A little while ago I wrote a blog post outlining a few “Twitter Tips” for building followers, outlining a few techniques which I have found to help increase the number of people following your Twitter account, my final point in the blog post was put in as a joke, basically I was suggesting that if you were to use a cleavage photo as your twitter avatar you would naturally build followers (mainly male followers).

What happened next was a surprise and quite frankly shocking!

As any good SEO should, I have continually been monitoring my website traffic, over the last 30 days I see traffic for “boob” related keywords. This was very odd!!

Some of the words I am getting traffic for are pretty strange, it’s a small snap shot into the daily “Sex” related browsing which goes on over the internet every day.

I will use the term highlighted below as an example of how my site now appears in the search results (what sort of person types in these search terms…?)

So, lets type “how to see your friends boobs” into the Google UK search engine and select image search, below is the shocking image results… There is all sorts of “wrong” with the below images!

For those eagle eyed SEO’s who haven’t been put off by the first image result, you will notice that I have highlighted the image which is in my original “Twitter Tips” post from a few weeks ago.

So why has this happened? Simple really, Google has found the image with the file name boobs.jpg  and the sentence from my Twitter post is “Try looking through your friends “following” lists see if they are following any spam bots.”

Google has picked up on the keywords “your friends” & “boobs” and decided my site deserves to rank for “how to see your friends boobs”. I take this as proof that Google still has a fair way to go with determining the relevance of a websites overall content and associating it with “Google Image Search”, it has matched the search query nicely but the over all content of my SEO BLOG shouldn’t trigger a ranking result for boobs!

So how to fix this?? I would assume it is as simple as renaming my image to something more generic. However I am now fully aware that this post may have made the issue worse, afterall it is a blog post which clearly has the keyword “Boobs” througout.

ALWAYS KEEP GOOGLE IMAGE SEARCH IN MIND WHEN NAMING YOUR IMAGES!!!

I also get traffic for “GO Compare” Related search terms, but that wouldn’t have been as much fun to blog about..

Thanks for reading.

Andy.

Step 1

So step 1 for getting your twitter account unsuspended is to understand what you did which goes against the Twitter Best Practices. As soon as you understand what you did wrong you are on the road to getting it back.

Step 2

You will need to contact Twitter support - http://support.twitter.com/forms and click on “account restoration” link and fill out the contact form.

Before you do this here are a few tips on what to put in the email to them.

• Acknowledge that you understand you may have done something against the best practices.
• Tell them what it may have been.
• Tell them how you are going to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Step 3

Now you have sent Twitter an email you need to wait for a response, and boy do you have to wait a long time! Don’t keep chasing them to help you, have patience! (I had to wait 2 weeks)

Eventually you will get an email back from support, it may look something like this:

I have learnt the boundaries of just how far you can go with Twitter, yes maybe I should have been more careful and not used my main account to test with.

I still firmly believe that to fully understand a lot of things in the SEO industry you need to experience it yourself it is the only way to learn. Experimentation is part and parcel of the job… or at least should be!

I have been pulling my hair out trying to remember the names of the extensions I use (they usually just appear as an icon) at the top of the browser. So as an effort to save time if this ever happens again I have decided to write this blog post about them, this way I will be able to find them again fairly quickly, it may even prove useful to you guys reading this!

1) Google Analytics Opt Out

Download It Here

This is a fantastic little extension, it is really useful for Google Analytics tracking. What this plugin does is block your own visits from messing with your analytics reports.

If you are like me you will continue to work on your own websites and manually keep checking pages are displaying correctly. This will obviously cause your visitor data to be “inflated” slightly, this little extension gets around this issue.

2) SEO For Chrome

Download It Here

SEO for chrome is a really useful extension, it provides you with a fantastic level of information regarding the current website you are visiting.

Most useful in my view are the “pages indexed” information, where it tells you how many of yoru pages are indexed by the major search engines. “Backlinks” report is good too, it tells you how many back links have been found, Majestic SEO especially.

3) SEO Site Tools

Download It Here

SEO Site Tools is quite similar to SEO Site Tools above, however it gives you a visual PR Score for the page you are currently on.

The information displayed is similar, just laid our differently. I have both installed simply to compare the data between the two, this is probably not really necessary. It is down to personal preference which you install, try them both out and choose.

4) Fully Loaded

Download It Here

I recently found this extension, it is really useful for testing the “load speed” of your web pages, out of the page load speed extensions I have tried this gets my thumbs up.

