SEO and Online Marketing

SES - London

2009-03-03T10:27:00.001-08:00

We attended Search Engine Strategies in London from 16-19 February. A very mixed turn out and I have to say, there seemed far less people there this year compared with last (this may not have been the case though, it just felt that way). Many factors I suppose, the "credit crunch", the "current economic climate" you know the terminology everyone is obsessed with at the moment.

There was no Google stand this year although there were a couple of members of Google who did talks within the various workshops. Has this anything to do with most of teh speakers at SES not having any good words to say about Google???

We met some diverse people from agency staff to SEO and general marketing staff within larger companies. Then a bod from Microsoft who was there as a delegate, not a speaker!

Videos, the power of videos and optimising videos were mentioned in most of the workshops and the power of universal search. Hopefully universal search will reveal itself more on Google.co.uk as the year progresses.

2008-11-24T06:44:00.000-08:00

A new client for Web Predators is http://www.stowfordcountrylodges.co.uk.

Stowford's are based in Combe Martin in North Devon, a place frequented by one of the Directprs of Web Predators throughout their childhood.

North Devon is renowned for its dramatic landscapes, North Devon has escaped much of the modern day commercialism associated with many tourist areas. Popular with a broad clientele, this stretch of coast was designated an Area of Outstanding Natural beauty in 1959. Compromising of a total of 171 square kilometres, the North Devon AONB spans from Marsland Mouth on the Cornish border to Combe Martin and the edge of the Exmoor National Park.

Due to the fantastic beaches, plentiful attractions and distinct landscape, Devon holiday homes are a popular choice. Excellent transport links mean travelling to North Devon is quick and easy. The M5 motorway takes you right down to the junction with the main link road, the A361 leading to Barnstaple and then even Exeter airport is only 40 miles away.

The area hosts a wide variety of gardens and houses, family attractions, theatres and leisure facilities. Sea and coarse fishing are accessible nearby and there are three top golf courses including two championship courses at Saunton. For golfers, second homes in Devon are the ideal choice. Holiday lodges in Devon will provide much welcomed relaxing accommodation after a hard round of golf but with the space to store golf clubs and other kit.

There really is something for everyone.

Derbyshire - The Peak District a target for Web Predators

2008-08-13T03:18:00.000-07:00

Our SEO services can improve any website's positioning on the major search engines, no matter which sector your business is located. We have many years of tourism SEO experience having worked with a large number of tourism businesses throughout Cumbria - the Lake District, Lancashire and Yorkshire so we thought why not look at spreading our wings and venturing to a new county, offering SEO Derbyshire Peak District. We have so many success stories involving individual hotels, groups of hotels, bed and breakfasts and self catering accommodation providers and we can definitely help businesses in Derbyshire - the Peak District unlock the full potential our their websites through improved positioning on Google and the other major search engines.

Fine Individual Hotels adds 25 hotels to collection

2008-07-30T02:58:00.000-07:00

The addition of a further 25 luxury hotels to the Fine Individual Hotels portfolio breaks the 50 barrier.
Fine Individual Hotels have cracked the 50 mark in their continued expansion of their independent luxury hotels marketing collection. Originally set up in 1994 as a consortium, two of the original founders, Mike Bevans (owner, AA Inspector’s Choice 3 red star Linthwaite House Hotel) and Clive Wilson (G.M. 4 star Lakeside Hotel Newby Bridge) together with Ronnie Mullin, graphic and web designer based in Kendal) got together 3 years ago to turn FIH from a sleepy consortium to a dynamic hotel marketing company.

The basic premise is to maintain a great website and produce a free to guests/take one A5 brochure (100,000 print run in 2008) which is distributed throughout the likeminded but highly individual participating hotels.

Envisaging continued growth, FIH will be aiming to have 75 hotels in 2009.

Mike Bevans said: “In 2008, Fine Individual Hotels doubled the number of hotels from 25 to 50 and more growth is expected next year. With hotels well distributed in the North of England and Scotland like illustrious award winning hotel such as the stunning Ballathie House Hotel, near Perth; we have new hotels in the South such as the highly individual Hoste Arms in Burnham Market; the near the sea Millstream at Bosham; the top Devon country hotel Combe House, Gittisham; Cotswold’s famous Grapevine, Stow-on-the Wold; and the Castle at Conwy in Wales. We will continue to grow from strength to strength.”

Whether you are looking for Perthshire Hotels, Conwy Hotels, Devon Hotels, Cotswold Hotels, Norfolk Hotels, or Chichester Hotels you will find the perfect venue on www.fihotels.com.

