* We use macs

Hi! Welcome to tmbr.

tmbr is a small web design, web development and search optimisation company based in Liverpool

We make some lovely websites for companies up and down the country. We also help companies redesign their current web sites, manage their sites (adding new content etc.) and promote their sites via Google Adwords and so-called Organic search.

We could probably help you too!

tmbr was officially formed in 2008. Prior to this, the tmbr team were known as Vandelay Industries and had been successfully trading online since 2006; although the leader of tmbr has been online since the mid 1990's.

Vandelay Industries changed it's name to tmbr for a number of reasons:

  • To create a more professional image
  • To signify that the small design shoppe, Vandelay, had grown into something bigger, nicer
  • Because Vandelay, Van-der-lay, Vander-who? - consistently failed the "radio test" - much to our chagrin

Think of tmbr as a beautiful, vibrant butterfly and Vandelay as a wriggly little grub; squishy.

tmbr is lead by Christopher Hough

Chris has worked in the new media industry since the turn of the century. He began helping small companies develop a web presence whilst completing his University studies, Chris went on to work for a local marketing agency and got the chance to work on many Shell UK projects.

Chris then went to work at an internet startup, MoneySupermarket, as something akin to a software developer, before moving to a search engine optimisation role and helping the price comparison website improve it's Organic rankings from nowhere, to top 20 in a few short months.

This, in turn, led Chris to Manchester where he headed the SEO team at one of Europe's largest Internet Marketing agencies, Big Mouth Media (formerly Global Media UK).

Never one to sit on his laurels, Chris next went to work as an Affiliate Manager in Chester for a large Independent Travel Company. With a further year's worth of experience in this market Chris started Vandelay Industries (squishy) in February 2007; working on his own websites and helping local agencies and web designers to build search engine friendly websites.

Three things you didn't know about Chris:

  • In his early teens, Chris wrote to the CIA to ask for summer-work experience; their reply must have been intercepted by the Ruskies.
  • He loves quotes by induhviduals and made a widget to celebrate his passion
  • His favourite cookies are Oatmeal & Raisen

Chris currently works with agencies and in-house teams small and large, if you need some website optimisation help or advice, an extra pair of skilled hands, or a trusted outsourcer why not get in touch?

Our services

We are proficient in all manner of web activity, be it design, development, optimisation, accessibility or analytics. Contact us to discuss your project's requirements.

  • Web Design & Development
    If you don’t have a website now is the perfect time to get one. We can design and build a simple to use, attractive and engaging web site that is affordable and will help to drive new business.
  • Search Engine Optimisation
    If you need to improve the search engine ranking of your website we can help. Using a number of Search Engine Optimisation techniques we can bolster the rankings of your website within the major UK search engines.
  • Web Accessibility
    Making your website accessible to disabled users doesn't have to be an difficult. We create sites using best practice coding techniques and can ensure your website meets current web accessibility standards.
  • Google Web Analytics
    Knowing what users do when they are on your website is a key performance indicator as to how successful your website is in selling your product or service.
    We can install the powerful Google Analytics software on your site so that each and every visitor to your website can be tracked; recording visitor numbers, where visitors go and what they do.
    Monthly analysis of user browsing habits can also be done to help identify weak areas of your website, enabling further optimisation work to be carried out to improve customer usability and conversion.
  • Google Pay Per Click
    For instant results, Google Pay Per Click is an excellent and cost effective way of driving targeted users to your website. We can setup Google PPC Campaigns, helping you to choose the right keywords, target the right audience and optimise your campaign to reduce costs.
  • Copywriting
    Copywriting is an essential part of any website optimisation project. We specialise in producing Search Optimised Copy that is both compelling for a reader and keyword rich for a search engine.
  • Email Marketing
    Email is a powerful and inexpensive form of marketing that can help businesses reach their customers easily and quickly. We can help you build and optimise an email marketing campaign to drive new customers to your website.
  • Domain Names & Web Hosting
    Domain Names are the real estate of the digital world. Owning the right Domain Name can help you to build a memorable brand and generate natural leads to your website.

Contact us

Christopher Hough
tmbr web design
Office 515
5th Floor Horton House
Exchange Flags
Liverpool
L2 3PF

team@tmbr.co.uk

Aon Charity Insurance

Aon Charities Insurance launched a number of charity insurance products specially designed for charities and voluntary organisations. We optimised their online offerings to help them rank well within the main search engines (Google, Google UK, MSN UK and Yahoo UK).

Aon Charities Insurance offer charity insurance products and services to a wide range of charities and voluntary organisations. Today, they protect almost 8,000 local and mid range charities.

Following our initial optimisation, Aon Charities Insurance ranked highly for the majority of their target keywords. We continue to work with Aon Charities Insurance to build and maintain search rankings for a number of their key areas such as charity minibus insurance, voluntary organisation insurance and charity insurance.

