Search Engine Optimisation » Product Reviews

2011 A Year of SEO Articles in Review

Andy Kinsey — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 12:36:22 +0000

2011 has departed and 2012 has begun. Search Optimisation and Digital Marketing is a fickle niche that is hard to predict, though I did my best a few weeks ago with 18 seo predictions for 2012 and it would appear other SEO’s are in agreement.

So to welcome in the new year I want to take a quick look book at my favourite and your favourite posts from 2011.

My Favourites:

Brand Positioning
One of my pet topics in 2011 was Branding and Brand Marketing. Branding is vitally important regardless of your market and audience, without the best brand and identity you may as will whistle into the wind. This post is about moving your brand for maximum effect for your audience.
BBC Homepage – Redesign of the Year
One of the most controversial posts of the year. I love the redesign but few others seem to … at least if you listen to the few people continually commenting on my blog and the BBC website, and not the huge mass of people who haven’t said anything about it and are probably quite happy with it. I think it is more the comments I like from this post rather than the article itself.
Yell.com Websites a Waste of Space!
This is one of my more ranty posts of 2011, though I must say there was a hell of a lot of agreement on twitter and facebook for the sentiment in the article.
and finally, 25 Awesome Business Card Designs
I loved doing the research for this post, the designs in the post are ones which have inspired my designs both online and offline over the past year or so. I hope you enjoy this post as much as I did.

Most Visited Posts of 2011

The end is nigh for Yellow Pages and Thomson Local

Andy Kinsey — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 09:54:25 +0000

Many of my recent discussions have been about SEO Local Search. This in turn lead to my recent post about best practices when setting up Google Places for your business. But one of the more contentious and rapidly more talked about factors in local search is our lovely friends at the Yellow Pages and Thomson Local.
Dont forget we’ve spoken about yell.com before.

Now before we begin, let me make clear a fair amount of what I am about to say are things that I have done, experienced or had permission from clients to talk about. I will not name those clients (past or present) but suffice to say it is their views I will convey and not just my own.

With local search being a growing market, given Google Places show up in search results more and more, their default mobile search page now has buttons to say “local restaurants” or “local businesses” etc the question may not be is the end now, but rather why they still exist. If the question is to be the latter, the answer is simply money – there are still people who don’t realise they can do more for free than using either the Yellow Pages or Thomson Local. But this post is about the former, outlining why Google Places is different and better than either the Yellow Pages or Thomson Local.

Before we go on, I do want to say that both the Yellow Pages and Thomson Local, as well as Google Places, offer different “things” for different markets – but we in this post are talking about Local Search, not PPC or their websites (as discussed previously, link above). Both of the “Google Competitors” will have something the other doesn’t, for example Thomson Local we know is some how linked with Bing Local Search, but so is yell – and if Bing coping Google search results is anything to go by Google Places will also be being copied to some extent. So lets say it’s a level playing field here … so why should you pay Yellow Pages or Thomson Local for something you can do yourself … for FREE!?

The answer is you shouldn’t.

Both of these companies are known for going through people who make free listings on their respective websites and offering to “enhance” or “guarantee” local search listings. The way more often than not, if you trip them up, they do this is via making you a free listing on Google Places (just as you can yourself) and then giving you a few clicks via PPC. It doesn’t take much to get either party to own up to this. Oh and don’t forget for your buck, they will also put you into their directory, which you can also do for free anyway – if you can stand a fair few phone calls from that company offering you a load of bull.

So I hear you now saying but Yellow Pages and Thomson Local are known to people in the UK. Well yes, they have a physical brand – but did you notice the shrinking of the size of the Yellow Pages over the past 5 years – ask why is this and you will soon see that it’s because no longer are those paper directories the default – ask why they offer you local listings on Google and you will understand that this is why the paper directory is dead, Google is now the default “go to” point for most people looking for a local shop or services.

An example of local results showing up on a search is a search for Piano Lessons in Glossop or Electrical Services in Manchester – and by the way this is probably the most common way of searching for a shop or service in an area … services / shop name IN area name.

