Although we were pre-warned, the timing of the latest incarnation of Penguin took many people by surprise. To borrow a term from the greatest football manager of all time, Sir Alex Ferguson, (no bias here – just look at his record) this initiated “squeaky bum time” for some in the SEO industry.

“Boo!” – The Surprise Announcement

Countless gallons of coffee are simultaneously spat onto computer screens.  Cue frantic ranking updates: nothing yet.  Regular checking of Analytics data: nope, nothing there either.  Hmm if I didn’t know any better, I’d say not much has changed.  What’s all this “2.0” business about, then?

Regardless of whether you want to call it Penguin “4”, “2.0” or just “Steve”, the impact has been pretty tame.  Only 2.3% of English search results were affected by 4, 2.0, Steve… the new Penguin.  There was no repeat of last year’s reams of panicky forum posts from website owners wondering (i) where their traffic has gone and (ii) how they should react to a link-spam notification in Webmaster Tools.

So after all the hype, the reality of Penguin 2.0 is that it seems like the first small push. Perhaps we’re all getting paranoid, but one senses that foundations may have been laid for bigger things to come.  I predicted in January that 2013 wouldn’t be as dramatic as 2012. Easy to say this now. but for the most part I stand by that (once again, because keyword anchor text links and, to a great extent, article spinning were so widely used and so effective that it was always going to cause a hurricane if they were smashed).

So What Are Google Going to Do Next?

Only a fool would bet against Google rolling out further and more impactful updates in the coming weeks or months.  Cutts suggested that the new Penguin would incorporate a more sophisticated link analysis, that would “be much better at understanding links”.  But other than speculation and guess work, none of us know exactly what this means, yet.  We don’t even know if Google will target links beyond the obvious spam techniques, which they harmed last year, but did not eradicate entirely. However, there seems to be a wide assumption within the SEO industry that Google are seeking to become more effective in identifying where a link has been ‘placed’ as opposed to ‘earned’.  Hence, there has been a great deal of chatter predicting the death of guest posting and crafted backlink profiles.

This got me thinking about what Google might think spam actually is.  Let’s take it as given that article spinning, paid links, advertorials, excessive link exchanges, extreme anchor text manipulation, links from irrelevant sites, links from sites with the sole purpose of passing PR, and so on, are all spam.  Some of these techniques might still work, but most people will know the risks attached.

The question is: what kind of links might be devalued or labelled as spam next?  A year ago, after the massive algorithm updates of early 2012, there was an enormous amount of content out there with the message: if you want to get the right links in order to rank, you need to be doing things like guest posting and infographics in order to build the kind of links that Google want.  Fast forward a year, now it seems that many expect Google to smash these sooner rather than later.

“Building Links” – Inherently Grey or Black Hat?

Hang on a minute, before you start typing your furious reply.  This is not yet another post denouncing SEO as a game played by dishonest tricksters; nor will I be saying that link building is dead.  We are not; and it is not.

But let’s remind ourselves, at the highest level, what Google really wants.  To deliver the highest quality, most relevant, accurate and original content to their users, on sites that offer the best user experience.  They like fresh content, of course – but we should also strive to create content that has long-term value.

What don’t Google want?  For low quality websites with poor user experience, thin, inaccurate, unoriginal, out-of-date and/or less relevant content to be de delivered to their users.  That’s why users keep on coming back to Google.  So far, they have been more successful at doing that than Bing, Yahoo or any of the competition – and it’s made them a hell of a lot of money.

To take the definition of what Google wants a step further, they want sites that genuinely deserve to rank on the first page.  They want sites that are so fantastic in their niche that recommendations come naturally.  Links are a massively important part of this – and will remain so for the foreseeable future.

But, if a link is built, requested or however you want to put it, then perhaps one could argue that it’s not a natural endorsement, is not based on a comparison between one property and the alternatives, and thus it distorts a website’s genuine worth.  Our guest posts might be of the highest standard and placed on the most relevant and powerful sites in our niche, but would we be doing that if we weren’t after the links?  Yeah we might drive some traffic and it might raise our profile, but let’s be honest – the answer is “probably not to the same degree”.  As SEOs, we go where the links are.  Because search engine visibility is so driven by links, why the hell would we not do that?

And what’s wrong with it?

Sculpted Backlink Profiles

There was an excellent blog on Moz (RIP SEOmoz – thanks for the memories) by James Finlayson (see link below images), which explored the possibility of Google looking at the spread of Domain Authority across backlink profiles for evidence of a weighting towards ‘created’ rather than ‘earned’ links.  The article looked at how a sculpted backlink profile might look compared to a natural backline profile.  Link builders typically target links above a certain DA (in order to ensure higher quality links) and below a certain DA (because some links are much harder to get).

How a typical natural backlink profile might look – DA is spread.

How an unnatural backlink profile might look – DA is congested.

Images source – Moz.com

Should Google Want to Kill SEO Full Stop?

Google made themselves pretty clear last year – they want to kill the side of SEO that deals with poor quality, irrelevant, spammy content on sites that real human beings never visit.  The great thing about 2012 was that many of the shadier SEOs started to realise that cramming the internet full of rubbish wasn’t going to get them results for much longer.  So, there has been a shift from talking about how to trick the algorithm towards a discussion on how we can give Google what they want – valuable content that gives us just rewards.

Isn’t that what Google wants?  For SEOs to be promoting and contributing to the creation of high quality content that offers something of value to users?

If you are guest posting on the quality sites, offering decent content, and helping to enrich the internet – why should that be a bad thing?  And what if you re-hash the same content on different sites?  As a rule, we’d probably all shake our heads at that notion.  But consider the fact that websites have different audiences – so why not share a similar message with each audience?  News websites all cover the same stories, because they each have different audiences – and there’s nothing wrong with spreading your message as far and wide as you can.

