With the year drawing to a close, and Christmas just round the corner, I thought it would be a great opportunity to try and summarise the best and most popular posts of the year, and hopefully give you a few early SEO Christmas gifts. While I am personally not a fan of list posts, judging by the most popular posts a lot of you are. So ever eager to please, here is a list of the 58 best/most popular posts of the year.

Our 10 most popular posts

What better place to start than the most popular posts of the year? Between them, the posts below generated almost 100,000 pageviews. So, working on the basis that 100,000 people (ok, maybe not people) can’t be wrong, there must be some awesome SEO gems contained within them.

1. 30​ Web Trends You Have to Know About in 2011 – the first post of the year is also the most popular, with Tad’s post about what was going to happen to search and social in 2011 receiving over 17,000 pageviews. As you would expect, there were a few predications that didn’t come true, but a fair few that did.
2. 30 Ways to Use Social Media for Business People – with businesses seemingly falling over themselves to become more social, it’s good to know what you can use it for, and this post rounds it up.
3. 30 (New) Google Ranking Factors You May Over- or Underestimate – a one-stop guide to some of the more misunderstood Google ranking factors: link decay anyone?
4. What Happens When You Build 10,000 Dodgy Links to a New Domain in 24 Hours? – this post got a fair few mentions at conferences, on other blog posts and even in the mainstream media. While the answer may seem obvious, you never know until you try, and Marcus did.
5. 30 (New) SEO Terms You Have to Know in 2011 – this was the most shared post on our blog in 2011 and, amongst other things, told everyone what a content farm is shortly before Google tried to destroy them all. Still, there are always the 29 other terms.
6. High Risk SEO: 33 Ways to Get Penalised by Google – a post that summarises ways to get penalised by Google. Best used as a “how not to guide”, but I’m fairly sure people will still try a few and cross their fingers.
7. 36 Must-Read Local SEO/Google Places Resources from 2010/2011 – with Local and Places results becoming ever more prominent in the SERPs, it’s best to know how to master them. This post did the hard work and aggregated lots of the best sources for you.
8. 30 Web Trends for 2012: How SEO, Search, Social Media, Blogging, Web Design & Analytics Will Change – despite only being published in late November this still made the top 10 list. Judging by the accuracy of the one Tad did for 2011, it’s probably worth a read.
9. Can You Get a New Domain Ranking Using Just Facebook Likes & Tweets? – there was a lot of talk earlier in 2011 about the potential use of social signals in Google’s algorithm, so Marcus tried to find out if there was anything to back up the chat by experimenting.
10. 30 Link Building/Link Baiting Techniques That Work in 2011 – With the Panda update (potentially) devaluing a lot of low quality links, Tad refreshed our memory about some of the great link building tactics that are still available.

The 20 posts that got you sharing

The later half of the year has all been about one thing – social media, largely fuelled by Google’s latest attempt at social media, Google+. Bearing this in mind, we had to check what got our readers sharing during 2011.

1. 30 New SEO Terms You Have To Know in 2011 – shared 1,510 times
2. 30 Ways To Use Social Media for Business People – shared 1,284 times
3. 30 Web Trends For 2012: How SEO Search Social Media Blogging Web Design Analytics Will Change – shared 890 times
4. 30 New Google Ranking Factors You May Over or Underestimate – shared 678 times
5. How To Write a Social Media Audit – shared 599 times
6. Can You Get a New Domain Ranking Using Just Facebook Likes Tweets – shared 597 times
7. High Risk SEO 33 – Ways To Get Penalised by Google – shared 582 times
8. 30 Link Building & Link Baiting Techniques That Work in 2011 – shared 406 times
9. What Makes a Real SEO Expert – shared 404 times
10. 30 Google Quality/Panda Update Resources for Content Farmers and SEO Practitioners – shared 397 times
11. 30 Efficient Web Tools That Save Time and Make Money For Power Users – shared 369 times
12. 30 Google SERP Changes that Impact Your SEO Strategy – shared 357 times
13. 157 Awesome PubCon 2011 Takeaways – shared 346 times
14. What Happens When You Build 10,000 Dodgy Links to a New Domain in 24 Hours – shared 322 times
15. 30 Web Trends You Have To Know About in 2011 – shared 285 times
16. Google Dropping Analytics Keyword Data: What Does This Mean – shared 273 times
17. 30 SEO Myths That Are True or False Depending on Who You Ask – shared 247 times
18. 30 Ways To Optimise Your Site for Speed – shared 235 times
19. Experiment Do Google+1S Impact Your Rankings – shared 229 times
20. Social Media Why an SEO Background is Better Than PR – shared 229 times

The three best experiments of the year

Due to the secrecy behind Google’s algorithm, a lot of popular SEO theory is based on anecdotal evidence and guess work. But, every so often Marcus, our resident SEO mad scientist, likes to don his lab coat shark outfit, lock himself away and get experimenting. Below are three of his best experiments from 2011 (no animals were harmed during the making of these posts – but a few sites were).

1. What Happens When You Build 10,000 Dodgy Links to a New Domain in 24 Hours
2. Experiment – Do Google+1s Impact Your Rankings
3. Can You Get a New Domain Ranking Using Just Facebook Likes Tweets

The 10 greatest SEO tool posts

The one thing common to all SEOs is that we like our tools, whether it’s to crawl a site or just optimise it. In the SEOptimise office we like to try everything out, and the good news for you is that we love to write about them too. So here are the 10 greatest posts about SEO tools we wrote this year.

1. Top 20 WordPress Plugins 2011 Edition
2. 30 Efficient Web Tools That Save Time and Make Money for Power Users
3. 10 New Google Tools Products and Services Every Business Person Has To Know About
4. Five Low Profile SEO Tools
5. 30 Very Useful Twitter Tools You Must Be Aware of
6. Google Webmaster Tools: A Beginners’ Guide to Installation
7. More Than 30 Google Tools, Extensions, Tutorials and Other Resources
8. Simple Goal Conversion Tracking With Piwik, the Open Source Google Analytics Alternative
9. 30 Social Search Tools SEO Resources For Power Users
10. Salespeople The Free SEO Tool Every Agency Has

10 awesome SEO conference posts

As an agency we get like to go to and talk at as many conferences as we can (especially if they are in Vegas). But we also know that not everyone can go to them all, and even if you do there is a lot to remember, so we always try our best to post a round-up of the stuff we hear. So below I have summarised our 10 most viewed conference related posts.

1. 157 Awesome PubCon 2011 Takeaways
2. Using Social Media for SEO Benefit: Travel Presentation SAScon 2011
3. How Important Are Facebook Likes for Search Presentation From SMX London
4. BrightonSEO 2011 Roundup Who Said What and Why
5. Post Panda Affiliates’ Guide to Surviving Google, a4uexpo London 2011
6. Keyword Research SMX Advanced London 2011 Presentation by Kevin Gibbons
7. Top 65 Takeaways From a4uexpo London 2011
8. SearchLove 2011: Top Trends
9. 28 Top Takeaway Tweets From SAScon Mini 2011
10. London SES Day 1

Five wicked polls

We love a good bit of crowdsourcing in the SEOptimise office, and we are very lucky that we have followers who like to get involved and share their opinions. Here are five of the best and most interesting polls we ran this year.

1. 74% of SEOs Buy or Would Buy Links
2. Google Dropping Analytics Keyword Data: What Does This Mean
3. Quick Poll Is Google AdWords Remarketing (A) Great for ROI or (B) Annoying
4. Poll What Are The Most Important Factors That Make a Blog Post Go Viral
5. Think Visibility Voted 1 UK Search Conference by SEOs

So these are our greatest hits of the year, hope you all found some cool stuff. Next year there will be more of the same, plus hopefully a few more video blogs as well. If there are any blogs that we haven’t included but you think deserve a mention, let me know in the comments section.

Finally, we are always happy to take requests, so if you want us to blog about something in particular you can add those to the comments too.

*Image credit: negatendo on Flickr (I had to use a cat picture once this year).

© SEOptimise – Download our free business guide to blogging whitepaper and sign-up for the SEOptimise monthly newsletter. SEOptimise’s 58 most awesome blog posts of 2011

Related posts:

1. 154 Awesome Pubcon 2011 Takeaways, Tips & Tweets
2. Top SEOptimise posts in September…
3. 30​ Web Trends You Have to Know About in 2011

View full post on SEOptimise » blog

Image credit: Guy Levine

So here’s my twitter coverage of Pubcon 2011:

General SEO Trends
1) #7 ranking for a long-tail term can get as much traffic as #2 for head-of-tail! Due to CTR behaviour @ArnieK
2) 42% of people click #1 result for head-tail terms – 25% 1st result for long-tail, but much more traffic spread across rest of SERPs
3) Wow! Sites get a higher CTR being in the #7 position for a long-tail keyword than a #2 position for a head term.
4) +1 annotated URLs receive 20% higher CTR - @robgarner
5) Google’s in big trouble right now according to @leolaporte – next big thing isn’t search!
6) Via @leolaporte – A single engaged viewer is worth at least 10 loosely engaged viewer. (Unless they’re a stalker!)
7) Build targeted niche audience in order to maximise advertiser revenue, instead of short-term trick tactics @leolaporte

On-site Optimisation
Provide consistent geo signals in titles, URL, breadcrumbs, content. etc. via @AlanBleiweiss
9) Worst #SEO thing to do: pick obvious phrases & rank below the 7pack -@GregBoser
10) Slightly black-hat tip from @graywolf his “friend” forges updated blog publish date to increase SERP CTRs
11) Exact match title tags used to work better, now natural language titles performing much better @uberjill

Technical SEO
12) Robots exclusion preferred option for blocking indexing – saves Google load because they don’t need to visit page @gregboser
13) Great free tool for creating micro formats from @RavenTools http://t.co/waMQWXi0
14) Research shows that a penalized domain with 301 redirects to a new domain will pass the penalty to the new domain
15) There’s an exponential decline in PageRank passed as the number of 301 redirects increase.
16) If you haven’t played with http://codecademy.com then your missing out… Try it!
17) Don’t 301 redirect throwaway blog content – SE’s are getting smarter. Update content to make more commercial instead @graywolf
18) A special webmaster video for : How does Google determine page speed? http://t.co/f2a1T6Zy

SEO Strategy
19) Client focuses; don’t be afraid to go rogue, proof-of-concept is key, embrace open graph & individual employee identities @GregBoser
20) Key agency focuses; learn to say no, autonomous solutions & new products/services to solve common problems @GregBoser
21) Clients convinced they need more links to get rankings – quite often they need less. Tidying profile having big impact @GregBoser
22) Ask your client; do you think you deserve to rank in top 3 for priority keyword? If not, why not? @bruceclay
23) “Get your SEO included in the specification team” via @ashnallawalla
24) Great tip by @sspencer – if you see indented listing, add num=9 to URL – if 2nd listing removed, true position = 10
25) Ambiguity is a problem for SEO – Google need behavioural targeting to find personalised user intent behind query @bruceclay
26) “if you as a parent can say to a child go to a site & learn from it, then you have a quality site” Amit Singhal, Google
27) 2012 predictions: personalisation to determine rankings, local PPC & evolution of more integrated internet marketing @bruceclay
28) Web is only place where the small businesses can move faster than big guys – eg Zappos were small & achieved huge success @mattcutts

