It appears they have removed the entire blog category: “Digital Marketing | Data Science | Optimisation” which is where the posts were.

UPDATE: An apology has been received from Cube3′s head of digital marketing Chris in the comments below.  We have also received a personal apology by phone which we have accepted.

UPDATE: The culprit appears to be a (relatively experienced) former employee who now works at a larger agency. We have informed the individual in case he wishes to respond.

—————-

So we found a company in Manchester that has reproduced at least 2 of our blog posts without any credit.  Amusingly they didn’t even bother hosting the images themselves - they’re still ripping them off our servers.

This level of stupidy is not unusual and we would normally let them get away with it.  However this is a large digital agency with clients like ASDA, Cash Generator and No1 Currency.  In short they should know better!

That’s why we couldn’t resist a little fun & updated all the images in the blog post on their site…

We want to know which one you find the most amusing! Please add your thoughts in the comments below as to which one you think is the best/most amusing etc

The Attacat winner gets to light the burning bag of dog shite we’ll be leaving on their doorstep next week.

Even better – have you got any good suggestions of your own?! Upload them onto our Facebook page

The post itself

The post was stolen by a Manchester agency – we’ll try to keep it under the radar for a little bit so they are called c-u-b-e 3 (without the dashes).

The blog post is sitting here: http://blog.cube3marketing.com/2011/03/02/e-tailing-analysis-how-to-increase-the-average-order-value/

And here’s the original for comparison ;) http://www.attacat.co.uk/brain/cro-average-order-value

Post Screenshot

Related posts:

1. Just Ask: A Way to Get Blog Comments
2. Converting you to CRO: The post presentation discussion forum!

A new year, a new load of social media news you probably missed. You may have still been drunk from New Year’s. That’s fine, but you shouldn’t be drunk now. Put the gin down.

Disclaimer: Technically some of these articles are from 25–30 December, but if you were really paying attention to work then I feel sorry for you.

social media and search works – let’s sack people

News filtered through recently that Procter & Gamble have slashed their ad budget because they think Facebook and Google can be more efficient, unfortunately resulting in the loss of 1,600 marketing staff. While you still need well-trained people to properly implement good social and search campaigns, it’s clear more and more advertisers are realising online community building is extremely worthwhile and profitable in comparison to traditional offline methods.

Google ‘warps’ search with plus Your World

The Google assault on social media begins in earnest. It was only a matter of time before Google flexed their search muscles to give Google+ a real kick, and Search, plus your World is the result. In very basic terms it involves pushing Google+ results and connections through to search results. But the implications could be very far-reaching.

There are two main views on the functionality:

1. Google are using social signals to improve the relevancy and personalisation of search results. Social factors are an important part of decision making and Google cannot rely on factors like links forever.
2. They’re crowbarring their social product into the faces of normal searchers while ignoring/downgrading other social networks that, by right, should be far more prominent, and as such are abusing their dominant position and promoting their own products in what should be a ‘fair’ and relevant search engine.

Econsultancy have collected together a range of expert views (not mine though – how rude) and there’s certainly a fair level of concern, with Twitter’s Alex McGillivary calling it a “Bad day for the Internet”. However what is definite is that it’s not going away and Google+ will need to be at the forefront of your mind for 2012 alongside Twitter and Facebook.

Twitter changes things…

At least they don’t change as much as Facebook eh? That would be really annoying.

courtesy of MarriedToTheSea.com

Twitter have undergone a bit of redesign to make the whole process a bit more accessible, and to make it easier to find out what people are talking about. Unfortunately it’s easier to find out that many people are talking a load of guff, and now there will be more of them. Why they’ve decided to call the redesign ‘fly’ I have no idea. Oh yeh, the logo is a bird. Nice.

Businesses could claim that Twitter haven’t really helped them get the most out of the system – businesses just have normal user profiles. But luckily this is set to change, with enhanced profile pages thankfully starting to be rolled out. These will give businesses a bit more opportunity to brand their pages and improve engagement with potential customers. Currently only a select few companies have access and they’re all giant, people-crushing behemoths based in the US. We’ll let you know when the features stomp their way over to your average business-on-the-street.

