. Look at your My Google Business listing, has someone from your organisation claimed it? If yes, does it accurately reflect your business information, does it include photos of your business? Opening hours? Reviews?

What next?

If all looks in order, then congratulate yourself (or your marketing team) on a job well done and consider taking yourself off to the pub early.

If not, make it your priority on Monday morning to sort out the above. And as always, if you need help or expert advice, feel free to get in touch on 01189 485 766 or join us for one of our Digital Transformation events.

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    Stuffed, Starved or Satisfied

    John Woods December 11, 2025

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    Is the B2B Buying Journey Really Changing?

    Jennifer Esty September 3, 2025

    The B2B buying journey is changing at a fast pace, and B2B marketers must evolve their brand’s digital footprint now or risk obscurity in this new world.

    Increase qualified sales leads by 600% with Digital Transformation?

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    Sound too good to be true?

    On this page:

    Digital Transformation

    That is exactly what Oxford Innovation achieved as part of their strategic digital transformation work with Sharp Ahead.

    Oh, and they also saw a 90% reduction in client acquisition costs and were 120% ahead of their sales targets for the launch of their Fareham Innovation Centre.

    Don’t take our word for it

    Come hear Oxford Innovation’s Marketing & Business Development Director, Jo Willet, share her experience of digital transformation at this year’s B2B Marketing Summit.

    Jo will give a detailed case study of the digital strategy that started with a single centre launch and has since transformed the way OI market their centres around the UK.

    Outlining the specific challenges and marketing strategies design to overcome them, Jo will discuss geo-targeted search marketing, Google My Business, paid search for both branded and generic keywords, mobile, retargeting and more.

    To secure your place to see Jo, register today.

    Can’t wait for June? Get in touch with us directly and find out how Sharp Ahead’s team of B2B digital marketing experts can help you.

    About Oxford Innovation

    OI manages a network of business and innovation centres across the UK, providing a supportive home for a community of growing businesses. Visit their website or Google them and check out their Google My Business listing.


    About the B2B Marketing Summit

    Held this year on June 22 in London, the B2B Marketing Summit is an extravaganza of the great and good in B2B and a chance to refresh the way you look at your marketing.

    The event is designed for those marketers at the sharp end of B2B – those leading the charge within their organisation and always eager to keep ahead of the curve.

    Find out more or register here.

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      Stuffed, Starved or Satisfied

      John Woods December 11, 2025

      Help yourself to a glass of bubbles and I’ll explain how you can apply your party planning skills to improve your LinkedIn Ads budgeting.

      Is the B2B Buying Journey Really Changing?

      Jennifer Esty September 3, 2025

      The B2B buying journey is changing at a fast pace, and B2B marketers must evolve their brand’s digital footprint now or risk obscurity in this new world.

      What Google SERPs changes mean for your B2B company

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      The past few days have been busy ones for #serps, with digital marketers and search experts reviewing what is arguably the biggest change to Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) in years.

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      First, just in case you’ve been too busy to get into the details, a quick summary of the changes:

      • Up to 4 ads will now display at the top of Google search result pages
      • No more text ads on the right-hand column (note that other ad types are unaffected, for example product listings)
      • Up to 3 ads will now be displayed at the bottom of pages
      • The changes only affect desktop and tablet, mobile remains unaffected (for now)

      So how these SERPs changes impact your paid ad campaigns?

      The truth is no one knows for certain yet (except Google, who most certainly tested these changes to ensure commercial advantage).

      A few things we do know:

      For organisations bidding on highly competitive keywords, CPC (cost per click) is bound to go up.

      That said, one of the reasons Google rolled this out was poor click through rates on right-hand text ads, so it’s likely if your ads were displaying over there, your campaign probably wasn’t optimal anyway.

      But if you were previously happy to coast along on the right hand side with fewer click throughs but reasonable conversion, it is now imperative that you review and refine your paid search strategy, and quickly—just because it worked last week doesn’t mean it’s been working this week.

      Another impact is that the changes might mean organic results for your keywords are pushed further down with a fourth paid ad appearing above any organic results.

      That said, according to a Google spokesperson quoted in The SEM Post, this will only affect a small number of “highly commercial queries”. So for B2B companies with extended and complex sales cycles, this may have very little real impact—if only in the very short term.

      So while the critical points for success will remain the same (high quality content, positive user experience, a focus on quality scores, and close monitoring of conversion rates), marketers ignore the changes at their own peril.

      If there was ever a time to analyse and improve your paid search strategy, now is it.

      Finally, keep an eye on more changes to come as something will no doubt replace the right-hand text only ads.

