“What exactly does FreeAssortment do?”

The sales pitch… FreeAssortment is a digital marketing and web development consultancy run by Ian Stewart, based in Kenmare, County Kerry and Spain’s beautiful Costa del Sol. I build websites, write SEO content, manage Google Ads campaigns, handle email marketing, and — increasingly — help businesses optimise their online presence for AI systems (AIO). Clients are based in Ireland, the UK, and the Costa del Sol.

FreeAssortment – Digital Marketing and Web Development

The more personal version… This has been a difficult page to write – selling other people is much easier than selling myself.

FreeAssortment is not a company, it’s me. One person. “FreeAssortment” is just a trading name I use. My name is Ian Stewart. I’ve spent 35+ years in advertising and promotion, starting with basic typesetting and print – everything from simple business cards to press ad campaigns and promotional material. Thanks to a few friends and contacts, I worked with a number of schools in Newcastle upon Tyne, setting and printing school prospectuses.

I also created educational material for Northumbrian Water, including an eye-poppingly lucrative ‘CD ROM’ contract. (“CD ROM” – I’ll bet that’s a name you haven’t heard in some time.) And, if you, dear reader, were in the Northumberland area in the 2000s, I’m also the person responsible for your water bills. You’re welcome.

I worked a lot with The Davy Roll Company of Gateshead, producing mountains of printed material, plus 3D-rendered presentation videos for international exhibitions. This was great work, it really was. Sadly, since the company’s acquisition by Union Electric Steel – and the absolute butchering of the UK’s steel industry – the company no longer exists. A great shame. A quick ‘shout-out’ to Ian McCorry, David Attle and everyone else who made working for Davy Roll a genuine pleasure. You are missed.

In case it’s of interest, the name ‘Free Assortment’ comes from the song, Genetix by The Stranglers, “The second law of free assortment states that in a cross involving one pair of alternative characteristics, The characteristics will segregate in the second filial generation, in the relative proportions of 9:3:3:1”.

The line alludes to the work of the Austrian biologist, meteorologist, mathematician and Augustinian friar, Gregor Johann Mendel, “the father of genetics”...

“The Law of Independent Assortment (Mendel’s second law) states that the alleles of two or more different genes get sorted into gametes independently of one another. Inheriting a specific allele for one trait (such as seed colour) does not influence which allele you inherit for another trait (such as seed shape).”

It’s fascinating stuff… if you find yourself with nothing better to do.

So, here are a few questions as to what I do, and why I do it…

Am I Graphic Designer?

No. I’m absolutely not an artist, but I do understand technical artwork. I understand how print works and am more than capable of producing print-ready artwork. I also understand how images are used on the internet and how to make sure any imagery used is used properly. There’s quite a to more to that than you might think.

Am I a Web Designer?

Yes! And perhaps… no. I can certainly do it – take a look at this one, built for El Oceano Hotel, for example (this version from early 2026). As it goes, I’m quite proud of this site. I think it wins both visually and, more importantly, technically. Try something, if you have a minute… search Google for “beachfront hotel spain“. Scroll down, past the all the ‘Sponsored results‘ and travel giants, you should see El Oceano.

“At the bottom of the page?!”, you might say. But think about that…

Such a ‘broad’ search term. I confidently estimate that there A SQULLION hotels in Spain, a large proportion of them describing themselves as ‘beachfront’.
It is the only first-page listing, that actually is a hotel. All the others are the huge ‘Online Travel Agencies’ (OTAs) or ‘Travel Aggregators’ like trivago.com, tripadvisor.com, kayak, etc.
While an excellent company, El Oceano is still comparitively small, compared to many. This level of organic exposure is extraordinary.

Through careful creation of good quality web content, and relentless submissions to search engines, etc., I managed to get the hotel in, perhaps, the best position it can ever hope to be. I know I’ll never beat the huge sites. For example, according to something I read a few years ago, in 2020 (I think), TripAdvisor spent $300 million on internet adverts. Three hundred million dollars! Unless your hotel has an spectacularly large advertising budget, we’ll never beat that.

And not just the hotel. Try searching Google for “bed linen spain” You’ll find (hopefully) my client, Yorkshire Linen Beds & More, right at the top of the organic list. Above Next, above Ikea. Not too shabby.

And one last one for now… search Google for “self storage cramlington“. NE Self Storage, that’s mine too.

But ‘web designer‘ is a description I’m not entirely comfortable with. “With which I’m’ not entirely comfortable” – don’t finish a sentence with a preposition.

Am I a Coder?

Nope. But I have a fairly good, albeit basic, knowledge of programming – particularly PHP. I can read code and get a good enough idea of how to edit and amend it.

Am I a Social Media Expert?

“Expert”? Nah. I use Facebook – a lot. It’s about the only one of the big platforms I do use. Instagram certainly carries some weight, no doubt, but for me – and more importantly, for targeted, brand awareness – Facebook is the winner. ‘Facebook Groups’ are the main thing. Maintaining your Page is important, as is spending a little on ‘Boosted’ posts, but to reach new, potential customers or clients, regular posts in targeted Facebook Groups can work wonders.

I’ve seen it work. For a client who rents self storage containers, a round of Group posts will, almost always, bring a rush of enquiries. Not every time, it must be said, but more than enough for me to be very confident that this sort of marketing has a direct effect.

And lastly on this point… ‘Post’, don’t ‘Share’. Posted ads carry more weight than shared ones.

So, What the Hell Are You, Ian?

I know how to get your name, your brand, your company, product or your service actually seen. Through conventional search and the newly emerging voice search (or AI Search), I understand how to make sure Google, ChatGPT and others, will know about your website, and more importantly, display and recommend it.

I can get your name as high as possible on Google Search – and mentioned by ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, etc.

My history is in ‘traditional’ search, but increasingly focussing on AI search – ‘AIO‘, ‘Voice Search‘, there are many names for it – they all amount to the same thing.

I Do Marketing

It’s perhaps a philosophical point… we can create the single most beautiful thing in existence, but if nobody ever sees it, does it serve a point? A bit harsh, maybe, but true. Marketing is all about getting your message, your website, your company, in front of people’s faces.

It’s a relentless task. Shout, shout and shout some more. My (sadly now departed) brother once told me, “Ian, you don’t buy Colgate toothpaste because it’s the best. You buy it because you’ve been told to buy it a million times since the day you were born”.

In marketing and advertising, that sums it up very nicely.