Hate Twitter? Here’s How To Keep Up!

Many people whom I know and respect have engaged in self-imposed Twitter bans recently. I have found myself fuming over tweets and fussed about it to people who don’t care, for ages and ages it seems. However, I totally rely on Twitter to keep me informed about absolutely everything that’s going on in our industry. If someone writes a blog post, I find out through Twitter. If Google decides to do something insane, I hear it through Twitter. I don’t rely on RSS feeds or bookmarks or word of mouth anymore; it’s just me and Twitter. However, Twitter is quickly killing my goodwill and sanity. The self-promotional tweets about how much money you just made or how many job offers you’ve just turned down turn my stomach. The bickering and bitching suck me in until I’ve read 10 blog responses to 1 inflammatory blog post, and hey, it’s time to go pick up the kids already. I no longer have time for such a mess.

What can you do though, if Twitter is your go-to source for information? Once you’ve been clued in for long enough, being out of the loop seems terrifying. What will you miss? Will so and so be fighting, again, and you won’t get to see the mean tweets back and forth? Will you not immediately know when some blog has published a post so that you can rush to comment on it and again and tell us how great you are? Will you stumble because you want to do something yet you’re unable to due to having become reliant upon follower feedback for every step you take? Does my new avatar make me look fat? Can you believe what this mean person said to me in my blog comments?

Think back a few years to how you consumed industry news pre-Twitter. There was Sphinn, which has gone away. There were RSS feeds which are still being used. We bookmarked blogs and checked them every now and again, and we participated in forums. Sometimes we had to actually dig for information. That was kind of fun, and not nearly as overwhelming as Twitter has become for me.

We now have Marketing Land and My SEO Community (both of which I am very proud to be a part of) and we have lots and lots and lots of curation. People are doing some seriously great roundups. Tamar Weinberg’s Best Internet Marketing Posts of 2011 was truly amazing, for example, and full of articles that were concerned with topics that aren’t just relevant for 3 days. We have Google Plus which already seems to be spammier than Facebook, with much of it being a repeat of what’s on Twitter and Facebook, but hey, there seems to be a bit less whining and bitching there right now. And, of course, there are still forums! There are private Facebook groups and group Skype chats. There ARE alternatives to staying informed.

My latest favorite way to keep an eye on this is by visiting Coconut Headlines, which is a fantastic overview of all the big SEO news. Just a quick glance at the headlines is helpful enough to keep you clued in on a basic level. You get the big SEO news site headlines, Q and A from Moz, forum topics, and more. Spend 5 minutes just skimming headlines here and you’ll save god knows how much time on Twitter.

But back to My SEO Community for a minute…our first blog entry in the Mad SEO contest truly blew my mind. In it, Pete Wise describes how to use Yahoo Finance to track what’s going on in Google.  He didn’t try this because Twitter irritated the pants off him or anything, but I think it’s a great idea. In the comments, Pete says “The more creative you can get with information filtering, the less you have to spend time sifting through it yourself.” We do have information overload so I like reading about great ways to stay posted on things but still be productive (and not keep giving a crap about what Joe said to Terry that was rude and now she’s going to get all her friends to block Joe.)

In the end though, I could never give up Twitter. It’s like smelling bad milk. You HAVE to do it. I’ve unfollowed some people who annoyed me the most but during calm moments, I kind of miss being so easily irritated by them. Just in writing this post, I think I’ve spent 2 hours reading tweets. After writing this piece, after thinking about alternative news sources, and after fussing and being annoyed, I’m probably still going to run right to Twitter to see what’s going on in the industry today. It’s just nice to realize that if I decide to give it up, I can still keep up.

SEO: The Next Generation – WIN SES London Tickets + Mentoring with the SEO Chicks

We have put together a truly galaxy class competition for all SEO cadets out there. Have you been in SEO LESS than 1 YEAR or WANT TO GET IN TO SEO? Then YOU are the next generation SEO, and WE would like to help you become the best SEO cadet that you can be.