Facebook changes things…

The Facebook Timeline is now available for everyone, joy! Of course us people in the know have had access to it for a little while (sorry, that sounds gloaty), but now everybody will see an announcement that gives them the option to upgrade and improve their marketing story. It’s lovely, so give it a go.

In other news Facebook are moving beyond ‘likes’. Expanding on the ideas expressed in their last conference, Facebook Apps developers can now suggest other call-to-action buttons like ‘buy’, ‘download’ etc. that are more relevant to what’s being offered and can increase sales. It’ll be in adverts first but then who knows? You might also want to start considering the wider SEO impacts.

Considering the last round of Facebook changes, how are you finding the small news ticker on the right-hand side of the screen? I find it really annoying. I don’t want to see every song that someone is listening to – “You are my friend, but you have the music taste of an unstable teenage girl”. Well some recent research has indicated how important it could be to get in the main newsfeed, with data suggesting the newsfeed receiving a 98x higher click-through than the ticker.

only 17% of your fans see your posts

A Facebook post effectively ‘dies’ after about three hours, and comments are 4x more valuable than ‘likes’. Did you know that? Ah, the intricacies of EdgeRank, the method Facebook uses to decide who gets to see your updates. Don’t anger EdgeRank or you will end up in the small news ticker, which is small and ignored. Like @Attacat_Steve. Zing!

measurement and monitoring FBI style

Social media is an important barometer of opinion and public sentiment – you only need to think about how it came to the fore in the Arab Spring and the London Riots for that to be obvious. Unsurprisingly Governments and shady departments want to know exactly what’s being said and by whom, and it’s now been revealed the FBI are developing their own social media application to improve their real-time intelligence gathering. But don’t talk about it too much – they’re watching you.

On the subject of social analysis, I’ve mentioned a number of Twitter measurement products in previous roundups but to keep you fully up to date here are a few more Twitter analysis tools – have you tried any of these? Do let me know your thoughts; I try out as many as I can but seriously, there are a lot. I have a life to live. Don’t ruin my life and make me sift through them all.

QR codes: big ol’ overview

I’ve written a bit about QR codes before but try this article from SearchEngineWatch for a great collection of resources, tips and advice. You’ll be scanning so much you’ll feel like you work in a supermarket.

remember to post this then

Successful marketing often still relies on good planning, and this goes for social media and blogging too. An editorial calendar is a fair way of ensuring you’re pushing out the messages you need to, when you need to, so if you’re looking to schedule your activity check out these editorial calendar.

Courtesy of ToothpasteForDinner.com

socially mobile

Oh crikey don’t forget how important mobile is to social media. Write it on your forehead if you have to. Enconsultancy articles can often be heavy on floaty strategy, low on getting-your-hands-dirty implementation, but this article has a few tips of getting shared on mobile.

Have any other news that caught your eye in January? Please do comment below and let us know.

Related posts:

1. Social Media Roundup – October 2011
2. Social Media Roundup – September 2011
3. Social Media Roundup – August 2011

A text dating site (and I have a girlfriend)….gulp.

photo credit: engineroomblog

The other night after a few pints in a private booth, the modern day equivalent of a Ceefax dating site managed to find itself the subject of interest and discussion amongst the Attacat team.  The ads were not too dissimilar to PPC in that they consisted of a heading, a body of text and general call to action – all constrained by character limit.

What did I learn?

• We had to decode a lot of ads based on targeted abbreviations.  I had no clue what WLTM meant (I’m happily clued up now though).
• Headlines that we liked were attention grabbing but also informative – they relied on supplying the most important info first to quality our attention – age & personality.
• The body worked on supporting the headline themes (age & personality) with the most valuable bits of information to ensure the best match was achieved.
• The call to actions where quite varied – again, this depended on personality of the ad creator

The dating ads had to be targeted; there was no landing page with supporting information to convince you to contact the individual. It was purely down to the power of good old fashioned character constrained copy, which has to work otherwise people wouldn’t use it!