Google Webmaster Tools/Algorithm
29) Google suggested searches can be quite different from Geo to Geo, pay attention & find opportunities -@GregBoser
30) “link: http://t.co/zfAOUcUg inurl:twitter” query shows that Google are indexing Twitter links! @sspencer
31) #pubcon poll: Would you rather get more search queries in GMT (40%) or more history (60%) @mattcutts
32) Make sure you subscribe to Google Webmaster blog, Inside Search & Webmaster Video channel @mattcutts
33) Signup for GWT, setup email alerts, setup “fat pings” when publishing, use http://t.co/PmmNZKbT @mattcutts
34) Google looking to provide more communication updates – eg GWT alert on out-of-date WordPress @mattcutts
35) Got a page topped with ads? google’s evaluating algo changes to penalize these says @mattcutts
36) Google currently looking into figuring out what content is above the fold as part of algorithm @mattcutts
37) Google giving communication big push in 2011 – more feedback via GWT over reconsideration requests etc @mattcutts
38) SEO=Coaching – only constant in search is change, you don’t want to go where SEs are – go where they’re going to be! @mattcutts

Google Panda
39) There’s no quick fix to panda – quite often you need to change business model & accept you’ll never get back to peak @GregBoser
40) Pre-panda strategy; bigger the net, the more fish you catch. Post-panda; can’t get away with overloading index @GregBoser
41) Weak UGC – e.g. spun articles & 1000′s of pages of crap content is affecting overall domain performance in Google @gregboser
42) Panda update = Google far more concerned with overall site quality vs page quality @gregboser
43) Google rates content on how helpful it is to users – bounce rate/usage data very important post-panda @sspencer
44) Low quality content is typically; aggregated, paraphrased, generic, duplicated – lacks; expertise, research, citations @beussery
45) G panda update biased by quality of links. @bruceclay has seen + impact follow link pruning to reduce low quality

Social Search
46) If video is part of your strategy – make sure you use keywords when you speak! = getting found via transcript search @bruceclay
47) Correlation is important, Google don’t tell us the answers. Facebook shares currently top human engagement factor @GregBoser
48) Wikipedia & YouTube nofollow external links, but not internal links. So get content hosted on there ranking instead @sspencer
49) “the name of the writer can be used to influence the ranking of web search results” v important quote from Google about authors
50) Video & image search is much better on Bing than Google @GregBoser
51) Important social authority tip: meet people in real life! Make connection between on&offline to improve likelihood of sharing
52) What does google look for in social authority? Number of replies/comments, automation vs manual, relevancy & association with groups
53) According to keynote SEO may be dead in 6 months, so let’s talk about social! @johnwellis

Google SSL
54) Number of users with SSL is single-digit percentage in aggregate. Tech sites will be higher due to type of users @mattcutts
55) Main argument by @mattcutts was it’s what users want, total SSL no is <10% & you can get keyword data from GWT for top 1000 kws
56) 96% of website’s get full keyword query data from 1,000 term limit in GWT @mattcutts
57) PPC gets data, organic doesn’t. Advertisers get the data b/c they can’t do negative KWs and make useful.
58) Google unlikely to back down on SSL, users are happy with it because of privacy issues @mattcutts
59) 96% of sites get ALL keyword data from GWT (1000 KWs) – getting around SSL not provided GA report @mattcutts

Analytics
60) “Track what matters. Compare year over year. Not month over month. Consider trends/seasonality” @RobSnell
61) To have rankings in GA will take a ton of resources but Google is looking into having something like that in the future @mattcutts

Local Search
62) Anyone else starting to see Google suggest results influenced by local? See example from Vegas: http://t.co/hqopvPbm

Content Creation/Linkbait
63) You can write a resourceful, 800-word post and link out to 40 different sites – well worth it if it garners a ton of links
64) 1) find related content with great links 2) write killer content about topic 3) write to those who already link to topic @jimboykin
65) View top content ordered by links for competitors in OpenSiteExplorer to find content ideas @ArnieK
66) Great tip for content ideas! Use Google discussions in more search options to find simiar keywords people are talking about @ArnieK
67) Attract links; videos, interviews, ebooks, infographics, contests, solid blog posts all get great backlinks @ArnieK
68) Content marketing tactics: blog, hosted videos, infographics, whitepapers, twitter feed, glossary, lists @lorenbaker
69) Brute force doesn’t work anymore – content marketing marketing makes it a link magnet! @lorenbaker
70) Don’t cut corners and go cheap on content creation. It’s your brand. It’ll be out there a long time. via @arniek
71) If there are no recognized awards in your industry, create one. Make yourself #6 or something @JoannaLord

Link Building  
72) If your link velocity/anchor text profile doesn’t match other/older sites in your industry you prob got it unnaturally
73) Find great blogs in your niche using http://t.co/komEvJNp & forums: http://t.co/jczhz3CU @chriswinfield
74) Dixon just announced a new redesign of @MajesticSEO – coming very soon!
75) Nice tip! Check referral visits in analytics are from cached pages. If not link to it using “as seen on” widget @rjonesx
76) Consider paid infographic placement – very difficult for Google to detect @rjonesx
77) Every natural link has a reason – most common; fact citation, content attribution & interest links @rjonesx
78) Forum communities are approx 5x larger than the blogosphere – they predate the web! -@crowdgather
79) Relationship link building; offer testimonials, sponsor events, send samples, speak at conferences, run good cause site @dixon_jones
80) Widgets having great impact for link building to retail sites – eg shoe size finder, random outfit builder @aaronshear
81) E-commerce link building via affiliate programs – use naked link cookie method to get backlink credit @aaronshear
82) Add on to someone else’s list post with a list of your own, then ping the author to get a link to your list.
83) Great case study for IT jobs infographic by @lorenbaker – not just about direct coverage, also promote sites which embed @lorenbaker
84) Build seasonality content – what worked last year, which will work again this year? Content has a long life @lorenbaker
85) Link building went off track up until last year: exact match links, Google PageRank was a marketplace, unnatural links @lorenbaker
86) Use PPC display placements & adPlanner to find link targets - great tip by @bgtheory
87) It’s much easier to be natural than to fake natural ~@mattcutts
88) @mattcutts on press releases: you’re going up to someone & asking them to write about you…
89) linkresearchtools.com is being recommend by Stephan Spencer as GREAT. Live Demo now
90) “site:http://t.co/fmuNNjRd inurl:.pdf” – shows that Google is indexing & values links from PDFs @sspencer
91) Mine ~ queries to find synonyms/related searches. Bolded keywords are commonly anchor text used in backlinks @gregboser
92) Focus on brand based anchor text – no exact match in 1st 6 months, use synonyms & related searches, branded partial match @gregboser
93) Human engagement is new PageRank – @gregboser highlights Google’s purchase of PostRank in need to monitor social attention
94) Total indexed pages vs. total organic landing pages. And look at total indexed pages to deep links. Good points.
95) Social media is not the new links – links are still the precursor to rankings – @joehall

Competitor Analysis
96) Never try to replicate anyone’s backlink profile. competitive intel is about finding out what metrics to compete on.” @jane_copland
97) ID what domains they own. site:http://t.co/PPXe6FLm “competitors name” -@streko
98) Competitor analysis can be deceptive. A site which has 10k links may be ranking because of 1 editorial link, not volume @mattcutts

Keyword Research
99) Ninja takeaway from day 1 - http://t.co/VdrGvn6N – Uber awesome KW research tool!
100) Great tip – own head KW & then run ranking report to optimise around top phrase matches & converting terms @wilreynolds
101)Google WT keyword info uses avg pos & only 1000 KWs – not ideal but still worth using @wilreynolds
102) Research on getting KW data to stop bitching about SSL http://t.co/YjN3wUb3 by @wilreynolds
103) Kw tools: Compete.com, SEMrush, Raven KW Insights, ConcentrateMe, Wordstream, OpenSiteExplorer anchor text report
104) http://t.co/njlqtl28 recommended for instant-style keyword research from Google, Bing, YouTube, Amazon etc @sspencer

Social Media
105) YouTube will eventually become a CDN @bruceclay
106) Twitter ROI long value: avg lifetime value eg: cust bought $50 & buys 20x in their life & tweets drives new custs
107) YouTube tips; include channel link on site, keep videos short, brand your channel, be active commenter @chriswinfield
108) Facebook tips; make page visible, tag other brands in posts, get fans talking to improve Edgerank score @chriswinfield
109) http://t.co/p24kQimS monitor keywords, http://t.co/ns6vBoDI find lists & curate private lists to watch competitors @chriswinfield
110) Figure out social strategy, then go all in! Maintain a blog, create great content, use Twitter for an hour a day etc @chriswinfield
111) Social tip: find out where your customers are – ask them what sites they use? @chriswinfield
112) Be social, meet colleagues & look for influencers (add a few contacts per week), meet in real life! @chriswinfield
113) No magic bullet in social media – keep it simple & get fundamentals right @chriswinfield
114) 98% of Facebook fans view content through their Newsfeed. Focus on great content not fancy tabs on your page
115) Optimized video is 53 times more likely to show up on page 1 of Google than a standard HTML page.
116) Slideshare = obscenely powerful for search+social @KristaNeher
117) Upload video transcripts in different languages = instant subtitles! -@sspencer
118) Make your own machine transcriptions. You can override the default transcription with your own. It’s searchable too!
119) Use http://t.co/LtfTRb9Z to track search rankings & engagement metrics in YouTube @sspencer
120) Social goals: you’re not trying to make sales – capture attention, build links/social signals & create searchable brand @graywolf
121) Social push: tweets have lifespan of 3-5 hours, stagger retweets, ask friends, real trusted account > 1,000 zombie accounts @graywolf
122) Blogging still best platform to push content & attract links - sacrifice keywords for viral content @graywolf
123) Be entertaining, make people laugh/think/cry or be an informational resource = social attention & links @graywolf
124) Google is looking at as much social data as possible! 5,000 new links & no social media coverage = unnatural sign @graywolf
125) Social signals in search: author highlighting, establish social authority, Facebook & Google+ profile optimisation
126) Google+ optimisation tips: link to other social profiles, stay fresh, use & optimise every field, use your name multiple times
127) Quick show of hands highlights everyone uses Facebook daily - no-one uses Google+ daily @johnwellis