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        Stuffed, Starved or Satisfied

        John Woods December 11, 2025

        Help yourself to a glass of bubbles and I’ll explain how you can apply your party planning skills to improve your LinkedIn Ads budgeting.

        Is the B2B Buying Journey Really Changing?

        Jennifer Esty September 3, 2025

        The B2B buying journey is changing at a fast pace, and B2B marketers must evolve their brand’s digital footprint now or risk obscurity in this new world.

        Reacting to Facebook Reactions

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        By now everyone has seen, and maybe even ‘Liked’ the new Facebook Reactions, giving us five new ways to respond to newsfeed content.

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        Although users have clamoured for a ‘Dislike’ button since the beginning of Facebook, and many of them still are, Facebook Reactions have a richer and arguably more positive range of emotions: Like, Love, Haha, Wow, Sad, and Angry.

        So richer than just a ‘Like’ and a more positive selection than the widely accepted six basic human emotions, as Fear and Disgust make way for Love and Haha.

        But enough about the Facebook Reactions themselves, what do they mean for marketers?

        First, all Reactions are created equal.

        At least until Facebook can create an algorithm that accurately gives weightings to different emotions.

        Which means if a user expresses Anger at a post, Facebook will consider that engagement equal to a Like or a Love.

        Second, we won’t just know if someone Likes something, we’ll know if they Love it, or if it makes them laugh, or cry.

        There will be more opportunity to gain deeper and more meaningful insight from customers, resulting (hopefully) in more sophisticated audience targeting and content development—and therefore more cost effective engagement.

        But more choice for users also means that marketers have to be more sophisticated in, and take more time with, their content development.

        After all, what does sad or angry actually mean for a piece of content and for the brand that publishes it?

        In addition to demographic targeting, brands now need to consider what kind of Reaction they are looking for, cultivating, monitoring and adapting at a pace fast enough to keep up with their audience.

        Brands will not only need to ensure engagement, but the right sort of engagement by the right sort of people.

        Facebook Reactions will probably make us all better marketers in the long term, delivering better content to people who are genuinely interested in engaging with our brands.

        But it’s not enough to count Likes and shares, Facebook marketing will now require even more analysis and monitoring—and a more sophisticated understanding of the desired audience and their engagement with a brand.

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          Stuffed, Starved or Satisfied

          John Woods December 11, 2025

          Help yourself to a glass of bubbles and I’ll explain how you can apply your party planning skills to improve your LinkedIn Ads budgeting.

          Is the B2B Buying Journey Really Changing?

          Jennifer Esty September 3, 2025

          The B2B buying journey is changing at a fast pace, and B2B marketers must evolve their brand’s digital footprint now or risk obscurity in this new world.

          Digital Transformation Events for B2B Companies

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          We still have places available for our free digital transformation event in Reading on June 9.

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          Join us for an evening with industry experts from Google, Act-On, and Sharp Ahead to:

          • Understand the digital transformation opportunities available for your business
          • See how paid search can quickly enhance your digital presence
          • Explore the impact marketing automation software has on efficiency
          • Hear first-hand how Oxford Innovation digitally transformed their organisation

          (Not to mention networking, nibbles and drinks.)

          Designed for marketing and sales decision makers, this digital transformation event will take place in Reading on June 9.

          The event will begin at 6pm.

          More about the digital transformation events speakers:

          Google Logo

          Hear directly from the experts at Google how digital marketing can quickly and effectively drive awareness, influence purchase consideration and increase sales.

          Act-On Logo

          Marketing Automation experts Act-On will take you through the new buyer’s journey, focusing on the stages of modern marketing and how to turn your customers into advocates for your products and brand. He will provide top tips for content marketing, email marketing, lead nurturing, marketing automation and more.

          Oxford Innovation Logo

          Find out how Oxford Innovation achieved a 90% reduction in client acquisition costs, a 400% increase in qualified sales leads and are 110% ahead of target for sales.

          We surveyed the digital presence of over 500 UK B2B companies. Based on this we think most B2B digital marketing in the UK is broken – that is, poorly done and hurting sales. Dr John Woods will present the survey findings along with quick fixes that B2B digital marketers need to know.

          Contact us to book your place or read the 2016 Broken Report.

          On this page:

          Subscribe

          Receive our biweekly newsletter and stay up to date with the latest B2B digital marketing news and insights.

            Stuffed, Starved or Satisfied

            John Woods December 11, 2025

            Help yourself to a glass of bubbles and I’ll explain how you can apply your party planning skills to improve your LinkedIn Ads budgeting.

            Is the B2B Buying Journey Really Changing?

            Jennifer Esty September 3, 2025

            The B2B buying journey is changing at a fast pace, and B2B marketers must evolve their brand’s digital footprint now or risk obscurity in this new world.

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