Posts by Barry Adams

Barry is the Digital Services Director at Pierce Communications in Belfast, where he leads an expert team providing web development and digital marketing services for a wide range of clients across Ireland and the UK. Previously Barry worked as corporate webmaster for multinationals, web consultant for SMEs, and in-house SEO specialist for a large regional newspaper. More articles and bio from Barry Adams
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The Division Within SEO: Google is our friend/enemy

SEO - criminal or hero?

Over the weekend there was an interesting post up on SEOmoz which chronicled Rand Fishkin’s discussion with SEO Book’s Aaron Wall about outing web spammers. It’s definitely worth a read and will provide some background information for this blog post.

Basically Rand is in favour of pointing out what he believes are bad SEO practices, specifically web spam, and Aaron is against it. Some other SEOs contributed to the debate, as well as a follow-up discussion I had with Rand and others on Saturday. (more…)

Top 10 Blogs That Are Not About SEO But You Should Be Reading Anyway

reading-list-beach

It’s that time of year again when people fall over one another to publish a list of ‘best blog posts of 2011‘ or ‘blogs to watch in 2012‘ or ‘digital marketing trends that will rock your world next year‘. Even State of Search can’t escape posts like that, because people apparently like to read it.

I figured if such lists get published anyway, I might as well make one of my own – but this time I’ll make one that could actually break the mold and, you know, be useful. So I thought I’d compose a slightly different list. Specifically, a list of blogs that are NOT about SEO – or only mention it in passing – but that you should be reading anyway. Because the stuff that gets published there is, simply put, epically awesome. (more…)

SEO for Ecommerce

Google Shopping results

On November 24th I gave a talk on SEO for Ecommerce at the annual SAScon mini-conference. Below I will expand on some of the points I made during that talk.

Focus on the money

While for many sites a solid long-tail SEO strategy is important, budgets are often tight and we need to make decisions about where to spend our efforts. For ecommerce sites this is a relatively straightforward decision: focus on the keywords that bring in the biggest rewards.

So you need to identify your top earning keywords and make sure your on-page optimisation and linkbuilding efforts are directed there, aiming for top rankings and a maximum share of search volume. (more…)

Think Insights – Google’s latest research tool

Think Insights with GoogleWhile on the one hand Google is making some forms of data less accessible (*coughSSLsearchcough*), in other areas Google seems intent on making data more accessible and easy to use.

As a part of its ever-expanding Think initiative, Google has now launched Think Insights for the public. Positioned as an “information and resource hub for marketers”, Think Insights provides a wealth of market research, industry trends, and consumer behaviour data in easily digestible forms. (more…)

Three Essential Skills for Beginning SEOs

start-race

There have been a few blog posts doing the rounds recently about what makes a good SEO, and what needs to be done to ensure new entrants in to the industry pick up the required skills and know-how quickly and accurately.

I’m not shy about jumping on bandwagons (nor falling off of them for that matter), so allow me to add my own insights as to what I believe make a good set of foundational skills every (beginning) SEO should possess: (more…)

An Imminent Revolution in Search

Revolution

This is going to be a slightly incoherent rant about the changing world of search, as I’m currently quite jetlagged and doped up to my eyeballs with drugs to fight a chest infection. I’m not complaining though as all this is the result of a rather magnificent three-week honeymoon in New Zealand (yes we did plan it around the Rugby World Cup) (no it was her idea) (why do you think I married her?!), it’s just an explanation for my somewhat unhinged output.

I think everyone who works in search understands on some level that we’re living in truly interesting times. There’s a sense of anticipation, a mood of imminent revolutionary change. (more…)

Google Plus is a Honeytrap

honeycomb

Many people seem to believe that Google+ is meant as a valid alternative to Facebook, that Google is serious about competing with Zuckerberg’s brainchild, and that Larry and Sergei are devoted to gaining a solid foothold in the social media world.

But I believe all that is just a happy side-effect of Google’s real goal: to eventually replace the link graph with the social graph in its search ranking algorithm.

Google’s web search was built upon the premise that the amount and quality of links pointing to a website was a sign of its value and importance. This premise has since been so mauled and mangled by spammers and, yes, SEOs, that it is no longer true. Links are no longer an entirely trustworthy metric. (more…)

Google Analytics rolls out Multi-Channel Funnel reports for all accounts

Google has announced that as of yesterday (August 24) all Google Analytics accounts will have Multi-Channel Conversion Funnel reports available. Previously available to only a limited amount of accounts, Google has now decided to roll out this feature for all users in the new version of Google Analytics.

Below is a short video from Google explaining what these Multi-Channel Funnel reports are:

(more…)

Google Image Search traffic is ruining my SEO reports

Google-Image-Search-traffic-intro

In case you missed it, a few weeks ago Google seems to have made a quiet change to how Google Analytics records visits coming from Image Search results.

Whereas previously Image Search showed up in your Google Analytics as a referral visit – and thus allowed you to easily filter it from your reports – now it seems Image Search visits are part of the organic search traffic in your Google Analytics reports. (more…)

The Problem with Testing in SEO

Let me start by saying I’m a huge fan of testing in SEO and other online marketing disciplines. Proper tests can take away a lot of the FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) that exists in the online marketing industry.

And there are several search engine prophets out there that are doing a superb job testing SEO myths and the impact of new search features. David Harry at SEO Dojo has done some great stuff, and so has the crew at SEOmoz (though a bit hit and miss).

The problems that exist with testing in SEO aren’t deliberate. I’m convinced that pretty much all tests performed by SEOs start with the best of intentions: to help uncover truths and add quality information and best practices to our methods. (more…)

Universal Search: how often are they shown on Google’s SERPs?

Last week Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Land reported on a study done by Searchmetrics about which types of universal search – results from specific vertical searches such as videos and images, shown in addition to normal web page results – appear most often in Google’s American SERPs.

Now Searchmetrics has sent State of Search similar data for UK search results, and it appears the trends follows that of Google.com closely. First of all, what jumps out is that universal results are a part of the vast majority of SERPs. Less than 30% of Google’s results pages do not have a universal element to them. (more…)

Adobe Edge: SEO-friendly web animations?

Adobe EdgeYesterday Adobe, the company behind the much loved and even more hated Flash technology, introduced Adobe Edge. In their own words:

“Adobe® Edge is a new web motion and interaction design tool that allows designers to bring animated content to websites, using web standards like HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS3.”

In other words, Edge promises to do the same as Flash, but this time it’ll be based on web standards. Which means that, in theory, Edge animations can be SEO-friendly. (more…)

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