The enterPRIZE:


1 FULL CONFERENCE pass to SES LONDON 2012 (21st-23rd February)
AND access to ClickZ Training Academy (Monday 20th February). Courtesy of the guys at SES Conference Series.

3 Months MENTORING with the SEO-Chicks!
YOU will have access to ALL of the SEO-Chicks to help you with any questions or guidance you need. You will also get to meet a bunch of us (Lisa, Nichola, Judith & Annabel) at one of the days of SES London to discuss your mentoring plan.

How to ENTER the competition:

Create a blogpost OR a video

Topic: A lot has happened in SEO in the past 10 years, what will happen in the next 10 years. Tell us what you think SEO will be like in 2022. The entry can be anything from a serious blogpost on SEO and its development to a fun futuristic view of SEO, or maybe an interview with yourself in the future. It’s up to you.

When you have made the entry all you do is tweet a link to your entry and include @SEOChicks + the hashtag #SEO2022

What we are looking for: An entry that will make us think, laugh or make us say “yeah that’s it”.

Deadline: Friday 3rd February.All entries will be included in a list on the SEO Chicks Blog on Monday 6th February and the WINNER will be announced on Wednesday 8th February.

Good Luck and “make it so No 1”!!!!

———————————————————————————————
Note: you don’t need to be in the UK to enter the competition but the prize does NOT include hotel or travel to London (you will have to make your own way to the conference).The competition is limited to anyone that has been in SEO 1 year or less and you MUST be available to attend both the training day and the conference days (we basically don’t want the prize to go to waste). The competition is open to women AND MEN (we’re not sexist)!!

Pro-active updates, Re-active opinions or just plain active thoughts: Sharing is Caring!

Greetings chicklets! Or chicklettes. Chickhims? Whatever floats your boat really.

The blog is back, live and kicking, and getting started with determination on the pebbly path that is 2012. First up, a few thoughts from yours truly, as the most recent member of the blogging team. My topic? Sharing is caring. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you may have noticed  the world and his wife posting up their thoughts on Google’s latest upset – Google Search plus Your World – over the last 48 hours. SEOs in general are very very good at jumping on hot new topics and getting an opinion blog post up and written before you even think the words ‘SEO is dead’. Did I hear someone whisper ‘linkbait’?

Having worked in a variety of agencies for some years now (I know I know, I don’t look a day over 21 but really….), I’ve noticed that we are not always so good at communicating with non-seos. Let’s face it, if we think we can get an opinion piece out there before the next Joe Seoggs, get us a bunch of links, and look clever to our peers, we’ll do it in a heartbeat. All too often however, not so educated clients and colleagues are left by the wayside. It may not feel as important, or as useful, but don’t forget the people around you.

Here’s some thoughts on betters ways to be reactive, pro-active and generally just a little more active:

Reactive

-          Ensure that you produce a very simple one to two page document that is accessible to all explaining the update. What has happened, what does it mean, what do they need to do. Done. This can ensure your company and your clients are all well prepared.

-          Be prepared for Round 2, no update happens without a 2nd fallout and reaction to follow shortly after.

-          Have an opinion! Nobody is right or wrong. Take the risk and say what you think. You are the expert here!

Pro-active

-          Make a template – it’s rare that updates or announcements aren’t going to fit the What Happened, What Does it Mean, What Do I Need to Do’ mould so make life as simple for yourself as possible. Have a simple template ready to update and pdf.

-          Make it clear and official. Simple but effective! Create a brand around your updates.

-          Ensure these updates are regular – it’s not just about raising your profile in the SEO industry. Make sure people at work get to know you and what you do. Whether you work in an SEO only agency, in-house or in a wider agency like me, it is good to get out there!

-          Make sure internal and external partners are on the mailing list, it doesn’t just have to be people you work directly with. A person casually reading your name at the bottom of an update today might be the one who thinks of you when some SEO work pops up in 6 months time.