And why should Google devalue links from infographics en mass?  Matt Cutts hinted many months ago that infographics may not be a genuine endorsement of a website, because the links are often embedded and thus ‘trick’ website owners into linking.  In my opinion, if another website uses something you have created, they saw worth in it and so the link is fully deserved.  Is it Google’s job to moderate the internet?  There’s a tonne of inaccurate information on Wikipedia, but that doesn’t seem to bother them.

OK so perhaps that’s an unfair comparison, as Wikipedia is a phenomenal resource that I use on a near daily basis.  And I’m not saying that incorrect information or below-par content, be that infographics or otherwise, should be tolerated and allowed to pass on value.  But my point is that Google can’t devalue guest posting or infographics unless they get really clever about spotting the genuinely crap from the average to high quality.  If they start along that path, soon we’ll find ourselves in a position where only links from the BBC or the White House count.

As for crafted backlink profiles, a-la the second graph image above: let’s not hide the fact that we are building links.  If we manage to get links (i) from valuable content/sites and (ii) pointing towards valuable content/sites, who cares whether we’ve ignored the lower quality and hard-to-get links?  Who cares whether high value content was created because people wanted the links?  It’s like a charity saying, we don’t want your money; you ran that marathon because it made you feel good.

The question should not be: “has this link been built?”  It should be: “is the content valuable and is the linked-to resource genuinely high quality?”

Am I Making Excuses for Link Building?

Firstly, I think it’s important to remind ourselves that Google have almost all of the power in this relationship. If they decide that ‘building’ links distorts reality, we can’t deny that they do have an argument to some degree. But I believe that this is no less honest than a fashion company paying a celebrity to wear their clothes. So long as it’s the right celebrity and the clothes are high quality, what’s wrong with it?

Should I be defending those of us who are building links, rather than waiting for or encouraging the links to build themselves?  Would Google be right to clamp down on perceived artificial backlink profiles containing links that have been built purposely to drive Domain Authority… even if the content is of decent quality?

And as the biggest brand in SEO loses the term “SEO” from their name (yeah because they do more than that now… but come on), are even the leading people within the industry starting to realise that ‘SEO’ is being engulfed by more standard marketing and PR?  After all, isn’t that why SEOmoz started doing other things before they lost the ‘SEO’?

What do you think?  Let’s get a discussion going…

Image References: Flickr and Wikimedia Commons

The post After Penguin 2.0 – Are Google Going to Smash SEO? appeared first on Electric Dialogue.

We’re here to give you the low down on how to use the most popular social media platforms to make sure you’re making the most of these tools. Follow these simple tips and in no time at all, everyone will be clamouring to sign up for your event!

Twitter

The ultimate tool for events whether they are consumer or business focused! An effective Twitter presence is more than just coming up with a hashtag but when it’s done right it’s a great way to connect with your visitors, shout about those must see moments and share the best bits of content.

• Make the most of your hashtag – monitor tweets that include it and start to engage! Follow those attending the event, retweet the best bits of content and start a conversation – you know, like an actual living person.
• Organise your key stakeholders (exhibitors, speakers and sponsors) into Twitter lists so you can monitor their tweets and shine the spotlight on their content too
• Get your team on board by creating personal accounts and encourage them to tweet regularly, share event content and engage with your visitors
• Delegate responsibility for managing your Twitter account so you know there’s someone always keeping an eye on things and posting regular updates
• Take the jump and invest in a Twitter wall so you can display tweets that include your hashtag to further drive engagement

Instagram

Attending an event is all about what’s right in front of you so why not share those moments with the big wide world. Instagram has exploded in the last 12 months creating hordes of self proclaimed ‘iPhone photographers’ so make sure you get your piece of the pie!

• Get everyone excited in the lead up to your event by posting teaser shots of everything being put together. This is the time to inject some personality into your social media presence!
• Hashtags aren’t just for Twitter – Instagrammers are hashtag crazy too! Use your event hashtag on Instagram and include it in your profile bio and in each photo you post.
• Don’t stop at Twitter walls – aggregate and display Instagram photos which use your event hashtag on screens around your event to further drive engagement
• Share any extra special shots via your other social media accounts but in the same breath – don’t share everything!

Facebook

Facebook is THE social media platform for consumer events but it can be a struggle to get visibility unless you’re digging into your pocket and investing in their advertising platform.

• Test the water with some sponsored stories and target them to users who live in the area close to where you’re holding your event or who like your competitors Facebook pages
• Don’t forget to set up a Facebook event – posts from event pages still show up as notifications for those who have joined an event – unlike with Facebook pages where your posts have to fight for news feed visibility
• Know which content works best on Facebook – don’t just roll out the same posts from your other platforms. Facebook users love visual content so share short posts with videos or photos for the best results

Google +

Google + is not a strategy for most events but if you’re relying on search engines to help people discover your event then it makes sense to add this into the mix to help your SEO efforts.

• Create a Google + Business Page for your event and then use this as another channel to share your content. You can go one step further and create a Google + event to cover all your bases.
• Encourage your event teams to create personal Google + profiles – get them to start connecting with other users and sharing content about your event.
• Make the most of Google hangouts! Set up group video chats to host Q&A sessions with your top speakers and thought leaders – this makes for great content!

LinkedIn

Event marketers often overlook LinkedIn but it’s a vital string to your bow – especially for B2B events.

