Late last year I decided to use my quiet time in the holiday season to set up my own URL shortener. I like bit.ly a lot, but the idea of having full control over my own URL shortener as well as a ‘personal brand’ short URL – along the lines of yoa.st – persuaded me to try and get one of my own. First of all I needed to find a good URL. This was probably the easiest choice: once I discovered the .ms (Montserrat) TLD existed and the bada.ms domain was still available, I didn’t hesitate for a second. Secondly I needed to find the right software. I could have gone for bit.ly pro, so that the people at bit.ly would be doing all the hard work for me. But instead I opted to set up my own shortener and not rely on an external third party. Somehow that felt more like it would be mine, instead of something I leased from someone else. There are a few solutions out there but the Yourls.org package appealed to me most: it’s open source and based on PHP and MySQL, and there are plenty of plugins for it. It also easily integrates with Tweetdeck (my preferred Twitter app) and I found a great installation guide for it on Lifehacker. Once I had it up and running I installed the Random Keywords plugin so that instead of having to choose my own short URL every time, I just let Yourls generate a string for me. And there it was, my own URL shortener: bada.ms. January Statistics I started using the shortener on December 31st but didn’t unleash it in the wild – i.e. on Twitter – until January 1st. I only used it on links I posted on my @badams Twitter account, and then only for links that didn’t use a branded short URL themselves. It’s been running for a full month now, so let’s see what kind of cool stats Yourls can give me. Click Activity In January I shared 74 bada.ms short URLs on Twitter. These URLs achieved an average of 68.44 clicks, and a median of 41.79 clicks. The top three most clicked URLs were: http://bada.ms/rxd – (Jan 06) 286 clicks. This points to a Slideshare deck by Eldad Yogev which explains Mobile SEO in great detail. Not coincidentally this was also my most RT-ed tweet of the month. http://bada.ms/4ou – (Jan 21) 282 clicks, points to one of my own blog posts. http://bada.ms/vbn – (Jan 12) 215 clicks, points to a blog post about the dangers of free WordPress themes. The least clicked publicly shared URLs were: http://bada.ms/thg – (Jan 03) 26 clicks, points to a story about spam in Google’s SERPs. http://bada.ms/9s6 – (Jan 21) 29 clicks, points to one of my columns on the Belfast Telegraph site. http://bada.ms/rw6 – (Jan 06) 30 clicks, points to a news article about the MMR vaccine scare. In an attempt to find a pattern I looked at the time when these URLs were shared. Interestingly the top five best performing URLs were all created between 9:23 am and 12:45 am. This could indicate that URLs shared on Twitter before lunch in the UK get the most clicks. However, of the five least clicked URLs four were created in the same time frame, and only one fell outside it (4:27 pm). Additionally most clicks don’t originate from Europe (see below), so there doesn’t appear to be any solid correlation between share time and popularity. Next I looked at the day of the week when the URLs were created and shared. Again I found no correlation – the five most clicked URLs neatly spanned all working days of the week (Thu, Fri, Wed, Tue, Mon) and the five worst performing URLs were also shared across most of the work week. The only notable issue here is that there are no cases – best nor worst URLs – that were shared on a weekend. This is almost certainly because I rarely tweet on weekends anyway. The Spike It’s quite interesting to see that many URLs continue to receive traffic for weeks after they’ve been created, accumulating the odd click here and there despite no longer being actively shared on Twitter. Sometimes a short URL may seem ‘dead’ for a week and then suddenly it’ll receive a few clicks again. Traffic Sources The traffic sources report in Yourls makes one thing abundantly clear: people in my Twitter network (my followers and their followers) make extensive use of third party Twitter apps. Clicks from these apps register as direct traffic as there is no referral string sent along with the click. At least 90% of all clicks on any given short URL registered as direct traffic, with the remaining clicks mostly composed of twitter.com referrals and a few others (HootSuite, Netvibes, Wikiwix, etc.) Apparently I have at least one cautious user in my network: Longurl.org consistently pops up as a referrer. This is a security service that allows you to un-shorten a long URL without actually visiting it, thus ensuring you’re not being sent to a hazardous webpage. I’m not sure whether this is an actual user or an automated check. Other countries that are strongly represented are the UK, the Netherlands, Canada, Germany, Ireland, and France. Russia, China, and Japan occasionally show up, as do nearly all other European countries. Africa and South America are notably absent from most URL location charts. Next Month I installed a new plugin today – Feb 1st – that filters out the clicks generated by automated bots such as the Googlebot, the LongURL api, and Twitter’s own bots. This should help make the numbers more accurately represent actual user behaviour and might also clean up the traffic locations report. However, I am getting married at the end of February and will be offline for well over a week, so my stats probably won’t be sufficient to dedicate a whole blog post to. I’ll likely wait until March has come and gone before I publicise my next set of short URL stats.

