Top 5 Mobile Office Locations in London

According to the office for national statistics, 2.5 million of us accessed the internet via a wireless ‘hot spot’ last year, an increase from 700,000 in 2007. This rise can be directly attributed to the increase in both the number of public locations offering Wi-Fi and the public’s demand for such services.

A large proportion of you will have frequent requirements for virtual office working and therefore the need for areas in which remote working is facilitated. It is only a matter of time for those of you who can’t. Mobile working is set to become the UK norm by the end of the year according to Voxclever, a leading provider of small business IT services. Voxclever also claim virtual office workers could account for 73% of the UK’s workforce by the end of this year.

The recent spate of bad weather in London and the UK highlighted the need for employees and employers alike to investigate the benefits of working remotely. It shouldn’t be considered an afterthought for those not able to make it in/back to the office – especially when you consider that 73% of employees claim to be more productive when working remotely [study by Voxclever].

We have compiled a short list highlighting our pick of London ‘hotspots’ helping to make your remote working experience as productive and enjoyable as possible. Claim your booth, terrace or rent a room quickly as these locations have limited space and are already proving popular with those who have already embraced the idea of wireless working.

City Inn Westminster
Looking for an office away from an office? Walk no further than City Inn as it has just announced a planned major increase in internet bandwidth for customers. The dedicated 100Mbps (Mega bits per second) backbone will support the company’s six hotels across the UK and will mean a 36Mbps dedicated internet connection to their London Hotels which will probably cause traffic jams as people line up to take advantage (the average hotspot connection is 2.4Mbs).

Most other hotels charge customers around £25 for similar services, but at City Inn access to its dedicated line if free, so put your money towards the price of a coffee as its City Cafe provides wireless too, in fact, the wireless network can be accessed from anywhere in the hotel.

Monmouth Coffee

If you are in the Soho/Covent Garden area, you would be hard pushed to find a cafe globally that can compete with Monmouth Coffee’s world class roasting programme. Combine this coffee expertise with free Wi-Fi, and you have stumbled upon a couple of hour’s worth of caffeinated remote working heaven.

Arcola Theatre
The Arcola Theatre likes the word FREE, it operates on a shoestring budget(many staff work here for free) and it also provides FREE Wi-Fi in the theatre bar. What is not to like? Go pay it a visit and soak up the culture.

London River Service
Did you know that most London River Services operate every 30 minutes? The majority of Londoners wouldn’t be able to tell you where they dock either, although a large proportion of commuters could probably use the service at least once a week. If you are heading to a meeting or commuting home, you won’t be able to argue with the majesty of river travel especially on the Thames. The entire LRS fleet is equipped with free Wi-Fi, transforming these vessels into floating offices, with some of the finest views of London available.

The Royal Festival Hall
Head to the second floor of The Royal Festival Hall to tap into the strongest signal and for the breathtaking views across the Thames to Somerset House. Alternatively (weather permitting) take an outdoor seat and allow the morning sun to bath over you whilst mulling over a comprehensive seasonal menu. Did we mention that if work gets a bit too much, there is always culture?

Hear me speak at SES London 2009

Ok probably not worth coming to the conference just to hear me speak, but if you are going to SES London on 17th-19th February why not drop by my sessions? The line up of speakers this year is looking cracking and there will also be plenty of time for networking. LondonSEO is organising it's usual networking party on the last day of the conference this year (Thursday 19th Feb), again with free beers and the chance to network with fellow search marketers.

This year I'm speaking at the following sessions:

Tuesday 17th February at 11 am

Universal & Blended Search Session
This is going to be a great session, I love talking about Universal Search and can't really get my head around people not taking the opportunity to totally dominate the SERPs by optimising ALL it's digital content and not just text. Optimising your images, videos etc can have a big impact and is often easier that optimising content. Although techincally you are optimising the content still as of yet the search engines can't read audio (but they will one day). Anyway, this is a well worth session to attend. I know I'm going to learn a lot from the other speakers and I'm hoping it's going to be a nice juicy discussion afterwards. If you are there, please feel free to chip in. It doesn't need to be a question if you know something we don't know please share. That's what this industry is all about =)

My second session is on Thursday 19th February at 11:45

Social Media Optimisation (I can't bring myself to spell it with a z!)
This is going to be a fun session and usually has loads of great example of success and how to get it right. There is so many ways of doing SMO now, it's not just utilising social media networks such as facebook. In fact I think that's a bit last year now. I have started calling this Online PR instead of SMO as I think the term SMO doesn't describe how BIG this truly is. Using SMO for gaining links is a old line, but still so true. People are getting more creative on how to do this and this will be the session to find out. I think this is the first year in ages that Ciaran Norris is not on this panel, which is a shame as his SMO presentations are always good. Hmm maybe I can steal his presentation, only kidding. But I'm sure he will be in the audience heckling.

