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A4U revamps and rebrands to PerformanceIN

After great success running the popular A4U events as well as their news site, industry events company A4U has relaunched and rebranded its business, complete with the launch of a brand new website.

The company is well-known for running conferences and expos aimed at niche industry professionals, while it also runs the A4u news website. As the industry continue to grow, for both publishers and affiliates, the Bristol-based business has brought a new edge to its offering with the launch of PerformanceIN.com. (more…)

Google Update affecting local Australian rankings?

A few reports are floating around these upside down Australian shores that a recent Google update may have rolled out a double whammy impact, targeting both the devaluation of spammy links as well as a direct impact upon location rankings within a particular area.

This second area is of particular interest for me, as it is so different to the European markets. Take the UK for example, although there are definitely changes in search results based on the actual location the search is undertaken from, it is also difficult to pinpoint geographical changes exactly due to the high number of cities within a relatively small geographical area. Here in Australia, this is very different. With only 6 states, and 4 or 5 key cities within the business sector – it should be quite easy for Google to provide the most relevant listing as per geographical location. (more…)

SEO Brand Marketing – Looking Beyond Keywords

Over the years, I have worked for start-ups, on my own sites, on huge multi-national brands, across a variety of countries and a variety of digital channels. A

mentality that seems to continuously pop up no matter what country I’m on what type of site I’m working on is that SEO should be used to focus on non-brand generic keywords because a site should ‘be default’ always rank for its own brand. This is especially true when considering large multi-national brands. Or is it? A big mistake I see sites make all the time (and I’ve been guilty of myself) is getting so bogged down in the details and the focus on ranking for those all important non-brand keywords that the quick, obvious wins, and investment in SEO as a branding tool are overlooked. SEO brand marketing is ‘a thing’! Here’s

a few quick win areas that are often being forgotten. In the interest of being local, I’m using all Australian search results for this particular exercise but the quick wins remain true no matter the territory! Brand searches are not a guaranteed conversion, it is too easy to assume so. Don’t give the searcher the opportunity get distracted by what else is on the page, ensure a brand search is always part of a wider branding exercise. Just because they’re already looking for your brand doesn’t mean they are 100% loyal! (more…)

On Going to Industry Events: A Personal Account of the Good (and Bad)

State of Search covers a host of events across the globe and this week, we are showcasing our experiences of them.

What is it about SEO and social Industry Events? We hear about them almost daily, their numbers are always growing and it’s difficult to know what to go to, how to afford it and how to make the most out of it. Rather than give tips and thoughts, I’d thought I’d actually put forward my own personal experience of events and the impact they’ve had on my education, career and experiences. (more…)

Sydney (Digital) Events: fastBREAK

Hello State of Searchers, long time no speak! I’m back contributing to the blog – after a 4 month hiatus, during which time I moved countries, shipped a load of things, bought some white goods and settled down to life as an expat in Sydney. It’s good to be back!

I’ll be bringing the usual digital and search opinion pieces and updates, while alongside this investigating the digital industry around Australia and getting to know some more of the people that make it happen.

Having now been here for 3 (very hectic) months, I finally made it to my first event – fastBREAK, a breakfast event held at Sydney’s very impressive Powerhouse Museum. Although not strictly ‘digital’, the event gave me a great insight into the innovative and entrepreneurial spirits of some of Australia’s ‘Generation Y’. This is particularly interesting in a country that is often considered ‘digitally behind’ as compared to big players like the UK and US. (more…)

Getting Things Done? Gold Task Doing? Get To Dynamic? GTD!

Whatever you want to call it – task management, time management, productivity – sorting out the million niggly jobs that need doing both in work and in our personal lives can sometimes be overwhelming. This has been a huge issue for me recently as I am currently preparing to move to Sydney in a month while also helping recruit for a number of new positions on the OMD SEO team, sorting out my handover, making time for friends and family, getting excited about the Olympics and generally tearing my hair out. (more…)

The value of content: why exactly am I writing this post?