You can get a special discount on your SMX Advanced London pass by using my special blog partner code. Simply fill in BARRYADAMS011 as your promotional code and you’ll get 15% off your registration price! Super Early-Bird registration further lowers the price, but this is only valid until March 1st. So don’t hesitate and get your SMX Advanced London registration done today! Update: SMX Advanced 2011 has come and gone. To all who attended, I hope you had a great time and learned much!

In a new article for Search News Central I explore the lessons I’ve learned as a teacher of SEO: Search News Central: What I’ve learned from lecturing on SEO What I found most enlightening about doing lectures like these is that it made me re-evaluate what I know about SEO. After 7 years of professional SEO experience (14 years total SEO experience if you include my early days amateur SEO stuff for my own websites) there is a lot of amassed knowledge, embedded lingo, and basic assumptions that I use in my day to day work. When preparing my lecture I had to discard all of that and work from the bottom up. Staying with the educational theme, I wrote a blog post for State of Search listing the five best non-SEO books that I believe every SEO should read: State of Search: The 5 Best SEO Books That Aren’t About SEO I get asked quite often what beginning SEOs need to do to become advanced practitioners of our craft. Specifically they want to know which books to read. When I pondered this question in detail, I realised that the books that have shaped me the most as an SEO, and have helped bring my skills to higher levels, aren’t actually SEO books. Yet these books have been vital study material in my continued development as a SEO professional.

SEO Dojo-member ‘Doc’ Sheldon Campbell has compiled a substantial ebook, containing insights from over 30 experienced search engine optimisers and digital marketers. The book, entitled “Critical Thinking for the Discerning SEO”, is now available via Doc Sheldon’s website: “Critical Thinking for the Discerning SEO will give you insights from some of the top names in the business, on how to focus your efforts where they’ll give you real benefit, rather than chasing every shiny penny offered by self-proclaimed gurus and experts.” In addition to contributions from SEO luminaries such as Danny Sullivan, Rand Fishkin, Bill Slawski, and Alan Bleiweiss, yours truly also contributed to the book. Go forth and grab it – all the proceeds will go to charity so it’ll benefit a good cause as well!

