All posts by Daniel Bianchini

Kevin and I are speaking at a4uexpo London in October in the session Post Panda: Affiliates’ Guide to Surviving Google (2.30pm day one).

We’re currently working on the presentation and thought it would be a good idea to reach out to our readers in order to ask:  what are your biggest challenges in SEO?

This is going to be largely targeted at affiliates – so looking at challenges such as:  ‘how to add more content?’, ‘how to appear as a brand rather than a thin affiliate site?’ and of course ‘how do you avoid a panda slap?!’

But we also want to hear from you and look to answer your common questions and challenges – so please let us know in the comments below…

In recent weeks I have set up Google Webmaster Tools for a number of different clients, some of whom wanted some documentation on how this could be done.

Based on that document I have decided to publish this very basic beginner’s guide for those who are unfamiliar with the set up process of Google Webmaster Tools.

What is Google Webmaster Tools?
Google Webmaster Tools (GWT) is a free and easy way for webmasters to view their own website the way that Google sees it. GWT is a free tool that can be used for websites of all sizes, and features information such as:

  • Which of your pages are included in Google’s Index
  • Any errors encountered while crawling your site
  • Search queries that list your site as a result
  • Which sites link to yours
  • And more

This guide covers how to set up GWT in seven easy steps, from creating an account to adding and deleting users and associating your Google Analytics.

In recent months I have found myself using the Google URL builder tool significantly more across a range of projects, including tracking emails and tagging PPC accounts.

One of the most frustrating things I found about the Google URL builder tool is how time consuming it was and the fact that I was constantly copying and pasting the URL into a spreadsheet to record what was being tracked.

After searching for a simple free tool that would help make this process more efficient, I decided to create a spreadsheet that would do just the job – http://goo.gl/jI1Wd.

Richard Fergie recently conducted an in-house training session in which we looked at Analytics – Google Analytics in particular. The session was based on two parts, Technical and Business, the latter of which discussed reporting.

The technical part of the session included a hilarious explanation of how users, browsers and analytics pass around cookies (Tesco double chocolate chip in this case), whilst the business part of the session discussed the reporting and the possibilities of reporting on several levels.

The Business section raised some good points and got me thinking about how much people immerse themselves in their clients’ businesses.

Over the past few months I have been conducting lots of SEO Audits for a vast range of clients of all sizes. One thing that always seems to come out of the audit as a significant action is to look at the URL structure and duplicate content, with a special note for the product URL.

I find it extremely frustrating that with today’s technology and the skill set of most developers, CMS Platforms still generate multiple URLs for products associated with several categories. This instantly generates duplicate content for a single product, and if this is replicated across hundreds if not thousands of products, a serious duplicate content issue occurs.

To give you an example of what happens with some CMS Platforms (all CMS platforms are different), I have described a scenario below that is from the point of view of both a merchandiser and platform.

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