Funky Pigeon SEO Case Study – WH Smith Takeover
I’m going to take you back in time to the year 2009. In August of this year I interviewed for a company called Remind4U.com. They sold personalised cards online, their biggest competitor was Moonpig (of course).
At interview I asked the Director (RP) what search phrase he wanted to rank in Google and he replied emphatically with just two words: “Personalised Cards” he said. “That’s it”. Well, OK Moonpig, game on.
eCommerce SEO – Get Thrown In The Deep End
… and I loved it! From the first week I perceived that this wasn’t an ordinary office job, bum on seat for 40 hours, this was going to be fun. My desk was deliberately situated next to the table of 4 developers, “so you can tell them what you need” as RP had clearly thought this through.
The chaps were thoroughly funny, and the Head Honcho told me that part of my job description included deliberately breaking the website, so they could identify bugs and fix them. There’s nothing better than flexing your fingers and sitting down in front of a keyboard with sole aim of breaking the company’s website.
As each new card design was uploaded to the custom CMS it was my job to tag them with SEO keywords, so I would name the ALT tag of a drawing of a man in a car “Father’s Day, Best Daddy, Car, Sports Car, Supercar, Uncle Birthday, Brother Birthday, StepDad, Male Cousin, racing car, car mad”. This is a little-known SEO benefit.
The developers created the online design tool – and my favourite sabotage try was to upload gigantic file size images of 5,000 pixels+ and naming the recipient with 100 or more characters just so the site would fall over. I loved breaking the website, however, I did feel sorry for the dev team because of all the trouble I caused.
On page content that ranks on YouTube and web
People email me daily asking “How long will it take my eCommerce website to get to Google page 1, position 1?” and the answer is always the same – it depends.
Back in 2009 the same SEO methods work today, on-page content sculpting, off-page content marketing and Video SEO so if you want to use Funky Pigeon as an example this was 11 months at 40 hours/ week.
I’ve recently published how to succeed with YouTube channel optimisation, and the benefits of YouTube Shorts. Short-form Shorts now allow uploads of up to three minutes, previously this was 59 seconds, or one minute. Here’s how your face can help your business in 30 seconds.
eCommerce SEO UK Funky Pigeon Marketing Tasks
Tagging products – Renaming the image ALT tags all named at the beginning “Personalised cards” as this was the most important search phrase. Google places high importance in the order of keywords, with the primary ones being at the front of a Header, Title tag or Alt tags for example.
Bugging, deliberately breaking the website – Also improving UX and the general customer experience. Using the “4 Click” rule for eCommerce purchases.
Remind4U changed branding within the first month of my employment.
I had no notice of this happening, I came into work one Monday morning and RP was excitedly telling me about a family BBQ at the weekend when ideas were floated. RP’s wife came up with the brand name “Funky Pigeon” as it reminded her of the old-fashioned way to send airmail.
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My screenshot from 2011 shows a screen capture of the old-style Google front page, pre-AI overviews and eCommerce crowding. Note the clean layout, with no carousels and simplistic Google Ads?
Embedding code: YouTube and also affiliate I-frames for e-cards (before FP did this when you buy a card now you can send it in an email).
Competitor Research – Using Moonpig to chase backlinks. Intrinsically, I examined their backlinks and crafted my own method for replicating or creating similar backlinks online.
Created a blog – The most common mistake I see very regularly is people emailing me saying “We have a blog but our website doesn’t rank!” and ten times out of ten it’s purely down to the articles not being worded correctly for Search Engines. Every blog article I wrote was always focussed on “Personalised cards”, beginning with the URL, then the H1 and Alt tags.
Reading up on skyscraper content – the term’ skyscraper content’ wasn’t curated back in 2008, but the general consensus in the Digital Marketing industry online in forums, was that each page on a website would maximise SEO if there were 500 words of unique content.
