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Pound Shops Online

Poundland SEO

Being an SEO company we often find ourselves looking at spreadsheets of data which mean nothing to most people then identifying how website’s have achieved rankings in Google.

Today we have been looking at the Pound Shops Online and what surprised us most is the traffic volumes that are achieved for specific brand keywords.

Poundland.co.uk

Poundland on the high street represents AMAZING VALUE for money and has grown into a high street essential. Poundland’s first store opened in Burton Upon Trent in 1990 and there are now over 400 stores in the UK. In 2014 the company was floated on the London Stock Exchange and in 2015 Poundland exceeded over £1 billion turnover making this definitely a company to take note of.

This popular brand name which started off life on the high street now gets 301,000 searches per month alone for its own brand name. Comparing that to keywords like “sweets” which gets 40,500 and “stationery” which gets 27,100 it makes us take note of the consumer driven brand traffic. Even “Christmas presents” only gets 18,100 per month and the Disney film Frozen gets around 18,100 which mean consumers are hungry for bargains and hitting Google search for hot deals.

The keyword “pound shop” gets 18,100 searches per month and this is one of the biggest competitors to Poundland directly.

poundland.co.uk traffic

Looking in Google Trends we can see a steady growth which has really taken off in the last 4 years.

Poundland Interest Over Time

Poundland Regional Interest

Related Topics & Searches

This investigation clearly shows a huge growth online for the brand and it’s no wonder others are producing similar ideas as the concept becomes heavily profitable.

My Supermarket – www.mysupermarket.co.uk

In our research we looked in-depth at www.mysupermarket.co.uk which has an amazing organic profile with 35.9 thousand keywords being ranked in Google. Looking at the keywords achieved for this domain it is very clear that SEO techniques work well.

Below is a list of keywords achieved with more than 10,000 searches per month.

 

KeywordPositionSearch VolumeCPC
asda86120000£0.49
compare the market131220000£0.97
tesco groceries5368000£0.33
tesco groceries12368000£0.33
asda groceries5246000£0.21
asda groceries6246000£0.21
mysupermarket1201000£1.74
asda price guarantee9165000£3.93
tassimo1190500£0.36
tesco online1490500£0.49
my supermarket174000£3.52
asda online260500£0.31
tesco uk260500£0.40
lidl offers1860500£0.09
tassimo pods349500£0.49
morrisons offers449500£0.40
aldi offers549500£0.10
www.tesco.com1449500£0.72
tesco wine1249500£0.27
tesco online shopping740500£0.92
sainsburys groceries840500£0.60
morrisons online1840500£1.42
ferrero rocher640500£0.36
jack daniels340500£0.78
asda photo1540500£2.29
jagermeister940500£0.63
slim fast833100£0.62
asda online shopping633100£0.54
asda toys1633100£0.45
www.asda.co.uk833100£1.19
asda price633100£1.39
asda price733100£1.39
asda price533100£1.39
electric toothbrush1833100£1.08
pancake mix1827100£1.10
asda price check627100£3.10
asda price check727100£3.10
asda price check427100£3.10
asda price check527100£3.10
tesco toys1627100£0.20
aldi uk1027100£0.24
asda uk227100£0.62
supermarket127100£3.57
asdas822200£0.38
asdas922200£0.38
tesco shopping522200£1.31
grey goose522200£0.36
adsa722200£0.42
tesco offers322200£2.59
asda travel1122200£1.27
baileys422200£0.71
pampers622200£0.95
tesco grocery1122200£0.33
voss water918100£0.17
voss water818100£0.17
tahini918100£0.56
oral b electric toothbrush1518100£0.73
weetabix618100£0.15
asda birthday cakes418100£0.08
asda birthday cakes518100£0.08
supermarket comparison118100£0.99
veuve clicquot1518100£0.75
waitrose flowers1418100£0.45
passata818100£0.61
passata918100£0.61
berocca918100£0.53
aptamil818100£1.90
haribo1918100£0.34
pg tips1418100£0.48
rice pudding1918100£0.77
dorset cereals618100£0.74
southern comfort318100£0.76
asda shopping618100£0.30
price comparison218100£1.59
bacardi414800£0.71
cashback1714800£1.06
glenfiddich714800£0.60
disposable camera1914800£0.24
compare supermarket114800£2.40
pizza express offers1314800£0.21
waitrose online214800£2.92
vegetables1314800£1.49
lidle1614800£0.16
nakd bars1614800£0.70
maltesers814800£0.30
maltesers714800£0.30
sainsburys online814800£0.68
tesco flowers1714800£0.55
sudafed2014800£0.40
amaretto614800£0.81
kitchen towels1114800£1.02
tesco online groceries514800£0.32
tesco online groceries614800£0.32
ben and jerry s614800£0.44
tesco.co.uk814800£7.53
bargain pages1214800£0.34
toblerone614800£0.20
gripe water1814800£0.53
sainsbury online1514800£1.29
asda.co.uk812100£1.03
asda.co.uk712100£1.03
asda.co.uk612100£1.03
tescos groceries412100£0.50
aveeno912100£0.30
reveal magazine812100£0.00
waitrose wine2012100£0.22
asda cakes312100£0.12
morrisons online shopping1612100£2.15
www.asda1512100£0.56
bombay sapphire412100£0.66
aldi special offers1012100£0.23
rye bread1312100£0.37
rye bread1412100£0.37
tesco birthday cakes312100£0.43
tesco birthday cakes412100£0.43
asda bedding1112100£0.59
smirnoff412100£0.98
walkers crisps812100£0.16
cetirizine hydrochloride1912100£1.34
cow and gate1012100£0.97
lindt chocolate312100£0.42
glenmorangie1012100£0.61
tesco pharmacy712100£0.80
asda flowers812100£1.57
cigarettes412100£0.42
voltarol1512100£0.45
tesco wine offers1112100£0.16
stella artois312100£1.47
oral b1612100£0.44

