Like I said at the very start learning the ropes of SEO isn’t that easy. I’m still constantly reading all those search engine blogs and keep gaining quality advice from those around me.

The thing I love about working here is the variation that you get, in other words no one day is the same.

I set a little challenge for myself to target a keyword and see how well I could get it to rank in the SERPS.

Purely experimental and to see what happened:

SEO Yorkshire

Current search results:

SEO Yorkshire

A combination of my rather novice efforts at Web Design Yorkshire and the Internet Marketing blog I started all helped with the process.

Now ranks at position 3,4,5,6 - OK it’s not the most competitive keyword but for me at least it’s a start. Each day you learn something different, at least that’s the aim.

Question is what to do with it now ? Suggestions please.

Dave thinks the whole exercise is somewhat ‘girly’ but recognises the valued learning experience.

Already though i’m finding people with valuable experience are willing to help you more and more and not just keep information to themselves.

Hat tips to a fountain of knowledge for search engine optimisation known as UK Gimp.

Dan Horton

I was just reading Hitwise’s Blog, and was kinda amazed how much the travel sector dominated the the cheap searches, so off I went to where I get my keywords from to check it out, I honestly thought cheap xxxx insurance would have played a bigger part, and I was a little disappointed in Wordze this time around.

Hitwise off their Blog
1 Cheap Flights
2 Cheap Airfares
3 Super Cheap Auto
4 Cheap flights nz
5 Super Cheap
6 cheap flights to australia
7 Super cheap computers
8 cheap flights
9 cheap seats
10 cheap air fares

Keyword Discovery Global ( -Drugs Names)
1 cheap tickets
2 cheap flights
3 cheap airline tickets
4 cheap airfare
5 cheap loan
6 cheap auto insuranc
7 cheap hotels
8 cheap car insurance
9 cheap international airfare
10 cheap ticket

Keyword Discovery UK ( nothing removed)
1 cheap flights
2 cheap holidays
3 cheap car insurance
4 cheap laptops
5 cheap flight
6 cheap travel insurance
7 cheap holiday
8 cheap mobile phones
9 cheap flights to cyprus
10 cheap cars

wordze (hmmm not too happy here)
1 cheap flights
2 break cheap disneyland paris
3 cheap dvd r
4 airport cheap manchester parking
5 ball cheap golf
6 cheap durham flight raleigh
7 cheap flight uganda
8 8310 cheap nokia
9 cheap compact flash
10 airport car cheap hire malaga

wordtracker
1 cheap tickets
2 cheap airline tickets
3 cheap flights
4 cheap hotels
5 cheap airfare
6 cheap flights paris
7 cheap gas
8 cheap airfares
9 cheap travel
10 cheap flights sydney

Msn Adcenter ( removed drugs )
1 cheap tickets
2 cheap flights
3 cheap hotels
4 cheap airfare
5 cheap cigarettes
6 cheap hotel
7 cheap ticket
8 cheap cruises
9 cheap airfares
10 cheap holidays

Google Adwords
1 cheap flights
2 cheap hotels
3 cheap accommodation
4 cheap air flights
5 cheap air tickets
6 cheap airfare
7 cheap airfares
8 cheap airline
9 cheap airline flights
10 cheap airline ticket

if anything to me it just confirmed again to me that keyword research need to be spread across my points of reference.

DaveN

There’s been many blog about how laborious link building can be.
Personally, the essential drilling down of websites to explore their levels of authority and deem if they are a viable linking partner I find interesting.

You could literally spend a lifetime building links and still have a feeling in the back of your mind as to how these links are helping with your sites promotion.

In an age were email spam is rife and your filtered inbox is hotter than the inside of a dragon’s nasal passage what’s the most polite and effective way to obtain links?

I’ve recently had a link request from a guy saying:

” Hi there,
My name is*******, I’m Development Manager for *******(http://www.******) I’ve been digging around a few websites over the past few days and I found your site ****** I’ve had a quick look around and I like what you’re saying. I was wondering if you might consider visiting our site and linking to us. (If you like what you see? Here’s the link: *******)

If you’re interested, it would be really great if you could let me know. If it doesn’t seem like your cup of tea (coffee, herbal beverage) you can just send me an email back with “NO” in the subject line and I won’t harass you again :)

Thanks for your time!

Kind Regards “

Now I kind of like this persons approach, friendly, unique and I’m unlikely to just delete the email.
What do you all consider the best approach for gaining links, well asking for them? How would you go about it?
Dan Horton

September 14/15th

Hotel : Britannia Hotel Manchester city centre -
Friday £69 for b&b single, Sat £89 for b&b single
Friday £70 for b&b double, Sat £105 for b&b double.

I was chatting with Peter over at search engine serious about the fact we hadn’t had a piss up for awhile, he suggested that we should have a get together, maybe in Manchester, and so if you want to meet like minded Seo type people, then come along, I travel all over the world speaking at conferences and I get a great deal from that, but I get more personally from sitting in a bar and chatting, and good example was a few years back, I sat in a bar and we chatted about adsense and best place to place the ads, coloured links etc, someone made a joke some data they had, in an hour a plan was made and in 2 months I made 28,000 usd in adsense lol… you can’t knock that ..

so if you fancy a pint with ME, I will see you in Manchester.. Peter has posted up room rates and the like.

If you are coming just leaving a comment .. Peter’s Blog

DaveN

It Seem that Sean over at antezeta agrees with my rant on alexa the other night on stirkepoint, so here is his Rant

Dave,

I really liked your rant on Alexa on yesterday’s Strike Point podcast.
On one side, as Mikkel noted, Internet professionals thirst for publicly available Internet data. Yet afaik, none of the currently available data has any statistical validity. Even when we know better, as I’m sure Mikkel does, we fall for the siren song of dodgy numbers to do our benchmarking - numbers that in most cases cannot be trusted.

In the Italian market, Alexa’s data is often cited to say one site is more popular than another (which it is after all the company’s employees have installed the Alexa for IE toolbar) and, as with many things in Italy, since it comes from America, it must be right.

Right up there with my own Alexa pet peeve is the Nielsen//NetRatings nonsense. In the Italian market NN samples 0.038% of the Italian population - a small detail that never appears in their ever so precise sounding press releases.

I wouldn’t care so much if my customers and potential customers didn’t take this stuff so seriously.

After the n-esimo (umteempth?) explanation, I finally put pen to paper, or html as the case might be:

Part I: “Web statistics for internet market research: pick a number, any number”

http://www.antezeta.com/web-analytics/web-statistics.html

Part II: The suppliers (or liars?)

http://www.antezeta.com/web-analytics/web-statistics-suppliers.html

__________

Sean, I Agree Totally dude
DaveN