Cornwall SEO

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SEO Discussion

Which is the Best UK SEO Company?

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It’s an interesting question which people ask a lot.

However, the expert will tell you that there isn’t an absolute answer, the answer is relative. In other words, it depends.

The number of factors which you should consider when deciding which is the best SEO company are many and what you should really be asking is not which is the best, but which is the best for you?

For example:

How much is your budget?
What specific goals do you want to achieve?
What are your businesses resources?
Do you have a current SEO strategy?
What is your overall online marketing strategy?
Do you prefer a local company which can give face to face time?
What level of reporting do you require from the SEO company?
Do you have any in-house SEO or web design experience?
Do you need the same SEO agency to also be able to implement your social media strategy?
Do you need an SEO agency who has knowledge of Local search?
Is your website going to be pulling data from a database and deploying data dynamically?
Do you need the agency to provide in-house training?
Would you require Adwords expertise?
Are you comfortable with a “work from the bedroom-seo-ninja-mercenary-assassin”, who may laugh in your face when you explain you don’t know what .htaccess is, or do you need an agency with a pot plant in the corner and a fit blonde with very white teeth on reception and generic pictures on the wall bought from B & Q?
Do you need an SEO company that will not only get you ranked in Google but will understand you business and help you develop a customer conversion strategy that will increase your profit.
Do you need a link building service rather than a general seo agency?
Do you have your own access to writers or do you want to outsource your writing to the agency?

And I could probably go on and on. But you probably get the picture. An expert in the field will instantly know which SEO company will suit you. The answer to “Which is the best UK SEO company?” Is there isn’t one, it’s the wrong question to ask.

“Which is the best UK SEO company for my business?”, however, is a better question.

Although even that needs to be qualified. In my experience no two seo agencies offer the same type of service. You could hire an independent expert to find the best for you, but how could you really know they would not be biased?

The reality is, only an expert can truly spot another expert, which means you must go on other indicators.

The best way to find a great SEO service provider is through personal recommendations rather than asking Google.

But I’m sure you already know that.

Is Blog Commenting Useless for SEO

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The difference between an SEO who has tested commenting on blogs and one who hasn’t is that the one who hasn’t says it doesn’t work and the one who has keeps quiets about it and keeps commenting.

As an SEO it also marks you out as to whether they are in the Premier League or still slugging it out for the pub team.

Some SEO “experts” will see say, “nofollow”, doesn’t pass juice. End of.

This is a mistake.

A blog comment is an advert, it is a branding tool, it will add to the sum of how people perceive you. How people perceive you has a direct impact on whether they will link to you.

For example, when SEO “experts” say blog commenting is useless, my perception of their skill as an SEO is further informed.

It’s well known that blogs and their comments get scraped and nofollow removed.

A visible link means that a human can visit the site and drop a dofollow if they like what they see.

Blog owners tend to check out the links left in the blog comments, which means you can get very important bloggers to come to your site.

A blog comment can demonstrate your skill in an area and make people go, “ooohhhhhh, she’s good.”

If blog spamming did not work, do you really think it would still be happening? What’s interesting about the nofollow that was introduced to blogs to stop spamming is that it hasn’t done anything to stop it.

Also, even when the link was dofollow and SEO’s would look at a blog and say, “but it’s not a real website”

Does this mean that you should go out and leave “Great post”, in the comments of as many blogs as you can find. No, because there is a way to blog comment and there is a way to not.

Blog commenting is a tool in the tool box, brought out for specific tasks and for specific reasons. I’m not not going to give you a step by step guide of how to do it as you probably have a massive brain (you’re reading this blog) and have worked it out on your own by now.

However, I am always willing to listen to the other side of the argument and so if you have data on to show that blog commenting is useless I would love to hear it.

One of the problems of course is that it can be really boring if you hae no opinion and that outsourcing it can lower the quality.

It’s tricky, which means if you hit the sweet spot there are few others creaming it.

Ultimate Guide to using Quora for SEO Ranking on Google

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I don’t like Quora.

I didn’t get to invest in it or create it.

Quora is going to succeed.

But, I am not going to be adding to its database, unless it’s to do a bit of reputation management for clients.

Also, if lots of places start scraping it, it may be worth dropping a link, even if it is nofollow.

