SiteVisibility

Interview With Chris Treadaway Author of Facebook Marketing an Hour a Day – Podcast Episode #84

Kelvin — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 13:48:28 +0000

In today’s podcast episode we were lucky enough to sit down with Chris Treadaway the Author of Facebook Marketing an Hour a Day, albeit digitallly, and ask him to share his thoughts on Facebook Marketing Best Practice.

Chris’s book is a great read and you can pick it up from here in the states and here in the UK

You can listen to the episode on the player below, subscribe to the podcast feed or listen in on iTunes

Is there a certain type of business that works best for Facebook Marketing?
We’re at an interesting inflection point seeing how corporations deal with Facebook
Do you think the people being marketed to are getting more savvy with their information they disclose.
People haven’t left Facebook over privacy and are realising the compromise
What happens when every company and every person is on Facebook?
What’s best a page, a group or something else?
Groups can work well to market your company subtly
What’s the best place to start marketing or advertising?
Do you think the spammy Facebook adverts will spoil the formats impressions.
Ask your self what will make someone become a fan.
Chris’s Twitter Profile

As always you can get in touch by emailing kelvin.newman@sitevisibility.com, leaving us a comment at http://www.internetmarketingpodcast.org or using the Twitter hashtag #impc or leave us a voicemail question on +44 1273 256 150 You can sign up for a week’s worth of our daily training videos athttp://premium.internetmarketingpodcast.org

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Interview With Chris Treadaway Author of Facebook Marketing an Hour a Day – Podcast Episode #84

Tips For How Affiliate Marketers Can Out-Perform Merchants – Podcast Episode #83

Kelvin — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 14:47:46 +0000

In today’s episode Kelvin shares how small affiliate marketers can out-perform huge SEO teams working for merchants and Daniel helps you with your social media monitoring.

You can listen to the episode on the player below, subscribe to the podcast feed or listen in on iTunes

Mayday Update
Make a list of the most ‘quality x’ products – i.e the most reliable mobile phones etc
Optimise that list for those search terms
Break down product variations
Go a level or two deeper than the merchants
Write something that compares two products, i.e. “Which is best? Product z v.s. Product x”
Kodak zi8
Answer Product Question – especially if they’re are a deal breaker
What have people complained about in reviews, they may be the product questions
Take content people have trapped in PDF and make them search friendly
Don’t have to be positive about every product

Social Media Monitoring
Google Alerts
Clever Tricks You Can Do with Google Alerts
Radian6
ViralHeat
Google Reader
LinkedIn Answers

As always you can get in touch by emailing kelvin.newman@sitevisibility.com, leaving us a comment at http://www.internetmarketingpodcast.org or using the Twitter hashtag #impc or leave us a voicemail question on +44 1273 256 150 You can sign up for a week’s worth of our daily training videos at http://premium.internetmarketingpodcast.org

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Tips For How Affiliate Marketers Can Out-Perform Merchants – Podcast Episode #83

We Answer More Of Your Internet Marketing Questions- Podcast Episode #82

Kelvin — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 09:57:25 +0000

In today’s podcast episode because we’ve recieved so many questions from our listeners we’ve switched the schedule and included a second q&a session this month.

You can listen to the episode on the player below, subscribe to the podcast feed or listen in on iTunes

Show Notes to Follow

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We Answer More Of Your Internet Marketing Questions- Podcast Episode #82

Get a Free Week’s Worth Of Content From The Premium Podcast – Podcast Episode #81

Kelvin — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 08:45:10 +0000

Today’s episode is in two chunks, a behind a scenes look at the premium service and give you a chance to get a weeks worth of content for free! Also we have a quick chat with Daniel Rowles about how to track Twitter Traffic In Google Analytics.

You can listen to the episode on the player below, subscribe to the podcast feed or listen in on iTunes
Subhub – Membership Websites

Free Buyer Guide – Suppliers Guide

The Members Only Forum of the Premium Site

We MailChimp To Send Email Updates

Our Video Host Blip.tv – Premium Service makes video private, convert video to sound, and make iPad friendly version.

How to get a weeks worth of free content

Andy’s Twitter Profile

Kelvin’s Twitter Profile

Daniel’s Twitter Profile

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Get a Free Week’s Worth Of Content From The Premium Podcast – Podcast Episode #81

Want a Sticky Website? We’ll Tell You How – Podcast Episode #80

Kelvin — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 15:53:32 +0000

In the first of two question and answers episodes this month we answer a variety of questions covering a variety of different topics.