• Research relevant LinkedIn groups for those who are likely to attend your event – especially industry groups or associations. Don’t just spam them with links but try to start relevant discussions and engage with other group members.
• Reach out to your personal contacts to let them know about your event but make each communication relevant and personal – suggest sessions they may enjoy or exhibitors who may be of interest to them
• Make sure your team connect with your key stakeholders (visitors, sponsors, partners and exhibitors) so you can retain them for the following year

So there you have it, a few simple ways to make sure you’re making the most of social media at your next event. If we’ve missed a trick or you’d like to share your top tactics, get in touch by leaving a comment – we’ll be all ears!

This post was written by Clemi Hardie – founder and MD of Noodle Live. Noodle Live use RFID swipe cards and mobile apps for events, conferences and exhibitions to make it easier to collect and share information.

Follow Noodle Live @hellonoodle and Clemi Hardie @clemihardie

Image credits:

Andreas Eldh on Flickr
Mark Falardeau on Flickr
John Lester on Flickr
Nan Palmero on Flickr

The post How To Rock Social Media At Your Next Event appeared first on Electric Dialogue.

Responsive design has been a hot topic for a while and has been adopted by many online businesses as a smart and efficient way to display websites on a number of different devices for a wide group of users.

With technology constantly developing and transforming, new means of communicating, interacting, selling and buying are in constant shift.  We are now amidst a generation, which is more likely to surf the internet on a handheld phone than to be sat in front of a PC at home. So, how well a website functions and renders on a small screen – be that a tablet or smartphone – as well as how it looks on a desktop is critical.  These days, online users won’t have the patience for a sloppy design that doesn’t function well on an iPhone or iPad; your business needs to be constantly adapting.

The idea of responsive design is one of versatility and brand consistency; to ensure that any user on any device will see your site the way that you want them to see it – whether they are on a smart phone on their way to work, in a coffee shop on their tablet, or at their desk at work.  This will enable customers to identify with your brand far more easily.

From an SEO perspective, if search engines begin to deliver more targeted mobile results, then it is inevitable that they are going to favour sites that deliver mobile optimised designs.  Indeed, Google confirmed back in June that they favour responsive sites over separate mobile sites.

Using responsive web design has multiple advantages, including:

• It keeps your desktop and mobile content on a single URL, which is easier for your users to interact with, share, and link to and for Google’s algorithms to assign the indexing properties to your content.
• Google can discover your content more efficiently as we wouldn’t need to crawl a page with the different Googlebot user agents to retrieve and index all the content.

Beyond that, there’s a strong argument that responsive sites can in many instances replace the need for building costly smartphone and tablet apps.  In fact, we often recommend to clients who approach us looking to build an app, that they might be better off looking at a responsive site.

As advantageous as responsive design can be, conversely it has it’s challenges. The most common draw-back of responsive design is the way in which it can slow down the speed of your website.  The problem can lie with poor implementation, as well as a lot of unnecessary content having to be downloaded, therefore causing a waste of bandwidth for mobile phone users.

If you display a lot of images on your website you need to be mindful of the way in which responsive design can affect the quality of the image. With all the re-scaling of the sizes of the images, the picture can sometimes become blurred, distorted or pixelated and whilst there are a number of potential solutions, none has proved completely effective and successful so far.

Another set back is the time it requires to develop and prepare. Inevitably, designing a responsive site is going to demand more time and money than your typical desktop design and often, the amount of time it takes to convert a desktop design to a responsive design can outweigh the amount of time taken to build a desktop design from scratch. This could potentially put businesses off – but of course, it depends where your priorities lie and how long-term a view you take of things.

Also bear in mind, Media Queries – these are needed for a responsive design to function. This can become problematic when you consider the fact that a lot of older browsers don’t support or recognise media queries- meaning responsive sites won’t work in older browsers. This therefore limits its reach to people with new versions of browsers, although one could argue that you shouldn’t have to continue to cater for users that are behind the times at the expense of a larger portion of the market which is far more discerning.  It does of course depend on the industry in which you operate.

So what do you think? Have you embraced Responsive design yet? Or do you feel more comfortable with web design the more traditional way?  Any good or bad news stories for us?

The post The challenges and rewards of responsive design appeared first on Electric Dialogue.

A large amount of what I do at Electric Dialogue revolves around link building. So I suppose it is only natural that I’d be interested in nofollow links and their potential value to my work.

During my own research I thought that approaching a handful of people (who I knew to be experts within the SEO industry), and asking if they’d be interested in contributing to this piece, would help other people find answers easily to the questions I used to have.

Fortunately, they all kindly agreed and here we are!

Right, here’s how it worked. I asked each of our experts the same five questions about nofollow links and they answered with their own two cents worth (unaware of what each other had said). Pretty straight forward.

So without further ado let me introduce our guest experts (although I expect you’ve heard of them before): Gianluca Fiorelli, Jon Cooper, Ruth Burr and Paddy Moogan.

Gianluca Fiorelli – ILoveSEO

1. On a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being incredibly and 1 being not at all) how valuable are nofollow links to a link builder?

“Good question. My first answer should be: “Depends on what do you mean by valuable”.

Let me explain. If you are looking for a direct SEO value, as saying “rank signal”, surely a followed link is much more useful, even though – but that’s a theory which was never confirmed by Google or someone else – it is possible that Google gives a “trust” value to a nofollowed links from authoritative sites (as it seems doing from co-citation). So, in that case the value should be 5.

Instead, if you are thinking at link building as a way to put your site in front of your audience in sites it is following, then the value of the link, even no followed, rises to 10. Personally, even if I’d love to have it as follow link, what I look for from sites as the New York Times, The Guardian, Adobe or, in our industry, SEOmoz, is the visibility and the organic traffic that link can offer me. And visibility and traffic can lead to links… followed links.”