All in all this is set to be a great SES conference, I'm looking forward to it. Are you going? If so please don't hesitate to come and say hello, I'm really not as scary as Julie says I am ;)

Speaking at a Chinwag Live Event

I've been invited to be on the panel at the next Chinwag Live event "Search Vs Recommended"

I'm really excited about this event as I've heard so many great things about these events. Instead of having a panel with each person presenting some old powerpoint presentation they have presented a thousand times before, these events is ACTUALLY a proper LIVE panel. Where all the panelist discuss their views (hopefully even a heated debate) and the audience gets to ask questions for more than 5 min at the end. Really looking forward to it.

This Chinwag event is about Search Vs Recommendation site. For example this extract from the Chinwag website "recommendation need search engines so people can find their content. But what about when users become regular visitors to recommendation sites? Could these visitors abandon search altogether, or do people use search and recommendation for different things?" Now just this paragraph has me already wanting to talk, in fact I'm biting my tongue not to start right here and now.

So if you are in London on Tuesday 2nd September at 6pm, please feel free to join us in this debate. It's being held at The Slug & Lettuce in Wardour Street (central London, just off Shaftsbury Avenue). If you book now it's only £25 and you get free drinks and snacks!

Oh and as for the other panelist, on the search side of the panel its myself and Jon Myers (my fiance, Head of Search at MediaVest), we are so going to kick some ass. Recommendation sites would be no where without the search engines...

For more information check out the Chinwag website

Far Far Away.......in Cyber Space

The last few months have been hectic to say the least. I've recruited more people into my team, actually managed to LAUNCH Base One Search (after what seems like a lifetime!) and also launched a movie for the launch campaign of the site.

The movie is called "SEO Wars" , starring:

Rand Fishkin as Rand LinkWalker
Fantomaster as Darth CloakMaster
Greg Jarbo as SEOda
and
Matt Cutts as Googlesaurus



The plot:

Far far away............... in cyber space, the Jedis (white hat SEOs) and Siths (black hat SEOs) are fighting for the best rankings in the mighty Googletrons results pages. In the first series of SEO Wars we see the mighty Darth Cloakmaster take on Rand LinkWalker and gets rudely interrupted by SEOda....

It was so much fun making this movie so even if its not a hit it would be worth it. If you want to view the movie please visit the B Search Blog

Let me know what you think =)

Awards, speaking at conferences and my own column - up and beyond!

The past year has been an amazing year for me; SEO-Chicks has been a great success, I won the B2B Newcomer of the Year back in November, I've been a speaker at both SMX London and SES London. I'm also, as of next month, writing a regular column about Search Marketing in B2B Marketing Magazine.


To top it all, this month I've been shortlisted for the Blackberry Women & Technology Awards in the category "Best Use of Technology by under 30 year old woman". Just being shortlisted for this award is a major achievement for me. The winner will be announced at an Award Ceremony on 6th May =) Cross your fingers (and toes) for me!


It's all a bit daunting, seeing as 3 years ago this month I was just getting ready to get back to work after 9 month maternity leave. And I knew just about nothing about search marketing. But I was hungry to learn, after sitting at home for 9 months, doing my fair share of nappy talk. I was ready to prove that your career doesn't need to end when you have children. In fact it turns out my career STARTED after having my daughter. I always thought having children would make you care less about your work, but in my case it hasn't, I feel very passionate about what I do (for the first time in my life), I work hard but it's easy when you actually love what you do =)

I'm a finalist in the B2B Marketing Awards

I'm genuinely stoked to be shortlisted for the final in the B2B Marketing Awards 2007 in the category "B2B marketing newcomer of the year". It's been such an exciting year for me and to be shortlisted for an award like this really makes the hard work worth it =) I think I'm most excited about the Gala dinner, this Cinderella gets to go to the ball!

Out of date I know - but check out SEO Chicks!!

Just in case you are thinking, this blog is OOOOOOLD! You're totally right, I haven't posted here for donkeys. I haven't disappeared from the blogging scene though, I have just been busy with the SEO Chicks blog, which is going great by the way.

So if you are looking for some fantastic SEO information, tips and news, head over to the SEO CHICKS website!!!

Surbiton Pilates