Make your business buzz
Earlier today I attended Make your business buzz, an SEO and website marketing event hosted by MBL Solutions in partnership with Business Link held at Middlesbrough’s modern MIMA. I went on behalf of MyKnowledgeMap as a means of better understanding SEO and website marketing, and learn how to better market MyKnowledgeMap’s network of websites.
MBL Solutions logo
I have an active interest in SEO and website marketing, as you may know, so this event was right up my street. The audience was a mixed bag of people from far and wide backgrounds; website developers and designers, marketers, copyrighters and shop owners, and so the event didn’t go into the technicalities of SEO and website marketing.
Business Link logo
Whilst the material in the event was delivered as a Powerpoint presentation, the excellent speakers; Oliver Stephens, Managing Director and Andy Atkins, Lead Search Engine Consultant both of MBL Solutions, ensured it was always engaging and prompting questions and discussion from the audience.
A large proportion of the material I was already aware of due to having an interest in the subject before attending the event. However I did still manage to take some new pieces of information away with me.
- FAQs and guides are good for increasing search engine visibility
- Host your blog at a separate domain from your main website as it will help increase Pagerank by cross-linking between the two rather than on one domain
- Facebook groups can be good for promoting services and products depending upon the target audience
- By tagging websites on the likes of del.icio.us, StumbleUpon and Digg increases search engine visibility and helps increase Pagerank
The event was condensed into an afternoon and there were so many questions I would have liked to ask both Oliver and Andy if there was more time, including the odd Dynamic URLs vs. static URLs article on the Google Webmaster Central blog.
3 comments to “Make your business buzz”
I understand most of the points you got from the conference, although there seems to be an over-emphasis on Pagerank. But how does having FAQ’s and guides assist in SE visibility other than providing opportunity for more keyword and subject rich content?
Kean at 9.02 am
on Friday 26th September 2008
Perhaps it was just my summary that emphasised the mention of Pagerank at the seminar, but it did feature throughout, especially when discussing building a network of quality and relevant links.
The FAQs and guides were suggested for exactly the same reasons you pointed out; providing opportunity for more keyword and subject rich content. Andy Atkins also said that by having frequently updated FAQs on the homepage shows the website is constantly being updated, yet maintaining relevant content.
Scott at 2.14 pm
on Friday 26th September 2008
Hi Scott,
Thanks for the generous commentary! We really do try to make it useful although, as you pointed out, we have to provide for a very broad range of audience experience and objectives.
Please feel free to email me on the dynamic vs. static stuff - the balance is very contingent on how close a site is to the ‘line of over-optimisation’ (if that makes sense!).
Best regards
Andy
Andy Atkins at 12.50 pm
on Wednesday 1st October 2008