Remember Stephen Frygate on Twitter? This afternoon chief execs at Vodafone will be extremely red faced after a massive blunder on their Twitter account.

An employee managed to tweet a fairly offensive message to the world which resulted in a spectacular page of @replies:

The company has already issued two desperate pleas for forgiveness across to all people who responded to the tweet and appear to be frozen in panic as I write this post. The one positive may be that their followers will increase out of pure rubbernecking curiosity to see how this car crash pans out.

This perfectly illustrates the dangers of social media and why as a large corporate it is important to regulate access and activity to your accounts. We speak to a lot of big brands about these issues and whether it is right for them to dive into social mediia, as a result it will be extremely interesting to see the fallout of this event and how they handle it.

Oh and by the way Vodafone – if you need reputation management from an award winning digital agency just give us a call

I’m very pleased to annouce that our good friends over at Distilled have agreed a monumental deal with SEOmoz!

SEOmoz and Distilled are consumating their 2008 engagement as global associates with a full blow marriage of skills and minds; Distilled will become the consulting arm of the pair with SEOmoz concentrating on further developing their excellent set of SEO tools  and resources.

This means Distilled are going over the water, opening a US office and Rob is doing everything at once!

Many of the Bloomers here know Tom personally (I still can’t beat him at pool…), and Alex and I have been known to harass Will, Duncan and anyone else we can find at Distilled on a regular basis so I would like to extend our collective congratulations and wish Distilled (and SEOmoz of course) and prosperous year.

In the words of Alan Partridge – Spiceworld!

You can read the official scoop at the Distilled blog, the annoucement on Search Engine Watch as well as Mr Fishkin’s announcement over on SEOmoz.

There’s a lot of talk about the Digital Economy Bill – and none of it good.

It seems that rather than improve our broadband network and nurture the digital business springing up across the UK, the Government would rather concentrate on brown nosing the entertainment industry in yet another ill conceived attempt to control content.

You can read the bill and see for yourself; the draconian extremes it goes to will only achieve two things:

1. Further alienation of customers from the industries pushing this crap forward (and probably more file sharing)
2. Reductions in the number of people online if it is enforced.

The battle to control content has been going on since the advent of records, there is a great book which sums up the 40 plus years of failure on the part of the record industry to do anything about sharing music which sums up the problems of their approach very nicely:

Bootleg: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Recording Industry – Clinton Heylin

Maybe these industries should try actually moving with the times instead of wandering around railing against them like a pack of lumbering, luddite dinosaurs.

It is my great pleasure to announce that Bloom have bagged a DADI Award for Best Use of Social Networking.

The digital marketing team and I have been beavering away creating a social media campaign on behalf of Anglian Home Improvements which was put into action earlier this year. Sadly we can’t give away our magic social media action plan but needless to say it is AWESOME and we are the proud owners of a shiny new jewel for Bloom Towers!

It was an evening of dinner, drinking and Canadian comedy which we shall not soon forget! Alex Craven and I headed down with the team from Anglian to the award ceremony at the Armouries to enjoy an evening of digital celebration – here are some of the highlights!

Collecting the award.

Go team!

We win - Woop woop! (while I look like a mannequin who's been photoshopped in to make the picture look busier)

Alex shows his manly strength

Celebrations continue after the award ceremony...

You can see the full list of commendations and awards over at the DADI website, as well as the full set of photos from the evening. Well done to all the other winners, it’s great to see such diverse work being celebrated in the greatest city in Yorkshire!

See you all next year.

Yay!

Cats are good for SEO. Fact.

So, how to capture this in words… The 19th and 20th of October 2009 were the best two days any SEO (in house, agency or hobbyist) could have taken out of their calendar year.

OK so that doesn’t make for a very exciting blog post but I don’t say that lightly; the last two days have been filled with genuine actionable tips and tricks, hardcore analytics and the unholy love between one man and Excel.

My problem with conferences and gatherings throughout the search world is that you always get one of two things; great content (i.e. aimed at the right crowd – which as an agency SEO is not usually me) OR great people.

Distilled and SEOmoz however have managed to pull together both for a fascinating and useful two day session. Will Critchlow cemented my opinion on this afterward ‘We told people don’t bring your slides telling people how to do stuff, just bring the tips’ (apologies for the terrible paraphrasing Will but you get the gist!).

So my top self improvement takeaways from the Pro Training sessions this year are:

1. Excel
I thought I was good, I was wrong.

Will kicked off the two days with a hard core session of advanced (and amazing) analytics. What he also showed us was how Excel can not only make kick ass graphs but can be your best friend – how? With pivot tables. I actually need to learn more about these and how to use them properly before I say more but if you want to know – as Will!