Conversion Optimisation
128) If people are in a buy cycle & merchant offers 1-click buy process, tablets have a higher conversion rate. @Szetela
129) Humanise your content – people buy from people; write with unique voice, demonstrate expertise & leverage knowledge @robsnell
130) The site needs to say: 1.) We are experts 2.) This is what you should buy 3.) please buy it from us! -@robsnell
131) Google Ace recommended by @bgtheory to test conversion rates from SEO campaigns: http://t.co/nLwouUV8
132) Here’s your diamond in the rough when scouring Revenue Analysis: LOW vol. / HIGH Revenue
133) Use GA filters to show clients $. Calculate conversion rates & revenue pm http://t.co/Of6irvjp @wilreynolds
134) Use orange 4 CTA buttons. Green blends in. Red says Stop. @bgtheory: Red works 4 a DUI atty, user is in penalty mind
135) Do not use submit button on your website!!! Use Get This Offer, or Start Your Order, or Continue, or Proceed via
136) Conversion tool options: eye-tracking, mouse-tracking (CrazyEgg/ClickTale), software algorithm (AttentionWizard) @tim_ash
137) Avoid triggering visual motion online – rotating banners e.g. http://t.co/rkmvsfpu distracts attention from static content @tim_ash
138) Never prefill fields. Our eye is trained to find empty spaces. @bgtheory
139) The more questions you ask, the more qualified the lead but the fewer leads you’ll get – @bgtheory
140) Some form questions should never be required – eg how did you find us? That’s what analytics is for! @bg_theory
141) Brand strengthening for conversions: mission statements, testimonials, awards, customers, logos, badges, press mentions
142) Essential to understand the weight of these secondary conversions – how likely is someone who subscribes to pay you $?
143) Secondary conversion examples: email capture, subscribers, social votes, membership, downloads/views, comments/engagement, feedback
144) Basic landing page optimisation tips: be specific, clean & concise, call-to-action, branded/certified/trusted @JoannaLord
145) Site search is 2nd biggest place to find the easy money after checkout

Paid Search
146) Good argument for running both SEO & PPC for same term; PPC landing pages can be better optimised for conversions @bgtheory
147) Retargeting is teaching new habits. People put things in a cart, then leave. Remarketing ads almost always offer disco …
148) PPC tip to build remarketing audience – use tracking code on Facebook fan page, email marketing newsletters & industry sites for $!
149) PPC bidding strategy tip for B2C – use higher budget at start & end of month. Conversion rates often higher around payday!
150) Big potential PPC win. Analyse conversion rates & bidding strategies for day-of-week & time-of-day stats
151) Think about customer mindset for bidding timings – e.g. search volume for “baby nappies” correlates with most popular nap times for babies
152) PPC demographic & interest targeting may be available for search as well as display soon – predicted by @dszetela
153) PPC remarketing tips – mix up banner creatives, use frequency capping, separate campaigns, build audience
154) Google now uses searchers proximity as a ranking factor for paid search business listings

Some of these are retweets as well, there’s too many to organise but thanks to Ruth Burr, Merry Morud, Tony Verre, Berian Reed and Dave Reynolds amongst many others.

© SEOptimise – Download our free business guide to blogging whitepaper and sign-up for the SEOptimise monthly newsletter. 154 Awesome Pubcon 2011 Takeaways, Tips & Tweets

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2. 10 Tips to Improve Your Social Graph for Google
3. Natural Link Building Presentation at a4uexpo Europe 2011

View full post on SEOptimise » blog

With 16 categories and over 50 nominees, including SEOptimise for best agency, best travel search campaign and best blog, the event brought together some of the best agencies in the UK.

The search awards started with a drinks reception followed by dinner, before the host – Andy Crane from the lunch time show on BBC Radio Manchester – started proceedings. With only two speeches from the all the winners who collected their awards, the ceremony went very quickly.

The speech of the evening came from Majestic SEO’s Dixon Jones who simply said “Majestic SEO is f****** Good!” and walked off, but you have to agree with him, as it’s a tool that is used widely throughout the industry.

The first UK search awards event will go down as a success, and hopefully will inspire more agencies and in-house teams to get involved in future awards.

A full list of the awards and winners are below.

Best Integrated Campaign:
Recognition of a campaign that has achieved outstanding results through an integrated campaign using a variety of both online and offline activity.

Winner
• Fast Web Media – Coors Light – Closest to Cold

Best Local Campaign:
Recognition of a campaign based around a specific geographical location that has delivered outstanding results or visibility in search engines.

Winner
• Adido – The Colbornes Group Dominance of Google Locally

Best Use of Search – Retail:
Recognition of a campaign that has a successfully enhanced the visibility of a website or web page in the retail sector.

Winner
• Fast Web Media – Bravissimo

Best Use of Search – Travel:
Recognition of a campaign that has a successfully enhanced the visibility of a website or web page in the travel sector.

Winner
• Further Search Marketing – Richardson’s Boating Holidays; Book Direct

Best Use of Search – Finance:
Recognition of a campaign that has a successfully enhanced the visibility of a website or web page in the finance sector.

Winner
• Koozai – Payday Power Organic Search (SEO)

Best Use of Search – Leisure:
Recognition of a campaign that has a successfully enhanced the visibility of a website or web page in the Leisure sector.

Winner
• Further Search Marketing – Richardson’s Boating Holidays; Book Direct

Best Mobile Campaign:
Recognition of a campaign that has a successfully enhanced the visibility of a website or web page in mobile search engines.

Winner
• Found/Autoglass – Smashing the Glass Repair Market on Mobile

Best Blog:
Recognition of an outstanding industry blog.

Winner
• SEOptimise – Search Marketing & SEO Blog

Innovation:
Recognition of search innovation in the development or use of a campaign or platform.

Winner
• Stickyeyes – Stickyeyes Search Dashboard

Best PPC Management Software:
Recognition of the development of an outstanding management software package that successfully manages and enhances pay per click marketing campaigns.
Winner
• Marin Software

Best SEO Software:
Recognition of the development of an outstanding software tool that successfully manages and enhances an organisations search engine optimisation efforts.

Winner
• Majestic SEO / Receptional – Majestic SEOs Site Explorer

Best PPC Campaign:
Recognition of a campaign that has achieved outstanding results through PPC advertising.

Winner
• Fuse8 / Persimmon Homes – Intelligent Internet Landing Pages with Brains

Best SEO Campaign:
Recognition of a campaign that has achieved outstanding results in search engines in natural, free or organic listings.

Winner
• Verve Search – SEO Services for Yale Door

Best In-house Team:
Recognition of an outstanding in-house team or practitioner that demonstrates consistently great understanding and use of search.

Winner
• www.just-eat.co.uk

Best Agency:
Recognition of an outstanding agency that demonstrates consistently great understanding and use of search and / or PPC.

Winner
• Fast Web Media

Search Personality of the Year:
Recognition of talented and inspiring practitioner who has revolutionised the UK search industry.

Winner
• Lisa Myers

Grand Prix:
Recognition for being the best of the best with a grand prix award to be selected from the previous categories.

Winner
• Fast Web Media

© SEOptimise – Download our free business guide to blogging whitepaper and sign-up for the SEOptimise monthly newsletter. SEOptimise Wins Best Blog at the UK Search Awards 2011

Related posts:

1. SEOptimise Blog – We Want Your Views!
2. Think Visibility Voted #1 UK Search Conference by SEOs
3. Significant Traffic Sources You Probably Miss Unless You Blog

View full post on SEOptimise » blog

#A4US2 opportunity = search vol * max CTR * conversion rate * Rev per sale #boom

October 18, 2011 10:03 am via Twitter for iPadReplyRetweetFavorite

@APSG

Amrit Gill

Brand-name IBLs must outnumber keyword IBLs! Getting this wrong is the greatest red flag for Google. (via @PatrickAltoft @a4uExpo #a4uS2)

October 18, 2011 10:27 am via SeesmicReplyRetweetFavorite

@rouninmedia

Rounin Media

Superaffiliate SEO is more about ranking #1 for all of your top keyphrases, not conversions @patrickaltoft #a4uexpo #a4us2

October 18, 2011 9:57 am via TwitterrificReplyRetweetFavorite

@kevgibbo

Kevin Gibbons

No point working on 50.keywords at a time unless you have the resource. #a4us2

October 18, 2011 10:01 am via Twitter for BlackBerry®ReplyRetweetFavorite

@danielbianchini

Daniel Bianchini

Rotate press release & article syndication submission sites every couple of months to mix things up @patrickaltoft #a4uexpo #a4us2

October 18, 2011 11:46 am via TwitterrificReplyRetweetFavorite

@kevgibbo

Kevin Gibbons

What links do you need? Volume, authority, velocity, and anchor /by @kelvinnewman #a4uexpo

October 19, 2011 3:35 pm via Mobile WebReplyRetweetFavorite

@ruudkok

Ruud Kok

#Google #Panda site escalation channels http://t.co/orA88xfG #A4UB5 followup

October 18, 2011 8:29 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@kas_tweets

Kaspar

It doesn’t matter whether you use html5 or not to google. #a4ub5

October 18, 2011 3:07 pm via Twitter for BlackBerry®ReplyRetweetFavorite

@danielbianchini

Daniel Bianchini

Make sure you provide links to both mobile + desktop versions of the website to allow the user to switch. #a4ub5

October 18, 2011 3:14 pm via Twitter for BlackBerry®ReplyRetweetFavorite

@danielbianchini

Daniel Bianchini

pagespeed mentioned by webmaster trends analyst as one of things to worry about #a4uexpo #a4ub5

October 18, 2011 3:39 pm via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@martijnbeijk

martijn beijk

Don’t use Google’s Panda Questions as a simple checklist – but as a guide to the mindset behind the algo (via @PierreFar @a4uExpo #a4uB5)

October 18, 2011 3:44 pm via SeesmicReplyRetweetFavorite

@rouninmedia

Rounin Media

some #Google sources mentioned during Q&A earlier today http://t.co/pS7mSqw0 #a4ub5 @searchmartin @pierrefar

October 18, 2011 8:57 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@kas_tweets

Kaspar

Takeaways, Sims, Entertainment & Group Buying are top purchase sectors on mobile on @AffWin #a4uexpo #a4ub4

October 18, 2011 1:45 pm via EchofonReplyRetweetFavorite

@fi_robertson

Fiona Robertson

Interesting to see lost mobile opportunities by not having a mobile optimised site and or tracking behind it #A4ub4

October 18, 2011 1:53 pm via EchofonReplyRetweetFavorite

@HelenMarie21

HelenMarie21

17% of mobile users downloaded a voucher code in q1 2011; 32% wouldn’t have bought without voucher (Nielson) #a4uexpo #a4ub4

October 18, 2011 1:58 pm via EchofonReplyRetweetFavorite

@fi_robertson

Fiona Robertson

Sky Affiliates lose out on 7% of sales but are helped 19% of the time #A4UB3

October 18, 2011 11:13 am via Twitter for iPadReplyRetweetFavorite

@RachaelS0201

Rachael Spowart

“10% of customers directly influence the purchasing decisions of the remaining 90%” a Gartner stat via #A4UB2

October 18, 2011 9:37 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@AndrewGirdwood