The next question to pose is why do the Yellow Pages or Thomson Local claim to have a higher conversion rate? Well the simple fact is they have a smaller audience, it’s a target audience … people go to their sites to look for something specific will click on maybe 2 or 3 links to get what they want and bingo … conversion rates will always be higher here than on a search engine where the results are shown with contextual results – which are actually much better for some searches and what people want. So yes people may want to know what is close to them but they also want to know which is best, which is why Google Places conversions are always increasing as they have reviews of each location – supplied by real people both via Google itself and other websites like trustpilot or freeindex.

Another reason for this claim is of course that they want you to part with a few sheckles, and pay for inclusion. This is also why they are failing, because Google Places and Bing Local Search are actually free to register too, you get verified (which yell don’t do) and everything is free. Yellow Pages and Thomson Local want to make just a few more quid before their game is up … and boy is that time close.

Google Places (and Bing Local Search) offer far superior results to that of the Yellow Pages or Thomson Local, they even take into account what your friend like and don’t like, what others around you have done, are doing or are likely to do … Search engines are far far superior in so many ways… and they are free!

If you want further proof that the Yellow Pages and Thomson Local know they are in trouble, take into account that they no longer simply offer you a local listing on Google, they offer it in a bundle with PPC / adWords, why? well thats because in 2009 they stopped playing the game of charging for this alone, people realised it was free, and they now claim to “guarantee you a listing on Google” … its nothing of the kind – it is simply PPC and nothing else and they charge through the roof for it. Put simply they know the game is up, they have little worth in this rapidly changing world of online media, and with Google putting local search at the centre of their mobile search it really is a matter of time for the rip off merchants that are Yellow Pages and Thomson Local. Don’t get me wrong they may still be ok at “paper” and “ground” marketing in the real world but online and socially they are nothing … oh and just a tip the Royal Mail offer much better real world marketing than these too companies ever could.

Don’t forget you can set up your Google Places listing for free! and here are my 10 steps to success.

Wrist Donuts vs Other Wrist Supports

Andy Kinsey — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 11:56:33 +0000

Around 2 years ago I wrote a post about a product I had just purchased, the Wrist Donut – you can read that review here. Last week I finally admitted that I needed to replace my wrist donuts. So I wanted to update you on the product and tell you a little more about how it beats the gel pad” wrist supports” hands down.

You maybe wondering why if I’ve already wrote a review I am doing it again. The answer, I hope, will become evident in what I am about to say.

The Wrist Donut is a simple, lightweight (about 30g) wrist support which in my opinion is still the best on the market. It wraps around your wrist, like a watch or bracelet though not as snug, and supports your wrist regardless of the position of you arms (or their angle). I know gel supports in theory do this, but when you are like me swapping between machines and laptops all day you don’t want to carry a wrist support around because not all machines have them. These are so light weight that after about 5 minutes you don’t realise they are there – indeed I’ve travelled home with them on before getting odd looks, it was only when Sarah told me i had them on I cringed somewhat.

So other than that is there a difference? Yes, at least to me there is.

A while ago I was given the gel pads, most offices use them – they are like part of the stable diet when you are doing a health and safety assessment for RSI (I am sure some people carry them around for this need). Anyway it was ok for a few weeks, then my RSI flared again, this hadn’t happened properly since I first bought and used my wrist donuts. So erm, well I stopped using the gel pads, things began to get better but I am still waiting to get back to the stage I was at months and months ago. So the difference to me at least, is that the wrist donuts allow myself to have the perfect support for my work in moving around, where as perhaps if you were at one desk or machine gel pads could be better? what do you think?

So why am I replacing my wrist donuts if I love them so much?

Well after 2 years, as with all things, they were looking tired and some of the cushioning had gone. But they were still in working order. Anyway, recently I took to chewing on them when in meetings, not only did it look a little off putting to others in the meeting but it made holes in the fabric of my wrist donuts. *cries* – so after 2 years I decided to replace my donuts, with more donuts – the only difference I went for a green fabric and not blue.

