We have just discovered a lot of very dodgy links pointing at our site. It looks like, within the last few months, thousands of links have started pointing in to us from adult sites, irrelevant blog comments and low quality directory listings.

One of our local competitors has obviously had enough of us ranking well for their target keywords, so is running a negative SEO campaign to try and wipe us off Google. Classy.

Negative SEO is where someone tries to push your site down (or even out of) the Google rankings by building lots of bad links to your site. Since the Google Penguin update launched and showed us that low quality sites and over-optimised anchor-text can cause serious SEO problems, the negative SEO industry has thrived and now even has a nickname - Google Bowling. By employing these tactics, you can outrank your competitors not because you are any better than them or Google prefers the content on your site, but because you have no morals and can only do well when others fall.

We are being targeted heavily for the keyword SEO Cardiff, meaning one of our local competitors has had enough of us winning a lot of the local projects and wants to hit us here. The ironic thing is, the decent SEO projects very rarely come in off local Google searches! Almost all of our work comes as word of mouth recommendations or from events we attend, so even if this campaign works and you no longer see us in Google for local keywords, it isn't going to harm us as a business. We will continue to grow and win SEO projects because of the quality of our work and the hundreds of happy clients who regularly tell their friends.

If you are looking to engage an SEO agency within the Cardiff and South Wales area then make sure you do your homework. There are obviously some very dodgy people locally who cannot be bothered to market themselves properly, rather resorting to tactics like this.

We will be keeping an eye on the links and will speak to our contacts within Google to highlight this issue. One upside of being big enough to get targeted by competitors with this type of SEO campaign is that we are also big enough to have numerous contacts within the search engines who will help us when needed.

I’ll be seeing what tools they have to help us identify who did this and when I know, I will be publishing their details on this blog for everyone to see. What we will also do is record our activity and then blog about it. We have seen this type of work happen to a few of our clients who are in very competitive markets and it could easily happen to you too, so watch this space to see the impact of negative SEO and what we will do to take care of it.

We will be visiting and speaking at a number of events over the next few weeks...

BrightonSEO

Kris, Rhodri, Ben, Monique, Dean and Rachel will be attending this great event on Friday. They will be there all day sitting in on the seminars and will also be staying over, to take advantage of the after party. If you are also going to be there, make sure you join them for a beer.

Carmarthenshire Tourism Summit

On Wednesday 17th April, I will be at the event in the Parc Y Scarlets Stadium. I'll be giving a workshop on SEO and improving website performance. The synopsis is:

"Get the most out of your website: 5 search engine marketing tips

Learn the five main things you need to be doing to take advantage of search engine traffic. We will look at how to choose the right keywords to focus on, and then how to use those on your site. We will then examine the benefits of blogging and how to get other websites linking to yours. We will also look at how you can attract local visitors with Google+ Local. All of which will increase the amount of business you get from Google, Yahoo! and Bing."

Torfaen Digital Enterprise Festival

On Tuesday 23rd April, I will also be presenting two slots on SEO to the tourism and hospitality sector. The synopsis is the same as the above event. 

If you are based in South West Wales or South East Wales and fall within the tourism industry then these two events look like they will be time well spent, so it's worth you checking them out. 

2012 has been a very interesting year. Lots of great new projects came on board, many new talented marketers joined the team and we saw a lot of changes in the SEO, Pay Per Click and social media markets.

We want to thank everyone who made it such a special year and wish you a merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous new year.

Our offices are shut from 6 pm this Friday (the 21st) and will re-open at 8 am on Wednesday 2nd. We look forward to seeing you in 2013.

So you don't forget who we are in the meantime, here's a snap from our office Christmas party:

And for good measure, here's an instagrammed picture of our Christmas trees, courtesy of Rachel:

I am pleased to say that we are continuing to grow well, with recent news including us doubling the office space and adding five new staff members.  

During October, Liberty saw the addition of Thomas Bentley, Dean Coombes and Ben Magee (who are joining to manage SEO and Social Media accounts), Lianne Jones (who joins us as an SEO Team Leader) and Ceri Williams (our latest PPC Account Executive).

Lianne is now responsible for overseeing one of the SEO teams. Lianne graduated with a degree in Journalism and has worked as an ecommerce manager for a number of websites, including ones in the hair and beauty markets. Her experience in content production and PR allows the team to focus on creating high quality content, essential for achieving strong SEO results. 

Dean, Thomas and Ben have joined Liberty as part of the SEO team, responsible for delivering SEO and social media campaigns and working closely with the copy team to produce engaging content.