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You can listen to the episode on the player below, subscribe to the podcast feed or listen in on iTunes

Premium Subscription Service
How do you make your website more sticky?
You can always improve conversion rates
Google Website Optimiser
Why I think you should use Google Website Optimizer
Have a clear action point at the end of every page
Yet Another Related Post Plugin
Is MailChimp up to enterprise standard
Other Recommended Email Marketing Tools
Introduction to MailChimp
The money/time on analysis is more valuable than the money spent on tools
Managing Multiple Domains & URLs
Microsites can work but are a lot of work
Don’t create Doorway Pages
Google love exact match domain names
Non-Hyphenated URLs are less spammy
Google Not Using Keyword Meta Tag Video
Meta Keywords Not Very Important At All
Can still be useful though
Keyword Sequence Podcast
Premium Subscriber Forum

As always you can get in touch by emailing kelvin.newman@sitevisibility.com, leaving us a comment at http://www.internetmarketingpodcast.org or using the Twitter hashtag #impc or leave us a voicemail question on +44 1273 256 150 You can sign up for our daily training videos at http://premium.internetmarketingpodcast.org

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Want a Sticky Website? We’ll Tell You How – Podcast Episode #80

Announcing the Affiliate Service for the Premium Podcast – Podcast Episode #79

Kelvin — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:08:37 +0000

News & Tools Special we cover a variety of pieces of news and tools including us announcing the new affiliate scheme for the premium service so you can make cash by recommending the premium service.

You can listen to the episode on the player below, subscribe to the podcast feed or listen in on iTunes

Premium Service

Get a free sample chapter of Kelvin’s partially completed Link Building Book by emailing kelvin.newman@sitevisibility.com

Andy’s Podcast on Podcasting

TwitterTim.es – Keep track of what your network recommends

Voisse – Make money selling your podcasts

SubHub – The membership we use

Death of Yahoo

10 Million Check-Ins to Foursquare

Foursquare

Gowalla

As always you can get in touch by emailing kelvin.newman@sitevisibility.com, leaving us a comment at http://www.internetmarketingpodcast.org or using the Twitter hashtag #impc or leave us a voicemail question on +44 1273 256 150 You can sign up for our daily training videos at http://premium.internetmarketingpodcast.org

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Announcing the Affiliate Service for the Premium Podcast – Podcast Episode #79

Copywriting for Search Marketing – It’s Not About You

Alan — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 08:22:52 +0000

We spend a lot of our time here at SiteVisibility on words; Finding out which words are helping our clients attract customers, which words best describe their products and services, and which words customers are likely to use to find them.

courtesy of @dbdbrobot on Flickr

When it comes to onsite copywriting, it’s never about you. While you might think highly of your business name, its history, employees, location and work ethic, you should concentrate on the words which consumers will use to find your products or services.

Page titles for example, should always start with a top keyword rather than a company name. Products take priority. Potential customers hitting your site are unlikely to be aware of your company, and use search engines to find the products and services they need. Starting a page title with your company name will make it nearly impossible to appear on the first page of the SERPs for a high volume keyword. Brand names are usually unique enough to be found even if the name only appears at the very end of a page title, so focus on the competitive terms. The same goes for header tags.

In the body copy, try to concentrate on the need which you are trying to fulfil. You might be tempted to fill a website with manifestos and biographies, stating your objectives and history, but all a customer wants to know is how you can help them. If you sell electronic products then talk about how they can be used, rather than how many you put together or how long they took to develop. Understanding your audience is an important part of writing for them.

Customers need to know the service you offer before they find out anything else about your company. Customers are focused on their needs, and you should be too.

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Copywriting for Search Marketing – It’s Not About You

Keyword Strategies When People Don’t Know They Need Your Product – Podcast Episode #78

Kelvin — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 08:29:03 +0000

A question and answer session with some great questions from the listeners on a variety of topics including Facebook Marketing, Keyword Research and the future of SEO.

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You can listen to the episode on the player below, subscribe to the podcast feed or listen in on iTunes

What’s Best for Facebook If your promoting bands, apps, pages or personalised pages?