Domain Migration Google Change of Address and eCommerce SEO Rankings
With a history of ranking my eBay listings (eBay SEO) and running my own 12″ vinyl selling account, it was very obvious that my skill set was transferable between platforms and browsers. I expanded on my knowledge by taking the Google certification for Google Analytics and Google Adwords (Now referred to as ‘ads’) back in 2013. I’m a decade old subscriber to Google’s Webmaster Tools blog and publish a lot of free resources in my SEO Blog with DIY SEO instructions.
Funky Pigeon brand stats
The Director purchased multiple domains when they changed brand, to protect the brand name.
Domain misspellings
It’s a researched fact and, to some, popular knowledge that the common misspelling of ‘pigeon’ includes a ‘D’ and online users do spell the word as “pidgeon”
Funky Pigeon vs Moonpig: WHSmith takeover
Around the 10 month mark of my employment, the Funky Pigeon website had overtaken Moonpig in Google rankings to the top organic position of Google page 1 (below the ads, natural, free ranking).
2025 update: WHSmith was sold to Hobbycraft, their new name will be TGJones.
Then a series of events would shape my career to where I am today – working from home managing around 30 clients a month.
One lunchtime, the phone on my desk rang. This was highly unusual as no one ever needed to call me; our Funky Pigeon department was in the corner of a shared commercial property. Trading under the name of ‘Spilt Ink Studio’ most phone calls were for the printing part of the factory, so getting a call for “Nina at Funky Pigeon” was unheard of.
Moonpig was a greetings card affiliate with WHSmith for many years, then their way of trading evolved and they no longer wanted to sell cards via affiliate websites. Ultimately this resulted in a WHSsmith bigwig opening a browser and typing in the 2 word phrase “Personalised Cards”.
As quick as my little legs could carry me, I walked to RP’s glass office and through the open door (he’s an open-door Director) and informed him WHSmith were on the line and they wanted to talk.
What followed was an intensive 8 week concentrated batch of meetings. I wasn’t included, of course, but I got to recognise regular visitors as RP’s office was directly behind my workstation. No one said anything but I knew my days were numbered. The website has hit their target of being at the top of Google page 1 for “Personalised cards” and other phrases “Personalised mother’s day cards” and “Photo upload cards” and my time on social media increased as the popularity of the brand increased.
That was the day I decided “I can’t just work for one website again, when they get to the top of Google, then how can I improve SEO and more?” my dream of working from home started right there and then.
Company Takeover – So, the WHSmith Marketing Head Office is in Swindon. Back then, I would commute to work from Weston-super-Mare to Bedminster in Bristol to walk to and from work. Commuting to Swindon every day would easily become a 2 hour journey twice a day.
This is why I work from home as a freelance SEO consultant; genuinely I love my job. I love making my clients money, I’m strongly financially motivated.
For Hire: 2025 CV Now Updated - Actively Seeking an Employer
So, why am I job hunting in 2025? I need your passion to help me learn new things. With one eye on my income, and both eyes on recent global politics, forward planning with past data allows me to make informed decisions for my future career.
In 2019 I was applying to Digital Agencies as I craved the team environment, then the pandemic bought a flood of new clients.
I now want to be a part of the fourth industrial revolution with a new employer, hybrid in Somerset, I don’t drive so the rail network is my friend – or remote is preferred as long as you promise to have video calls together.
Times change and I’ve been the AOL girl, the tit for tat replies on forums and the sprouting of social media. I’ve lived through the three shifts in marketing, from the early data collection in the 80’s to the Google Monopoly legal case that’s continuing today. I may be old, but I’m not jaded, I’ve got a fire in my belly and no one to engage with on a daily basis. I’m missing colleagues, associates and a Marketing Director to bounce off.
If you want someone who will challenge conventional thinking, and be unafraid to poke an elephant with my finger – and talk about it on stage or on Teams – I’m your gal. As a part qualifed AAT-qualified accountant, I’m able to ask leading finance questions on the fly. In my previous Project Management and Team Training roles, I’ve confidently engaged with stakeholders at all levels, from the shop floor to the boardroom.
