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Is your SEO Company Damaging your Backlink Profile? Tips for 2012

Published: January 10th, 2012

Top five tips for 2012 to avoid having your domain blacklisted

We all know in SEO that links are a major part of SEO and that Social Media plays an important part of this as ‘Social Noise’ is treated as links by Google. However, do you know exactly what your SEO company is doing with your money every month? Do they understand modern SEO techniques or are they leading you blindly down the Google penalty path?

Over the past 6 months, we have seen a number of businesses contact us looking for a new SEO company to help recover websites which were hit by Panda during 2011. Unfortunately, a significant amount of these sites were suffering from Google Penalties for their primary keywords that will take years of hard work to resolve.

Five Tips to avoid Google Penalties in 2012. Is your link profile safe?

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Sleeping on the streets of Leeds for Simon on the Streets 2011 #iamwithsimon

Published: September 30th, 2011

Last night I was lucky enough to take part in the 2011 Simon on the Streets sponsored sleep out in aid of the homeless in Yorkshire. I must admit as the day grew nearer, I started to become slightly apprehensive about what to expect.

Me waiting for people to arrive (slightly apprehensive) Photo taken by Chris Taylor

I have often walked the streets of Leeds at night totally unaware of the silent population sleeping in doorways, under bridges and down alleyways.
Now was the time to learn more about the great work done by Simon on the Streets and discover how they really do help change lives.

Photo taken by Ben Brady with kind permission from Residence Six serviced apartments in the old Post Office building

The evening commenced in city square, opposite the old post office, at 9:30pm and soon turned in to a large gathering of genuinely friendly, bubbly people eager to break last year’s fund raising total.

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Blueclaw is trying to raise £500 for Simon on the Streets, can you help us meet our target?

Published: September 9th, 2011

On the night of September 29th, some of the Blueclaw SEO team are doing their bit for charity and will be sleeping on the streets of Leeds for ‘Simon on the streets’. Simon on the streets is a charity that aims to help those who don’t have anywhere to live, especially those with sleeping issues who cannot get access to other services. In a city where there could be hundreds of homeless people it’s really important to us to do our bit and try and make a difference to these people’s lives.

Do you want to get involved?

If so it’s not too late to sign up at www.simononthestreets.co.uk or if you don’t fancy that why not drop us a few quid on our just giving account.

A agency called McGrath O’Toole has been working on a rebranding campaign for the charity and is currently in the process of launching a campaign to raise awareness about the charity. A team of street artists have been working on some installations in Leeds city. They have managed to create 4 x #iamwithsimon installations, without getting in trouble (but that could be short lived) so they need your help quickly!

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Top 5 SEO Audit Checks for an SME

Published: August 8th, 2011

Self-auditing is one of those tasks which always gets over looked when it comes to SMEs. Unlike other types of audits web sites often get over looked when it comes to internal audits. In the same way you would audit stock, computers, stationary etc… It’s imperative that you audit a web site at least twice a year.

When it comes to SMEs it’s understandable that this isn’t likely to happen unless someone schedules it in, or buys in external help from an SEO company. What’s amazing is the number of larger companies or institutions which never even think of it. Even if you site is doing well there is no reason why it couldn’t do better! Even if the company has their own SEO team sometimes a fresh pair of eyes is worth the investment.

Here is my list of the top five onsite items to audit

1. Update your Google Analytics tracking code

Let’s face it most companies use this as it’s free. If you’re using other Analytics software like Omniture then this doesn’t concern you obviously. BUT if you are using Google Analytics then make sure that you are using the newest version which tracks some Social Media Metrics.

Social Metrics are very important for modern SEO, ensuring it’s tracked is your first step to increasing your social profile.

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Why it’s important to be a good guy in the SEO industry

Published: July 25th, 2011

The SEO industry as a whole is changing almost on a daily basis and I’m not just talking about search metrics!

Whilst I have not been in the SEO industry as long as many of my peers I have certainly noticed a few changes over the past few years. When I first started in SEO there seemed to be an unwritten code within SEO-ers that you don’t ‘tell on people’. Ok you might do things to sabotage the competition, for example there was Google bowling, firing porn backlinks at the competition and more recently rainbow tables. But let’s take all that out of the equation as this all very black hat SEO.

In the past if someone were to implement an SEO strategy which impacted on your SERP rankings then you would merely add it to your strategy rather than try to take them down. I know what you’re thinking ‘where’s the fun in that’. The thing is, if you spend your time attacking an individual website SEO strategy, you could be investing that time making your own natural search presence stronger. So in a competitive sector it is pretty pointless implementing anti SEO tactics on rivals. Unless money is of cause no option.

‘All’s fair in love and war’, which let’s face it SEO is?

Over the years I have found 1000s of dodgy things being done by the competition and although sometimes it has driven me wild I’ve always come back to the same conclusion. Good for them!

I have found large Russian hubs, which to this day I still have no idea how many people they must have had employed to produce that amount of spam.

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