Web Toastie

If you’ve been following my Twitter stream for the past couple of weeks you will know I’ve been in the market for a MacBook. After spending so many years using a Windows machine I decided it was time for change, and I also wanted to get a laptop that was proven to be reliable and high performing.

Wanting to save on money I decided to explore the eBay route in a pursuit for my first Mac. I was looking to pick up the black MacBook (core 2 duo) for roughly £500, but they are all roughly £600 (or more). In the hunt for a deal, and to keep within my budget, Gumtree seemed like a good alternative. Here’s how (and why) Gumtree can be better than eBay.

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There have long been complaints about the strange local results often returned in the UK Google SERPs. Searches such as “tennis court for hire” bring back large packs of Australian websites instead of UK websites as you would expect. Although these anomalies have become common place on google.co.uk, it is not often you see Google Local business listings that are incorrect.

Here, however, is a strange one…

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Running a successful SEO campaign isn’t just about attracting visitors to a website — it’s also about keeping them there. Google Analytics provides a lot of useful metrics to understand how visitors interact once they visit a site, and using these metrics allows you to make any appropriate changes to improve things. Aside from the basics you find on the Analytics dashboard (such as bounce rate and average time on site), other interesting information can be found by delving further into the ‘Visitors’ category.

Here are some ways to improve visitor retention with the help of Google Analytics.

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Mike McDonald of WebProNews today sat down with Matt Cutts at Search Marketing Expo (SMX) West 2010 to talk about some of the latest search marketing developments and what’s in store for us in 2010. The session was recorded live and can be viewed along with the other fantastic videos WebProNews have done, but in the mean time, here are the notes from the Matt Cutts session.

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There have been some interesting posts of late providing SEO advice for unfamiliar websites. Malcolm Coles offered some suggestions for church blogs and Danny Sullivan gave Bill Gates some tips, but what about Google; the search engine giant? Google provides a starter guide to search engine optimisation, but it appears they don’t actually follow some of their own advice.

Here is a light hearted look at why Google.co.uk needs SEO.

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