Will went on to discuss (as did almost every other speaker – don’t want to do anyone a disservice!) how we can all use Analytics to inform action, rather than just reporting. This may seem like an obvious thing to say bit the categorisation of types of data into ‘leading indicators’ and ‘signature analytics’. This essentially is the ‘does it look like it will work’ and ‘does it look like it has worked’ basis of using analytics to inform action for yourself or your clients.

The whole session was amazing and illustrated an intelligent, strategic use of data analysis and analytics which everyone can use to improve their campaigns or business.

2. Excel
When you’re good at Excel, get even better at Excel.

Excel kind of became a running theme really – Duncan did an awesome sign to illustrate this, get the DVD to see him in action!

3. Recruiting SEOs
I’m sure everyone has had this problem; there is not formal training or qualification for SEO outside of the industry itself, so how do you know if a sparky young junior will be a great SEO rockstar a year down the line? Richard Baxter (of SEO Gadget fame!) provided the excellent recommendation of group interviews. According to this (proven) theory; grab 8 people, get them in a room and set them paired tasks. I believe Richard’s example was ‘pair up and sell me your partner in two minutes’.

This allows you to assess their communication skills, how well they listen and generally how personable they are. Depending on the complexity or nature of your task you can basically assess whatever you like and save time with this method – great tip Richard!

4. Penalties vs Filters
Lovely Jane Copland gave an excellent presentation on why you probably don’t have a penalty. Google has massively increased their algorithmic filtering to (try) to increase the quality of their top results. As such a lot of sites can get filtered and assume they have been slapped with a penalty.

This tied in with some later content about Google’s ingenius ‘learning’ tests which seem to be happening a lot lately… However the important takeway is don’t panic, your haven’t been banned! Do some analysis and check your link profile and/or content for anything that might cause your site to be seen as anything less than the answer people are searching for.

5. Data. Is . Sweet.
Ben Hendrickson from SEOmoz did the most amazing data analysis which said everything and nothing at the same time. Awesome. You should probably contact him direct for more because I’m still digesting his presentation.

6. Use PPC to inform your SEO campaigns
PPC is easy right? Just joshing PPC guys it really really hard… Do you look at a PPC campaign and use it to inform organic keywords to target? PPC can tell you quickly what is converting and how much, thus you have a quick cheeky win to help you shape your campaign early on.

7. Use Your Assets
A big theme from the Pro Training was engaging with your site, your client or your industry and really leveraging your USPs to help you Linkbuild and form lasting business relationships. Rand, Tom, Will, Duncan, Rob – pretty much everyone touched on this subject and it’s easy to say – but harder to do. As Tom so succinctly put it ‘I can stand up here and tell you to go do it (linkbuilding), but you actually have to do it.’ Seems obvious but it’s not the flippant point it appears to be.

8. Google loves video (probably too much)
A very interesting post from Patrick Altoft over at Branded 3 highlighted Google’s current hunger for video indexing. HE even noted that they are actually indexing some flash files which are not video (admittedly on pretty long tail search) in an effort to universalise the results.

Patrick also talked about how to maximise your use of image and video in a number of ways, such as branding up your images and hosting your own video to increase your CTR. Good stuff!

I won’t leak any more super secret SEO tips as I know there is a DVD coming of the whole session which I would highly recommend you buy – it’s well worth the money.

So I suppose my final thoughts are that the last two days have been filled with useful, actionable, interesting content which has literally set my mind racing with ways I can now improve what we do internally at Bloom – the team and I are clearly having a weekend in the office to watch the DVD and eat pizza – win!

Ok final final thought – get yourself down next year.

You may have seen the recent furore (actually began in January) online regarding the Palm Pre and iTunes. For those that haven’t, the gist of the problem is this;

Palm are releasing a sexy looking new phone, the Pre, which not only looks like the only realistic contender to the iPhone but has a completely bespoke webOS (based on Linux). There’s a comprehensive review on Engadget with some videos.

Palm would like to be able to sync this phone with iTunes, so they made it appear like an iPhone/iPod when connected to do so. Apple took incredible umbradge at this and have released several updates to stop it working. As there are several zealous Macolytes in our agency a debate has been raging via email which I present to you here. The two opposing sides can be summarised as:

Side (a): Consumers should have freedom of choice and Apple should let them use iTunes with the Pre, the decision not to damages their reputation

Side (b): Apple are protecting their business interests and don’t think this decision will damage their reputation

Can't we just use these?

