Posts by Bas van den Beld

Bas van den Beld is a speaker, trainer and online marketing strategist. Bas is the owner of Stateofsearch.com. -- You can hire Bas to speak, train or consult. -- More articles and bio from Bas van den Beld
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New Rules of (Affiliate) site architecture – Martin McDonald at A4U

MartinMcDonald-A4u-Barcelona-2012

At A4U Expo Martin Mc Donald talked about site architecture for Affiliates. The title might suggest it would be a very technical presentation, but in fact it was much more about getting affiliates to change their attitude.

There have been many Google Updates over the past few years, with Panda and Penguin of course sticking out. According to Martin McDonald, the way we are looking at the Google Updates is wrong. SEO’s act reactively to Google Updates like Panda. That is the wrong way around.

The first reaction to an update is panic. Affiliates say “Why have I lost all my traffic?”. When then asked what they have done it becomes clear that before they copied the hotel descriptions and ranked. This doesn’t work anymore. (more…)

Germany – Holland on Social Media

11 months ago by Bas van den Beld 1 Comment

As a Dutchman this is not an easy post to make. Last week Holland lost (big time) to Germany at the Euro 2012 Football Champhionships. Now that is not something you as a Dutchman want to be reminded off too much. But with Social Media this has become relatively impossible. Because there is so much discussion going on about it and it doesn’t go away.

The Germans (they won so it makes sense) decided to put all the Social Media activity in an infographic. That brings some interesting data to light.

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How To Get The Most Out of A4U – Guest Post Winner

A4U-Barcelona-300x125

For the upcoming A4U Expo, which starts tomorrow in Barcelona, we organized a contest to find a blogger who would join us in Barcelona and write for us. Even though the contest wasn’t the success we hoped for when we started this, we have a winner: Gillian Cook from SEOptimise will be going to Barcelona! Find her entry below and watch out for her thoughts on A4U Expo Barcelona 2012!

A few tips on how to become the social butterfly of A4U, make your boss fall in love with your brilliant contributions, and make legitimate friends who are more than distant contacts.

Before The Conference

  1. Teachers Pet. Work out the greatest challenges facing your boss or business.  Establish which session will give you meaty solutions to these dilemmas. Does your MD go on about their fear of the dreaded cookie law or how the affiliate network has been smacked by Penguin?  Make sure you come back with tangible ways to fix these problems.
  2. Hit the books.  Familiarise yourself with the agenda. Do your research and figure out which sessions are going to be indispensable to you.  If the session is early in the day, perhaps set a wake up alarm in case you’re out late the night before.
  3. Create a stalker list on Twitter.  Who do you want to talk to at A4U?  Track them down now, start chatting with them online, and suggest meeting up for a coffee.  Conferences are a great place to contact people who otherwise would be very difficult to meet.
  4. Remember your Digits.  Your website traffic is likely to have experienced some effects from Penguin or Panda. Dig into your analytics and pull out some statistics.  If you have facts and figures at the ready, you’ll look smarter than the average bear and if a competitor pipes up, it’s easier to find out if they came off better or worse.
  5. Business Cards.  Make sure you have business cards with the correct contact details to hand out to the people you’re going to meet. Don’t have company business cards? Order your own from a printing site.  It seems simple but it’s often overlooked.

At The Conference

  1. Smile.  If you’re not feeling approachable, this simple act will make others think you’re pleasant, even with a hangover.
  2. Live blog or actively use Twitter. Gain exposure while helping others catch up on any points they missed. Join conversations and make sure to use the conference hash tag.
  3. Snap ID Tags.  Take photos of people’s lanyards as you meet them to remember their names.  During breaks add them to LinkedIn, + Circles, and track them down on Twitter. Alternatively, download CardMunch, a business card reader application which automatically adds people to your LinkedIn.
  4. Hands Up.  People always notice the man with the mic – so take control of it!  I challenge you to ask a question at every panel you attend. Be sure to introduce yourself and what company you’re from before you ask your question.
  5. “What did you think?”  In the buffet queue or while waiting for the next session to begin, ask your neighbour what they thought of their last session. It’s a simple question, everyone will have a basic opinion, and the conversation can go from there.
  6. Force yourself to go to the networking events.  Don’t go for a siesta – go out!  A4U have great networking nights you should definitely take advantage of.
  7. Introduce and connect other people.  This makes you look like you’re in control and helps build stronger connections. Don’t be shy, if you see someone standing alone bring them into your conversation.

After The Conference

  1. Follow up quickly and efficiently whether that’s finding people on professional networks, sending the emails that you said you would, or writing a blog post. Do it while the conference is fresh in people’s mind.
  2. Connect with the speakers. Some presenters have their own personal blog. Write a comment on any posts about their presentations or give them feedback through Twitter.
  3. Report back to your boss with the solutions you found to the problems that were identified before you went to A4U. Do a blog post recap on the key conference takeaways or run a learning lunch seminar once you’re back in the office to share the best ideas you picked up. If you are able to prove to your boss that the conference was valuable, it’s more likely that your company will send you again!
  4. Read other peoples blog posts about the conference and leave a comment.
  5. Speakers Slides.  Get access to the speaker’s slides. There is so much information packed into two days and additionally there are quite often multiple presentations running at the same time. Even if you’re there, you won’t see it all and this can be a good way to catch up on what you missed.