Using Majestic SEO we can compare domains to identify the SEO activity.

 www.mysupermarket.co.ukwww.poundland.comwww.poundshop.com
ExtBackLinks1427044743811
RefDomains443120492
RefIPs314613280
RefSubNets260612179
ExtBackLinksEDU39500
ExtBackLinksGOV47220
RefDomainsEDU2500
RefDomainsGOV1540
CitationFlow462943
TrustFlow342517

The power differences can clearly be seen here showing SEO efforts in terms of backlink profiles. Another competitor which is following this platform is the 99p Stores.

99P Stores

Looking at the keywords for larger volumes that the 99p stores website achieves you can see Pound Land and Pound Shop appearing:-

KeywordPositionSearch VolumeCPC
99p store140500£0.07
pound shop1118100£0.24
99p stores15400£0.08
pound shop online123600£0.19
99p shop12900£0.09
99p12400£0.07
99p store jobs12400£0.35
online pound shop132400£0.19
pound shop uk51600£0.20
pound store61600£0.24
pound store71600£0.24
poundland store locator81600£17.46
the pound shop81600£0.18
99p store opening times11300£0.00
99p store opening times21300£0.00
one pound shop61300£0.37
pound shops61000£0.26
precision screwdriver set141000£0.72
pound shops online10880£0.23

An interesting fact to look at here is the cost per click for Google Adwords for the keyword “poundland store locator” which is a steep £17.46. When you Google this keyword you can see the result of SEO work to achieve ranking on page one:-

 

poundland store locatorTo understand where these bargain companies fit into overall shopping U.K companies online we are using Alexa ratings information. Alexa gives competitive intelligence and strategic insights providing us with a benchmark in terms of traffic.

CompanyUK RankGlobal Rank
tesco.com321076
asda.com782819
sainsburys.co.uk1194659
waitrose.com38011046
aldi.co.uk40914990
mysupermarket.co.uk42013155
morrisons.com48117892
homebargains.co.uk155652354
Poundland.co.uk181769068
Poundshop.com6617139280
99pstoresltd.com16480391000

If you have never come across Alexa data before the lower the number the better, i.e. Tesco is the 32nd best website in terms of traffic in the UK and the Adsa is the 78th. Poundland achieves 1817th in terms of traffic which is very good when you compare this to the other 99p stores.

