An Update On Just About Everything!
As the title suggests, this post is a bit of of mixture of things. I can’t believe its been 2 months since i’ve written on the site (that is changing folks) so I decided that a ‘mega post’ was in order to catch up. I will also add a caveat here that i’m paternity leave at the moment and short on sleep (see below) so this may not be that coherent in places and probably has the odd typo…..
A New Arrival At Home!
After a what felt like a reallly long pregnancy (especially for Lou!) we were proud to meet our new baby daughter last week. Mum and baby are doing great and thanks to everyone for the flowers, cards and text messages we have received. Special thanks to mum for the beautiful flowers she sent – which arrived at a cheeky 7.55am! Here are two of my three bosses!
In The Office
Down at the office, it’s been a busy time too. We have a new internal PPC manager who has really hit the ground running and now handles day to day client accounts/communications. That has taken a big weigth off my shoulders and allowed me to focus on other aspects of client delivery. Phil is also working towards taking his Google Adwords exams shortly and the client feedback to date has been fantastic. We are also looking out for an new SEO / Link builder so if you are up for the challenge, please get in touch.
Most of us had a flutter on the dreadful world cup but no results to shout about. I pulled out North Korea in the sweepstake which was a bit gutting and my main tournament bet Germany fell at the Semi finals (14/1 shot). Overall thought it was a shocking tournament to be honest I often found myself switching over to watch the cricket (20/20).
Dan, after bigging England up all month (you have to admire his blind faith) has got back to the more important issue of new business development and fixing the office shredder. Dan has some hidden technical skills and we are now adding shredder maintenance to his budding career as an IT technician. We are also looking at a new web site and whilst I am off, I will be putting some ideas together. Watch this space on that…..
My Consultancy Work
In any spare time I have had recently, I’ve been working on some exciting new projects, delivering some SEO seminars for Business Link Yorkshire & implementing some new pay per click strategies for new clients. I was recently back at both Hazlewood Castle and Ripon Races with Business Link and did my furthest away ‘gig’ to date, delivering over in Scarbourough. Will also be launching a new service in the next few weeks so watch this space on that. Think it will be great for the SME sector.
SEO Industry Updates
There has been way too much happening in the industry to summarise here so I won’t even try. Here are a few posts that have caught my eye recently:
John Battelle On The Future Of Search
A really interesting post on Search Engine Land with John Battelle discussing the limits of search today and how we could see in the future a ‘middleware’ approach to helping people find the information they are looking for.
Google Video Best Practices
I am often asked about video and how best to optimise it for search. We cover the basics in my Business Link sessions but here is a more comprehensive round up of how to get the most from your video media.
3 ways in which low quality content can damage your business
A really good post from Nick Usborne over at Wordtracker discussing the May Day update, its impact on low quality content and how crappy content generally can not only damage your brand but disappoint your users too.
A Googlers’ Backup Plan
Where do users go if they can’t find the information they are looking for? many people dismiss rankings on other search engines but this study suggests this may not be a great idea.
Bing vs. Google: Prominence of Ranking Elements
Really interesting analysis from SeoMoz on Bing & Google data points and there relative differences and dare i say it – correlations!
Google May-Day update: five tips for e-commerce sites
You have probably heard about about the May Day update (if you haven’t then it’s here) and I liked this post as it offered practical ways in which business owners can deal with the algorithm update.
The Science Of Ranking Correlations: How Does Page Rank Compare?
This is a slightly tongue in cheek article aimed at debunking one of the biggest myths in SEO. I’ve lost count of how many times Page Rank has cropped in the past and my advice has always been the same – forget about it (it will drive you crazy) and focus on relevant, diverse links backed by good marketing!
Tags: colegate, ignition, jon, page, pagerank, rank, search, SEO, seomoz, sheffield