Happy New Year

Posted by David Whitehouse

Happy New Year everyone!

What 2009 Meant for Me

Well the year is almost up and I was just wondering what I did with all that time… Then I realised, quite a lot actually!

  • I got my arm so that working at a computer in my job is bearable.
  • I beat depression.
  • I became a true expert in SEO – I really have learned a hell of a lot working at Bronco.
  • I published a book and sold just over 60 80 copies.
  • I got engaged to a woman with a heart of gold and looks to match.
  • I read nearly all of Seth Godin’s books and learned a hell of a lot more!
  • I had my first well performing website with over 30,000 uniques in 30 days and built a subscriber base of over 500.
  • I helped my m8 Themba start a new online shop selling HID Lights which I am sure will do well

Plans for 2010

  • Get married
  • Get something fixed: either my knee, neck, jaw or arms!
  • Quit playing computer games online
  • Save up for a deposit on a house

SEO Prank “How to kill Anthony Shapley”

Posted by David Whitehouse

Apparently this was nothing new, as people had been searching for “Kean Richmond is gay” before I came up with this idea:

Basically I got a load of people to click through to anthonyshapley.co.uk after visiting this page, so that it got into his Analytics:

Anthony Shapley's Analytics

Anthony Shapley's Analytics

Anyone else heard of any other good SEO pranks? I guess Google Suggest is probably a popular one…

Optimizing for Bing

Posted by David Whitehouse

Ok so it turns out Microsoft’s new search engine is pretty good and it is starting to steal market share (from Google or Yahoo? Who knows?) What this means for the SEO community is that we may have to consider the possibility of optimising for two sites.

Currently, probably 99% of SEO’s optimise for Google over other search engines – which makes sense as they have more search volume. But what will happen if Bing steals a lot more share of the searches? For those SEO’s that haven’t made a name for themselves – this may be your chance!

So I’m going to try and look at what different ways there are to optimize for Bing – starting with keyword choice. I’ll start with an example – check out SEO on Bing (in the US search). If you take a look it has the related searches at the side, at the time of writing these are:

  • SEObook
  • Search Engine Optimization
  • SEO Tools
  • Free SEO Tools
  • SEO Marketing
  • SEO NY
  • SEO India

So these are what Bing sees as the related searches – what this means is that they will affect the outcome of what I suppose would be called the medium tail (two word keyphrases). These search phrases are the most popular and are likely to stay that way – as the related searches will dictate this. Poeple will still search other two word keyphrases, but these will have a much greater search volume. So if you want to start optimising for Bing – start basing your keyphrases on these related searches.

SEO in Ripon

Posted by David Whitehouse

Today I managed to get My first commercial SEO related number one ranking – SEO Ripon.

SEO Ripon, my first #1 SEO commercial term

SEO Ripon, my first #1 SEO commercial term

I wasn’t even aiming for it, but I seem to have managed it, quite pleased to be honest! I’m also ranking #1 for SEO specialist North Yorkshire, but lets face it – both of the terms are very, very long tail. I’m hoping to get onto page one or two for SEO Specialist (currently ranking on page 7 – eek!) – I’m currently #3 on page 1 for this term :)

Anyways if you are in Ripon, feel free to contact me :)

SEO Specialist – my new target term

Posted by David Whitehouse

Well I’ve got bored trying to rank #1 for David Whitehouse – so whilst I’m getting on with that I’m going to play around trying to rank for a commercial term: seo specialist.

Dave currently ranks number 1 for UK SEO, and Ant is trying to rank for that one too, so I thought I’d target something else, since that base is pretty much covered (plus I reckon this one is going to be easier).

We’ll see how I do :)

Best of luck Dan

Posted by David Whitehouse

This is just a quick post to say good luck to Dan Horton SEO – he’s just starting out, fortunately with Dave helping him out.

If you are in Ripon and you’re looking for a friendly local SEO I suggest you check him out.