Aon Construction Insurance

Aon Construction Insurance launched a number of construction insurance products specially designed for builders, electricians, roofers and other tradesmen. We optimised their online offerings to help them rank well within the main search engines (Google, Google UK, MSN UK and Yahoo UK).

Aon Construction Insurance are a world leading insurance broker and provider of risk management services, a major force in reinsurance and human capital consulting.

Following our initial optimisation, Aon Construction Insurance ranked within the main search engines for the majority of their target keywords. We continue to work with Aon Construction Insurance to build and maintain search rankings for a number of their key areas such as builders insurance, tradesmen insurance and construction site insurance.

Aon Entertainment & Media Insurance

Aon Entertainment & Media Insurance launched a number of entertainment insurance products specially designed for entertainers, film production companies and other media industry professionals. We optimised their online offerings to help them rank well within the main search engines (Google, Google UK, MSN UK and Yahoo UK).

Aon Entertainment & Media Insurance have been creating specialist insurance policies for broadcasters, film production companies, camera operators, sound technicians and post-production companies for more than a decade.

Following our initial optimisation, Aon Entertainment & Media Insurance ranked on the first and second pages of the main search engines for the majority of their target keywords. We continue to work with Aon Entertainment & Media Insurance to build and maintain search rankings for a number of their key areas such as entertainers insurance, media and entertainment insurance.

Aon Household Insurance

Aon Household Insurance launched a number of home insurance products specially designed for owners of high value, prestige homes. We optimised their online offerings to help them rank well within the main search engines (Google, Google UK, MSN UK and Yahoo UK).

Aon Household Insurance prides itself on offering a personal service to ensure you get the attention you deserve for your household insurance.

Following our initial optimisation, Aon Household Insurance ranked highly for the majority of their target keywords. We continue to work with Aon Household Insurance to build and maintain search rankings for a number of their key areas such as overseas home insurance, second home insurance and thatched home insurance.

Aon Military Insurance (PAX)

We manage and maintain the Google Pay Per Click campaign for one of the UK’s leading military personnel insurers.

PAX Insurance provides insurance products for military personnel, their kit, their homes, their family and their possessions.

Google Pay Per Click is an excellent and cost effective way of driving targeted users to your website. We can help you setup Google PPC Campaigns, helping you to choose the right keywords, target the right audience and optimise your campaign to reduce costs.

Aon Professional Services Group

Aon Professional Services Group launched a number of professional insurance products specially designed for accounts, doctors, surveyors and other professionals. We optimised their online offerings to help them rank well within the main search engines (Google, Google UK, MSN UK and Yahoo UK).

Aon Professional Services Group provide the necessary market leverage, access to the widest range of both local and international insurers and depth of experience and market strength to help you meet the challenges of today's market.

Following our initial optimisation, Aon Professional Services Group ranked within the main search engines for the majority of their target keywords. We continue to work with Aon Professional Services Group to build and maintain search rankings for a number of their key areas such as professional insurance, doctor’s insurance and solicitors insurance.

Aon Specialist Cars

Aon Specialist Car Insurance launched a number of car insurance products specially designed for owners of high performance cars and classic sports cars. We optimised their online offerings to help them rank well within the main search engines (Google, Google UK, MSN UK and Yahoo UK).

With Aon Specialist Car Insurance you get a highly personalised service - and your car gets the cover it deserves.

Following our initial optimisation, Aon Specialist Car Insurance ranked on the first and second pages of the main search engines for the majority of their target keywords. We continue to work with Aon Specialist Car Insurance to build and maintain search rankings for a number of their key areas such as Aston Martin car insurance, Bentley car insurance and high performance car insurance.

Aon Tenant Contents Insurance

Aon Tenant Contents Insurance launched a number of tenant insurance products specially designed for councils and housing authorities. We optimised their online offerings to help them rank well within the main search engines (Google, Google UK, MSN UK and Yahoo UK).

Aon Tenant Contents Insurance has been at the forefront of the growth in popularity of tenants contents insurance schemes and it’s services are currently being used by over 120 councils and housing associations.

Following our initial optimisation, Aon Tenant Contents Insurance ranked well for the majority of their target keywords. We continue to work with Aon Tenant Contents Insurance to build and maintain search rankings for a number of their key areas such as tenants content insurance and housing association insurance.

ASI Solutions

We design, build and maintain a website and several HTML newsletters for this market leading road repair company.

ASI Solutions develop and supply low cost, environmentally friendly, high performance processes and products that deliver sustainable improvements and protection to both asphalt and concrete surfaces.

The ASI website is one of the biggest projects undertaken by tmbr. It marries the best web standard code, search engine optimisation, eye catching design and content manage systems to produce an exciting and vibrant website.

Astute Development

We designed an easy to use, content rich website for this local training company.