Just Plain Active

-          Take an interest in other people’s work and they may take an interest in yours. You scratch their back, they might scratch yours. SEOs tend to get stuck in a pigeon-hole, it’s worth taking a look around the rest of the world, especially the digital world, too.

Sorry SEO Chicks, for not providing the blog with an update on the Google Search plus Your World shenanigans, then again maybe it’s better not to be the 5000th post saying the same thing and try to learn something else from the experience instead?

And on that note, hat tip to Beccy Weeks and Sam Crocker for leading me on this by example. Big respect.

Panda Out.

(more…)

Welcome to the team; Annabel Hodges

I’m so excited to welcome the wonderful Annabel Hodges aka Search Panda to the SEO-Chicks blogging crew. We’ve been eyeing her up for ages thinking she is probably crazy enough to become one of the SEO Chicks, and turns out she is. Yay!

We asked Annabel a few questions before “hiring” her into the crew of course, some very qualifying, difficult and important questions:

1. How did you get into SEO?
I was a translator back in the day and getting very very bored of it. I started trying to learn a little more about search and analytics in my spare time as my housemate got me interested in it and I got hooked. I then got a job with a small design/development agency who had just won some multinational clients and had a choice: train linguists up in search or train search marketers to speak other languages. Simple decision!

2. What makes your SEO heart tick?
Two things mainly:
1. Data. And by that I mean those times when you really manage to get some juicy findings that suddenly change the way you look at what you’ve been doing.
2. Direct input/output of work. Over the years I’ve realised it’s pretty rare to be in a job where you have that satisfaction. On your own sites, if not your clients. You always get to tweak and learn and change and see, monitoring the direct impact of what you do and inputting back into that cycle. So many people work in a job where their day-to-day efforts get lost in a bigger machine.

3. Do you like Adam Ant or even know who he is? (only Julie cares about this)
Anyone who gave us Stand and Deliver deserves to be liked. That and his cameo in Northern Exposure.

4. Rock or Pop?
Hmm tough one. I’d have to go rock. Give me a good dose of guitar fuzz anyday. (Having said that, I’m never one to turn down a well produced pop song. Where would the world be without it?!)

5. What does feminism mean to you?
Oddly, quite a lot although I hate it when people bang on about it all the time. I’ve never been a particularly girly girl but I have dealt with a fair amount of stereotyping and pre-conceptions over the years, which have made me a feminist at heart. One thing I would say is ‘never judge a book by its cover’. I may like fashion and own too many shoes, it doesn’t mean I can’t hold my own. I also have a solid knowledge of Marvel comic book characters and Bruce Lee movies – what does that signify? You can wear makeup and a skirt while still being a technical/analytical person – despite some common beliefs, the two are not mutually exclusive.

6. Robot dance or ballet?
Robot dance every time. That and I do a great foot shuffle. It’s my main party trick. I’m far too clumsy for the likes of ballet.

7. Why the Pandas?
I’m half Chinese but don’t really look it which has always been a source of slight bemusement to my family. When I was about 5 one of my aunts gave me a porcelain panda and we went to Beijing Zoo to see them. It made a lasting impression as a way of feeling more part of my Asian culture somehow! That and they’re totally ridiculous. I have a love of ridiculous, clumsy animals. I empathise.

8. What did you want to be when you were little?
Janet Jackson’s backing dancer. It would have been a dream come true. Then until I was 18 or so, a vet. But I realised the amount of time and money it would take to achieve were pretty ridiculous, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to have my hand up a cow’s arse for the rest of my working life.

9. Who’s your Obi Wan Kenobi?
Erm Obi Wan Kenobi himself would do. Other than that (and all the SEO Chicks of course ), I’d say people like some of the women who’ve made it at Google – Vanessa Fox, Marissa Mayer et al. Simply because it’s a tough place to be and they proved themselves. Oh and my Mum. I’m pretty sure she’d take Obi Wan down in a fight.