Google has said that page load speeds are now a factor in their ranking algorithms, Google released a tool which can help you optimise the load times, the SEO community seems split on the importance of this, but in my opinion a faster site is better for visitors too.

5) PageRank Status

Download It Here

A really good “PageRank Checker” for chrome, I have been using this extension for a little while now and I think it is one of the best and simplest PR indicators.

It is useful for tracking the PR scores of your web pages, and also for identifying which pages have the highest PR score on other websites. This information can be used when targeting sites for link building.

6) Link Checker

Download It Here

Link checker is great for quickly displaying broken hyperlinks on your web pages, I have no idea why they would choose a woman for the icon…

This isn’t my preferred Link Checking Extension, my favourite “Check My Links” doesn’t seem to be available in the Chrome library now. However this is the next best thing.

7) Site Spider

Download It Here

Does what it says on the tin, this extension spiders your website and reports back on what it finds.

It is great for highlighting problems with a website, it will report on 404 errors and broken links it finds throughout the website. You can then use this info to fix problems with your site before Google indexes them.

8) Sitemap Generator

Download It Here

Generates sitemap.xml file for your website. It also discovers duplicate pages and identifies broken links.

Really useful for those who don’t know how to write an XML Sitemap by hand, or for generating a sitemap for a large website. Be sure to fix all the errors and duplicates it finds.

9) Ghostery

Download It Here

I was recently told about this one by Peter Handley a great SEO I talk to on Twitter. – http://www.peterhandley.com/

Protect your privacy. See who’s tracking your web browsing with Ghostery. It is also great for testing that your Google Analytics tracking code is working correctly.

10) MozBar

Download It Here

Last but not least, MozBar by Moz.org (formally SEOMoz). This is a great SEO toolbar extension for Chrome.

This is great for displaying the Metrics Moz.org use in their SEO analysis, Domain Authority, Page Autority etc… It becomes really useful once you are logged in as an SEOMoz Pro Member.

Final Thoughts

Thanks for reading, if you ever have trouble with chrome and need to reinstall your extensions, this list will help. I have also found a fantastic post by Dave Woods along a similar subject, his post “13 Google Chrome Extensions For A Web Designer” is well worth a read too.

Thanks, Andy – @AndyMorleySEO

I was also running HootSuite taking advantage of the scheduled tweets function, looking back on things it was really stupid of me to do these two things together.

Basically I was banned for too many “automated tweets”, I have reviewed my behaviour and will be far more cautious in the future.

Please learn from my mistakes! I have lost my 771 followers unless I get my old account back.

What Has Really Hacked Me Off

What has really pissed me off in this situation is Twitter’s poor response and customer service:

1. They never once emailed me to warn me of what I was doing my result in suspension.
2. They haven’t got a phone number which I can use to ring them directly (which I can find).
3. They haven’t responded to any of my emails when I have tried to contact them.
4. I have followed their “support page” and had no response using their Support Contact Form.

There are various other bloggers writing posts about “How to get your twitter Account Unsuspended” I have tried their advice and still no joy, if you want to read these posts for yourself here are a few of them guys.

• http://ryankett.hubpages.com/hub/how-to-get-a-twitter-account-unsuspended
• http://bobbittswholesale.hubpages.com/hub/GotATwitterAccount
• http://blog.bufferapp.com/6-crazy-things-you-probably-didnt-know-about-twitter-support

Thanks for reading guys and putting up with my frustrations, I am a firm believer that as an SEO you have to test things, this time I was burnt! Please learn from my mistake and be careful how much automated Tweeting you do.

Ultimately my testing wasn’t a total waste, I now have first hand experience in how far you can go with automatic tweeting, Yes there are people online discussing this and how to do it correctly, but to truly understand something sometimes you have to experience it.

Bye for now.

Andy.

UPDATE: I have now got my account back, want to know how? read here.

I have been recruiting Web Designers, SEO consultants and PPC specialists for my agency for the last 6 years, having interviewed over 60 people.

Here are some helpful tips I have picked up along the way.

Be Employable

This is a strange opening point, you need to be employable! Your CV should display your experience as accurately and honestly as possible… No Cheating!

You should review your “online persona” make sure that your FaceBook page or your Twitter profile is free from filth! It should be spotless, if you have pictures on your social media profiles of you steaming drunk at your mates Stag Do or Hen Do think twice about leaving them online to be viewed by potential employers… This can depend on the company you are applying to.

