A Comprehensive Marketing Course Written Specifically for UK eCommerce Websites
Client Case Studies
Right, given that you know nothing at all about me or my SEO work with eCommerce clients and yet I’m trying to tempt you to buy into my SEO course so, I thought to put a bit of perspective on this I needed to mention some client case studies which should give you a bit of background on what I’ve been up to, over the last 20 years or so when working alongside eCommerce clients.
www.kashflow.com – Founder and CEO Duane Jackson
Duane contacted me for SEO help in 2005. At that time he had previously engaged two SEO companies to help him rank for his primary keyword “accounting software” and at the time he contacted me he ranked around #90 for that keyword phrase.
He was completely dissatisfied and had extremely little traffic to his website at that time. Given he’d told me he had used other SEO services and that they hadn’t helped his rankings to improve, I thought I’d have a good look over his website to see if I could spot anything unusual.
The previous SEO’s had focused on link building which failed to improve matters but I could see that there were numerous problems within the website itself that would have been interfering with keyword rankings. The previous SEO’s had not concerned themselves with what was actually happening on Duane’s website and it was this omission that was their failure.
I spotted multiple errors, provided Duane with solutions relating to 13 or 14 different URLS and made recommendations for him to implement these changes.
Within 4 weeks he had moved to the number 1 spot in Google for “accounting software” and remained at the #1 spot from 2005 to 2015. He’s currently ranking in the Top 3 positions for his primary keyword phrase.
The work took me just 3 hours on a Sunday afternoon in 2005, I did not charge for my time.
Duane did reward me for my time. He gave me two domain names that he’d secured for himself which I managed to sell for £5k and then he asked me to work with him over a 4 year period – the end result… over 500,000 visitors a month until Duane sold his KashFlow domain in 2013 for an 8 figure sum.
NOTE: Despite spending time in prison for drug offences Duane, on his release focused himself on the straight and narrow and built KashFlow from the ground up. It became the UK’s leading SAAS for online accounting winning the UK’s Best Software Awards for 5 years in a row.
Duane provided me with a testimonial:
“Tin Solider got our website to Page 1 on Google for the most important phrase for our business (accounting software) – and kept us there. The financial rewards from this are many times their competitive prices. I recommend them to everyone I know who needs SEO services.”
www.uniscan.com – Founder and Managing Director Dr Graham Johnson
Graham Johnson contacted me in January 2002. At that time they were a very forward thinking company with half a dozen employees and knew they needed to reach a wider audience if they were to expand the business. They designed and created a range of specialised products encompassing a range of industries. Potentiostats, Spectroscopy, Photosynthesis, electrochemical scanning instruments and more.
They already had their own website but had noticed that the website didn’t manage to get any rankings on Google. Graham rang me and from that first initial chat I noticed that his web designer had provided his company with a framed website design. Framed websites were always difficult to rank well so I built the company and new website, SEO’d the site according to their criteria and within the first 6 months of working with Graham and his team we had a couple of dozen keywords hitting top rankings in Google.
I worked with Graham’s company for 6 years and helped them go from strength to strength culminating in a major buy-out by the Global company Bio-Logic, world leaders in science and scientific instrumentation.
Graham had this to say about my services:
“Tin Soldier has been at the heart of our internet marketing strategy for over 5 years.
We are delighted with their consistent professionalism, dedication, help, and most of all, the results for our Company.”
www.alocalprinter.com – Founder and Managing Director Ray Burn
Ray was a printer, he knew printing inside out and worked in this sector for over 20 years until his employer went bankrupt.
Rather than sit idle on this prospect he decided to buy his previous company out, complete with some of the old staff.
When he approached me for SEO services he did have his own website at that time but it was a website that came bundled in with his purchase of his previous company. The website was built completely in javascript and at that time it would not have had a chance of getting rankings for any worthwhile, commercial keyword. I told him that and he came back to me again one year later with a website I could take forward.
Ray asked me to initially work on the keywords flyer, flyers, and flyer printing. I did and got all three to number 1 on Google. From that moment on he and I worked together on a range of other keywords for a period of about 2 years. Printers, business cards, leaflets, posters phrases all got to page 1 positions in Google and remained there.
All went exceedingly well and Ray went from being massively in debt after buying his old company to being a bit of a spender through the quick rise of a lucrative online income.
He did provide me with this testimonial in 2006;
“Tin Soldier optimised our site for some very competitive keywords and the result is stable rankings on page 1 for “leaflets”, “flyers” etc. If you want to rank for the long term Tin Soldier delivers solid, sustainable results. Brilliant!”
And he also posted a comment about my skills in a UK Business forum quite a few years later (August 2015) saying this;
“I wanted to add my 2p here, partly to say hi to some old friends, partly to say this works!
My name is Ray. I was hugely active on this forum circa 10 years ago and back then it was a real SEO resource (Tin, OWG, Hobo, even Earl!!) and more than I can even remember. Seems it’s still a great resource but full of people vying for business now…. hey that’s a sign of the times!