Facebook Seperate is normally best

Different Audience = Different Accounts on Facebook

Facebook Groups Vs Pages: The Definitive Guide

Finding Facebook Far More Difficult

#BrightonSEO on July 23rd

Keyword Strategies When People Don’t Know They Need Your Product

Keyword Sequences

Keyword Research Lesson on the Premium Podcast

Think about the problems your product solves as keyword ideas

Talk about what your product is an alternative to

Marketing Samurai

Google Keyword Tool

Keyword Discovery

Recommended SEO Tools

Free Videos on Premium Site

Find Journalist Looking for Sources – Help a Reporter Out

Listen to old podcast episodes at http://www.internetmarketingpodcast.org

New things to think about in SEO

Realtime Search

Personalised Search

Microformats

Forthcoming Week on Microformats

Local SEO Podcast Episode

Local SEO on the Premium Podcast

Social Search

As always you can get in touch by emailing kelvin.newman@sitevisibility.com, leaving us a comment at http://www.internetmarketingpodcast.org or using the Twitter hashtag #impc or leave us a voicemail question on +44 1273 256 150 You can sign up for our daily training videos at http://premium.internetmarketingpodcast.org

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Keyword Strategies When People Don’t Know They Need Your Product – Podcast Episode #78

Inventive Link Building Techniques – Podcast Episode #77

Kelvin — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 19:23:57 +0000

You can listen to the episode on the player below, subscribe to the podcast feed or listen in on iTunes

Show Notes to Follow

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Inventive Link Building Techniques – Podcast Episode #77

What are the best white paper syndication sites?

Gareth — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 10:26:43 +0000

What is a whitepaper?

Originally White papers have been issued by the government and lay out policy, or proposed action, on a topic of current concern. More recently, the term “white paper” has also come to refer to documents used by businesses as marketing or sales tools. White papers of this sort argue that the benefits of a particular technology or product are superior for solving a specific problem. Whitepapers can be a great way to build links and it’s a tactic we’ve been using too.

What are whitepapers used for?

A white paper is basically an essay that persuades someone of a better way, solution or technique of doing something, then all wrapped up and presented in a way that would make a magazine article look dull. They are used by companies as part of their marketing mix and in the sales process to attract new clients.

Some interesting stats on how they are used by potential clients;

MarketingSherpa has reported that 69% of prospects download a white paper as part of their buying cycle, and 36% of those pass along the white paper to a supervisor.

IT Toolbox has reported that about 70% of large companies rely on white papers, compared with only 59% of smaller companies.

Once you have written your white paper

Once you have written your whitepaper and added it to your website, make sure you use social bookmarking sites to begin the process of getting the whitepaper out to more people.

Where to promote a whitepaper

The most common way of promoting a white paper is through your company’s website or blog allow perspective clients to download it and become more informed on what you can offer them and how you can add a solution to their problem.

Some of the more popular white paper syndication sites, which are mainly in the IT sector;

http://whitepapers.brandrepublic.com/

http://www.informationweek.com

http://whitepapers.techrepublic.com.com/?tag=tr-nav

http://www.findwhitepapers.com/

http://www.industryweek.com/whitepapers/

http://it.toolbox.com

http://www.knowledgestorm.com/MainServlet?ksAction=Browse

http://www.retailwire.com

http://www.webbuyersguide.com/marketing/submitcontent.aspx

http://www.keyitsolutions.com/

http://www.bnet.com

http://www.bitpipe.com/

http://www.ithound.com/businessgreen/about_us

http://www.cbronline.com/whitepapers

White paper directories

http://www.networkdictionary.com

http://whitepapers.zdnet.com

http://www.scmagazineuk.com/directory/

http://searchsecurity.rl.techtarget.co.uk/

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What are the best white paper syndication sites?

Analysing the Twitter Profiles of The Top UK SEO Companies

Kelvin — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 09:08:46 +0000

Search and social really do go hand in hand, so it’s not surprising search agencies like ours offer social services and, like it not, in many people’s minds social means Twitter. So it got me thinking about what UK’s search agencies Twitter profiles are like. Most like ours are a mixture of sharing stuff we think is interesting with a healthy dose of self promotion but is there much in the way of similarity statistically?

What percentage of agencies have a Twitter Profile?

To do this analysis I took the 36 agencies who listed their revenue in the NMA services guide this year and carried out a quick Google search for an account. If I couldn’t find it that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist I suppose but if it’s that hard to track down I’d argue it can’t be that useful!

Of course the agencies without may have preferred personal accounts, and fair play that can work quite well.

Not surprisingly a majority do have an account and those who didn’t tended to be those more focused on paid search so may be less likely to be exploring social channels to promote themselves.

How Many Followers Do They Have?

Everybody knows the number of followers you have doesn’t have a direct correlation between how influential an account is but it’s a good starting point. The accounts tended to fall into either extreme, either really well followed or not that well followed at all.