Andrew Girdwood

Google says: “Make pages primarily for users” MacDonald (@seoforumsorg) says: “Absolute rubbish!” #a4uB10 @a4uExpo

October 19, 2011 1:39 pm via SeesmicReplyRetweetFavorite

@rouninmedia

Rounin Media

Take search learnings on seasonality, conversion time etc & apply to social media targeting #a4uexpo #a4ub2

October 18, 2011 9:58 am via EchofonReplyRetweetFavorite

@fi_robertson

Fiona Robertson

“If you talked to people the way advertising talked to people, they’d punch you in the face” #a4uexpo #a4us10

October 19, 2011 1:37 pm via HootSuiteReplyRetweetFavorite

@JuliaStent

Julia Stent

Google; “14% of travel searches in the UK are mobile” #a4us9

October 19, 2011 11:27 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@AndrewGirdwood

Andrew Girdwood

Google; “Only 17% of the top 500 retailers in the UK have mobile optimised websites.” #a4us9

October 19, 2011 11:27 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@AndrewGirdwood

Andrew Girdwood

Don't think about actual link prospects, but about the themes of those sites /by @kelvinnewman #a4us8

October 19, 2011 10:47 am via Mobile WebReplyRetweetFavorite

@ruudkok

Ruud Kok

A lovely tool for pulling in APIs and datasets for a given niche via @dsottimano http://t.co/yrYWKc7A #a4us8 #mashup #brainstorm

October 19, 2011 4:02 pm via Twitter for MacReplyRetweetFavorite

@TomAnthonySEO

Tom Anthony

This, this & thrice this RT @kieronhughes: “Email newsletters are awesome; Google can’t see them” @davenaylor #a4us7 #a4uexpo

October 19, 2011 8:53 am via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@rhyswynne

Rhys Wynne

Increase exposure by signing up as a topic-expert “Source” at http://t.co/7MZOIcyq (@helpareporter) (via @KevGibbo @a4uExpo #a4uS4)

October 18, 2011 2:05 pm via SeesmicReplyRetweetFavorite

@rouninmedia

Rounin Media

StateofSearch: SEO Tactics to tame the Panda – #A4U http://t.co/lTdPoISe

October 18, 2011 2:27 pm via twitterfeedReplyRetweetFavorite

@state_ofsearch

State of Search

. @patrickaltoft: “you should invest in all online channels (PPC, social, PR, etc) for optimal success in SEO.” #a4uexpo

October 18, 2011 9:58 am via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@ruudkok

Ruud Kok

Take search learnings on seasonality, conversion time etc & apply to social media targeting #a4uexpo #a4ub2

October 18, 2011 9:58 am via EchofonReplyRetweetFavorite

@fi_robertson

Fiona Robertson

“@geoffblog: @a4uexpo http://t.co/JFr9E1oH is URL for TouchGraph if you want to share it ” <- great for understanding your social graph

October 19, 2011 3:56 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@a4uexpo

a4uexpo Conference

“Engagement on Facebook brands’ walls is down 22%” #a4uexpo FB session quote

October 18, 2011 4:28 pm via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@geoffblog

GeoffBlog.com

Note to self: check out Google “related:domain.com” search and also backlins.in site (from @kelvinnewman presentation #a4uexpo)

October 19, 2011 10:29 am via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@geoffblog

GeoffBlog.com

Martjin just mentioned Httpfox plugin http://t.co/rha25oTC in Internet Sleuthing presentation #a4uexpo

October 19, 2011 10:31 am via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@geoffblog

GeoffBlog.com

Customer rewards don’t need to cost a lot of money – simple common sense but worth remembering! #a4uexpo #a4ub2

October 18, 2011 9:46 am via EchofonReplyRetweetFavorite

@fi_robertson

Fiona Robertson

Search Optimisation Q&A with Dave Naylor (a4uexpo Live Blogging) http://t.co/8BDhiFVj

October 19, 2011 9:33 am via Pushon Main Site BlogReplyRetweetFavorite

@pushonltd

PushON

Post Panda: Affiliates Guide to Surviving Google (a4uexpo Live Blogging) http://t.co/5e6hbsug

October 18, 2011 2:16 pm via Pushon Main Site BlogReplyRetweetFavorite

@pushonltd

PushON

Consider setting up a Limited Company & a Virtual Business Address to give your affiliate setup credibility. (via @KevGibbo @a4uExpo #a4uS4)

October 18, 2011 2:09 pm via SeesmicReplyRetweetFavorite

@rouninmedia

Rounin Media

Don’t just write content for your own blog! Write for other authority sites in your niche too. (via @KevGibbo @a4uExpo #a4uS4)

October 18, 2011 2:10 pm via SeesmicReplyRetweetFavorite

@rouninmedia

Rounin Media

In answer to #a4us4 questions – from Google’s @pierrefar HTML5 doesn’t have a negative impact to SEO & don’t cloak affiliate links!

October 18, 2011 3:07 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@kevgibbo

Kevin Gibbons

if all your team left today and applied for thief jobs again, who would you employ? #A4US3 #a4uexpo

October 18, 2011 11:16 am via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@LinkShareUKBlog

LinkShareUKBlog

Focus on highly converting keywords #a4uexpo #A4US4

October 18, 2011 2:03 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@fuzzone

Kunle Campbell

…some other names mentioned: Copify.com, ProBlogger Jobs board, Google Trusted Stores, myblogguest.com #a4uexpo

October 18, 2011 2:07 pm via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@geoffblog

GeoffBlog.com

Some more names mentioned at #a4uexpo: Toluna, 99Designs, oDesk & CodeMyConcept – hope that’s useful if you’ve not heard of them

October 18, 2011 2:13 pm via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@geoffblog

GeoffBlog.com

Encouragement to participate should be integral to a site #a4ut10

October 19, 2011 2:06 pm via EchofonReplyRetweetFavorite

@fi_robertson

Fiona Robertson

Summary of SEO discussion at #A4uExpo – http://t.co/0dY43LOo

October 18, 2011 4:09 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@cheehowan

Chee Ho Wan

If you want to win, make sure you set the rules – great £20 auction example from @willcritchlow #a4uexpo

October 18, 2011 8:17 am via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@kevgibbo

Kevin Gibbons

Be careful when building 500+ links per month, likely to trigger Google manual review! @patrickaltoft #a4us2 #a4uexpo

October 18, 2011 9:55 am via TwitterrificReplyRetweetFavorite

@kevgibbo

Kevin Gibbons

#a4uexpo 5 Tricks Our Minds Play On Us – And how to take advantage of them… http://t.co/iVpXOJHq #a4us1 deck for those you who missed it

October 18, 2011 9:49 am via Tweet ButtonReplyRetweetFavorite

@kelvinnewman

kelvin newman

Superaffiliate SEO is more about ranking #1 for all of your top keyphrases, not conversions @patrickaltoft #a4uexpo #a4us2

October 18, 2011 9:57 am via TwitterrificReplyRetweetFavorite

@kevgibbo

Kevin Gibbons

RT @geoffblog @patrickaltoft saying you should buy the book ‘Good to Great’ by Jim Collins in the #a4us session #a4uexpo

October 18, 2011 10:00 am via TwitterrificReplyRetweetFavorite

@kevgibbo

Kevin Gibbons

Superaffiliate marketing team: content writers, SEO, PPC, CRO, designers & developers – they don’t rank by accident! @patrickaltoft #a4uexpo

October 18, 2011 10:09 am via TwitterrificReplyRetweetFavorite

@kevgibbo

Kevin Gibbons

Ideal inhouse SEO team structure – head of search, strategists, link building, content writers & agency @patrickaltoft #a4uexpo

October 18, 2011 10:12 am via TwitterrificReplyRetweetFavorite

@kevgibbo

Kevin Gibbons

Where do Sky’s online sales come from? 14% from affiliates, 17% from display and 40% from PPC. #a4ub3

October 18, 2011 11:07 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@AndrewGirdwood

Andrew Girdwood

StateofSearch: Essential Paid Search Tools from Excel to Automation – #A4UExpo http://t.co/Rvj8AgAl

October 18, 2011 12:48 pm via twitterfeedReplyRetweetFavorite

@state_ofsearch

State of Search

Other tools mentioned: mergewords, ubbersuggest and Alchemy for Excel http://t.co/U3jaIHez #a4uexpo

October 18, 2011 12:59 pm via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@geoffblog

GeoffBlog.com

Google recommending use of rel=alternate hreflang for cross-country specific SEO http://t.co/1uUwKKCV @pierrefar #a4uexpo

October 18, 2011 3:21 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@kevgibbo

Kevin Gibbons

Google doesn’t hate affiliates, but your website has to add value to our users #panda #a4uexpo

October 18, 2011 3:41 pm via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@kieronhughes

Kieron Hughes

Google guys again recommending these 23 questions http://t.co/b78Kyw8x to establish if you’re providing quality content #a4uexpo

October 18, 2011 3:42 pm via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@geoffblog

GeoffBlog.com

Google recommending splitting up sitemaps for large sites @pierrefar @searchmartin @kas_tweets #a4uexpo

October 18, 2011 3:56 pm via TwitterrificReplyRetweetFavorite

@kevgibbo

Kevin Gibbons

beware of server/firewall setups using throttling mechanisms #pagespeed #a4ub5

October 18, 2011 3:56 pm via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@martijnbeijk

martijn beijk

I’ve figured out how Google will actually get us to use Google+ – only good way to get a response from webspam team #A4U

October 18, 2011 3:58 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@SamuelCrocker

Samuel Crocker

Martjin just mentioned Httpfox plugin http://t.co/rha25oTC in Internet Sleuthing presentation #a4uexpo

October 19, 2011 10:31 am via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@geoffblog

GeoffBlog.com

My @a4uexpo slides from #a4us8 are now live: http://t.co/fsn3K6uJ hopefully now without the auto-advance

October 19, 2011 2:37 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@SamuelCrocker

Samuel Crocker

Another idea: check the conversion rate between mobile operators (Vodafone, Orange, etc.) and consider tweaking PPC spend #a4uexpo

October 19, 2011 4:32 pm via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@geoffblog

GeoffBlog.com

…also optimise PPC by looking at sales by time of day between desktop, tablet and mobile users #a4uexpo

October 19, 2011 4:33 pm via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@geoffblog

GeoffBlog.com

So what were your key takeaways from the conference?

© SEOptimise – Download our free business guide to blogging whitepaper and sign-up for the SEOptimise monthly newsletter. Top 65 Takeaways from A4UExpo London 2011

Related posts:

1. Post Panda: Affiliates Guide to Surviving Google – a4uexpo London 2011
2. Top 17 Tweets & Best Bits From Jump Conference
3. Natural Link Building Presentation at a4uexpo Europe 2011

View full post on SEOptimise » blog

SEOptimise will be providing the very best points from each presentation session by session and updating this blog post. If you are unable to make BrightonSEO this year, then follow @SEOptimise on Twitter and get all the latest updates right here.

