I have been looking closely at the relation between new blog posts along side my primary targeted keywords, even if they are not directly related. It’s safe to say that if you right about a subject i.e. “Page Rank” then for a week or two you might see some temporary search engine position increase for that keyword.

What I have seen over the last few weeks is that if you write a popular blog piece then non direct related keyword phrases can also achieve a boost. On the 4th of February I wrote a successful piece of link bait – 25 websites all SEO’s should know. I received plenty of additional backlinks and got around 8k unique visitors as a result.

The week that followed I naturally saw an increase of organic traffic as a result of the post, but surprisingly I found myself at position 6 on Google for the phrase “SEM blog”. Since that discovery the position has since moved down a bit (to the second or third page). In that time frame I received around 600 unique visitors for that term alone. That phrase is not mentioned at all in the original post and the backlinks I received did not use the phrase as an anchor – so why an increase in a keyword phrase that has not been targeted?

As well as an increase in backlinks and blog posts the post was heavily visible on social networks, bookmarking sites, which lead to an overall increase in my blog traffic. By writing a post on a related (although not directly associated) topic can lead to your blog/website achieving an overall increase in search positions. My total organic traffic increased by around 30% for a period of 2 weeks.

To me this just adds to my argument that websites in 2008 should use the blog platform more than ever to help with organic listings.

This time last year there was no doubt on every good seo work person that providing high quality content on a website would add great value to a website. Is this still true today?

I believe that providing good quality content on a website should be standard regardless of your seo strategy. A website should have information and content that people want to read and will enjoy reading, no question. Doing this 12 months ago would by all accounts have been a key component in any seo strategy, providing new content would keep the search engines hungry for more, open up new opportunities for long tailed keywords and generally help with your overall SERP positions.

It seems to me that the value of updated content has been reduced as of late. Maybe this has been introduced because of the sheer volume of bloggers out there that update their sites with very low quality updates in the hope to get on the good side of Google? Or perhaps bloggers are re-posting existing articles with very little changed from the original therefore reducing the importance of the content?

So if content is no longer key, what is its value?

As mentioned before you should have good quality content no matter what, this should be for the benefit of your readers or customers, not for Google or other search engines. You will still see an increase of traffic but not as high as once realised, plus your primary keywords will move very little (if any) up the SERPS.

What is key then?

Unfortunately in Google I believe that the websites visibility through backlinks still plays a big part of your overall positions for keywords. Even more so now the majority of people have been slapped on the wrist for “buying links” or paying for blog posts. Developing new and effective ways of generating natural links and maintaining and increase of these links should now be a major part of any seo strategy, this is unfortunately easier said than done.

For you that don’t already know and have spent the last few years in a nuclear fallout shelter, Alexa is a company that measures web traffic. They run www.alexa.com which is becoming more and more visible to web users.

I have always been taught and read many blogs that you should never judge a websites traffic performance based on the data collected by Alexa. Why? Well Alexa only registers traffic that has downloaded and used their very own toolbar. So in theory the data collected should only be a portion of your websites real traffic as the majority of “normal” web users have no need or really understand what it’s used for.

So as I performed my daily task of looking at websites information, looking for possible link opportunities I quickly noticed a trend in the data. It goes without saying that most web savvy people do use Alexa, if for anything an indication of possible traffic.

So what’s your point Matt?

Well my point is that if you are in the SE/SEM/SEO industry and you are specifically looking to target webmasters and like minded people then the Alexa data is spot on. You know if an seo website says they are performing well, then in fact they are listed at 2 million there are some white lies being told.

I still believe that Alexa is not a worthy tool of measuring non-internet related websites, simply because more people don’t have the toolbar installed than people that do. I did a small test to show these results. I looked at well known www.seomoz.org our website, www.seounique.com and a very popular gadget website in the UK www.firebox.com. In terms of traffic, reach and page views I would have said that Firebox would have been top, followed by Seomoz and last but by no means least my website.