So, what can we take from this?

How often do we use abbreviations? I actually don’t use them enough; I’ve always been discouraged from using them based on personal feelings about alienating audiences. But what if this wasn’t such a bad issue?  What if we created specific ad copy that relied on abbreviations as a secondary pre-qualifier after the trusted negative keyword?

When we write headlines, are we selling the most important aspects of the product/service first? Or are we simply keyword stuffing? I think most people are guilty of keyword stuffing in the hope that the landing page will explain the main benefits – but how do you expect to qualify a visitor if all ads simply state the keyword?

Does the body of my ad support my headline? How often do we just use generic ad copy that doesn’t bring any specificity to the product/service we’re selling? Do we expect people just to accept headlines without any additional information? Sure, it makes split testing difficult but if we just start with high revenue generating ad groups first then our time is well spent (supposing you get conclusive results).

How often do we avoid a call to action? What is essentially one of the most fundamental aspects of our ad is missed out because we over think it.  ‘People know to click this ad’ we think.. but do they? Are they actually thinking about what your ad is?  Or are they simply looking for the best match to their search query and looking for any additional information that may help them find what they need. Something worth thinking about.

If you provide a telephone number in your ad, how comfortable are you with your PPC message? Would you be able to pick up the phone and have a conversation based on your 130 characters? If the answer is no, then you already know what you need to do.

In summary, there’s a lot that we can learn (good and bad) from dating ads out there.  I’m not suggesting that they’re a great source of inspiration for everyone, but I do hope that my example highlights the importance of seeking inspiration from unusual places and thinking about how we can apply lessons outside of PPC to PPC.

For the record, I will not be held liable for anyone caught ‘researching’ dating ads!

Related posts:

1. LINK: Phone number or Not? That is an AdWords Ad Copy Question
2. ‘Best thing ever’ advert copy
3. Google Adwords new keyword match type

photo credit: www.jerkalert.co.uk

The Leveson inquiry into press standards couldn’t be credible if it didn’t begin to look into the implications of social networks upon the press and privacy landscape.

With the talk of ‘phone hacking’ being blown out of all proportion (and let’s be honest, it’s not really hacking is it?), online communication tools really have to come into focus – online is the future of the medium and considering it now, rather than later, could help avoid adding to the current ‘mess of the press’.

Lord Justice Leveson himself said that he wants a “level playing field” between print and online press. With the online world now having so much of an influence into the distribution of stories, news and opinions (many stories in the papers these days are just lifted from online conversations or posts), it is clear online needs to fall under any proposed press regulation.

However Leveson has also admitted that he sees Facebook and Twitter as being distinctly different – “pub chatter” between friends. But is this really the case? And does leaving these networks out of any regulation undermine the whole process?

photo credit: woodleywonderworks

chatting to friends…

Facebook is primarily a tool for connecting friends, however connecting friends doesn’t make Facebook much money. So it’s become just as much about connecting people with businesses; with business profiles, company pages, a plethora of ads and posts visible to the world.

For many companies and even press outlets their Facebook presence is as important as their website. Can these official postings from companies or ‘verified’ personalities be casually dismissed as banter? When viewed in this light, can this chatter be independent of regulation?

Generally Twitter posts and status updates are available and published for the entire world to see. This is the equivalent of blaring your pub chatter through a megaphone, or daubing the walls with your so-called inane chat as a permanent memorial to your musings. Is it really that different to posting your thoughts or ‘news’ on a blog? No, it’s not. It’s called micro-blogging for a reason.

And with the recent examples of the breaking of superinjunctions through Twitter can you seriously exclude it from considerations without losing credibility? Even if we acknowledge some sort of distinction between the social networks and news/blog sites, is it not pointless if the news can migrate between them with impunity?

photo credit: www.jerkalert.co.uk

jurisdiction

The web is multinational, with every principality and state even seemingly represented. If news can move between social networks and blogs to avoid regulation, it can also be moved to places beyond the control of the British government, Press Commission and the spineless Press Complaints Commission.

