Posts About ‘SEO’

We’re Not Ninjas, We’re Mutants

There’s always a real sense of ‘change’ and ‘urgency’ in our industry, and there’s nothing we love more than predicting the next advancements. But as we move forward, it seems the rules are becoming increasingly familiar; they’re not new rules at all.

This blog post is a response to a very interesting, timely post that my friend, Clarissa Sajbl, wrote here on State of Search recently, called PR + SEO When Two Worlds Collide.

In this post she cleverly discusses how SEO agencies are beginning to team up with PR agencies to create content that’s good enough to generate online brand awareness, as well as high quality links. Funny that, don’t you think? We’re no-longer happy just with the link; now we want the content of the article to actively promote our clients’ brands. (more…)

Book Review: Outsmarting Google – Evan Bailyn

Outsmarting Google
SEO Secrets to Winning New Business
By Evan Bailyn with Bradley Bailyn
Book Website | Amazon UK | Amazon.com

Outsmarting Google is a book that’s been out since 2011, so I’m late with this review. And due to the fast-moving nature of the SEO industry, some parts of the book are expectedly out of date.

In the interests of full disclosure, before I began reading the book I was fully prepared to dislike it. Over the years I’ve developed a mild allergy for what I’d call ‘self-help business speak’. We all recognise this type of hyped-up copywriting when we see it: ‘Killer Strategies to Success’, ‘Hidden Secrets To Become an Instant Millionaire’ – books with such titles are a dime a dozen, and usually worth even less than the paper they’re printed on. (more…)

PR + SEO When Two Worlds Collide

Until recently SEO and PR were regarded as two separate industries – but the scene has changed and we are now witnessing the coalition of the two. So what has led to this trend? What is it that those 2 professions are each missing – leading to the fact that they are now converging? In this post I would like to give you an understanding of these colliding worlds as well as some early adopter examples and their motivations for adopting this trend – and how that is affecting their overall digital efforts. (more…)

SEO: The Secrets of Closing the Sale

As part of my new years resolution, I have promised myself that I will read more. This does include a number of highly recomm ended digital marketing and SEO reads, but I have also promised that I will branch out a little reading things that aren’t necessarily focused on SEO. I believe that many SEO’s, like me, can spend too much time reading everything and anything to do with SEO using services like Buffer, Instapaper and Reeder. However, doing this gets us trapped in our own filter bubble the information being shared restricts you from seeing the bigger picture. My reasons for focusing on some non-SEO reads is a selfish one, I’m aiming to broaden my knowledge and learn things from others that I may be able to apply to my profession. (more…)

How to Target the Nordic Consumer

If you are targeting the Nordic market through search engines or social, there is some basics you should know about us and how we think, act and search.

I am a Norwegian myself, working mainly in the Nordic market. But I also work with people from the rest of the world, and I am always surprised how “foreigners” look at us. For instance, I was once asked by an american how I managed to drive a car over there, since all Swedes drive on the left side of the road. There`s two errors in that assumption. I am Norwegian, and Norway is not the capital of Sweden. And we drive on the right side of the road. But this is not the only time I have felt misunderstood. Surfing the web, I feel misunderstood every day. It is time for some inside information about the Nordic consumer. (more…)

Search in the Knowledge Graph era

One of the most interesting news around Google Search last year was the introduction of Knowledge Graph, in May for English queries and in December 2012 for many other languages. Now the Knowledge Graph “covers 570 million entities, 18 billion facts and connections, and about three times as many queries globally as when we first launched it”, as Aaron Brown proudly wrote. (more…)

How SEO has Changed

It was part of the discussions again last week after the announcement from Raven Tools and Hrefs: is SEO changing (again) and away from rankings? Well, SEO is constantly changing. As shows this infographic. (more…)

The Future of the Internet: Establishing the Boundaries

And now for something completely different.

There is a war going on. A war on the internet. No. The war of the internet.

The internet is growing up. It’s now much more than just the collection of webpages it was before. It has grown more complex, more rich, over the last few years. The amount of information on the web keeps growing at an unbelievable rate and with that growth questions arise of who owns which information. Who are the rights holders of what kind of information? What data can be stored, used and sold by whom? And who is to set the boundaries of this all? It’s all about data nowadays. (more…)

The Year in Search – 2012 Round Up

As we’re fast approaching the end of 2012 I thought it might be interesting to review the year.

Here’s a month by month round up of what stood out for me.

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Trust and SEO

Let’s face it. Anything you do as an SEO is based on trust.

Clients don’t get an immediate return on their money in the same way as buying, for example, a sandwich, pair of shoes or even a report. It’s an invisible service, often based on best guess.

I work with a company whose CEO, the management author Kevan Hall, often talks about ways of building trust in large organizations. His ideas resonate with me, and so it’s with a hat tilt to Kevan that I address the subject here (although the thoughts here are my own).

Trust is a cornerstone of PR activity. The journalists, bloggers, clients and others that I work with, all need to trust that I know that the information I share with them can be trusted for use or publication. The standards to which the media are generally held also hold PR people to account (and in this context I push aside the kind of reporting that the UK’s Leveson inquiry has addressed, although mostly the publications told the truth – it was how they got the information that mattered). For the most part PR people lose their jobs if ‘called out’ in public by a journalist or blogger.

SEO has a pretty major reputation issue by comparison. SEO for many is synonymous with spam, poor grade content and doing lots of shady stuff. Whilst the industry is very, very needed, one of its biggest partners, Google, is, it would seem from many of the blogs and articles, anti-SEO. (more…)

Exciting Times in SEO?

The end of the year is approaching fast now and we will, without a doubt, be seeing a lot of ‘lists’ coming by. About 2012, about search and social and about the industry itself. This infographic is a first step. It doesn’t so much look at 2012, but it does look at the SEO industry, where a lot is changing and happening. (more…)

In-house and Bored? 3 Causes and Cures of In-house SEO Syndrome

A few weeks ago I met up with some old colleagues of mine. Three years before, we had all worked for the same search agency, but had since moved on to in-house roles. Typically we talked about what we’re doing now and how it used to be, but this little meeting took an interesting turn. One of my friends was now working at a well-known High Street retailer, another for one of ‘the big’ portals. They had both been in SEO roles for the past five years, but both appeared incontrovertibly fed up. I wouldn’t say I’ve really felt like this recently, but all jobs have ups and downs and I could relate to it. I thought of it as some sort of career condition – a general malaise that probably affects a good proportion of in-house SEO workers. (more…)

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