Dean has over 5 years online marketing experience and was previously responsible for the SEO of an ecommerce where he helped to grow website sales by over 20% year-on-year. 

Thomas brings with him a wealth of experience, having been responsible for the online marketing of a new insurance aggregator. Thomas has experience in a broad range of SEO including link building, content creation and data analysis, which will add real value to client campaigns.

Ben has a background as an online marketer for ecommerce and hotel booking websites, where his search engine optimisation, social media skills and time as a webmaster were highly valued. 

Joining the Pay Per Click team is Ceri, who has run large and complex PPC accounts including one with an annual budget of over £1m. Ceri has an in-depth knowledge of Google Analytics, meaning he is able to identify trends and spot opportunities, which will really benefit our paid search clients.

It’s great to have these talented new people on board. We have already seen improved results for some clients so the future is looking very rosy.

Members of the Liberty SEO team are attending the BrigtonSEO event today, so if you are there, make sure you say hello.

Siddhesh, Adam and Andrew are there to learn more about the latest changes to search and social media.

Rhodri, our Business Development Manager is also there, playing chaperone, keeping these three out of trouble and performing picture taking duties.

The Webmarketing123 “State of Digital Marketing 2012 Report” is out and it is full of fascinating figures for marketing professionals and SEO specialists alike. Drawing on responses from over 500 Business to Consumer (B2C) and Business to Business (B2B) marketers, this report and the infographic it produced makes very interesting reading indeed.

Take a look at the infographic here.

Amongst the findings is the news that increasing numbers of B2C & B2B marketers are turning to SEO to secure firm results for their brand and business. According to industry professionals, the emphasis is no longer solely on creating brand awareness; it’s about producing measurable results that have a real impact on revenue. To achieve these figures, marketing professionals are increasingly relying on the measurability of online channels.

One key factor behind this trend is that SEO and online marketing are much more measureable than traditional offline marketing techniques. By investing in SEO you can clearly gauge your spend and the volume of lead generation this spend has created. Perhaps this is the reason that, in the report, 59% of B2B marketers and 49% of B2C marketers said that SEO is the marketing technique with the biggest impact on lead generation.

At Liberty, we have been committed to providing measurable SEO for years and want all clients to accurately gauge the results they are getting. Using Webmaster Tools (WMT), Google Analytics and specialist SEO software, we have the ability to provide extremely accurate statistics about:

• The amount and quality of traffic any one channel is producing
• The number of conversions achieved through SEO vs other online channels
• Your SEO conversion rate
• Your SEO cost per conversion 

Whereas up until fairly recently, it has been quite complex for a lot of businesses to accurately tell how well their SEO has been performing, with the right software, it is now easy to determine ROI and compare it to other markeing activities.

The 2012 report contains more good news for online marketing agencies – proving that in-house SEO rarely holds a candle to SEO undertaken by a specialist team. Businesses using an online marketing agency were found to be twice as likely to be ‘highly satisfied’ with their SEO strategy than those using an in-house team.

Other interesting nuggets from the survey include the news that, when it comes to social media, B2B marketers are hot on the trail of B2C teams. Social media was once deemed to be the realm of B2C business, allowing them to engage personally with individuals. Yet, B2B marketing professionals are quickly catching up and utilising the power of social media to increase brand awareness, reputation and relationships.

Congratulations are due to two of our very own Pay Per Click advertising experts, Chris Gurner and Amy Lyddon, who passed their Microsoft adExcellence exams this week with flying colours! 

Tackling 100 questions on all aspects of Microsoft’s adCenter platform in just 90 minutes, our in-house PPC gurus chalked up a very impressive average score of 87% between them.

These qualifications are now added to the growing list held in the company, including numerous Google AdWords and Analytics exam passes.

Both Amy and Chris are very pleased with their results and feel that their time and effort have been well rewarded by an increased understanding of the strengths and potential of working with the adCenter platform. 

It has long been known in the paid search industry that Bing and Yahoo! users (who the Microsoft adCenter platform targets) often make for higher quality traffic when it comes to website conversions. This is down to a number of interesting factors concerning Bing and Yahoo! users and the different demographic compared to Google users. Bing users tend to be slightly less web-savvy (probably as the search engine comes as the defaul option on most laptops and PCs), which means they browse and search less thoroughly. Ultimately this results in higher conversion rates – as long as you get your PPC ads just right.

