Hello,

My latest project is a multi-lingual SEO project for the German based personnel development and management consultancy Actus Purus. I’m working in collaboration with Ruaridh Currie CSS webdesigner in Glasgow.

I’ve started off with the German site, as this is where the client’s main target market comes from. We are at the end state of building the site, the main content is being finalised and imagery is to be added.

I’m currently establishing a SEO strategy, which I will also apply to the English site.

There will be a more extensive case study and I’ll keep this blog updated to let you know how the site is doing.

I’m also setting up Google Analytics for the site, so I’ll be using this site as my example for the step-by-step user guide.

At the moment I’m planning a big re-vamp of the site, adding SEO and Google Analytics case studies, a Google Analytics user guide, and a general resource for SEO, PPC and Google Analyics related topics.

Bye for now

written by admin \\ tags: actus purus, Multi-lingual SEO, SEO

For experienced SEOs it’s common knowledge that link building is crucial to give a website the necessary boost in order to perform well on search engines.
During many SEO projects I’ve been seeking new and innovative forms of link bait and built links in order to achieve for a myriad of search terms my clients wish to perform on search engines.

It is also a fact that there are really no two links that are indeed the same. Therefore Wiep Knol decided to ask about 17 well known and respected SEOs to gives us their input on link value factors. This article is really interesting and outlines about 40 link factors and their importance.

The importance of each link has been rated as follows:

1. Not of any influence on the value
2. Fractional effect on link value
3. Moterate influence on the link value
4. Strong influence on the link
5. Very strong influencing factor

There is also a section on so called “dampening effects” of links that perhaps lower the strength of a link.

These factors were also rated as follows:

1. No negative effects at all
2. Slight negative effect on the value
3. Somewhat negative effects
4. Big negative effect on the link value
5. Maximum negative effect

It’s about time we had a full “bible” on link value factors.
Read it! It’s an eye opener!!

written by admin \\ tags: Link building, link factors

A Robots.txt file is a simple file containing information for search engine crawlers visiting your site. You can  exactly what parts of your site should be out of bounds for certain bots. This also ensures that page content is indexed faster and more accurately. This has been around for a while now.

Well, breaking news… Google has tightened the way it looks at robots.txt files, if not validated, a lot of site owners could face getting their websites banished from the Google index.

You can easily validate your robots.txt file with robots.txt validator offered in Google’s webmaster console

I found this really interesting thread on these latest robots.txt developments, called “validate your robots.txt, Google might deindex your site” by Sebastian’s Pamphlets.

Anyway, I better double-check my clients robots.txt files now.

written by admin \\ tags: robots.txt, SEO

I watched The Gadget Show, the other week and they had a contest between Jason and Suzie to see who would manage the quicker and better online exposure of their videos.
Suzie got a Viral Marketing campaign for which she probably paid an arm and a leg, whereas Jason went down the cheaper route utilising social media channels. The aim was to find out who would get essentially the bigger amount of hits.
I thought this was a great case study for a social media campaign, which is now more and more used by SEOs as part of their link building and/or brand exposure strategies.
Suzie used the a big viral advertising company to create a short viral game “Suzie says” and a short movie to help build the brand “Suzie Perry”. They embrased the not so new “sex sells” approach, were Suzie is seen in the background getting changed, however nothing is ever revealed, as a mobile phone covers the important bits. Watch the Suzie Perry video.
Jason took the low budget approach utilising the Web 2.0 social media options, which are available to everyone at no cost.
He filmed the “Extreme Caterpillar Breakdance” and placed it on various social networking sites, social bookmarking sites and of course on You Tube and other video domains, such as Break.com and Spike.
Social bookmarking sites included Facebook. The social bookmarking sites were Stumble Upon and Digg.
The results were quite different.
Suzie’s campaign only achieved 127,716 views on YouTube, contrary to Jason’s “Extreme Caterpillar” movie, which received 2,876,874 views.
This shows the power of social media and ought to be part of any good SEO campaign. Of course it’s important to identify which social media strategy is most relevant to a client and a page on Facebook and a YouTube movie may just not always be the most effective.

written by admin \\ tags: digg, Social Media, stumble upon