Infrastructure Architecture, Design and Deployment
In the early days of the web, search engines simply displayed search results as blue links, from the first result to the very last. But over the last decade, search results have been changing almost non-stop, and the results display (or SERPs) can be now be considered an experience all of its own.
SERP stands for ‘search engine results page’ and this page can vary depending on what the user has entered, or queried. Type a search into the engine, and depending on the context, you’ll see map packs, answer boxes, events, images, videos, paid ads and more. Search results are now complex, responsive, and multi-layered.
SERPsketch is a brand-new SEO tracking and ranking app which integrates and consolidates all of the above, giving businesses a clearer picture and better perspective of their SEO performance and outreach.
In the case study below, SERPsketch’s CCO and Co-Founder Stuart Rex, gives an overview of the application and explains how Secura supported their journey to a managed Azure platform.
Click the header above for the full text transcript of the SERPsketch case study video.
Stuart:
I’m Stuart Rex, and I’m the Chief Commercial Officer for SERPsketch.
SERPsketch is a tool for digital marketers that helps understand what’s going on on the first page of the search engine results pages. It shows you all the different elements of the results page, so things like where your paid advertising is, some of the organic features such as featured snippets and some of the other aspects that you can optimise for. So the idea being being you can see whatever it is your customer sees when they search for your brand, event, business, or whatever that may be.
What we do find is that with every client that does uses the tool, that we can always extract some level of insight and there is always an opportunity that has been untapped. We’ve not found a client yet who’s got the perfect mix. And really, what we seek to do with the tool, and the main benefit to the client, is seeing where those opportunities are, who you’re really competing against online versus who you believe you’re competing against, and then showing exactly which features of the results page are appearing at the top of the search, at the keyword level, to then understand where you can focus your marketing effort to be most visible for those keywords.
We had a clear vision of what the application needed to do and the business challenge it needed to solve. When we were at the very early architecture design decision phase, we engaged with the team at Secura, with some of the technical team there, we explained what we were looking to do from a business point of view, discussed the possible routes that we could go from an application development side, and we knew that there were going to be a number of potential bottlenecks. There’s quite a high volume of data that needs to go through the system and quite a lot of rendering and processing.
When we looked at the benefits of using the Azure platform, and in particular with Secura, we could see that the level of expertise that would come with that was far beyond what we would get internally. And actually, the ability to use the skills of the Secura team to help us build out the best-in-class capability, using the most modern features of Azure to meet the needs of SERPsketch, just seemed like the very obvious way to go.
We don’t have significant hosting capability in-house. What we do have is very strong application development capability. But where the Azure stack is moving at such a pace, you know, even if you have someone, one person, full-time, looking at that, there are still going to be things that they’re not going to know. And benefiting from Secura’s depth and breadth of skills, as well as their tier 1 partnership with Microsoft themselves, we were able to then know that we’re getting a broader view of what is possible, from a hosting perspective, as we could get, and certainly far deeper than we would achieve on our own.
Over the years, I’ve worked with numerous hosting companies, and I’ve never worked with an organisation as good as Secura. Quite frankly, the level of expertise, the level of support, the depth of expertise, and the ability to speak to the people you need to speak to, to be confident that your problems are being managed are really, you know, couldn’t be happier. The sign to me of a good hosting team is one that I don’t worry about. It’s just another aspect of the business that we know is in safe and capable hands, and the technical team who work with Secura on a day-to-day basis sing nothing but their praises.
Architecture Development
Secura helped with the design and development of SERPsketch’s infrastructure from its initial concept phase, through to its deployment and release
On-Going Support
Secura provide SERPsketch with in-life support and on-going optimisation.
The Secura team can work with customers on the entire lifecycle of an application or product development, right through to in-life support and on-going optimisation.
Work began with Igale on SERPsketch while the application was still in its initial concept phase. Secura was able to provide architecture, solution and deployment design based on the development proposal and timeline for release.
After discussing the possible development routes with the Secura team, and explaining what SERPsketch required from a business point of view, the decision was made that the correct solution to support the application would be Microsoft’s Azure.
Through Secura’s Azure Management solution, SERPsketch were able to utilise the technical team’s knowledge and expertise in Azure to build a solution that matched their business requirements. The Secura team continue to oversee SERPsketch’s Azure solution, ensuring it supports their business going forward.
From day one, it can be complex to get to grips with Microsoft’s Azure cloud services. From effectively configuring its build and design, to overseeing on-going management and strategy, Secura can help you deliver on your hosting objectives.
Our Azure Management service takes the headache and confusion out of Azure’s deployment and makes running its cloud services as simple and straightforward as possible. With Secura’s expert Azure-qualified team, we can provide the guidance and assistance you need to ensure your Azure platform is aligned with budget, business requirements and in-house capabilities.
Secura helped plan the development of the application architecture to ensure it met the SERPsketch’s objectives.
From the early architecture design phase through to deployment, Secura supported SERPsketch’s journey to Azure.
Secura’s depth of knowledge and expertise continues to benefit SERPsketch and act as an extension of their in-house team.