10. What do you think of becoming an SEO Chick?
I’m an SEO. I’m a Chick. And I’m pretty damn proud to be both of those things so hell, seems like a natural conclusion!

So there you have it, the proof is in the pudding (or the questions in this case). Annabel is an awesome panda rocking, robot dancing, cartoon loving, translating SEO – who will ‘stand and deliver’ the SEO awesomeness to a screen near you. Wilkommen, beinvenue, WELCOME!

Interview Alert! It’s Wordstream’s Elisa Gabbert!

Elisa Gabbert is the content manager at WordStream, where she runs the WordStream Internet Marketing Blog and helps market the company’s AdWords software, PPC management services and keyword research tools. She also writes poetry and perfume criticism. She currently lives in Denver. You can follow her on Twitter at @egabbert (but expect tasteless jokes and bad puns).

 

The lovely Elisa Gabbert

1. Can you give us a summary of your SEO experience thus far? What is your current niche?

I got into the SEO industry about five years ago, sort of by accident – I was working as an editorial assistant on a website at a big media company. Their model was to run a bunch of highly targeted websites (each aimed at a slice of the technology market, mostly B2B but some B2C as well – stuff like Oracle, Linux, server storage, etc.) and sell advertising against those sites. When I started, no one even knew what SEO was, but it slowly became a bigger and bigger part of our strategy company-wide. Most people hated it – the company employed a lot of journalists who were coming from a print background – but a few people saw how important it was and some (crazy nerds) even found it interesting (oh, hi). So I moved into an “SEO specialist” role, making recommendations for a group of websites.

Now I work as a copywriter for a venture-backed startup that offers search marketing software and services, including a PPC management platform and various SEO tools (free and paid). We like to say this is the Olympics of search, because we’re competing to rank on search marketing terms with other companies that, like us, really know search marketing. So it’s very challenging, and VERY META.

2. How do you feel about the recent Google privacy changes that will now prevent us from seeing logged-in Google keyword data in Google Analytics? It’s apparently not the case for PPC. Fair or not?

I actually just blogged about this news. I tend to side with the “privacy schmivacy” folks – clearly other motives were driving this decision. I think it sucks because that’s such useful data. The worry is that it will eventually affect all organic referrals, as opposed to just a fraction as it does now. Then keyword research/optimization for SEO officially becomes total guesswork.

3. Any tips on how to use PPC data for organic SEO and link building?

Especially now that Google is taking away some of your organic search query data, it’s super important to keep an eye on your search query report if you do PPC. Assuming you’re using broad match and modified broad match (and you should be, in concert with negative keywords), you’ll be able to discover all kinds of new keywords that you can then incorporate into your content strategy. If you manage pretty large, complicated accounts, you might want to take a look at Chad Summerhill’s tips for search query mining – he includes a link to an Excel download that can help you sort through the data. You can download the full series in PDF as part of our negative keyword e-book.

4. Besides Wordstream tools, what else do you use?

I usually use our own tool for keyword research, but I sometimes consult the Google keyword tool for comparison. I also use Google Analytics. Otherwise it’s mostly me and a Word doc. And Twitter! I’m on Twitter all day. As a writer, I can focus on content strategy and leave most of the hardcore geek stuff to our SEO guy. I avoid Excel whenever possible.

5. What are the best resources available for someone with a small budget, new to PPC?

How small is small? If we’re talking really tiny, Google offers “AdWords Express” which requires very little effort on the advertiser’s part, but you give up a lot of control, so that’s iffy unless you’re talking a budget of like $100 a month and no experience with PPC. Beyond that, I’d recommend reading a lot of blogs to keep up with PPC best practices and the constant changes and additions to the AdWords interface. Tom Demers is my point man for keeping up with AdWords. And here’s a big list of awesome PPC blogs from BoostCTR. (Speaking of which, BoostCTR is an affordable way to get help with your ad copy.) Attend webinars, download white papers – take advantage of all the free resources that PPC companies offer in order to get your email address. The amount you can afford to spend on getting help with PPC will depend on your monthly budget. If you’re spending $1,000 a month or more, you can probably afford to invest in some tools.

