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Category: Blog
Helping students with two new projects
We’re really pleased to have two new education projects on the cards this month. The first is EssayCoursework.com, the biggest coursework bank in the UK. With over 300,000 sample pieces of coursework in the bank, this is an amazing resource for students. All of the coursework has already been submitted by students in the past, so unlike other more dubious sites, this site is ‘cheat free’. The project for Angel is to help the site rank better for ‘coursework writing‘ services. This is a fairly competitive term (9,130,000 results in Google.co.uk) with a decent volume of search traffic so we’re very optimistic about achieving some fast results. After working on the site for sub-one week, we’re already at #37!
The second education project we have is for ScanMyEssay.com, home to Viper the plagiarism scanner. ScanMyEssay.com is promoting essay proofreading, essay marking and essay editing services, and these are the terms we’ve been targetting for just under four weeks, as well as proofreading services. Again, they aren’t easy terms (2,540,000 / 7,930,000 / 1,970,000 / 1,810,000 competing pages in Google respectively), but already we’re seeing some great results with #6, #18, #43 and #55 respectively.
We’re really looking forward to working on these two projects and expect some great results soon!
Category: Angel SEO
Website health checks – new service
Here at Angel, we’re inundated with requests for an SEO evaluation every day and so we’ve launched a new service to help people better understand how well their site is performing in the search engines. Our website health check service is a really affordable way to get a full report about your site’s performance. Read more
Angel SEO teams up with Lovegrove Consulting
In the Beginning
Not so long ago, our very own Andy stumbled across a Twitter post written by the accredited photographer Damien Lovegrove of Lovegrove Consulting. Damien was looking to find a good web design team to develop a suitable online platform for his Evolve group of wedding photographers. Of course we were quick to respond, and jumped at the chance to work with such a talented photographer.
Damien received many applications and recommendations; he then preceded to shortlist a final group of six web design teams.
Following a few twitter and email conversations, a date was set for Dave and I (Sharon) to pitch the idea of a customisable Wordpress solution to Damien himself. Admittedly we were a little nervous, but soon channelled our creative enthusiasm and quickly became excited about the pitch. Dave worked hard on the presentation while I read a little more about Damien and his impressive career.
The Pitch
The day of the pitch was indeed an early start, 5.30am to be precise! We left Nottingham and began the 3 hours journey to Fir Tree Farm, located in the small town of Nailsea, Somerset. The setting was stunning! A beautiful court yard peppered with stones and water features, leading to a converted coach house set amongst the Somerset countryside.
On entering the Lovegrove Consulting reception we were instantly welcomed by Blaise & Julie. It was clear to see the pure talent this establishment had to offer – it would be fair to say we were blown away by the art photography that graced the walls. The team radiated warmth and professionalism and offered us a much needed coffee after that long drive!
We were escorted to a room and prepared to pitch our ideas to Damien. While we waited we admired some of the spectacular works presented in huge leather bound portfolios by Damien and his team.
Damien entered the room and immediately oozed charisma and creative energy. His passion for photography, people and the arts was promptly conveyed and so we set about delivering our pitch. We knew our photography portfolio was relatively non-existent, but continued to introduce ourselves, the team, past work and what we do. As well as listening, Damien passionately shared his thoughts and ideas. His knowledge of using web platforms to market products and services was plain to see. I was thrilled to discover Damien’s appreciation for usability and the user experience while Dave picked up on his understanding of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).
When it came to us presenting the ideal content managed solution for wedding photographers, Damien suddenly announced the Floppy Chicken concept. We were soon captivated by the idea as Damien fully explained the Floppy Chicken goals and aspirations. He awarded the Floppy Chicken project to Angel SEO and said ‘Let’s make this happen’!
From that moment, The Angel team have worked closely with Damien to design and deliver the perfect platform for Floppy Chicken. You can read what Damien has to say about us here how to design a website.
The Floppy Chicken Concept
floppychicken.com will focus on beautiful art created by talented photographers, a stylish online art gallery. The site will also be a place of inspirational art. Floppy Chicken will be aimed at professional photographers, people with a keen interest in photography, appreciation for art, and anyone interested in buying high quality photography prints.
The Project Process
The project initiated through Basecamp. We use this resource for most web projects as its perfect for collaboration and simple project management. We got to work on assembling the team and the discovery phase.
During the discovery phase my teammate (Ryan) and I worked on some user needs/stories and created 5 personas and scenario maps. We locked ourselves in a room with some post it notes, a white board, pens, primitive use cases, identified user characteristics and a head full of ideas and set to work. We love this bit and feel it’s essential to understand users and their needs.
After a few hours we had a great set of user personas, scenario and tasks to hand. We then compiled an informative kick off document describing our interpretation of the floppy chicken concept, goals & objectives, design and architecture, audience and users, estimated timeline and proposed basic system.
The next stage was the design and build phase. The system was designed in parallel with the UX and look and feel. This method works well within a short time frame – it also helps if your client is prepared to collaborate and feedback. Basecamp played an integral role here in keeping everyone informed and up to date – I salute you basecamp!