On November 24th I gave a talk at the annual SAScon mini-conference about SEO for Ecommerce. As usual the conference was superbly organised with a good range of topics from a variety of speakers, and I was grateful for the opportunity to speak in front of a great crowd. I wrote a detailed blog post for State of Search where I expand on many of the points I made in my talk, and I gave an expanded talk on the same topic at the Think Visibility 7 conference, the slides for which are embedded below: SEO for Ecommerce

Google’s not making things easy for themselves. Many people want to like the search giant for the great search engine it offers and all the cool things it builds. But Google makes so many mishaps, from small oversights to major PR catastrophes, that even their most dedicated fans are having a hard time staying loyal. 2012 has been a hallmark year for Google, when the world woke up to the fact that Google is just another profit-chasing corporation. Its products and services are not there purely for the betterment of mankind, but there’s a growing element of commercialisation inherent in Google’s offerings. For SEOs and digital marketers, this has of course been blatantly obvious for years. For the general public, not as much. But 2012 changed that, through a range of media storms that caught the world’s attention. Below I’ve listed the 34 perception-altering events that befell Google in 2012: 02 Jan: Chrome Link Buying Google is caught buying links to promote its Chrome browser, a practice which is against their own search quality guidelines. 10 Jan: Selling Illegal Ads After expensive legal settlements for earlier offenses in 2005, 2009 and 2011, Google is yet again caught selling AdWords ads for illegal products, including cannabis, fake IDs, and fake Olympic tickets. 10 Jan: Search Plus Your World Google launches ‘Search Plus Your World’ and is greeted by widespread criticism for favouring its own Google+ product and decreasing search result relevance. 13 Jan: Google Kenya caught in SME scam Google’s ‘Getting Kenyan Businesses Online’ programme is caught red-handed scamming small businesses. 16 Jan: Open Street Maps Vandalism Google contractors are caught vandalising Open Street Map data. 25 Jan: The Google Sting A WSJ article reveals more damning details of Google’s business practices that lead to the 2011 $500m DOJ settlement. 29 Jan: Google’s New Privacy Policy Google announces a new unified privacy policy which receives widespread condemnation. Microsoft seizes the opportunity to launch an anti-Google advertisement. 02 Feb: Google Maps fined in France A French court convicts Google of abuse of its dominant market position with its Maps service and fines it €500,000. Google appeals the judgment. 17 Feb: iPhone Tracking Google is caught circumventing Safari’s built-in privacy settings to place tracking cookies in mobile users’ browsers. 20 Feb: Internet Explorer Tracking In light of the 17 Feb iPhone tracking issue, Microsoft investigates how Google’s tracking cookies behave in their Internet Explorer browser and discover a similar problem. 01 Mar: Google’s Privacy Policy As Google’s new unified privacy policy takes effect, the European justice chief issues a warning and France asks European data authorities to investigate. 30 Mar: Expedia files an antitrust complaint Online travel agency Expedia accuses Google of breaching EU rules with a formal complaint to EU antitrust regulators. 03 Apr: TripAdvisor complains to EU about Google Holiday review site TripAdvisor joins travel firm Expedia and 11 others in accusing the search giant of abusing its dominant position in Europe. 03 Apr: Australian court find Google ads ‘misleading and deceptive’ The Australian Federal Court has found Google guilty of allowing false and misleading advertising and orders it to institute a compliance programme. Google is considering an appeal. 16 Apr: Google fined by FCC for impeding investigation The Federal Communications Commission fines Google $25k for deliberately impeding a US investigation into its collection of wireless network data for its Street View project. 27 Apr: Google under investigation in Argentina and Korea A regulatory filing reveals Google’s business practices are under investigation by the Argentinan antitrust agency and the South Korean Fair Trade Commission. 30 Apr: Shareholder sues Google over stock split Google is being sued by one of its shareholders in an attempt to block the company’s announced stock split, which the shareholder feels would give too much power to Google’s founders. 21 May: EU gives Google last chance to end antitrust concerns The European Commission commissioner has written to Google warning there are four areas “where Google business practices may be considered as abuses of dominance”. 12 June: Google to be investigated over data cover-up claims The UK’s information commissioner launched an investigation into claims that Google orchestrated a cover-up of its capture of emails, passwords and medical records of people in the UK. 22 June: Texas accuses Google of withholding information The Texas attorney general is accusing Google of improperly withholding evidence to hinder an investigation into whether the company has been abusing its dominance of web search. 