The lovely Richard Gregory (CEO of Lattitude) presented the category and gave me my award (below), I had to concentrate to keep my mouth closed and not look like a gaping nutter.

I did however do an acceptance speech (don’t know why its called that, it’s not like I would go: no thanks not accepted). As I wasn’t prepared for it, I accidentally swore, snort laughed (I do that when I’m nervous) and bla bla’d like it was no ones business. All around classy speech basically. Although I have had a few weird remarks about my “personality” I would like to point out I don’t think ‘Search Personality of the Year’ doesn’t literally refer to someones personality, I would never have won based on that (I refer back to snort laughing and bla bla).

The official description of the category ‘Search Personality of the Year’ on the Search Awards website is: “Recognition of a talented and inspiring practitioner who has revolutionized the UK search industry” and not “Recognition for getting people laughing at conferences and seminars near you”, although that would be pretty good too, like an ‘SEO Stand Up’. Although I do seem to recall the only people ever laughing at my jokes are Beccy Weeks and Sam (Ciaran isn’t there yet) so maybe a future in SEO Stand Up is not for me.

I did however (finally) get my hands on the entry that Sam wrote for entering me into the awards and that got me all “Halle Berry”. I would like to share parts of the entry with you (seriously Sam deserves a prize for the entry):

“Lisa’s main objective within and outside of the SEO Industry has always had a focus of transparency, leading by example she shares her knowledge willingly and without hesitation. She is passionate about SEO and works hard towards the objective of improving the SEO industry. SEO is not an exact science and there are a lot of opinions within the industry so separating what is good honest SEO advice to bad practise and potentially harmful to a business is key for Lisa. Having started her own agency, Lisa faced the difficulty of being taken seriously and gaining respect from prospective clients because of their previous experiences with SEO agencies that didn’t deliver. She overcame this by educating and building a relationship based on trust, honesty and transparency. Lisa is passionate about the industry not being smeared by the dodgy tactics that some agencies still employ. As a mother of 2 (of which one was born last year) she juggles, parenting, running an agency, blogging and still have the energy to fight for the industry she feels so passionate about.

I first met Lisa in 2007 and she has always been an advocate of demystifying the clouded and negative image a lot of individuals and organisations have about the SEO industry.  Lisa has worked hard to create transparency in the industry and has contributed to numerous best practise publications including B2B Marketing and e-Consultancy (2010 and 2011 respectively) as well as training course and speaking at conferences. Lisa is a firm believer in sharing her knowledge and does not hold back, as she often says “sharing doesn’t give me less clients it proves I know what I’m talking about”. Lisa is a firm believer in karma within business so often goes out of her way to help clients or individuals. A recent example is setting up the Google Places account for her favourite local coffee shop which is struggling for business. Lisa at heart is an educator and trainer and not only have I learnt a lot from her, she also inspires a lot of individuals inside and outside of search, most recently she has become an ambassador at her local university entrepreneurship society where she helps mentor young students.”

I’m genuinely honoured and lucky to be recognised and respected for my efforts within this fabulous industry and most of all very grateful to have such talented people working with me, not only within Verve Search but the blogging teams at State of Search and SEO Chicks and elsewhere on the “tinternet”.

Cheese fest over. Sam: thank you for entering me and writing such a fantastic bio and entry! SEO Industry: thanks for putting up with my stupid humour and slightly overtly direct nature. Cling cling (that’s a Champagne glass btw). Cheers!

Search Personality of the Year at the UK Search Awards 2011 is a post from: Verve Search - SEO & Social Media Agency

Here’s a very happy Winning Verve Search Team with the category presenter Christian Olson from Crystone giving us our award (in hindsight I should not have been in the middle between these two guys, I look like a hobbit, ha! But who cares, we won!):

In proper “Hollywood” fashion we would like to ‘give out’ some thanks. First of all we would like to thank the client, Yale Door, for being such a fantastic client. I truly believe that half the battle with SEO is getting the clients to implement and carry out your recommended changes. In my experience it can takes months just to convince a client to carry out extensive changes to a site in order to be optimised properly. But Yale Door came into this working relationship ready to take on board all our recommendations and trusting us from the word go. Secondly, I would like to thank the amazing team here at Verve Search, all of whom has worked on the Yale Door account; Sam, Nick and Ciaran have all helped making this a winning SEO campaign. As a result of this great working relationship and our SEO knowledge we generated a 713% increase in Organic traffic for Yale Door in a 12 month period. And maybe more importantly and true to our ethos of ‘generating traffic that generates business’ the Yale Door campaign achieved a ROI of 899%.