6. What’s a typical day like for you?

The first thing I do every morning – after checking my email and putting out any fires – is publish a new blog post on the WordStream blog. We try to do at least one new post every week day. The blog is my baby. Then I push it out through Twitter and poke around on TweetDeck to see what people are talking about. The rest of my day is some combination of meetings (talking strategy with the rest of the marketing team, planning for new features or product launches, etc.) and writing and/or editing (articles for our own blog, guest posts and contributed articles, email marketing, white papers, and so on and so on), with a little social media and link promotion sprinkled in for good measure.

7. Name your dream client and tell us why.

Anthropologie, because maybe we could work out some kind of discount? (Editor’s note: you and me both, sister.)

8. What’s the best piece of SEO advice you’ve ever received? Ever given?

I think the best advice I got was from Larry Kim, who told me to copy Wikipedia. Who else, aside from Google itself, enjoys first-page rankings for such a wide array of keywords? So we try to emulate them on a smaller scale – create encyclopedic content on a topic (for us, that’s search marketing); organize it taxonomically; interlink heavily; use the keyword in the URL, title, first sentence, subheads, image file names and alt text; build anchor text links; etc….

As for given? My favorite piece of advice is: When you don’t know what to blog about, consult your analytics. Inevitably, you’ll find a traffic-driving search query that you don’t have a dedicated post for yet. So write it, duh!
9. Write an SEO haiku. Just kidding!! Who’d win in a fight between Martin Amis and Ian McEwan?

I don’t know, they’re both pretty namby-pamby, wouldn’t you say? I think the ghost of Kingsley Amis, annoyed by their bickering, would hangover-vomit on them from above. (Editor’s note: I think Amis is less so than McEwan but McEwan is creepier, therefore he’d win. However that 9/11 book by Martin proved that he’s a bit scary, so…ok Amis would win.)

10. What’s the biggest bullshit SEO advice going around today? I’m quite annoyed by all of the “must do” items being pushed about. We didn’t have freaking wordpress tags in place and we still ranked, damn you all!!

The perpetual thorn in my side is the obsession with getting into Google News. Sure, it can send lots of traffic, but I think evergreen content is more useful for our business model.

11. If you were not working in SEO, what would you be doing, besides staying home watching Oprah reruns and eating moonpies? Or is that just me?

I’m a writer, so I’d spend my days writing about one of my other interests – mostly frivolous things like perfume and outfits, but I’m also into lofty pretentious stuff like poetry and women’s rights and “culture.” So if it weren’t for this SEO gig I’d probably be our generation’s Joan Didion.

12. Who are the most fun SEOs you’ve met and why? For the sake of not having to arsekiss this cannot include any of your bosses.

Can it include you or does that count as arsekissing? (Editor’s note: I’d have accepted that HAD YOU MENTIONED ME.) My former bosses, Tom Demers and Ken Lyons (who now run Measured SEM), are a laugh a minute. I’ve met a lot of great people through WordStream. If Twitter counts as a “meetingplace,” I’m a big fan of Dr. Pete.

13. What’s the ickiest search you’ve ever stumbled across? When I was researching the types of chickens I wanted to get (shut up) I accidentally searched for “black sex links” instead of “black sex link chickens.” Yeah. Unfun. Luckily it was a web search, not an image search.

I’m totally impressed that you have chickens. Please invite me over for breakfast. (I mean to eat eggs, not the chickens.) I don’t think I’ve ever “accidentally” searched for kinky sex tricks, but one of the common keyword referrals for my blog is “dave matthews band tattoos.” How icky is that? Also “emo gay sex blogspot,” but that’s just cute.