(a) Says:
““Palm is currently locked in a long-running battle with Apple over the Pre’s ability to synchronise with a user’s iTunes library. When the Pre first launched, it could copy across songs from a user’s iTunes library by tricking the software in to thinking that it was communicating with an iPod. But Apple quickly issued an iTunes software update that disabled this capability, only for Palm to issue its own software update for the Pre to reinstate iTunes synchronisation.”

Last week’s launch of iTunes 9 has again disabled the Pre’s iTunes syncing feature, and users are waiting anxiously to see what Palm’s next move will be.

“As we’ve said before, newer versions of Apple’s iTunes software may no longer provide syncing functionality with unsupported digital media players,” warned Apple in a statement.

“Apple’s decision to disable Palm media sync again is yet another direct blow to its own iTunes customers who will be deprived of a seamless and familiar synchronisation experience,” retaliated Palm in a statement.”
Why? Because Apple want you to roll over and receive your iPhone/iPod as a suppository every 12 months.”

(b) Says:
When the Pre first launched, it could copy across songs from a user’s iTunes library by tricking the software in to thinking that it was communicating with an iPod. But Apple quickly issued an iTunes software update that disabled this capability

LOL! Why does Palm have to keep trying to hack iTunes to get it to work? Maybe its because there is no other song purchase program out there that is as good?! Of course with Spotify released as an app that could change! Laughable how Palm have to look for ways to hack iTunes!

(a) Says:
I know this is one for the blog (SPT – Yes it is!) – but please take your Apple tinted glasses off for a moment! Apple has just denied another reasonable source of income by locking out the Pre.

Maybe they (Apple) should look at the opportunities to open up iTMS to other devices and therefore increase their opportunities of even further revenue generation!

Besides which, you could use Double Twist (http://www.doubletwist.com/dt/Home/Index.dt) and sync anyway!

(b) Says:
Perhaps Apple are trying to protect itself from other vendor’s carbon copying them…

4) Poach a senior iPhone architect – check
5) Infringe Apple’s Multitouch and Gestures Patents – check
6) Hack iTunes ‘integration’ by violating USB regulations and get ass slapped – check

And yet Apple is in the wrong for protecting their own platform? I don’t think Apple needs the dribbles of revenue that the Pre will generate.

(a) Says:
I don’t see how they’re protecting their platform, people who want an iPhone will still get one and allowing their main competitor in the phone sector access to their own music sales channel is surely the best way to capture lost revenue from people who buy a Pre instead?

In regards to these points:

1) Poach a senior iPhone architect – check – unlucky, he obviously felt he could do better elsewhere
2) Infringe Apple’s Multitouch and Gestures Patents – check – the ascension of touchscreens means there will be a lot more of this in future
3) Hack iTunes ‘integration’ by violating USB regulations and get ass slapped – check – again they haven’t hacked iTunes, they make their phone appear like an iPhone as this is the only way to use it with iTunes if you’re not going to be forced into getting a contract from O2 for an iPhone

What’s the beef with getting more people access to iTunes? Maybe you want the software but not an iPhone (this is going to be an issue outside of just the Pre) but all Apple are saying is ‘No, buy an iPhone’. It’s just not (to my mind) a sensible way to get the most out of iTunes…

(a) and (b) Say:
Woah there!

(a)
There are other options to sync, it just strikes me as very odd that Apple have gone down this road that’s al. Fair enough if they don’t make any money from iTunes but they would still maintain a larger presence (from a branding point of view) but letting more people use iTunes. And if they only break even surely that’s an even bigger reason to grow the iTunes user base, rather than limit it?

(b)
I don’t see it as odd in any way. They make much more profit selling iPhones and iPod’s, not content on iTunes. In order to use iTunes, the music biggest retailer in the US, and largest online retailer in the world, you need an iPhone or an iPod. Allowing other vendors to use iTunes would likely mean less hardware sold, but (I agree) increased iTunes revenue. However, the difference between the two would result in negative profit growth.

(a)
I’m hearing a lot of Apple do no wrong talk is all I’m saying. You can’t groundlessly assume that the Pre is an inferior platform prior to a UK release or UK road test – if Apple are that worried that it will rob iPhone marketshare maybe they should just roll out another cash in update? Make it a little bit faster again maybe?

(b)
All I hear is that Apple always do wrong, and have inferior products and software. IMO the Pre is inferior; it doesn’t support native apps, there is no music subscription service, it has poor battery life, apparently feels cheap and the lack of software keyboard is a major disadvantage. (ed. the Pre actually does feature a software keyboard, other facts are uncited as yet)

The Judgement!