Cutting the exposure through search engines is one option. However Google are not keen to restrict information and become what  Daphne Keller, legal director of Google, describes as “The lowest common denominator of lawful speech”. Should the search engines be responsible for this anyway? The argument is that they are simply linking to content: they are not responsible for it.

difficult questions

Leveson faces a hugely difficult task when it comes to controlling the press and news online. With social networks allowing individuals to build huge followings, break news and potentially reveal fatuous secrets that damage personal lives, press regulation is becoming less about keeping an eye on the big publishers and more about becoming an all-seeing eye to protect the rights of those in the reports.

With so many outlets and so many considerations, is it possible to control and regulate? It’s potentially only possible to keep tags on the big press outlets, however that would amount to unfair regulation of only certain representatives of the press. Is there a logical and implementable solution?

Leveson could be on a hiding to nothing in the grubby world of celebrity titbits and political revelations. As Samuel Butler once said:

No mistake is more common and more fatuous than appealing to logic in cases which are beyond her jurisdiction

Related posts:

1. Link: Twitter and Facebook are for News, MySpace is for Leisure
2. Link: 35 SEO, Twitter & Social Media Statistics
3. @Anywhere: New tools from Twitter for Integrating Twitter into your Website

© mendhak

It’s been almost a year since Amazon Checkout has rolled out in the UK but strangely enough is still hardly used by our E-commerce players. For sure, i don’t have any precise data on the usage within the industry (any links are highly welcome) but based on a simple old school observation technique we can conclude that it’s not even close to the results it was expected to reach. How many UK Ecom sites using amazon checkout you actually saw? Then compare that to the Paypal or Worldpay.

Why should we use it anyway?

The benefits of using the amazon checkout are quite obvious but for the point of clarity I’ll try to list them here. It’s important to mention that we are talking about providing benefits to users of the eCommerce site which in the end will benefit the shop owner with a solid increase in conversion rate.

Saving time

Let’s face it. No matter on the industry or the product types, quite a few of your customers (in some industries even all) would have an amazon account. In this case, both delivery and  payment information can be prepopulated enabling your customers to checkout in literally couple of clicks. Reduced friction is almost always the right path to the conversion increase. Additionally, everything is happening without a user leaving your site so no weird domain redirects are involved.

Increasing Trust

Again, no need to argue that amazon is one of the most trustworthy brands in the current web. Even the most paranoid potential customer would feel secure enough about the transaction with Amazon. So just by implementing the amazon checkout you will gain much more credibility than all those utterly overpriced trust marks (*cough McAfee *cough). Please note that any site using amazon checkout is suppose to follow the “Amazon A-to-Z Guarantee”. Make sure you are able to deliver all of the Amazon promises before involving.

There are plenty of other benefits available on the amazon site but I’m not really interested in comparing the cost or ease of implementation (honestly, it’s about the same for all of the checkout/payments providers so only thing you can compare is the talent of the in-house copywriters)

Wait a second…

Another very important question is How actually should we implement it? You can’t just drop it on your cart page and wait for the millions. I think there are at least 2 important factors to consider:

It should be noticeable

There is no point of having an Amazon checkout if non of your users are actually seeing it. You logically don’t want it to be the most prominent element but it should look as an alternative you are offering to your customers not some useless secondary feature like your local chamber of commerce logo.

It should intuitively explain the benefits

Well, it’s great it’s “Now Available”. Pretty happy about you. But what does it mean to the user and why should they care? It’s not so complicated to add couple of lines of the descriptive copy just next to the actual button. Just a line about saving time, no need to register and all the fancy security promises Amazon has covered for you. Simply let your customers know don’t make them assume.

So does that mean go for it?

Definitely not. The eCommerce field allows you to test any single pixel on your site so implementing entire checkout system without reliable data is a suicide. Funny enough, but all of the reviews I found online are either recommending to go for it or never try. It’s just plain stupid. What about split testing and measuring the exact increase (or decrease) in you conversion rate and then simply comparing with the costs associated with implementation. Simple math – Simple decisions.

