I’m officially back to work in a few weeks and we just had a a team meeting, one of the things we talked about was doing more “fun stuff”, and naturally we started talking about the “good old days” with Rebecca and Joe (we miss you guys). When I was Head of Search at Base One we did a few Star Wars “spoof movies” related to the SEO industry. I don’t think I have laughed so much in my life, the result is comical to say the least, it generated quite a few links to the company website but more importantly it did something invaluable – it was team bonding. A lot can be said for laughing together. So I thought I would share those old movies with you here, and hope you will find them funny too.

The first video was just called SEO Wars and featured Rand Fishkin as Rand Linkwalker and Fantomaster as DarthCloakmaster (of course)..

The second video was called “SEO Wars – Planet Linkspace” and also featured Rand Fishkin as Rand Linkwalker but this time Darthcloakmaster was Dave Naylor, this video came out just after SEOmoz’s Linkscape was launched and was our way of backing up the SEOmoz crew.

And if you don’t find them funny, don’t worry, it doesn’t mean you are not a good SEO it probably just means you’re not an SEO with “stupid” humour

Just finsihed my Local Search panel at SES London, here’s the presentation mostly covering Google Places, what’s new and ranking factors. Also sharing loads of citations sites and recources.

Had a great audience at SES London this morning, talking about the basics of Social Media. This presentation is meant to give you a basis of why and how to start of in the social media space.

This weekend I attended the Think Visibility conference, I’m 8 months pregnant so it was an interesting experience being on the speaker podium. I’m glad I went though, it was a great conference, Dominic (The Hodge) and his team did a fantastic job at organising a education and fun packed conference. From the networking events to the high level of the presentations, Think Visibility got top scores from me. Also they had me at “cookies”, they know how to treat a pregnant woman, cookies at arrival and cookies for lunch, I like!

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.

We are proud to announce that Verve Search was approached to write the “SEO Best Practise guide” for B2B Marketing Magazine this year. After a lengthy writing and editing process, ample amount of blood, sweat and tears (all included in the price) we are happy to say that the SEO Best Practise Guide is now finished – all 55 pages of it. Phew.

We can offer you the exclusive chance of a sneak preview HERE + in addition we can also offer you a discount of £20 as a pre-publication offer if you order the guide before 31st July (2010 of course)…The totlal cost of the guide is £130 (£150 post 31st July)

When we set about writing this guide we decided that we were going to share as much as possible, this guide gives you an insight into exactly how we (at Verve Search) carry out Search Engine Optimsiation. From keyword research and mapping to link development. We have also chosen to cover aspects such as optimising Video content and how to make the most out of Google Local (now called Google Places). Unlike most SEO guides out there this guide is NOT a promotional piece for our company but a genuine attempt in helping YOU the reader to understand and learn more about all aspects of SEO. Explained in plain English wihtout baffling techy speak to confuse you, we really do believe this guide is educational and useful.

EDIT: If you attend the “B2B Marketing SEO Seminar” on the 8th July you can get the ‘SEO Best Practise Guide’ for 1/2 PRICE!

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SEO Best Practise Guide Contents:

SECTION 1: Introduction to SEO

1.1 Search engine optimisation
1.2 The UK search engine market
1.3 Why use search engine marketing?
1.4 SEO’s place in the Internet marketing mix
1.5 How search engines work

SECTION 2: Technical SEO – The foundation of SEO

2.1 Site architecture
2.2 URL structure
2.3 Canonicalisation
2.4 Sitemap
2.5 Geo-targeting – hosting and domain
2.6 Technical toolbox

SECTION 3: On-page SEO

3.1 Keyword and competitor research
3.2 Conducting competitor research
3.3 Organising your research
3.4 Keyword research tools
3.5 Writing content with the search engines in mind
3.6 Keyword mapping
3.7 Current most important areas for content optimisation
3.8 Anchor text optimisation of internal linking

SECTION 4: Off-page SEO

4.1 The PageRank algorithm
4.2 TrustRank
4.3 Future importance of links
4.4 Link development
4.5 Evaluating link equity and carrying out link analysis
4.6 Link generation methods
4.7 Online public relations
4.8 Link baiting
4.9 Social media marketing as part of link development
4.10 Link analysis tools
4.11 Why link analysis is important

SECTION 5: Universal search

5.1 Optimising image content for universal search
5.2 Optimising video content for universal search

SECTION 6: Google places

6.1 Creating a local business listing
6.2 Optimising your local listing
6.3 Data citations

SECTION 7: Web analytics

7.1 Free and paid platforms
7.2 Importance of analytics when doing SEO
7.3 Setting up Google Analytics
7.4 Tracking the right metrics in analytics

APPENDIX i. Outsourcing SEO services

ii. Unethical SEO practices
iii. Future changes in SEO

GLOSSARY
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Happy reading…and please feel free to feedback what you thought of the guide! To request the guide please GO HERE and submit your details or email dominic.rookeallden[AT]b2bm.biz