Peter Cobley 12/19/24 Peter Cobley 12/19/24

Search engine optimisation in Oban, Tobermory, Argyll and Bute

A business or person listing in SERPS - search engine results pages - can be a much misunderstood process and one shrouded in mystery for most.

*Main Street, Tobermory - one of the places I work from*

But it is actually quite straight forward.

found us can help you with this area and here is a nice little commentary the practice of Search Engine Optimisation, and of how we can help.

Have a read below and don’t hesitate to say hello.

SEARCH ENGINES

We all use them. Mostly Google in the UK with over 90% of searches coming from this one entity. But when you consider sheer numbers of searches you also need to look to other players. For example Bing.

A search engine is effectively a database of websites across the UK (being UK specific here.) A user types a search and results are delivered on a web page, know as a SERP or search engine results pages. The viewer clicks on their desired result (also known as listing or from a Geek point of view, snippet) and is taken to that website.

Here I am talking about natural listings and the paid for ones (separate article to come on this area) commonly know as Sponsored Links and normally positioned to the top of the results page.

Technically all business is a numbers game. The more people though the shop door, the more likelihood of a sale. And you encourage potential purchasers of a product or service by stock positioning, attractive packaging, price, accessibility (is it in stock?)

Same applies, as has been discovered, to the web. The online shop so to speak. A customer finds you via a big shopping mall (Google) after typing in a search query. They decided to enter your store versus others by clicking on the search result. Your search result is your invitation to a potential consumer.

On then clicking the link the user is taken to a website. From here a number of factors come into play.

Think of all of this as a sales process as defined by the acronym for the sales structure AIDA.

Attention - obtain a customers attention within the many results that are shown.

Interest - create interest via your result title and body copy (known as a Result, Listing or Snippet.)

Desire - match the customer need with your product or service benefits as detailed in the result, snippet, or listing.

Action - on creating desire we stimulate the customer to click on your result.

The searcher has a need we want them to fulfil this by their clicking on your search engine result, and being taken to your product or service. Your part to play is well written copy that captures the searcher’s attention and matches the need they have as expressed in the search. We’ll come onto the actual website after that.

A SIMPLE 2 STEP PROCESS - SEARCH TO CLICK AND WEBSITE

STEP 1 SEARCH TO CLICK

It is NOT simply about copy writing with SEO - search engine optimisation. Well it is, but there is a little more to it.

You have to really go back to basics before even looking to a website. And you can blow a lot of marketing money on an ill produced website.

Our task is to match the search intentions of the customer. In search we refer to brand and non-brand terms. Brand terms relate to your business brands including products and services. Non brand refers to all other terms. For example “Coca-Cola" versus “soft drink”. And you need to optimise for both.

Search Terms / Search Queries

Q: how is someone going to find you via a search on a search engine?

A: use you pre-existing knowledge of the customer and your marketing. Blend with what you observe from online and search data.

Remember the acronym - WHATS.

What do you make? How do you make it? To what area to you sell to? To whom do you sell to? What special features do you have?

You need to get back to basics and evaluate what you make and sell, whether service or product. And what might be exclusive to you. Such information can form the basis of deciding what search terms you wish to use for your business, its product, its service.

You need to understand who your customer is and get inside their head. How do they think? How are they likely to find your product via a search engine query/search terms?

This can be aligned with offline point of sale and marketing activities. How would someone find you in the “real world”? How would they find you in a shopping mall, a superstore? How does your ambient media appeal to users? We need to get back to basics of how we meet a customer’s need at the point in time when that need coalesces?

Search engines are databases and there is analogy with a big shopping mall, or superstore. How does the customer find the shop you sell from or the product on the shelf if they were to ask the passer by?

For example we are a business that runs a hotel in Oban, where there are many other hotels and accommodation providers. You know from your marketing and customers that you are found via people asking about “hotels in Oban”, “hotels in Argyll and Bute”, or the name of your hotel “Peter Cobley Hotel”. You now have queries that translate well to the web.

Online data and research

Search words, search queries, keywords, search terms are basically one in the same thing. It is what the searcher enters into a search engine.

We are now beginning to build up brand and non-brand search terms.