The results clearly show Seomoz miles above the rest, and at the beginning of September Seounique was very close to beating Firebox. Now I’m not going to lie about my traffic, it’s regular and ranges from 5000 unique visits per month down to 1000 per month, it really depends how I promote the site in that particular month. However I can guarantee you that Firebox will almost certainly have three or four times more traffic than I have in a good month at their lowest point. Seomoz is so far ahead because the traffic that flows to their site will be almost all webmaster based.

What’s your final thought on this Matt?

Well my feelings on this subject have slightly changed. I still advise people not to look at Alexa data on non-seo/sem/se websites because it’s still not accurate by any means. However if you are looking to reach the webmasters out there then Alexa should be used and the data collected analyzed.

Creating a link building campaign is a long on-going time consuming process but there are a few simple rules that you should always follow. I have been creating link building campaigns for various clients for years and the basics I used back then to qualify a link still remain good practice to this day.


1. Use www.whois.sc to find out some basic information on a link location, this site is great when looking for dns information.

2. Check the domain age, a lot of people believe that this carry’s no additional “weight” for a link this may or may not be true but I can assure you that have a good “trusted” domain is a good start for finding a quality link location.

3. Check page rank - and before you start crucifying me I still believe the little green bar has some value when deciding where to put a link. People have to start understanding that google has ranked these pages by its very own scoring system, however don’t think for 1 minute that just because a website is PR 7 you will see a positive effect of linking on it.

4. I always create links on relevant websites, look for content that is relevant to your brand or product, it makes sense.

5. Make good use of anchor texts on your links, have around 7-10 good relevant keywords or phrases and stick to them.

6. I always use directories when creating a backlink campaign, just treat the actual page your link will appear on as a separate website and follow all previous steps up to this point.

7. Look at the current backlinks on the proposed website, make sure they have good “trusted” links too.

8. Spread your links over the month, don’t develop 100 one day and 3 the next, a gradual increase is key.

I know this sounds like a silly question but over the last 6 months I’ve seen more and more people in forums and social media sites give people advice which is just plain wrong!

I personally believe that webmasters who know very little or nothing of what seo is are picking up bits of advice from various blog sources and suddenly believing that they know seo. I’ve worked with seo for just over 2 years now so I know I’m no “Guru” but I understand the basics well and my day job is seo for a digital marketing agency in London. I understand that there are hundreds of factors to take into account when developing seo for a website, its not a case of creating 100 strong PR 7 links and waiting for the cash to come in, it takes time and effort.

I feel very strongly when I see “seo” companies selling strategies for £5000 + and in the list of “services” you see “1000 search engine submissions” – alarm bells should be ringing when they have set prices people! A small list below just to look out for when considering creating an seo campaign.

1. The company guarantees a top Google position – this is impossible to guarantee before you even know what the keyword is.
2. A full site analysis – This comes standard, someone that advertises this is obviously trying to fill up a list.
3. No mention of site architecture – site architecture is very important in seo, you don’t want to stop those spiders moving around your site do you?
4. The company says it will only take 30 - 60 days – listen folks seo demands a continuous strategy to be effective, you should have an on going plan and budget set aside.
5. They promise you 5000 links instantly – this is a sure way to get banned from Google, don’t do it, it won’t help you SERPS anyway.
6. They don’t ask for access to your server – they should be looking at the code and source files and be installing some kind of analytics program to monitor traffic.
7. They don’t know what web 2.0 is – if they don’t know what web 2.0 is then move on quickly!
8. They think Google is the only search engine to use – I hear this so many times these days and although I do believe it’s one of the best ways to find out queries its by no means the only search engine that will provide you with good quality traffic – broaden the mind!
9. When “experts” on forums just dismiss your ideas – if you post something you believe to be true, a good seo worker will investigate, test and comment. If you see a so called “expert” putting down everyone’s ideas without consideration they obviously don’t understand that seo is constantly changing and that they will die in this industry.
10. They believe page rank is important in rankings – this is inaccurate, page rank is useful when selling links but in terms of SERP positions it really doesn’t matter.

Well I feel like I’ve had a good rant about this, I could go on forever but I’ll keep it short, well ish anyway!