Friday Talk: Eric Schmidt at the UK Big Tent

This Friday Talk is not a presentation as such, but a talk on stage with Eric Schmidt. A few weeks ago we witnessed Schmidt discuss Google with students in Amsterdam, now he talks to Channel 4′s Krishnan Guru-Murthy and fields questions from the audience. He addresses topics including the future of the Internet and how mobile is shaping the web.

Google Supporting Gay Marriage With Easter Egg?

google-gay-doodle

A few weeks ago Eric Schmidt told a group of Dutch students that Google always tries to be impartial when it comes to political matters. They feel they shouldn’t take stand and even though Eric Schmidt has been linked to the Democrats before and Obama has spoken at Google, they claim not to have a preference.

On one matter however Google has always been clear: it supports the gay community and gay marriage. Sergey Brin actually took a pretty solid stand towards Proposition 8 in California in 2008.

At the moment the discussion about gay marriage again comes up in the US and it might seem as if Google again is taking stand. The fact that its in the news is actual a coincidence with what happens if you do a search for “Gay” or “Gay marriage” on Google you will get this result:

As said, this is not directly related to the news, it is something which Google has done in different formats over the years as you can see on the screens on Michel’s post on his own blog. But it is a nice coincidence for those supporting the purpose.

Google+ Snippets Show up in Site Connected Search Results

Google wants Google+ to be a succes, after all it is the idea that everything Google does moves over to the Google+ infrastructure. That means the more people use it, the better. Also because that is the data that Google gathers to then give us back information in for example the search results which is tailored to our needs.

As Maile Ohye explained in a video earlier this week one thing which is important here is trust. As searchers we want to see what the people we trust are sharing. As a website owner we want people with authority to share our content. And in search all the identity and trust levels are integrated.

Today I did a search on Google and found the result below:

(more…)

The Ultimate Cookie Legislation Guide

cookie-monster

I don’t think any one of us would have predicted that when we saw cookie monster in Sesame Street cookies would have such a big impact on our lives. We might have thought we needed to protect our cookies, but we probably all thought cookie monster was after the ones in our mothers cookie basket. Never ones which made sure we did our jobs right.

Now the cookie monster has changed into a governmental creature. And instead of eating all our cookies, he is simply telling us we have to ask permission. Hmm it does sound a lot like my mother back then if you think about it…

Ever since the EU decided on the new cookie regulations the online industry has been in distress: what is really happening? what are we supposed to do? What are the implications? Nobody really seems to know, not even those who made the regulations in the first place. (more…)

Google+ is about Identity: Intimacy, Interaction and Interests

integration-identity-Google+

We know that Google+ is here to stay. Google has chosen the ‘social’ direction and is not intending to leave that direction. Which means we should look at Google+ and see how it can help us and our brand.

Mahle Ohye of Google made the video below in which she explains what Google+ really is and how it can help you build your reputation. An interesting video (which covers some of what I will be talking about at A4U Expo next week). Let’s take a look at some of the things Ohye says. She talks about Identity, Search and how you can make it work for your brands reputation. (more…)

Bing Testing New Design in the UK

We sometimes catch Google tests in the wild, even though most of the State of Search bloggers are based in Europe. That is because Google tends to test broader than just the US (even though US does get the most attention from Google).

With Bing its different, since they focus mainly on the US, maybe because of the market share. So when they do test here its news. Maybe not big news, but still news.

It now seems as if Bing is testing the new designs, which they have been testing in the US already, in the UK. According to Webpronews a version is being tested which has a new homepage design and in which the search results are cleaner. (more…)

How To Connect Your Google+ Pages and Website

google+-pages-search

Authority is one of the main aspects on which Google is focussing. And authority comes in different ways. There is the authority of those around you, there is the authorship, which has another big reason for Google: to determine which content belongs where. On top of that Google makes sure you are indeed connected to a Google+ page, which means they are able to much better determine your connections.

And then there is the connection with your Google+ Business Page, which also has ‘authority’ which you can make stand out in the search results. And content you put on your Google+ page also shows up in for example the search results.

Until now getting your content connected to your Google+ (business) page and showing your image in the SERPS was quite a difficult process. Especially if you want content which is on your website to be connected to your Google+ page and showing up connected in the search results.

But now Google has made things easier by creating an easy method of linking your website to your Google+ page. (more…)

5 Insights for Christmas 2012

How was your summer? Looking forward to Christmas? Wait, its early June, what the … are you talking about? Christmas?

It’s not the bad weather which makes me ask this, we are still hoping for a good summer. But as James Murray pointed out in his last post about contact lenses it might be a smart idea to look forward. So why not look at Christmas already?

Experian made the video below as an introduction to one of their webinars. It gives you 5 insights for Christmas 2012.

Did you know for example that customers like to open e-mails more when Christmas time comes around? But that they are more tempted to spend when that Christmas e-mail is sent in November? And that Cyber Monday this year will be on December 3rd? Experian also expects the UK to spend no less than 27 million hours on social media sites on Boxing Day.

What are you doing?

These numbers show it is good to be prepared for specific events, like Christmas, but also for example the upcoming Olympics. So that makes me wonder: how ready are you for the Olympics? Or for Euro 2012? What have you done to prepare yourself? Let us know and we’ll collect them and you might just feature in our next post!

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