New Year Search Club was held on Monday, January 17th.

Thank you for everyone who came, it was a great success. Everyone seemed to have enjoyed the meetup and I will be hosting another event soon.

We were lucky enough to have two guest speakers. Finlay from Google talked about what 2011 means for search and Richard Fitzgerald informed us about his 52burritodates.com and how he turned his competition win of a year supply of burritors into a social media frenzy.

Here are a few photos from New Year Search Club 2011.

For more information about the meetup please visit http://www.meetup.com/London-SEO-SMO-PPC

The answer is dependent on what services you will provide for your client. I have found that people do not always understand seo and therefore question you when you charge a fee for your services. People pay for a number of different services in business, why should seo be any different?

source: flickr.com/photos/woowork/3307031049/

Services
What you need to do is give a detailed explanation of all the services you provide in a document with the number of hours it will take to complete each one and your hourly rate. As long as it is clear, you should not have any disputes. You should refer back to your proposal in your costings so that the client knows exactly what services they are getting for their money.

Consistent
Do not doubt yourself or try and amend the hours. If you have worked in seo for a number of years, then you know how long it takes (realistically) to complete a piece of work. Make sure that what you quote is how long it takes to complete the task and keep the number of hours consistent for that client. Do not make up 5 hours for a piece of work and then change it the next time.

Integration
Within an seo proposal, you should also incorporate ppc and social media. 2011 is the year for integration. It is important to rank high in natural search for those terms that you may be spending too much money on with paid search. The lines between social and seo will become more blurred this year and your social media presence will have an effect on your rankings.

So in conclusion, when you are putting together a proposal, make sure you are clear on the tasks you will complete for the project and do not be afraid to charge the correct amount for it.

There is often confusion in the seo world between subdomain and subfolders. This post shall explain the difference.

Root domain
This is the domain that you buy from the hosting company eg www.example.com or www.seojoblogs.com

Subdomain
This is a domain which is part of the root domain. eg uk.example.com

Subdirectories
Also called folders are separate sections of the root domain. For example www.example.com/blog

What does Google say?
Google has viewed subdomains in the past as completely separate entities from the primary domain. Google uses what it calls “host crowding” where it returns up to two results from a single domain on a search engine results page (SERP) (with the second one indented). As subdomains are treated as totally separate, a single domain could get more than two listings on a Google SERP, through its subdomains. However, in December 2007, Google made a change announcing that subdomains would be more closely associated with the primary domain — not to the point of being viewed as a subdirectory, but not so completely separate. You can see more about this on Matt Cutt’s blog

If you are building your blog on a subdomain so blog.example.com, it may not get any benefit from its root domain and any links you get will flow back to that subdomain and not to www.example.com. Therefore you should set up the blog as a subfolder www.example.com/blog and when you get any external links, it will flow back to the root domain.

Rand Fishkin goes into a lot of detail about subdomains vs subfolders.

When do you use a subdomain?

– If your blog is separate to your services or if your cms does not allow you to add blogging software to the root domain.
– If you already have two pages from your main domain ranking for a search term. Google will show a maximum of two URLs on a given search page but may show more for a root domain if there are multiple subdomains.
– If you have keyword you want to rank for and you are doing link building for that domain.

When do you use subfolders/subdirectories?
– If you want to organise your site into different sections with descriptive URLs. This is also an easy way to grow your site.
– Adding subfolders allows you to build your site and add new content in a search friendly way.
– It is easier to use subfolder than subdomains due to the url structure as it is all under one domain.

And finally, there are some companies that set up a completely separate site to their main site.
When should you use a microsite?
– If you have a brand new product or service that will be eventually sold off.
– If you do not want the product or service to be associated with your site.

Having a microsite is like starting from scratch. There is no trust, authority, ranking power so you will need to spend a lot of time building up trust and authority.

I hope this post has cleared up some of the confusion regarding subdomains vs subdirectories. If you have any comments or questions, please get in touch.

According to Wikipedia, “a web feed (or news feed) is a data format used for providing users with frequently updated content.” So if you visit a site and click on the image below, you will receive updated content from that site. This means you do not need to go back to the site to check when they add new content.

What is RSS
RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication” and is the technical format of a web feed. It is just one way for expressing feeds as XML. Another popular feed is Atom. Both feeds are made to be viewed for computers, but you can view them as plain text files.

Who uses feeds?
Most websites that have a lot of content. The BBC news, amazon, google, all big websites will allow users to subscribe to their feed. Smaller sites such as bloggers will also have feeds.

