All posts by Rachel McCombie

Rachel oversees content and copywriting at SEOptimise, ensuring that all content produced by SEOptimise is delivered to the highest standards. In addition to this, Rachel is an experienced search marketer. She holds a BA Classical Archaeology and Ancient History degree from Oxford University and a Diploma in Copywriting.

Ok so the “Top 20,001 takeaways” type posts have already been done, so I wanted to make this more of a general view of the themes emerging from this year’s SearchLove conference. I suspect that summarising general trends in what was discussed might be a pretty good reflection of where the SEO industry is now and where it’s heading.

I’ll start off by saying that I enjoyed SearchLove a whole lot more than the other SEO conferences I’ve been to, and not just because of the great food and excellent Monday night party! I felt there was a great deal of enthusiasm among those present, and I came away from the conference feeling inspired and eager to try out the new ideas I heard.

Here at SEOptimise we’ve been thinking a lot about copywriting recently. More than usual, that is! As the person responsible for overseeing copywriting at SEOptimise, I thought I’d share a few thoughts on the frankly quite lamentable state of what has become known as “SEO copywriting”.

Any copywriter worth their salt will doubtless share my opinion that so-called “SEO copywriting” gives the world of copywriting a bad name. Despite using the name “copywriting”, it couldn’t be further from this highly skilled profession. As we all know, this lesser species of copywriting has evolved because once upon a time, it was considered acceptable to throw together a quick article on “the secret to cheap international calls” or whatever, and submit it to a dozen or so article directories for a few quick links. But Google quite rightly recognised that that kind of rubbish was not remotely helpful to its users, and has been banging on about high-quality content with renewed vigour ever since.

In this day and age, it’s probably fair to say that we’re all aware of the value of Twitter – both on an interpersonal level and in a business context – so I’ll spare you the “why everyone should be on Twitter” blurb. Those ‘in the know’ will know that following the right people is important in terms of reaching out to an appropriate audience – those it will benefit you to interact with and who will share your tweets with their followers. As you build up your Twitter followers, you’ve probably done a fair bit of work to follow people who appear to share your interests. But in the process, you’ve probably ended up following a load of Twitter users who add little or no value to your Twitter experience, and I’ve discovered a great tool to help you weed them out.

Twit Cleaner assesses the list of people you follow and categorises the ones who aren’t adding much value according to a range of different annoying behaviour, including posting nothing but links, posting the same tweet several times, never interacting with anyone else and only tweeting about themselves.

…There can be no further doubt that it’s mainstream. Yes, a discussion around search engine optimisation has featured on never-ending Radio 4 farming-community soap opera The Archers.

You’re probably wondering why I would know this. The answer is that, being prematurely middle aged enough to refer to the radio as “the wireless”, I am also middle aged (and countrified) enough to tune into The Archers from time to time (I don’t follow it religiously or anything, honest!).

For anyone who isn’t a regular listener, let me update you. Bridge Farm has been responsible for an outbreak of e-coli, spread through its ice cream. It effectively poisoned some kids at a gymkhana and landed two customers in hospital. Naturally, the national and local press has gone to town on the story and the Bridge Farm dairy has lost all of its customers.

As a self-confessed grammar geek, I’m frequently dismayed by the sloppy standard of writing I am continually confronted with throughout the course of the seven days a week I spend exploring the weird and wonderful world wide web. Whether it’s a blog post, a tweet or even a company website, it seems that a lax approach to grammar has become the norm – even, most shockingly of all, among professional copywriters I’ve hired. The most frequent offender in the huge array of rudimentary English errors is the misplaced or missing apostrophe, a grammar violation which winds me up so much that Stuart Tofts and Kevin Gibbons make a point of including one in every email they send me, just so that they can see my reaction.


Before you ask, no – “Trampoline” is not the name of the shop!

Not long ago, in a moment of above average exasperation, I sent out a tweet which said:

So imagine my satisfaction when the following correction from Google was brought to my attention not long after:

In this week’s video blog, Marcus Taylor and Dan Bianchini of SEOptimise debate the pros and cons of personalised search. Who will win the debate? Watch the video to find out!

Did you agree with Marcus and Dan’s conclusions? Let us know where you stand on the debate by leaving a comment below!

You’ve probably noticed that we’ve recently given the SEOptimise website and our blog a brand new look. We’d like to hear what you think of it!

We’d really appreciate it if you could leave a comment if you have thoughts on any of the following:

  • What do you think of our new website?
  • What kind of posts would you like to see more of on our blog?
  • On-site optimisation tips?
  • Link building ideas?
  • Social media strategies?
  • Useful tools?
  • Lists of resources?
  • Results of experiments?
  • ‘How to’ guides?
  • Industry comment?
  • SEOptimise news?
  • Video blogs?
  • Anything else?

We’d love to hear from you – please leave a comment below and let us know what you think!

As the importance of SEO becomes increasingly widely recognised, millions more marketers have started churning out press releases. Unfortunately, many seem less concerned about the potential media coverage than about the optimisation benefits.

A good press release, when it’s picked up on and used by the media, can do wonders for your brand awareness and corporate authority. But it’s also great for optimisation, and if your agency is writing slapdash articles, calling them press releases and distributing them to a bunch of websites where nobody will ever read them, then you’re barely scraping the surface of your press release potential.

By creating press releases that writers and bloggers will actually use, your effort can pack a far more powerful punch both in online and offline marketing.  Here are some of my top tips for dramatically better releases.

Christmas gift
Image credit:  Flickr

Despite a tough economic backdrop and widespread fears over delivery times, this was another season of growth for UK online retail. It may seem a little early to be thinking about Christmas again already, but given that careful planning is often hailed as the key to success, what can you start doing now to prepare for next Christmas?

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