Stand Out From The Crowd

There has been a huge influx over the last 5 or 6 years of new web designers graduating from the colleges and universities here in the UK. The industry has got a whole lot more competitive! You need to stand out from the crowd, have something the others don’t. I lose track of the amount of times I have seen very similar websites being churned out by graduates hoping to land a job, not one of them has had their own BLOG!

Blogs are a fantastic tool when looking for a job, they give the employers an insight into your knowledge, employers love to see people who have had the initiative to set their own portfolio site up, even better if they have an active blog on it.

If there is one piece of advice I hope you take away from this post it would be set your own blog up.

“but what do I blog about?”

I hear this a lot too, it doesn’t matter to some degree what you are blogging about, just get started, try to keep blogging regularly too. Blog about what you have done at college or uni which is related to the web industry, blog about that new jQuery script you have just figured out. Anything really which will show that you have a keen interest in your chosen industry!

Once your blog is up and running, Join Twitter! Get speaking to other people in the industry, show them what you are working on, they will more than likely give you some tips on how to improve or alternatively share what you have been doing (which can only be a good thing).

Remember Networking is vital in our industry, if you want some tips on how to build a network please read my previous blog post.

Your CV

Now you have your blog in place, and you have removed all the embarrassing photos from your social media profiles it is time to create your CV and email it out.

What info to put on your CV

Be honest here, don’t make experience up, I have interviewed people who have done exactly this, they get caught out when being questioned by an experienced professional.

Make sure your CV is relevant to the job you are applying for, we don’t want to know that your first job was sweeping the floors in a fruit & veg shop (yes this was my first job), as an employer we are really only interested in your relevant experience.

There is obviously the standard stuff to put on your CV, Name, Address, Contact Details, Education, Work Experience etc…

Your Personal Statement / Covering Letter

You should always write at least 2-3 paragraphs for your personal statement or covering letter. This is the first thing employers will read, make sure you sell yourself! Describe your strengths and try to portray your enthusiasm for the job role.

TELL ME WHY I SHOULD EMPLOY YOU!

It is important to tailor this personal statement to the company or individual you are seeking employment with. Make sure the contents of this letter are relevant to the job role.

Send It Out!

The are two main ways to get your CV out there, the first is to find yourself a recruitment agency, submit your CV and let them do the hard work of finding you a job. Be careful as some agencies are specialists in certain areas, and some potential employers won’t deal with agencies.

The second, and by far the most impressive if done correctly is to direct email the companies you wish to work for. This can be difficult if you don’t know who to send your CV to within the company, my advice is to first check their website for a “recruitment” page, if they don’t have one you need to get creative, some examples are:

• Follow the company on Twitter, and approach them this way.
• Find the company on LinkedIn and approach them this way.
• Find the company on FaceBook and contact them via their profile.
• Use “www.companycheck.co.uk” to find out who the head honcho is in a company and mail them, yes write a letter!

Finally, remember once you have found out the correct person to deal with, tailor your covering letter to be addressed to this person.

The Interview

Ok now we are getting to the fun part, THE INTERVIEW (cue the scary music). Interviews are wonderful things, they are nothing to get nervous about. Honestly they aren’t, and this is why, THE EMPLOYER CHOSE YOU, out of the numerous CVs they have seen they have pulled yours out to one side because guess what… They were impressed or they liked what they saw!

This automatically should make you feel confidant, confidence is important in the interview and there are various things you can do to help yourself.

Preparation

Be prepared, research the company you are going to have an interview with. Find out their products and services.

Discover who the bosses are (www.companycheck.co.uk), dig about into their company history, check “companies house” for information, you can discover a lot by using the “WebCheck” service.

Review the company and produce a list of questions which you want to find out answers to.

Know Your Strengths

Understand what you are good at (and what you aren’t) these will become key points to talk about in the interview, note down your strengths so you have a prompt on what to discuss.

Be Realistic

Simple really, apply for a job to suit your level of knowledge, if you are new to the industry don’t apply for a managers role, instead try to find an entry level job.

Final Thoughts

You won’t get every job you apply for, that is a certain Fact! Don’t get down hearted, be persistent continue the process above, continually improve your skills and continue to add to your blog. Remember the employer who is interviewing you liked your CV and was impressed with your skills and experiences, he has short listed you to work for him! Take this as a positive!

Thanks for reading.

Andy – @AndyMorleySEO

Enjoy & Share!