During this phase we produced high level site maps, use cases, system diagrams, wireframes, user journeys and information flows based on user needs (personas and scenario maps) and business goals. Our talented designer Sean then created the awesome visuals to accommodate the above. Andy worked his magic on the Wordpress theme and backend customisation while Matt worked on the bespoke JQUERY gallery. The two gents are now in the process of knitting everything together and making the different elements talk to each other (that’s my official techie speak 
.
We’re now nearing the end of this phase and the team are really pleased with the development. We realise we are lucky to have Damien as a client as his creative feedback is invaluable. The extent of collaboration between a web design team and a client solely depends on the project, their knowledge, and readiness to input and feedback.
We can’t wait for www.floppychicken.com to spread its wings in February and look forward to a long term working relationship with Damien and his team.
Category: Angel SEO
Skate brand DuFFS comes on-board
After months of research, meetings and a bit of hard graft – we are pleased to announce that Angel SEO is to work with the well know skate brand DuFFS.
It all began some time ago when Dave and Sharon pitched an idea to Alex Hall, CEO at DuFFS. Yes it was quite a drive from Nottingham to DuFFS HQ in beautiful Yatesbury – but worth it all the same!
It was a pleasure to meet Alex and explain how Angel can apply their expertise to help increase rankings for www.duffs.co.uk. We have to say it was pretty awesome to meet Derek the dog too who also attended the meeting.
Since then we’ve submitted a few proposals, planned and implemented a mini SEO campaign targeting a fairly broad competitive phrase.
Over time the Angel team have built a great rapport with DuFFS and feel we know the brand really well.
We are excited to be working with the prestigious brand and look forward to a fruitful working relationship.
Oh and thanks to Ryan and Matt of Angel for all their hard work in the background!
New Client: Office Allsorts – Office Supplies
We are really pleased to announce that Office Allsorts have come on board with Angel SEO to plan a strategic SEO campaign to gain a better ROI through the search engines.
Along with some typical keywords for the office supplies sector, we are running a very niche approach to gaining those quick wins, for example, terms like “plastic boxes for storage” can be a great alternative to the bigger terms like “plastic box”.
Office Allsorts only trade online so costs are kept to a minimum and savings are passed onto the customer. They Frequently review the website to see how they can improve the customer experience. The online shop sells everything from flipchart easles to comb binders and there’s always special offers on the site. Their ekomi costumer rating is 4.8 / 5 which speaks for itself!
We’ll keep you posted and future developments and if you would like to discuss your SEO needs, why not contact us today.
Category: Angel SEO, Google, SEO Services, Search Engines
Dave Cain (Angel SEO) meets Will Critchlow (Distilled) – Part 2/6
Part 2 is here and in this video Dave grills Will about Google Me, Facebook, twitter and social media in general.
You can watch the video below or go to SEO Q&As with Will Critchlow and watch part 1 and 2…
Category: Angel SEO, Distilled & Will Critchlow, Google, Google Products, SEO Videos, Twitter, Website
What the blekko is this all about?
If you say Google to someone, they will automatically know what you are talking about. But, if you say Blekko to somebody, would they have a clue what you are on about?
Well, in short, Blekko is a search engine like Google, Yahoo or Bing, but what makes it different? Let’s take a look…
Like Google, it has a search box, button and a few links on the homepage.
Do a search and things are not too much different.
But wait for it: instead of 10 results on the first page, it generates 19.
So you’re thinking “OK, nothing really new here – I’ll stick with Google.”
But there’s more… when you are doing searches, you can use a feature called slash tags – these can be used to filter results for such things like /news, /blogs and even /amazon.
From a search engine optimisation point-of-view the best slash tag is /SEO where you can find a wash of information such as inbound links, crawl stats, website pages, duplicate content issues and so on.
Blekko is giving this data away to provide users with information on how they rank websites, how their algorithm works and how they determine relevancy – ultimately to give a better user experience. Good stuff huh?
And finally… could Blekko be the next Google or the next Cuil? Who knows, but with a $20 million investment into the Company over 2+years, they are certainly doing something right.
Who is blekko…
Blekko is a search company founded by Rich Skrenta and his core team from previous company Topix and Netscape’s Open Directory. Blekko was founded halfway through 2007 and has already earned itself an angel round from Baseline Ventures and two ex-Googlers. (Information provided by Crunchbase).
Category: Angel SEO, Blog, Google, SEO Resources, SEO Tests, Search Engines
Wow, we really are recognised by Google for SEO in Nottingham…
So the daily morning routine is:
1) Get in the office
2) Check over emails
3) Check clients’ rankings in Google
4) Make a brew (mine’s a coffee, two sugars )
But, this morning was slightly different! With all the work we have on at the moment and delivering what we promise, I very rarely get the chance to check out our rankings. So… I started typing – S E O N o t t
…”Nah, this can’t be right”
As a suggestion from Google, Angel SEO appeared which means we really are recognised by Google for SEO in Nottingham – happy days!
Category: Angel SEO, Google, Search Engines
It’s here! Part 1/6 Dave Cain meets Will Critchlow
The long awaited arrival of our Will Critchlow series is here!
To watch the video which includes what customers should expect from an SEO company and why companies should be interested in search engine reputation management (SERM), click here…
Also get your tickets for Distilleds Pro SEO Seminar – tickets are selling fast so get yours now…
Category: Angel SEO, Distilled & Will Critchlow, Google, Google Products, SEO Resources, SEO Videos, Search Engines, Website