Anything else impress me about this RSI Busting donut?

Yes! 2 years ago I paid £10 for a donut, today the price is just 20p more! How is that for awesomeness. The company who make the wrist donuts (MA Design) are truely great too, I’ve spoken to them a few times over the past two years and they really do a great job. Customer service is awesome as is recognised by their customer feedback on Amazon and their own website.

This is a simple device, it’s lightweight and ultimately its amazing. So don’t buy each computer or machine / device 2 new gel pads! Buy each person some Wrist Donuts, prevent RSI and be awesome!

25+ Awesome Business Card Designs

Andy Kinsey — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 17:10:43 +0000

Thanks to everyone who sent in pictures of business cards, most of which aren’t their own! Below are just a few of those sent in, lots featured elsewhere on the net and gathered with kind permission, but this also means the quality and sizes differ – sorry about that.

If you want to submit a business card to be featured here tweet it to @andykinsey

In the interests of fairness and honesty I’ve not posted my own designs here, but you can view my business card designs here.

If you would like to be included in this list of business cards, or you know of a card that should be here – tweet @andykinsey

Yell.com Websites – A Waste of Space!

Andy Kinsey — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 16:52:34 +0000

Website Design is an art form and a science, get the mixture just right and you end up with a stupidly amazing website. Today I want to talk a bit about Yell.com Websites and why no small business should ever have one. Really, NEVER EVER EVER!

Many of you know that I, Andy Kinsey, am a website designer alongside being an internet marketer. One of my pet hates over the past few years has been Yell.com, the online wing of the Yellow Pages. In specific this is a hate of the websites they create, for businesses of all sizes but mainly they pry on small businesses, which are a waste of money and certainly not good for that business.

I began designing websites in 2005, since then I’ve lost many potential clients to the jaws at Yell.com. This narks me off, especially when the service they offer is crudy, they sell by pressuring potential clients and their prices are simply extortionate for what is on offer. So, in todays post I want to tell you a few things about Yell.com and the websites they design for small businesses.

Do they get found?
The short answer is not really. Yell.com websites have a habbit of not being found on the first few search results pages. Also, ask yourself how many people use Yell.com to search for a business online, the answer isn’t many – most people use Google or Bing!
Oh and despite what they may claim, Yell.com nor anyone else has a “special relationship” with Google, its a load of hoot!
Are they well designed?
Again, No. Almost all of the websites rolled out by the, so called, Designers at Yell.com are templates – most look exactly the same minus a few colour changes. To be asked to pay huge amounts of cash for this kind of service is ridiculous. Yell.com may have a big name, a big reputation as the Yellow Pages but they certainly don’t have a big reputation for good design or customer service at Yell.com
Are they well coded?
Once again, No. Sites from Yell.com are pretty much all the same, crap when it comes to coding. Unless maybe you get lucky and don’t have a template… but this means you’ve probably paid thousands of pounds … but other than a tatty website I doubt you’d get very much for your pennies. Bad coding means unreliable behaviour in web browsers and certainly unreliable search results.
Website Tailored to the Business?
Erm, No. Yell.com like many other companies that cold call people who sign up for their Free Basic Listing upselling them don’t ever find out enough detail from their clients. Their websites are at best generic and at worst … well suffice to say if the websites they “show off” on their website aren’t with Yell.com any more, it tells its own story.
What about content?
Well a quick sweep through businesses in the same industry will find the same content reworded, bad enough. Take a look at the keywords and key phrases they target and they are ALWAYS the same for an industry. They claim to research your competitors, but they don’t they copy your competitors who use Yell websites. It’s duplicate content and your website will suffer for it.
But Yell.com know what they are talking about?
Do they? mmm No. Yell.com like many other companies who sell websites again via cold calling are paying their staff on a commission basis. This is why when you get a phone call you are told you must have a website that does this and we can offer it to you for this price. If you say No, they ask to call back or don’t but call back anyway, they operate sly selling tactics at the best of times – simply remember the person on the phone is a salesman and knows nothing about website design.
They once called me to ask if as a website designer I needed a new website, they went on for half an hour (I wasted their time) and I tripped them up around 22 times by asking simple questions – they lied multiple times and for some simple things like Meta Tags they knew nothing at all… so for calling their sales people experts Yell.com have a lot to learn.
Good Value for Money?
Erm, well you can make your own mind up from the above and this little bit of information. I offer websites to small businesses from just £95. This includes basic SEO from day one, including search engine submission, adding of Google Local / Places entry and more. Oh and you get complete access to all the code and content, you can update it when you want see website analytics when you want – and I’ll never cold call you. So are Yell.com websites value for money? you tell me.