2. What does, or doesn’t, make nofollow links valuable?

“I think I’ve already said what make a nofollow link valuable in the previous answer. What doesn’t make them valuable? Having a nofollowed link in a site that doesn’t own authority and doesn’t drive traffic and visibility to my site.”

3. When is the most effective time for us to use nofollow?

“When you want to follow the Google guidelines, hence whenever you link to something not editorially (for instance an affiliate link or a “paid link”). Or whenever you think a link may be interpreted by Google as not genuinely editorial.”

4. How has the value of nofollows changed in the last 3 years?

“I don’t think its value has changed that much during the years. But, yes, possibly it is considered as a co-citation by Google, and what we have seen is that co-citation have a stronger force right now in how Google shapes the SERPs.”

5. What do you predict for their future in link building?

“To predict is always hard when it comes to SEO and Google. Sincerely I don’t think that nofollow links will change as a value in the next future, but – yes – possibly they will be more important as a trust signal when present in authoritative sites and a taken as a popularity signal as if they were co-citations.”

Jon Cooper – Point Blank SEO

1. On a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being incredibly and 1 being not at all) how valuable are nofollow links to a link builder?

“It’s hard to quantify something that isn’t a standalone indicator of something (i.e. it’s like saying “how important are apples to your diet?”), but I’d say a 3 or 4.”

2. What does, or doesn’t, make nofollow links valuable?

“They’re still valuable because a lot of dumb webmasters started abusing the nofollow attribute, meaning Google has started to ignore it more & more over the years and has started to treat it more like a regular link. I also know a few spammers who really don’t care if the links they’re getting are nofollow, because they’re still linking great with them.”

3. When is the most effective time for us to use nofollow?

“There’s never really a time, but rather, it’s always relative; to me, I’d only go after nofollow links if I was trying to fit the mold of what a typical high ranking site’s link profile looks like for a specific keyword. If they all have 15-20% nofollow links, then I’ll try and get some so I can be in that range too.”

4. How has the value of nofollows changed in the last 3 years?

“As I said, Google has started to treat them more like regular links (in my opinion and from my experience) because so many webmasters abuse the attribute to try and keep link juice from flowing out of their site (i.e. something like a WordPress plugin nofollowing all external links), and I’ve seen more & more spammers not caring whether they’re getting a lot of links that happen to have the nofollow attribute.”

5. What do you predict for their future in link building?

“I think the trend will continue. I don’t think nofollow will ever go away (still has the same purpose for which is created for, i.e. for blog comments), but I do think Google will continue to give it a little bit more weight if we continue seeing a lot of people abusing it, which doesn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon.”

Ruth Burr – SEOMoz

1. On a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being incredibly and 1 being not at all) how valuable are nofollow links to a link builder?

“Like so many other things in SEO, the answer is “it depends.” I’d rather have a nofollow link that drives traffic than a followed link from a sketchy site any day.”

2. What does, or doesn’t, make nofollow links valuable?

“Link building should always, always be done with driving traffic in mind. If it’s not a link that a real person might see, click on, visit your site and then buy something, the value of that link goes way down, followed or not. If you can get a great link from a reputable website that your target audience visits a lot, then I say go for it. Obviously you can’t have all nofollow links, all the time, but a mix is fine.”

3. When is the most effective time for us to use nofollow?

“I think nofollow links have value as part of a branding play. A link or a piece of content from a site whose audience is very similar to yours is a great way to build awareness, whether it’s followed or not.”

4. How has the value of nofollows changed in the last 3 years?

“One thing Wil Reynolds has spoken on at MozCon and a lot of other places is the idea of RCS (Real Company S%$&). The idea is that as an industry, inbound marketers need to move toward practices that are about real, quality business practices and marketing tactics rather than trying to find ways to trick or game the search engines. Worrying about your mix of nofollowed vs. followed links is a great example of something that online marketers could be focusing less on.”

5. What do you predict for their future in link building?

“These days inbound marketing is more about building quality content and a strong brand. If you’re building good content and good relationships with a community who shares and links to your content, you can be less concerned about whether individual links are followed or nofollowed. The best links build themselves!”

Paddy Moogan – Distilled

1. On a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being incredibly and 1 being not at all) how valuable are nofollow links to a link builder?

“It’s not quite as black and white as that! As a “pure” link builder, I guess the answer would be 1 because they don’t flow PageRank and therefore don’t affect search results. But as a marketer, if a link is nofollow but sends me a load of traffic (and customers) then it is very valuable!”

2. What does, or doesn’t, make nofollow links valuable?

“There are two main ways they can be valuable in my opinion. The first is what I mentioned previously in that if they send good traffic, then they are valuable. The second way is that if you get coverage and a nofollow link on a very high profile website, then you may get followed links from other websites as a result of them seeing this coverage.”

3. When is the most effective time for us to use nofollow?

“I’m not sure there is an effective time because most of us would not actively seek nofollow links. But if I were to get a nofollow link, I think the most effective time would be when I can get one on a website that has lots and lots of relevant traffic to my industry so that I know that I’ll at least get some benefit.”

4. How has the value of nofollows changed in the last 3 years?

“I’m not aware that the value has changed at all to be honest. I have always felt that nofollow links can, in certain circumstances, be counted by Google. But that is just my own speculation and I’ve felt that way for many years since I first tested it. Aside from that, I don’t think it’s changed much.”

5. What do you predict for their future in link building?

“I think more websites will adopt nofollow and it will grow to be a slightly bigger percentage than the single digit percentage it is right now. I can’t see Google or any other search engine changing how they handle it. There is an argument to say that they will try and figure out when to actually ignore it, but I think this is a bit too granular for Google to put their resources into and they have bigger priorities!”