SEO Data

We have continued to investigate the websites looking at the backlink breakdown of follow and no follow links. We have compared the anchor text of the sites and where the links are coming from looking at all the referring domains.

Poundland.co.uk for example has links from Wikipedia and the BBC passing power and the most used anchor text keyword is “poundland” with 663 referring domains and 5,286 links in total.

New Backlinks

poundland-new-backlinks

Lost Backlinks

poundland-lost-backlinks

We compare the profiles of the websites that link to the Poundland website in order to see how relevant the links are. For example, looking at the website’s that fall under the topic of “shopping” there are 144 external backlinks coming from 136 referring domains.

The SEO profile of the Poundland website is very good in terms of search engine optimisation. We found areas that they lack in but as with everything there is always room for improvement and with SEO it is actually one companies opinion over another and no one can be 100% correct. We have been working in the SEO industry for nearly 10 years and with our knowledge and testing we trust what we find and live by it for ourselves and our clients.

We have not published actual SEO information on this article as it would be wrong to share it in the public domain however further information is available on request.

Do I Really Need An SEO Company

”Do I need an SEO company?”, is a question that business owners ask themselves. There are so many horror stories about working with an SEO company, we thought it would be good to explain our role in your business and why it’s important to use a company providing our services. We explain the costs involved whilst being as transparent as we possibly can.

Do I Need An SEO Company

My Competitors Appear in Google For Every Keyword

When you look in Google and see your competition, and not your own business, this suggests that the competition are using an SEO Company. This is the first part of how an online marketing company like Chameleon can help.

We have the tools and knowledge to look deep into what the competition are doing. Our research is invaluable and takes us just a few hours to identify what your rivals have been doing. We can trace back through years of their data and exactly work out how they have achieved success.

SEO companies like Chameleon use tools that are amazingly complex. Our SEO software is able to gather data about the competition that can be invaluable to fully grasp what is being carried out to achieve such high rankings within Google.

What Tools Do SEO Companies Use?

SEO Companies have to invest in equipment and software. There are many tools available which cover everything from exploring domain names or URL’s to looking at backlinks to check negative value which could lead to a penalty. Researching page titles, on-page content layout, structure, alt tags and anchor text to identify the keywords a webpage is aiming for and what the domain is actually achieving. Our tools show where the domain currently ranks in Google for specific keywords.

Majestic SEO

Majestic SEO is one of the tools that all good SEO Companies will have in their tool box, Chameleon Web Services SEO consultants use it every day. We believe it is nearly impossible to carry out SEO without this software. Majestic crawls over 750 billion domain URL’s discovering insights on 2.8 trillion keywords, making this the largest web crawler in the world.

Anyone can use Majestic SEO but you need knowledge to understand the information and you have to pay a subscription cost. There are different subscriber levels allowing you to use the software in varying ways. For example if an SEO company is going to be looking at large blue chip companies then the amount of backlinks these domains will have require a greater subscription level than the Silver platform which costs £44.99 per month and allows you to download 5 million backlinks per month. This also provides 5,000 site explorer data rows and you can run 60 detailed reports per month.

If you are looking to carry out a lot of research on companies who rank on page one of Google, there are Gold and Platinum levels which provide even more data to be gathered. For example the Platinum package allows 950 detailed reports and 100 million downloadable backlinks with 30,000 site explorer data rows.

Majestic SEO Prices

We use Majestic SEO software as an integral part of our SEO process, if a business asks for quotation to carry out SEO services this is one of the first tools we use to check the trust flow and citation of the domain name to see if it has been damaged by a previous online marketing Company.

The team at Majestic came up with a great idea of showing who uses the software to its full potential and we are proud to currently rank 5th on the Global Leaderboard. The Majestic guys added over one hundred awards that can be achieved by using the platform and it takes a long, long time to achieve all the badges. Each badge achieved will boost the companies Majestic score, if you become a high level user then you will appear on the Global Leader page here – https://majestic.com/business

Majestic SEO Global Leader Board

We also have our own business profile at Majestic SEO, it can be found here and explains a little about who we are:-

https://majestic.com/business/chameleonwebservices

majestic seo business page

To provide an example showcasing how powerful this SEO software is we will use the bbc.co.uk website as an example:-

majestic seo example 1

majestic seo example 2

majestic seo example 3

majestic seo example 4

majestic seo example 5

The data available provides a valuable insight into the online footprint that any domain has. Majestic SEO is one of the best search engine optimisation software tools available. We could not run our online marketing business without this software.