But we also have a wealth of online data that we can mine from our website, free, and paid for tools. Examples can be Google’s Analytics, or Search Console, or some very sexy paid for tools.

Zapier have kindly provided a neat article: The 11 Best SEO Tools in 2025.

Search listing, snippet, website copy

This is where we go back to AIDA - the sales process that applies in all cases. It is a crucial fact that life for people is not divided into web and non-web. But as businesses we can think this way.

Your search engine copy and web copy is your traditional point of sale and both must interact with each other, customer, and a search query. It should fluidly follow the searcher’s thinking “I need a hotel in Oban, I can see Peter Cobley Hotel, and the hotel is both central and showing a 10% offer. I’ll have a look and click”.

Pixie dust and magic

I am not going to go into the more technical side of things. But the following rules apply when it comes to getting “good” search engine results for your chosen search terms.

The higher up the listings on SERPS mean more clicks.
Getting the higher positions can involve “working” the hidden stuff that makes Google what it is, Bing what it is etc.
You may have heard of PageRank, algorithms, viewing and click rates. Blah, blah, blah. But don’t panic - it is not as complex as you think.
Paid listings (PPC, Pay per click) interact with each natural search engine results.
How your website performs is a factor in your position for a search term.

I AM NOT GOING to cover this bit off, suffice to say we know about it in detail and can explain all to you. AND the above is not a definitive list.

STEP 2 LISTING TO WEBSITE

Copy and “themes”

When the user arrives on the website it is ideal that the copy reflects the search term they used especially a specific one relating to product or service. The same principles apply as in any offline sales process. For example, if we have successfully navigated the user searching for Christmas pud to the relevant aisle and Christmas pud cannot be located then we have wasted a lot of marketing effort, unless our particular customer is happy to search.

Same applies for the click from listing to website. If you drop the user onto the home page when they are searching specifically, e.g. “double room in Oban hotel” then don’t be surprised of a high bounce rate as users leave the site.

Thematic copy and process is so important. And what do I mean by this? The user is following a train of thought and we have to mirror this in the copy and it positioning.

This is where skill comes in as we look to the very bare bones of a website and how it functions as both a sales, information, or tool vehicle.

I have focused on retail in this post but am at pains to explain that not all websites sell product and service, and that the above does also apply.

It is about structuring your website of linking its copy and disparate parts to search terms and listings, of optimising for what the customer wants and needs of a website. OF NOT OVER OPYTIMISING FOR SEO and so reducing a customer facing means of engagement to a mere amalgam of search terms.

Conversion rates

They all stack up if things are done correctly. AND I did say at the start that it is a numbers game.

You appear on page one of the SERPS for terms, thus reaching a large number of searchers.
You have a good click through rate of good, qualified customers on your search engine listings.
The customers who hit your website stay as the content is relevant.
The customers convert to sales or whatever metric you work by beacuse they want what you offer.

We can deliver on the above for you, and it is NOT EXPENSIVE OR COMPLEX, and we can teach you how to do it yourself. No need for an agency, and we will be the first to advise this.

OUR SEARCH ENGINE CREDENTIALS - WHY PETER COBLEY AND FOUND US

Peter Cobley 12/13/24 Peter Cobley 12/13/24

A December’s working week in photos.

And what a fine place to live and work - Tobermory, Isle of Mull, Oban.

found us

Peter Cobley 12/11/24 Peter Cobley 12/11/24

“People don't notice whether it's winter or summer when they're happy.” Anton Chekhov

Savouring a view out to sea from Gavanan Beach near Oban.

Life’s reality can be our singular viewpoint of it and not one governed by the outside influences that swirl daily about us.

(*There is a more concise version of this post if you scroll to footnote at the bottom of this page.)

What glasses are you wearing today when you look at life?

Can you see the Robin?

Can you see the beauty in all including people, no matter what?

Do you need glasses given to you by others, by society?

Are you looking with clarity at your life, or is your viewpoint opaque, clouded by a focus on others? By wearing glasses given to you people and society, and so wearing their world views.