As both a writer and reader of all kinds of blogs, I’ve been thinking a lot of late about the quantity and quality of posts that are out there, particularly within the search marketing realm. I’ve spoken a lot about the feeling of drowning in content with friends and collegues, who are experiencing the same sense of growing disinterest.

As connoisseurs of the SEO/digital industry, I think we all recognise that there is a ridiculous, possibly simply excessive amount of content being pushed out on a daily basis. And alas, all too ironically, a fair amount of it is written not because the subject matter is interesting but because people are just out hunting for links using tried and tested content methods. (more…)

SEO is a Business: Just Focus On What You Can Change

Dearest SEOs, this is not a rant per say but more a sigh of exasperation. It’s also not aimed at one person, group of people or industry alone. However… I am starting to feel blue, and stay blue, with all the endless ranting, raving, negativity and well even ‘whining’ that seems to abound these days. (Or maybe it’s just the constant rainy downpour I’ve been under for the last 2 weeks – can’t quite figure out which).

Between panda, penguin, social signals, algorithmic ‘tweaks’, WMT warnings, Search Plus Your World, (not provided), random ranking drops, delving into the world of financial comparison and all the other stunts Google has pulled in the last six months (not to mention fun privacy laws popping up), I get where the ranting comes from. I do. And yet I’m also a little sick of it.

At the end of the day, we’re all in business. What we need to do is adapt, learn, have a mini rant and move and focus on the ££/$$/€€. There are a few facts which cannot be denied people. Some seem to be forgetting them. (more…)

Secrets behind a Startup: This is My Jam

Howdy State of Searchers. I’d thought I’d bring you something a little different in this post and rather than have me blathering on about SEO and the like, I wanted to delve into the mind of another far more interesting than I. So here it is… an interview with Ralph Cowling, one quarter of the wizard team behind hyped new online music sharing service This is My Jam, along with Matthew Ogle, Hannah Donovan and Andreas Jansson.

The concept is simple, what song is it that you’ve just played 5 times in a row and can’t quite stop yourself from hitting play a sixth time? Share it and find out what others share in return. Harking back to the days of buying ‘singles’, This is My Jam focuses on gems of songs that can be from any era. It’s not about new music, albums or genres of music but about telling friends about THAT song they simply have to listen to. Catching on so far through word of mouth, and automatically pulling in you details through twitter/Facebook, it is a great example of social media at work.

With plaudits from NME, The Next Web, LifeHacker and even The Guardian to name but a few, the site’s popularity has sky rocketed in the 4 months it has existed. Launched back in December, but only going into public beta in February, it truly is a demonstration of what can be achieved by a talented group of people with a great idea but not a lot of capital. Here I ask Ralph to tell us a little more about running the site, from tech to social media via analytics and of course some Jams.

(more…)

The Psychology of Link Building

Last week I spoke at a Distilled Meetup themed around the Psychology of Link Building, alongside Mike Essex from Koozai and Phil Nottingham from Distilled.

It was a really interesting event, and now I’m finally on the road to recovery from my #girlflu, I thought I’d share some of my insights and takeaways from the evening. This is however less a write-up of the event, and more a few stand-outs thoughts on link building and the thoughts behind it as an overview. (more…)

Building Your Brand: Test Your Content, Not Just Your Keywords

I was doing my usual shuffle through a few analytics accounts the other day, for interest rather than with a clear goal in my mind when this blog post occurred to me. Firstly apologies for again writing something that is not ‘in the news’ as such. I promise my next post will be about current events – from Google plus-ing to site mobile-ing and everything in between.

For now, back to the thought I had about content, brand and analytics.

Here’s my train of thought:

1. We all know that our analytics accounts tell us what content is working, what search terms people come in on and even what search terms send the ‘right’ kind of people to our site.

2. We all know that we need to hone our keyword targeting in order to get those ‘right’ kind of people – even if we are limited to using endlessly frustrating tools like the dreaded Adwords Keyword Tool.

3. We all know we need to write content, using those target keywords, in order to get conversions.

4. How often do we think about brand visibility and its value alongside conversions?

Let me give you an example. (more…)

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