It’s also worth noting at this stage there are several profiles which fall into the trap of if we follow five thousand people maybe four thousand will follow us back. It’s an interesting approach but if you view Twitter being about conversations I can’t see how that strategy can be sustainable?

Some Nice Stats about the Number of Tweets

As you can see some agencies are really using the service frequently while other have a prolific output and all number of shades n between.

Are they Following More People Than Follow Them

I think one way to see if a Twitter account is healthy is if they are followed by more people than they themselves follow. Even if you want to keep your ratio between people who follow you at 1:1 you will still be followed by more people than follow you given the prevalence of auto-tweet bots and spam accounts. So I felt classifying accounts into those following more people than follow them would be a good way of guaging whether they’ve taken the ‘follow everyone we can and they might follow us back’ approach.

Is there a correlation between follower count and company size?

Finally I wanted to do a quick (and not that statistically sound) analysis of whether the bigger the revenune of the business the more widely followed it was on Twitter. The short answer is no, there are so many outliers like SEOptimise (who are really popular on twitter but not that high on the NMA list) that really doesn’t seem to be the case.

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Analysing the Twitter Profiles of The Top UK SEO Companies

Visualizing Back Link Data Using Venn Diagrams

Kelvin — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 08:00:39 +0000

When you are trying to attract links to a website you’re niave to ignore the fact that your competitors will also been looking to attract links at the same time. But when your dealing with tens of thousands of links with thousands of overlaps between sites it’s actually quite difficult to visualize the overlap between sites.

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With this in mind I started looking at Venn Diagrams as a way of representing this data. Below is a free video taken from our podcast’s premium content area which will explain how to create the venn diagrams and hopefully whet your appetite to sign up for a membership.

In the video I mention the following links

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Visualizing Back Link Data Using Venn Diagrams

The 25 Best Whiteboard Fridays

Kelvin — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 07:39:02 +0000

The 25 Best Whiteboard Fridays

It’ll be no surprise to you that when we started working on the premium content for the Internet Marketing Podcast we spent quite a bit of time studying what SEOmoz had been up to over the last few years.

One element of their site I personally really enjoy is the simple teaching of Whiteboard Friday. It’s an approach we’ve tried to follow in our screencasts in the premium area of the site.

Watching back these Whiteboard Fridays I was struck it would be very hard for the beginner or intermediate SEO know which of the old videos which were the most worthy of their time and attention. My High Fidelity streak came out and I produced a top 25 of my favourite whiteboard fridays:Unfortunately not all the videos are available to embed but we’ve tried to include as many as we can.

The SEO Fundamentals Pyramid
Keyword Strategies Kill the Head or Chase the Tail
The Juice is Loose
A Farewell to Pagination
Matt Cutts on nofollow
Email Marketing & SEO
The Microsite Mistake
Using the Hash tag in SEO
Choosing an SEO Consultant
How to Get an SEO Job
You’re not on the list
How to get Retweeted
Building a Personal Brand
Give and ye shall receive
Query Deserves Freshness
Dangers of nofollow
Ignore the Tail at Your Peril
Creating Great Online Content
How Do We Plug the nofollow Leak
Making Clients Happy
When to Track Rankings
Using Trust-rank to Guide Your Link Building
Dave Naylor in Three Acts
Domain Trust Authority
Local Search Inclusion with David Mihm

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The 25 Best Whiteboard Fridays

Twitter Tips from a Ghost Tweeter Interview with Micala Wilkins – Podcast Episode #76

Kelvin — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 08:58:04 +0000

In today’s episode we’ve got an interview with Micala Wilkins, a virtual assistant who has promoted herself using Twitter and provide ghost tweeting services for her clients.

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You can listen to the episode on the player below, subscribe to the podcast feed or listen in on iTunes

Micala Wilkins Twitter Profile
Twitter Tips
JustTweetIt.com
Follow TweetSmarter
Follow Social Media Today
Follow Mashable
HootSuite
Social Media Revolution 2
Social Media Playbook
SUPR

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Twitter Tips from a Ghost Tweeter Interview with Micala Wilkins – Podcast Episode #76

Video Highlights from The Online Marketing Show

Kelvin — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 09:23:52 +0000

If you follow us regularly on the blog here, you’ll know recently we had the pleasure of broadcasting live from the Online Marketing Show, which is part of the Marketing Week Live Event at Olympia.

It was a real buzz broadcasting live for the first time, but it did mean if you were in a meeting or busy working while we were broadcasting you may well have missed some of our excellent interviews with the leading lights and speakers from the event.

