All posts tagged seo

…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.

Ethics and SEO


Anyone who attended Brighton SEO earlier in the year (and didn’t succumb to the lure of the pub before the last session) would have sat and listened, with varying levels of interest, to the panel debate on ‘is there such a thing as ethical SEO’.  While I sat and took in the tennis-like back and forth discussion of a topic never likely to be fully covered in 45 minutes, I began to ponder my own views on both ethics and where they sit with SEO.

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Ethics for SEO agencies

Working for an SEO agency, you end up working for a multitude of different clients, in a whole myriad of sectors, using an array of different techniques. By the very nature of doing so, you effectively become an extension of your client’s own company. So, as an agency, are you actually able to set your own ethics or do you end up adhering to those of your clients?

Ever since Google Webmaster Tools added the so called “search queries” data I’ve become a huge fan of them. I’ve listed the 10 Google SEO tools everybody should use in the past but to be honest I focus on three of them right now Google Insights, Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools for SEO inspiration. The wealth of information GWB offers is like a goldmine.

The tool-set has grown over the years steadily but I was neglecting it. By now there are numerous ways to use Google Webmaster Tools for SEO. Again I will focus on three of them here and explain how to use GWB for

  1. Keyword Research
  2. Link Building
  3. CRO/Conversion Rate Optimization

Numbers and statistics are never true by themselves, it always depends on how you interpret them. On the other hand, without numbers you have no idea what’s going on. Thus we have to study statistics and all other data we can get to stay in business.

Here I’ve collected 35 crucial SEO, Twitter & social media statistics for business people to get an overview of what’s going on actually.

We’ve covered the importance of Google Buzz and we offered a list of Google Buzz tools and resources. The list also contained some ideas about the SEO impact of Google Buzz.

This time I’d like to focus on that: Google Buzz SEO or more accurately on the actual ways to use Google Buzz for SEO & SMO.

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Google changes faster than you can blink right now. Just some buzzwords that will bug you in 2010:

  1. Google Caffeine
  2. Google Real Time search
  3. Google Personalized search results
  4. Google Living Stories
  5. Google Phone

I could go on like for a while. It’s not my intention to confuse you even more though. I want to shed some light on the near future of Google, search and SEO. It’s a daunting task as I’m overwhelmed as well.

Thus I picked 30 resources on Google, search & SEO changes in 2010 from around the search industry and some main stream sources.

Google SEO Tools: Keyword Ideas

Some people, even at Google, still think that Google hates SEO. In some cases it really does. At the same time Google loves SEO as actions speak louder than words. Google provides not a few, not several but by now 10 free Google SEO tools everybody should use. I remember the times when we had none of them. Today we have an abundance of data Google allows us to mine.

Does SEO Still Exist?


Ford Model T Club

CC: Ford Model T image by me’nthedogs

Does SEO still exist today as such? In other words: Does what people imagine to be SEO still exist in the way the people define it?

No, this is not another “SEO has no future” post.

Indeed by now we have arrived in the ominous future of SEO, at least some or maybe many of us. We don’t offer sheer SEO anymore. Search engine rankings and traffic, the defining terms of the trade are just not enough anymore if they ever have been enough. Now you might argue that SEO has not been about rankings and traffic for a while already etc.

StumbleUpon discoveries
Today I almost forgot to write my Twitter Friday column. Why? I was so preoccupied with the new relaunched StumbleUpon version. To make it short: SU attempts to compete directly with Twitter and Google. This might sound ridiculous but they really do. Theoretically it would be possible: SU exists for several years and has collected tens of millions of web pages in its “index” together with millions of reviews with new sites being added very quickly. Isn’t this the ideal social search engine? Isn’t this the perfect way to determine which websites really do matter in real time? Sadly, no.

Now this is the Twitter column so I won’t compare the new StumbleUpon to Google. Let me explain though why

StumbleUpon is not Twitter and can’t compete with Twitter.

StumbleUpon does not allow business usage of its site. Yes, you can get banned solely for submitting your SEO company website to SU.

Establishing Web Credibility


After discovering a paper on establishing web credibility on the Web [PDF] published by Stanford University in 2001 I was astounded by the timelessness of Web credibility. While you might imagine that a study conducted 8 years ago would be outdated by now like IE6, the browser every developer loves to hate, the main points, even the examples of the research are still valid. You might add some new sites or factors but the main pillars of creating a successful website and web based business are still the same.

Foremost you need credibility on the Web to be taken seriously. Even more than that, you need credibility to be taken into account at all.