 

SEM Rush

We use the SEO software SEM Rush which is very important for looking at competitors. It’s vital to understand everything that you can about your competition such as the organic keywords traffic and Google AdWords keywords that are being used. We are able to setup tracking data to capture specific information which is used every day. The ability to add a domain and analyse the keyword history data over the last year is an important part of our research.

Anyone can use this software at a monthly subscription cost starting at Pro level at $69.95 per month. This allows 10,000 results per report and you can run 3,000 reports per day. SEM Rush also provides the ability to create up to 5 projects tracking 500 keywords.

If you are looking to investigate higher amounts of data on blue chip companies you will need the Business profile which is currently priced at $549.95.

SEM Rush Pricing

To give an example of the powerful data captured by SEM Rush software take a look at the example of the bbc.co.uk:-

SEM Rush BBC Example

SEM Rush BBC Example 2

SEM Rush BBC Example 3

You can dig very deep into the data relating to any domain name and find out valuable information which SEO companies can use to move a clients website up the rankings.

We also use other in-house developed software to identify information which provides us with an upper hand over our competitors in the SEO industry.

Keyword Rank Tracking

An important part of what an Search Engine Optimisation Company does for a client is tracking the keyword positions in search engine results. This is vital to see firstly growth in ranking positions after carrying out SEO tasks but, most importantly, it provides a historical footprint showing growth.

If, for example, Google roll out a new algorithm, a SEO company can identify a problem instantly providing the ranking tracking is monitored daily. With their valuable experience they can fix problems and keep rankings on page one of Google.

At Chameleon we have used most of rank tracking software available, testing them to the limits and this has been a costly experience in some cases with results that we will not share online. We have also been involved in helping some of the leading rank tracking software develop by offering suggestions and improvements.

We currently use more than one rank tracking platform which includes in-house developed software that monitors daily client growth to provide backlink protection against a negative SEO attack.

We invest into more than one paid platform due to the fact that Google makes changes and this can effect our collective softwares usability. We need to have 100% accurate data at all times and comparing between reports is invaluable. For example the mobile roll out on the 21st April meant that many SEO rank tracking software providers needed to understand how to offer this as a solution. Mobile rank tracking is vital with the huge growth of users using Google on mobile devices.

There are many rank tracking software providers including (in no particular order) Pro Rank Tracker, Rank Watch, Rank Ranger, SE Ranking and they all play an important role for an online marketing company.

Anyone can use this software and costs vary on the level of detail required with the number of keywords you are looking to track. Also, if you require daily tracking this can be more costly.

Costing examples can be from £10 to £535 approximately and the required level will depend on the end results required.

At Chameleon we spend in excess of £3,000 per month on tracking keywords for clients due to the volume of keywords we monitor and the type of clients we work with.

rank tracking software costs example 1

rank tracking software costs example 2

rank tracking software costs example 3

rank tracking software costs example 4

To provide some information to show an example of rank tracking software data displaying daily positions which can quickly be shown in a graph output for specific date ranges:-

Keyword Rank Tracking example 1

Keyword Rank Tracking example 2

You can see from the graphs daily positions that, over time, the keyword “seo company in Birmingham” is moving from position 4, 5, 6 and then up to position 2. This is actual real data captured and shows how Google search results fluctuate as marketing companies carry out SEO work. It is for this very reason you should always have a high focus on search engine optimisation due to the fact that SEO does not stop, websites are gaining power daily and this effects Google positions.

Another example of rank tracking software monitoring, again, real data showing our own rankings.

 

rank tracking software 2

rank tracking software 3

In the examples here we have used our own SEO company rankings and blurred out sensitive data for our own privacy.

You can see in this example that we have ranked position 1 dropping to 2 at times but a constant top 3 position has been achieved for over 12 months. In fact we have been in this position since 2010 and we have always maintained high rankings when Google change the algorithm.

Do You Need To Create Backlinks?

