CORE has new owners, the good news is you know them already! I’m thrilled to share that CORE has transitioned to an Employee Ownership Trust (EOT) - securing our future while staying true to our values & collaborative spirit.

It’s an exciting step for the entire team and although in many ways nothing has changed, in that I will remain Managing Director for the foreseeable future and we shall continue to provide the same level of quality service to our clients, it is something which opens up a new world of opportunities for us to explore.

When I started CORE in 2003, my goal was to build an agency that delivered high-quality web, and digital marketing services. Over the past 20+ years, we’ve grown organically, forging lasting relationships with incredible clients and fostering a talented team that has made CORE what it is today.

As I considered the long-term future of the business, I explored various succession options. After looking into traditional routes like mergers and buyouts, I discovered employee ownership—a model that offers stability, continuity, and a commitment to the people who have been instrumental in our success.

Employee ownership knits seamlessly into our own ethos and ways of working as an agency - formalising many of the naturally collaborative ways in which we’ve been operating while also continuing to encourage employees to have a voice in guiding future company direction.

We’ve worked very hard to build and develop an agency environment where employees feel heard and valued and our employee retention numbers speak for themselves. The average time spent at CORE amongst our current staff is 10 years per team member, with the team in total carrying over 100 years of combined experience at the company. It is this consistency that enables us to deliver high quality services that our clients find so valuable, secure in the knowledge their points of contact within the team are in it for the long term and invested in the success of their projects.

An Employee Ownership Trust (EOT) is a government-supported model that enables businesses to be transferred to their employees, ensuring they have a vested interest in the company's ongoing success. Here’s why it made perfect sense for CORE:

Business stability: CORE remains independent, safeguarding our unique culture and client relationships.

Rewarding the team: Employees share in the success they help create, reinforcing a sense of ownership and commitment.

A smooth transition: The model allows for a gradual leadership shift, ensuring knowledge transfer and strategic continuity.

Client confidence: Our clients can be assured of the same high standards of service and innovation that we’ve always delivered.

With an Employee Ownership Trust, the company is placed into a trust on behalf of its employees. Rather than individual share ownership, the trust holds 100% of the shares for the benefit of the entire team. This model fosters a collective, long-term vision where employees work together to drive sustainable growth and innovation.

Me (Ceri Richmond) – Founder & Managing Director

Paul Cantrill – Independent Trustee (Cwmpas)

This transition wouldn’t have been possible without the guidance of Social Business Wales, Cwmpas, Geldards LLP and BPU Chartered Accountants. A special thanks to Paul Cantrill, Andrew Evans and Huw Palin for their expertise and support throughout the process.

What This Means for Our Clients and Partners

For our clients, partners, and stakeholders, this change strengthens CORE’s foundation for the future. Our team remains committed to delivering excellence in branding, web development and digital marketing, with the added motivation that comes from shared ownership. As mentioned earlier, I'll be continuing as Managing Director for the foreseeable future, gradually stepping back to empower our management team to take on more responsibilities while ensuring a seamless transition over a number of years.

This transition marks an exciting new era for CORE—one that honours our past while embracing an innovative, employee-led future. We look forward to continuing our journey, working with our amazing clients and partners, and shaping the next chapter of our success.

For more information on Employee Ownership, visit Employee Ownership Wales.

If a client was ever to say to us that they were willing only to invest in one area related to the ongoing upkeep of their digital presence (beyond its technical maintenance) it would be reporting. This is because it unlocks so many doors as to understanding your website and therefore understanding where exactly future investment would be best served.

However, we’ve also in our time seen how reporting can be, put simply, done wrong. Inaccurate or uninformed reporting can lead to the exact opposite of what was mentioned above in seeing funds wasted in areas either which have no need or no hope of success.

One of the leading causes of this issue is a preoccupation with what are called ‘vanity metrics’. The name gives a clue as to what they entail; metrics which look and sound important but can actually give no deeper insight or bear any relation on their own to how your business is actually performing beyond a surface level.

We have gathered some of these metrics together which hopefully will give you food for thought on their usage in your own reports and how they should be considered;

Sessions - This seems like it should be one of the founding elements of any report and indeed it should be, but crucially sessions on their own should rarely be the defining factor of the success of your website. Sessions may go up and down throughout the year but how do they relate to your KPIs and can you determine trends from these movements? That’s where the real value lies.

Bounce Rate - A term which is often claimed as a ‘buzzword’ when it comes to reporting but on many occasions has no bearing as to the performance of a website. Of course you want a user to be engaged with your site, so a user immediately leaving a website with no onward action seems like bad news, but there are instances where this may be misleading. As an example, for an informational site a user lands on a page from a Google search where their questions are satisfactorily answered and they have no need to visit further pages of the site. This would in fact be a success for that site but also registered as a bounce at the same time. For this also see ‘average engagement time/session duration’ and ‘average pages viewed/views per session’ which have similar caveats, all grouped as ‘user engagement’ metrics.