Below is a list of presentations and speakers coming up.

Jonny Stewart – Google’s Panda: A Case Study

John Stewart discussed the Panda update and how it has hit Review Centre, along with some of the things they did to try and revive their rankings.

• Focus on quality content to add your website – Panda update was designed to help people find high quality content
• Johnny estimated that panda released every 5/6 weeks
• “You’re not a good SEO until you have been hit by a penalty” – Jonny Stewart
• Data from Review Centre shows that short tail generic keywords were hit the most

What Review Centre did

• Luckily Review Site redesign was happening in the background – move content above the fold, prominent social button
• They decreased ad density from 3 areas above the fold to just 2 smaller areas.
• Noindexed lots of content that didn’t have good user metrics and blocked Google bot only, as Panda is a Google-based algorithm change.
• Removed all duplicate content from the site, including boiler plate content

So far Review Centre have not completely recovered, but the fight goes on. The presentation is available to view on YouTube below.

Part 1:

 
Part 2:

Part 3:

John McElborough – Building a Private Blog Network

John spoke about how building a small blog network is a good way of creating quality links, although the network should be small and private.

Problems with public blogs:

• Low quality domains
• Expensive
• Spam signals sent through poor quality content

Benefits of building a Private a Network of Blogs

• Lowish risk
• Value added for clients
• Focus efforts on higher value link building
• Useful for targeting lots of keywords
• Very effective in long to mid tail keywords

Top level Blog Network Setup Checklist

• Buy relevant domains
• Use .co.uk or org.uks
• Mix registrars – “don’t use 123reg.co.uk”

John went on to talk about how he outsourced content creation to places such as odesk and Textbroker, along with automating link building to these sites to build up authority.

Blog networking could be a great way to generate high quality links but I think that the strategy behind it needs to be good and well thought out.

Dave Perris – Attracting Links

James Carson – Dr Social Love:  Or how I learned to Stop Worrying about Google Algorithms and Love the People

James Carson Spoke about SEOs looking further at social and people signals rather than waking up in sweats regarding an H2 tag that should really be an H1 tag.

James started off by saying that it is wrong to look at social signals for ranking factors; we ought to look at them as people signals.

Everybody needs to care about Facebook pages and social sharing for brand purposes. Why?

• 42% get news through social networks
• 44% of all online sharing takes place through Facebook

Your fans + your fans’ fans = sharing success.

Use Klout to find influencers to help engage in conversation + improve sharers.

Getting likes, tweets and shares from relevant pages will drive traffic.

Social media affects all traffic sources + content.

SEO/Social nutshell:  fix your site – love your people.

Erika Ungar – Choosing and Implementing Friendly URLs for Ecommerce

Erika spoke about how she had to overcome platform issues to implement friendly URLs.

Coming up with a URL structure for ecommerce:

• Top level categories
• Sub categories
• Filtered sub categories
• Product pages
• Static pages

Commas are one of a few characters that are still safe.
- Products – colours
Summary:

• Understand
• Justify
• Seek solutions
• Compromise

Malcolm Coles – How to win at SEO with Duplicate Content:  Featuring Pippa Middleton’s Arse

Malcolm spoke about how in the short term you can use duplicate content to help improve traffic, but in the long term the content will be filtered out.

In the medium term, Google filters out duplicate content; in the short term you can increase traffic by displaying duplicate content. You can also get lots of traffic via Twitter search and generate plenty of natural links.

NOTE:  Google doesn’t give a penalty for duplicate content – it’s a filter.

How to increase traffic using duplicate content for short term gain:

• Use Google auto on a daily basis to look at suggested terms
• Look at Google trends to find target phrases
• Occasionally ask for tweets – to help increase crawl speed

Other ways to get content into Google:

• Publish comments on separate page
• Publish on subdomain
• Include a parameter

Malcolm ended by saying that these techniques require a lot of effort but can help improve traffic in the short term, for the right website.

Neil Walker – Links – SEO Value vs Client Expectations vs Cost

Roger Warner – What Can Social Learn from Mad Men?

Toby Barnes – James Bond:  Architecture Critic

Dom Hodgson – My Hack Day Addiction

Samuel Crocker – How to Pitch SEO

Graeme Benstead-Hume – Stormy Weather:  The Accuracy of Search Volume Estimation and Forecasting

Dara Fitzgerald – Beyond the last click:  Finding Hidden SEO value with Multi-Channel Funnels

Kane Bartlett – Driving SEO with PPC

Rosie Freshwater – Market Research:  Informing SEO and Link Development

Rae Lovejoy – Delight in the Digital World:  Why Settle for Customer Satisfaction

© SEOptimise – Download our free business guide to blogging whitepaper and sign-up for the SEOptimise monthly newsletter. BrightonSEO 2011 Roundup: who said what and why

Related posts:

1. How to Survive a Panda Attack!
2. 15% Discount Code for SMX Advanced London 2011
3. 30 Link Building/Link Baiting Techniques That Work in 2011

View full post on SEOptimise » blog

Here are the slides from my talk:

20 Top WordPress Plugins – 2011 Edition – Kevin Gibbons, London Blog Club

If you have any questions on this please let me know in the comments or on the meetup.com page.

© SEOptimise – Download our free business guide to blogging whitepaper and sign-up for the SEOptimise monthly newsletter. Top 20 WordPress Plugins – 2011 Edition

Related posts:

1. 40 Social Media Tools & WordPress Plugins – a4uexpo Presentation
2. 15% Discount Code for SMX Advanced London 2011
3. Using Social Media for SEO Benefit – Travel Presentation @ SAScon 2011

View full post on SEOptimise » blog

As all true Internet marketers should be, we care about how we look and we do something about it. We won’t sit idly by and let the long hours in front of a computer turn us into grotesque creatures. To be good at our jobs, we have to be beautiful on the inside and out. We understand that. Our clients appreciate it. Our coworkers appreciate it. Our wives, husbands, girlfriends and boyfriends appreciate it.

And appreciation makes for happy and hard-working SEO Champions. An example of our dedication to personal beauty:

View full post on SEO.com » Blog

Additionally, I missed many new or important terms on this list which I read about and often use, but many people, on the Web at least, don’t. Thus I won’t assume that everybody knows them already. Instead I want to define here 30 (new) SEO terms you have to know in 2011.

Some of them have been around for years but have been largely ignored by the SEO industry. Others are well known by SEO practicioners but completely off the radar for the general public, it seems. Last but not least there are terms from adjacent industries we now have to deal with in SEO. It’s 2011 – we have flying cars by now! – so it’s time to adopt new terminology as well.​

503

Most of you probably know what a 404 code is. SEO pros use 301 redirects as well. What is a 503 though? It’s a code telling the Google bot that a site is temporarily unavailable and not broken for good.​ You need it when performing site maintenance resulting in downtime.​ See:

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-to-deal-with-planned-site-downtime.html

A/B Testing

The process of comparing two (or more) versions of a page to find out the best performing one, i.e. the one that is yielding the highest conversion rate.​ See:

http://www.seoptimise.com/blog/2010/07/30-multivariate-ab-split-testing-tools-tutorials-resources.html

Advanced segment​s

Advanced segments allow you to show only particular parts of your site’s traffic in a Google Analytics report. You can customize and save them to return to the same report again. If you are serious about SEO, you use them all the time.​ A common advanced segment is social media traffic, for instance.​ See:

http://analytics.blogspot.com/2009/02/urban-apparel-and-advanced-segments.html

http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/2008/10/google-analytics-releases-advanced-segmentation.html

Citation

Citation is the equivalent of a link for local SEO, but of course it’s not really the same as a link. It’s more a mention and a link on a site that is relevant for the Google Places algorithm. In a way, citations are even harder to get than links, as only a select few sites get counted for citations.​ See:

http://www.davidmihm.com/blog/general-marketing/local-seo-citation-is-new-link/

http://www.sitevisibility.co.uk/blog/2010/03/31/creating-a-citation-plan-to-rank-higher-in-google-local-listings/

Content farm

A content farm is a site, often a huge one, that produces large amounts of keyword laden, low quality content to flood​ the search engines. Blekko and Google consider them to be almost as bad as webspam.​ See:

http://www.seo-theory.com/2011/01/21/what-is-a-content-farm/

Via @mmhemani

Content marketing

Content marketing is a new term describing all the means to promote your site online, be it text, images, video or other “rich media”. Content marketing replaces, to some extent, simple copywriting.​ See:

http://www.copyblogger.com/content-marketing-copywriting/

CRO

Conversion Rate Optimization, or CRO for short, is sometimes referred to as conversion optimization, and is the art and science of streamlining traffic once it reaches your site. In other words, it’s a set of techniques to make the user do what you want them to do on your site, e.g. clicking ads, subscribing, buying.​ See:

http://www.smartinsights.com/conversion-optimization/conversion-rate-optimisation/

Deep link ratio

Any site with a natural link profile has at least some links leading to its content that is not the homepage itself. Back in the days, overzealous SEO practicioners would build hundreds or thousands of links to a website’s homepage, leading to a very low deep link ratio and thus being obviously “over optimized”.​ See:

http://www.stateofsearch.com/deep-link-ratio-backlink-profile-natural/

Editorial link​s

Editorial links are not links in the editorial but links set by site owners, bloggers or content creators within a text itself. Also, editorial links are mostly natural in that they are given ​voluntarily (in contrast to paid links). While many people talk about paid links even years after they have been discounted by Google, most SEO pundits still rarely use the term ‘editorial links’.​ See:

http://www.stonetemple.com/blog/?p=196

Internal link hub

An internal link hub is a very important page on your site which has collected many inbound links from other sites, and thus can have a big impact on the overall distribution of your site’s authority.​ See:

http://www.wolf-howl.com/seo/link-hub/

Intelligent content

The definition of intelligent content is not one you can summarize in one sentence I’m afraid. Intelligent content has many characteristics, like being available in many formats, on many platforms​ and readable on different devices.​ See:

http://thecontentwrangler.com/2011/01/17/what-is-intelligent-content/

Jaamit

A jaamit is a very strong link, a human bond ​that results in a link on a website. A ​jaamit is a link that outlasts the link building efforts or even the link builder. A jaamit link reflects trust, friendship, mutual respect and ​overall appreciation.​

http://seo2.0.onreact.com/how-to-build-links-like-jaamit

LDA

As far as I understand, LDA or “Latent Dirichlet Allocation” refers to the way a search engine might analyze word combinations or context on a page. Example:  a page about the sky would also contain the words “blue”, “limit”, “high”, “reaching”, “scraper”. So Google might expect these terms to appear, while on a low quality page they wouldn’t.​ I’d be glad to find a better definition somewhere though.​ See:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/lda-is-onpage-optimization-the-seo-secret

Link decay

Link decay is the process of a link losing its value over time.​ See:

http://searchnewscentral.com/2010112997/Link-Building/how-link-decay-can-cause-cavities-in-your-link-profile.html