It is so easy to be myopic as to what others have done to you, not done to you, your world situation and where you are; compared to being yourself, true and authentic, living each moment at a time, recognising what has been and may come, whilst not being and living in moments past and yet to come.

I always remind and encourage people to draw their sphere of influence inward , from that which is outside of them and self; for self is what we truly control. And in controlling self we have direction, purpose, clarity. We live in our moments when we focus on self, not the moments of others.

"What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness." - John Steinbeck, "Travels with Charley: In Search of America"

Scottish mountains when sailing into Oban. The rugged beauty of winter.

I like the quote and its symmetry to weather. The reality is that winter balances summer and vice versa; both are really mirror images. Yet the interpretation one can put on winter is darkness, cold, damp, wet, snow, despondency. But this is an interpretation. Is not winter also something to be marvelled at as a season of beauty, of both hibernation and recovery for new growth and life, and also a time of reflection, of closing in together in warmth with loved ones?

To Mentor is to Grow

This is something I have done for years and for the most part freely believing in the mantra of giving back what was freely given to you. After all how much of life to you really need to live and enjoy life?

What I have learnt is that a lack of self belief and faith, of low self esteem, of people pleasing, of fear of action to lack of goal and dream planning is down to the interpretation we have of life including ourselves, which is a product of the glasses and thus viewpoint we were given from birth. And that it is possible to re-engineer all of this and simply remove the glasses and adopt a viewpoint of self, others, world and all that we are comfortable with.

Through mentoring I grew others and I grew myself. I learnt to be empathetic, caring and considered.

Sailing into Oban, with Ben Cruachan beyond. I see its rugged and towering beauty and cast aside my worldly beliefs and marvel at what can await me.

In simple terms I wasted so much time thinking about other people, other places, and other things. It did not matter if it was a house to live in, a job to aim for, jealousy or anger, or worse hate of others, bemoaning a situation I found myself in, usually blaming others for this, hours spent conniving my climb up the corporate ladder, or worry pangs of what people thought of me - The list went on ad nauseam.

I was very shallow, insecure, eager to please, easily led back then.

Thankful not anymore.

What glasses are you wearing this winter, or do you need to remove them?

found us

I now realise I gave good advice when mentoring or advising in my 10 years of found us but did not necessarily follow it myself!

I do now.

I took my glasses off which jaundiced my viewpoint to one of believing I was not good enough, people better than me, and spent too long worrying about others.

Now, I just focus on me and how I can live in each moment and I now achieve so, so much more.

I care for but am not worried as to other people. Why should I be? Nor do I worry as to places or events, let alone what’s happened or may happen.

I now teach this approach (and actually have done for a while) and people I work with, especially the senior ones. I now do think each senior person with all their confidence are quite insecure beneath the surface. And that’s okay. That’s being authentic and believable. Rather than the usual approach of positioning oneself with bravado, knowing it, and keeping people at distance for fear of being found out.

*Sweary Footnote - the simple version for those who can’t be bothered to read my post.

There is a chap called Craig Johnson who once said to me that the world is 50% c**ts and 50% non-c**ts. I still remind myself of this fact.

Where will your journey take you when you become free of what you were? Disembarking the Isle of Mull ferry to Oban.

Peter Cobley 11/17/24 Peter Cobley 11/17/24

what found us offers its clients

*Wednesday 13th November - Oban harbour, the town, McCaig’s Tower at night*

I am enjoying exploring Oban, where I have now been a handful of times since landing properly on the Isle of Mull. This is my 4th full week on the island and I am thoroughly enjoying it, and being with my wife Claire makes me happy.

With found us I now turn my attention to work; so think it useful to drill down in a post and explain what it is I do for people and businesses.

my full profile - linkedIn

Have a look to who, what, where I am. You’ll see that there is a huge wealth of experience, qualifications, hard work and effort, some luck and being in the right place at the right time, and help from good people; but most of all results and success.

linkedin.com/in/petercobley

found us - peter cobley - locations

I work across the United Kingdom, and internationally, and I am now located in Tobermory and Oban. I would love to hear from companies based in Tobermory, or for that matter the Isle of Mull, Oban, and Argyll and Bute.