SEO Books for Website Owners

Andy Kinsey — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 09:44:56 +0000

Want to learn how to optimise your website, quickly and easily? The books in this article offer step by step guides to internet marketing for novices. They are all available in the UK from Amazon and available on the Amazon Kindle.

A while back I created a page called Recommended Reading, basically a list of books which I had read, got something from and importantly enjoyed. It originally covered just Marketing, Branding and SEO but soon became a list of all kinds of business books.

This post is an addition to those in the recommended reading list of books. As well as this post I will be doing a book or tool review each month, recommending you either give it a try or give it a wide berth!

If you’ve an idea of a book or tool I should review leave a comment.

Top SEO Books

The Art of SEO (Eric Enge)
Print Price £18.01 – Kindle Price £17.26
A book that takes a look at the theory behind a website, what makes one great and how search engine optimisation works.
SEO for Dummies (Peter Kent)
Print Price £12.82 – Kindle Price £11.54
A “quick start” guide to internet marketing.
Search Engine Optimisation: An Hour a Day (Jennifer Grappone)
Print Price £11.80 – Kindle Price £10.62
A best selling guide to internet marketing.
Get to the Top on Google: Tips and Techniques (David Viney)
Print Price £8.66 – Kindle Price £8.23
A guide that covers the basics and some more advanced ideas.
50 Ways to Make Google Love Your Website (Steve Johnston)
Print Price £5.70 – Kindle Price £3.71
A step-by-step guide on how to maximise your Google ranking.

Note: I’ve tried to make sure each book above is available on the Amazon Kindle as well as in print to purchase from shops in the UK. Links below are all to Amazon, if you purchase via a link I get a few penny’s, these go towards keeping this article site up and running – for free. Thanks.

A Touch of Google Design and Content Management

Andy Kinsey — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 18:10:02 +0000

Last week Google rolled out it’s update of the GMail homepage. The changes on the homepage are fairly simple, fresh icons, resizing of some text and plenty of rewording (which the GMail blog booms saves over 250 words!). With this roll out also came other GMail changes, most notably the GMail logo has been refreshed, it looks brighter and the “by Google” declaration is now on the right.

Source: Google Blog

All of these changes to me sniff amazingly of one Marissa Myers, Vice President of geographic and local services at Google. Marissa is known to be the gatekeeper of design and wording of lots of Google tools, most notably before her recent move to VP of local she held the keys to the Google Homepage where she was very proud to always be snipping words and keeping the interface clean… It’s thanks to her that Google doesn’t look horrible like MSN/Bing and Yahoo!.

With the GMail homepage update also came lots more updates from Google Mail, including the amazing Priority Inbox … which I must say is a sublime tool given that it in essence is just another label you are adding and it puts that label at the top of you inbox … I wonder why this was never thought of before google? so simple yet so useful.

Another big roll out has been the “Google Preview”, you will see a little magnifying glass next to your searches, click it initially and you will see a preview for that result. After that you will see it when you hover any result for that search and there after until you close your window and then you need to click the icon again. … will this change how you search, probably not, but it is useful as it highlights your search within the text of a page and it does help us webmasters a little in that we can to an extent see some more of what Google see’s on the websites.

