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17 Dargan Crescent, Belfast BT3 9RP
+44 (0)28 9037 1010
hello@piercecommunications.co.uk
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28-32, Upper Pembroke Street,
Dublin 2
+353 (0)1 661 8846
hello@piercecommunications.ie

SEO Interview and ThinkVisibility

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Our SEO guru Barry (who hates being called a guru, which is why we keep calling him that) has been interviewed by Sean from the geekily titled 01100111011001010110010101101011.co.uk blog, together with eight other top class SEOs such as Julie Joyce, Ted Ives, Branko Rihtman, and AJ Kohn.

The questions ranged from how they got in to SEO to what they consider to be the best linkbuilding method in terms of ROI. You can read all their collected answers on the 01100111011001010110010101101011.co.uk blog here.

ThinkVisibility

Barry has also been invited to present at the upcoming Think Visibility conference in Leeds on March 3rd, where he will be speaking on advanced SEO for ecommerce websites. Other speakers include Google’s Pierre Far, Dan Harrison from WordPress Doctors, Anna Lewis from Koozai, and many more. Tickets are still available to book online here.

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SDG Website Goes Live

SDG, based in Armagh, is one of the main suppliers of a wide range of essential products to the Building and Construction Industry in Ireland.  We have been working with SDG for over 10 years and were delighted when they approached us to re-design and build their new website to more accurately reflect the wide range of services and products on offer.

This was no mean feat, considering the site contains over 250 pages and covers not only the main company (SDG Construction Technology), but also 3 additional divisions within the organisation (SDG Acoustic and Vibration Control; SDG Precast Technology and SDG Structural Waterproofing).

As well as including links to the company’s social media sites, we will also be working with SDG on their SEO and digital marketing strategies. The site went live this month and we look forward to continuing to work with SDG throughout 2012.

Click here to visit the site and see what we did.

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LAGAN CONSTRUCTION WINS £45 MILLION ENERGY-FROM-WASTE SCHEME

Having designed and developed a new website for Lagan Construction in 2011, we were delighted to hear that they won a £45 million deal yesterday to deliver civil and building infrastructure works at a major new energy-from-waste plant being developed near Ipswich.

The contract was awarded by recycling and resource management company SITA UK in October 2010 to CNIM/Lagan JV as part of their £1 billion PFI deal with Suffolk County Council to develop an energy-from-waste facility to manage the county’s residual household waste.

Lagan Construction will work with their French based process partner CNIM on the project at Great Blakenham which has an overall construction value of £150 million. The scheme received planning consent on 21st July 2011.  Work is expected to start on site in early 2012 with the energy-from-waste facility likely to be up and running by December 2014.

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Design Win with Sport NI

We are delighted to kick-start 2012 with some great news.  We have recently been appointed as the new graphic design partner for Sport Northern Ireland having won a competitive tender at the end of 2011.

As the leading public body for developing sport in Northern Ireland, Sport NI has a vital role to play [in partnership with the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure (DCAL)] to deliver on Sport Matters: The Northern Ireland Strategy for Sport and Physical Recreation, 2009-2019.

We are really excited to work with the Sport NI team, which will also see us working with other Sport NI groups such as Tollymore National Outdoor Centre and the prestigious Sports Institute for Northern Ireland (SINI), a partnership between Sport NI and the University of Ulster based on the Jordanstown campus of the University of Ulster.

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Solvar To Showcase Brands

We have been busy over the last months working closely with our client Solvar (a leader in the design and manufacture of Destination and Heritage jewellery), on a few exciting new projects.  These include the design and development of new packaging for their jewellery ranges and the refresh and re-launch of a number of existing brands.

The hard work will culminate in some of the new and refreshed brands and packaging being launched at this years Showcase event in Dublin. In addition, we also designed the backdrops for the Showcase exhibition stand as well as a series of POS materials to support the brands.

A Dodgy Start to 2012 for Google

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Google seems to have started 2012 in the worst possible way. First there was a scandal about how Google, through a video advertising promotions agency, was apparently buying links to promote its Chrome browser.

Personally I felt this was much ado about nothing, and that Google penalised itself only so it would be seen to be doing something. In essence Google never paid for any links, but merely paid for video ads to be distributed among bloggers – the link was an editorial decision by one of the bloggers who posted the video.

This sort of thing is not against Google’s own guidelines, but Google still penalised itself under the guise of being “held to a higher standard“. If such a thing were genuinely worthy of a penalty in Google’s search results they might as well shut down the entire internet, as you could probably find a similar link in almost every established website’s backlink profile.

But that was just the start of it,

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New Year New You!

We started the New Year off with the launch of our latest video for Top Fruit on the 1st of January.

The video entitled “New Year New You” is sure to strike a chord with many people. Have you ever started previous New Years with the resolution “must do more exercise” only to fail after the first month, or even week?!  Have you ever forked out on expensive gym equipment that never gets used?

If so, go to Top Fruit’s Facebook page and tell everyone what you REALLY use your old gym equipment for.  You could be in with a chance of winning 1000 euro. Good Luck!

SEO Jargon Alert

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Search Engine Optimisation is a discipline within internet marketing that is, unfortunately, widely misunderstood. Often seen as a dark art bordering on the illegal, SEO as an industry has managed to gather a rather poor reputation.

This is entirely unwarranted, as SEO is a very powerful instrument in a website’s online marketing arsenal – if done properly. However, some of the negative connotations of SEO are due to inexperienced practicioners working off of incomplete or outdated knowledge, and thus not managing to gather any resulst for their clients.

