The way we think about keywords has changed dramatically over the years. However many of us are still guilty of thinking about keywords too much. I think you could probably argue that our focus on keywords is a vestige of the bad old days of SEO and digital marketing. Read more
Should you become an SEO consultant?
I’ve been working in marketing since 2003. I created my first website in 2000. Sometime around 2004 / 2005, I started to get interested in SEO. It was during this time that I was managing a magazine called Professional Van and Light Truck Magazine. It was also around this time that I started noticing the impact promoting press releases had on our website’s rankings. Read more
Using Fake News for SEO and Content Marketing
Probably the biggest issue the internet is wrangling with at the moment is the scourge of fake news. But this got me wondering if there is some benefit of fake news to SEO and content marketing. Read more
GT Report: The Growth Of The Freelance Economy
Being a freelancer has always been hard work – it requires a lot of graft and dedication to pull off being your own boss and successfully running your own business – but these days the slog is potentially even harder than it was before. Not only do you still have to do all the things that you already had to do – such as all your own sales, marketing, accounts and, obviously, the actual work – but you also now have to compete against so many other people doing exactly the same thing that you do (albeit not as well, clearly).
The reason for this increase in competition is simple; the age of the freelancer has arrived. In recent years, the freelance economy has grown exponentially (so much so, that the freelance economy is now an actual thing) and there are now more freelancers than the human race has ever experienced before. But far from this being a negative turn of events, we at GrowTraffic think this is brilliant. We love a freelancer, so it’s a case of ‘the more the merrier’ as far as we’re concerned. But what exactly has happened to facilitate this sudden explosion in freelancing, and how will it affect the way we all work as a result? Read more
Why is Google removing the sidebar ads?
This week has seen a really interesting change in the way Google’s SERPs are being laid out, seeing Google remove the PPC ads from the right hand sidebar with immediate effect. Read more
Google’s Market Share Down
According to the latest search market share numbers released by ComScore on 14th August 2015, Google’s share of the US search market has dropped slightly. Before we all panic and predict the demise of the search giant though, I must qualify that statement by admitting that the fall is not significant; nevertheless, the latest figures do show a loss of ground on Google’s part, to the benefit of its two largest competitors, Bing and Yahoo.
So, let’s take a closer look at the most recent figures and statistics and see what they’re showing us about the performance of the largest search engines globally. Read more
Networking With The Next Generation
I’ve been a little bit quiet on the old blog front recently because, to tell you the truth, I’ve just been swamped with work (which – as Simon Dalley says – is a good problem to have!) but I wanted to tell you about a fabulous event that I attended last week courtesy of Alder Grange School Sixth Form College in Rawthenstall.
As part of their Enterprise Week for Year 10 pupils, and representing GrowTraffic, I was lucky enough to be able to spend a morning with pupils as a business mentor, offering support and advice for their project on Tourism in Rossendale. Not only did I enjoy myself much more than I was expecting to, it was also really heartening to see such enthusiasm and dedication from all the students involved. Read more
Warning: More Videos of Cats on Twitter!
Following in the footsteps of Facebook and Instagram, Twitter announced yesterday that it will shortly be autoplaying all videos by default, meaning that we can now all look forward to many more wasted hours of our lives watching cats fall down toilets or rhinos making friends with lambs. Read more
Reasons Why Bigging-Up Your Competitors Is A Good Idea
Yesterday, I read a really interesting blog post on Search Engine Journal by Tom Demers entitled 5 Reasons Why It’s OK To Mention Competitors In Your Content. Funnily enough, this post struck an instant chord with me, as it almost word for word echoed a conversation I had with one of my clients a week or so ago. So, I thought I’d share it with you so that you can see just how right Tom Demers is about this very valid point!
As the title of the blog suggests, Tom’s post listed 5 reasons why writing about your competitors in your content marketing can be a positive thing; I obviously don’t want to go over everything again that Tom wrote, as he made his points very eloquently and you’re perfectly capable of reading it for yourself. Instead, I’ll give you Tom’s reason’s summarised and then relate them to my client and the answers I gave her. Read more
What Did I Learn From Building A Website?
About 6 months ago, I embarked upon my first project management of an SEO web build. As a Freelance SEO Copywriter, the building of websites is not usually my domain and that was a state of affairs that I was perfectly happy with, but the boss said project manage and so project manage I did. Well, I tried. Read more