Can I publish my own feeds?
Yes of course you can. If you have a website you can have a feed on your site. Using a cms like wordpress, drupal or blogger, you can choose the theme that incorporates a feed and you will be publishing your feed automatically.

How do you get started with feeds?
To read the feeds, you have to use a news aggregator. One of them is Google Reader. You can go to one place daily and receive all the updates from the sites where you have subscribed to their feed. It is really simple and saves so much time.

There are also feed reader applications:

* NewsGator – FeedDemon 2.0
* NewsGator – Inbox for Microsoft Outlook
* NewsGator – NetNewsWire
* Firefox (via “Live Bookmarks” feature)

Online Services

* Google Reader
* NewsGator
(Online)
* My Yahoo!
* Bloglines
* Pageflakes
* Netvibes

Podcast Readers

* iTunes
* Juice
* Doppler
* FireAnt

So now that you have chosen you feedreader, go and visit your favourite sites and subscribe to their feeds by clicking on the image as shown above.

What does 2011 bring for search?

1) Integration between ppc, seo and social media
This has been discussed last year but 2011 is the year where people are going to sit up and take note of the positive effects you can get from combining all three as a digital strategy. Once a client has tracking on their website, it is possible to see the visits from paid and natural and social sites. Cost savings can be made on paid search if the site is ranking well for some of those key terms. Regarding social media, blogger outreach content can be optimised by the seo team, if the blogger is going to write about a particular product, they might as well include a couple of links back to that site

2) Local search
With the introduction of Google Places in September 2009 and then the merger of the local business centre in April last year, local search is going to play an even more important role in 2011. If you do not already use places for your business, then you should start now.

3) Mobile
People have been jumping on the mobile apps and mobile site bandwagon. Mobile will be increasingly important in 2011. However, webmasters and marketeers will have a better understanding of a mobile app vs a mobile site and how to make these “seo” friendly. To me, it is making your site readable on a mobile device and when someone is looking for your store, they should find it on their handset, which ties back into the second point above, local search

Here are a few seo predictions from the industry experts like Rand Fishkin

#1: Someone Proves (or a Search Engine Confirms) that Clicks/Visits Influence Rankings

I’m taking a chance on this one, but I’ve been hearing from more and more SEOs that there’s some correlation between earning clicks and moving up in the rankings. In 2011, we’ll get confirmation, either through testing or an admission from an engine that click-through-rate from the SERPs, visit count outside of search (or diversity of sources), or other usage-based data is in the ranking algorithm (or a method they use to help ID spam).

#2: Google Local/Maps Adds Filters and Sorting

The big reason Yelp is so much better than Google Maps/Local for finding a good local “place” isn’t just the reviews (which Google aggregates from Yelp anyway). It’s the filters that let me sort by features/pricing/proximity/open status/etc. Google’s been playing the silly game of forcing users to choose search queries to enable rough, imperfect filtering, but 2011 is going to see the search engine shift to a model that allows at least some important filters/feature-selection.

#3: Social Search Will Rise

There’s power in social media search, and Google/Bing’s efforts to date have been lackluster at best. I suspect in 2011, we’ll see the nascent beginning of search that leverages Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn connections to find results from your friends. It’s possible this will start niche-based only (search articles your friends have shared, ala Trunk.ly), but it could also be broader – possibly something from Facebook or Twitter themselves.

I am looking forward to SES London next month, when some of these predictions will be reinforced by other key speakers and industry experts. No one knows for sure what will happen in 2011, but based on the results from last year, we know there will be more developments in search and the fight between Google and Bing will continue.

Yesterday I went home to the parents house as I was house sitting while they are out of the country. I could not find my cat and went round to the neighbours who then found him passed away in their garden. It was was quite sad. I did not realise I would get so upset, it was actually my sister’s cat. Mine had passed two and a half years ago. What I was sad about was the end of a childhood era. Both cats we had since I was 11 years old and the passing of them signified an end of a chapter in my life.

When one chapter closes, another one opens and my mind began to wonder what 2011 would bring. I hope lots of health and happiness. People are always looking for that , the pursuit of happiness. In terms of actual new adventures and experiences for 2011, I have a few:

First is the search club I am organising in January. I hope this will bring more people together to talk about seo, ppc and social. I really think there are very fine lines that separate the three. All can be seen as an integral part of a business’ digital strategy.

The second is my trip to South America in March. I have done a lot of travelling, but never yet ventured to South America. I will be going to Brazil, Igauzu falls and then onto Buenos Aires where I hope to study Spanish for a week.

The third is another trip – as some of my family will be in Australia by next Christmas, I will definitely be sunning myself down under. I just hope I won’t get snowed in like so many people did this year.

