Search Engine Update

Due to the lack of blog posting and changes to the website, I was interested to see what effect this would have on our website search engine rankings... so here you are:

web site design swansea from position 51 to 14
website design swansea from 20 to 5 - PAGE 1!
web design swansea from 17 to 16
swansea web design from 37 to 30
web designer swansea from 19 to 16
web development swansea from 13 to 4 - PAGE 1!

So, as long as you have content that is targeted and relevant, and that the site is updated sometimes, you will do well in the search engines.

I am confident that the process could be sped up, but am none-the-less pleased with the results. To prove it is working (because there is no point being on page 1 of Google for phrases no one searched for!) we have had clients who have found us on Google give us a call.

To help improve your search engine rankings give us a call on 01792 222302 to find out how to best improve your website.

Page 2 for Web Design Swansea

I hadn't forgotten about the Great SEO Project, but I have been a bit distracted lately looking at legislation and we have had a fair bit of work to do. So I haven't made many amendments to the website, apart from updating for February and adding to the blog, news and Twitter....so when I did my quick SEO checks today I was very pleasantly suprised!

web site design swansea from position 95 to 51
website design swansea from 52 to 20!
web design swansea from 51 to 17!!!
swansea web design from 118 to 37
web designer swansea from 66 to 19
web development swansea from 61 to 13

It has taken longer than expected, and we're not on page 1 yet, but at least it proves that we do know what we're doing, that content does make a difference, as do regular updates!

Page 6 in Google for Swansea Web Design

A very quick update on the SEO project.

web site design swansea from position 125 to 95
website design swansea from 64 to 52
web design swansea from 74 to 51
swansea web design from 129 to 118
web designer swansea from 74 to 66

All positive - but still room for improvement!

The final SEO update for 2008

To round the year off on the great SEO experiment, the results are as follows:

web site design swansea from position 180 to 125
website design swansea from 133 to 64
web design swansea from 134 to 74
swansea web design from 143 to 129
web designer swansea from 131 to 74

Even for 'web site development swansea' we're at position 59.

But is it working? Are people getting to the website?
According to Google Analytics, 17.75% of our traffic is from Google organic searches for 'web development swansea', 'web design swansea' and 'web design company wales'.

We still have a bit more work to do...but it does look to me like content is definitely a big part of SEO work judging by the pretty large jump in results!

Happy New Year's Eve! Don't forget to make your new year's resolution a new website.

Pre-Content Search Engine Update

Before I add the extra content to picseli.co.uk I thought I'd better have a baseline to measure against. I was quite disappointed when I found out that in Google we had dropped several pages for some keywords - but this does show you that we need to stay on top of SEO and how quickly things can change. The results are:

web site design swansea from 128 to 180
website design swansea from 76 to 133
web design swansea from 85 to 134
swansea web design from 125 to 143
web designer swansea from 81 to 131

I also added a few other searches:

web site development swansea - position 71
website development swansea - position 85
web development swansea - position 60

Then I decided to see how we were doing in the next most popular search engine - Yahoo!
I was delighted to see that we were doing pretty well!

web site design swansea - position 9!
website design swansea - position 6!
web design swansea - position 117
swansea web design - position 95
web site development swansea - position 7
website development swansea - position 2!!!


What are people searching for?
However, it doesn't matter how well you are doing in the search engines if no one is searching for that particular phrase. So I have decided to focus on the phrases that are beign searched for. According to the Google Adwords Tool, from the phrases I have been focusing on, the ones people are actually searching for are:

website design swansea (average monthly search volume = 140)
web design swansea (720)
swansea web design (720)
web design (823,000)

I also have a list of 200 recommended keywords that I can going to use to target the content on the recently added pages.

Is Content King?

For the great SEO project I have so far focused on adding the relevant "tags" where they should be, in other words, doing all the background work, and you will notice that up until now there hasn't been a huge amount of content on the website - apart from this blog. As we are now within the top 10 pages of Google -with only 2 weeks left unil the new year - I have decided to bring out the big guns and show you how targeted and well written cotent will (hopefully) boost this site to the top of the search engines.

I will post the final results in the morning, before I add the content and will keep you posted! Wish me luck!!

December Search Engine Update

I have been in Scotland for the last week and (quite sadly) one of the first thing I wanted to do on my return was find out whether the website has progressed in the search engines especially as nothing has changed on it since 27th November. It's good news... the resutls are in:

web site design swansea from position 132 to 128
website design swansea from position 101 to 76
web design swansea from position 99 to 85
swansea web design from position 154 to 125

With things starting to quiet down for Christmas I'll be spending a bit more time 'beefing up' the website and including content on things you will actually want to know, like prices and what we can do, more information on our e-commerce packages and a series on how to write content.

Picseli SEO Update

More progress made on the great SEO project:

web site design swansea from position 173 to 132
website design swansea from position 154 to 101
web design swansea from position 157 to 99
swansea web design from position 172 to 154

It's great to see this working as I was a little sceptical especially as I decided to publish my progress to the world! However now the hard work will begin as once we get to the top 10 pages progress will slow down as the competition is higher.