05 July: Google criticised for hiring former UK data privacy official Google UK’s privacy policy manager held a senior role at the UK’s data privacy watchdog ICO during the time of its original investigation into Street View. 27 July: Google fails to comply with ICO order After having been ordered in 2010 by the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office to delete all data illegally gathered in its Street View privacy breach, Google admits it has still failed to do so. 08 August: Google criticised for tax avoidance Having paid just £6 million in corporation tax on £395 million of UK profit in 2011, Google once again faces criticism about tax avoidance. 09 August: Google fined over Safari privacy breach Google is to pay a $22.5m fine to the FTC after it circumvented privacy protections on the Safari web browser to track users of Apple’s iPhone, iPad and Mac computers. 21 August: Google fails to comply with Judge’s disclosure order On August 7th Google was ordered to disclose any paid journalists or bloggers writing about the ongoing Oracle-Google patent dispute. Upon receiving Google’s submission, Judge William Alsup stated it failed to comply with the order. Google then filed a new submission on August 24th listing their paid bloggers and commenters. 04 September: Google accused of racial profiling in ad targeting After repeating an experiment conducted by the Huffington Post in 2011, a Telegraph journalist argues Google still uses racial profiling in its Gmail ad targeting. Google vehemently denies the charges. 16 October: Google forced to change unified privacy policy EU data privacy regulators have told Google it needs to make changes to its unified privacy policy if it wants to avoid legal action. 18 October: Google shares suspended after earnings leak Google’s shares were suspended after its third-quarter earnings results were accidentally released early and showed a radical slowdown in revenue growth. 27 November: GWT security bug re-opens access to old accounts A bug in Google Webmaster Tools allowed previously authenticated accounts renewed access to webmaster tools data. Google fixed the bug approximately 12 hours after initial reports. 28 November: Italy launches a tax investigation against Google Italian police launch a probe in to Google’s tax affairs, investigating an alleged failure to declare over €240 million of income and a potential tax debt of €96 million. 03 December: Google’s tax evasion practices scrutinised The pressure on Google’s tax evasion practices continues to grow as investigations in to how Google minimises its tax payments are launched in Australia and the UK. 10 December: Google’s global tax avoidance scrutinised Bloomberg reports that Google – headquartered in California – has avoided paying over $2bn in taxes by funnelling international revenues to off-shore accounts in Bermuda. When queried about these practices, Google’s chairman Eric Schmidt simply calls it ‘capitalism‘. 12 December: Consumer Watchdog seeks Senate hearing In response to Google’s unapologetic tax avoidance schemes, the American Consumer Watchdog organisation is calling for a Senate hearing to investigate Google’s “morally bankrupt” practices. 19 December: Google given EU anti-trust deadline Google has been given a month by EU regulators to address complaints that its search results unfairly favour Google’s own services. Failing this, Google could face a fine of up to $4bn. Google Noose image credit: freelance SEO Alex Moss

Some weeks ago, when I submitted a number of  our digital client projects to the European Search Awards for consideration, I fully expected nothing to come of it.  We are, after all, just a wee agency in Belfast. We think we’re doing a pretty fine job for our clients, as evidenced by the results we achieve and the awards we occasionally scoop up. But we also know we’re a small player in Europe, where some truly great digital agencies are doing absolutely magnificent work for a host of global brands. Almost as an afterthought I also submitted us to the Best Agency category, with an even lower expectation of any sort of recognition. So when the shortlist for the Search Awards was published and I went through the nominations, I was not particularly disappointed to see our projects missing from the various campaign categories. The agencies and projects that did make those shortlists are, each and every one of them, prime examples of all that is great about this industry. Imagine my surprise when the very last name in the last category on the shortlist – that for the Best Agency award – was none other than Pierce Communications. I mean, whoa. The names shortlisted for that award are some of the largest and finest digital agencies operating in Europe today: Latitude, Performics, Branded3, AKM3, and Bluerank. And, yes, my eyes did not deceive me, Pierce Communications. I rate our changes of actually winning the award as being so close to zero as makes no difference. But that doesn’t matter – just to see our wee Belfast agency listed in such fantastic company on the shortlist already feels pretty damn epic. We must be doing something right to have sufficiently impressed the rather distinguished panel of judges, for them to place us on the shortlist. So come early July we’ll be sending a delegation to Amsterdam, sporting our 8-bit ties and keyboard bowties, if only to show Europe that a wee agency in Northern Ireland can be a force to be reckoned with. And, of course, to show those Europeans how to properly party, Belfast-style. ;)