Happy testing!

Update: After finishing writing this post I stumbled on this discussion. It’s not the actual post but the comments which made me come back and write this update. There were 2 main issues raised:

1. “Amazon will steal my data”

This is the funniest thing I heard this week (believe me we hear quite a few at Attacat on the daily basis). Amazon has more than 80 million active customers and more than $10bn  revenue per quarter, so do you think they really care about the dozen vintage hats you sell per month? If you are not zappos, wallmart.com or other giant (and i hardly believe they read our blog) you can be completely sure that amazon will leave your data to you. If one day  they will need it – they will just buy it from Google (my hello to the conspiracy freaks out there)

2. “The A-to-Z guarantee is heavily weighted toward the end customer”

Are you bloody serious? OMG!!!!1 An ecommerce site is heavily focused on the needs of the end user. What a shame!

Wait…Hmm…

Maybe that’s why they are the most successful eCommerce site on this planet? If you are looking for the less end user weighted industry then maybe eCommerce is not for you? There are always job opportunities in the public sector. That’s the place where the end user benefits are never raised out loud.

Related posts:

1. Checkout Optimisation Tips or a friendly letter from one marketer to another

Trainee PPC (pay-per-click) Manager

This role will use a combination of your analytical, persuassive, creative and even scientific skills to turn search engine and Facebook visitors into customers for our clients through relative new, but highly effective forms of advertising. You will begin by assisting the PPC team with developing and analysing campaigns. You will train for, and achieve “Qualified Google Advertising Professional” status and equivalent qualifications.

The most likely progression from this position would be into a PPC account manager role.

Business Development Assistant

Working closely with our Operations and Business Development Director, your primary task will be to identify and develop opportunities to sell our Conversion Rate Optimisation offering. A significant part of this role will be using social media to identify people with a need for our services and then to develop relationships with them. It is certainly not a cold calling or field sales role! It is likely that you will get involved in other parts of the business too.

Ultimately you could develop into either a full sales role or alternatively you might go down a route of becoming a CRO specialist.

How to Apply

We will accept applications for this role only through our online application form.  You can find out a little more about the jobs & Attacat by accessing the graduate marketing jobs application form.

Related posts:

1. 2 new jobs with Attacat Internet Marketing
2. 2 Job Opportunities – Positions Filled
3. Join Attacat: Entry level and experienced jobs available now

email communication – does it work?

My initial focus for time savings is email. There is no doubt that email is one the greatest advances in global communication over the recent years; however my feeling is that we’ve become so used to email that we’ve forgotten some of the ‘traditional’ communication methods and try to use email even when it is not the correct fit for the job. Firing off a quick email generally seems like the most efficient way to complete a task, but this is only true if there is little or no discussion to be had. How about picking up the phone?

How many times do you find yourself watching your inbox, waiting for the next email to come through (OK, I’m being OTT here but you catch my drift)? Sound like an efficient use of time? Keeping you focused on work at hand? The Outlook email notification message (i.e. whenever you get an email you get a desktop alert) is one of the worst things ever invented – company policy already dictates that these are turned off! And don’t get me started on Tweetdeck notifications…that’s for another day

Just think – you’re in the middle of a task, notice an email and then answer that email. This distracts you from the original task and takes a few extra seconds for you to get back into it, if you manage to get back into it. Repeat this several times a day, across 10+ people in the company and you can soon see these seconds add up over the days/weeks/months.

Attacat’s email policy (BETA!)

Based on these thoughts I’m going to be changing the use of email within Attacat to improve our communication, both with clients and internally. There are no hard and fast rules in anything but I want to try and create a new culture surrounding the use of emails. We’re not going to force clients into changing the way they work but there will be certain aspects of the policy that it will be important for you/them to understand.

