Yes it’s time for the second instalment of my live blogging from BrightonSEO, this one features the inimitable Malcom Coles and his learning from how popular gossip site Holy Moly uses free tools to work out what people are searching for and optimise their content for it. This is comprised of two main areas:
1. Where can you find what people are searching for?
2. How can you use that info if you site is in Google News? (more…)
Terrible live blogger that I am, I only made it down to BrightonSEO for the start of the afternoon’s sessions. The truth is I actually forced myself off my deathbed to make it down for at least half the day. Dedication to the BrightonSEO cause.
I wanted to get there in time for Richard Kershaw‘s talk on buying websites for SEO benefit. Mr Kershaw is far too modest about his impressive portfolio of websites and talents so I was looking forward to learning some useful insights. (more…)
So here I am sitting on a train from Leeds, on my way back to London after yet another brilliant Think Visibility, and practically in tears at having to miss Drink Visibility. Not to mention significantly more sober than most other attendees right now. Possibly due some kind of bizarre live blogging addiction (yes, WTF) I thought now might be a good time to do a bit of a write up on this weekend’s conference shenanigans before I jet off for some snowboarding fun tomorrow morning.
This is actually my 6-month-versary with State of Search as I wrote my first post, a Love Letter to Think Visibility, at TV4. This time I was returning as a speaker, gulp. True to form, Dom and his merry band of organisers somehow managed to take the attendee-love one step further this time with a host of additions. The pre-party included a giant Scalextrix track. Retro toy fun ftw, and this was just the beginning of the goodies. A little pre-conference bacon buttie & cup of tea? Well I don’t mind if I do. Of course not all of Dom’s surprises were quite as pleasant – seeing my face plastered across three projector screens first thing on a Saturday, with a hangover, was not my ideal gentle wake up exercise. (more…)
My last session of the day features a panel of Dave Naylor from Bronco, Bill Hunt from Back Azimuth Consulting and Jonathan Beeston from Efficient Frontier battling it out in a head-to-head over the age old debate: Which search marketing tactic is the most cost effective, PPC or SEO? Moderating the battle is Jon Myers from Yahoo!.
First up is Bill, setting the scene on PPC vs SEO. Why can’t we all just get along? is Bill’s first question. So first things – collaboration or cannibalisation? If you have both the top PPC and top organic result, what should we do? Is it working for that company? (more…)
Next up are Pete Young from Brilliant Media (and State of Search blogger!) and Matthew Bailey from Site Logic Marketing talking on how to look beyond the basic/obvious metrics such as PageRank, indexed pages etc. and further into metrics that can make big changes to your company and your ROI. Moderating the panel is Brian Clifton, author of Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics.
So what does meaningful metrics mean? Brian Clifton gives a little background – firstly we have to consider two different types. Firstly there’s the nicely controlled on-site metric – what visitors are doing on your site, what they buy, where they come from, how long they stay. The majority of these are all within our control. Off-site metrics are quite different. People talking about your brand, tweets, mentions – how do we compare these metrics alongside one another and gain meaningful insight from them? (more…)
My first session of the day and a back and forth presentation between Andy Atkins-Krüger from WebCertain and Bill Hunt, SES Advisory Board and Back Azimuth Consulting.
They’re covering how to deal with companies who are targeting multiple markets or countries, and the complexities to be considered alongside standard SEO. The session looks at key issues critical to successfully developing, optimising, and launching multi-global websites.
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I may be going a little old school with this post but sometimes all the tools in the world are no substitute for a little manual digging, imagination and research.
There are some amazing tools out on the market these days and I’m a fan of an automation or two but I do think it’s too easy to rely on a tool and lose some really valuable potential link goldmines because you’re not looking in the right place. Sometimes it takes a little search engine elbow grease.
I know it should be a basic but it’s so crucial, it should also be revisited. (more…)
After State of Search’s recent poll to find our industry’s favourite conference, I wanted to take the opportunity to again highlight the many benefits of attending some of the conferences put on in our industry.
When I started in SEO, I was slightly overwhelmed by the idea of going to a conference – Was it really going to help that much? Can’t I just learn the same lessons from reading on the internet? Is it really worth the price of the ticket? How do I know what best talks to attend are? Is it a practical use of my time?
This is often also reflected by employers if you need to ask them to both allow you the time off work and fork out for the entrance fee. If you work in a non-search focused agency, it can also be difficult to get the purse string holders to understand that yes a search conference is equivalent to a training course for us. (more…)
I’m always jotting down useful ideas, tools, pointers, thoughts etc. etc. for SEO – everything from chats in the pub to conferences – there’s endless amounts of information out there to help make your life easier and your rankings climb.
However I think there’s a really crucial tool that just doesn’t get used enough by SEOs when working on projects, and that’s communication. Especially with clients or stakeholders.
Get them on board and it’s amazing the difference it can have on both your stress levels and your keyword positions.
I want to give a couple of examples of this point, as the idea for this post actually came to me from a client a couple of weeks ago.
My last live blog of the excellent Distilled information-laden conference is on Patrick Altoft of Branded 3′s presentation about his experience of Google link devaluation and how to avoid this. His focus is on link building efficiency, as he believes the majority of people just don’t realise how many links Google devalues.
Don’t buy links unless you are 100% sure it’s safe. Think about it: most text link brokers actually have Google Analytics on their site so Google knows exactly what they’re doing! (more…)
As Ayima’s Jane Copland explains, her talk focuses on: “the biggest link building issues you can face in competitive markets, and their solutions”. She runs through some common problems and questions:
No two industries are alike, the rules change. It’s not necessarily about Google treating industries differently, it’s about who’s competing in them. You don’t need to understand what’s working for everyone else, you need to focus on what is going to work for what you want to rank for. (more…)
Now for Distilled’s Leonie Wharton’s simple tips on getting the best out of your relationship with your designers.
(Sorry guys, no time to cover Andy’s tips on technologies & SEO – watch out for his blog post on the Distilled blog soon.)
Firstly, learn to communicate better with designers – it’ll help everyone! (more…)
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