A persistent theme that recurs every now and then in the online tech world is that ‘everyone should learn to code’. There are a slew of blog posts claiming that to be a great SEO you need to know how to code, and a recent Venturebeat article once again proclaimed programming the most vital skill for successful entrepreneurship. This is, of course, utter bollocks. Don’t get me wrong, I have a great deal of respect for coders. I work with some highly talented web developers and not a day goes by where I don’t marvel at their skills. But their skills are not essential for being a great SEO, and they’re not essential for being a great entrepreneur. First of all, I think a lot of this ‘learn to code’ hype stems from the perception that many of today’s most admired entrepreneurs started out as basement coders. From Mark Zuckerberg to Larry & Sergey, today’s biggest tech companies are the creations of coders. Therefore, the reasoning goes, you need to be a great coder to be a successful entrepreneur. And that is, of course, blatantly wrong. Such seemingly logical reasoning is premised on a thorough misunderstanding of what makes a successful tech company. The primary reason these companies are successful – in addition to exorbitant amounts of luck – is not because they were built by coders, but that they solved a problem. Google solved the online search problem more elegantly than anyone had up to then, and that made them the most popular search engine in the world. Facebook solved the mess that was social media and turned it in to a smooth, nearly friction-less experience. And that made them the biggest social network on the planet. The fact that Page, Brin and Zuckerberg are coders is secondary to their most important trait, the aspect of their personalities that is directly responsible for their success: they’re problem-solvers. Problem-solvers come in all shapes and sizes. Some of them are coders, but many aren’t. It’s true that problem-solvers tend to be drawn to writing code, as that allows them to create technical solutions to problems, but the ability to code is a symptom – not the cause – of their problem-solving ability. And not all coders are great problem-solvers. I would argue that the ability to analyse a problem – and I define ‘problem’ loosely here, encompassing everything from shoddy user interfaces to unintuitive online interactions – and devise an elegant solution is the real hallmark of successful entrepreneurship. For every Zuckerberg you can easily find several highly successful entrepreneurs who couldn’t code a simple ‘hello world’ script if their life depended on it. But I can pretty much guarantee you that all great tech entrepreneurs have one thing in common: they’re very good at analysing and solving problems. The next time someone claims that the ability to write code is the key to success in our modern world, call them out on their bullshit. Because that idea is based on a deep misunderstanding of what makes technology successful. ———- Be sure to also read this post from Richard Shove on the matter.

When a few months ago Rand Fishkin let slip that he was going to be visiting Northern Ireland as part of a whirlwind tour of the emerald isle, it seemed too good an opportunity to pass up. I and my buddy Kevin McCaffrey (who runs the successful Conversion Rate Services business here in Northern Ireland) decided to organise a small event and invited the whole NI digital marketing scene to come along and meet the man. It’s an exciting time to be part of the digital industry in Northern Ireland. There’s a lot going on at the moment which is helping to boost this niche. First of all, there’s an excellent education system in place which provides superb courses in various aspects of digital marketing. The University of Ulster has a great Digital Media Communication course (disclaimer: I contribute modestly to that course) and the Digital Marketing Institute has a range of courses and diplomas in digital marketing (disclaimer: I lecture for them as well). Queen’s University also has a digital marketing programme, as does the Belfast Metropolitan College. So anyone who’s interested in digital marketing in Northern Ireland will have an abundance of top level courses to choose from. Secondly, companies in Northern Ireland are increasingly embracing digital marketing as a way to grow their business. While compared to the likes of London we still have a ways to go here, overall we see more and more success stories arising when companies embrace digital marketing wholeheartedly. These success stories are shared and celebrated through events such as the annual DANI Awards, which rewards the best digital campaigns across Northern Ireland (disclaimer: we won two DANI Awards a few weeks ago). The recent CultureTech festival in Derry/Londonderry is another