These two great images are very effective in getting the SEO message accross over to visitors to your website.

(PC Users: Right click save as - Mac users CTRL Click)

You can use them to promote your services, use them in articles, use them to increase sales - you name it - use your creativity. The only restriction is that you provide credit back to the authors (that’s us by the way). It can be a link or a mention of our URL - we’ll leave it entirely up to you.  (Linking instructions below) 

We’ve provided two images - one with an upward graph and the other with a downward graph. These can be used in positive or negative advertsing campaigns. For example you could use the negative trend image with an accompanying slogan such as “Is your website not attracting sales - if not then let us get you sales” or the other in a positive marketing slogan such as “See the fantastic results of our SEO”.

If you know pixel art at all then you will know that it takes many hours to create images like these so we hope you appreciate our efforts.

Linking instructions - please say “SEO image courtesy Breeze Media” and a simple link back to us at “http://www.breezemedia.co.uk”.

If you’re a decent sort then we would be delighted if you would use our anchor text below when linking back to us. The link will look like…

Search Engine Marketing Image

Code:

<a title=”Search Engine Marketing” href=”http://www.breezemedia.co.uk”>Search Engine Marketing Image</a>

Using our example above the URL would be rewritten as follows:

“http://www.breezemedia.co.uk/search-engine-marketing-scotland”

However this looks a little long in the browser so in wordpress, go to edit your category and enter a shortened version of the slug such as “search-engine-marketing” and save this.

If after editing the slug and you receive a message error telleing you the category slug won’t update then there is probably another slug with the same name. In this case check the slugs in your Tags, Links and Link Categories. If you see the same slug either edit this one or choose a new name for the old slug.

The old website was based on a 50’s style American classic cars theme.  It was considered to be unusual for a search engine marketing company to have a well designed website and it even surprised us how many people complemented us on the design . Whilst we loved producing the design we never thought it would attract as much attention - clearly we got something right.

We’ve now rebranded the web design arm of the company and if you are looking for web design then please visit our new web design website. It’s being developed slowly so excuse us whilst we tidy up. It should be fully fledged in the new year

Meantime, we hope you like the reintroduction of the old site.

SEO Edinburgh - results for Wynn Consulting

The search engine optimisation SEO of Edinburgh company Wynn Consulting are showing marvelous results on Google. We have optimised the site for key phrases relating to Government consulting searches.

Wynn Consulting rank on page 1 position of Google for their major key phrase “public authority consulting”.

The terms were carefully researched, selected then tested against other search phrases. We implemented multivariate testing for several months combined with heat maps to determine the best phrase combinations to attract searches from key “recruiter” personel withing local and government authorities.

From the results of our page testing we have seen the quality of visitor increase. Average site visit times increased markedly indicating the right type of visitor was reading the services. Bounce rates were reduced dramatically and the site is now ranking extremely well for key search phrases. This has seen a marked improvement in quality traffic and enquiries.

From heatmaps and testing we determined the best website optimisation so that users would be drawn to key areas of the site, or focus on press releases.

As part of the SEO we gave user training so that we could hand over the monthly updating to the client to make their own onpage optimisation adjustments inhouse.

SEO Edinburgh , keyword analysis and onpage search engine optimistion.

Ceratinly, the SEO service industry, just like any industry has its fair share of scams and rip offs but this does not mean that all SEOs are ‘highway robbers’.

This article (we hope) should give a little insight into good SEO practices and help you avoid falling foul of the ‘masked bandits’.

The “scam” defined…

It works roughly as follows:

• SEO Company guarantees client a “Top 10 Position on Google”
• Client appoints SEO company to get their website listed on the search engines
• SEO ties the client into an optimisation plus monthly fee contract
• SEO optimises website for low level key words/low competition phrases
• SEO tells client they need to keep adjusting keywords each month
• SEO (sometimes) tweaks these keywords/phrases
• SEO sends monthly website report to client
• SEO charges monthly fees (e.g. £200 - £500 pm) for “updates and maintenance”

The SEO may have performed the optimisation and obtained the “guaranteed” result on Google but has most likely used low competition key phrases to achieve this. For example they will use keywords such as the owners business name (the most common keyword mistake) or esoteric inhouse terminology such as “widget model v1.1 repairs”. Easy meat.

By ranking the site for phrases nobody wants the site can stay on Page 1 of Google for years to come. The SEO knows this and can impress the client each month in the monthly ranking reports. This is great for the SEO because they can earn monthly fees for literally pressing a button and therein lies the scam!

Monthly fees are NOT a rip off!

In order to calculate monthly fees the SEO has to evaluate the overall campaign goals. The first and most valuable part of any SEO campaign is the setup fee or initial consultation of the website. This is a skilled SEO service where you will learn everything about your website, your competitors, your goals and targets. This information is worth its weight in gold and not be be undervalued, so expect to pay fees anywhere from £500- £25,000 for this service. (Some large companies will pay a lot more!)

As part of your setup your SEO Company will tell you what services you require - whether it be PPC management, web page optimisation, display advertising, affiliate marketing etc. They will also advise you on the level of monthly “maintenance” required (if any) to achieve your goals. The fees themselves can be for services such as uploading daily data feeds to Google Base, analysing your visitors, spotting trends, making adjustments, performing a/b tests or analysing heat maps. These services are highly skilled and often too much for most companies to perform inhouse. Depending on the website, fees can range from £100 - £10,000 per month and rest assured they’re not figures plucked out of the air! They are carefully calculated towards the returns (ROR’s) on your campaign. So basically the SEOs are putting themselves on the line for your company.