Link equity

Link equity​ is like the link budget you have on a site and the way you spend it. Do you waste it on linking to the wrong places or in the wrong way? See:

http://www.seodesignsolutions.com/blog/search-engine-optimization/spending-link-equity-wisely/

Micro conversion​s

While conversions ofter refer to major goals a website can have, micro-conversions can reflect any goals you choose to measure user engagement with your site – something like a lead, a sale or at least a subscription. A time on site of more than 5 minutes could be a micro-conversion, or a ​third returning visit.​ See:

http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/2008/03/excellent-analytics-tip-13-measure-macro-and-micro-conversions.html

Microformats

Microformats is a term describing a set of standards to annotate web sites in order to make them machine readable. For instance, you can tell search engines what an address is using a microformat.​ See:

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=146897

Via ​@leeodden

http://searchmarketingwisdom.com/2010/10/microformat-reference-guide-for-seo-and-developers/

Natural links

Natural links are links by people whom you haven’t asked for a link. If somebody decides to link to you out of the blue without being asked to do so, the link is natural.​ See:

http://www.wolf-howl.com/seo/natural-link-building-future/

QDF

QDF stands for the Query Deserves Freshness algorithm by Google, which determines the ranking for newly important queries​. Breaking news is a good example. In many cases, a blog or news site can outrank old authority sites for a keyphrase because the QDF algo determines that they are the most current source on that subject at that moment.​ See:

http://www.conversationmarketing.com/2010/05/agile-seo-using-qdf.htm

http://www.orangesoda.com/blog/does-your-query-deserve-freshness/

QR Code

A QR code is used to enable mobile phones to read symbols from print material. They are real life links or additional data.​ See:

http://searchengineland.com/what-is-a-qr-code-and-why-do-you-need-one-27588

Relevant links

Relevant links are – in theory​ – links which have a topical connection to your site, e.g. a link from a travel site to a hotel. While the concept of relevant links is controversial in the SEO industry, it’s important to know that some links are more relevant than others.​ See:

http://seo.site-reference.com/traits-healthy-link-profile-link-relevancy/

Rich snippets

Rich snippets are ​based on the RDF format or microformats mentioned above. They are machine readable codes and provide additional information​ that is displayed in Google search results.​ See:

http://www.holisticsearch.co.uk/2010/01/24/seo-and-rich-snippets-crucial-to-your-2010-armoury/

Sales funnel

While the idea of a sales funnel is not new, it has entered the SEO arena quite recently. The sales funnel can be tracked and influenced on websites.​ I can’t explain it in one sentence though; you have to see it to understand the idea/metaphor.​ See:

http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_94.htm

http://searchengineland.com/attribution-alchemy-mining-your-sales-funnel-18721

Semantic

Semantic means “dealing with meaning”. Semantic search and SEO has been around for a while but it’s still nascent. Bing uses some semantic technologies from the semantic search engine Powerset​ which it acquired.​ Google, in contrast, doesn’t understand the meaning of a web document yet. It just analyzes the keywords contained in it.​ A semantic search engine can, for example, distinguish between spears and Britney Spears, while one that doesn’t will offer you both results.​ See:

http://seo2.0.onreact.com/semantic-seo-your-website-is-a-goldmine-with-on-site-seo-20

Shopping cart abandonment rate

You probably know the bounce rate – that is, the percentage of users leaving your site after landing on it without performing any other action on it beyond clicking an external link. On e-commerce site the SCAR leaves scars on your revenue as it’s the percentage of customers who have left in the middle of the shopping or checkout process.​ See:

http://www.pinnycohen.com/2008/12/29/marketing-wisdom/shopping-cart-abandonment/

Slashtag

A slashtag is a customized vertical or niche search engine on Blekko.​ See:

http://www.seoptimise.com/blog/2010/11/a-slashers-guide-to-blekko-the-most-advanced-search-engine-ever-created.html

Social CRM

Social CRM refers to customer relationship management before they are customers or forging relationships beyond CRM. It uses social media for that purpose.​ See:

http://hkotadia.com/archives/2157

http://www.smartinsights.com/blog/digital-marketing-strategy/social-crm-strategy/

User testing

User testing is a form of usability and website testing​ where you actually invite real users to test your site and watch/record what they are doing and where they fail. You improve the site based on these user testing findings.​ See:

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030825.html

UX

Usability is not UX/User Experience (Design); it goes beyond it. It encompasses making the user want to use something for instance. A good example is the iPhone. While many phones might be usable, the iPhone is also desirable in the UX sense.​ See:

http://uxmyths.com/post/1533970267/myth-27-ux-design-is-about-usability

Wonder wheel

The Google wonder wheel is an excellent Google search tool which allows you to overview keyword clusters which are related to a particular query. It has been around for almost two years now, but many people still don’t use or even know it.​ See:

http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2009-03-24-n84.html

Are there more terms I haven’t mentioned and explained but which you think are indispensable in 2011? Add your suggestions in the comment section!

Using the correct and current terms is a prerequisite of modern SEO. How can you grasp it when you still talk about PageRank, meta tags and search engine submission? So be sure to learn what those above mean; I still haven’t fully understood some of them, like LDA or rich snippets.

© SEOptimise – Download our free business guide to blogging whitepaper and sign-up for the SEOptimise monthly newsletter. 30 (New) SEO Terms You Have to Know in 2011

Related posts:

1. 30​ Web Trends You Have to Know About in 2011
2. 15% Discount Code for SMX Advanced London 2011
3. How to Use Google Webmaster Tools for SEO Inspiration

View full post on SEOptimise » Blog

Additionally, I missed many new or important terms on this list which I read about and often use, but many people, on the Web at least, don’t. Thus I won’t assume that everybody knows them already. Instead I want to define here 30 (new) SEO terms you have to know in 2011.

Some of them have been around for years but have been largely ignored by the SEO industry. Others are well known by SEO practicioners but completely off the radar for the general public, it seems. Last but not least there are terms from adjacent industries we now have to deal with in SEO. It’s 2011 – we have flying cars by now! – so it’s time to adopt new terminology as well.​

503

Most of you probably know what a 404 code is. SEO pros use 301 redirects as well. What is a 503 though? It’s a code telling the Google bot that a site is temporarily unavailable and not broken for good.​ You need it when performing site maintenance resulting in downtime.​ See:

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-to-deal-with-planned-site-downtime.html

A/B Testing

The process of comparing two (or more) versions of a page to find out the best performing one, i.e. the one that is yielding the highest conversion rate.​ See:

http://www.seoptimise.com/blog/2010/07/30-multivariate-ab-split-testing-tools-tutorials-resources.html

Advanced segment​s

Advanced segments allow you to show only particular parts of your site’s traffic in a Google Analytics report. You can customize and save them to return to the same report again. If you are serious about SEO, you use them all the time.​ A common advanced segment is social media traffic, for instance.​ See:

http://analytics.blogspot.com/2009/02/urban-apparel-and-advanced-segments.html

http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/2008/10/google-analytics-releases-advanced-segmentation.html

Citation

Citation is the equivalent of a link for local SEO, but of course it’s not really the same as a link. It’s more a mention and a link on a site that is relevant for the Google Places algorithm. In a way, citations are even harder to get than links, as only a select few sites get counted for citations.​ See:

http://www.davidmihm.com/blog/general-marketing/local-seo-citation-is-new-link/

http://www.sitevisibility.co.uk/blog/2010/03/31/creating-a-citation-plan-to-rank-higher-in-google-local-listings/

Content farm

A content farm is a site, often a huge one, that produces large amounts of keyword laden, low quality content to flood​ the search engines. Blekko and Google consider them to be almost as bad as webspam.​ See:

http://www.seo-theory.com/2011/01/21/what-is-a-content-farm/

Via @mmhemani

Content marketing

Content marketing is a new term describing all the means to promote your site online, be it text, images, video or other “rich media”. Content marketing replaces, to some extent, simple copywriting.​ See:

http://www.copyblogger.com/content-marketing-copywriting/

CRO

Conversion Rate Optimization, or CRO for short, is sometimes referred to as conversion optimization, and is the art and science of streamlining traffic once it reaches your site. In other words, it’s a set of techniques to make the user do what you want them to do on your site, e.g. clicking ads, subscribing, buying.​ See:

http://www.smartinsights.com/conversion-optimization/conversion-rate-optimisation/

Deep link ratio

Any site with a natural link profile has at least some links leading to its content that is not the homepage itself. Back in the days, overzealous SEO practicioners would build hundreds or thousands of links to a website’s homepage, leading to a very low deep link ratio and thus being obviously “over optimized”.​ See:

http://www.stateofsearch.com/deep-link-ratio-backlink-profile-natural/

Editorial link​s

Editorial links are not links in the editorial but links set by site owners, bloggers or content creators within a text itself. Also, editorial links are mostly natural in that they are given ​voluntarily (in contrast to paid links). While many people talk about paid links even years after they have been discounted by Google, most SEO pundits still rarely use the term ‘editorial links’.​ See:

http://www.stonetemple.com/blog/?p=196

Internal link hub

An internal link hub is a very important page on your site which has collected many inbound links from other sites, and thus can have a big impact on the overall distribution of your site’s authority.​ See:

http://www.wolf-howl.com/seo/link-hub/

Intelligent content

The definition of intelligent content is not one you can summarize in one sentence I’m afraid. Intelligent content has many characteristics, like being available in many formats, on many platforms​ and readable on different devices.​ See:

http://thecontentwrangler.com/2011/01/17/what-is-intelligent-content/

Jaamit

A jaamit is a very strong link, a human bond ​that results in a link on a website. A ​jaamit is a link that outlasts the link building efforts or even the link builder. A jaamit link reflects trust, friendship, mutual respect and ​overall appreciation.​

http://seo2.0.onreact.com/how-to-build-links-like-jaamit

LDA

As far as I understand, LDA or “Latent Dirichlet Allocation” refers to the way a search engine might analyze word combinations or context on a page. Example:  a page about the sky would also contain the words “blue”, “limit”, “high”, “reaching”, “scraper”. So Google might expect these terms to appear, while on a low quality page they wouldn’t.​ I’d be glad to find a better definition somewhere though.​ See:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/lda-is-onpage-optimization-the-seo-secret

Link decay

Link decay is the process of a link losing its value over time.​ See:

http://searchnewscentral.com/2010112997/Link-Building/how-link-decay-can-cause-cavities-in-your-link-profile.html

Link equity

Link equity​ is like the link budget you have on a site and the way you spend it. Do you waste it on linking to the wrong places or in the wrong way? See:

http://www.seodesignsolutions.com/blog/search-engine-optimization/spending-link-equity-wisely/

Micro conversion​s

While conversions ofter refer to major goals a website can have, micro-conversions can reflect any goals you choose to measure user engagement with your site – something like a lead, a sale or at least a subscription. A time on site of more than 5 minutes could be a micro-conversion, or a ​third returning visit.​ See:

http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/2008/03/excellent-analytics-tip-13-measure-macro-and-micro-conversions.html