SEO Plugins for WordPress

Andy Kinsey — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 14:48:50 +0000

WordPress is one of the most powerful blogging platforms in the world, and of course WP is also the most commonly used open source blogging tool in the world. Considering this it will be no surprise that I know many people who use the system (I help bug fix and build templates for some of them), and also it is no surprise that I get bombarded with questions about the system. The most common of which is, What plugins can I use to help SEO on my wordpress blog?

Well, given there are a huge number of so called SEO plugins for wordpress this isn’t the easiest question to answer. Having played around with wordpress for several years now and become something of a WP geek I have of course played with many SEO plugins. However, As the title of this post suggests I do have a number of favourite plugins to use, and they are listed below

All In One SEO
This plugin is by far and away my favourite, not only is it simple to use and install but it is also customisable in the key areas that matters. Along with several other plugins by the great
Micheal Torbert All in One is an utterly superb tool that I advise all wordpress users to implement. – Get the Plugin

Google XML Sitemap Generator
This plugin creates (and updates) a Google XML sitemap, pings various services (including Bing, Ask & Yahoo), allowing for your blog/website to be better indexed by search engines. This tool is created by another great wordpress plugin developer Arne Brachold. – Get the Plugin.

Similar Posts
This plugin compares your posts, and creates a list of what it considers to be the most related or relevant similar posts – this can then be outputted with your posts and in your feed. This is a valuable internal linking mechanism, developed by Mr Rob Marsh. – Get the Plugin

WordTwit
This plugin generates a tweet output direct from wordpress, and also includes bit.ly and Google (analytics) Urchin integration. This is a light weight tool and works amazingly well – so much better than many of the bulkier plugins I’ve seen and played with. WordTwit was developed by BraveNewCode. – Get the Plugin

5 Top Web Design Resources

Andy Kinsey — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 11:18:15 +0000

Now there are so so many resources out there, but I want to share my top 5 online resources for web designers, developers and website owners.

Articles & Blog Resources

1 – Smashing Magazine
These guys are simply superb, renowned for the “top ten” lists they role out on a regular basis and of course the experts whom right for the blog, Smashing Mag is always worth a read. Add to this recently they added the Smashing Network of blogs, so now it’s not just Smashing Mag updates you get but also those from other related blogs in the network (only the best blogs). – @smashingmag

2 – Boagworld
Although based around a world famous podcast, the Boagworld website also offers some amazing articles from designers, developer and marketers (including myself) – On top of that you get to see paul boag (the father of web design) rant a little about what is often a nothing subject, but it brings a new non-techie angle which is good. Also the site offers a fairly active forum where all sorts of discussion go on from design discussion to how something works in php. Boagworld is for website owners & recently Paul released “the website owners manual” – a superb reference guide if you have anything to do with a website. – @boagworld

3 – Think Vitamin
From the guys and gals at Carsonified, Think Vitamin is a superb resource for all kinds of things. With topics including business, marketing, design, development, mobile and web apps there is something for everyone here. Also with Think Vitamin radio you can consume materials on the go. The guys at Carsonified also arrange a number of great conferences each year including various future of events. – @carsonified

4 – 37signals
This is a resource I’ve only just began reading on a regular basis, but it’s well worth spending a few minutes taking a look here each week to see if there is anything of relevance to you. 37signals are all about productivity and making things work properly, they are the makers of the now infamous BaseCamp software and amazing web designers working with clients like threadless. – @37signals

5 – A List Apart
This is primarily a designer and developer blog, it isn’t in any way formed for a website owner (it’s far too techie). However, if you are a website designer or developer I seriously advise you subscribe to the RSS and twitter feed, some big names post here and it’s superb. – @alistapart

Top Web Related Tweeters

Here are all the webby type people i suggest you follow if you have anything to do with the internet. Not all will be relevant to everyone but they all have something great to offer!

@ImpressiveWebs @danoliver @kirstyburgoine @the_gman @JamieKnight @aral @myinkblog @RellyAB @design365 @skrug @sambrown @benmcfc

It’s all about you!

This list has been formed and outed for you, because I was asked by a fellow designer for my list (and here it is), but now I want to go a step further and want your ideas! so tweet me @andykinsey the resource you favour using, from blogs to css galleries to books, let me know. – Or leave a comment.

