Artificial Nature Search Marketing

I managed the SEO (search engine optimisation) and PPC (paid search marketing) for Artificial Nature from conception of the business.

Keyword Research

This involved market research and keyword research, looking at competitors onsite SEO, back-links and the search engine performance as well as finding the most relevant and popular search terms.

Using this data I could decide what keywords to target for Artificial Nature based on volume of searches, relevance to the offering and likelihood of success based on the level of competition.

Optimised Page Copy, Meta Titles & Descriptions

I then created meta titles and meta descriptions for all pages on the site, optimised for the searches I wanted each page to appear for.

I also produced the copy for each page, making sure the copy was well written for the user and had the right mix of keywords throughout the copy, with appropriate links to relevant pages of the site to ensure link flow to the most important pages.

Other onsite optimisations I made included ensuring images had alt tags, ensuring the correct pages were indexed using robots.txt and checking Google Webmaster Tools for any errors or 404s (page not found).

Offsite SEO

Once the site was well optimised I researched a variety of sources including competitor backlinks for relevant websites where I could point links back to Artificial Nature.

Links from high quality sites help Google to understand your authority on particular topics. The more authority and relevance Google thinks you have, the more likely you are to appear at the top of the search results for related searches.

With a list of websites for potential links I set about a plan of getting these links. This included a balanced mix of relevant directories, blogs and sites such as Houzz. I also ensured all Artificial Nature assets (Facebook and Twitter profiles etc) pointed back to the website.

On social sites like Twitter, Houzz etc the SEO plan intertwined with the social strategy because engaging with people and including links back to the Artificial Nature website form a basis for both strategies in order to improve SEO and user engagement.

Brand SEO

One of the SEO objectives for Artificial Nature was to get the website on page 1 for brand searches (i.e when someone searches for Artificial Nature). This may seem easy but it was a challenge because Artificial Nature is also the name of a research project which is on a .edu domain (.edu and .gov domains hold great authority on search engines).

Optimising the homepage for the keyword Artificial Nature and using onsite and offsite links with the Artificial Nature anchor text, I managed to get 2 Artificial Nature pages on to page 1 of Google for the brand term. This along with a paid search ad at the top of Google above .edu website ensures good presence and high click through rate from relevant brand searches.

The Results

Month on month, organic traffic from search engines (i.e not paid for traffic) increased by 78% with increases in ranking position on the search engines across the spectrum of target keywords - some gaining presence on page one of Google.

Related: I also designed & built the Artificial Nature ecommerce website on the BigCommerce platform.