Now this is Julie talking…I realize there are a lot of links to Wordstream here so before any of you start thinking they’re giving me free stuff or in any way influencing me, let me say that I WISH THEY DID. They don’t. I just think Elisa is three hoots and I like to see literate folk in our industry. Thanks for the interview Ms. Gabbert!!

Book Review – SEO ROI: Rules and Tactics of Advanced SEOs

I’ve been feeling a little SEOfatigued of late. Sick of hearing the same old regurgitated advice and seeing the same old presentation. I’ve found myself withdrawing from Twitter and retreating to smaller communities where the discussion is much more specific and emerges from real, in-the-field observations and results. And you know what? I’m learning more, much faster, and in a shorter amount of time. So, this isn’t a Twitter-diss; but more a natural evolution of my own approach to (constantly) learning SEO. I was pleasantly surprised and pleased when this book landed in my inbox reason being the content is very much of the insider-perspective, using situational examples as opposed to any grand SEO theory.

About the Author, Editor and Book

“SEO ROI: Advanced SEOs’ 7 Curiously Obvious Rules and 30 Singular Tactics That Illustrate Them” is authored by Gabriel Goldenberg an SEO and CRO consultant of considerable experience, with a range of industry speaking experience.

SEO ROI is edited by Richard Kershaw, who again has considerable experience of many areas of online marketing from both blue-chip and affiliate perspectives and is currently running the successful gift experience website Wish.co.uk

Download a free chapter of the book.

Style

Divided into two sections, the first looking at overarching guiding principles, “the Rules”, which include sound advice such as “Teach Yourself” (rule 2); and the second section (30 singular tactics) looks at very specific, situational dilemmas and challenges any SEO or marketer in-the-field may face, with advanced solutions that solve or circumvent the issue with an ROI-positive solution. Each of the 30 tactics is premised on adherence to “the rules”.

As an example Rule 2 starts with useful points on how and where to seek knowledge within the industry; from blogs to books to good ole’ fashioned networking in the real world.

I particularly enjoyed the section on testing – classic A/B split-test methods looking at the object, existing theories, independent and dependent variables and how to measure the effects on the dependent variable. Included is a great step by step walk-thru in testing; from Step 1 “create a hypothesis, to Step 5 “Measure and Analyze”. There’s also a great deal of emphasis placed on critical thinking, as a mindset or effective approach for SEO practise, observation and test; and this is espoused throughout, including detailing some fundamental steps to thinking critically. Something that resonated quite clearly for me was Rule 5 “Define the Problem”. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve seen clients and staff react in something of a panic, making all kinds of plans and solutions prior to refining and defining exactly what a perceived issue may be.

Sensibly, Rule 6, recommends challenging assumptions; something I wholeheartedly agree with. Without those that dare to challenge there’s no progress surely? I was particularly pleased to see a section devoted to Inductive Validity “Inductive validity is another way of measuring the truth of an argument. Instead of setting the threshold as truth in 100% of the cases, inductive validity looks for a claim to be probably true.”

Here’s the thing…
DO NOT SKIP “The Rules” and head straight to the paydirt! Whilst the later sections of the book may be naturally more absorbing and resonating for a practising SEO I can assure you that this structure and the content therein is extremely valid.

Best Bits

I don’t want to give away too much of the excellent content detailed in the 30 tactics, but to highlight a few tactics that were fresh thinking for me: Writing Conditional  CSS for Higher Conversion – details a range of four solutions, including the ethics of each method, Link Prospecting Using Demographic Matching – with guidance on how to; and in particular a tactic Gab has described as “Message Matching”, which is an awesome tactic and unfortunately something I can’t really describe without giving away the crown jewels.

Room for Improvement?

I couldn’t find fault with this. And I’m picky.

Overall

A truly advanced book for experienced practitioners that are in a position to evaluate solutions based on wider business objectives and ethical frameworks.

Don’t just take my word for it – get your free chapter and see for yourself.

« Older Entries