Because search engines continually improve and update their algorithms, SEO is never static and always evolves towards new ranking signals. Thus SEOs need to change their tactics continuously.

However, not all SEOs do. Some still continue to work on old principles that no longer apply. Below are a few of such outdated practices that, if a ‘SEO expert’ recommends them to you, you should turn around and run:

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Recipe for Creating The Perfect Workshop

We’ve all been there…either as attendees or organisers. So in the run up to Christmas, at a time when food will undoubtedly play a big role in most homes, we’ve prepared our “recipe” for creating the perfect workshop – a hopefully useful resource for anyone planning to run one in the New Year.

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Cost Effective Print Management Solutions

[This is an article originally published online in the Women In Business NI November Ezine on Monday 28th November 2011]

With over 100 years combined knowledge the print management team in Pierce Communications is one of the most experienced around.

Print & Procurement Director, and recent WIBNI Member, Angie Brown, leads a team of 6 who specialise in providing cost-effective and hassle-free print management solutions for a diverse range of public, private and not-for-profit clients across Northern Ireland. Customers include Coca-Cola, The Fire Service of Northern Ireland, Action Cancer and the Department for Employment and Learning (DEL).

Top Fruit Festive Fun

Festive Fun with Top Fruit

We have just launched a new competition with Top Fruit on their Facebook page, and this time it’s in the form of a game! Our design and development teams worked closely together to create this quirky festive game and already it’s proving a hit on Top Fruit’s Facebook page.

The game is based on the concept that Santa has got a bit lazy during the year, so in order to get him fit and ready for Christmas, you have to help him skate around the ice to catch the falling fruit. If you want to have a go and be in with the chance of winning an Apple iPad2, go to www.facebook.com/topfruit and get yourself to the top of the leaderboard!

Karma

Pierce Communications wins Argento Brand Pitch

We are delighted to be chosen as the brand agency for leading jewellery retailer Argento to design and develop a brand identity for “Karma”, a beautiful and eclectic range of pieces, which will be officially launched in stores in early 2012.

As a multi-channel retailer with over 40 stores across the UK and Ireland, this is an exciting opportunity to work with the ever growing and highly successful Argento team. We look forward to seeing the new brand in stores in the new year.

Rory Jeffers (Creative Director) collecting one of the recent IDI Design Awards

Brand Building To Drive Growth

Image: Rory Jeffers (Creative Director) collecting one of the recent IDI Design Awards

[This is an extract from an article originally published online on SyncNI.com on Friday 18th November 2011]

Following the announcement on the 16th November that the Bank of England is slashing its growth forecasts for 2012, and with many organisations and consumers set to reign in unnecessary spending as a result, just how can businesses remain competitive and stay ahead of their game amidst yet more doom and gloom?

Be a Winner with JN Wine

We had a lot of fun making this latest video for our client JN Wine. The latest online competition from the Crossgar-based wine merchant could see one lucky person win 6 bottles of the beautiful Neudorf wine just in time for the festive period.

Barry is Top Blogging Bloke

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Our very own Barry Adams has been voted as one of the Top 50 SEO Bloggers in the world in 2011. The countdown of SEO bloggers of the year, ranked by their Klout score, is brought to you by UK Internet Marketing Consultancy Receptional. Ranking at number 29 in the list, it recognises the time and personal effort Barry puts in to developing his reputation in the industry.

You can catch Barry in person at the upcoming SASCon (Search, Analytics and Social Media) Mini-Conference in Manchester on 24th November where he will be presenting on “SEO for e-commerce websites”.

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Museum Piece

The Paper Museum buys, sells and collects paper of scientific, artistic and historic interest. The Museum’s collection is continually being added to and they offer a wide range of paper for sale. We were contacted by the good people at the museum to create a brand and website that showcases their unique and varied offering. The Paper Museum will soon be open 365 days a year.

Google Think Insights – Choose Your Favourite

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Instead of writing a nondescript and easily forgotten bit of news about Google’s latest release – Think Insights – I decided to write two versions to announce the new tool, and let you, the audience, choose which one you prefer.

So go on ahead, read both versions of the news below, and then vote for your favourite in the poll:

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Triple Winners at CIM Ireland Awards

It was a great night last night, at the CIM Ireland Marketing Excellence Awards, which took place at the Belfast City Hall.

The standard was particularly high this year, and well done goes to all finalists and winners.

We were very proud to have won “Best Brand Development Campaign” along with our client Fleet Financial. Additionally, Fleet Financial also won 1st prize in the “Service Sector – Business to Business” category, while another of our clients, Sepha, was “Highly Commended” in the “Chemicals, Plastics, Pharmaceuticals and Related Industries” category.

Many congratulations to both Sepha and Fleet Financial on a fantastic result.

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Keeping on top of Frameworks

It seems that every other week there is a new framework coming out that a web developer could use in several aspects of their job. Some of them are pretty ubiquitous (jQuery, CakePHP) while others are less well known, FuelPHP or Blueprint spring to mind.

Before I get into the issues with so many frameworks and my solutions to them, let me say right now that I love frameworks, I really think that for 90% of the tasks most web agencies have to fulfil, there is scope for improving the process by inclusion of frameworks.  But they do come with certain downsides.

Terror on the Table

Take a look at the spooky video we did for Top Fruit’s Halloween promotion on Facebook, starring our very own Conor O’Neill as Dr Pumpkinstein! The video was created to promote the launch of Top Fruit’s pumpkin carving competition and to direct people to the Facebook page.

To enter the competition go to www.facebook.com/topfruit 

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