How to select the best SEO company for your campaign? 

Look at their work and the length of time they have been trading. Look at their clients and the testimonials they provide. Look at their results and the competitiveness of their key phrases. Then look at the websites they optimise. Are you enticed to buy from such websites? A good internet marketing company will have all these on hand for you to examine from their website.

When you obtain advice at the initial consultation make sure to ask what’s involved in the monthly fees. If you have a brochure website and do not expect to sell products then it is unlikely you will need any maintenance - your SEO company will tell you this. If on the other hand you sell products in a competitive marketplace then it’s certain that you will need additional services to achieve your goals.

A carefully planned monthly campaign will bring good results and decent returns.

• Onpage optimisation
• Link building
• Social media marketing
• Google product (froogle) marketing & optimisation

Improvements seen since campaign start:

• NEW TRAFFIC:
  58% increase - excellent improvement
• INCOMING TRAFFIC:
  Search engines - 48% - up by 42% - excellent increase
  Direct traffic - 45% - aiming to reduce this to around 10%
  Referring traffic - 6.5% - up by 6.5%
  [Previously 96% of visits came from direct traffic which was very poor. ]
• BOUNCE RATE:
  10.04% down from 18.9%
  Bounce rate is the number of visitors who leave your site after arriving on any landing page.
  A lower bounce rate percentage is better.
• AVERAGE TIME ON SITE PAGES:
  5mins 31 secs
  This is excellent improvement and correlates with low bounce rates. Page view times are encouraging on the product pages implying that visitors are reading product information.

As can be seen from the Google Analytics screen capture there is a definite trend increase in traffic sine we took over the optimisation. Page views and vists are following similar trends indicating that visitors are finding the site sticky. The Pie chart was previously all green which was very bad meaning all traffic was direct. This has shown a marked swing in favour of search engine traffic filtering through the organic results.

So what is Google analytics (GA) ring fencing?

Basically, its when your SEO Company registers your website on a free Google Analytics account but denies you access to that same account. Your website could be stored on a single account or a parent account with up to 50 other websites.

Here’s how it works:

Your SEO company contracts to provide you with monthly reports as part of your SEO package. They add your website to a GA account then place some Google tracking code on your website. After a week or so you receive your first report (usually by email). However the problems arise later when you ask for access to your online reports. You make your request only to be told your reports are “confidential”, “too complex” or you could “view the reports of other clients”. Hence your data has been “ring fenced”.

Why it benefits the SEO company.

This benefits the SEO company because they can lock you into their services in the following ways: 

• You can only obtain the reports from the SEO company
• You have to rely on the SEO Company for technical expertise on your data

but there are darker sides that benefit them such as:  

• They get to charge you fees for generating the (free) report
• They can threaten you with losing your historical data if you…
  • stop using their services
  • move your SEO to another company
• Tell you can lose your rankings (yes some actually say this!)

Conclusion

Any ethical SEO company should provide you with your own analytics account to which you can access your data any time. They will not charge you fees for reports but a small fee to set up the account is reaonable. They will not make claims about losing historical data or losing your rankings.The data if free and it is yours!

It is fair however to be charged for analysis of these reports and any adjustments to your website. The reports provide valuable data aimed at professionals which can be used to improve the performance of your website.

If your SEO Company is ring fencing your GA account then perhaps its time to look for alternatives.

In Wordpress there is a feature that automatically pings any server you wish to tell about your new content, however, there is only one server listed in a standard Wordpress installation so you will need to add a few more. We’ve listed a few for you use below.

To install the list go to your admin and select “Settings -> Writing” then scroll to the bottom of the page. Paste your list into the form field then click to save. Viola!

http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://bblog.com/ping.php
http://blogping.unidatum.com/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
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http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://rpc.wpkeys.com
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Rather than write about projects after they have been completed we have deceided to write about this one as it happens so that you can see the progess of a website having no search engine presence to (hopefully) being ranked at the top of the search engines.

The Silver Experience offer affordable, stylish and collectable handcrafted pieces through a distribution channel as well as online. Unfortunately they do not rank at all on the search engines and with Chritsmas approaching it is a time when sales account for a huge proportion of their turnover.

When we were approached by the company the mandate was to get their ecommerce website listed on the search engines as quickly as possible in order to capitalise on the christmas market - the most luctrative time of year for online jewellery sales.

We produced a plan that involves the onpage SEO, the website optimisation to improve click through to conversion and also a social media marketing campaign. Added to this we have created a blog that the company will use to provide interesting articles on company news, jewellery making, fair trade issues whilst providing good links and a place for their customers to comment on their pieces.

Watch this space!

Watson search partners are an executive recruitment company based in Aberdeen. They cater for the corporate jobs and executive jobs sectors in oil and gas sectors in Aberdeen and throughout Scotland.

They attract high quality candidates for top level positions so keyword choice had to be distinguished from mainstream job sites in Scotland 

Breeze media built a content management system so they could update the entire site. Added to this we did the on page search engine optimisation and the results have been impressive. Watson Search partners rank on page 1 of Google for the terms “Executive Recruitment” .

Another search engine optimisation success story by Breeze Media