Microformats

Microformats is a term describing a set of standards to annotate web sites in order to make them machine readable. For instance, you can tell search engines what an address is using a microformat.​ See:

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=146897

Via ​@leeodden

http://searchmarketingwisdom.com/2010/10/microformat-reference-guide-for-seo-and-developers/

Natural links

Natural links are links by people whom you haven’t asked for a link. If somebody decides to link to you out of the blue without being asked to do so, the link is natural.​ See:

http://www.wolf-howl.com/seo/natural-link-building-future/

QDF

QDF stands for the Query Deserves Freshness algorithm by Google, which determines the ranking for newly important queries​. Breaking news is a good example. In many cases, a blog or news site can outrank old authority sites for a keyphrase because the QDF algo determines that they are the most current source on that subject at that moment.​ See:

http://www.conversationmarketing.com/2010/05/agile-seo-using-qdf.htm

http://www.orangesoda.com/blog/does-your-query-deserve-freshness/

QR Code

A QR code is used to enable mobile phones to read symbols from print material. They are real life links or additional data.​ See:

http://searchengineland.com/what-is-a-qr-code-and-why-do-you-need-one-27588

Relevant links

Relevant links are – in theory​ – links which have a topical connection to your site, e.g. a link from a travel site to a hotel. While the concept of relevant links is controversial in the SEO industry, it’s important to know that some links are more relevant than others.​ See:

http://seo.site-reference.com/traits-healthy-link-profile-link-relevancy/

Rich snippets

Rich snippets are ​based on the RDF format or microformats mentioned above. They are machine readable codes and provide additional information​ that is displayed in Google search results.​ See:

http://www.holisticsearch.co.uk/2010/01/24/seo-and-rich-snippets-crucial-to-your-2010-armoury/

Sales funnel

While the idea of a sales funnel is not new, it has entered the SEO arena quite recently. The sales funnel can be tracked and influenced on websites.​ I can’t explain it in one sentence though; you have to see it to understand the idea/metaphor.​ See:

http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_94.htm

http://searchengineland.com/attribution-alchemy-mining-your-sales-funnel-18721

Semantic

Semantic means “dealing with meaning”. Semantic search and SEO has been around for a while but it’s still nascent. Bing uses some semantic technologies from the semantic search engine Powerset​ which it acquired.​ Google, in contrast, doesn’t understand the meaning of a web document yet. It just analyzes the keywords contained in it.​ A semantic search engine can, for example, distinguish between spears and Britney Spears, while one that doesn’t will offer you both results.​ See:

http://seo2.0.onreact.com/semantic-seo-your-website-is-a-goldmine-with-on-site-seo-20

Shopping cart abandonment rate

You probably know the bounce rate – that is, the percentage of users leaving your site after landing on it without performing any other action on it beyond clicking an external link. On e-commerce site the SCAR leaves scars on your revenue as it’s the percentage of customers who have left in the middle of the shopping or checkout process.​ See:

http://www.pinnycohen.com/2008/12/29/marketing-wisdom/shopping-cart-abandonment/

Slashtag

A slashtag is a customized vertical or niche search engine on Blekko.​ See:

http://www.seoptimise.com/blog/2010/11/a-slashers-guide-to-blekko-the-most-advanced-search-engine-ever-created.html

Social CRM

Social CRM refers to customer relationship management before they are customers or forging relationships beyond CRM. It uses social media for that purpose.​ See:

http://hkotadia.com/archives/2157

http://www.smartinsights.com/blog/digital-marketing-strategy/social-crm-strategy/

User testing

User testing is a form of usability and website testing​ where you actually invite real users to test your site and watch/record what they are doing and where they fail. You improve the site based on these user testing findings.​ See:

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030825.html

UX

Usability is not UX/User Experience (Design); it goes beyond it. It encompasses making the user want to use something for instance. A good example is the iPhone. While many phones might be usable, the iPhone is also desirable in the UX sense.​ See:

http://uxmyths.com/post/1533970267/myth-27-ux-design-is-about-usability

Wonder wheel

The Google wonder wheel is an excellent Google search tool which allows you to overview keyword clusters which are related to a particular query. It has been around for almost two years now, but many people still don’t use or even know it.​ See:

http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2009-03-24-n84.html

Are there more terms I haven’t mentioned and explained but which you think are indispensable in 2011? Add your suggestions in the comment section!

Using the correct and current terms is a prerequisite of modern SEO. How can you grasp it when you still talk about PageRank, meta tags and search engine submission? So be sure to learn what those above mean; I still haven’t fully understood some of them, like LDA or rich snippets.

© SEOptimise – Download our free business guide to blogging whitepaper and sign-up for the SEOptimise monthly newsletter. 30 (New) SEO Terms You Have to Know in 2011

Related posts:

1. 30​ Web Trends You Have to Know About in 2011
2. 15% Discount Code for SMX Advanced London 2011
3. How to Use Google Webmaster Tools for SEO Inspiration

View full post on SEOptimise » Blog

SALT LAKE CITY — The start of 2011 didn’t ring in shiny new strategies that will shock the online marketing world. However, specific tactics that emerged in 2010 will have a larger affect on the success of 2011 marketing campaigns.

“A lot of what worked in 2010 will carry over,” said Nelson James, president of SEO.com. “But we are noticing a few trends that will build better links and produce more qualified leads.”

SEO.com, an SEO firm, identifies the top nine strategies in 2011 (in no particular order):

1. Video Marketing

Boyd Norwood, SEO.com’s director of SEO, has been doing tests on visitors that come from video sites like Youtube, Vimeo and other sites. So far, the results have been surprising.

“The conversion rate of visitors from Youtube was about 20 percent higher than from the search engines,” said Boyd Norwood, director of SEO for SEO.com. “Video will continue to be big in 2011.”

2. Social Impact (Ranking Factor)

2010 was the year social media marketing threw its weight around and affected search rankings. This will likely become more prevalent in the coming year. To increase rankings, SEO specialists will need to understand how to create valuable, shareable content and how to spread the word through various social sites.

“As the search engines put more emphasis on the popularity of links shared through Twitter and Facebook, social media will become a necessary tool for link building,” said Nelson James, president of SEO.com

3. Blogging and Guest Blogging

Blogging continues to be an effective tool for thought leadership, link bait, and a way to leverage social media to drive website traffic and leads. Guest blogging benefits both the guest and the host. The host will get fresh content on its site while the guest blogger will received a link from the host. Both sides will be able to use each other’s resources to help share the blog and spread it online. It’s a win-win for both involved.

“Guest blogging will be huge this year,” said Greg Shuey, SEO.com’s director of SEO. “It’s a great way to obtain quality links, and to extend your network.”

4. Conversion Optimization

While this is not technically part of SEO, conversion optimization, the process of turning more visitors into paying customers, will determine the success of any SEO campaign. It will become even more valuable in the coming year as more become aware of the practice that tests different designs, call to actions and other details to find what converts the most website visitors into leads and sales.

“Before, marketers were only concerned with driving more traffic and being content with their conversion rate,” said Josh Summerhays, conversion optimization manager for SEO.com. “Now, some of those marketers are figuring out that it’s cheaper and more effective to tweak their website to get more revenue out of the same amount of traffic.”

“Conversion rate optimization will continue to be a difference maker for companies that embrace it,” said Scott Miller, CEO of Vertster, a company that provides tools to help conversion optimization.

Tim Ash, author and CEO of SiteTuners.com, said in a message over Twitter: “Doing more with less is at the heart of conversion rate optimization and landing page optimization. Landing page efficiency is the new black.”

5. Local Search Marketing

With 90 percent of shoppers searching Google before they head out the door, local Internet marketing and Google Maps are a must for any business trying to get people into their doors.

“Google has almost completely replaced the Yellow Pages as a place where people look for local businesses,” said Lori Gilson, president of PRMarketing.com. “If you’re not on Google maps, you may as well not exist.”

6. Mobile Marketing

With abundant smartphones, apps, widgets, location-based marketing through social media, discounts, coupons, QR codes, image and audio searches, and text message (SMS) marketing, mobile is poised to reach the big time. eMarketer’s “2011 Marketing Trends Survey” says 35 percent of businesses worldwide plan on increasing their mobile marketing spend. Performics projects that mobile search clicks could be greater than 16 percent of all Google search clicks.

“Mobile got big last year. It will get bigger this year. And will be huge the year after,” said Ash Buckles, VP of client services for SEO.com. “Search marketers will need to embrace mobile technology and make their products and websites mobile friendly.”

7. Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC)

This older Internet marketing strategy is still a key element of search marketing. Pay per click management creates awareness and produces qualified traffic and leads. eMarketer’s survey says 41 percent of companies plan to increase both their search engine optimization and PPC spend in 2011.

“Some of the main benefits of PPC to an overall search marketing strategy is keyword research,” said Todd Julien, president of PurePPC.com. “You can use PPC to help test what keywords deliver the highest quality of traffic to your site, while at the same time giving your business a boost in traffic.”

8. Email Marketing

This old standby has made a strong comeback. eMarketer says 65 percent of businesses plan on increasing spending on e-mail marketing this year, which beats out the forecasted social media spend by 8 percent. Adage also reported that e-mail marketing provides a higher conversion rate than social media.

“E-mail is still a critical tool to drive leads and sales,” James said. “It’s still the best way to remarket to those visitors that you’ve attracted to your site from SEO and PPC.”

9. Content Marketing

Content marketing (e.g. infographics, blog posts, press releases, whitepapers and articles) increases SEO through natural link building, establishes thought leadership, makes companies more interesting on social media, and drives traffic and leads.

“The future of marketing is not buying ad space,” said David Scoville, creative director for PRMarketing.com. “It’s in producing unique and interesting content and stories that attracts visitors and builds your brand. Companies must become journalists and storytellers.”

About SEO.com
SEO.com is a SEO firm that delivers a big ROI for its clients by driving traffic to their websites through aggressive search engine optimization services, pay per click management, and social media marketing. SEO.com then turns those visitors into sales through user-friendly design and conversion optimization. Clients range from small startups to Fortune 100 companies.

View full post on SEO.com » Blog

OK, for 2009 and 2010 I had made my huge 30 Web Trends lists. Some of them turned out be true others did not. No surprise here. This year I turned a bit lazy. I won’t offer you 30 predictions for 2011 I’m quite sure about I will predict only the things I’m almost absolutely sure about. OK, maybe some of them are a bit funny or over the top but who wants business as usual?

SEO won’t die in 2010. SEO has been pronounced dead even before the official terms has been coined. In 2011 SEO will be alive and kicking as ever. I don’t even need to get into details here. On the other hand I’m pretty sure that people who call SEO “dead” will again have a huge following.

Google will remain the king of search and it’s business model will also be still more than 90% advertising based. In spite of all the tool and feature creep and the frantic attempts by Google to earn money from other goods and services Google will remain an “advertising company” like Google CEO Eric Schmidt called it. They may remove the search feature altogether though in near future in favor of high quality results (ads).