1990's and eCommerce SEO in the early 2000's - Accidental Entity Digital Marketing and Common Sense Website Content Writing.
It all started in the early 2000s when I wasn’t an SEO expert, a content strategist, or even remotely aware of what an algorithm was. I was a lowly and L-plate-wearing vinyl DJ. I accidentally bought a 6,000 strong record collection and quit my day job at Archant PLC (Evening Post/Admag/Mercury group of newspapers).
In 4 years I listed thousands of records individually on eBay; over 15,000 international sales..
With my background in media and advertising, writing enticing adverts came naturally to me, logically, I knew that sales-y descriptions mattered. So, I didn’t just write “Michael Jackson – Thriller.” I added extra keywords like 12” vinyl Funky House record DJ – Not because I’d read a guide on search intent, but because I instinctively understood that buyers weren’t always searching for an exact title, they were browsing for generic keywords with a wallet in their hand.
Without realising it, I was optimising for entities, subtopics, and category relevance. Every listing was unique. Every photo downloaded from my digital camera was original, each file was CTRL+C CTRL+V renamed with unique identifying keywords before I even knew the jargon keyword ‘keywords’.
In the listing description I cross-linked related records, referenced the record label’s history, and embedded YouTube code as HTML CTRL+C CTRL+V wasn’t hard to learn. I’d externally link to Hard To Find Records, Juno Records, Wikipedia and Discogs. Not because some algorithm told me to, but because it’s common sense.
Fast forward to today, and while everyone else is panicking about AI-generated fluff and duplicate content penalties, I’m sitting here thinking, “You lot only just figured this out”? As a sideways thinker, unshockable and confident on the fly, I can definitely wing it until I get the chance to confirm with someone who’s been here longer than five minutes.
I’m not a Zuck-esque “move fast and break things”; but as a sole trader with 17 years of financial worry, I often have to move fast and make instant decisions in the moment. In contrast, I create things that won’t require a PR crisis if they fail. More importantly, if there’s a budget involved, I certainly won’t break as a risk-averse individual.
Of course, there are things I don’t do. I’m not shy. I’m not stressed, I’m certainly not a yes woman – yet my empathetic, people-first approach aims to deliver above expectations and patiently relationship connections without stamping on toes.
I’m the person with my hand in the air for ad-hoc tasks, team building exercises, or contributing voluntarily to an in-house project. You’re looking for a solid and passionate on-page content strategist, yet sometimes the clock is against me and my path winds past 9 to 5.
eCommerce International SEO Lead and Team Coach
I don’t just ‘do’ SEO, I teach on-page methods and dole out homework. I speak Dev jargon in tickets or lasso similes to communicate effectively with non technical stakeholders.
Pre-AI and NLP, I’ve spent years training businesses and content writers on how to stop producing the same keyword-stuffed nonsense and start creating Google food that search engines consume. It’s easy for me to coach, I’ve trained over 400 UK website owners in the last couple of decades. From being paid in beer down the pub, over on Skype, and later Zoom/Teams.
I’ve built custom GPT chatbots for clients to refine their niche content, developed internal linking strategies with NLP tools, and advised content creators with VideoObject schema and structured data using my own proprietary methods.
So, why am I job hunting in 2025? I need your passion to help me learn new things. With one eye on my income, and both eyes on recent global politics, forward planning with past data allows me to make informed decisions for my future career.
In 2019 I was applying to Digital Agencies as I craved the team environment, then the pandemic bought a flood of new clients. I want to be a part of the fourth industrial revolution together with you.
Times change and I’ve been the AOL girl, the tit for tat replies on forums and the sprouting of social media. I’ve lived through the three shifts in marketing, from the early data collection in the 80’s to the Google Monopoloy legal case that’s continuing today. I may be old, but I’m not jaded, I’ve got a fire in my belly and no one to engage with on a daily basis.
If you want someone who will challenge conventional thinking, and be unafraid to poke an elephant with my finger – and talk about it on stage or on Teams – I’m your gal.
