Think Visibility

Think Visibility was the first SEO conference I’d ever been to, and it was held in Leeds last weekend. I met some top names in UK SEO, and learnt a great deal.

Tim Nash gave a great talk on search engine basics, along with a great demo trying to explain Google Pank Rank (PR). Tim gave the best explanation of PR that I’ve ever heard, as well as being an entertaining chap to listen to.

Al Carlton of Self Made Minds and Coolest Gadgets gave an interesting perspective on different monetising channels, and promptly told me off for not targeting my US traffic on EnviroGadget!

Patrick Altoft of Blog Storm gave a detailed perspective on gaining backlinks the ethical way and without buying them (essentially link baiting).

Dave Naylor talked about some of his experience with problematic websites that were after his SEO services. An interesting topic was what Dave calls a “silver bullet” website; a website that can get a website penalised by Google simply by linking to it from the “silver bullet” website.

And finally Kieron Donoghue who gave us some juicy tips on affiliate marketing.

Thanks to Dominic Hodgson for organising a fantastic event, also thanks to Raymond Theakston for giving me a few tips on own network of sites.

Here are some of the tips I picked up:

  • Google Adsense - can make a website look cheap. Avoid if possible.
  • Fat not Thin - go for websites that offer value, rather than cheap mini sites. (Something I was already starting to recognise).
  • Paid links - are bad, bad, bad! Many reasons, notably Google penalisations. Oh, and they are really easily spotted.
  • Affiliate Marketing - it isn’t easy, but if you crack it, you can earn big.

I’m looking forward to the next event, particularly because I made some great new friends and I learnt a great deal!