Impressions - Now we would caveat this by saying that of course if the goal of your website/campaign is to drive brand awareness then yes, impressions would indeed be an important standalone metric. However, for a website designed for a user to actually engage with it in some form (i.e. lead, sale etc), impressions on their own should not be seen as a barometer of success. In much the same way as sessions, they can sometimes blind you to the ‘quality’ of the traffic you are attracting to the site in the search for ‘quantity’. Yes you have eyes on the site/brand, but who’s eyes?

Cost Per Click - A paid advertising specific example for you here and, in truth, there’s lots of examples we could take from this traffic source - clicks, clickthrough rate, impression share. But we thought we’d highlight cost per click because it has the word ‘cost’ in it which always draws attention. Although monitoring cost per click is important as part of a holistic PPC reporting strategy it must always tie into your KPI. Sometimes that converting traffic is unfortunately always going to cost you that bit more!

Average Position - “I can get you to number 1 in Google?” has been the most common refrain from a large number of different digital marketing organisations over the years. To which the answer should really be “Yeah, but for what?”. It’s crucial that the terms/queries you’re seeking to rank well for are for traffic which has a high level of ‘intent’ behind it - whether that’s an intent to book, buy or even just browse, if that’s what your website goals are. Also more specifically it’s important to note the Average Position metric you can find in Google Search Console includes all search queries picked up by the tool. So ironically you could be ranking for more terms (and still maintaining or even improving rankings for key terms) while your average position dips because those new terms you are ranking for in positions 72, 84 & 93 (etc) are dragging your average down.

Now what we’d never want to do is tell you to ignore these metrics, it’s important to be aware of them and monitor (where appropriate) as part of a holistic reporting strategy. The key aspect here is that these metrics on their own in the majority of instances will not give you a reliable indicator as to the performance of your website. 

So by chasing your tail in seeking to improve a metric or resting on your laurels with a metric riding high, you may be missing the bigger picture.

Where these ‘vanity’ metrics come into their own is when you do see issues with your KPI activity - can you determine any relationship between the trendlines of these metrics with your KPIs? As an example if conversions have gone down at the same time as sessions you may be looking at an acquisition issue or if bounce rate has increased you could be looking at a user engagement or UX/UI issue. These metrics will make triage of your wider performance problems that much easier.

If you’ve been looking for a helping hand with sorting your KPIs from your ‘vanity metrics’ as you seek to establish a tried and trusted reporting strategy for your digital presence, drop us a line or @ us on our socials.

We’ve often said at CORE that reporting should be the cornerstone of any ‘digital marketing’ activity.

This extends to the staff headshots on your site, with the added impact on the morale of the team with the boost professional-looking headshots can give to the staff ‘feel good factor’.

What we would always recommend when approaching photography is this process is best handled by the professionals, with a host of fantastic agencies and freelancers out there who can meet your brief to exacting standards. However, we know that often when it comes to booking a photographer ‘life gets in the way’.

Whether it’s your budget or the fact your staff work remotely, it can be difficult to get both a professional photographer and your staff together in the same room. So what can you do when this situation arises?

We’ve pulled together a guidance document for such an occasion, giving some tips as to how your staff can generate consistent, high quality staff headshots with just an iPhone. Feel free to download our guidance document in full below as a PDF, while we have also listed here a few key recommendations:

✔️ Set up your iPhone camera in portrait mode

✔️ Make sure you are in a naturally lit environment

✔️ Find a clean, white wall or a non cluttered background

✔️ Grab a helper, or set up somewhere to rest your phone

✔️ Stand back so there is around 30% of wall space above your head

✔️ Position the shot from the waist up

✔️ If you are without a helper, set up a tripod or other leaning post for your phone and use the timer function

❌ Do not take a ‘selfie’ or angle the phone at all

❌ Do not stand against reflective backgrounds/mirrors or areas of natural light e.g. windows

❌ Do not set up a scene (unless instructed)

❌ Avoid poorly lit areas and reflective shadows

✔️ Take multiple shots to give a selection of choice

✔️ Send over the photos as high quality files

❌ Do not edit/crop your pictures, leave that to the design team

Please download the PDF below to view our full guidance document, including imagery to show you best and worst practices. While if you have any questions about how photography fits into your sense of brand and how this is best achieved we’d be delighted to talk. 

CORE Photography Guidelines.pdf

Photography is such a crucial element in the design of a website. It can go so far in helping you to achieve that brand direction you want to exude to your users, no matter what that direction actually is.

Team headshots when budget or geography get in the way

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