example of a great digitally-themed event featuring top speakers and drawing big crowds. Lastly, fuelled by all these growth factors we see more and more agencies establishing themselves in the digital marketing arena. Some are small specialised agencies focusing on one aspect of digital marketing, where others are more holistic agencies that offer a wide portfolio of services. My own employer The Pierce Partnership is the latter, having grown from a print & design agency in to a full-fledged creative agency with core strengths in design, web development, and digital marketing. With all these digital companies trying to establish a foothold, Kevin and I thought it might be a good idea to have Rand discuss his approach to running a successful digital business. While it’s no secret I have on occasion taken issue with SEOmoz’s output, I have huge respect for Rand as a businessman. The company he’s built and the corporate culture he’s fostered are highly admirable, and Kevin and I wanted to take the opportunity to have Rand explain his company’s TAGFEE culture to the Northern Irish digital scene. In front of a crowd of around 30 of Northern Ireland’s finest digital marketers (we had 78 registrations, but as seems common with free events only around half showed up) Rand explained, in his usual enthusiastic speaking style, what TAGFEE meant and how his company embraced these ideals. Afterwards pints were had, photos were taken, and stories were shared. On a personal note I got along great with Rand and his lovely wife Geraldine, and want to thank them both for taking the time out of their busy sight-seeing & event-speaking schedule to meet with local digital marketers. Rand said he’d definitely be back to Ireland, and when he does I’ll make sure a fresh pint of Guinness (without the nasty syrup!) will be waiting for him.

I usually don’t publish guest posts here, but this one is the result of a very well-crafted blogger outreach email that I felt warranted a reward. I take no responsibility for the quality or accuracy of the article – though obviously I think it has some merit otherwise I wouldn’t publish it. Enjoy: Link building has been a vital aspect of SEO since the late 1990’s. If a business wants their page to rank highly in search engines like Google,  it needs relevant and high-quality links pointing to the business’s site. This makes link building a vital part of SEO to significantly improve your rankings. There is a vast range of link building techniques, from forum posting to blog commenting, and there are a number of tricks of the trade to take advantage of. But today’s modern link builder relies in large part on blogger outreach. Link building is a continuing process which is time-consuming and whether you carry it out in-house or via freelancers, finding new blogging opportunities can be difficult. Here’s how to make your blogger outreach simple and straightforward: 1. Finding guest blogging opportunities There is an extensive array of online blogging resources and the key is to find them. Great sites include Blog dash, MyBlogGuest or even Google itself, but in our experience Technorati is the best. Basically it is a directory of blogs and all the bloggers are genuine and passionate about what they write, so this means they are real and authentic. It also means they are more inclined to take on guest posts with without needing a financial incentive. 2. Content is king Finding a great blog to get a link on is only half the work- it is the content which will be published on it which will really seal the deal. Content is the buzzword on everyone’s lips at the moment and it is crucial when trying to link build. The quality needs to be relevant, engaging, unique and informative so the article concepts are important. If you are struggling to think of ideas on what to write about, Flipboard is a great tool to stir the creative juices. Or alternatively, you can check out Article Teller which lets you order content and you only pay for the content when you are completely happy with it. If someone writes you an article for a blog and you aren’t happy with the quality, you simply don’t pay for it! Remember, everyone struggles with writer’s block at times but always bear in mind the audience, purpose and if in doubt, try to make it topical on anything that is currently going on such as a national event. 3. No Repetition It can be easy to become too comfortable and get lazy to publish content on the same sites time and time again so you need to steer clear of repetition. Search engines like Google look for patterns so avoid repeating the same processes for months on end. How do I track all the sites I’ve published on? Excel is great for this and conditional formatting can be used to highlight duplicate cells to keep on top of the sites used. Blogger outreach is a fantastic marketing technique and is a great way to contribute to the online conversation and give something back to the internet community. Benefit from these tools to ease your link building process. This article was written by Custard Media, a reputable and experienced digital media agency in North-west England. Speak to the specialists today for high quality, expert SEO services.