Round-up

Wow that’s a whole lot of information! So here’s a quick round-up; the general consensus seems to be that it is hard to say definitively what the value of nofollow links are because it depends on your aims.

The pure link builders out there would argue that because nofollow links are not thought to pass value they are only a tiny bit more useful than no link at all.

However, others take the view that SEO is no longer solely about increasing rank. Instead it is about traffic, revenue and brand management; which means even if a link is nofollow it can still be of major value if it attracts a lot of traffic etc.

With regards to their future all of our experts don’t expect any dramatic changes in how they’re handled by search engines. Some predict that there may be a small increase in authority, but will still never be viewed in the same way as followed links.

There you have it

Thanks again to all of our expert contributors! If you have anything you want to ask them, you can get in touch with them via Twitter or the comment section below!

The post How Valuable are NoFollow Links? | The Experts appeared first on Electric Dialogue.

So the doors of the BrightonSEO conference close once again, and whilst the party still continues for those left in the seaside city, the rest of us attendees make our way back home to soak up the day’s events. Unfortunately as the only ED representative in Brighton, my plan to provide regular Tweets throughout the conference took a sour turn courtesy of some pretty hideous phone signal issues. Nice one Vodafone. As an alternative method of reporting on the presentations (and to keep our legion of fans happy) I thought I might write a late-night blog highlighting my Top 5 Presentations from today!

1 – Tim Grice from Branded3 – ‘Why You Have To Integrate SEO’

As a Business Development Manager, helping prospective clients understand SEO strategy and how it relates to them is one of my favourite parts of the job. I get to provide them with insight into what we’ll do to help increase their online visibility without ever having to touch the yucky technical stuff. In contrast however, one of the most challenging aspects I’m facing more regularly at the moment is how to encourage them to integrate their SEO campaign into a larger strategy – particularly with the ever-merging boundaries between PR and SEO. Tim covered both of these areas fantastically in his presentation, encouraging the audience to leverage PR activity, build links that directly draw traffic to a site, and take the emphasis of our work on increase conversions not keyphrase rankings.

In what seemed to be a running theme at this event, Tim also talked about recovering from a Google penalty. Aside from hammering home the need to avoid using obviously negative methods such as automated link building software, he also provided some solid advice for anyone still caught-up in the turmoil of Google’s Panda and Penguin algorithm updates. With the accuracy of Webmaster Tool’s backlink profile still painfully inadequate, he suggested that the use of multiple backlink checkers was a necessity for gauging the scope of a site’s full link profile. Identifying all of your backlinks is critical to removing the ones that could be considered unethical, and this needs to be carried out comprehensively before a Reconsideration Request is sent to Google. He finished his talk with a poignant mantra that I’m sure to relay to prospective clients: ‘SEO is about Marketing, not Manipulation’.

2 – Ade Lewis from Teapot Creative – ‘WTF Is SEO’

Ade followed up Tim on the strategic section of the conference, and his no nonsense attitude helped to stand him out from the other speakers. He implored that high ranking positions shouldn’t be the sole aim of an SEO campaign, and as with Tim, argued that improving traffic, conversions, and revenue should be our primary objectives. This inevitably lead to an audience member asking how reporting would look without the emphasis on keyphrase rankings. Ade’s answer suggested that keyphrase ranking will always form part of a report, but that we should ultimately recognise that it is only a means to an end. From my perspective, helping our prospects understand these targets and educating them as to how it benefits their business imperatives is critical to maintaining a long-term partnership.

What I also liked about Ade’s presentation was his reflection on previous SEO strategies. 8 years ago many agencies were focusing on building directory links, and 5 years ago it was article spinning. Now our SEO strategies have almost universally evolved, but his question was, what are we currently doing to ensure that we’re not risking our client’s businesses with another single minded approach? He brought a graph up on the projector that I think made the collective audience gulp in unison. It showed drops in traffic levels after previous Google algorithm updates had devalued old link building methods. In the future he predicted another dip following the devaluation of a widely popular strategy: blogger outreach.

3 – Geoff White from Channel 4 News – ‘How To Pitch To Journalists’

Back over to the Dome Concert Hall now, where I spent the remainder of the conference. Geoff White, a technology producer for Channel 4 news, gave some great insight into pitching to journalists. Whilst it felt slightly more ad hoc than other presentations (he didn’t use any background slides) his ideas were highly relevant for anyone specialising in PR, and helped the rest of us appreciate the value of building content that relates to the real world.

As echoed elsewhere by other speakers, Geoff knows more than anyone that great content tells a story. People want to read something that they can empathise with, and so ensuring that content is easy to relate to should be one of our foremost considerations when pitching to journalists. It must have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Images are also critically important, and often producers reject pitches if they fail to tell a story through visual elements alone.

4 – Paul Madden – ‘How To Spot A Shitty Link’

Paul Madden introduced himself by saying that he helped create more links in the UK than anyone else, and openly admitted that he’s had to deal with penalties in the past. Paul almost dared members of the audience to challenge him when he said that as SEO practitioners, every link we build brings a risk. As SEO professionals we’re dedicated to delivering the best long-term results for our clients, but as Paul suggested, we need to accept that any link we build to impact the search results in our favour is un-natural, and therefore un-ethical.

As part of his presentation, he also discussed his experiences with penalty removal. Having collated reams of web data, he explained that there are multiple clues that help Google recognise un-natural link building. These include having a large volume of backlinks from 301/404 pages, having an un-natural number of links from foreign domain names, and having an un-natural percentage of anchor text links. He also made an enlightening suggestion that recognizable brands such as Interflora and BMW never get penalised as badly as other sites. The simple reason being that Google makes its money so long as it provides the best search results. If a well-known brand is seen to be missing by the average search user, then their confidence in Google’s ability to display the most relevant results would dwindle.