So below I have embedded the videos from the event. As you might expect for a live broadcast from a conference exhibition space there’s quite a bit of background noise, but you should have no problem listening to the great insight from these excellent interviewees.

Stephen Wise from Eyeka on Co-creation and User Generated Content

Catherine Toole from StickyContent on Copy Writing and Tone of Voice

Mike Berry On The Digital Economy Act

Sam Phillips from Glide Technologies on the Engaged Web

Will McInnes from NixonMcinnes on the Practicalities of Social Media Marketing

Kevin Edwards from Affiliate Window on Attribution and the Rise of CPA

Emily Hill WriteMySite On Business Blogging & Copy Writing

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Video Highlights from The Online Marketing Show

5 Ways the iPhone 4 is going to change the way Internet Marketing- Podcast Episode #75

Kelvin — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 11:13:14 +0000

In this week’s episode of the podcast we talk about the 5 ways the iPhone 4 has the potential to change internet marketing.

We also have news of a very short extension to the opening offer of the Premium Podcast’s daily training videos. So if you’ve not signed up yet you’ve only got a few days to get the great opening discount.

Also we will be rolling out and affiliate scheme where you can recommend the premium podcast and get financial reward for everyone who signs up based on your recommendation. If you’re interested in this scheme drop kelvin.newman@sitevisibility.com and I’ll send you some more details.

You can listen to the episode on the player below, subscribe to the podcast feed or listen in on iTunes

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5 Ways the iPhone 4 is going to change the way Internet Marketing- Podcast Episode #75

Watch the Internet Marketing Podcast Live from #mwl2010

Kelvin — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 09:10:34 +0000

Below you should find a lovely embedded video player which will hopefully show you all our live coverage of todays event.

Webcam chat at Ustream

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Watch the Internet Marketing Podcast Live from #mwl2010

Watch The First Ever Live Episode of the Internet Marketing Podcast

Kelvin — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 11:14:41 +0000

We’re not sure whether you might have already heard or not, but we’re planning the first ever live broadcast of the Internet Marketing Podcast from one of the UK’s most important digital events – The Online Marketing Show/Marketing Week Live on the 29th/30th June. (AKA tomorrow!)

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Our podcast, which we broadcast weekly to a world-wide audience of over 15,000 marketers, will be streaming live across the net for the two day event and we’d like to know if you’d like to get involved?

We’ve already scheduled in interviews with some of the events keynote speakers but we’d also like to reach out to a whole range of other attendees and answer any specific SEO and internet marketing queries that they might want answering on the day.

So, if you’ve already got a ticket then pop over to stand A118 and ask for Kelvin!

If you haven’t got a ticket to the show, don’t worry, all you need to do is visit this page and enter “SiteVisibility” as your entry code and you’ll be able to get a ticket for absolutely nothing.

And even if you’re not going to the event you’ll be able to watch our stream using a player we’ll embed right here on our site

Looking forward to seeing you there!

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Watch The First Ever Live Episode of the Internet Marketing Podcast

#BrightonSEO Speakers Announced – Free Conference July 23rd

Kelvin — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 15:41:33 +0000

I have a couple of very exciting pieces of news to announce about the forthcoming #brightonseo free half day conference.

First of all we have an evening venue confirmed. We’ll be returning to BrightonSEO’s sprititual home of upstairs The Quadrant, where Tim Aldis of FreshEgg has very kindly offered to put some money behind the bar, along with refreshments during the afternoon courtesy of SiteVisibility.

This is of course after the daytime element which we will be holding from 1.30PM at Community Base.

But onto the bigger second piece of news the speaker line-up.

We’ve been lucky enough to have a deluge of speaker applications from some of the UK SEO industries leading lights. Sorry to the people I couldn’t squeeze in this time. It’s surprised me just how many people wanted to get involved.

We’ll be sticking to the popular conference format of three fifteen minute talks per session followed by fifteen minute q&a; so we can squeeze in as much high quality SEO-ness as is humanly possible with out some kind of time travel device.