Many companies do not understand the importance of backlinks and we have had conversations with potential customers in the quotation phases where it is believed that they are not important or anyone can build them.

Building backlinks can be very dangerous and if carried out incorrectly, or without checking the history and trust of the domain, a backlink could result in a penalty. You should also not pay for links provided by a link network as this is against Google’s guidelines and will, again, result in a penalty.

We recommend looking at methods of creating a natural backlinking profile by creating content that is both useful and interesting, which connects with the target audience. This will generate backlinks and these are part of the signals that Google uses to identify the relevance and trust of a domains content. There are many methods of generating backlinks which add power and this is a very complex topic that often causes a lot of debate.

Part of an SEO company’s job is to check the back linking profiles to ensure this stays clean. The problems we discover are that many SEO companies create the problems in the first place for their clients by not understanding how Google works and what the requirements are needed to make Google understand a websites content. It requires experience to understand the data and analyse its importance in search results on page one.

Chameleon has ranked number 1 in Google on page one for the keyword “Google Penalty Advice”:-

google penalty advice

This has provided Chameleon with an insight into the problems that many SEO companies cause by creating tens of thousands of spammy links to clients domain names on blog sites as comments and forum posts or profiles.

This means that the internet is becoming full of useless data and it is for this reason Google make changes to combat this spam and prevent this adding value to rankings. In 2009 this was a method used by most SEO companies and there was software available which carried out these tasks.

It is one of the most frustrating things as a webmaster to have spam comments auto generated and requiring approval. How many times have you seen this in your inbox?:-

A new comment on the post “SEO Company” is waiting for your approval

Many clients have no idea what this is and we do everything possible to block it allowing clients email accounts to show real emails relating to their business rather than showing lots of spam emails about spam links.

Do not try and create links unless you understand what you are doing.

Finding An SEO Company You Can Trust

Chameleon has been in the internet industry since 2001 and have witnessed a lot of SEO companies come and go. Many have changed domain names due to issues that they have caused in an attempt to grow their own websites rankings.

The SEO sector is obviously crammed with companies suggesting that they are the best and everyone will explain that their methods are better than another. The proof is to look on Google and check to see if you can find them.

There are various websites you can use that will quickly tell if you an SEO company even has a profile online such as www.alexa.com which will show where the website ranks in terms of traffic globally.

seo company alexa traffic

bbc alexa

The smaller the number the higher the traffic. Alexa was founded in 1996 and is one of the global pioneers of analytical insight. The traffic estimates that are used are based on data from their global traffic panel which samples millions of internet users using over 25,000 different browser extensions. All the data is compiled and then they create a global website traffic leader board.

If you have an SEO company that doesn’t have a profile, perhaps you should start asking questions.

We take pride in being unique, we break the mould providing our clients with ethical SEO services and operate in a transparent manner putting the trust back into the SEO sector. All of our clients often thank us for what we do and for what we have achieved which includes not only growing their business online but explaining how search engine optimising works, helping them understand what they can do to help themselves.

We do not hide behind technical jargon, we break it down into ways that our clients can understand.
We have never used a sales team for cold calling, we do not carry out email marketing, we simply do our job and the achievement results for our clients is the same as what we use to grow our own business.

For example look at the search keyword “Birmingham SEO Company”:-

seo birmingham

We rank in position 1 and 2 on page one of Google, this sends a clear signal in our view that we understand SEO and can achieve high ranking results.

To explain things for people new to search, the companies paying for Google AdWords are in competition with each other and bidding an amount of money to have a position in the Google search results due to them not ranking for the keywords. This costs around £13.00 a click for example which results in potential leads as inexperienced Google users think that the SEO company paying for the Google AdWords is ranking in position 1.

Many SEO companies will use Google AdWords to achieve leads and this is because page one has 10 spots making it difficult to achieve results. AdWords is often used as a way to find clients who do not understand how Google works.

Some of the major UK keywords cost a large sum of money and to cover the advertising costs you need to charge your clients a lot of money due to increased overheads.

google adwords seo company keywords

The list here shows some random keywords that we believe do not add any value to an SEO Company and yet the Google AdWords costs are very high and companies pay for them.

