James Fairweather

I have presented to quite a number of groups, workshops and classes in the past few weeks on the subjects of Online Marketing, Keyword Research, Web Analytics, SEO, and Search in general, so thought it appropriate to include my resources and related links and information in a post for those who may be interested in taking things further, learning more or doing some of their own research;

A small update on Local Business Listings – A recent update means that there is now a way that Google allows a ‘service area’ to be shown for an entry – That would be a far more honest way to appear in multiple locations for your business terms. There is a support article at Google here;

And here is the resources list, with links to the various tools I mentioned through some of my presentations and workshops;

Google SEO Starter Guide

Keyword Tools;
Google Trends
Google AdWords Keyword Tool - (be aware that the search volumes they show are designed to sell their AdWords product, and are often ambitious!
Google Analytics

Google Services;
Google Local Business Listings
Google Shopping Inclusion (requires product feed)
Google News Inclusion

Blogs and Resources;
Google Webmaster Central Blog
Matt Cutts – Google Employee
SeoMoz – Great quality SEO community

An interesting blog post that I spotted this morning by Malcolm Coles had me thinking about the possible motives behind an update to the Google Algorithm which displays more results on the first page of the Google SERPS from one site.

Assuming that this ‘update’ has, as has been suggested, rolled out and that changes are visible across Google’s results, rather than in one isolated case, I thought it sensible to consider the possible outcomes of an update of this nature. It has been suggested that it hasn’t been applied as a blanket update to all results at the time of writing this post.

Read the rest of this article here;

A comprehensive guide to setting up and getting the most from Google Analytics, from basic settings, how to track actions and users on your site, filtering and segmentation of the data through to troubleshooting issues that may arise.

Check out the whole analytics guide here.

The guide covers;

• Basic setup and account access
• Goals & Funnel Visualisation
• Event Tracking
• Tracking External Sources & Tagging URLS
• Dashboards and Automatic Reporting
• 404 Tracking
• Advanced Setup Process & Filters
• Some Filter Examples
• Advanced Segmentation
• Troubleshooting Analytics

When setting up a Google account to link to a Master Client Center (MCC), if an existing AdWords account is associated with that Google account, it isn’t straightforward to link to a different AdWords account, or MCC.

This issue occurs when you try to set up a new link to a MCC from a Google account that has an existing association with an individual AdWords account.

When you are trying to associate with a MCC on an account with an existing AdWords account linked, it isn’t clear that there is a way to ‘unlink’ the individual AdWords account which may have been created in error during the link process, or there has been an AdWords account used in the past.

To reset an AdWords account to the original “no account” status so that you can link to an MCC, simply:

1) Add another account (set up a throwaway Google account if necessary)
2) set up that user as an administrator,
3) Remove access on the original account that you want to reset.

This will revert your main Google Account to the non-linked state, and it will then be possible to link that account to the MCC.

Google unveiled Chrome, the company’s first desktop web browser on Tuesday, following the news that a printed comic book revealing details about the previously unconfirmed browser had landed in the hands of a blogger – who duly uploaded the material onto the internet. James Fairweather, Online Marketing Executive explains more.

Read more at mad.co.uk (registration required, unfortunately)

The introduction of Google’s interactive ‘SearchWiki’’ feature to its standard search engine results page begs the question: Is Google making moves to manipulate search rankings? James Fairweather, Online Marketing Executive, takes a closer look at the latest Google offering and what it means for the future of SEO.

Read the rest of the post at MAD.co.uk (logon required, unfortunately)