5 – Dave Coplin from Bing – ‘Future Forward’

Amusing, informative, and accessible to anyone, Dave Coplin’s section was probably the best digital marketing presentation I’ve seen for a long time. As the Chief Envisaging Officer for Bing, he’s in a unique position to help shape technologies we use every day. What he wanted to talk about was shifts in the digital revolution. The phrase he’s coined, ‘the plateau of complacency’ encouraged us to cast a critical eye over our own practices in order to ensure that we’re always evolving for the best.

One of my favorite examples he gave was that of the standard QWERTY keyboard. Designed as far back as the 1870′s, it has undergone no changes since. Far from being laid out in the most practical format for our typing requirements, the QWERTY design was originally intended to slow typists down to prevent cartridges from jamming on typewriters. What resonated with me on a digital level is that we should never become complacent with our strategies or let them stagnate. As Dave and the Bing team are doing, we must endeavor to push the boundaries of our work to generate the best possible results for our clients.

That’s it for my Top 5, but if you disagree with my choices or have some preferences of your own, why not leave a comment below? I want to say thanks to everyone involved at this year’s BrightonSEO conference, and just for the record, here are a few other things I liked:

• Pete Wailes goatee
• Matthew Henry’s innovative presentation on innovation
• New terms I’ll start using like ‘Post Sale Viral Mechanics’ (thanks Marcus Taylor!)
• The SEO frozen yogurt van
• Will Critchlow and his team’s amusing DistilledU Advert

And here are a few things I didn’t like:

• The grim coastal weather
• Seeing a girl get hit by a bus (she was OK, but that’s gonna hurt tomorrow)
• Going to the beach to find it was mostly made of large rocks
• Having no 3G signal pretty much anywhere (Vodafone, please read my thoughts on Dave Coplin’s presentation)
• Two guys sitting behind me on the train, rapping all the way back to London

The post Our Top 5 Presentations From BrightonSEO appeared first on Electric Dialogue.

And yet, with the rise of social media marketing – we’re not one to miss a trick. And let’s face it – if you can market yourselves for free (or very little – which is essentially the draw of Social Media Marketing) then why wouldn’t they give it a go. There are many corporate brands now using social media – some succeeding and some not so much.

It’s no surprise, though, that there seem to be as many failings as there are successes in this niche’s social media attempts – because it’s such a difficult combination to get right. So what should you be focusing on, and how can you make your efforts a success? Here, I’ve tried to put together a brief guide for those looking embrace social media on behalf of corporate brands:

1.    Understand your focus and voice

A corporate brand has a distinct voice and a distinct aim, and that is something that needs to be outlined and discussed before you go any further. With corporate brands, you often need to discuss the “dont’s” rather than the “do’s”. You have no doubt elected someone or (perhaps) a few people to update on behalf of the brand – and it is these people you need to brief about what is and what isn’t in keeping with the tone of the brand. Talk about what might be damaging to the brand’s reputation – and make sure these things are then avoided at all costs. You’ll also want to discuss how sales-heavy you will make updates. Are you pushing your service using social media – or do you simply want to suggest your services to those who might find it helpful?

2.    Schedule updates where possible

There are some great tools out there for scheduling updates (Buffer being a favourite of mine)– and where possible you should try to do this. For corporate brands you may not want a sporadic and spontaneous approach to social media – in fact you probably want to take the opposite approach. Discuss with your team monthly news and updates which you have clearance to post and discuss and can schedule ahead of time – and highlight anything that is confidential and shouldn’t be posted. This avoids all kinds of disasters.

3.    Interact with other businesses and brands

Whilst you won’t want to be promoting anything your competitors are doing, you will still want to use social media as a platform for building good B2B relationships. This makes your brand look good (social media isn’t about being selfish after all – it’s about engagement and dialogue) and hopefully by encouraging and interacting with other brands, you’re inadvertently raising awareness of your own. Just be sure to black-list any major competitors from this – the corporate world is a competitive one – so don’t be fooled into promoting a product or company directly in competition with your own – just because they tweeted you or liked your status. You have to be nice – but you have to be smart too.

4.    Choose an appropriate platform

Social media marketing isn’t just revolved around Twitter and Facebook – believe it or not there are many other networking sites you can get involved with. One of the most successful for high-end corporate brands is LinkedIn – as this is specifically a business network and therefore protects businesses and brand’s best interests. If you were only going to take it one step at a time, I would recommend trying LinkedIn first – as it offers the least risk to corporate brands. Try not to jump the gun and join everything and anything available – whilst this may appear to give you an upper hand, it most definitely doesn’t – especially when a few weeks down the line you’re struggling to update them all and keep them all properly managed.

5.    Try not to act corporate when communicating

Lastly, remember that the people on social networks are real people – and behind every profile photo is a genuine person (usually!) with genuine interests. Don’t talk down to people and don’t reel off a load of corporate copy and pasted text either. If someone has taken the time to communicate with you and reach out to you – then offer them the same level of respect in return. You can be professional, whilst also being friendly, so find a good balance.

The post Social Media for Corporate Clients: Making it Work appeared first on Electric Dialogue.

However, when you’re new to WordPress it can be a little daunting, so it’s always worth familiarising yourself with it’s features and having a bit of a practise run before you start publishing all your good stuff. Like riding a bike I guess? Make sure you’ve practised and you’re confident before you take the stabilisers off. So here are a few pointers to get you off the ground… 

1. Find a reliable WordPress Host

Finding a reliable hosting to host your WordPress site is important, and even if you’re on a tight budget you can easily find good monthly prices for many hosting companies. If you’re relatively unfamiliar with this, then it’s worth looking through a few reviews first, and finding a company you like the sound of that’s in your price range. Being hosted on a good server can make a huge difference to your site, it’ll be faster and function better, so it’s definitely worth investing. 

