Author Archives: Matt

Penguin : What To Expect Over Summer

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So it’s happened, the SEO apocalypse part 2 arrived. Planes fell out of the sky, there was widespread looting and even acts of cannabilism…

It was built up (by some) to be the ultimate SEO spam killer, Penguin 2.0. I know I certainly run huge audits for clients, new and old, to try and ensure that we were at no risk with an imminent update. Matt Cutts confirmed the original algorithm update occured overnight (UK time) and affected around 3% of all EN-US search queries. As large or as small that seems to you, the SEO community seems to have been almost entirely positive about the update and there’s no global killer involved. However, this has been on the increase and it seems as though the dial is being turned up as expected if you followed this post.

Which is worrying that there are still so many that don’t comply with what should be an industry standard in practice (you wouldn’t let a dentist give you a false or unnatural filling would you? So why is it okay to provide an unnatural SEO service?) and these sorts of strategies still aren’t entirely safe if you look around a bit more.

Companies, large and small, need to adapt to a new approach to increasing the link portfolio of a website and finally shake off this mindset of buying links. It might work momentarily for now, but ultimately it is poor practice and just plain lazy work. If you want some cool ideas to help you build links, why not check out the post I wrote on Moz?

Anyway, I digress. What can we expect to come over the next few weeks from Penguin?

Continual Testing

If you’re a close follower of MozCast, you’ll have noticed some fishy results recently. Their data servers are being messed around by what can only be described as anomalous results. What this appears to be (and Dr. Pete agrees) is a range of tests across many search queries.

What this means for you

Strange ranking results, temporary loss of traffic, temporary gain of traffic and maybe new snippets or SERPs. It also means that Google could drop a host of new Algo-bombs on us at anytime if they’re testing anything important. Just be on your toes and don’t do anything stupid.

Stricter Updates

We know Google’s getting smarter, if you don’t then you’re not paying any attention at all. We also know after the BBC situation that Google aren’t willing to take any prisoners and can drop you quite literally at the click of a button.

This means all those paid links you’re about to put into Q3′s budget are getting more and more risky. Why not spend that money on an infographic instead or an Outreach Intern or another freelancer to help you do Outreach? Paddy Moogan’s Link Building book is certainly cheaper than an advertorial, go buy that instead!

Work hard with quality and these updates shouldn’t scare you

Build more than a team, build careers

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2013 has sparked serious debate (doesn’t ever year?) over the long term stability of SEO. You’ve all seen it; “SEO is dying”, “SEO has no future”, “SEO is Dead” (whoops). But do you know what that is? A lack of leadership, inconsistent challenges and few groundbreaking ideas to spark the mind. To me, it seems as though too many people in the industry just want to claim this as a paycheck and a way in to marketing, rather than see this as their career aspiration. There’s no leader that screams out “Be like me, this is awesome”, there’s no highly praised job telling the world how this has saved brands and made world history. Continue reading “Build more than a team, build careers” »

Title Tags – Optimising For Users

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Title tags are one of those age old on-page factors that everyone learns about first when starting their career in SEO. Back when I was just starting out, 74 characters was your aim and it was a case of putting keyword variations in, separated by commas and don’t look too spammy. Hmm.

The next train of thought was to just make it 2-3 keywords followed by the brand, this way people would learn your brand and know you’re not spammy. Still pretty spammy.

More recently it was opened up that adding something that entices the users to click would help SERP performance. This was also coupled with the idea that Title Tags should be hemmed to around 64 characters. Starting to see some progress in user experience and removing spam from the index. Continue reading “Title Tags – Optimising For Users” »

Buying Links – It still happens, and it still works

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Over the last 18 months to 2 years, there’s been a lot of cleaning up going on in the SEO industry, or tried to anyway. Brands have found new SEO companies to clean up their Link Portfolio. SEO agencies have found themselves clutching at new ways to get their client that coveted number 1 ranking.

Or have they? Continue reading “Buying Links – It still happens, and it still works” »

Stop Content Marketing

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Recently, Iain Laurie released his slide deck called “Let Go Of The Wire“. I highly recommend you read it, it should turn some cogs in your thoughts – it certainly did with me. Which leads me onto what I want to talk about today; Stop doing content marketing.

Every 6 months, Matt Cutts tweets something substantial, like a new algorithm update or a series of factors that Google now use/have stopped using to make their SERPs more relevant. In 2011 this huge new buzz word and SEO technique was Infographics. A cool new way for everyone to make something cool for small amounts of money, embed a link then when all of your fans shared it you built yourself 2,493 links per infographic. For a year or so it was all about Outreach and Guest Posts. Continue reading “Stop Content Marketing” »