Over to the agenda

BrightonSEO 23rd July Agenda

Social Media Shenanigans

Kevin Gibbons – Director of Search, SEOptimise

20 WordPress Plugins to Supercharge Your Blog

Cedric Wooding – Digital Producer at Jollywise Media

A Practical Guide to Managing a Facebook Advertising Campaign

Annabel Hodges – Head of Search & Analytics at Zone Content

When is an SEO Campaign not an SEO Campaign

The New Age Of Statistical and Data Driven SEO

Mark Cook – Director of Search Marketing, Further

Making Accurate Traffic Predictions

Rob Green – Senior Natural Search Analyst at iCrossing

Data Analysis for SEO

Nikki Rae – Head of Analytics & Insight at Fresh Egg

Custom Variables in Google Analytics

Giving Link Building the Creativity it Deserves

Sam Crocker - Lead SEO at Distilled

Using Competitions in SEO

Gary Preston – Strategy Director at Propellernet

Interesting & Inventive Link Development Ideas

Simon Dance - SEO Manager (UK) at Cheapflights

Linkbuilding & CRM

Eye Openers

Rishi Lakhani – Search Marketing Consultant

Actually Making SEO Happen

Zachary Colbert - Social Media Manager at Whitehat Media

Lev Manovich’s theory of Linking & Association

Nichola Stott – Owner at theMediaFlow

Challenging the Conventional Wisdom of Anchor Text

Moderated by Kelvin Newman, Creative Director SiteVisibility & Internet Marketing Podcast

Sound good for precisely zero pounds and pence? Leave us a comment below and let us know who is coming from where!

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#BrightonSEO Speakers Announced – Free Conference July 23rd

How do you avoid doing damage when you upgrade your site? – Podcast Episode #74

Kelvin — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 10:21:34 +0000

In our latest episode of the podcast we take yet more questions from the listeners to the show. Event though we’ve launched the live interactive video Q&A sessions as part of the premium site; we will still once every four weeks handing over to you, the listeners to answer your questions!

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You can listen to the episode on the player below, subscribe to the podcast feed or listen in on iTunes

Show Notes After the Jump

How do you avoid doing damage when you upgrade your site?
Re-Launching a Site – SEO Best Practice
Keep content similar
Don’t Launch A New Rival Site – You’ll split your efforts across two websites
Keep a back-up of your site in case you need to roll back
New Interactive Q&A on Premium Site
All the free secret screencasts are available here
Is it better to have a blog on a separate domain? We recommend a folder of the main site rather it’s own domain or sub domain.
If they are two different sites, the design doesn’t help Google appreciate if they have a similar design. Do but for branding reasons not SEO.
Subdomains aren’t always the best solution. It’s seen as connected to the main domain but you don’t see the benefits of either a free standing website or subfolder.
Why we don’t have a search box on the main SiteVisiblity site.
How do you get the show notes on the iPhone Screensaver
Use the Comment box and the lyrics field for your show notes when adding meta data to your mp3s
Should you induce users to click users to click your adverts?
Google will ban you from adsense if you do
Recommended Affiliate Networks Make Money from Recommending Products
Automatically sign you up to thousands of affiliate schemes with SkimLinks
Does changing your WordPress Theme spoil your SEO efforts? Not huge
Our recommended WordPress Themes
WordPress Security Special Podcast
Delete Admin User Account in WordPress
Recommended WordPress Plugins
Interactive Q&A Sessions as part of Premium Podcast

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How do you avoid doing damage when you upgrade your site? – Podcast Episode #74

Are We Ignoring the New Golden Age of Technical SEO?

Kelvin — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 08:56:14 +0000

Most search engine optimisation professionals they either have a technical or creative bias, this is no bad thing and and agency or in-house team will need a mixture of both.

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I most certainly fall on the non-technical side of the fence, but like any passionate SEO I try to keep a close tab on the latest technical developments; but it’s really surprised me that the discourse in blogs and conferences really seem to be ignoring the renaissence technical SEO appears to be going through at the moment.

There are five areas of SEO which I’m following closely at the moment, micro-formats, video SEO, local, real time search and personalised search. In all these topics there seems technical implementation is really important and it that doesn’t seem to be getting the hoopla it deserves.

Microformats always seemed to me to be a bit of a trainspotter pursuit but over the last six months or so largely due to the increased use of Rich Snippets from Google it really should be on the top of any SEO to-do list.

So while some onsite SEO may be declining in influence, the rising importance of structured mark-up is really keeping onsite optimisers busy.

It’s a similar story with Video SEO, it may require a creative touch in production but without the implementation of protocols like MediaRss and Video Site Maps your attempts to build an audience are going to be much less effective.

Local SEO relies on a different but similar algorithm to the main search rankings, as a general rule many of the local factors are more off-site than on but that doesn’t mean that a technical SEO’s input isn’t required as it opens a pandora’s box of potential tracking concerns which require ingenuity and inventiveness that comes with a technical optimiser.