Web Predators Launch KudosLinkDirectory.com

2008-07-23T02:39:00.000-07:00

Web Predators latest SEO progression is the link directory www.kudoslinkdirectory.com.

Kudos Link Directory is a free directory on a reciprocal basis. Only quality sites will be accepted and listings limited so the link will have maximum impact.

This directory is not just for links, an article submission facility has been installed for submitting interesting and content rich articles. All articles and links are manually reviewed and approved which will keep the content newsworthy and of upmost interest.

The Langdale Hotel

2008-06-11T01:06:00.000-07:00

The award-winning 35-acre Langdale Estate set in heart of the English Lake District is a natural woodland haven with streams and tarns, dotted with massive millstones and other carefully preserved reminders of its history as a 19th century Lake District gunpowder works.

The Estate offers an impressive choice of Lake District hotels, Lake District self catering and Lake District Timeshare accommodation, together with two distinctly styled Lake District restaurantsLake District restaurants and bars, a traditional Lake District Pub plus extensive Leisure and Spa Facilities.

The Langdale Hotel and Country Club is one of the most unique hotels in the Lake District complete with 57 bedrooms, which located village-style, in historic properties around the estate, with just 5 situated in the main building. Each room is different - a number of special rooms have a 4-poster bed with double air bath. Others have a private balcony overlooking a stream. All rooms are en suite with whirlpool or air bath and are equipped with satellite TV, direct dial telephone and tea/coffee making facilities.

The exclusive Country Club's central feature is the 20m indoor pool, with bubble massage seat, dedicated swimming lane, spa bath and fully-equipped exercise studio. The Lake District health & beauty salon offers a full range of treatments for head-to-toe pampering. Our main, formal Lake District restaurant has recently been awarded an AA Rosette for the quality of the food and service. You are assured of a warm welcome and friendly service on the award-winning Langdale Estate.

CASE STUDY 4 - Kris Hardy

2008-05-29T06:26:00.000-07:00

Kris Hardy is an artist based in Yorkshire

In March 2007 we optimised Kris' homepage based on the top search terms that were identified in our KEI (keyword effectiveness index) report. We then began a link building campaign, which involves building a set number of inbound links to the site each month.

This link building work is still ongoing but it did not take long before we began seeing some good signs of improvement. Kris' homepage PageRank (PR) improved from PR2 to PR3 during google's update at the end of April 2007 and within 3-4 months Kris' site was on the front page of Google for a number of his target search terms. We are now going for the phrase "canvas art".

Current Google Placements:
bespoke art commission = 1st
art commission = 3rd
bespoke art = 5th

CASE STUDY 3 - Ben Barden

2008-05-19T10:22:00.000-07:00

During 2007 we optimised Ben's site to ensure the search terms "cumbria photographers" and "photographers in cumbria" were embedded into the site. We then begin building some additional inbound links to the website over the course of several months to help improve the site's positioning on Google.

Current Google Placements:
cumbria photographers = 2nd
photographers in cumbria = 2nd
lancashire photographers = 3rd

cumbria photographers = 2nd
competing pages = 216,000
photographers in cumbria = 2nd
competing pages = 219,000

CASE STUDY 2 - Stay lake District

2008-05-07T04:45:00.000-07:00

Staylakedistrict.co.uk - Lake District Accommodation and holidays guide

We built this website and continue to optimise the site on an ongoing basis and every month we build additional directory, blogs and forum links to the site in order to help push the site up the search engine results pages on Google.

Current Google Placements:
lake district accommodation = 2nd
lake district cottages = 2nd

CASE STUDY 1 - Find Me A Property Ltd

2008-04-02T03:46:00.000-07:00

Find Me A Property Ltd - A UK based company that sells new properties in Dubai and Spain

Again this is one of our primary SEO search engine optimisation clients for which we perform a wide range of functions each month including site optimisation, one-way inbound link building using high ranking web directories, reciprocal linking with quality and related websites, managing their pay per click advertising using both google and yahoo, plus we also send out regular email newsletters on their behalf.

Find Me A Property currently operate a number of websites including spanish property, Dubai property, the cube dubai and sports plaza dubai at different stages of development.

Google placements:
dubai properties = 2nd
dubai property = 3rd
dubai sports city = 3d and 4th
the cube dubai = 1st

SEO TIPS 5 - Traffic Analysis

2008-04-02T03:45:00.001-07:00

Use you own weblogs, or if you don't have any you can install Google Analytics on your site for free, to monitor the increase in visitors and referrals to your website. In the weeks and months following this type of optimisation and link building work you should really begin to see an upturn in search engine referrals. I would also recommend making a note of your site's placement on Google, Yahoo and Live at the beginning of the process so you can check to see how many places your site has moved up the listings as the seo campaign progresses.