TOP 5 SEO TOOLS

Andy Kinsey — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 12:00:34 +0000

For a while I’ve considered posting the tools I use for various pieces of SEO from a general overview to getting information in more detail to finding out just how search engines see our site and how often a site is crawled. But I’ve pretty much always wrote the post and deleted it because the tools an SEO uses are pretty much his trade and he holds them a guarded secret. (I apologise for relating to SEO’s in a male term its just easier for me and not meant in any sexist manner). So I’ve always refrained from posting any of the tools I use in any post. – Though I am happy to share them face to face and over twitter most of the time it would appear.

Anyway, today I want to share a number of tools I use or used to use for SEO. Most of these are of former use as I’ve found the tool within another tool or there is an easier or better tool available, but that doesn’t take away from the nature of these being quite amazing SEO tools – it just means it may take you a little longer to realise various SEO factors. These tools are aimed at website owners in the main, however the tools can be used by anyone and are used within the Internet Marketing industry. Best bit of all is these are all free!

SEO Tools for Website Owners

Website Grader

Website Grader – 5 STAR
This tool is constantly updated an includes various factors such as number of inbound links, number of indexed pages, date of last crawl, checks meta tags, image alt tags, heading tags, gives advice on various other factors and one of its best features it allows you to compare your site to others easily. – One of the biggest draws for website owners is there is no coding involved at all. – Website Grader then gives you a total score based on your site and external factors including related twitter accounts, a related blog (if your site isn’t one) & your alexa ranking.

Also checkout these from the same company: twitter grader, facebook grader, book grader & press release grader.

Google Tools

Google Webmaster Tools – 4 STAR
GWT rates as 4 star and not the top of the pops because of one factor, you need to have some technical knowledge (you either add a line of code to your site or upload a file via ftp) so this tool maybe out of reach of some website owners. Once you’ve verified your domain by these means you can start to see various factors surrounding your site (if your site is new it can take a few weeks or months for anything to show up whilst data is collected) GWT lets you see where your ranking for keywords and phrases, shows your how important these terms on your site appear to google, your crawl rate & set the rate of crawl, your website targeting market (eg UK), number of links not just to your site but each page of the site, allows you to see http and crawl errors, submit sitemap(s), check for malware, check speed of your site and also allows you to fetch as googlebot (a nice tool). So although there is some messing around and waiting this bunch of tools is top notch. Also Google release articles on a regular basis about how search engine optimisation can work and what google are doing at the moment (and don’t forget the youtube webmaster channel from google!).

IWebTools

IWebTools – 3 STAR
This is a set of tools and is ranked in a lower manner as unless your paying you don’t get them bunched together nor are you able to store the data. However tools such as pagerank checker, link popularity, pagerank predictions, multirank checking, speed testing and ping testing there are some nice tools here so IWebTools is really worth a look, right after you’ve seen the other stuff.

SEO Chat

SEOChat Tools – 2STAR
Much like IWebTools but a much larger list of them, my problem with this site is that its not 100% reliable in results it gives (indeed some can appear random) and they are not all strictly SEO factors so you can begin to waster your time here – by the time I suggest this site you should have used the 3 above and not need to see repeat information like this site can give (though its always nice to check things twice)- I advise you use this for double checking things only, thats SEOChat.

SEOMOZ

SeoMoz.Org – 1 STAR
This is one of the most used SEO tools around the web, it is ranked very low in my working because of its you must pay &/or register before certain tools are available and even then they aren’t the most intuitive of things. There are a series of free tools offers by SEOMoz but nothing we’ve not seen in the above, even the paid stuff isn’t much different to the above – my advice is use the free stuff and search for a free version of the other things they ask you to pay for. Another great thing which i think is a better resource than these tools is the blog posts and the forum this site offers.

Have Your Say:

Let SEOAndy know what tools you use by commenting below

Also let us know what you’d like to see in our NEW SEO Book by tweeting with #seoandybook – helping us build a practical seo book.