Both real time search and personalised search would initial appear to be the domain of the social creative SEO rather than the technician but both require a mixture of skills with plenty coming from the technical specialists.

Real-time succes will be helped tremendously by adopting technologies like PubSubHubBub, if your the kind of person who struggles to set up an RSS feed, you will struggle with the new technologies that will be a walk in the park for a lot of technically minded SEO’s, but you should ignore these developments at your peril.

I suppose what I’m getting at is at the moment the limelight might fall on the creative or search specialists with a social back ground but I still have plenty of time, respect and admiration for the search specialists with a more technical background.

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Are We Ignoring the New Golden Age of Technical SEO?

SEO Smells Sweet with SiteVisibility and Penhaligons

Gareth — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 08:46:29 +0000

Recently SiteVisibility have been lucky enough to begin work with Penhaligons a luxury perfume company based in London.

As part of the campaign setup we were invited to experience the brand first hand in their Covent Garden branch, to get a real feel for the brand and their way of portraying themselves.

We had all read their marketing material and were keen to immerse ourselves in the brand first hand. So after an early start for us all we arrived in London at the shop and we were met by Emily marketing manager at Penhaligon’s and our guide for our time at the boutique perfume store.

First impressions of the store were the amazing smells on the way in, fragrances that really do encapsulate ‘liquid emotion’. We sat down to listen to Emily brief us on the fascinating Penhaligon’s history beginning in the Edwardian era with the founder William Penhaligon. The same scent recipies that he made all those years ago are still available as part of the range today!

It was interesting to learn of the heritage of this brand and how London has always been part of that history. Also the way Penhaligon’s sees their master perfumers as the brand ambassadors not any celebrity representation.

Another eye opener was some of the strange ingredients that go into perfumes, such as Ambergris Lumps of oxidized fatty compounds, whose precursors were secreted and expelled by whales, with a large price tag to match if ever you stumble across any washed upon the beach.

Next came our scent profiling a totally free service offered by Penhaligon’s to help customers be expertly matched to a scent that will suit them. We were asked a series of random questions in order to gauge the type of people we were, the service usually takes 45 minutes but in our case because there was a number of us Emily only had ten minutes to match each of us to a scent and she did well.

I was matched to invigorating cologne called Quercus which smells great.

Alex was matched up with Malabah, a semi-oriental fragrance, after being asked Whiskey or Wine? (Wine) and to describe her favourite dress (Black silk maxi dress with large brightly coloured orchids). It was an excellent experience and she genuinely wouldn’t hesitate to recommend the experience to a friend. You don’t just get a perfume, you get an experience and leave with a fragrance which is an extension of your personality.

Post from Apple Pie & Custard the blog from SiteVisibility a Brighton SEO Company

SEO Smells Sweet with SiteVisibility and Penhaligons

Is Productisation the Future of SEO?

Kelvin — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 09:57:33 +0000

Over a year ago now I interviewed Rand Fishkin at SMX London where I asked him about the process of taking SEOmoz from a consultancy service business to a Software tools company. As you would expect from someone as charming as Rand he presented a compelling case for the switch from consulting to a more commoditized service business.

If you’ve not listened to the interview before you can listen here.

If you’re a regular reader here you’ll no doubt have heard about our own small steps towards products with the launch of our premium podcast content.

Though we’re still very much a consultancy business and always will be; I thought I’d share a couple of stories of consultancy businesses that made the switch to service companies either partially or completely who I’ve enjoyed reading about.

SEOMoz

SEOmoz started out as a consultancy businesses like any in the world of SEO. A client paid them money and they provided the advice to allow them to rank better.

One of the ways they attracted clients was through their blog, which quickly became one of the most popular in the industry. With the huge audience of their site they began to produce tools which their team and audience would find useful.

Before long they came up with the ideas for various tools they’d like to produce, along with a changing attitude to their consultancy business we discussed above they took on venture funding and launched a suite of tools including the game changing Linkscape tool.

And in 2010 they completely ceased their consultancy business.

37Signals

If you work in the digital media business there’s a good chance you’ve come across or use one of the suite of programs from 37Signals.

Personally I’ve used Basecamp the project management software but their other services, Ta-Da List, Backpack, Writeboard, Campfire and Highrise are all really highly regarded.

If you’re not familiar with the background story to these guys, they started out as a fairly traditional Web Development company but as the developed Basecamp as an internal tool they realised it’s potential as a commercial product, they spun it out and before long the software development side of the business was the primary driver of the organisation.

