Posts on State of Search about ‘Guest post’

Perspectives That Win & Develop SEO Accounts

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Agency / client relationships was a subject came up whilst having lunch with Bas in London recently. We got on to the subject of pitching for new business and SEO pitches in particular, as well as developing client accounts. What was apparent from the lunch was that my experience over nearly 20 years gave me some interesting perspectives on the subject so I was asked to share a few of my thoughts on the subject with you and hopefully you can share a few of your own, whether from a client or agency perspective. (more…)

Starting Today: Guest Post series: Looking From A Different Perspective

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Every summer we try to do something ‘special’ here on State of Search. Last year we did a series of summer interviews (like this one with Chris Sherman) and we’ve done a guest post series as well (also at the end of last year). This year we are again treating you to some new and exciting guest post content from some of the industries finest.

The guest post series has a special character to it. We’ve asked every guest blogger to write us a story, but not just ‘any’ story, one with a different perspective than usual. We’ve asked them to take a subject and then look at it from the opposite perspective. Now I do this as a exercise at my training sessions, to get people to think from a client or visitor perspective instead of their own, and I can tell you: this is very difficult to do. Stepping away from your own views and looking at those of others seems easy, but isn’t. Maybe the posts you will read in the next few weeks will help.

In the next few weeks every day, except for the Fridays you will be treated to a guest post at 14.30 UK time, 15.30 European time. So keep your eyes, readers, twitter feeds and Facebook feeds open and enjoy the content! (more…)

What The Smiths Can Teach Us About SEO

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This is a guest post by Chris Smith is a SEO Copywriter at Manchester-based digital agency Fluid Creativity, providing bespoke web design and SEO services to a range of clients. Like this post? Let us know!

When you think of SEO experts, who comes to mind? Matt Cutts, SEOmoz’s Rand Fishkin, SEOBook’s Aaron Wall? We’re willing to bet that one person who definitely doesn’t figure in your thinking is professional miser and ex-frontman of The Smiths, Morrissey.

Inspired by this excellent post from Copyblogger on Eminem’s guide to becoming a writing and content marketing machine, I’ve decided to draw on inspiration a little closer to home for us here at Fluid. In a move that I’m almost positive would make Moz himself baulk, I’m going to spend the next few hundred words trying to convince you that The Smiths entire career and discography can actually be interpreted as a series of important lessons for people working in SEO, particularly in regards to content.

Odd? Definitely. Far-fetched? Not as much as you’d think. Without further ado, here are some of the vital SEO lessons we can learn from Manchester’s favourite miserable sons (sorry Joy Division). (more…)

Big Data: what is it?

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This is a guest post from (@Arend78), analytics expert at online optimisation consultancy Online Dialogue. A large part of Arend’s job is spent analysing data, contributing to online design, and optimisation projects with valuable data-driven insights.

Data analysis is my hobby. My day is incomplete without an excel sheet and / or some solid data-driven insight. The good news for me: every day more data is stored and … is just waiting to be analysed! If you have not been living under a rock recently, you know: the business trend of the moment is called “Big Data”.

In this article I try to describe the key concepts associated with Big Data, for anyone who – like me – wishes to have a say on this important development. (more…)

What can I say? Say it with words

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This is a guest post by Laura Kluinhaar-Sloet, who is responsible for customer relations at Exxtra. Like this post? Let us know!

Somebody important must have said that creating content isn’t a main focus point for a website.  There must have been someone, somewhere, on some conference, in a book, or on tv. It must have been said. Why? Because I meet website owners all the time that seem to be afraid of content. It’s either the ‘I’ll send over some brochures and you can copy that content’ attitude or the ‘everything we have ever written should be published on our website’ point of view (including that fabulous newsletter from 2002).

Nobody wants to be bothered with content, it seems. Why is that? Isn’t it the single most important thing on a website? (more…)

Google SERP Twitter Talk – Boring the Pants off the Normal Man

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This is a guest post by Peter Handley, SEO Director of theMediaFlow. Like this post? Let us know!

Sometimes it’s easy for us search marketers to get lost in our acronyms – and let’s face it, there are a hell of a lot of them in this industry.

SEO, SEM, PPC, CTR, CPC, SMO, PR– there is absolutely loads of jargon flying around in our industry, and we are constantly coming up with new ways to shorten terms – who can forget one of the latest ones with GSPYW?

It’s easy to get trapped in your own bubbles and circles on platforms like Twitter and forget that we communicate with wider groups of people. My own Twitter account, whilst predominantly search marketing focussed also attracts followers based on music and food/cooking that I share. (more…)

More Traffic is Not Always The Answer

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This is a guest post by Dan Taylor, founder of SEOwned and currently working for Moneysupermarket. Like this post? Let us know!