Back then I had a printing business and took it online. Problem was, it wasn’t ranking on Google. I found Ray (yes we’re both called Ray) and he trained me (Basically a precursor to the course he now offers online), plus I’d retain him to tweak a page when its wasn’t performing. Sometimes adding or moving a word would make all the difference.
THIS IS ORGANIC…. and as such it STILL WORKS (and in my opinion always will)
Within a few short months my old company ranked first for single word phrases such as “flyers” “leaflets” and with a bit of tweaking at one point we were 4th for “printing”.
Such single words are hugely difficult to rank for, but Ray made it happen/taught me how to do it.
Anyway, I sold up in 2008 and my old company still trades but lost a lot of their rankings unwittingly by “undoing” all that goodness without realising.
These days I run a lifestyle business. I had some local competitors who were strong in google. Within 3 months I’d outranked them all. I didn’t even have to try.
I just ‘knew” how to do it. In fact my SEO is relatively sloppy now as I don’t want more work, but the competitive me still wants to rank (if that makes sense). But my core SEO awareness makes it hard for me not to rank….. I cant help it!
Anyway…. long post I know…. bottom line…. I consider Ray Field to be the best SEO in the business and one of the nicest most unassuming guy’s I’ve ever worked with….. I owe you a pint Ray!
Here’s a link direct to the actual post http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/threads/new-online-seo-course-by-tin.333410/page-4#post-2571815
www.intotheblue.co.uk – Founder and Managing Director Jim Maitland
The ‘Maitland’ family are well known around the world as being the creators of the Biggin Hill Air Fair. Jim Maitland’s father Squadron Leader Jock Maitland purchased a lease to run Biggin Hill Airport after it closed at the end of WW2. Five years later in 1963 Jock opened the first Biggin Hill Air Fair which ran every year until 2010.
His son Jim Maitland started up an online website offering flying lessons in and around the South coast and his offices are actually in the Spitfire hanger at Biggin Hill Airport.
In January 2006 Jim contacted me for SEO help. At that time, he had a small website offering primarily flying lessons but he knew he wanted to grow the website and offer a range of UK wide experiences, not only flying activities but every imaginable activity possible.
My primary goal was to place IntotheBlue on page 1 of Google for flying lessons as this activity was at the heart of the Maitland family and I stapled him to number 1 on Google three weeks after we started working together.
Eight years later Jim and I parted ways, he was still at number 1 but also on Page 1 for circa 20,000 other keywords. He’d grown his website to over 2,000 pages which gave me plenty of work to do over that period.
Jim gave me this testimonial in 2014;
“To Whom It May Concern
Ray Field, trading as Tin Soldier, has been giving Into The Blue SEO advice and hands on site SEO from 2006 to 2014 inclusive.
Ray’s advice and actions have always been incredibly thorough and carefully thought through.He has ensured that our site has always been technically set up in the most favourable way. He has also worked tirelessly with our team to optimise the content of the site, this has been an ongoing challenge and Ray’s expertise and advice have been invaluable.
Ray has had to coordinate the SEO effort with several members of our team and balance often conflicting requirements between SEO and customer experience. Our site is particularly complex with considerable pages and targeted keywords and Ray has had to be innovative and creative to get the most from it.
Jim Maitland – Managing Director IntotheBlue.co.uk”
www.medusajuice.co.uk – Ash Mitchell, Partner and Marketing Manager
Ash rang me prior to him paying his way into my Fresh Bananas DIY SEO course. I remember him telling me he thought he knew enough about SEO to be able to get his website onto page 1 of Google for his primary keywords without the need of an online course.
He felt confident and had been working on keyword rankings for a few months but knew he wasn’t getting very far at all. So, he ultimately joined my course and I agreed to offer some personal help to get him off the starting block as quickly as possible.
The original website he introduced me to wasn’t his own design, he’d bought some product stock (Ash sells eliquid) and the website came bundled in with the stock purchase.
The previous owner of the website had simply spammed the copy of every page of the site with the ‘eliquid’ word. It was heavily introduced in title tags, meta descriptions, header tags and page copy so it clearly was not going very far in terms of rankings.
Ash was extremely keen to be able to do as much of the work as he could so, we agreed that I’d identify technical issues first, then move onto each individual page of his site – giving him instructions on where to work and how to approach the work.
Over a period of months Ash quickly increased his SEO knowledge and developed his own way of effectively and systematically applying the right techniques in the right way. He has ‘lived in the course’ from start to finish and we’ve become good friends from the experience.
Today, his website ranks on page 1 of Google for all his primary keyword terms and phrases and he thoroughly deserves to do well from his sheer determination.
Ash gave me this testimonial;
I highly recommend this course. The modules are really well written and easy to follow. It really covers every aspect of seo and straight away pointed out for me some very silly mistakes that I had made on my website. The course, along with some really valuable chats with Ray has really opened my eyes as to what seo is all about. I am already seeing massive leaps in the serps. I still have a long way to go on my website but I am now confident that I will be able to rise up the rankings on google by following the lessons learned in this fantastic seo course.