Highlights:

• We’re going to be on the phone a lot more than normal. We believe that a phone call is more time efficient than back-and-forth emails: many points can be covered quickly and any confusion or questions can be addressed quickly and in one go. The Attacats can then get back to working on your tasks without further interruption – great!
• Use of emails will be limited to two periods in the day: first thing in the morning and again straight after lunch. We’ll also allow an optional quick check at the end of the day to ensure nothing is left overnight that needs dealing with (this is designed to be a ‘check’ not for sending emails!).
• We will limit the delivery of emails from the server to the account manager’s desk to the times mentioned above.
• If we expect that an email sent requires more than one reply then we should pick up the phone and discuss. All phone calls are logged and a confirmation of call can be sent if required.
• Monthly reports, daily stats and any bespoke reporting will still be sent by email (for now; I’m working on something more engaging for this too!).
• If any files/images need to be sent to or from a client outside the hours specified (that is business critical) the client will be able to deposit files in their client-specific Dropbox online drive.
• If any email communication from a client is business critical this can be sent to the enquiries@attacat.co.uk mailbox that will continue to be monitored throughout the day.

Don’t worry, we’ll be speaking to all our clients about this change before it’s implemented to get your views and ideas.

Clearly, common sense will need to prevail here and the regulations can’t be too tight as people like to work in different ways. I don’t want to turn the Attacats into robots but I do want them to deliver the best level of service for all our clients.

what’s next?

As I say this is a wide-reaching review of all systems to find time and efficiency savings – clearly email is only one part of this. My next areas of focus are:

• Reporting – further automation of internal reporting along with daily and monthly client reports.
• Report delivery – to move away from just sending a report on an email I’m looking at several more efficient delivery methods including client portals or client-led reporting (where clients can run reports on our data across their own time periods and with their own metrics).
• Marketing dashboards – an at-a-glance view of where you are now in comparison to last week/month/year. We have this in place internally but we plan to open it up to clients – transparency is one of our core values at Attacat.

We’re only skimming the surface of things that can be improved and it’s always an ongoing task, but these are our short-term goals and we plan to make some great progress over the next couple of months!

I will continue to update anyone that might be interested (if not it’s at least a reminder for me!) and I will be blogging more over the coming months on business and business-development-related matters.

your views

OK, this revised email policy is perhaps a little controversial (or maybe not?).

Either way I’d be very keen to hear your views on it using the comments below. If you’d prefer to discuss it with me privately you can get me on Twitter or email (damn – email again already?!) ben@attacat.co.uk.

photo credit: Robert S. Donovan

Related posts:

1. Email Marketing Roundup – July 2011
2. Email marketing roundup – November 2011
3. Email marketing roundup – October 2011

Google Webmaster Tools rank data was useless

I’ve long dismissed the rank data in Google Webmaster Tools’ (GWT) top query report as being useless.

I didn’t bother to digging into Google’s rank number methodology as I just assumed that they had come up with a reason to not show us real data (if you have used the AdWords keyword tool over the years you will realise that masking data is part of Google’s culture).

That was until today when Google announced that they were changing the way rank data was calculated – so I was spurred on to take a fresh look.

And…the results were still useless. But why?

international searches

I started thinking the data was off because our sites tend to be UK based. For example I may rank number one for “spiced sausage” in the UK, but people in the US also like spiced sausages and I would rank very low there; thus reducing my average rank.

A few searches later and nothing learned, I went back to GWT and then spotted the obvious.  The filter button.

GWT rank data filters

Brilliant, you can filter out international traffic

But the data was still crap. Only 15% or so of the traffic was non-UK, so that can’t explain why my coveted number one ranking is averaging a position of 15.

But wait, what’s this?

Almost 50% Google image searches? Wow. Click the filter option that gets rid of that and at last….

decent rank data!

So instead of a good original blog post explaining the nuances of how GWT calculates rank data, all you get from me is a lousy tip to use the filter button. Sorry.

I’m now off to brush up my Google image optimisation skills.

Related posts:

1. Goodbye WordPress Plugin: All in One Webmaster
2. LINK: Steal ‘not provided’ data back from Google
3. Google Keyword Tool: New Data, same old Smoke

Become an SEO-Yoda, like Joel.

