Tips for buying links
Feb 3rd
Of course buying links is the work of the devil, and certainly not feature in a SEO strategy. However at certain times you may have a website that is very poor and offers little value. In these situations propositions to acquire links organically may be a bit of a headache, and in a moment of weakness you may find yourself buying links. Should you even find yourself in this situation, here are some tips to gain the most value and protect yourself from being penalised.
When buying links you must take many factors into consideration:
Campaign to include Mars drink in boots meal deal
Jan 13th
I sent this email to Boots today.
Dear Boots,
I’m as big a fan of the Boots meal deal as anyone, but I feel as both a shareholder and a customer, that sustainable competitive advantage at a corporate level could be obtained by including Mars Drink in the Boots meal deal.
May I remind your board of directors that they must act in the interest of shareholders, and the decision to include the Mars drink (preferably the thick variety) would deliver unprecedented added value.
8 techniques for link building (Part One)
Jan 5th
SEOmoz recently ran a webinar on linkbuilding, outlining 8 major different methods of linkbuilding. I thought I’d write a bit about them, and add my experience of using them. This is a two part post, the following four further methods will be posted soon.
1. Manual Link Submissions/ Requests
This technique refers to approaching relevant sites and either attempting to leave a link or approaching the webmaster to obtain one. I have used this technique a great amount buthaven’t gained many high quality using it. It is a pretty tedious method of link building too.
Learning some CSS
Jan 2nd
One of the books that I received for Christmas was CSS: The Missing Manual. I did know some CSS and had built a 200 page medical website with CSS, but my knowledge of was rusty. This book is an excellent resource for CSS, whether you are learning it from scratch or already have a little bit of knowledge.
Working in search marketing, it’s my aim to become fluent in HTML/CSS. Having witnessed first hand the massive impact landing pages has on converting traffic, I’d like to be able to position myself to be able to create and amend client landing pages. Using Google optimiser tool, I’ll be able to split test different landing pages and not only deliver beautiful traffic, but also spoon feed them into making purchases 
.
Knowledge in CSS will additionally be useful for my own projects that I’d like to develop, but I need a book for finding the time!
A digital christmas
Dec 26th
Good and bad news this christmas. Firstly the bad. I returned to my parent’s house for Christmas only to discover that they currently don’t have any Internet whatsoever. I managed to share my 3G internet connection on my Nokia N95 8GB via Bluetooth with my Macbook so at least I have some connection, albeit pinging servers at over 300ms.
On the good news front, I’ve received plenty of techie books to keep me busy. For 2010, I’ve identified my skills in Excel, CSS and landing page optimization need to be improved. With the latter, we ran a competition on one of our sites in our portfolio, and we sent a huge amount of traffic to merchants, but it became quickly apparent that the quality of the landing page influenced whether we generated £10k in sales, or literally nothing at all.
My Excel book is probably large enough to kill someone with and has all the information to satisfy my knowledge for pivot tables. Over the forthcoming week, I’ll be cracking into that and my book on CSS. If I am to work on creating landing pages for clients, then knowledge of CSS will be critical. It’ll be helpful for my sites in my personal portfolio. Another book I need to buy in the new year is one on analytics, but I’ve got plenty of reading for now!
No pictures on this post. Not until I have a Broadband connection again!
Google real time search
Dec 13th
This screen grab of a search I did is testament to Google’s new real time search results working
The ongoing debate SEO vs PPC – SES Chicago 09
Dec 10th
I’ve been following some of the SES Chicago 09 coverage and the ultimate battle came up, SEO vs PPC. Representing SEO was David Naylor who I saw speak on the subject of SEO. Once you get past his love for plugging Microsoft services, then he is a very good speaker. Also representing too was Rand Fishkin, a true SEO heavyweight!
What amazes me is that in debating different search engine marketing techniques, so much effort is spent on debating which is better rather than using it as a forum for discussing how the synergies of both methods can be used to deliver value. I believe that SEO can deliver sustainable competitive advantage through excellent organic listings. Looking at the site portfolio I work on at work, I think SEO is the source of our competitive advantage. PPC has some great uses. It requires no investment, and you can deliver traffic in an instant. A particular interest for me is usability and converting traffic, so for that, PCC is great.
Anyway, if you haven’t already, check out the debate that was held. There are some really funny lines in it, especially by David Naylor. I Loved the Bing remark.
My personal digital set up
Nov 28th
I have a bit of a soft spot for technology which is not good for my wallet. My Nokia N95 8GB is starting to test me, and since my iPod Classic broke very recently, the lure of an iPhone is becoming harder to resist. Nonetheless, I thought it would be a good time to speak a bit about my little set up at home.
I’ve got a CD2 20″ iMac (which I got Apple to kindly gave me for free) and I loaded it up with 4GB of RAM. I seem to be one of the few people that doesn’t do cracked software, so I have a bought copy of Adobe CS4 Design Premium.
A couple of weeks ago I upgraded to Office 2008 for OS X. I’m still to get used to it as I was expecting it to be much like Office 2007 for Windows and it isn’t at all. Ironically my set up at home far exceeds my one at work. At work I don’t really have much paid software, but I have grown to like GIMP. It’s not a bad substitute for Photoshop CS4.
I’m getting the Apple Magic Mouse for Christmas 
Awarded distinction for my master’s in business
Nov 22nd
Distinction, whoop!
Friday afternoon I received the excellent news that for my Master’s I achieved a distinction classification. It was quite a solid distinction too, achieving module results of 68, 71, 71, 74, 75. I completed a Master’s in European Business at Royal Holloway. Probably the module I was most pleased with was my dissertation.
I spent all my summer working on my dissertation, and for the first time it felt like effort correlated with grade. I wrote 15,000 words on the video game industry. One of the biggest changes in the industry is casual gaming. Nintendo have had great success with extending the market with targeting casual gamers, but what interested me was how Microsoft and Sony are going to juggle targeting both the traditional serious gamer and casual gamer.
EU ‘no cookie’ Directive. Who should be most worried?
Nov 17th
In the previous few weeks a large amount of attention in the digital marketing industry has been given to a directive approved by the EU council. If you are unaware of the Directive in question, check out the Econsultancy article who provide a good general introduction to the topic. With consideration to further analysis of the politics behind the directive, read the out-law article. If you have the time, you can even read the directive for yourself!
I completed a Masters in European Business which focused largely on the institutions of the EU and the process of ratification of legislation, but the EU can still be confusing. With decision making powers shared from codecision to consultation with the EU Parliament, one can be forgiven for getting apathetic with engaging politically with the EU. One important fact to note is that this is a directive as opposed to a regulation. The fundamental difference is that it is upon the member states to implement directives, and the manner in which they do so.
There is some disparity between member states in how timely they implement directives. The EU permits a deficit of 1.5%, but even among all member states the average is 1.9%. Countries who are the slowest at implementing directives include France and Germany. It’s unfortunately bad news for those in Denmark and Spain who have the lowest deficit – meaning they implement directives the quickest.
I have contacted my local MEP to inquire as to how I can get further involved in the decision making process and exert my democratic power. I’m not a fan of the protectionist trade values of the EU, but I’m a fan of political and cultural integration. However on this one directive, I think the EU have got things firmly wrong.