2. Familiarise yourself with WordPress Widgets and PlugIns

One of the best things about WordPress is the variety of widgets and plugins you can opt for. There are some awesome plugins out there, which all newbies to WordPress should install and have a play around with. A few I would recommend are:

- Digg Digg

- Google Analytics

- Akismet

- The Slide by Simple Reach

- Contact form 7

- Editorial calendar

These will make management of the blog so much easier for you, and they will make the usability of the site better too. Google Analytics is slightly different – as it’s an analytical tool, rather than a tool that appears on the exterior site. It’s great for anyone wanting that extra bit of insight into their audience, and can offer all sorts of fantastic information about demographics, social sharing and traffic sources, etc. 

3. Find a theme

A decent theme is what sets a good WordPress site apart from a bad one. There are loads of places you can browse themes, both free and paid…. so it’s worth having a look around and seeing what’s out there. Premium themes are usually worth the investment though (even if you are a little reluctant to invest cash) because they usually offer much more flexibility for design options and layout, and if you ever get stuck you can usually contact a customers services person, or the designer themselves. We’re big fans of the Theme Forest website here at Electric Dialogue, they seem to have the biggest variety of theme choices. 

4. Don’t go over the top

Don’t over do it when you’re first designing your site! I know it can be exciting to get going and get the site up and running, but try to remember your readers and remember how usable the site is for them. Having a sidebar full to the brim of widgets and plugins isn’t going to look great – and will probably slow the site down – so just be careful how enthusiastic you get with this. Less is more sometimes, so try and restrict yourself a little bit – the last thing you want is a cluttered website. 

5. Keep your content high quality

It can be tempting when you first set up a blog to rush out lots of quick content to make it seem a bit more full and a little more established. And that’s perfectly understandable – but try to keep the quality high no matter what you do. Bad quality content is a huge weakness, so try and spend a bit of time on this. At the end of the day – if you’re making great content, you’ll hopefully build a strong readership and audience quicker. If you’re rolling out rubbish content (even just at the start) that’s not a great first impression to be making. 

6. Keep the end goal in mind

It might feel like you’re spending a lot of money to get your WordPress site where it needs to be, and I admit – it can seem a little frustrating especially if you don’t start getting traffic relatively quickly  It’s important to keep the end goal in mind here though, hopefully when you’ve built up a reputable blog, you’ll be able to make money from it (using advertising, affiliate links, etc) – which will then pay back the investments you’ve made, and then some. Keep going, and keep in mind how great it’ll be when you can make a few extra pounds a month from all the effort you put in.

The post Things You Should Know as a WordPress Newbie appeared first on Electric Dialogue.

In this article I’ve given a brief overview of seven rules that are essential for any self-respecting link builder to follow when creating an outreach strategy. These rules have enabled the Electric Dialogue team to be featured on sites such as Mashable, Search Engine Journal, the Guardian and the Huffington Post.

Quality over Quantity

The temptation to get weighed down with the pressure of hitting outreach targets is huge for a link builder. If you have a client who is getting a bit antsy then the temptation to outreach using generic emails via programmes like BuzzStream can overwhelm an otherwise good outreach strategy.

If this is the case then you have to be strong; hang on to your hard earned link building instincts for dear life. I cannot stress enough that there is absolutely, unequivocally, no point whatsoever in giving in to your client’s pressure on this issue. Your response rates will plummet and the positive replies you do get back will be from poor half-spammy sites that are desperate for any kind of content. In a time when the emphasis on quality is likely to become even more important (see our SEO Predictions for 2013 blog), compromising on quality in return for quantity will only end up hurting your link building strategy and therefore damaging your client’s SEO campaign.

My advice is to spend time looking around the site to make sure it is of a good quality. Then, pick out things you like, maybe comment on a few things and follow them on Twitter/like them on Facebook – these will come in handy later. I’d also recommend including a couple of links to relevant articles you’ve written elsewhere – obviously only if they’re good. A favourite tactic of mine is to look on their Twitter feed; if they have recently tweeted about their pet dog, maybe ask them how said canine is doing in your email. At worst they will think you’re a little creepy but at best you’re building a good relationship, which leads us nicely on to…

Build Relationships not Links

Not this old chestnut again! Yeah, sorry guys it may be the most rehashed SEO phrase on the web but it’s still a good’un.

Why is it a good’un? Well, because getting a link is the bare minimum you should ever be looking to get out of an outreach email. If you send a webmaster a personalised and well written outreach email, you will probably not only end up getting a link but you’ll have the opportunity to build a relationship with them.

Laying the foundations of a relationship is only the start though; it has to be nurtured. Perhaps make a note to check back with webmasters, bloggers and editors every month or two with a quick email. Point out a couple of broken links on their site (maybe even suggest a relevant piece of content on your site as an alternative), compliment them on a recent post and follow/interact with them on Twitter. As I’ll talk about a bit more in the next section, if you build a relationship instead of just links, you’ll find asking for a favour from that person in the future won’t be a problem.

I hate it when I read articles on sites like the SEOMoz blog where people have tried to turn link building into a science by attempting to prove things through graphs, mass outreach software and statistics. To those people I say two things: firstly, there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics; secondly, link building, and by extension outreach, is not a science, it’s an art – you don’t build links with a computer, you build links with people. Look at it like this, would you rather have a one-off link on the NY Times website or would you rather have a relationship with the editor of the NY Times (she seems nice) that means you can take her out for lunch and talk about links to your heart’s content?

