genius loci cornwall blog

Do we have to put the term 'Celtic' in the Title?

We are 5 tracks into recording Sue Aston's new album for release later this year and its time to start thinking of a title.  Well since the last one (Inspirational Journey) we have been lucky to been seen on oMusic on Sky TV and the track 'The Home Coming' has been seen over half a million times. 

However choosing an album title (we still believe in the album as a concept) is trickier if you are an instrumentalist and not a yet a house hold name.  Sue Aston's music does have Celtic leanings and a percentage of her fan base come from this area, although there is a crossover into the classical market and of course her native Cornwall. We have people say that if we put the word 'Celtic' in the title it will bring more people in.  Still a lot of title ideas to cross of the list before we need to make a final decision..

SEO - The key Tool is Time

I want to be on page one, I have a new website and I want to be top of Google in 2-6 weeks, I have limited budget, what can you do for £75 per month?

SEO is not a black art, but managing clients expectations can sometimes make it seem that it is.

When appraoched by a new client it can be tempting to tell them everthing they want to hear, yes we can do that, that time scale should be ok?  The fact is the key tool in SEO is time, time to research the market, the keywords, competitors and evaluate the clients website.  There are various tools to help speed up the process but most SEO is done by hand in real time.  Time again becomes key when you wait for the results to see if your investment is paying off.

Obviously a new domain with few links and no history is going to struggle and this is why SEO should be part of your bigger marketing plan. 

Even for a large established site that needs optimising for search, writing new page copy, adding new content, keywords and links are not going to happen over weekend or a couple of weeks.

The Key tool is agaqin is time, think of your visitors, by all means look at your rankings but keep your eye on what you do, add new content in a natural way, do not keep changing tags every week to see what difference it may or may not make.  When we plant in our garden we do not dig it up everyday to see how fast its growing.

Going back to the start of this post, I want to be on page one.  This can happen, but be realistic on the phrase you choose, do not obsess on your competitors, focus on your strenghts.  As regards costs, you can spend £500 + on a newpaper of magazine Ad and have no proof of effectiveness.  But remember you SEO company is doing their reaserch in real time so 'What can you do for £75?  The answer is not a lot.

SEO Choose the best keywords for your business not your market

The best keywords for your business may not be the most popular in your market.
In the previous post I talked about the long tail of search and how looking for a niche phrase can sometimes be more effective and certainly less costly and time consuming than focusing on the big popular phrases for your market.

Case study : A self catering cottage in Cornwall.
This was a brand new website and although I had chosen a domain with keywords in it, I knew as a new domain and website it was going to be a long haul in Google.  The client was naturally obsessed with the phrase ‘self catering Cornwall’ because that is what he offered and that was the phrase every SEO cold caller kept telling him he was not appearing on.

Rather than spend hours online doing research on keywords and competitor sites, we spent the time looking at the business expectations and its strengths and weaknesses.

The basic facts were that the client wanted 30 weeks booked as their optimum level, but understood in their first year 12 weeks would be acceptable.  So we were only looking for 30 people to find the site and book it!  That made it sound very positive; all we had to do was find the right 30 people.
So first off ‘Self Catering Cornwall’ was too broad, we were not looking for large families or groups, we needed to narrow it down to find our 30 people.

We could sleep 3 and we took dogs and were near the coastal path.  The keyword here was ‘dogs’.  Using wordtracker and keyword universe I found that phrase such as ‘dog friendly rent Cornwall’ were getting good searches per day.  We saw our potential customers as couples aged between 45 – 65, who liked walking, cosy pubs and nice surroundings.  Being dog lovers we knew they wanted to know it was dog friendly, where the local shops were for food etc and we ensured the website photos showed off the cottage to its best potential.

Although tweaks were made along the way the cottage achieved over 30 weeks in its first year and had the same amount booked by February on this year.  Of course more websites mention being dog friendly now, but its shows the power of looking at the long tail phrases (no dog puns intended!)

Although there is lots of talk that traffic is everything and the more visitors you get the more popular you are. The fact is if you’re looking for conversions into cash or bookings then you only need as many visitors as you have products or rooms. So spend time looking for keywords that suit your business.

Phil

www.geniusloci.co.uk

Cornwall - Our own inspirational Journey to Discover our Cornwall

The genius loci site is fairly complex to run because we are always trying to define who we are.  Externally the core of the business is SEO and web design services; this side has always done very well so we have not really had to push this on the main genius loci website.