SEO TIPS 4 - Link Building

2008-04-02T03:42:00.000-07:00

Once you have optimised your site it is time to begin the link building work. To maximise the effectiveness we recommend only using web directories, blogs and forums that have a Google PageRank of 3 (PR3+) or more. I would avoid paying for links as Google appears to be outlawing this process. Directories such as dmoz.org, splut.com and hotfroguk.co.uk are ideal for this type of work. If you have your own links page I would recommend establishing some reciprocal links with related businesses. For example, a bed & breakfast provider could exchange links with local attractions, restaurants and activity providers.

Link building does not improve your site's placement overnight, but it is an ideal short-medium term strategy for ensuring a high placement on Google.

We find that spreading the link building process over a number of months, ideally six or twelve, depending on the volume of links required, is the most effective means of maximising your site's progression within the search listings.

SEO TIPS 3 - Site Optimisation

2008-04-01T03:19:00.000-07:00

Having determined the most used keywords and analysed the competition levels you should now have a prioritised shortlist of search terms under which you would like to position your website. Now we need to build these phrases into your site content. I recommend using 2-3 search terms per page in order to be most effective. These terms need to appear in your page title, description, keywords, around three times within the descriptive text on the page and should also be within your site's link anchor text.

SEO TIPS 2 - Competition Analysis

2008-04-01T03:18:00.000-07:00

Using your keyword analysis the next step is to check the level of competition for each of the phrases. Here you need to know the number of competing pages which is shown at the top of the results page on Google. Generally the higher the number of results for a search term, the more difficult it will be to appear towards the top of the listings. From there I would recommend using a back links analyser, or yahoo site explorer to see how many inbound links each of the top 10 search results have to their site. This will give you an idea about how many links you will need to build in order to obtain a top 10 placement for that search phrase.

SEO TIPS 1- Choosing the right keywords

2008-04-01T03:17:00.000-07:00

There are a number of useful tools available that can tell you which search terms are being searched form, including Keyword Discovery and Google's Traffic Estimator. There is little point in guessing what people may search for and you don't want to appear for what you think people will search for without knowing that others are using those same phrases. For example, if you are a Guest House in Windermere how do you know which search term is the most used? It could be any "windermere guest house", "windermere b&b", "windermere bed and breakfast", "guest house in windermere", "b&b in windermere", "bed and breakfasts in windermere", "windermere b&bs", etc. Knowing which keywords are the most used is absolutely critical.

Kris Hardy 3rd position on Google for Art Commission!

2008-01-11T04:50:00.000-08:00

kris hardy is now in 3rd position on Google 'the web' for ' art commission ' and 2nd for the UK only search!

Web Predators are delighted with the progression of this contemporary canvas art website especially when considering Kris's website wasn't listed in the first 40 results on Google for any of his main search phrases such as canvas art, bespoke art commissions, contemporary canvas art or art commission before Kris became a client of these SEO specialists.

New Website Launch for Lake District Hotel

2008-01-10T12:25:00.000-08:00

Hillthwaite House Hotel would like to announce the launch of their new Windermere hotels website.

Discover Hillthwaite House Hotel, one of the finest friendly, family-run Lake District hotels, with stunning views over, and only a short walk from Lake Windermere, England’s largest natural lake. Set amidst the beautiful surroundings of the Lake District, between the villages of Windermere and Bowness. You will find Hillthwaite House Hotel is the most ideal of Lake District hotels for all types of breaks including short Lake District weekend breaks or for use as a base for your walking holiday in the Lake District National Park. Impeccable service and comfort, lovely food sourced from local produce, friendly, attentive staff and the many guests that return to us time after time speak for itself. For Lake District hotels please look no further than Hillthwaite House Hotel.

Keep checking this blog for details on last minute offers or check the website for up to the minute prices and booking information.

New Lake District Accommodation Website!

2007-12-13T04:48:00.000-08:00

Well, nearly but not quite! Due to be launched in the next 2 weeks by Web Predators is www.staylakedistrict.co.uk.

Stay Lake District, is an online guide to Lake District accommodation and holidays. You will find all types of accommodation including Lake District hotels, Lake District bed and breakfast, Lake District cottages and Lake District caravan and camping sites. Whatever type of Lake District accommodation you are looking for you will find the ideal place to stay on Stay Lake District.

Unlike many Lake District accommodation portals, Stay Lake District has been designed and set up by a search marketing company, Web Predators. It is on the first page of Google for "lake district accommodation" already, and on the second page for Lake District cottages so advertisers will not be disappinted by a lack of referals which is so often the case.

We'll keep you posted with the exact launch date!