SEOBook.com

The first day I arrived as a trainee at SiteVisibility Damon sat me down with a early printed copy of Aaron Wall’s SEOBook, the rest is as they say history.

By selling a book covering SEO, Aaron’s always used a slightly different business model to most within the SEO industry and his innovative streak shows no signs of slowing down, SEOBook is now a premium membership site which gives access to a suite of tools, training guides and private members forums.

While not everyone will have the gift to produce content like the guys at SEOBook but it does illustrate a different way of monetising knowledge and experience other than conventional consultancy.

RavenSEO

RavenSEO is owned by Sitening and like the examples above they started as a consultancy which began producing an internal tool which they sold externally which became so successful that recently it became to sole focus of the business.

They offer a very specific software service to those working in an agency environment where they used their experience as a typical customer to develop a product which appealed perfectly to their target market.

This is just a trend of a few companies or thousands of SEO companies but interesting to study nonetheless. Is it the future or just a small niche trend?

Post from Apple Pie & Custard the blog from SiteVisibility a Brighton SEO Company

Is Productisation the Future of SEO?

How to Get Your Business to do well in Google Local – Podcast Episode #73

Kelvin — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 08:40:34 +0000

One of the area’s we knew we wanted to cover when we launched the premium content from the Internet Marketing Podcast was Google Local. In this week’s episode of the podcast we give you a quick rundown on some Local SEO ranking factors that act as a lead in to the premium content on the subject

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You can listen to the episode on the player below, subscribe to the podcast feed or listen in on iTunes

Show Notes After the Jump

Our Premium Subscription Service
Citations from Major Data Providers
Don’t be too concerned if you get mentions without links
Categorisation on You Google Local Business listing is important
Claimed Business Listing Rank Better than unclaimed ones
Google look at keywords in your business listing title and descriptions
In-bound links are also a factor
Volume and Quality of Reviews is important
Encourage customers encourage them to leave a review
Full address on Contact Page that matches the consistancy other mentions across the web
PO Boxes won’t help
How Near to Centroid (i.e. city centre)
Have your local phone numbers if your targeting a specific local area
Upload a video
Kodak Zi8
Upload picture
Use hCard Microformats
Age of local business listing
Upload Coupons
Negative Reviews are bad for rankings
Keep your business name consistent
Keep your phone number consistent

Post from Apple Pie & Custard the blog from SiteVisibility a Brighton SEO Company

How to Get Your Business to do well in Google Local – Podcast Episode #73

Improving The Quality of Existing Anchor Text

Kelvin — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 08:55:27 +0000

Sometimes you’ll naturally have acquired a great editorial link to your website that’s perfect in every regard apart from poor anchor text like ‘click here’ we’ve had some success (but not lots) contacting people behind these links and asking them whether they would be prepared to change the anchor text.

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But at this stage it’s worth being pragmatic; could the time spent contacting these people be better spent attracting additional new links? If the process makes sense, here’s some top advice on how you can go about improving the anchor text of existing links to a site.

From our experience we’ve found people who are linking using a phrase like ‘click here’ are often more than happy to change it to the brand name, and occasionally the linker will switch to a nice keyword rich anchor.

Not very often but it does happen.

So what’s a good way to find these people to contact?

To start with you’ll need to use a link building tool which allows you to group links based on the anchor text of the link.

There’s lots of tools which provide this functionality but I use the classic version of Link Diagnosis most frequently, as it’s fairly quick, no real frills and doesn’t require me to remember a password!

Once you have run this report you will be able to see who is linking to you using what anchor text.

One of the best areas to target when seeking anchor text improvements from exisiting links is to approach those linking to you using non-specific anchor text like ‘click here’ or ‘read here’ it’s not too tough a sell to ask these linkers to switch to something more useful like your brand name.

Sometime you can convince the people linking to your site using branded anchor text to switch to something more keyword rich. I’ve found when making contact to make these kind of requests you should be as upfront as possible, explaining the reasons why your getting in touch.

If the linker has a positive relationship with the organisation they may be willing to make these changes, but be aware there is a chance they may also remove the link!

We’ve also trialled providing some kind of incentive to encourage the switch like discount codes or promotional items but haven’t carried out enough tests to form a conclusive opinion on whether this is effective or not but it certainly has proved a worthwhile experiment.

But the moral of the story is it’s much easier is to try and influence the anchor text at the stage when the link is being created and it works best when you can influence the anchor text without asking explicitly.

Post from Apple Pie & Custard the blog from SiteVisibility a Brighton SEO Company

Improving The Quality of Existing Anchor Text