Archive for the ‘Search Marketing (SEO)’ Category
We began today’s Brighton SEO Conference with a panel discussion between Rishi Lakahni, a freelance SEO Strategist, Jamie Freeman from Message, Andy Budd from Clearleft, Nichola Stott from The Media Flow and Samuel Crocker from OMD.
The panel seemed to agree that SEO was in trouble, although they disagreed about the degree to which is was “doomed” and whether it could be saved. Rishi pleaded with the audience (“link junkies”) to “grow up” and “become real marketers” while others like Samuel Crocker and Nichola Stott argued that whilst it’s name might have been tainted it could benefit from some rebranding. The legitmacy of SEO as a practise was brought into question by Jamie Freeman, who argued that there was no “white hat SEO”; only different shades of grey. Andy Budd made comparisons to the financial industry, and agreed that SEO was “morally corrupt”. Read on
If you’re a search marketer who keeps even a passing eye on the blogosphere, you will have heard about recent tweaks in the Google algorithm which has punished Content Farms. If you did miss the announcement, here it is: Google has changed its algorithm in such a way that websites responsible for producing keyword focused articles in huge volumes have seen their rankings disappear overnight. The farmer name was coined by Danny Sullivan, though internally it was known as the Panda Update.
Like any Google update there’s been a huge amount of hand wringing and debate in the community. But most of the debate has missed the point. If you or your clients were being out-ranked by a content farm you had serious problems. A far more important issue is the potential inference in these changes. If these pages have lost their ability to rank they have lost their ability to pass a decent amount of link equity.
Read on
Can’t make it to the SES London Expo and Conference happening this week (21st February – 25th February), or worried about what you might be happening elsewhere if you’re in a different session? If you’re keen to find out what you’ve been missing, there are a number of participants live blogging their sessions. Here are some of the best blogs in terms of their coverage:
SEO Chicks is a good place to start. They have chosen a number of sessions to live blog, including ‘Meaningful SEO Metrics: Going Beyond the Numbers’ and ‘How to Become a Link Magnet’.
State of Search has five bloggers around the conference, including SiteVisibility’s Creative Director Kelvin Newman, who has covered today’s session given by Lee Oden. They’ve been posting about most of the sessions and are able to provide reports of the majority of the speakers.
For a more concise roundup of information from Day One, Wordtracker has done a list of the “125 takeaways and top tips from day one SES London 2011”.
Twitter is of course a great source of information. If you’d like a quicker, 140 character sized update, searching for #SESUK will provide you with the most current tweets about what’s happening throughout the week.
Finally, SES London has their own YouTube Channel, if you’re looking for videos of the Expo.
What are QR Codes?
They are basically a funny looking 2 dimensional code that can be scanned by any modern smart phone in order to display a number of things relating to a company a URL, phone number, video or just a message. They can be read both vertically and horizontally and can be encoded in a much smaller space, which allows for more data than a normal barcode which can only identify a product, the ability to embed more information on a QR code allows the ability to display much more information.
Read on
No doubt from my shameless self promotion across the web you may have heard now about my free ebook – Becoming a Clockwork Pirate. If not, you do now.
And though it’s not a real book, i.e. you can’t hold it in your hand or order it from Amazon, and it’s actually two thirds of the length of a normal non-fiction book; I really enjoyed writing it and think it’s a helpful experience for anyone working in internet marketing. Read on
Too often it doesn’t work,
And even when it does, it’s hard to work out exactly what you did that made the difference.
The ideas are great, the follow through is often not quite as creative.
Are you delivering on the promise of greatness?
What really shifts the needle, what really really makes a impact, is the type of work any creative person can be truly proud of.
Something that make the web a better place, fulfills a linkers need and makes the person behind it proud.
This work really makes a difference, it brings the type of links lazy competitors can’t buy or fluke. It gives Google goosebumps, makes phones ring, cards get processed and makes customers happy.
Too often link builders don’t do this. They churn out rubbish to trick the engines, that’s the horrible truth about link building.
Want to be a better link builder? Then you might enjoy my free ebook – Becoming a Clockwork Pirate
The Manifesto for Agile Software Development… For Digital Marketing.
Every so often a marketing campaign will hit what I like to call a ‘golden age’. These campaigns fall in nicely with a set of current trends, they are carried along by a wave of social noise and community; people will be hungry to digest as much content as you can throw at them. The internet is happy, the campaign client is happy and you can bask in the fact that you really understood your audience, the brief and everything.
The problem with the ‘golden age’ label is that these lovely pockets of opportunity tend to flitter by in no time at all. Popular interests and trends evolve and change every day… the thing is that most marketing campaigns don’t. Read on
What is a press release?
A press release is a piece of company literature that is issued to the media and consumers of your service or product, it is used to announce an important piece of information about the company, an event or a product.
A press release can be written by anyone, but tend to be written by publicists or the marketing function within a company. This would then be distributed to various media channels such as newspapers, TV, radio and not forgetting influential websites.
A press release should be carefully constructed so that it gets the message your company wants to purvey across in the best possible way. The contents should be genuinely newsworthy and if you know your target audience or writing style of your particular media contacts then it is worth making it as easy for them to promote it without them having to make too many modifications. It is also worth noting that it should be written from an unbiased point of view and from a journalistic stance rather than a marketing one, with the aim of informing people not hard selling to them.
A well-written release can dramatically increase your sales, expose your company to the masses, and greatly enhance the image of your business or products. But can also help you search marketing efforts. Read on
It’s time to own up, I might not have done it, you might not have either, but someone has gone out and wrecked the internet; and they’ve done it in our name. It’s about time we took some responsibility.
Comment Spam – They do it for SEO
Annoying Every Single Person with a Website for a Link Request – They do it for SEO
Hacked Websites with injected links to Viagra Sites – They do it for SEO
Just a few of the hundreds of crimes committed in the name of SEO, each and every day. You might be whiter than white, you may never have ventured into that grey area between what’s right and wrong, but lots of people have, each time they do it they’ve slighted your reputation and we need to do something about it. Read on
A few weeks ago, before Steve Rubel and his ‘SEO is Dead’ post, I asked on Twitter ‘How Long Do You Think The SEO Industry Has Left?’
There were two types of replies, “it’s doomed it’ll only last a couple of months” or “as long as people search, there’ll be SEOs”
I think both are completely wrong. Read on