For State of Search I wrote a rant against TopSEOs, a notorious scam intended to deceive potential clients with regards to a SEO company’s quality. I call on the SEO industry to stop lending implicit support to such deceptive practices and to take a stand:

State of Search: TopSEOs: Kill The Hypocrisy, It’s Time To Take a Stand

Advertising itself as an ‘an independent authority on search vendors’, the marketing material distributed by TopSEOs seems to suggest that a top ranking on a TopSEOs list is a mark of quality. This is, of course, a big fat lie, as rankings on TopSEOs can simply be bought. The more money you give TopSEOs, the higher they will rank you.

Prompted by a tweet from Geoff Jackson from search marketing firm Clubnet, I wrote a post for Search News Central about the similarities between SEO and quantum physics:

Search News Central: Where SEO meets Quantum Physics

All this SEO shtick does feel like a roll of the dice sometimes, doesn’t it? We do our best to send all the right signals in to this big black search engine box, and hope that what comes out more or less meets our expectations. More often than not, it doesn’t. We might as well be trying to catch Higgs-bosons with our bare hands.

The TopSEOs Scam / SEO and Quantum Theory is a blog post from Barry Adams.

A little bit fed up with all the ‘best of 2011‘ and ‘trends for 2012‘ blog posts already emerging on the web, I figured I’d do my own list to make sure that at least one of these types of posts, inevitable in this time of year, had some measure of value:

State of Search: Top 10 Blogs That Are Not About SEO But You Should Be Reading Anyway

I figured if such lists get published anyway, I might as well make one of my own – but this time I’ll make one that could actually break the mold and, you know, be useful. So I thought I’d compose a slightly different list. Specifically, a list of blogs that are NOT about SEO – or only mention it in passing – but that you should be reading anyway. Because the stuff that gets published there is, simply put, epically awesome.

Also on State of Search I wrote a rant that was triggered by a blog post on SEOmoz, in which Rand Fishkin argues in favour of ‘outing’ bad SEO practices. I am against outing, and I explain why:

State of Search: The Division Within SEO: Google is our friend/enemy

Some pro-Google SEOs make comparisons between web spammers and criminals (like Rand does in the Twitter debates), justifying outing them as turning them in to the police. This is, of course, entirely farcical, as web spammers break no laws (generally speaking) except Google’s own arbitrary guidelines. And these guidelines do not exist for the greater good of the internet – they exist only because Google wants to make money.

Top non-SEO Blogs / Division within SEO is a blog post from Barry Adams.

I’ve started writing for the Holistic Search blog, run by my friend and SEO superman Peter Young. My first post for the site is about Google’s propaganda, and how it differs from what actually works in SEO:

Holistic Search: Debunking Google’s Propaganda

Experienced SEOs know that there’s a huge difference between what Google and its fans declare to be ‘SEO best practices’ and what actually works to get sites to rank. For those who are still struggling to make sense of this, below I’ve outlined a few SEO myths propagated by the likes of Matt Cutts and his adoring fanbase, and compared that to the real truth of the matter.

Recently I was a guest on a regular podcast hosted by David Harry and Terry Van Horne from the SEO Training Dojo. The podcast, entitled Search Geeks Speak, also featured my State of Search boss and all around great guy Bas van den Beld, and fellow SEO Dojo-er Kieran Flanaghan (aka Searchbrat).

The topic of the podcast was about European SEO, and you can listen to and download it from the SEO Dojo website here: Search Geeks Speak: EU SEO Panel with Bas van Den Beld, Barry Adams and Searchbrat

Google Propaganda / Search Geeks Speak is a blog post from Barry Adams.

Earlier this month I wrote an article for State of Search in which I outline three essential skills every (beginning) SEO should possess:

State of Search: Three Essential Skills for Beginning SEOs

The ability to think critically – to question what you read and hear, to make up your own mind based on the best available evidence, and to put everything in the right context – is not just essential for every SEO, it’s an essential skill of life itself.

My latest for Search News Central explains the potential of branded search, and how to increase search volumes on such keywords:

Search News Central: Branded Search: A Digital Marketer’s Greatest Ally

Obviously SEO might not be the ideal tactic to increase branded searches. If the site already ranks first for its own brand name, there’s limited mileage for SEO to increase traffic on those branded searches. At most what you could do is experiment with different titles and meta descriptions to see if you can improve the click-through rate.

On the Pierce Communications blog we ran a little experiment in which I wrote two versions of a news article about Google’s Think Insights tool:

Pierce Communications: Google Think Insights – Choose Your Favourite

Instead of writing a nondescript and easily forgotten bit of news about Google’s latest release – Think Insights – I decided to write two versions to announce the new tool, and let you, the audience, choose which one you prefer. So go on ahead, read both versions of the news below, and then vote for your favourite in the poll.

Essential SEO Skills / Branded Search is a blog post from Barry Adams.

I wrote a host of short blog posts for State of Search over the past few weeks to cover for the site’s owner Bas van den Beld while he was on vacation.

The most substantial of these blog posts is a case study on why geotargeting users based on IP address is a silly affair, especially when trying to determine what region of a country a user is from. In the UK especially, IP targeting is utterly broken.

State of Search: Geotargeting Based on IP Address is Broken

It’s when you get to regional IP targeting that all semblance of accuracy goes straight out the window, and it becomes nothing less than a total crapshoot. In fact, firing buckshot at a big national map will probably yield more accurate results than the geographical data you’ll get from any web analytics package.

Some other blog posts I wrote for State of Search recently are primarily news stories about new developments in search and web:

• The Explosive Growth of Google+
• Google simplifies Adwords for small businesses with AW Express
• Branded AdWords advertising boosts total site traffic
• Growing pressure on Microsoft over Bing
• Adobe Edge: SEO-friendly web animations?
• Universal Search: how often are they shown on Google’s SERPs?

