Posts by Jon Quinton

Jon is an SEO Consultant at SEOgadget, a digital marketing agency specialising in conversion rate optimisation, large scale SEO, keyword research, technical strategy and link building in high competition industries. -- More articles and bio from Jon Quinton
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SEO from Another Angle

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I’ve had many conversations with people (usually in the pub) who seem convinced that SEO is not something they need; and I’m always tending to take the line that if it can be tailored in the right way, SEO should be able to provide benefit for anyone or any business. In fact, I quite enjoy bending the rules of a traditional SEO campaign and really making it work for the business or project in question. Whilst trying to rank for big keywords might not be something everyone wants or needs, perhaps protecting branded search or driving traffic to campaigns as and when they happen would be a good fit.

To make more sense of this, I thought I’d walk through an example plan for a musician’s or band’s website. Ranking for something like ‘band’ or ‘blues band’ probably isn’t going to get you too far, and as a goal it might not be the best way to go. I personally think that it would be far more beneficial to get people to the right places as quickly as possible. So as a musician writing your own material who has no real need to rank for something big; what do you need people to find and interact with quickly? (more…)

Digesting the EU Cookie Legislation

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Perhaps it’s been the way in which the new legislation has been communicated, but there certainly seems to be an air of confusion. At SEOgadget we’ve been doing quite a lot of work recently to better understand the directive ourselves, and also to work out how best to advise clients on the most appropriate action to take. Rather than writing a definitive ‘how to comply’ type post, I thought it would be pretty interesting to put down some thoughts on the matter, and discuss some of the more confusing aspects of the legislation.

The challenge here is that we’re advising on a legal document, and whilst we understand cookies and the part they play in websites, we’re definitely not qualified lawyers. If your clients are seriously worried about the possibility of picking up a fine it’s probably best that they seek proper legal advice. However, the chances of receiving a fine as a first resort look pretty slim; the most likely form of punishment (if any) is a warning stating that your website does not comply, complete with details of where you’re going wrong. That being said, it looks like this is here to stay so it’s well worth at the very least gaining a good understanding of how this could affect yours or your clients sites. (more…)

Link Building – Learning Lessons from Sales and Business

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At the weekend I gave a presentation at Think Visibility ‘Link Building Lessons from Swiss Toni’ which was all about taking lessons from sales and successful business people, and seeing how we can apply that to link building. I thought it would be good to go into a bit more detail as to the ideas behind the session. The whole thought process started from my mild obsession with business and being inspired by people who ‘just do it’. It got me thinking that there’s a pretty strong tie in with link building and sales. From finding potential link opportunities, to getting your outreach and pitch right to maximise your success rate – these are all things that great sales people have learnt to master.

When I talk about ‘sales’ I’m definitely not referring to the irritating kind of people that call you up with a well rehearsed sketch of BS; I’m talking about the skill of identifying what other people need and then tailoring your pitch to suit. In my mind this is all about trying to create a ‘win, win, win’ type of situation where everyone comes out on top. Relating that back to link building in a guest posting situation the blog should be ‘proud’ to publish the content, their readers should enjoy it enough to share/link to, and you of course get the link and some traffic. If you can provide stuff that genuinely benefits other websites and their audience, your chances of future links and an ongoing relationship increase dramatically. (more…)

Ranking Reports that Inspire Focus and Decision Making

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Reporting on the success of your SEO work by using ranking reports alone doesn’t really paint a full picture. Good SEO should be about way more than just improving rankings; for starters is your client making more money, how’s their organic traffic growing, what does their brand look like online? Using ranking reports in conjunction with other metrics can provide a wider picture of how your website is performing and help to educate the client as to what they are getting from SEO, and what areas might need more attention.

However, despite explaining other important KPI’s and trying our best to explain how to measure true success and value; the one thing clients often want to know about first is where their pages are ranking. Sometimes this question can come before discussing traffic, conversions and other such metrics that actually make a real difference to their business. (more…)

Open Source Ecommerce Platforms – No Such Thing as A Free Dinner

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This is my first post here at State of Search, so I’ll start by saying how pleased I am to be part of the clan!

I thought I’d take the opportunity to write about something that’s been on my mind for some time; open source ecommerce platforms and what you need to consider from an SEO point of view. Getting ecommerce SEO right is no mean feat; there are so many challenges involved that can quickly spiral out of control and become the thing of nightmares. So how come there are so many open source platforms available for very little investment that claim to be ‘SEO friendly’ to the point where you won’t need outside help?

This post really isn’t supposed to be a rant, it’s more about laying out some practical advice for anyone considering using a free or low cost ecommerce platform as an alternative to paying a developer to build a bespoke site to your specifications. There are plenty of people that choose to run ecommerce sites as a part time business perhaps grown from a hobby, and as such the start up budget often won’t be enough for a bespoke build teamed up with advice from a top SEO agency. You can bet your bottom dollar that the successful ‘cottage industry’ style ecommerce businesses are the ones where the owners had the foresight to make some SEO considerations at the very start of their projects. (more…)