As an SEO one of the most common statements from clients has always been “we need more traffic to our web site’. I am not saying that this is the wrong tactic to take; in fact the stats below show that delivering more traffic to a website will produce the same overall results as the methods I am going to recommend. However, the effort required to increase traffic to an under-performing site is akin to shovelling snow whilst it is still snowing. If we work on getting our site in better shape, and better performing in future the best thing for the business will inevitably be to increase traffic. (more…)

SEO 2012 – Will Schema Be A Factor

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This is a guest post by Bryant Dunivan. Bryant Dunivan has been doing search marketing since 1999, he specializes in on-page optimization, social media, and seo copywriting. He operates the All Things Search Group, a marketing firm that provides search marketing services as well as traditional PR and marketing.

Arguably, the biggest search-related release of 2011 was the schema.org (Schema) markup. For those not familiar, Schema is a collection of tags designed to help supplement the information that the search engine gives to a user on the Search Engine Result Page (SERP). On the SERP, the searcher gets a result similar to this, which is a non-microformat result: (more…)

Integration Series: From Steve Jobs To Social Search

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In December we have been doing something special on State of Search: we have had a series of guest posts feature on State of Search from several very interesting and very high profiled bloggers and industry celebrities.

The series of guest posts were all around one specific topic: integration. Since marketing these days is all about integrating different channels. We believe that integration is what its all about in 2012. So we decided to ask people to give us their different perspectives on integration. How does search match with social, how does paid match with search, and what about PR and conversion?

The result is a great series of which you can find the intro’s below. So you have a nice overview of what the integration series was all about.  (more…)

Automating Twitter Content by Ralph Tegtmeier aka @fantomaster

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We are closing our very successful Integration series with a bang. The last guest post is written by no other than Ralph Tegtmeier. He is more know as “Fantomaster” in the industry and not just one of the biggest expert when it comes to automation, also an allround nice guy who I consider to be a good friend in the industry. Ralph writes, what else, about automating Twitter.

Here’s a quick bare bones breakdown on how to automate content generation and distribution for Twitter. Yes, there are plenty of other viable solutions and approaches, tools and techniques. However, the purpose of this article is merely to demonstrate how easy it can actually be to run powerful Twitter campaigns in as efficient a manner as possible without having to pay through the nose. There’s no ambition to list and critique every option under the sun here. So if your favorite service or app isn’t mentioned, that’s not to imply it isn’t any good or something – go ahead and use whatever you’re comfortable with.

Also, please note that this is about specific, Twitter targeted content only. Hence, I’m not addressing the various tools and services that enable you to auto- or crosspost e.g. your blog feed, your YouTube favorites or your Facebook wall to Twitter. Obviously, this form of content recycling can easily be automated via a slew of great options, but that’s not our topic here. Also, if you’re looking for yet another intro on how to ramp up the number of your Twitter followers by spamming them on auto pilot with purportedly “relevant”, keyword driven promo messages, please check elsewhere. (more…)

Integrated Marketing – From SEO to TV (by @andybetts1)

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Andy Betts is a well respected marketing expert in the search industry. Because he is not your average SEO he has an interesting take on all matters. A person very fit to write about integration. And he goes all the way, from SEO to TV!

After reading the latest in the State of Search Integrated Marketing series it is clear, beyond doubt, that the online market is shifting rapidly from delivering campaigns in isolation to maximizing revenue for clients and brands alike through integrated approach’s to marketing optimization.

You have seen many a great example of integrated marketing in action in this series. So I am going to go a little leftfield. Whilst marketers get to grasps with the integration and holistic use of search, social, display, and digital marketing channels a huge challenge, often over looked or not addressed, still faces many business owners, agencies, and CEO’s alike – integrating and optimizing talent. (more…)

Integration of Marketing Channels – by Kristjan Mar Hauksson (by @optimizeyourweb)

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The integration series continues with a post from Kristjan Mar Hauksson, the Director of Internet Marketing at NordiceMarketing. Kristjan takes a look at all the channels and how companies should handle them.

Integrated multi channel marketing is not merely a technological issue. It is rather a strategic, evolutionary path that businesses, especially the retailers need to follow to maintain their competitiveness in the market. An integrated multi-channel marketing approach can lead to better customer relationships and dramatically improve operational effectiveness – derived through customer dialogue, advanced data analytics and infrastructure integration.

In today’s rapidly changing and increasingly complex multi channel environment, businesses face the overwhelming challenge of reversing the downtrend in customer satisfaction and improving operational efficiency. They have to respond on several fronts: (more…)

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