… or for those who love their job. After a well-deserved holiday in early October (two weeks in sunny Portugal, it was lovely) and struggling with a persistent flu I’m balancing a heavy but much appreciated workload with pedagogical commitments and interesting events. Barely back from vacation I attended the first day of the Dublin Web Summit – read my conference write-up on State of Search here. The second day my colleague Toby attended and his experiences are also published on State of Search. Last week, while in the midst of a severe case of debilitating man-flu, I delivered the first of my two guest lectures for the University of Ulster’s Digital Media Communication course, which was a case study on effective web design (and some multi-channel digital marketing as well). Tonight I’ll deliver my second guest lecture – a case study on advanced on-site SEO – and I expect it’ll totally boil the students’ brains. If any of the students understands everything I’ll be talking about, I might just have to offer them a job. Next week the amazing Build conference will be held in Belfast, which is one of the best web design conferences in the world. Three of my colleagues are going and I hope they’ll bring back lots of great insights and ideas. In the same week there’s a new event taking place for the first time, called the Digital Exchange NI, which aims to bring together Northern Ireland’s digital crowd – marketers, developers, designers, and anyone else involved with or interested in all things digital. I’ll be there as well, hoping to network with local digital professionals. Always good to get to know new people and have a chat with familiar friendly faces. Also in the same week is an event called Destination Belfast, organised by the city council and aimed at the local tourist industry. For this event I’ll be giving a half-hour talk about the power of social media. Then at the end of November I’ll be delivering a crash-course in SEO and PPC for the joint iON/UU Digital Marketing & Execution training programme. I’m in distinguished company there, lecturing alongside some of the biggest names in the Northern Irish digital industry. I’ll have about three hours to give an overview of SEO and AdWords, so by necessity it’ll be a brief introduction to these two wildly expansive disciplines. Finally in early December I’ll give a half-day workshop for Mckelvey Associates, which is aimed at local solicitors and where I hope to educate them on ways to use the internet to grow their business. The rest of December is looking relatively clear for now, which is just as well as there’ll be numerous corporate and private Christmas events where I can work hard at diminishing my supply of braincells through excessive consumption of Guinness and whisky. I think I’ll need some rest after all that.

You can tell it’s awards-season because just after the DANI Awards concluded (with a win for me, I’m pleased to say) the UK Search Awards are kicking off. As these UK Search Awards celebrate the true cream of the crop in the national SEO and search marketing industry, it’s with no small degree of pride I can say that two of the projects I headed up at The Tomorrow Lab are on the shortlist: Best Use of Content Marketing – Digital Printing Best Low Budget Campaign – Path XL The awards ceremony will be held in London on November 6th and, as usual, I’ll be attending, primarily to seize the opportunity to catch up with all my friends in the SEO scene. Should The Tomorrow Lab actually win one of these prized awards, I’m sure the resulting celebrations will be appropriately enthusiastic. In other news, after a very successful 6th SAScon event in June this year, the organisers are once again putting together a mini-event, this time dubbed SAScon BETA. Once again I find myself privileged to be part of the event, and contrary to the usual digital marketing insights this time the speaker brief is much wider. I’m preparing an especially rant-y talk aimed at wearable technology and what it’s doing to us, so if you’re open to be scared witless about the implications of those gadgets you’re putting in your pockets and on your wrists and head, book your tickets now and brace yourself for a truly epic rant. Closer to home, on October 28th in collaboration with VIEWdigital I’m giving a 2-hour seminar entitled Measuring Website Performance with Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools. In this seminar I will go beyond the basics and show the participants a range of interesting tricks and reporting tips to get useful, actionable insights from Analytics and Webmaster Tools that can be used to improve your website’s performance. Attendance at this seminar cost £49 and places are limited, so don’t wait to book your places. Then the next day I’m part of the panel at the SEO Masterclass organised by the Sunday Business Post. Together with Joanne Casey, Mark Haslam, and Barry Hand, I’ll be educating you on the ins and outs of effective SEO. With such a top line-up of speakers, this masterclass is unmissable for those wanting to come to grips with the esoteric arts of SEO. Here too places are limited, so book while you can.