There are going to be specific advantages to using Quora, however it’s not going to be what the site owners originally intended. If you are in the business of getting people to go to your website to buy stuff or you have clients who need people to go to their website to buy stuff, I would take a very close interest in Quora.

Why?

Because it’s going to get eyeballs, and it looks like it is going to crush Yahoo answers and those SEO mercenary, Ninja assassins are already knee deep in Yahoo answers gore, getting websites to rank.

So, expect an e-book to pop up entitled, The Ultimate Guide to Using Quora to rank in Google. Expect to pay $47. But, not from me, I would never give away such great info. Only my paying clients get the good stuff 😉

My advice, open an account at Quora, have a little play. Do a few tests. See if you can rank for a keyword.

But don’t use it to throw up tons of original, interesting content. Have you any idea how much you are worth an hour?

Note: Apologies for the use of “Ultimate”. I should be ashamed.

Note 2: This did start as a comment at Quora when I thought, “Don’t be a Numpty!”

Note 3: If you secretly share your SEO Quora tip with me, I will secretly share that I have back at you.

How Can I Spam Quora?

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This is the question that in my Twitter feed every SEO is thinking, but none are asking. A search for this on Quora leads to How will Quora fight spam. Hmmm, doesn’t really answer the question does it.

I for one will not be spamming Quora, I will simply include a link to a website that will be beneficial to my bank balance and that of my clients. Because as we know, it’s wrong to use Web 2.0 properties for personal gain.

Come, let us sit round the camp fire and sing praises to humanity.

Update: From the Quoara page on spam.

We have a bunch of ideas but we’re not really sure yet; right now, everyone in the system is pretty good, and so it’s hard to really tell where the abuse will come from.

Make my marshmallow nice and toasty.

I’m thinking that the naive, techno hippy quotient may be a little on the high side and they need to find the most evil, badass black hat SEO and get him on the team now. It will be their most valuable hire ever.

Surely they must be aware of what is out there?

Why No SEO in Cornwall?

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A lot of people ask me if I do seo in Cornwall. Which is a fair question, the site is after all called Cornwall SEO.

When I first started offering SEO services I quickly realised my skills were not best spent in the local market, or even in a more National market. It quickly became apparent that the key to helping a client market their website was to build links. If your website is small and local there is no need to hire an seo professional as long as you do the following.

  • Research your keywords
  • Stick keywords in title tags
  • Produce as many quality pages that reflect the context of the site as possible.
  • Grab as many links as possible, making sure the anchor text reflects the context of the site.
  • Make sure you follow the Google Guidelines

And that should sort you out.

However, if you are operating in a competitive sector and you don’t simply want to rank for “St. Ives chocolate”, or you’re pulling your web pages from a large dbase, or you have a shopping system with thousands of products, or you are a large company operating in a large pond, then you don’t just want a regular SEO. You need an uber seo.

You need an SEO who kicks serious ass and who can take down the big boys.

I know what you’re thinking, is he leading us to a sales pitch?

Nope, although maybe I should.

The point is, there are many different types of seo professional for many needs. If you want me to recommend one I will be glad to and depending on your needs I will be able to send you to the right one.

I focus on linkbuilding, or more accurately, buzz marketing. I use techniques like social media marketing and linkbaiting to create buzz about your website. Which is only useful for a select bunch of web properties.

If you want to know more, email me at lyndon at cornwallseo.com

See, I did get that sales pitch in after all.

12 Skills of the Rand

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When I read the The 12 Skills That Have Served Me Best in My SEO Career I immediately thought, “good stuff, must twitter”.

Wrong, wrong wrong.

Posting on my blog helps by:

  • Building my blog
  • Giving SEOmoz a link that is better than the link from twitter
  • Reaching people who do not Twitter
  • Avoiding overlap as other people will tweet
  • Comments become part of this blog and not twitter

If you want to read my words you are going to have to read them here. If I twitter it, all I get is a bunch of retweets by people who are too ADD to read the article and to help Twitter build its business.

Which makes me think of another headline for this article, “Why I wont Tweet Rand Fishkin”. I will use that on the tweet to announce the post. It has lots of elements of a great headline, which I may deconstruct in a later post.

I recommend the article to anyone who needs a blueprint to being a great seo.