Conclusion?
Well as you can see we have not reached any kind of conclusion here, the Macboys love Apple, the others love other stuff.

For my part I think the Pre will be an excellent alternative to the iPhone, the review (above) is positive and considering the iPhone has a 3 year headstart in terms of App developement and software fixes it would be foolish to rule the Pre out yet.

But at the end of the day, Apple, Palm, can’t we all just learn to get along?

It’s amazing given the WEALTH of information available to anyone on the internet about SEO, that some people and even some actual agencies (by golly!) still get it wrong.

After accidentally embarrassing Lisa Myers on Twitter (sorry Lisa!) I was inspired to collect some examples of the worst advice people have received from hobbyists, freelancers, fly-by-nighters and full on SEO agencies, here are the top 7.

Crap Tip #7

‘Keyword stuff you HTML comments’ (Thanks to @GrosenFriis) – original tweet credit here!

Crap Tip #6

‘Bold tags in the <head> title help SEO’ (Thanks to @peteyoung) – original tweet credit here!

Crap Tip #5

‘When buying a domain include the word nude’ (Thanks to @tnash – original tweet credit here!

Crap Tip #4

‘Sorry your site can’t be opimised, it’s in Javascript’ (Thanks @LisaDMyers) – original tweet credit here!

Crap Tip #3

‘Google likes to see that you have bought links’ (Thanks @Yoshimi_S) – original tweet credit here!

Crap Tip #2

‘Put all your URLs and keywords into the robots.txt file becuase that tells Google what to index’ (Thanks to @NortonLegg) – original tweet credit here!

And finally (drumroll please) the final, best, bravest Crap Tip of them all (hushed silence):

Crap Tip #1

‘Links aren’t important, they’re not included in the algo.’ (Thanks to @chriscathcart) – original tweet credit here!

It was a tough call between the top two, given that both are completely retarded but the links wins the prize! If anyone else has any crap tips they would like to add to the mix please do so!

Free Extra Crap!

This post has inspired more crap tips so in no particular order here are some Extra Crap SEO Tips!

Extra Crap Two for One

‘Put all your copy in H1 tags’ and ‘Hide lots of keywords behind images’ (Thanks @Whole 9 Yards) – original tweet credit here!

Google have announced a jittery superfast new version – codename ‘Caffeine‘.

This is the biggest update to the core of Google for some time and I’m pretty excited to see what the implications are for both users and the old SEO game. Developers can have a sneaky preview and provide some feedback here.

Google claim the update will site “under the hood” of the search engine, so the casual searcher might not  notice a difference. They reckon the update will “push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions” – which all sounds very exciting.

Mashable have written up a great sneaky peak review as well.

Other dimensions eh?

I haven’t mentioned this on the Bloom Blog before but my pet side project, NorthernSEM is coming round again on Friday the 3rd of July.

For those not in the know NorthernSEM is a monthly meetup run by me and Dom ‘The Hodge’ Hodgson (you may have heard of him…) We meet at Mr Foley’s, talk, drink and generally socialise in an attempt to survive in normal society.

Full details can be found over at the Northern SEM blog, but all you really need to know is here – so get yourself down to meet other people with an unhealthy interest in all things online.

p.s. we have badges – it’s like scouts though, you have to earn them…

p.p.s. I forgot, check us out on Facebook, we have both a page and a group because one was not enough.

This coupled with Google keeping a close eye on certain ‘high profile’ SEO individuals and agencies seems to be sending waves of paranoia and anger left right and centre. There have been a few extremely well written posts on the subject which I would highly recommend reading:

• Michael Gray over at Wolfhowl has posted about how he has personally experienced Google’s double standard on so called ‘paid linking’.
• Lisa Barone has also written a great post on this worrying profiling from Google and the potentail pitfalls of tarring everyone with the same brush.
• Rand Fishkin has in his usual clear style provided a summary of danger areas and what it’s like to work under the Eye of Sauron.

The Eye of Sauron, ever watchful for webspam...

It worries me that SEOs are being profiled by the webspam team at Google. This suggests that they already imagining us as an army of Black Hatted devils smearing tins of Tesco Smart Price spam all over the glistening Babylon of the internet that they have built.

I can understand them wanting to ensure that the web is full of good content and to ban the genuine spammers, however it’s going to require a more intelligent approach than ‘all SEOs are Black Hat – BURN THEM!’