Astute Development provides organisations with the ideas, knowledge, programmes and tools to help them improve their performance whilst keeping costs under control.

The Astute Development website is branded in company colours, uses a simple content management system to control page content and is built entirely in CSS.

Bernie Shot Me

A local photographer needed an online portfolio for her growing collection of commercial photographic images. tmbr came to the rescue.

Bernie needed a website to promote her photographic services to new clients. We built a CMS powered website and Flash Image Gallery to create a site that Bernie could update whenever she captured an image that wanted to share it with the world.

Bernie can be seen capturing images in Bromborough and beyond.

BrainBoxes

We worked with Brainboxes to deliver both a HTML email campaign and a series of animated banners for placement on popular industry leading websites.

Brainboxes are a world leader in the supply, design and manufacture of serial circuit boards and technology.

Our HTML newsletters and animated banners tied in with their website and offline marketing to maintain brand image and promote their products in a new media.

Domaining for Firefox

We like domain names and currently possess some absolute gems (read three letter .coms).

Whilst scouring the domain name aftermarket website, we thought it would be great if you could see additional information about a domain name that would affect it’s price.

We thought that was such a good idea that we built a donation-ware plugin for the Firefox web browser.

The domaining for Firefox plugin was born.

Eclipse Creative Consultants

We worked with Eclipse on a number of web design and web development projects.

Eclipse Creative is a full service advertising agency, with a reputation for offering innovative, creative and "value for money" solutions.

We worked closely with the web developers at Eclipse Creative to create, update and maintain a number of websites, using our skills in CSS to reduce page bloat and help websites run faster.

Footman James

We manage and maintain the Google Pay Per Click campaign for one of the UK’s leading classic car insurers.

Footman James provides classic car insurance for specialist vehicles in a competitive market and offers a service that is second to none.

We analysed Footman James’ keywords, adverts, landing pages and daily budgets. By optimising each in turn, we were able to bring about some serious changes over the course of a few months increasing the click through rate of their advertisements by 41% whilst simultaneously reducing their average cost-per-click by 10%.

Fluid Creativity

We helped populate the Fluid maintained websites with punchy, engaging web copy.

Fluid Creativity is an award winning Web Design Agency and Digital Marketing / SEO Company based in Manchester, providing complete online solutions for businesses.

We wrote a number of articles and news stories for both internal and external clients.

GBSEO

We helped GBSEO realise their dream of an easy to update website that could promote their services online.

GBSEO (or Graham Bowers SEO) are a small search engine optimisation company based in Lancaster. They work on a number of local projects and are partnering with tmbr on several, national, search marketing campaigns.

The GBSEO website uses a powerful content management system so that the site can be updated with a few clicks of a mouse.

Goldford Stud

We built the Goldford Stud website to create an attractive, feature rich offering for this Cheshire based horse racing stud.

Goldford Stud was established in 1981 and has become recognised as one of the leading lights amongst British based studs.

The Goldford Stud website was built using only CSS and can be maintained by a simple to use CMS; which we also developed. The Goldford Stud website was designed by those clever chaps at Eclipse Creative.

GroundSure Environmental Consultancy

We search engine optimised the GroundSure website to improve positions with the main search engines for phrases directly related to it’s core business.

GroundSure provides environmental, planning and land use information to environmental consultants and is the only company in the UK to combine professional Environmental Consultancy services with a comprehensive Environmental Information Business.

We optimised the GroundSure website and performed our magic elsewhere to increase the GroundSure rankings within the search engines by (on average) over 70 positions! E.g. before we started work GroundSure were on the 7th page of Google, six weeks later, they were on page one (somewhere near the top).

GroundSure currently ranks highly for a number for a number of key terms such as environmental consultancy, environmental land use, historical maps UK and environmental due diligence. tmbr made it happen.

SM Tool Hire

A tool hire shop wanted to attract new business online, so we built them a fancy website.

SM Tool Hire are a local business offering tool hire services to the Wirral. Paul Stevenson, the owner of SM Tool Hire, wanted a colourful website that could promote the range of tools available for hire and attract new business via the internet.

We created a fresh website that tried not to imitate any other tool hire website, designing a unique, engaging interface.

Tool Hire is a competitive online industry so we created information pages for every single one of SM Tool Hire’s products, helping them to rank easier for long tail keywords.

Sonaa

We work with Sonaa to optimise a number of large, corporate websites for clients such as Aon Insurance UK.

Sonaa is an independent creative communications agency, expert in all aspects of digital communications, from websites and eDM to online advertising and interactive games.

SW&G Motors

A local garage needed an online presence. We created a site that is small but perfectly formed.

SW&G Motors offer autobody repair / paintwork, classic car restoration, the painting of caravans, boats, motor bikes and shop fittings.

The SW&G Motors website is built upon the popular open-source Content Mangement System, Wordpress.