How does Matt Cutts get ready for work?
David Rosam on Sep 29 2008 | Filed under: Google
SEObook made me smile today with this Spam-munching Matt Cutts.
Ten Years of Google
David Rosam on Sep 27 2008 | Filed under: Google
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How different would my business be without Google?
See you at tomorrow’s tuttleBrighton
David Rosam on Aug 15 2008 | Filed under: Social media
Just getting my act together to go over to Brighton for tomorrow’s Brighton Social Media Cafe/tuttleBrighton, organised by Josh Russell.
I’ll let him tell you more:
What is it?
The Social Media Cafe, or Tuttle Club, is a place for people interested in social media to gather, get acquainted, and to plot, scheme, and share.. emphasis on open and interesting conversating!
Who should come?
If you’re interested in the future of media, how we organise, share, produce and enjoy it, then come along. If you’re an artist, film maker, geek, musician, designer, writer, photographer, or anything close or related, then come along. If you want to meet like minds, come along.
When and where (map)
We’ll meet every saturday morning at 11am upstairs in the Quadrant bar at Brighton’s Clock Tower.
I hope to see you there!
Will this make Adwords’ Content Network attractive?
David Rosam on Jul 24 2008 | Filed under: Pay Per Click
Like most people, I’ve never found much of a persuasive case for advertising on the Google Adwords Content Network - the conversion rates are normally pretty pitiful.
However, this new feature may just change all that:
Show your ad only when both keywords and placements match. You’ll get the benefits of keyword targeting while also limiting the places where your ad can appear.
For instance, set your campaign to appear only on your favourite soccer fan site and only when the site content matches the keyword soccer shoes. You may see less traffic, but AdWords contextual matching will help to make sure your placement pages are highly targeted.
I’ve not yet tried it. Maybe you have.
Never bury your optimized content - and about styles of burying
David Rosam on Jul 24 2008 | Filed under: SEO copywriting
We find it’s always desirable to place optimized content as high up in the site plan as we can - ie as few clicks away from the Home page as possible. While the search engine spiders will find the content if the site is set up correctly, the indexer may decide that the content isn’t very important because you’ve placed in a hard-to-get-at location. The result is that the page ranks more poorly than expected.
So, in such a situation, hard work spent optimizing may well not bring the returns you’re looking for.
Recently, we’ve found another wrinkle. If the pages between the Home page and the page(s) with the optimized content do not contain a reasonable amount of spiderable content (eg they contain graphics or Flash and/or little HTML-based copy), the search engines seem even more likely to ignore the optimized content located further in the site.
All this is yet another argument for planning sites with the SEO in mind. You really need to make sure all your important copy is presented in the right way to the search engines.
The Thousandth Post
David Rosam on Jul 22 2008 | Filed under: Search Engine Optimization
Last week I noticed that this post was going to be my thousandth on Dangerous Thinking. It must be some kind of milestone, and I felt I should acknowledge it in some way. But how?
I asked my Twitter followers, and no one came up with the right idea. In fact, there weren’t that many ideas at all!
Should I attempt to summarise the state of the art in SEO? Integrate the SEO and Social Media worlds? Eradicate spam in one fell swoop? Maybe next month…
Dangerous Thinking has been around since December 2000/January 2001, and has gone through some real changes. I’m sure it’ll continue to do so.
Maybe I’ll just say thanks for staying with me and hope you’ll keep reading and commenting.
Web Positioning Centre sponsors BarCamp Brighton 3
David Rosam on Jul 18 2008 | Filed under: Conferences
BarCamp Brighton 3, a free-to-attend 48 hour unconference for designers, developers, geeks, social softies & ui freaks will be on 6th-7th September 2008.
We’re very happy to be helping make the event possible.
Accurate Search Numbers from Google - at last
David Rosam on Jul 10 2008 | Filed under: Search Engine Optimization
Some very welcome information from Google today. Actual numbers of searches on key phrases. You can try it on Google’s Key Word Tool.
This is big news for anyone doing key phrase research, providing solid numbers that matter. It should mean no further guesswork and extrapolating from questionable data.
Thank you, Google!
Use simple, clear language
David Rosam on Jul 04 2008 | Filed under: Good Copywriting
I’m sitting here looking at some client copy. It grates. It grates a lot.
The reason? It uses a kind of overblown, wordy marketing speak which gets in the way. It’s using language like this:
…using the built-in chocolate-making capabilities included with every mega purple widgit
Do you really need the word ‘capabilities’? Try reading it without:
…using the built-in chocolate-making included with every mega purple widgit
I think it’s better without. It also punctures the corporate grandiosity that lurks heavily in the background of such a writing style.
If you’re bothered by seeing ‘chocolate-making’ as a verb, how about this?:
…using the built-in chocolate maker included with every mega purple widgit
Be concise, simple and clear. Your customers will reward you for it.
Google Analytics data has gone wonky
David Rosam on May 14 2008 | Filed under: Analytics
In case you have your reports delivered by e-mail, you may like to know Google is currently saying the following:
System Message: Analytics Processing Delay from April 30th to May 5th
Google Analytics experienced a data processing error from April 30th to May 5th. Almost all of the data has been recovered and is currently being reprocessed. The recovered data will be reflected in your reports within a few days. Please note that a small percentage of data, particularly in the area of e-commerce reporting, was not recoverable from those dates.
We sincerely apologize for this processing issue and are taking every precaution to prevent such disruptions from occurring again in the future. For more information, please read through our common questions.
The Google Analytics Team
I’ll be getting on with something else while they do.
