The Search Engine Weekly Round-up is a quick collection of the finest articles from the online marketing world that have been released throughout the week. In the 35th instalment of this content round-up, we have articles which look at the apparent death of SEO, link building tools and tips, as well as a look at the efficacy of keywords in email subject lines.
SEO is dead, if you ignore all that growth
Martin MacDonald
Follow @searchmartin
This first post comes courtesy from Martin MacDonald, and is a rebuttal to a rather controversial article which cropped up on the Guardian website, which was yet another “SEO is dead” post, claiming that social was the way to go. Suffice it to say, it ruffled a few feathers in the SEO community, with essentially everybody calling it a load of bollocks. That’s where this post comes in; Martin dissects the situation, looking at the admitted massive growth of the influence of social media, and where the cited Guardian post was incorrect.
Also, the whole situation can be summed up in one tweet, via Rishi Lakhani:
5 Reasons SEO is DEAD: . . . . . . . . . . . Dont be silly. SEO cant die as long as search engines exist.
— Rishi Lakhani (@rishil) July 24, 2013
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55 SEO Experts Reveal 3 Favourite Link Building Tools
Richard Marriott
Follow @clambr
In a rather gargantuan post, Richard Marriott has compiled the thoughts of 55 different SEOs regarding their personal favourite tools that they use during the link building process. Whilst it’s very handy to view the reasoning behind why people have chosen certain tools, Richard has also provided a very handy quick round-up of the post, with a list of the most commonly chosen tools in the post.
Of these tools, Buzzstream was the most often mentioned, with other tools such as Ahrefs and MajesticSEO also recieving plentiful amounts of mentions. You can also choose to see the views of a particular SEO from the get-go, which is a great little feature. Whilst there are these options, it’s definitely worth checking out this post in it’s entirety so that you find out the benefits of each tool, as well as finding some scarcely mentioned gems.
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11 SEO Experts Share Actionable Link Building Tips
James Norquay
Follow @connections8
On a similar note to the last post that I’ve mentioned, this post courtesy of James Norquay also amasses the thoughts of some of our industry’s experts, even including our own Matthew Barby. This post also focuses on link building, but instead of tools, it’s all about offering actionable link building advice. Alongside Matt, experts such as Jason Acidre, Dan Petrovic, Jon Cooper, and even James himself all offer excellent tips, including focusing on creating evergreen content and improving old links. This post, in conjunction with the previously cited post, are both fantastic resources for your link building ventures.
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The Most (and Least) Effective Keywords in Email Subject Lines
Ayaz Nanji
Follow @ayaznanji
The final post this week comes via MarketingProfs, and cites a recent study undertaken by British marketing company Adestra, which takes a look at, as the title suggests, the efficacy of certain keywords in subject lines. In this study, there are a few metrics which are focused on, such as click through rate, open rate and unsubscribe rate, all compared to the average. Terms such as ‘alert’ and ‘free delivery’ showed to have done particularly well in regards to this metrics in the analysis, whilst terms such as ‘report’ and ‘forecast’ performed particularly poorly. One of the more useful items to note about this post is that it’s been broken up into several areas: B2B, B2C, and Commerce. This can prove to be a highly helpful resource in general, with it possibly playing a huge role in outreach campaigns.
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Also, just to wrap things up, I’d like to mention a topic started on Inbound by Charles Floate, which stemmed from a discussion between himself and Matthew Barby in our office about content marketing. It’d be great to hear your thoughts on the subject, and as is stated in the post, you could also get a mention in a related blog post.
That’s all for this week’s round-up. If you fancy sharing the content which has been mentioned in this blog, click the corresponding Tweet buttons. So, what have been your favourite articles of the week? Feel free to leave your comments below
