Posts by Claire Carlile

Claire Carlile is a Chartered Marketer with an MSc in Marketing, living and working in Pembrokeshire, West Wales. As a self confessed ‘non technical’ SEO, Claire takes a holistic and marketing led approach to SEO. She is self-employed. More articles and bio from Claire Carlile

Visit Claire Carlile's website

Facebook pulls review functionality from pages – next steps for SMBs

Last week admins for Facebook pages that were utilizing the Reviews application were warned that this functionality (along with discussions) would cease to exist from the 31^st October, with Facebook taking the official line that:

“We’ve found the best way to encourage conversation and feedback is through posts and comments on your Wall, so we’re removing the Reviews and Discussions tabs for now. We’re working hard to help you moderate, filter and manage content in one powerful place. Stay tuned.

You won’t be able to access your reviews and discussions once they’re removed, so please save this content if you’d like to keep it for future reference.

On place pages with a location, fans can still write a recommendation for their friends or others from the right-column that says Recommendations” (more…)

Critical Thinking for the Discerning SEO – an ebook by Doc Sheldon

I’m a total sucker for marketing ebooks, having downloaded my fair share of corkers (and stinkers) in my time.

There’s definitely something to be said for the format of the ebook given the propensity for fast paced change in the field of digital marketing. Additionally, the absence of lengthy lead in times for publishing means the content can be completely ‘up to the minute’, and this combined with low production costs, and no minimum runs makes it the format of choice for many writers looking to launch their content upon the world.

When I saw Barry Adam’s tweet announcing the launch of Doc Sheldon’s book I clicked straight through… (more…)

SEO mentoring: mentors, mentees and the Mentoring Digital Minds project

My personal interest in mentors and mentoring was sparked a few years ago when a casual interest in SEO that I’d harboured for years turned into something else, an all consuming passion bordering on obsession.

At the time I was employed as a generalist marketing manager for a small business, lived in wildest westest Wales (still do) and was desperately looking for the training and learning infrastructure that I was sure would be provided had I been able to be a part of an SEO agency, or had there been a long established vocational path for aspirant SEOs. (more…)

Working with clients to develop a robust and informative keyphrase seed list

It’s been over 3 years now since a potential client (a B&B owner) from Bridgend told me that he wanted to rank Number 1 in Google for hotels.

Try as I might, I was unable to convince him that both he as a business owner, and I as an internet marketer, would likely have more success choosing a range of keyphrases that were less competitive, and more relevant to the product and services that he offered. Suffice to say, it was not the beginning of a long and fruitful relationship. I wonder where he is now? (more…)

Kicking off a Linkbuilding Campaign with Questions

NB This post is dispersed with a number of photos of calorie laden delectables. If you are on a special diet, you might like to disable images to avoid temptation.

As someone that’s involved with building and developing links to a client’s site, have you ever been handed a keyphrase, a landing page, and then told ‘go build links’? Joy!

The more masochistic amongst us might relish the challenge, but I’ve found I get things done much more quickly, and get a much better ROI for clients, if I get to have a good old chinwag with them first; ideally face to face and with a nice cuppa and small pastry selection. (more…)

‘Majestic Million’ ranks the top 1 million websites based on links: co.cc wins

There was a time when tools were simply tools and once you would have made them that would be it. Updates would hardly be made. In this time in which things go faster and faster tools tend to send out updates monthly or even weekly. Majestic SEO for example has been evolving a lot since they started, and with success. The tool to use when you are looking to dive into backlinks has now released its latest feature: Majestic Million.

Majestic Million is a list of all the websites you can imagine, based on the number of back links they have. You can then specify which sites you want to see in a list and you can off course see where your own site is ranked. (more…)

Linkbuilding Tactics, Tools and Traps: Wise Words from Dixon Jones of Majestic SEO

Editorial: With wide open arms we welcome Claire Carlile to our blogging team! We have seen some of her blogging in the past and know she can write. We have seen her work and know she knows what she is talking about and we have met her so we know she is a great person. All ingredients to be part of the State of Search blogging team. Welcome a board Claire, good luck! Below you find her first post entitled “Linkbuilding Tactics, Tools and Traps: Wise Words from Dixon Jones of Majestic SEO”.

OK, so here goes, my inaugural post on State of Search, please be gentle with me.

I’m a big fan of live blogging and follow up posts on conferences and presentations for a number of reasons:

• Firstly you get to attend a conference (triple win: professional development, networking and party combined!)
• Secondly if your blog is any good you’ll earn links and social shares, which is always nice.

(more…)