SEO Blog from Distilled

LinkLove London 2013 videos are now available

By cheri-percy. Published April 29, 2013 in the Distilled, LinkLove London 2013 category

This may well have been the last LinkLove but here at Distilled we were set to make this the best one yet and the quality of speaker sessions [not to mention, line of mid conference refreshments and activities; Scaletrix, anyone?] were certainly testament to that.

Whether you want to earn buy-in with the right kinds of metrics from Rand Fishkin, build training sets with Ian Lurie or simply, want to relive the whole conference experience again; all of the LinkLove 2013 conference video footage is now available over on the store page.

The Link Builder’s Guide to Polling

By Steve Ollington. Published April 26, 2013 in the Link Building, SEO category

poll-examples

Introduction

Polls can get links. They can get a lot of links, from great places… from niche blogs to national media.

A poll should be looked at as a tool, and if it doesn’t get links, it’s not because of the tool; it’s because of how it’s used. Just like how some infographics get links and some don’t, some articles, some videos, or pretty much some everything! Polls are no different; they’re still content so the same rules on content quality apply. Just like any other content that gets links, it has to be unique, original, and interesting. But… polls also have strict credibility standards to meet if they’re to get published (and get links).

Why Content Marketers are Right to Hate on SEOs

By Hannah. Published April 25, 2013 in the Content, Link Building category

Do you self-identify (or have you previously self-identified) as an SEO?

If so you likely won’t be too surprised to hear that you’re ‘unpopular’ in the content marketing world. In truth I’d suggest that unpopular doesn’t come close to covering it. You might in fact be more accurately described as the red-headed stepchild of the content marketing world.

How the Content Marketing Industry sees us SEOs:
Red-headed stepchildren (in this instance we’re in creepy doll form). No one likes us.

As an SEO myself I’ll admit to being frustrated by this. But, I can also see where those content marketing practitioners are coming from.

Historically SEOs have committed an awful lot of crimes against content. Let’s see how the evidence stacks up:

The Latest 5 Tools I’ve Added to my SEO Toolbox

By Craig Bradford. Published April 23, 2013 in the SEO category

I’ve written a few posts now on tools: There was the one on Doing a Site Audit Using Google Webmaster Tools, the 8 Alternative Ways To Use Screaming Frog for SEO and most recently one on Simple Tools to Get More Done. But recently I’ve been using some tools that don’t really fit into the topics I’ve covered previously so I thought I’d write this post.

Chart Intelligence Plugin

Credit for finding this tool goes to Bridget Randolph who found this while checking if a client had been hit by any of the Panda updates. Normally, I just refer to the SEOmoz Google Algorithm Change History page but there’s been so many updates that I find it annoying to jump back and forth between windows to check the dates. This plugin means I no longer need to do that. It’s a plugin for Chrome and can be found here. It overlays Google updates onto Google Analytics data, below you can see example data with the Panda updates highlighted.

Creating and Managing Deadlines for Outreachers

By James Daugherty. Published April 19, 2013 in the Outreach category

Looking back on my greenhorn Outreach days, I was a bright-eyed and spiky-haired marketer who learned as I went.

In my last two posts, The Scouting Report for Link Building Rookies and Think Beyond the Link – The Right Way to Conduct Reviews for Outreach, I shared some insights I’ve picked up along the way.

Looking back on how my outreach methods have evolved, there is one lesson I wish I would’ve learned sooner – how to manage deadlines.

I took deadlines for granted, and maybe you do to. Continue reading »

5 email marketing tips I’ve found useful

By Will Critchlow. Published April 16, 2013 in the Marketing category

Email marketing is one of those things that I never set out to do. In the early days of Distilled (much like the book-keeping, tax returns, and general admin) it was my job simply because someone had to do it.

We started small – emailing the dozens of people who came to our early events. A few years ago we decided to work to grow our list more actively – I distinctly remember working with one of our early interns on the campaign that took us past 500 subscribers.

The first big thing we did was to create a reason people might actually want to hear from us frequently. Our first attempt at that was our monthly free video email - something that a little over half our list has opted-in to receive. Since then, we have added blog updates by email, DistilledU news and, of course, updates about our events.

Along the way, I’ve made most of the mistakes you’d imagine. I’ve sent emails to the wrong segments, I’ve sent emails with typos, I’ve sent emails with broken links. But I’ve also picked up a bunch of useful tips and tricks – and I thought I’d share a few of them here: Continue reading »

How should you feed back to your designers? DistilledLive London video discussion

By cheri-percy. Published April 16, 2013 in the Distilled, Web Design category

We caught up with Kate Morris and Kristina Kledzik over in Seattle for the last DistilledLive video and an enthused chat on Real Company, ahem, Stuff. This week, we’re back in London asking lead designers, Leonie Wharton and Matt Mitchell-Camp to share their experiences when it comes to giving feed back to designers.

It’s not uncommon for a consultant or clients to be unsure of how to feed back to designers when it comes to collaborating on a project so within this video, Leonie and Matt share their experiences so you can get the best out of them and your final product.

You can read the full transcript for this video, below.

Continue reading »

DistilledU video: 80 hours of HD video, interactive modules and bacon

By cheri-percy. Published April 12, 2013 in the Distilled, Video category

Using Customer Surveys to Define Your Content Marketing Efforts

By Alyssa Ennis. Published April 12, 2013 in the Content, Distilled category

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again—content marketing can be tough. Creating content without a target audience is like Hall without Oates, peanut butter without jelly, Carly Rae Jepson without ‘Call Me Maybe’….essentially, it just doesn’t make sense.

Using a customer market research survey is a fairly quick and efficient way to identify an audience and start brainstorming content strategies that will keep current customers interested and convince potential customers to convert. By using the information found from a simple survey, we can begin to understand our audience and figure out what the heck we should be creating for them.