Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Google Chrome

Google Chrome
I have had this post as a draft for a while, and had not posted so far, as I wanted to give a fairly thorough viewpoint as to Google's new web browser Chrome. The reason for publishing now? Well, I've just also downloaded Mozilla's Minefield, and it has left behind a few of the coments I had already drafted with regards Google Chrome!

If Apple have gained the technophobes confidence with their ease of scrolling through archives and images (imitated but not beaten by HTC Diamond) - one of the main suppliers for Google's Android phone) then Google have gained the average web-browsers confidence with Chrome. Your home page is converted into smaller screenshots of sites most recently visited, leaving navigation of your favourite sites, literally at rhe click of the mouse. On the downside (and from an SEO point of view), there is no google bar - what?! (or at least at the time of writing), and that is something that with IE or Firefox, some of us have got used to too much. Hence, to not have the toolbar takes a bit of the shine off it.
Mozilla Minefield
The main thing that Mozilla's new Minefield is competing with is speeed, and boy is it fast! Maybe if you download and use for a day you would not see the comparisons, but use it for a week or so, and the differences in speed of losding pages becomes apparent. Hey, we're only talking about seconds or even miliseconds, but if this is the Beta Version, then yet again Mozilla are moving in the right direction.

Please contact me if you would like to drive more traffic to your business. I'm a qualified AdWords Consultant in Barcelona and will be happy to help.

Barcelona Guide

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Barcelona Search Congress 2009


In January of 2009, Barcelona celebrates the first SEO conference of its kind in the city. The conference is to take place in the Rey Juan Carlos I Hotel between the 28th and 30th January 2009. The Hotel is a 5 star hotel, located on Av. Diagonal, in the North West of the city, and is a great place to celebrate the 1st conference, having received prizes and awards for event holding.

The 3 day course has a provisional line-up (it has to be said 90% Spanish) with the Big Wigs of Yahoo! Microsoft, and a TBC of someone from Google coming, so is making all the right moves for attracting anyone wanting to experience in Barcelona the world and importance that SEO is considered to be by many.

At the moment, the 3 day conference is to be divided into workshops (1st day) and then the conference with speakers and also a "village" with various corners, including Google, Social, Tools, Domain, Jobs and Game. For more details see the Search Congress Barcelona website.

January also has a few more conferences coming to Barcelona, and although the Rey Juan Carlos I would be the ideal location to stay as it's where the conference is being held, it is of course a 5 Star Hotel, so may be a little over budget for some. Don't forget that there are some great Apartments for Rent in Barcelona, as well as the normal hotel options, too.

Feel free to comment on your thoughts about the conference, and let me know if you'll be attending.

For Website Positioning Barcelona please feel free to contact me.

Friday, October 24, 2008

Has Google Killed the Yellow Pages ?

Has Google done away with the Yellow Pages? or is it just the internet? I don't know about you, but the last few copies of the Yellow Pages that have landed on my doormat Barcelona SEO Yellow Pageshave never left the plastic covering until the following one arrived the year after. Google's current market share power with it's Universal Search ( which this week received a US Patent ) has proven that you can find things much quicker and with more possible options than sifting through the Yellow Pages. Images, blogs, videos, books, websites, etc. is a lot more that the current Yellow Pages can offer. Big companies in the current climate need to have an experienced SEO to keep up - easy for big companies, but with Yellow Pages it was just as easy to place a big ad.

Times are changing, and maybe there is too much focus on the web? I have said this on many occasion but there is a common misconception of Google as being the definitive guide, and providing the best results. This is untrue, and simply means that certain sectors have either got lucky with their SEO, or have paid big bucks.
I'll give you an example, although there are hundreds. If you type
car tyres into Google, you may be surprised to read that there is no big car tyre company (Michelin, Continental, Pirelli, etc.) in the top 5. In fact, number 9 is Michelin. So big brands probably rely on branding and repeat clients rather than the internet, one would imagine. Compare that to the Yellow Pages a couple of years ago, and you could pretty much guarantee that all of the above companies would have a full page ad in each edition.

If I were an advertiser, looking to invest in my company's exposure, I would certainly think twice about placing a big ad in the Yellow Pages nowadays. I think money is much better spent on a good SEO campaign and maintaining that. Your thoughts and comments are welcome as always.

E-Marketing Strategies Barcelona

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Link building 2 - more stratergies to implement.

As previously mentioned link building is an integral part of any SEO campaign, and putting all your eggs in one basket is not reccomended. No-one ever knows if Google or any or the other search engines will de-value certain types of links you have built, which means if you have only concentrated on one main area, then this could seriously affect your position. Here are some new ideas to focus on your link building.

