It’s Friday… we made it!
I’ve decided to start up a new regular feature today. Each Friday I’ll give you a quick update on what’s been happening here on Top 5 SEO, followed by links to some of the best SEO/Internet Marketing articles I have read this week from around the web.
Highlights This Week
It’s been a pretty good week traffic wise and I hit my record day (so far!) last Friday with 518 visitors (437 unique) and 806 page views.
The majority of the traffic came from social media (with facebook being the top source) and a lot of the buzz was focused on my article on how I grew the traffic and sales on one of my niche affiliate sites. If you haven’t read it yet, you can check it out here.
I spent a lot of time writing the post (around 16 hours) and tried to be as detailed and transparent as possible. I think this, combined with the fact that I used white hat SEO to achieve the success was what made the post so popular.
Here are a couple of comments from twitter…
New Friends
I have picked up quite a few new followers/subscribers this week, which is always nice 🙂
The figures are: –
New Email Subscribers: 31
New Twitter Followers: 67 (follow me here)
New Facebook Likes: 45 (like us here)
Added To G+ Circles: 24 (circle me here)
New RSS Subscribers: The number fluctuates in feedburner, but I reckon I have around 20 new RSS subscribers
So hello to all my new followers/subscribers and big thanks to everyone who has tweeted/shared or commented this week.
Recommended Reading
Here are some of my favourite articles I have read over the past 7 days, which I highly recommend checking out.
Future Of Search
First up is a great post by Jenny Halasz on the future of search. In the article Jenny looks at how the search engines are becoming more focused on user intent and provides a great example, which really got me thinking. I won’t spoil it here, so take a read for yourself!
And staying on the future of search, there has been a lot of discussion about where we go as SEOs now that google no longer provides keyword data. This excellent post by Sonia Simone and Sean Jackson on Copyblogger puts forward a strong case that this is not something we should be worrying about.
Guest Blogging
Regular readers will know that I’m a big fan of guest blogging for building relationships, getting yourself in front of a new audience and picking up some clean links along the way. Unfortunately like most things it is now being abused by the spammers and there is a concern that google will come down on it at some point in the future.
In a new video (discussed here on searchenginewatch) Matt Cutts explains how google differentiates between high quality guest posting and those that are just doing it for links.
Check out my article on how to be a guest blogging superstar for more tips.
Social Media
A couple of articles on social media that have caught my eye this week.
Firstly, I really enjoyed this article by Casandra Campbell in which she discusses why as a brand you should be looking to promote your products to authorities in a niche, rather than self appointed ‘influencers’. If you have a brand or product you are looking to promote through social media, then it is a must read.
Ever wondered how to construct the perfect tweet? Well this article by Ashley Faulkes will show you how to make every one of those 140 characters count (well, actually he tells you to use under 120!).
Responsive Design
I have written in the past about why your website needs a responsive design. It’s great for user experience/easier to maintain, but there has also been a school of thought that responsive sites might get a rankings boost. Well, apparently not!
Blast From The Past
And finally, I came across this post by Steve Pavlina from way back in 2006, in which he goes into great detail about how to make money from your blog. It’s an oldie, but a goodie and most of the tips are still relevant.
If you don’t do retro, then check out my post from a couple of months ago on the same subject!
Well, that’s it for the first of my weekly roundups. Take the time to check out the articles above as they are all well worth a read.
If you have an article you would like to see included in a future Friday update then drop me a tweet or an email!
