Over the last few years, content strategy has taken on greater importance with most online marketers increasingly viewing it as a vital component of any marketing strategy. At its simplest, content strategy can be defined as a method of identifying the type of content that...
Continue ReadingThe Search Engine Weekly Roundup is where I give you a list of the finest blogs from the week, revolving around SEO, Social Media, CRO, Marketing, et al. This week, we look at creative link building and link building resources, as well as what to think about when building a landing page, and how to build an online community.
The Second Most Creative Link Building Post Ever
Jon Cooper
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The Most Creative Link Building Post Ever was one of the most popular posts of the past few months, and is currently the highest rated article on Inbound.org. Jon Cooper of Point Blank SEO asked a group of SEOs “What was the most creative way you, or someone you know, got a link?”, and listed their responses in the aforementioned post. This post is a follow up to that, due to the sheer flurry of responses that he got, and the popularity of the post. This is a fantastic read, which contains very creative, inventive link building methods from some of the finest SEOs around.
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Creating anything from scratch requires a lot of foresight and planning, whether it be a new mobile application, a new blog website or even just one of those dodgy flat-packed desks from IKEA. I’m not going to give you a step-by-step on how to put a desk together but what I can do is give you a few tips, based on my personal experience, on how to drive traffic through to your brand new website.
This statement is true in the sense that once someone is presented with your content in front of them and they get a chance to actually see it and enjoy it then yes, people will certainly pay attention to it. The only issue lies in the visibility of the content itself. Having good quality content that is genuinely interesting to your target audience is crucial to the sustainability of visits to your blog, however quality content isn’t always enough.
The Search Engine Weekly Roundup is where I give you a list of the finest blogs from the week, revolving around SEO, Social Media, CRO, Marketing, et al. This week looks at building Google+ authority, social media strategies, link building and seasonal campaigns.
Being an Authority on Google+ Directly Impacts Search Results
Jeff Sauer
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Starting things off this week, Jeff Sauer has constructed a case study based on the importance of Google+ to SEO (spoiler: it’s rather important). Jeff’s study is the culmination of a 3 week test, where he looked at the impact of Google+ on a set of new websites, by isolating it from all other factors, by only using Google+ promotion. The post details the entire process of what he did and what happened, and is all wrapped up with 8 key points to take away from the whole situation. Essentially, the crux of the matter is: Google+ can have a huge effect, and can help a site rank quickly and indeed help retain those rankings.
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With search and social integrating more and more every day, I have been witnessing a rise in overwhelming social plug-ins on websites and it got me thinking; is social media taking over our websites? Every business has its own social media goals. Small businesses usually shout...
Continue ReadingRecently, Google announced that they were retiring Google Reader, nearly 8 years after its inception. The reasoning behind this is provided by Alan Green, a software engineer, via the Google Reader blog:
“There are two simple reasons for this: usage of Google Reader has declined, and as a company we’re pouring all of our energy into fewer products. We think that kind of focus will make for a better user experience”
Although, Brian Shih, a former Google Reader Product Manager, has said that its downfall may have stemmed from Google+. More on that can be found here.
It’s going to be completely gone from July 1st, with Google giving us a few months to say our goodbyes, and of course, find an alternative feed reader. In light of this, I’ve been researching and using a plethora of RSS readers recently, and I’ve chosen three Google Reader alternatives.
As a digital marketer, I come across countless websites on a daily basis; some are great and provide inspiration whilst others are simply annoying! A few days ago, I was searching the internet for some work related information (of course) when I came across a website...
Continue ReadingThe Search Engine Weekly Roundup is where I give you a list of the finest blogs from the week, revolving around SEO, Social Media, CRO, Marketing, etc. This week looks at outsourcing, must-have SEO tools, how somebody got a link from CNET, and a very creative new website.
The Big Guide to Outsourcing
Matt Beswick
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The first post this week looks at outsourcing, where Matt Beswick has collated his thoughts on the matter, and sources to help your own outsourcing. He says that its importance comes from taking the dull tasks that we all have to sift through, and ensuring an efficient way of getting them done. This post covers the key areas of this topic: Research, content, design, outreach and coding. In each of these sections, there are various tools related to each area, such as the usage of oDesk in regards to outsourcing research, and 99designs for design work, as well Matt’s success with these sources. A very helpful article, seeing as, well, we’d all love to get those redundant tasks out of our hair, and this is guide on doing it.
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We as web designers are responsible for creating functional sites that bring in considerable traffic whilst keeping the attention of visitors through highly creative and accessible user interfaces. Research shows that it takes most internet users a few seconds to decide whether a website fulfils...
Continue ReadingThe Search Engine Weekly Roundup is where I give you a list of the finest blogs from the week, revolving around SEO, Social Media, CRO, Marketing, etc. This week, we look at a new Panda update, how to explain what SEO is, how SEO changed somebody’s life, and how a company saw a 262% conversion rise.
Matt Cutts Confirms Panda Update Coming This Friday
Search Engine Journal
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At the very recent Search Marketing Expo, Google’s head of spam Matt Cutts announced that the latest Panda update was to be released very soon – likely to be sometime around Friday the 15th – Monday the 18th of March.
The last Panda update occurred on the 22nd of January 2013, which saw 1.2% of search terms affected by it.
Also, looking at this article, it seems that Panda updates will be integrated into Google’s overall continuous algorithm updates. One massive point that Matt Cutts made during this conference is that there will be another Penguin update at some point this year, and it’s gonna be a big one.
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