The Little Engine That Could is a heart-warming tale perfect for boosting the morale of any five-year-old. It encourages children to persevere with hard tasks, telling them that no matter how small they are, no obstacle is unconquerable if enough effort is involved.

It’s a touching tale, but it gives altogether the wrong impression. A lot of things can only be achieved through subtlety. Pushing along while chanting ‘I think I can’ is often a guaranteed way to fail. In many ways, children would be better served by being force-fed Machiavelli. It’s not likely to become a popular idea, though, so the best thing to do is learn some subtlety as an adult.

This is a particular lesson to be learned for search engine optimisation. A lot of companies think that they can make number one in the SERPs, if only they try hard enough. The difficulty is, though, that the more obvious your on-page and off-page SEO, the (more…)

The other day, to my horror, I discovered that Pot Noodles can go bad. In all my experience of Pot Noodle, the thought that it was perishable food had never occurred to me. I had begun to believe that nothing short of nuclear holocaust could affect the edibility (that what it is) of this hardy little snack.

So imagine my surprise when I had my first forkful of a Pot Noodle I’d dug out of my pantry, only to find that it had gone terribly, terribly wrong. I won’t describe the taste. Suffice it to say that it was not what I was expecting – although wasn’t far off to be honest.

Of course, on looking at the date on the side of the cup, I did discover that that particular pot of noodles was due to meet its maker by (more…)

Have you ever given a small child red food colouring, especially in conjunction with lots of sugar? The effect is pretty instantaneous. The child tends to run around like a crazed bumblebee for around 40 minutes, then collapses in a complaining, tired little pile. It’s an effect that’s most impressive at the parties of six-year-olds.

The same kind of rollercoaster ride can happen with a website when its owner first cottons on to the benefits of search engine optimisation. In the first few heady moments, a lot gets done. Keywords are carefully considered, page code is picked through and all off-page avenues are thoroughly researched. The SEO campaign is (more…)

‘Ignorance is bliss‘. Whoever came up with this phrase sure knew their fellow man. It’s precisely what we all want to believe when it comes to awareness of the outside world. However, in SEO, like many things, ignorance is definitely the opposite of bliss, at least eventually.

Ignorance is the source of a lot of frustration and despair when it comes to search engine optimisation. It is the downfall for millions of websites, the cause of a lot of hard work in fixing problems, and how many dodgy SEO companies make (more…)

We’ve all had it happen, and recently it happened to me. It was a long day, the computer screen was bright, my headache was pounding and suddenly, they pounced on me: The late-night gremlins.

Late-night gremlins are exactly what you’d imagine them to be; troublesome, annoying and a particularly sickly shade of green. They have a tendency to creep up on you when you least need it. Even worse, they can lay the sort of traps that will adversely affect your search engine optimisation.

People in SEO and other information technology-related industries are particularly prone to late-night gremlins. Being used to them, we can cope with them fairly easily. Site owners performing SEO, however, may have a harder time dealing with them.

Why would site owners need to deal with late-night gremlins during their SEO? The situation partially comes about due to SEO advice. It’s always a good idea to update your site in the night-time, when alterations in progress will be seen by (more…)

It’s a sad fact about modern living, but many of us feel totally helpless when it comes to practical jobs such as fixing a car or any DIY that goes beyond constructing an IKEA bookcase. The image of a workman beholding your efforts at fixing/destroying something in your home, whilst rubbing his chin and asking you which cowboy did you get in to do the job, before telling you it’s going to cost a lot to fix, is a cliché – but it happens often.

The idea of causing more harm than good by doing it yourself in order to save money is not one that would appeal to any rational person, yet some people will still go ahead and try anyway. There’s nothing wrong in acknowledging the limits of your own experience and understanding and calling in a professional to get the job done.

Take search engine optimisation, for example. Like any DIY job, there is plenty of advice available on the Internet telling you how to go about doing it effectively. Just like other practical jobs such as car maintenance, there are now (more…)

It is often said that SEO is more akin to an art than a science. A thorough background in search engine optimisation theory is not quite enough to make the grade as a top notch SEO, you also need a muse to guide your hand. Applying this knowledge effectively requires a degree of flair and leftfield thinking, and an ability to understand how the smallest change can affect a SEO campaign as a whole.

Another crucial quality that a reputable search engine optimisation company will exhibit is that of diligence. When deciding on whom to manage your SEO campaign, it’s important to know if they will monitor it closely, fine tune it where necessary and spot any changes that need to be made in order to keep you ahead of the game. It’s all well and good having a bespoke SEO plan for your business, but if it’s not overseen, it (more…)