I have also already commented on Link Baiting, which is one of the best ways to gain traffic. You can also search forums in your sector, and become an active contributer to these forums. Over time you will be able to offer suggestions, with perhaps a relative link to your own site. Some forums also allow HTML links as a signature, giving you a pwerful anchor text to your site.

Setting up an e-mail signature in your e-mail with your main search terms is also a fantastic idea. This does not create immediate links which will show up in Google, but is creating Branding for your company, and making an unconscious association of the keywords with your comapny and website. This is also very important.

Become an active Blogger. Leave comments on other people's blogs and read around. If you don't know where to start, you can use Google's Beta Blogsearch. Use it exactly as you would the normal search bar, and this will give you related results from various time frames, starting with the most recent posts in your area. Don't Spam however, and remember that many comments need to be moderated before being published.

For Link Building Services Barcelona please contact me at http://www.barcelona-seo.com

Friday, October 17, 2008

Link Baiting. Content is King.

Link baiting is possibly the best way to create 1-way links to your website and can provide fantastic results in a very short space of time, as it is considered viral.
The idea of link baiting is to create content on your website that people will want to link to, especially bloggers, social networkers (facebook, digg, de.licio.us, stumble upon,Myspace, etc. etc.). If you have something interesting, then it's natural that people will link to it. This can be done in numerous ways:

Create original content on your site. Content is King, and don't you forget it. If you have information on your site that is genuinely interesting, or perhaps gives an insight or another angle to the common viewpoint, then it's got a good chance of being tagged and linked to. Write unknown facts about your sector, or give a top 10 list - these are potentially huge winners, and if it spreads quickly, can earn you hundreds and ven thousands of links. Giving people something that seems unuique or something supposedly unknown is a very powerful viral technique.

Another way to gain popularity is to be controversial - challange a widely held belief, but be prepared to back yourself up. Also saying something nasty or unpopular can draw lots of attention, but be careful with the content you want to add to your site.

Giving something useful away on your site is another great way to gain links. A funny widget, or a genuinely useful tool that can lead people back to your site is very valuble.

Link baiting is something you need to try and persevere - maybe you won't get it right the first time round, but look at others doing the same thing and see how you can apply it to your sector.

Affordable Barcelona SEO

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Link Building - the time consumer.

According to SEO Guru, Aaron Wall, link building is the single most effective stratergy to ensure your rankings go higher in search engines. Here is a direct quote "Link Building... Time-intensive. Frustrating. Sometimes confusing. Yet Unavoidable. Because ultimately, it's still the trump card for higher rankings. "

Link building is, to be blunt, a pain. It is something very difficult to control and monitor, often frustrating and due to algorithm changes in Google (let's use Google as the example), can often wipe out weeks or maybe even months of work.


Aaron uses the word "trump card" to great effect, as any card player will know, you may be dealt several hands before being dealt a trump card. And even then a higher suit may win the game. Over the next few weeks, I am going to try and simplify the link building process with some stone wall SEO link building techniques, all of which are shown in greater detail in my SEO day training packages.

One of the most obvious link building stratergies is link begging. This involves writing to the webmasters of various websites you deem fit enough to link to your website, and asking them for a 2-way link.

So how do you find these websites? Well, an easy way of going about this is to look at your competitors, and let google do the hard work. If you type into google's search bar "links: yourcompetitorsdomain.com" you will be presented with a list (not complete) of websites linking to this site. Contact these sites - it's likely that if they linked to your competition, they will be willing to link to your site, too. You can also check the same sites and click on their link pages, in case the google result has missed a few. Then check out the incoming link site, and if you like it, and think this would be valuable to your site, click on the linkpage of this site, too, and find out who is linking to them. And so on.
Link begging is a slow process and 70% or more of your emails will more than likely go straight into a spam box, or get deleted without being read. For this reason, it pays to take a little time to actually view the site you want to link to, and then comment on why you like it. A standard "Would you like to exchange links" email will go unread, but if you comment on a specific part of the site that interestsed you, and mention it, then you're more likely to get a positive response.

Please feel free to contact me for your Barcelona Online Marketing.

Saturday, October 4, 2008

Using Video in SEO to Promote Your Brand.

Perhaps the most popular video website on the internet is YouTube, where you really can find almost anything on video. The great thing is that google controls YouTube's search function, which means that when you use a normal google search, sometimes videos can appear from youtube as part of the natural "organic" search results.

There are also many other video submission websites (Veoh, for example, but I have many more) which you can submit your videos to. This is a free way of advertising your product, and also a great way of branding your website or product.

The videos themselves don't need to be professionally made, and in fact, sometimes still images work better if done correctly. Here is an example of how something can work on YouTube:



I offer video creation, submission and optimisation as part of SEO packages. I think that all companies should make promotional videos for their websites, and that it's an investment that could provide many visits to your site, and something that will only increase in popularity. Please view details at my Barcelona SEO site.