Studying for adExcellence success has increased Chris and Amy’s understanding of the nuanced differences between adCenter and AdWords (Google) advertising. With a fluent, finely tuned grasp on the variations between the two platforms, the Liberty Pay Per Click advertising team have the knowledge and skills to use both mediums to the full advantage of our clients. 

If you’d like to learn more about how Pay Per Click advertising can boost your business online, across a range of platforms and search engines, please do not hesitate to get in touch with the Liberty Marketing team today. Fill out an enquiry form or call now on 029 2076 6467.

Blogs are an essential tool for businesses that plan on taking the online arm of their operation seriously. Of course targeted and keyword rich SEO copywriting is essential for websites to attract customers for the most commonly searched keywords, but what about those ‘long tail’ searches you might otherwise miss out on?That’s where a business blog comes into play, helping you to mop up those customers entering ‘long tail’ key search terms you are unable to incorporate into your onsite copy.

Let's take a look at an example: You may have a website offering outdoor furniture, in which case your onsite pages will be geared towards keywords such as ‘outdoor furniture’ and ‘garden furniture’. However, this does not account for those customers who are closer to knowing exactly what it is they want. For example, some may search for ‘contemporary garden furniture designs’ or ‘garden furniture on a budget.’ These ‘long tail’ keywords are less likely to attract search volume in such numbers as the more generic terms, so it may not be worth creating and optimising a main sales page for these terms, but by writing an optimised blog post, entitled ‘the most popular contemporary garden furniture designs’, you will show in the search engines for those key term ‘contemporary garden furniture designs’. As the competition for ‘long tail’ key terms is less, you have a good chance of appearing higher up in the search engine results.

Also, it is worth considering that blog posts can bring in high quality traffic. As these ‘long tail’ search terms are often more specific, the traffic can convert at a higher rate than the more generic, research based keywords, as the searchers are often further down the buying path, as they show that they already know more about the products and services they are looking for.

There are other positives of a business blog aside from the SEO benefits. Website copy alone cannot address every query or all the information your customers are likely to need. This is where a well written, informative blog can help. By providing answers to common questions and information that customers want to know, your business can become an authority on a particular field of expertise, attracting visitors purely on the basis of the informative resources you provide. The blog posts will then help with your social media efforts, as you have relevant, informative content to distribute across sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, and a place to direct visitors that isn’t a sales page.

If you have any questions about blogging or creating a content strategy, then feel free to give us a call on 029 2076 6467 and chat it through with our SEO and copywriting teams.

Some of the team from Google, who have been running the recent Getting British Business Online campaign in and around Wales, have set-up a Juice Bar in the Liberty meeting room today.

The one-off event has been designed to advise small businesses on the various Google products, and how they can be used to promote a website. Business owners we have recently met and who had questions about search engine marketing were invited along to have a chat with the guys from Google.

At the Juice Bar, attendees are learning how to target local businesses with Google Places, how to use Google Analytics to understand the traffic on a site, and how Google AdWords and Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising works.

It is great to be one of the few agencies that has been invited to put an event like this together with Google. As one of the first Google Engage agencies in the UK, we have long worked with the search engine to keep ourselves fully trained and able to best advise clients.

The advice sessions will be running for a few more hours, so if you are in the neighbourhood, pop in.

Yesterday on the Inside AdWords blog, Google announced a new change to AdWords and the way adverts are rotated.

Advertisers have the option to rotate adverts in three ways. Optimise for Clicks, Optimise for Conversions or Even Rotation. We always test adverts on the Even Rotation setting as it allows you to split test your adverts and find out what copy works. Over time, this can give you very powerful insight into what makes your customers tick. With the other two rotation settings, you don't have this control over testing copy because, as soon as one advert starts getting more clicks or conversions than the other, it starts being shown for more of the time, so skews data.

Unfortunately, Google is making it far harder for us to work in this way because...

"Starting next week, the “rotate” setting for ad rotation will change. Instead of rotating creatives for an indefinite period of time, this setting will only rotate for a period of 30 days. After that, the setting will then optimize to show the ads expected to generate the most clicks. Every time a creative is enabled or edited, the ads in that ad group will rotate more evenly for a new period of 30 days."

This is far from great news for advertisers who like to test out ad copy and see what really works for their markets. They say this is to help advertisers improve the performance of their accounts but we think it's a very bad move and one we can't help but feel Google us putting in place to get more click budget from Pay Per Click customers.

Get ready, as the changes will start taking place next week and "ad groups with creatives that haven’t been added or modified in the past thirty days will see this new ad rotation behavior. Otherwise, this change will begin 30 days after your last creative was enabled or edited."