The website began because Sue Aston composed and released her first CD called ‘Sacred Landscapes’ dedicated to the landscape of Cornwall.  We needed to sell it online, so we added  photos, wrote about the areas of Cornwall that influenced her music and before long genius loci was born. 

Within a short time lots people joined and the site grew to what you see today.  In the early days we were more esoteric in some of the things we did, but as the site became more commercially viable and started to pay our wages we added more mainstream material to broaden our appeal.

One of our main issues has been the variety of subjects we cover, every SEO company will tell you that trying to appeal to everyone can mean you appeal to no one.  Over the years some of our main themes have developed into their own websites, even Sue has her own now.  

There was a time when it looked like we were competing with other Cornwall websites trying to list every accommodation provider, artist and attraction.  There are some really good websites out there that already do this.  The genius loci website is a more personal affair, so we are more selective on what we include although we choose content on levels of quality, location and what our visitors would expect from us.

Cornwall is our own spiritual journey, we love helping people discover their special part of Cornwall We have a passion for the landscape of Cornwall and a deep respect for all things Cornish.  Cornwall is the real spirit of place.

Links  Sue Aston  Genius Loci Discover Your Cornwall 

Using the long tail for specific SEO projects

 

A recent SEO project was to increase bookings for the Queens Hotel in Penzance, especially for Valentines day and the weekend. We did not feel that putting all of our energy into phrases such as 'Hotels Cornwall' would pay off with the time scale we had.  Although 'Hotels Cornwall' was the more popular phrase, we istead focused on 'Valentines in Cornwall'.  Again the obvious choice would have been 'Penzance' as this is where the Hotel is, however the local market was aware of the Queens Hotel and we wanted to bring in as many people who would be staying overnight at the hotel.

Many hotels started their offline advertising a few weeks before the 14th, we advised that offline advertising was not necessary as most males would not be thinking of booking Valentines until a few days before and would then head towards google!

Sure enough looking at the google analytics for the hotel there was a flurry of activity in the week before the 14th.  Two weeks prior to this the phrase 'Valentines in Cornwall' had arrived at 2nd place in google for the hotel website.  The net result was every table was booked, with 50 rooms booked on Saturday 14th.  The hotel had its busiest weekend in February for over 10 years, which was excellent news based on the current economic climate.

There is nothing wrong with going for the big key phrases as obviously there is a lot of traffic to be had, however using SEO to target specific Ad campaignes with more long tail phrases can still bring in excelent results. www.geniusloci.co.uk

Meditation on SEO and Web Design

 

Cudden Point is one of my favourite places in Cornwall and Little Cudden (where the above photo was taken from) is a place where sitting in silence seems the most natural thing to do in the world.  Search Engine Optimisation is a large part of what Genius Loci do and with the nature of this type of work it is so easy to find yourself in front of a computer for hours on end. 

I had recently read 'The Art of Peace' by Morihei Ueshiba and there is a phrase that says you should approach life with a mixture of 70 percent faith and 30 percent science.  It goes on to say that basically too much science (or logic) can lead to physical and mental exhaustion.  You can of course apply this to everything you do but SEO and website design lend themselves to this very well.  Both SEO and web design are changing all the time, no one has control over exactly what works and what will. If you lay bricks the process is basically the same as it has been for 100+ years. SEO and web design are constantly changing.

Sitting looking at a curser blinking on a computer monitor is not a mindfullness bell for creative thought or divine inspiration, neither is flicking back and forth from various news sites and youtube. 

Try if you can to go out into nature, even if you live in the city there will be some green spaces where you can get to.  Take a pen and paper (still the best medium for ideas) and sit and be still.  Focus on your breath, close your eyes if you can, feel the wind or breeze on you face, listen to the sounds around you, without judgement or adding anything else to them.  At the end of each out breath simply say 'one thousand, two thousand' before breathing in again. This is almost like taking the mind back to its default settings, putting a page break into your day. 

Doing this for just 5-10 mins will give you greater clarity and help you see more lateral solutions to your current projects.  This type of practice or simply enjoying a simple stroll away from the desk will help put some space between your thoughts.  Phil

www.geniusloci.co.uk

Welcome to the genius loci blog

For some it is a calling, for others a place to work and call home.  For us it is simply Cornwall.  Unique and special . A place that inspires art music and creative thought built on a heritage that goes back to the beginning of time.  Although Cornwall and especially the landscape is at the heart of everything we do, it also creates the perfect backdrop and inspiration for all our other interests

Our featured gallery   http://www.geniusloci.co.uk/images-cornwall25.htm