Having been happily ensconced in the Attacat penthouse for about six months now (“Jeez, is it only that long?” – Attacat Joel) I’ve found SEO blogs to be one of the most useful learning resources to supplement my hands-on experience. In the quick-change, real time environment of digital marketing, newbies (like myself last July) can feel rather deluged with the pace and volume of the technorati’s news and updates.

So, I thought I’d share some good online spots to help SEO novices (whether a  fledgling marketing professional or a savvy business owner just wanting to get a better grasp of SEO) find content that’s good quality and informative but not too intimidating.

first: get SEO basics

To get the maximum benefit from your reading it’s obviously helpful to first get a basic grounding in SEO. Before you wade into the blogosphere make sure you’ve read the excellent SEOmoz free Beginner’s Guide to SEO – a visual and highly digestible walkthrough of the key SEO building blocks.

It’s also essential to check out out what the big cheese Google has to say on optimisation (do remember that their guidelines may be similar but won’t necessary be the same across other search engines).

5 great blogs for SEO newbies

1. Search Engine Land
   Search Engine Land is your go-to resource on major search news, with well-written commentary on industry announcements and their potential ramifications for business owners and marketers. The “advice” articles are probably less practical than the other blogs on this list but it’s an essential read nonetheless. In particular I’ve found their Periodic Table of SEO ranking factors and rundown of the 2011 Google Panda updates both nicely-paced for SEO neophytes like myself.
   
   
2. The SEOmoz blog
   I cringe to say that one of my questions during my first two weeks at Attacat was “what’s an SEOmoz?”. SEOmoz is a provider of SEO software and all-round bastion of information for search professionals. Rather than a slew of over-reported industry news, the SEOmoz blog is updated usually once a day with approachable articles on usable tools, tips and tactics for onsite optimisation and achieving better rankings  (often supplemented with further enlightening comments from the very vocal Moz user community). It’s also home to WhiteBoard Fridays, a no-frills mini webinar mini series that looks at a new and current aspect of SEO each week. You might not agree with everything they say but their resources are generally tip-top.
   
   
3. Google’s official blog
   The place to get the official news from the horse’s mouth. Kind of obvious you might think, but one I actually overlooked for longer than I care to admit! Check out the Webmaster Central blog and for weekly posts (if you’re PPC-inclined you should also look at their Adwords Agency blog).
   
   
4. SEO Gadget
   A gem recommended by our in-house SEO-Yoda @attacat_joel, SEO Gadget, like SEOmoz, has some great, very readable strategies and observations of changes and quirks in Google’s results pages. It’s updated a little less frequently but they have some interesting ideas for using different platforms for SEO efforts – for example this post on using your Twitter profile for link building.
   
   
5. Blogstorm
   Blogstorm is a UK offering so it’s a good blog to go to for some British case studies. It has a nice mix of research and analysis and commentary on big industry news.
   
   
6. One more for good luck – the Attacat Brain!
   A gratuitous plug to round off the list. If you’re reading this post then you’ve clearly found us – but please do pop back, read, digest and share our pearls of SEO wisdom. If there’s something you’d like to read more about then please feel free to leave suggestions for blog topics in the comments section below, or of course give our merry SEO team a buzz.

beyond blogs

Getting your Google Reader beefed up with good reads is a great start, but don’t forget to also to rev up your Twitter lists, as this is a great way to catch articles that slip through the RSS net. I’ve also recently started using All Top, or you can try the similar Coconut Headlines, both of which handily aggregate popular SEO stories from across the web.

back to books

And finally a return to the old school – remember books? If you’re looking for chunkier information then the Attacat SEO textbooks du choix are Search Engine Optimization Secrets (you need some basic SEO know-how to get cracking with this) and The Art of SEO (from 2009 so slightly outdated but still very comprehensive if you have no background knowledge).

This is of course the tiniest tip of a giant iceberg. If you’ve come cross any other must-read resources then leave a comment or tweet me:
Follow @Attacat_Jane

Related posts:

1. Search Engine Optimisation: Get to grips with the basics even if you are outsourcing
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