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

So…what is Search Engine Marketing (SEM)?

Search engine marketing is really search engine advertising or “pay per click”. Other methods exist such as buying into trusted feeds and paid inclusion to search directories like Yahoo but these are less common. 

Pay per click is the most common and takes the form of paid text adverts such as Google’s sponsored links or Yahoo’s sponsored results. These appear on the right hand side of search results pages or sometimes above the main (organic) search results. They take the form of short text adverts. These adverts are bid for and placed on the page by the search engine. The higher the bid the better the position on the page.

The advert takes the form of a few words and displayed on the sponsored links area. The advertiser is charged a fee when a visitor clicks on the advert and this is known as a click through. The advert does not incur a charge if it is only displayed on the page.

Placing PPC ads on Google, Yahoo, MSN etc is very similar to placing clasified ads in your newspaper. It requires very little skills but it can be a waste of money if you don’t do it properly. It does rely heavily on understanding target markets, audiences, conversion rates and return on investments. The correct ad-writing skills also plays a vital part so this is where a professional search engine marketing company can obtain the best results for your advertising budget.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) – what’s the difference

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the process of optimising the pages of a website so that they can be found in the top results of search engines like Google, Yahoo & MSN. These pages are optimised for certain keywords in the title, description and body text of that particular web page. This is also known as “onpage optimisation”.  However this is very basic and there are many more factors involved. Search engines use something called “algorithms” to determine the suitability of a web page to be presented in it’s results. These algorithms are extremely complex mathematical rules and they look for many criteria such as number of key words on the page (keyword density), inbound links (offpage optimisation), meta information, page length, internal links and so on. It’s the combination of getting all these things right that makes a highly ranked page. 

SEO is not rocket science but a professional search engine optimisation company can produce the best results. 

Search engine marketing pros & cons

Advantages:
Search engine marketing is pretty much instant. You can literally set up an account with Google, Yahoo or MSN and within a few minutes you can have your adverts on the front pages of search engines. You can have your adverts displayed and be taking enquiries and orders over your competitors. You only pay for a click through and you don’t need to make changes to your website.

Disadvantages:
These (in our opinion) outweigh the advantages. SEM can be very expensive. Depending on the competition of the search term you can pay as much as £5-10 per click. A click does not guarantee an order so you have to get the landing page right and make it easy to convert to sales. Another disadvantage is that of “advert blindness”. This is basically a distrust of an advert by a visitor where they are so accustomed to adverts appearing in the results that they are ignored totally. This happens with a large number of many potential customers. The other downside is that of your competitors clicking your ad or people clicking by mistake – known as click fraud and can be costly.

Search engine optimisation pros and cons

Advantages
More trust is placed on a listing that has got to the organic results on merit. Click throughs are much higher than PPC, there’s no charge when someone clicks on your link and once you’re listed it tends to stay there for long periods.

Disadvantages
A lot of hard work is required to get top level rankings. Competition at the top can be fierce. A very good understanding of the algorithims and what search engines want is required. You have to opimise your pages at code and content level. You have to do off-page work such as building links. It can be very time consuming. Professional SEO companies are often required for best results. It can take a long time to get listed.

For all the above disadvantages, SEO is much preferred to SEM as the return on investment is often much higher.

What interested us was that we were amongst the “elite” for key phrases we have never targetted so this got us thinking. What would happen if we did target these key phrases? Would we succeed? Of course we will!

Now all this is just frivolous fun on our part and completely tongue in cheek. It’s not a dig at any other reputable SEO company in Scotland – it’s just fun – pure and simple. If anything we recognise the high quality of our competitors so let the games begin!

Firstly, the key phrases are, Regional (Scotland), UK and International accross Google, Yahoo & MSN (Although we’ll only be targetting Google)

SEO Scotland
SEO Company Scotland
Search Engine Optimisation Scotland
SEO Services Scotland
Website Promotion Scotland

For UK & International – drop the “Scotland” from the above.

So how do we go about all this? Ah…that’s our little secret! We can’t let the competition now what we’re up to after all. We’re going to quietly demonstrate who really is the best seo company in Scotland.

Breeze Media are experts in website promotion and search engine optimisation. We have a proven track record of getting listed on search engines and with over eight years expertise in internet marketing we are miles ahead of the competition.

Unlike some web design companies we don’t make up number 1 positions for key phrases no one uses – we just tell the facts.

So what is Search engine optimisation?

Search Engine Optimization ( SEO ) is a website design and promotion technique for optimising web pages so that they can be found on search engines. Whenever someone performs a search on Google or Yahoo, the search engine looks for the best sites matching the query then they are displayed in the list of results. The best optismised websites generally appear at the top of these listings.

However, making a website search engine friendly is a skilled art and the search engine optimization process is complex. It requires solid internet marketing skills and an understanding of how search engines work.

Benefits of Search engine optimisation and Internet Marketing

OK, so you have a cool website. It looks good and does what it says on the tin but despite this you’re not getting any enquiries. To add to your woes, your competitors appear in the search engines but you don’t. Your competitor’s internet marketing strategy is working and it’s all due to search engine opimization – so the benefits of this are clear! If you can be found then people can buy your products!

Will website optimisation make my website be number 1 in Google?

We can’t guarantee it but we will bend over backwards trying! We have achieved several number 1 positions and hundreds of top 10 positions but these were achieved through hard work and totally in line with Google’s term’s and conditions. Search Engine Optimisation is the first step to getting you there. Add link building, PPC and internet marketing to the mix and and you’re well on the way.

What about automatic search engine optimization tools?

If you’re serious about promoting your website then you should avoid these so called search engine optimisation tools like the plague. These actually do your site more harm than good as Search engines consider this type of optimisation as spam. But don’t just take our word for it. Google clearly states on it’s website “Google does not recommend the use of products such as WebPosition Gold™ that send automatic or programmatic queries to Google”. It just isn’t worth the risk!

Advantages of web standards design in search engine optimisation process

Accessible website design (web standards design) adds huge weight to any search engine optimization campaign. Google states that optimisation of your pages should be for your visitors and not for search engines. Accessible websites are designed for visitors but the best part is that Google loves them too because they are very easy to read and spider. In addition, a website that is accessible is available to the highest possible audience.

We offer professional advice on accessible website design to comply with the UK disability discrimination act and web standards. Please contact us for information and pricing.

Search engine optimization for dynamic and ecommerce websites.

Dynamic websites require a slightly different approach with regards to search engine optimization. Dynamic sites such as shopping carts, content managements systems etc., generate lengthy characters in their URLs. Some search engines won’t index these pages so the optimisation process needs to take in to account and these pages require to be rewritten to enhance their “findability”. Breeze Media offer services for ecommerce and dynamic website search engine optimization. Please contact us for more information.