Quick SEO Update

I am not the most patient of people when it comes to seeing results and thought I would check today to see whether the changes I have made to the website have made a difference. In many cases the results have improved by up to 2 pages!

web site design swansea from position 194 to 173
website design swansea from position 161 to 154
web design swansea from position 176 to 157
swansea web design from position 179 to 172

I know that the results do fluctuate regularly based on everyone else's changes and Google's feelings, but I was pleased to see that we are progressing.

Keywords

Having done some research into what Google users search for I will focus my SEO efforts on 'web site design swansea' - wish me luck!


The whole Picseli site has now been indexed in Google, so this is a good time to start a concentrated effort to get the site well ranked.

Current Position

According to http://www.mynameissteve.com/google-page-rank picseli.co.uk currently ranks at position 175 (page 18) in Google for 'web site design swansea'. However when I did the search myself found us at position 202 (page 21).


For 'website design swansea' we can be found on page 17 (position 161) and for 'web design swansea' we're on page 18 (position 179). Not bad as a starting point, but still plenty of opportunity to improve.

Google Analytics

We use Google Analytics to analyse our websites - it's available online, is easy to use and understand and provides plenty of information.



Baseline

So as a baseline to mark our search engine progress, between 21st October and 9th November we have had 153 visits to the website from 51 unique visitors. Of these visits, only 16 came via search engines, all using the keyword 'picseli'. We currently appear number 1 in Google for Picseli (One advantage of choosing an unusal company name!)

Currently it is only the Picseli home page and blog that have been indexed by Google. To find out which of your website pages are indexed by Google enter site:yourdomain.com in the Google search box. The search results will then return every page from your website that Google knows about. If it returns no pages or very few, you need to do something about it!

Choosing Keywords
Over the next few weeks I will keep an eye on these statistics and keep you posted. However, the first thing to do is identify the keywords I want to be found for. Picseli is one, web design swansea will probably be another, but the competition is high for this and many of the sites currently on the first page have been around for a lot longer than us. But what else is a challenge for?

Search Engine Update

I have finally had the website handed over from the developers, and just need to add the content. (BTW - It looks great!) Before I begin the great SEO experiment, I thought I'd just check to see if Google has indexed the site at all - bearing in mind it only has an index page with very little content, and this blog - and yes, it has.

I haven't submitted the site to Google and haven't altered or amended the content since it was uploaded exactly 2 weeks ago today! (See 'Beat the Credit Crunch' post) I actually thought it would take longer than that.

Planning
So now the planning begins. I have the shell of my site and just need to write the content and begin my search engine optimising. Wish me luck!

Baby Steps

In web terms, the Picseli website is a baby. It is not yet registered in Google so no-one can find it...unless they have the web address of course. It has very little content, as we are still working on the design. And it isn’t due to launch until 1^st November 2008. Yet, here I am writing about its success.

A successful Website

I am confident that by spending some time writing content and understanding the search engines and their users that I can have a successful website – after all that’s what all the other SEO companies are doing, isn’t it?

Understand your aim

The first thing to do is to consider exactly what it is that you want your website to do. Who you want to target. What you want to say. For example, Picseli is intended to attract people who need a website, want to improve their site or need some advice on how to do better. It needs to give visitors information on our products and services and a way to get in touch. I want to use the website as a case study to show you that the work we do does make a difference and to give you a more personal feel about who we are.

Take your time

I have worked on a number of websites and rarely do the website owners consider what it’s like from the users point of view. Yes, you need to make sure you get your message across, but is it the one users are searching for? At the moment the majority of people don’t want to spend money on a flashy brand new website, but want to find out how to make more of the money they have spent on it. This is what we will be focusing our website on in the coming months. It can take time to get the message right, but it is worth thinking about it and taking a step back to have a look at your site every now and then to check the meaning is right.

Time to get on?

If you want to discuss the article above and want some help to get your message right please give us a ring now on 08702 402777 or email Rhian@picseli.co.uk to arrange for a website health check.

Beat the Credit Crunch

This is a difficult time for everyone (and probably not an ideal time to be starting a new web company) but it has happened before and people have survived. BSS did, for example. It was hard, and redundancies were made, but BSS is still going strong and believes they will get through this one too. To do this they have put a lot of time and effort into marketing as they strongly believe they can help others get through it!

Online marketing is the way forward
One of the cheapest ways of marketing is online, via your own website. Obviously BSS is lucky, having it’s own web department to handle it, but there are steps you can take to help you along.

How do you compare?
The Internet is the first place many people look for a new product or service as they can easily compare a lot of companies and products before making their decision. So what you need to ask yourself is – does your website offer people enough information to properly compare you and your competitors? If not, then the chances are they are using your competitors.

Improve your site
Over the next few weeks I will be sharing with you some of the things BSS has done (and Picseli will be doing) to improve our websites and promote ourselves.

Proof is in the search engines
Picseli is a brand new website, the first content was uploaded on 21st October 2008. So this is a clean slate and it is my job to make sure the website is found in search engines and I will share some of my tips with you. This website will be my proof to you that the work we do does make a difference.

Need a hand?
However, if you are keen to get your website up to scratch please give us a ring now on 08702 402777 or email Rhian@picseli.co.uk to arrange for a website health check to find out what your website could be doing better!