There won’t be the next big thing in social media, the market is saturated. Even the rise of Foursquare or Tumblr won’t change much. People won’t ecstatically flock to new and more networks or social sites. People are fed up. They don’t want more of the same. I use Tumblr myself but it’s nothing revolutionary, it’s just blogging made simple (again). Still myriads of startups will keep on renaming things and reselling your relationships to yourself and advertisers.

Mobile phones, tablets or Google Chrome network computers won’t change the way we use the Internet much. Why? Do you remember the first portable TV sets from decades ago? Does everybody watch TV “on the go” today? Also is everybody using their mobile phones the surf the Web all the time? Most people want to use a phone as a phone. Some people will browse the Web on the go but mobile phones, tablets and other alternative devices won’t replace notebooks or something. The act of using the Web is not something you naturally do outside of your home or workplace most of time. So while some usage will shift to mobile you don’t have to assume that 2011 will make personal computers obsolete. So mobile and local SEO are important but solely as an addition. On the other hand you might want to throw away all your computers as I’m sure Apple will reinvent them again by taking away features like mouse support.

Search will become more social and social media more searchable. The two, search and social media will merge more and more but neither one will replace the other. In case you consider dropping SEO in favor of social media marketing or vice versa you better think holistically. Alternatively you can decide what you want to stop in 2011, eating or drinking?

SEO will still be considered black magic. Although SEO has gone mainstream a while ago most people will still not get it and thus want to “buy 500 PR5 links for $19″.

The SEO reputation problem will prevail as well and thus even more agencies will try to differentiate themselves by calling themselves search marketing, internet marketing, digital marketing, clean up companies or whatever while basically offering SEO services.

Matt Cutts will keep his job. Spam will still be around, sorry to disappoint you!

Google CEO Eric Schmidt will keep on entertaining us with his Orwellian newspeak on privacy and the likes: “Don’t like Streetview? Just move.”

While Eric Schmidt will entertain us, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook will keep on annoying us with new even more vexing features and privacy disasters. Advanced “Facebook Stalk” features are already on the way.

So you see 2011 will be quite similar to 2010. The Web is in a phase of slowing down. That’s my overall impression after following it since 1995 and participating since 1997. The above mentioned predictions will most likely come true as they describe processes that are taking place already.

© SEOptimise – Download our free business guide to blogging whitepaper and sign-up for the SEOptimise monthly newsletter. 10 SEO and Web Predictions for 2011​ That Will Most Likely Come True

Related posts:

1. 30​ Web Trends You Have to Know About in 2011
2. 15% Discount Code for SMX Advanced London 2011
3. 2010 Predictions – How Well Did I Do?

View full post on SEOptimise » Blog

After writing the rather humorous post on predictions for 2011 I noticed more and more trends so I finally decided to write a 30 trends for 2011 list again this year. These trends are the ones you really have to know about if you ask me. These changes take place already or are unfolding and you can’t afford to ignore them as an SEO, web design or other Web professional. So here they are:

Web Development and Publishing

Google ​Chrome becomes one of the most important browsers
I’m not a friend of Google Chrome. I tried to ignore it until now but its market share is so significant by now that you can’t ignore it anymore. Make sure to offer your toolbar, add on or custom feature available in Chrome as well in 2011.​

RSS is dying
The rumors of of the death of RSS have been returning over the years. This time it seems RSS really has a problem: Google Chrome and Firefox 4 drop or limit RSS support.

E-mail marketing returns
While RSS has struggled over the years an almost dead medium made a come back, e-mail.​ E-mail marketing and “creating a list” is a must have​ again. You can’t rely solely on RSS. Even substituting RSS with Twitter and Facebook updates won’t suffice.​ Aweber and MailChimp are your friends among others.​

HTML 5/CSS 3 usage goes mainstream
HTML 5 and CSS3 are around for a while but with significant improvements in browser support their usage will go main stream in 2011. You can have a competitive advantage by applying these still new techniques. In the SEO industry only a few of us have embraced the new possibilities. Our colleagues from SEO Gadget are leading by example.

Scrolling
Did you know that the “above the fold” web design and usability rule is a myth. Modern mice make scrolling very comfortable and people scroll all the way down it seems. Just scroll this.

Social Media

Facebook is the emperor
With Goldman Sachs financing Facebook there is no doubt that Facebook will be the most powerful player. So you need to be on Facebook or you risk a disadvantage to those who have a presence there.

Location rules but not on Foursquare
Foursquare, Gowalla and other location based social media were the rage in 2010 but they are already stagnating. Why? It’s because of the big players adding location features to their own services. In 2011 location will matter but not the small startups that made it popular.

In Africa mobile phones boom and with them social media
Surprise, surprise Africa is not the place war, AIDS and famine spreads but the most promising mobile and social media market. Africans leapfrog landlines, computers and static websites and start using social media sites on mobile phones.

Q&A surges but not solely Quora, Yahoo Answers still rules
The current hype is Q&A site Quora. While it’s a valuable service it’s still barely a blip compared to Yahoo Answers. Other Q&A sites still matter and Yahoo Answers is much bigger than most other social sites like Digg, StumbleUpon or Delicious.​

Meta tools that publish to several social sites
These days almost all newly popular social tools apparently support Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and the likes. Amplify, Sendible, Trunk.ly or Sprout Social are just a few of useful examples I’ve tested recently. As you will notice they come from different directions but tackle the problem of reaching all your friends and followers on different platforms.

Social Bookmarking disappears altogether
I predicted the end of Delicious last year but was nevertheless surprised to see it happen. I still hoped the flagship of social bookmarking will stay with us. In 2010 many other social bookmarking had to give up or restructure their services. Standalone social bookmarking won’t survive in 2011. Only services like Diigo that have evolved beyond bookmarking long ago can compete.

Search

Constant change
The only thing constant on Google in 2010 was the change. The number and frequency of changes was mind-boggling. As Google is desperate to find more revenue sources and get more money out of search I’m pretty sure these changes will happen as often in 2011.

Clutter
Do you remember the days when Google was a simple and easy to use search engine? These days the search results are so cluttered and full of annoying ads and other additional results or features that you really struggle. Sadly the clutter is here to stay it seems. It’s not a bug it’s a feature.

Blekko
The new advanced search engine Blekko was huge news in 2010 but it will be daily business for SEO practicioners and other Web professionals in 2011.

Privacy
Google is a privacy nightmare for most of us but until now most people preferred to ignore that fact. In 2011 more and more people will care about it and the FCC and other regulators do as well. Even Google’s search engine competition uses Google employees who have stalked teenagers to advertise.

Alternatives
For the first time in a while there are a few really good alternatives to Google, at least in English: Bing, Blekko, Yandex.com and DuckDuckGo are symptoms for a broader need: People do not want to be forced to use Google, they want choice. They have it again.

SEO

Conversion optimization
Conversion optimization or CRO has been around for years but in 2010 it reached new heights. Most reputable SEO companies practice and offer it by now. Either you do it as well or you can sell “search engine submission” and “meta tag optimization” again.

Diversification
Mobile SEO, local SEO, video SEO, social media SEO etc. are not new. Also specialist for each discipline focus on each one of it for years. Still the diversification of SEO services reached a point where no single individual and rarely a company can do it all at the same time. While some preach the rise “digital marketing” of bigger agencies offering everything I don’t believe SEO will stay a one size fits all game. I expect specialized services to flourish.

Facebook SEO
Facebook search and it’s ranking algorithm reached a new complexity​​ in 2010 where the term Facebook SEO has appeared as the logical next step. I see some people who are already specializing in Facebook SEO as well.​

Link building on social media
Facebook SEO is just one aspect of the relationship of Facebook and SEO. When Google and Bing confirmed that Twitter updates and Facebook ​likes/shares count as ranking factors​ as long as they are public people in the SEO industry weren’t really surprised. Those who haven’t yet considered building links on social media or rather using Twitter and Facebook to spread awareness of their business have to now.

RDF/Rich Snippets
While introduced in 2009, r​ich snippets have become crucial over 2010.​ Reviews get used for local and shopping search​ and you can’t ignore them anymore.​

Ecommerce

A/B Testing
A/B Testing or multivariate testing exploded in 2010 with lots of tools and services offering and facilitating it. In 2011 everybody will try to convert the visitors they already have instead of just wanting more of them. A/B testing is probably the best method to find out what really works on your site.

Mobile Payment
Believe it or not but not only paper money is obsolete by now, credit cards are as well. What’s next? Mobile payment via your phone. Everybody uses it in emerging markets only we conservative Westerners still stick to the past. Finally some useful use cases appear for mobile payment so that we might embrace it as well in 2011.​

Groupon
Groupon was huge in 2010 but it’s not the end yet. In 2011 it will become even more prominent. Use it or lose it.

Reviews
Reviews are the new links. Both local and ecommerce businesses get ranked by the number and sentiment of user reviews in Google. So you can’t live without (positive) reviews anymore in 2011.​

Real life businesses gaining ground
Many Google l​ocal search changes have mostly one thing common​: They favor brick and mortar real life businesses with an address. So the Internet uses a big part its virtual aspect as real life businesses​ get preferential treatment. Also Google Streetview compels people all over the world to clean up their facade or get less customers.

Blogging

Miniblogging
Tumblr, Posterous and a large number of other microblogging or rather miniblogging tools has been gaining popularity over the recent years. By now miniblogging service Tumblr is one of the biggest social sites. Tumblr is also bigger than WordPress.com by now. Also it’s easier to use to has a sleeker web design than both Blogger and WordPress.

Hosted blogging
Spam, security issues and constant hacking attacks on WordPress, content theft and censorship on both Blogger and WordPress.com have hurt hosted blogging platforms in the past. With the rise of new services like Tumblr many private bloggers turned away from self hosted WordPress blogs to hosted blogging platforms again.

More quality less quantity
The myth of blogging daily has been overcome in 2010 it seems, while some blogs turn media companies blogs several times a day and some group blogs do daily most regular blogs run by one blogger focused more on quality than quantity in 2010. This trend will remain sting in 2011 as the daily bloggers will move on to miniblogging while quality bloggers will focus on thorough research and killer content.

Blogging identity crisis
In 2010 with services like Google Buzz the definition of blogging got blurry. Also when you take a close look at what Facebook and Tumblr do you could consider both services blogging. Content sharing and blogging have finally merged. At the same time the focus on quality in real blogging made it more professional and journalistic. There is an apparent blogging identity crisis palpable 2011.

These trends have been mostly obvious in 2010 already but you can’t ignore them in 2011 anymore or at least you have to know about them. In case you decide to ignore them there will be others who’ll embrace the new opportunities.
SEO is rapidly changing and adapting to new Web trends all the time. That’s one of the reasons people scream “SEO is dead” each time a major change occurs. At the same time the Web slows down, the early phase of innovation is over and only a few big players control it now.

* Image: 2011 by Sebastian Oliva.

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