Tom Barber
About Tom
I started Web & Roll with Ian in 2016 and look after the agency's direction and our client relationships.
I've worked on hundreds of projects across Sheffield and Yorkshire, from web design to digital marketing and paid search, and I'm a certified Google Partner professional.
Outside work I follow Leeds United, which takes serious resilience, and spend my spare time keeping fit and keeping up with my two boys.
Posts by Tom
Your Google Ads spend went up in June and nobody told you
Since 1 June, Google paces scheduled campaigns towards the full monthly cap. If you run business-hours-only ads and have not touched your budgets since, you have been paying more for five months.
Half of UK small businesses now use AI. One in five feels confident with it.
47% of small business owners now use AI, up from 22% last year. But only 19% feel confident with it and a third use it for admin alone. Here is where Sheffield firms are leaving value on the table.
Cited or invisible: getting your trade business into Google's AI Overviews
78% of UK local trades are invisible in Google's AI Overviews. Here is what plumbers, electricians, builders and other local services can do to get cited.
The May 2026 Google Core Update: what Yorkshire businesses lost (and how to win it back)
Google's May 2026 core update finishes rolling out on or around 4 June. If your Sheffield or Yorkshire business has lost traffic this week, here is what changed and how to recover.
Claude Fable 5 has landed: what Anthropic's new AI model means for Sheffield businesses
Anthropic has released Claude Fable 5, the first of its Claude 5 family and the most capable AI model the public can use. Here is what it actually changes for Sheffield businesses - and what it does not.
New ICO cookie rules from 29 April 2026: what your website must change this month
The ICO has finalised its cookie guidance and PECR fines have jumped to £17.5m. A practical six-step compliance check for UK small business websites before 19 June 2026.
AEO vs GEO: What's the Difference, and Why It Matters for Your Site
AEO and GEO sound similar but target different surfaces. Here's what each means, how they differ, and how to optimise for both on your website.
Why Choose a Small Web Agency? The Benefits of Working with a Specialist Team
Considering a small web agency? Here's why working with a specialist team often means better communication, more bespoke work, and longer-lasting partnerships.
Building authority signals for the AI search era
The same authority signals that helped you rank in classic SEO now also drive citation in AI search. But the bar is higher. Here is what is genuinely working in 2025 — and what is not.
AI Overviews and the new shape of SEO
AI Overviews have replaced SGE in Google search and are appearing on more queries than ever. The signals that earn citation in the Overview are starting to come into focus. Here is what we are seeing.
SGE — Google's AI comes to search results
Google's Search Generative Experience is now in open testing. It puts an AI-written summary at the top of many results pages. Here is what that means for SEO, traffic, and how you should think about content.
Helpful content update
Google recently announced a major update to its search algorithm, the “helpful content” update. This is an important step forward in terms of providing users with helpful and relevant content that can effectively answer their queries. By prioritising “quality over quantity” of content, Google is doi
Migrating from Universal Analytics to GA4 — your prep checklist
Universal Analytics stops processing data on 1 July 2023. If you have not started your GA4 migration yet, now is the time. Here is the practical checklist we work through with clients.
Have your Google rankings changed?
Google constantly run-updates to the search engine to ensure that the results being displayed are accurate to that of what the user has searched. The latest update to the algorithm came in July 2021 and was known as the Core Algorithm update. Any subsequent changes you may have seen...
The Page Experience update is live — what changed and what to do
Google has begun rolling out the Page Experience update — making Core Web Vitals a ranking factor. The change is gentle but real. Here is what to expect and where to focus.
Introduction to Google Analytics 4
Google have recently released early access to their latest update to Google Analytics. If you log in and see the below, you are able to become an early adopter of Google Analytics 4. The main difference between Google Analytics 4 and previous versions is the event-driven data model....
Core Web Vitals — Google's new page experience signals
Google has announced three new metrics that will become a ranking signal: Largest Contentful Paint, First Input Delay and Cumulative Layout Shift. Here is what each one measures and how to think about it.
Keeping your business website going during lockdown
With shops shut and offices closed, your website is doing more of the heavy lifting than ever. Here are the practical changes to make right now so customers can still reach you, buy from you, or find out what you are open for.
What BERT means for SEO — Google's biggest update in five years
BERT is the most significant update to Google search since 2015. It helps Google understand the meaning behind searches, not just the keywords. Here is what that changes — and what it does not.
Google Business Centre Short Names
Your Google short name is in essence very similar to your ‘page username’ on Facebook and provides an easy way to access your Google My Business profile for users. Google has recently introduced a new feature to the Google My Business Centre dashboard called ‘short name’. It allows business...
Google Alerts
Google Alerts is a free content detection service provided by Google. The service is simple to use and can help suggest content for businesses looking for inspiration for SEO and social media campaigns. The user creates an account, then sets keywords they would like to receive related content from t
Tracking templates in Google Ads
When setting up a new Google Ads campaign, we should always use a tracking template. Each part of the template pulls data into Google Analytics so we can monitor how everything is performing individually. From the ads, to the individual keywords, it’s important to collect this data so you...
Fresh content
Maintaining your website by updating your contact data, pricing, opening times and services is vital to enable you to provide potential and current customers accurate information about what your business offers, how much you charge and when these products and services are available. It is also very
What is GDPR
To cut a long story short, GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) is going to be introduced across the EU on 25th May 2018 to prevent people’s data being used or harvested without their permission. If your website or application uses web forms, sell’s products, or collects any kind personal infor
Local SEO basics — how to get your business found in your city
If most of your customers come from a 20-mile radius, you need a different SEO approach to a national e-commerce site. Here is a plain-English guide to ranking locally.
Is your website ready for mobile-first indexing?
Google is moving to mobile-first indexing — meaning your mobile site is the version it ranks, not your desktop. Here is what that means and what to check before the change reaches you.
What is remarketing
If you are running a pay per click campaign with us, we may have explained this to you before. If we don’t, remarketing is a form of advertising utilised by the major search engines which allows advertisers to advertise to previous visitors to their website. It works well in most...