Look to the Future

It is very easy to disregard sites off hand that don’t appear to be ‘worthy’ of your great content. If it has a low domain authority and only a few inbound links it is unsurprising that most link builders head to the nearest exit. But before consigning that website to your own personal oblivion (at least for the time being) there is something you should consider, where is that site going?

Sure, it may not have much clout at the moment but is it on the way up? Obviously there is no definitive way to know for sure but I’d start with looking at the site’s style, its content and its social media presence. If it only launched a couple of weeks ago of course its DA will be low and it isn’t likely to have a huge amount of inbound links. Yet it may have thousands of followers on Twitter or a really unique idea/style that looks certain to take off. If this is the case I’d definitely include them in your outreach strategy; after all, your link will only increase in value over time and they aren’t likely to forget the person who provided them with great content when no one else would.

What’s in it for them?

Obviously the primary function of everyone’s outreach strategy is to get what they want out of it. Whether that’s links, mentions or whatever; it’s all right to know what you want but I’ve found that link builders are almost always guilty of being selfish. In my early days I was also a selfish link builder, I’d email site owners with what looked like some sort of ultimatum: here’s my content, now publish it.

That attitude is not going to get you anywhere; it is important to offer web owners some sort of incentive to encourage them to do what you’re asking. Payment is obviously a big no no so don’t do that. Instead, offer to share their work on your social media channels, write a series of articles for them or just offer whatever you feel they would benefit most from.

Remember that they are doing you a favour; you don’t give your friend an ultimatum when you want them to do something for you, do you?

Get Personal

Most web owners wake up to an inbox full of outreach emails every morning. How do they go about deciding which ones are worth replying to? To be honest I don’t actually know, but I think it is fairly safe to assume that emails from people who have actually been bothered to find out the name of the recipient will be higher up the list.

These days, due to the internet, finding people’s names and/or contact information isn’t particularly difficult. If you can’t find contact details anywhere actually on the site or through the WhoIs Info tool, then an old fashioned Google search might be the answer. Type in their name and what info you feel might be useful such as the website name or position. In the past I’ve had success with the search: “John Smith Name of Site”; more often than not you’ll be presented with a LinkedIn profile or other social media account which will enable you to get your outreach strategy under way.

If the worst comes to the worst and you really can’t find a name or social media profile then use the contact form or a generic email (you know the ones ‘admin@site.com’ etc). I’d address it with a “Hi Guys” or “Hi name of website team!” – as long as it’s relatively upbeat and doesn’t look spammy you should be fine. It may also be worth sticking a sentence in saying you weren’t sure who to contact because you couldn’t find an appropriate email address and would they be so kind as to pass this onto the relevant person.

Get Off the Beaten Track

Since guest posting became an essential part of link building the internet has become saturated with content written purely to gain links. This is also true of outreach, every site around the web with the words “contribute”, “submit”, “write for us” or “guest post” on it, has been inundated with outreach emails from SEO marketers for years.

This means we now have to get off the beaten track in order to find the best location for our content. Look for websites that don’t have a section for contributing because these are unlikely to have been as affected by link builders using search operators. Bear in mind though, that approaching sites that do not explicitly mention guest posting will probably require an even better outreach email than normal. Ronit Epstein wrote a great article which covered this over at 3 Door Digital which is well worth a read.

It better be worth it

I could write the best email in the world but if the article I want featured isn’t very good then what’s the point?

Well that’s precisely it, all the above points will prove absolutely worthless if what you’re offering isn’t very good. So don’t be scared to spend a lot of time creating and editing your content in order to make sure people are biting your hand off to get it on their site. There’s a school of thought that believes one or two exceptional pieces of content produced every couple of months – depending on the budget – is a worthwhile investment. It’s not as if we’re limited to infographics or lengthy guest posts anymore either; videos, eBooks, mini-sites and celebrity/expert interviews are all viable options.

If you’re guest posting, it is probably worthwhile to send your outreach in advance so you don’t end up spending hours tailoring your content for a site only for them not to be interested in the topic. However, with the really good pieces of contents that have had both time and money invested, like I’ve mentioned above, this shouldn’t be necessary because sites should be begging you to let them publish it.

Bonus Tip

This article has only scratched the surface of a key component of link building. But if you’ve found it useful, and would like a more comprehensive guide to link building as a whole then I highly recommend getting your hands on Paddy Moogan’s new, aptly named, book: ‘The Link Building Book‘. It’s a great all round guide for any level of link builder from a guy who has pretty much seen it all in SEO.

The post Give Your Outreach the Midas Touch | 7 Golden Rules appeared first on Electric Dialogue.

What does this card mean? Well, essentially, it means you’ll now be able to gift people online through Facebook – purchasing a “voucher” amount for them, which they’ll get notified about immediately after purchase. Once they’ve been told about the gift card (and your generosity!) a little facebook card will be posted to their address for them to use.

When people gift them in the future, instead of sending out new cards, the credit will be automatically loaded onto the one they already have. Which makes the experience an easy one, an accessible one and a really nice step forward for the social network too.

It’s really smart actually – it’s an exciting way to increase the social side of Facebook, and it gives friends and family who live far apart, a local and personal way to connect. What makes it personal? Well, you can send a message alongside your gift, as well as choosing the precise retailer you want the voucher to be for.

So what do you think? Would you consider buying a friend a birthday or christmas gift using this new Facebook system? Or do you prefer the old-fashion gift giving process? Let us know!

The post A low-down: The Facebook Gift Card appeared first on Electric Dialogue.

The post Introducing George – Our Unofficial Office “Pet” appeared first on Electric Dialogue.