KeywordAvg Monthly SearchCost Per ClickMonthly Cost
PPC Agency590£33.34£19,670.60
SEO PPC Agency10£22.77£227.70
SEO and PPC Agency10£22.54£225.40
SEO Agencies140£21.82£3,054.80
Out Source SEO50£21.30£1,065.00
Best UK SEO Company10£21.24£212.40
Total810£143.01£24,455.90

An SEO company using these keywords would need a budget of £24,455 per month to achieve constant positions in Google Search and we believe this would not have a viable return on investment.

If you look at one of the major SEO company keywords in Google AdWords:-

seo company adwords

This keyword alone costs £14.43 a click with a search volume of 2,900 per month and this means any SEO company wishing to attack this is going to spend a lot of money on advertising to try and win clients:-

KeywordAvg Monthly SearchCost Per ClickMonthly Cost
seo company2900£14.43£41,847.00

As a company that can achieve organic SEO traffic we do not do this. We focus on keywords that have a ROI and will drive business to us. We use our in-house developed SEO techniques to gain rankings which saves us thousands a month on Google AdWords costs.

The SEO Company’s Role In Your Business

To summarise all this information and explain what the role of the SEO company does for your business, please read below.

  • Investigate and research the competition.
  • Understand the competition focus.
  • Understand what the competition have done to achieve their goals.
  • Identify what competitor backlinks add value.
  • Identify what backlinks your domain has.
  • Identify what backlinks cause problems.
  • Create a plan for natural backlink building.
  • Identify keywords that will have a ROI.
  • Track the rankings of the keywords.
  • Check and fix all the on-page content.
  • Identify website improvements to increase conversion rates.
  • Check and create profiles that Google uses as signals for rankings.
  • Provide advice on how to move your business forwarding using other means.
  • Protect against negative SEO.

 

How To Choose an SEO Company

We recommend if an SEO company emails or cold calls you, first look at why they choose this method of contact as a business model. Having a sales team results in higher overheads in order to win work. These overheads are going to be passed on to the client and the very fact that the company is cold calling suggests that they do not get traffic online.

Chameleon does not spend money on getting sales which means our business spends its money in areas that adds value to our clients. Our work will attract new clients as we achieve rankings for our own benefit, in order to do this we have to understand how to carry out SEO in the most competitive sector – our own.

Interested in working together?

We’re passionate care about helping businesses like yours overcome their challenges and grow. If you think Chameleon is the right fit for you – we’d love to hear from you!

Online Reputation Management for Monster Energy Drinks

Monster EnergySEO can be used for online reputation management and a perfect example here is the problem in 2013 that Monster Energy drinks faced.

A brand can take some damage from the media but knowing how to deal with officially and correctly to help online in search engines is something that we get involved in as an SEO company.

Media Site are strong

The biggest problem a brand  faces when something goes wrong is the fact that media sites are strong and Google crawl them quickly updating the index and as a result the problem is soon in search engines. If when someone Google’s a brand name they see a predictive example with something bad it interesting and people will click on this.

Monster for example had this problem in 2013.

monster-energy-death

 

So the problem came as more people clicked on the “death” listing and this meant that it grew in popularity and Google recommended this more than the original listing due to user experience and click through rate (CTR).

monster energy drinks

 

When something like this happens it would best to build a webpage and rank this for the problem keyword. This page can explain the problems and suggest that the media is slightly wrong and have over exaggerated the truth.

This landing page is more relevant that any other page on the internet due to it being on the main domain of the problem companies website. This can be used to turn problems into growth in web traffic and even achieve more likes and shares increasing the link profile.

Using PR sites to spread articles about the problem but explaining the truth behind the problem titled something like “Monster Energy’s death explained”.

Once online reputation management is carried out the results speak for themselves and in the case for Monster Energy Drinks the results have a positive success:-

monster energy drink seo

 

Google has now in 2014 changed the recommended search listing phrases and this is a good sign that the work has been positive.

Note: We would like to point out that this information is provided as an example and we feel for the families of the people who have died as a result of problems relating to Energy Drinks. The information relating to the media exaggerating is also used as an example and we don’t have any information to suggest this is accurate.