Archive for the ‘How To Lists’ Category

A Process for Creating Linkbait

ShareTweet So, before we kick off it’s probably useful to define what I mean by linkbait – here’s a quick and dirty definition from yours truly: “Linkbait is content which people *want* to share and link to.” For the sake of clarity when I’m talking about linkbait, I’m talking about link-worthy content. This includes, but is not limited to infographics (not that I’m an infographic-hater; actually it’s a form which I like and have had success with) but it’s not the only type of creative content that you can do. Before you kick off… Before I get stuck right into the process, I’d strongly advise you to be open and honest about creative link building strategies. Make sure your boss [...]

How To Create a Social Strategy

ShareTweet Habitat UK, Skittles, Nestle, Asus, and more are all tales of woe and warning for anyone going in to social media. Getting it wrong seems easier than getting it right at times. This is often because of lack of planning as opposed to level of difficulty. As important as it is for SEO, planning your social media strategy is important to ensure minimal brand damage from mistakes. Social media, with its low barriers to entry, may seem easy to do. Many think ‘how hard can it be to tweet and update Facebook’? Well, as Nestle learned when the tit-for-tat between an angry consumer and one of its marketing team on Nestle’s public wall got paraded out by some media [...]

How to Do Keyword Research

ShareTweet One of the things I think is most difficult to get right and yet is the most important factor for SEO is keyword research. The research that is done for SEO is quite different from the type done for PPC even though both are for search engines. This means while your PPC agency may have done some ‘keyword research’ it needs to be focused and refined for your SEO efforts. Good keyword research is important because of the number of other critical SEO elements it affects (as well as PPC). The on-page targeting for non-cannibalised keywords is important. That is, don’t target the same keyword on lots of pages. The link building anchor text is important. Internal links and [...]

How To Measure Success

ShareTweet One of the things I frequently get in trouble for is giving away too much information. I think that giving away too much insider information is what I am about to do below. My argument for sharing is that knowledge is power and by giving companies the skills and ability to understand what I do and how I do it, not only will they will better understand, appreciate and purchase services. One of the things I get asked most often, next to “how do you choose an agency” is “how do you know if what they are measuring means anything”? Understanding what is being measured, how it is measured and how you can double check the measurements yourself if [...]

How To Create a Search Strategy

ShareTweet For too many people for too long, SEO has seemed like occult sciences. Part research, part technical, part magic, search, and specifically SEO, has seemed something you had to trust someone else to do. Understanding more about how search works means not only being able to ensure it is executed in-house properly, it also means a better working relationship between you and your agency if you utilise one. Setting up a search strategy may seem impossible if you come from a point of not understanding even the fundamentals of search, but information about the core of SEO – those elements which are most important to ranking – are published and freely available. What regrettably isn’t free is the expertise [...]

SEO Resolutions

ShareTweet As a search and social media “expert” (boy did I fool them!), I speak at a number of conferences through the year. I talk about the techniques behind ranking well but I rarely speak about the fundamentals and with the changes in Google’s algorithm this is more important than ever. Starting from a solid foundation will mean the difference between ranking well and failing. Starting with a solid foundation and following all the rules means you are also less likely to get hit by negative algorithm updates. Businesses are experiencing increases in online transactions and more than ever, consumers are using search to drive both online and offline purchasing. Here are some tips about what you could do to [...]

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