It’s truly an honor to win such recognition for our work, go team!

For a full list of the WINNERS at the Uk Search Awards last week check out the State of Search winners announcement

Verve Search WINS ‘Best SEO Campaign’ at the UK Search Awards is a post from: Verve Search - SEO & Social Media Agency

Local Search Presentation SES London 2011 is a post from: Verve Search - SEO & Social Media Agency

Social Media Introduction presentation SES London 2011 is a post from: Verve Search - SEO & Social Media Agency

I would also like to say how great it was to meet loads of new people, of course I met loads of “old friends” again but it was just really cool to meet some new people, I haven’t been to a “northern conference” before and it was loads of people there that I kind of know from “twitter” and blogs but never met in person, and you know it’s true; northerns are SO lovely and friendly. Heck I married a Geordie

“Think Massive Pregnant Woman” at Think Visibility

I was speaking on using Social Media for SEO, in my opinion Social Media and SEO goes very much hand in hand and using Social Media aspects for your off page optimisation can be highly effective. To me social media is not about having a twitter and facebook account, but all about creative ideas and execution, making sure a piece of digital content appeals to the masses and is irresisteble. In my presentation I went through in more depth the dicipline of link baiting and article marketing and gave “real examples” of stuff that we at Verve Search have done. I have had quite a few requests for my slides so please find below my slides on “Social Media for SEO” presentation.

I would also like to thank everyone for the great response and tweets on my session, I really appreciate it. Having a seriously pregnant woman as a presenter didn’t seem to fase anyone in the audience and I was treated exactly the same as the other speakers, well actually better, I got to jump the lunch que It was a fabulous last conference before baby arrives, thanks everyone.

Social Media for SEO – Think Visibility 2010 is a post from: Verve Search - SEO & Social Media Agency

Content Marketing Seminar – B2B Marketing is a post from: Verve Search - SEO & Social Media Agency

So for anyone that is remotely intrested in my ramblings, here’s the video:

Interview – Lisa Myers is a post from: Verve Search - SEO & Social Media Agency

Finally, it came to the official launch party of the list, organised by the team at Management Today. I was quite nervous in fact, to meet these women. After all I do SEO, to me it’s not really a big deal, some of these women were entrepenuers at the age of 19, inventors, big time lawyers in the city, engineers, you name it. And most of them in traditional male dominated industries. As I arrived I felt a bit awkward, what shall I talk about? There were no need to worry, not only were these women really talented but probably the loveliest bunch of women I’ve met in a long time. No sign of snooty hard nosed business women, they were all really lovely, interesting and more importantly interested.

I chatted to Ruth Amos for a bit, the youngest on the list. At only 19 she has started her own business whilst she was still studying. I also spent some time talking to the co-founder of Notonthehighstreet, Holly Tucker , I really enjoyed listening to her story of how she set up the company and how it developed. It also turned out we both have children the same age, so we also talked about working and motherhood and the random things kids say and do. Turns out my daughter aren’t the only one that enjoys dressing up in random outfits (once she insisted going out wearing a tutu and swimming goggles, ha!)

Then, right at the end I got chatting to Bee Thakore, an aerospace engineer with her own consultancy. Bee  worked as a test pilot for Rolls Royce and Airbus at the age of 21, I mean seriously, wow! She started her own consultancy a few years back, Big on Good, an engineering and design solutions consultancy. We started talking and literally could not stop talking! We were the last people left at the party and literally had to be kicked out of the venue, we just continued our talk outside and ended up standing outside Charing Cross station for over an hour chatting away. It’s been a long time since I’ve met someone as interesting and mind boggling intelligent as Bee, our conversation went from her projects with the UN (tracking the spread of Malaria), engineering machines that can create oxygen on the moon, the psychology of the human brain (is there a thin line between crazy and genius). We pretty much discussed anything under the sun (and space lol). I and Bee have arranged to meet up again, and possibly even work together on some projects. Ok so maybe aerospace engineering and SEO is not closely related, but sometimes two minds meet and you feel you can do whatever you set your mind to.