IP Address Geotargeting / State of Search is a blog post from Barry Adams.

For State of Search I wrote a blog post comparing two URL shortening services: Bit.ly Pro and Yourls. Each has its pros and cons, and which you should use depends on your situation and resources:

State of Search: URL Shortening Services Compared: Bit.ly Pro and Yourls

URL Shortening services are the lifeblood of Twitter. With short URLs you can share links on Twitter in abundance without having to worry too much about breaking the 140 character limit. And, just like links are branding opportunities, so are short URLs. Yes, you only have a few characters to work with in a short domain, but why not make optimal use of it and make it a branded short URL?

My latest for Search News Central is purely for SEO geeks. I describe several solutions for dealing with duplicate content issues arising fro faceted / layered navigation and conclude with my own recommended approach:

Search News Central: Solving Duplicate Content Issues Arising From Faceted Navigation

I’m a big fan of faceted navigation on ecommerce websites, also known as layered navigation. With faceted nav users can find exactly what they’re looking for with just a few clicks, even on websites that contain tens of thousands of products. A good implementation of faceted nav is a user experience dream come true.

In my new column for the Belfast Telegraph I take another shot at predicting the future, this time for the mobile web. HTML5 might in due time supersede mobile apps, and in my column I explain why this could happen:

Belfast Telegraph: The Future of the Mobile Web

The problem with apps is that they are platform-specific. An iPhone app will not work on an Android phone. Blackberry users need to download different apps that are specifically developed for that platform. Nokia faces the same issue. While some mobile companies such as Apple are quite happy with this business model, others aren’t.

URL Shortening / Duplicate Content / Mobile Web is a blog post from Barry Adams.

In a new article for Search News Central I explore the lessons I’ve learned as a teacher of SEO:

Search News Central: What I’ve learned from lecturing on SEO

What I found most enlightening about doing lectures like these is that it made me re-evaluate what I know about SEO. After 7 years of professional SEO experience (14 years total SEO experience if you include my early days amateur SEO stuff for my own websites) there is a lot of amassed knowledge, embedded lingo, and basic assumptions that I use in my day to day work. When preparing my lecture I had to discard all of that and work from the bottom up.

Staying with the educational theme, I wrote a blog post for State of Search listing the five best non-SEO books that I believe every SEO should read:

State of Search: The 5 Best SEO Books That Aren’t About SEO

I get asked quite often what beginning SEOs need to do to become advanced practitioners of our craft. Specifically they want to know which books to read. When I pondered this question in detail, I realised that the books that have shaped me the most as an SEO, and have helped bring my skills to higher levels, aren’t actually SEO books. Yet these books have been vital study material in my continued development as a SEO professional.

Teaching and Learning SEO is a blog post from Barry Adams.

For Search News Central I reviewed a new book: SEO Secrets by Danny Dover. Read the full review:

Search News Central: A review of Danny Dover’s SEO Secrets book

I pre-ordered the book, titled Search Engine Optimization Secrets, and it arrived yesterday morning. I’m writing this review less than 36 hours after having started reading, so you might leap to the conclusion that it’s a thin, lightweight publication. It’s not. At well over 400 pages and containing precious little fluff, it’s quite a dense work.

For State of Search I wrote a more cerebral article about the possible future of SEO, as it’s a zero-sum game that’s threatening to unbalance too heavily in favour of the spammers:

State of Search: The Rules by Which We Play

The SEO industry has a lot in common with the financial industry. SEO, like the financial markets, is a game invented by humans, for humans. The rules of this game relate to reality – the world of brick and mortar – only indirectly, dealing as it does with fleeting human behaviour in a fabricated environment invented and managed by a small group of all-powerful entities.

SEO Secrets / Zero-Sum SEO is a blog post from Barry Adams.

This week I wrote my first post for the new Search Bloggers site. In this post I tackled keyword research and how you can decide which keywords are feasible to rank your client site for.

Search Bloggers: Finding the Right Keywords to Target

It often makes far more sense to target less popular long tail keywords where the query space is less competitive. Yet we don’t want to do our clients a disservice by getting them to rank for keywords that nobody searches for. The right balance needs to be struck between search volume (and thus competitiveness) and ranking feasibility. Here are some tips on how to do that.

For State of Search I wrote a short post inspired by a recent research paper I read. The paper quoted other research that shows how a website’s design impacts the credibility of the information it contains.

State of Search: Want to be taken seriously? Start by looking good

The core message we should take away from this is as follows: no matter how good your content is, if your site design sucks you won’t be perceived as a credible source. In short, you need to make sure your site is pretty. Amateurish web design doesn’t work – and now we can quote the research to back that up.

Finding Feasible Keywords / Credible Web Design is a blog post from Barry Adams.

I wrote an article for the March 2011 issue of Business Eye magazine, that we’ve republished on the Pierce Communications website. Aimed at a layperson audience, the article is an attempt to pierce the hype surrounding social media and the proclamations of SEO’s irrelevance:

Pierce Communications: SEO and Social Media – Piercing the Hype

Websites don’t accidentally rank high in Google. It takes concerted effort to ensure a website performs well in search engine results, and SEO is a multi-faceted discipline incorporating aspects of web design and development, technical know-how, marketing and PR, and even social media.

My latest for Search News Central is about Google’s Farmer/Panda update, and specifically about how it has affected article marketing as a linkbuilding method:

Search News Central: The Panda That Killed Article Marketing

Article marketing is a tried and tested method of generating links. You find a topic, write an article about it that includes a link or two, and publish it on several article directories. Or, more accurately, you pay someone else to do all that for you, and you just provide the link destination and anchor text.

SEO and Social Media / Panda and Article Marketing is a blog post from Barry Adams.