Well 2011 doesn’t look that bad. As long as I have my health, I have everything, so I wish you all lots of health and happiness for the next 12 months. And hopefully some milder weather as well.

When people want to buy a domain and set up a blog on that URL, they will have to host the site somewhere.

You can choose to have either a static or shared IP address with your hosting provider. When I started my site, I was told that you need to have your own individual and static IP address if you want to rank high for key terms especially if you are in a competitive industry, however there is no conclusive evidence to prove this. People also talk about Shared IP Vs Dedicated IP but what exactly is this?

Shared IP
This is what you get by default from your hosting provider. It means there are many domains on the one IP eg 192.80.30.130. When a browser requests a page from that site inside that IP, the server will check the domain being requested and then serve that page.

Dedicated IP
When you buy your hosting solution, you can request to have a dedicated IP, which means your site will have a unique IP, not shared by any other sites.

So what are the disadavantages?

If you have a shared IP and if one of the sites sharing the IP gets a penalty for spam, link farming or adult content, then your website will also suffer the consequences. However this is rare and should be taken into consideration when purchasing your hosting package.
If you want a dedicated IP address, it costs more, not by much over the year, about thirty pounds, dependant on the package.

There is not one answer that says having a static rather than a shared IP address is any better. It does cost you more though to have your own static IP address. If you are going to have a big site and require a lot of storage, it is recommended to have a static IP address.

It is a black hat seo technique, where the content presented to the search engine spider is different to that presented to the user.

How does this happen?

The content is delivered based on the IP address or the User-Ageny HTTP header. When a user is identified as a search engine spider, then the server-side script delivers a different version of the webpage. This content is not present on a the visible page.

source – flickr

Why do people use cloaking?
They want to deceive the search engines to help boost the websites’ rankings for keywords.

What are the different forms of cloaking? (source: http://info.webtoolhub.com/kb-a24-what-is-cloaking-in-seo-types-of-cloaking-methods.aspx)

IP address Cloaking – presents different contents based on determining IP addresses. e.g. Search engines with certain IP addresses will be shown a one version of a web page and all other IP addresses will be shown another version.

User-Agent Cloaking – different versions of a website based on User-Agent are displayed. e.g. Search engines and/or users using different versions of web browsers are served with different contents of a web page.

HTTP_REFERER Header Cloaking – if a user is coming from a certain website (e.g. clicking a link from search results or a website) they will be presented a different version of a website based on the HTTP_REFERER header value.

HTTP Accept-Language Header Cloaking – may be used to show different versions of a website based on a users web browser language without letting them for an option of language selection.

JavaScript Cloaking – users with JavaScript enabled browsers are shown one version while users with JavaScript turned off (like search engines) are shown another version of a website.

Matt Cutts announced that Google are going to investigate more issues of cloaking on the first quarter of 2011. So cloakers, beware….

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Hope you all have a great Christmas and a Happy New Year.

If you were good this year, you will get a visit from Santa. Google have even set up Google Earth so you can track Santa around the world. What a great idea. Google teamed up with Northern American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) to keep tabs on Santa Claus in real time. Google also said you can leave Father Christmas a voice message on his Google Voice Number.

This is such a neat idea from Google. I know they are always coming up with cool and funky things, but this has to top them. It makes the Santa Claus story more real even to those kids who feel they are tool old to believe in good old St Nick. How does it work I hear you say?

Well people can track Santa’s journey through a plugin for Google Earth Web Browser. The plugin can be downloaded by Windows users for Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox and Flock browsers. Mac users can do so, by downloading the plugin for Safari and Firefox.

Santa Claus is coming to town…..

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It is coming to the end of the year and it is time to review the seo work you have done for your business or for your client. It is really important to show results to your client. There are several ways to show the results:

Photo from flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/joel_r/5049218772/

1) Rankings
If you have done any optimisation on the page, then it is important to show the rankings before recommendations were implemented and those after.

2) Inbound links
Through the link building activities you have completed for your client or site, you should have seen an increase in the number of inbound links to the site. There is not one consistent place to see all the inbound links, Google webmaster tools, Yahoo Site Explorer and Seomoz Linkscape all give different results, but it is important to look at all three sources and record the number before linkbuilding has begun agains the end of year results

3) Percentage of natural search traffic
You are responsible for helping to increase the natural search traffic to a client’s website or your company’s site. You should be able to see an increase in the traffic from search engines through your google analytics or through your other traffic tools.

What you must always do is be honest with the client. Sometimes you will not always see a huge improvement in rankings and traffic and this may be due to the client unable to make those on page changes or sign off for link building activities. What you then need to do is be realistic when planning for 2011.

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