At the event one of the speakers mentioned the book “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell, it’s a recently published book about “success”, what makes people successful? What made people like Bill Gates? I bought the book (and read it within days) and found it extremely interesting and facinating, it goes into detail about how much of our success is to do with people around us, the situations and circumstances we are in, our upbringing and our culture heritage. I still think talent, determination and a certain level of intelligence is necessary but it has really opened my eyes to realise how much of my own success if due to all these factors. I’m lucky to be included in a list like this, I got the opportunity to mingle and network with people like Ruth, Holly and Bee. But opportunity favours the open minded, all these women were willing to work hard and most of all cease the opportunities and take those risks. That’s why they are so successful. And I’m honoured to be one of them, and as one of the speakers at the launch party said; it’s time to pay it forward. Inspire, motivate or help if I can someone that just need that little push to be successful, to believe that they can be successful too.

Since the event I have been in contact with a university to be a guest speaker and tutor for their marketing and technology degrees, as well as enrolled in the work placement scheme with the same university. I’ve also been in contact with a womens networking site to help develop their platform further, in fact I’m on the train right now to meet with the owner of the website. I’m also meeting Bee for lunch next week, as we will work together, I just know it. So when you get an email asking if you want to enter nominations for a list of ’35 women under 35’ high achievers, jump at the chance. It meant alot to me.

Management Todays official ’35 under 35′ 2009 List

Management Today’s ’35 women under 35′ 2009 is a post from: Verve Search - SEO & Social Media Agency

New recruit – drum roll…
I can’t believe 3 months have already passed since Verve Search started, it’s flown by. And it’s been really amazing so far, in fact things are going so well that I have decided to recruit. And you might recognise him; Sam Murray! He used to work with me at Base One as one of the Search Consultants, and I’m really pleased to anounce that Sam has now been hired as a Senior SEO Consultant at Verve Search! Sam is a very talented search marketer, not only when it comes to SEO but also Social Media. He’s an ideas person, someone that takes initiative and most importantly someone that can actually handle working with me I’m very pleased to have him as part of the Verve crew. Exciting times. In fact I’m pretty sure he will be posting his first blogpost on the Verve Search blog tomorrow, so look out for a fab post by Sam. Yay!

SMX London – Next Week
Next week, Monday 17th & Tuesday 18th May SMX is in town again. A plesant change of ‘time of year’ for SMX as usually they come to London for November. I’m really looking forward to it, I’m a big fan of the SMX conference series. Not only do you learn loads from attending the session but attending conferences like this is a great opportunity to network with likeminded people and learn from others whilst doing it. Search is still a relatively small industry and what makes this industry so special (in my opinion) is the willingness between Search professionals to share their experience, offer advice and in general just be friends. In fact it’s nearly embaressing how many of my close friends are also search colleagues that I have met through the conference scene, including my fiance Jon Myers

This year I’m a speaker on the SEO Checkup panel, this is a different kind of session where there are NO presentations and boring repeats of what the speaker before said but a chance for the audience to pick the brains of 4 search experts. The other panelists are: my fellow SEO-Chick Jane Copland, the lovely and very knowledgable Dixon Jones and Jonathan Stewart from iCrossing (whom I haven’t had the pleasure meeting yet but I’m sure is a nice guy). This session will be all about you, your questions, your sites and how you can improve your indexing and rankings. This session is what it’s all about for me, and I’m geniunly excited to be on this panel. So if you are heading to SMX come and see us speak on Tuesday 19th at 4:15.

If you still haven’t decided whether to attend SMX, view the full agenda, this is going to be a fantastic SMX, with advanced session to help you evolve your search marketing knowledge!

LondonSEO Networking party
And if you are going to SMX London be sure not to miss the LondonSEO networking party on Monday 18th May from 18:00 at the Jewel Bar in Covent Garden. There is no charge to get in and you don’t need a formal invite, it’s simply a networking event for people in search, with a bit of a SEOdisco by Ciaran Norris . LondonSEO is always good fun and a fantastic oportunity to network. So even if you are missing SMX be sure NOT to miss this networking party. And if you do, make sure you come and say hello!

Tweet tweet
Hopefully we should be able to get some more blogpost on the Verve Search blog very soon, but in the meantime feel free to keep up with the Verve Search crew on twitter:

Follow Sam on Twitter
Follow Lisa on Twitter

What’s up in Verve camp? is a post from: Verve Search - SEO & Social Media Agency

Interview Lisa Ditlefsen – Universal Search is a post from: Verve Search - SEO & Social Media Agency