The good news is found us has always worked remotely. I’ve dealt with people and business in China, South Korea, New York and other locations.

So please be aware that being in the Hebrides means nothing to working with people. I’ve always worked this way, enjoy it, and am successful. Face to face meetings can happen quite easily as well, travel not being an issue.

So that’s that one wrapped up.

found us - tobermory - a synopsis

found us can easily work with smaller businesses (or larger) to help grow and utilise their offline and online marketing. This could for example be digitally led using search marketing in the form of PPC and SEO, with the supporting data analysis as to a business’s eCommerce performance. Programmatic forms a core as well, thus allowing for above the line marketing, in addition to below the line.

Offline can incorporate traditional media as based on a cost per thousand (CPT), whether press, print, magazine, broadcast, radio, or ambient for example.

Audio visual (AV) work goes without saying, and we are skilled in this area.

Anyway just read below.

*Looking out into the Sound of Mull from Tobermory*

services - a by no means definitive list

What I wanted to do here was list, also for basic SEO purposes, what it is I do. This will inform in a somewhat simplistic way what I do.

I’ve never need to optimise for non-brand terms; should be interesting to see how I fare as an example!

services - consultancy - non-executive

I’ve sat on a board of directors since the first such role in 2001 when made a director at a Carlton TV (ITV), which was my first board director role. That I had to learn fast, encounter pain, encounter joy, and think very hard is an understatement.

I built on this first role with further such roles across different businesses, and learnt a lot, was successful, and delivered results.

I suppose if I were to condense the experience I have it would be my being able to start a business, grow it, and sell it. Or join a growing business and grow it further. Or work with a more mature business to make it more efficient or profitable.

Ultimately it all depends on what people want to achieve as their life goals. Something I excel in.

https://www.foundus.co.uk/talk/found-us-consulting

services - consultancy - acting as a director

I can act as a stop gap director if you need one, with a commercial, sales or marketing bias.

services - sales director

I am a good sales director both offline and online. I’ve sold agency, media owner, and client side working on standardised volume sales across to bespoke pitches for a company’s advertising budget. I’ve built sales teams from scratch, managed them, and delivered results.

https://www.foundus.co.uk/talk/found-us-business-development-and-sales

services - executive search and headhunting

found us was initially created in 2014 to focus on executive search and head hunting, based upon the extensive experience, connections, and the knowledge of Peter Cobley.

Senior roles have been placed within a number of known blue chip businesses and smaller independents. Senior roles have been created in businesses where Peter Cobley has applied his board level commercial knowledge.

Have a read to find out more:

https://www.foundus.co.uk/talk/found-us-executive-search-and-headhunting

services - marketing

I come from both online and offline media, with above and below the line experience, helping market my client’s business to customers. Both consumer and trade.

I also partner with friends who act as data specialists across to fractional CMO’s. They can bring a breadth of experience and knowledge to your business.

https://www.foundus.co.uk/talk/found-us-marketing

services - PPC

In 2002 I first came across search marketing at the start of the market when working for GoTo.com/Overture. I am very familiar with utilising search and pay per click marketing to achieve results.

https://www.foundus.co.uk/talk/found-us-search-marketing

services - SEO

A big area for all companies and in the UK very Google centric. An area I am familiar with, where I partner with some of the best SEO techies in the business.

https://www.foundus.co.uk/talk/found-us-search-marketing

services - Programmatic

Arguably the buzz word of digital advertising presently, maybe even the darling child. It has its pros and cons as does any medium. Point is I am very familiar with this area of display, having been around with Blue Lithium or Struq at the very start of it all.

https://www.foundus.co.uk/talk/found-us-and-programmatic-advertising

services - web

I’ve been involved in many web builds and launches and can dig deep into this area, as can the partners I use.

my partners - the hidden ingredient to success

I know a ridiculous amount of people in advertising, marketing, and media, and utilise a number of them in my business as transparent partners. Why?

One man cannot do all, and these friends are at the top of their game whether SEO, eCommerce, web builds, strategy, and the rest.

They are tried and tested friends who have repeatedly delivered for me. Could be a marketing strategy piece, a Shopify build, a media buy - it does not matter.