One of the key points of advice I took from Tom’s presentation was to build yourself a network.

Its one of the most difficult things for people new to the web design or SEO industry to understand is the power of networking. Both on-line and off-line networking has been a fantastic source of inspiration, information and ultimately clients.

However only in this last 10 months have I come to appreciate the value of building your own network.

Traditional Networking Methods

Business networking events – These can be really useful for finding clients and specialists to help you grow your business, however they can vary dramatically in quality. I have been to some really shocking business networking events. Most of them require you to become a member of their group, this is fine if you a) have the time to keep attending meetings or b) the other members are looking for your services. These networking groups try to restrict the number of members joining from the same industry, the competition for web designers to join these groups can be very fierce.

If you find a good group with no web designers in their member list join it right away.

One of the biggest networking groups is “Business Networking International” – www.bni.com

Breakfast meetings – These are not for the faint hearted, they usually mean an army start 6am in some cases. Basically business owners and individuals meet up for an early morning networking meeting, with a breakfast included.

I have been to a few recently ran by 4Networking, these were pretty good. I don’t think I can warrant spending £100s to join unfortunately.

On-line Techniques

Networking offline is great if you have buckets of time on your hands, I don’t have this luxury unfortunately. I find that I get more out of online networking, there are various places where this can be achieved.

Forums – Ahhh a golden oldie, forums have been around for many years, which is great for networking purposes! They are probably the oldest form of “conversation site” around, other than chat rooms. Internet users are generally fairly comfortable with using forums now, and they are great places to pick up new clients and meet other people in your industry. A lot of people use forums to seek answers to questions.

Guess what… IF YOU CAN ANSWER somebody’s question then they are more likely to ask you for advice again, and the best thing is you are now their “expert” in your field. This situation is easy to turn to your advantage, I have picked up a pretty good selection of clients this way over the years.

Use “Board Reader” to search these forums for people discussing your specialities.

www.boardreader.com

Chat Rooms – An other golden oldie, unlike forums you need to set some quality time aside to get the most out of these. In forums you can reply to a thread at your leisure, chat rooms on the other hand require you to be active in a conversation.

The principles are the same, try to appear as an expert, but be careful of other experts as the worst thing that can happen is that your advice get contradicted by somebody else!

Social Networking

Twitter – A great place to find other specialists in your own industry to talk to and to take inspiration from. For web designers Twitter isn’t the best place to find clients from my experience, my clients tend to know very little about social media (before I meet them anyway), Twitter is still a very new tool and many businesses haven’t caught onto how use it as a marketing tool yet.

FaceBook – There are many uses for FaceBook, not all of them productive! Networking with people is possibly not on the minds of the majority of FaceBook’s users. FaceBook provides a great opportunity to network with people, it gives you the chance to create your own “group” for people to join. Set up a group aimed at your target audience for example if you fix games consoles, why not set up a Xbox or Play Station related group. You can also join other well established groups and find people this way.

LinkedIn – Possibly the best place to find other specialists in your industry. LinkedIn is seen as a more professional networking site, it’s users are fairly comfortable with the world of social media. There is also the same opportunity to create groups, or join established groups. LinkedIn can help you find people who have been recommended by other users, be careful not to pay too much attention to this as it can be abused, you can ask to be recommended by people in your network.

Not many people new to the web industry have heard about linked in, there has been many occasions when I have interviewed college leavers who know nothing about LinkedIn.

There are other social networking sites available, but these 3 are by far the most commonly used in my opinion.

To Sum Up

Offline networking has been a tried and tested method of networking for many years, however you need to spend a lot of valuable time attending meetings, these groups are fairly mature and have a lot of members, competition for web designers and Internet marketers is very high.

Online marketing methods give you the opportunity to meet 100′s of people, many more than you could possibly meet in the real world, best of all it’s Free!

Important Advice: Networking is all about being “liked” and “trusted” by the people you meet. Relationships should be based on these two things. If people like you they are more inclined to talk to you and do business with you. There is no substitute for face to face networking, relationships are more real if you have actually met the other person.

How ever you decide to approach building your network, I hope this post has helped.

Thanks for reading.

Andy.

I have always found these SEO seminars, SEO Conferences to be amazing value for money, yes the tickets are expensive, but the knowledge you gain from these events is priceless, plus it is a great way to meet other SEO’s and a great opportunity to ask the industry experts your questions.

SES London

Location: London
Category: Search
URL: http://sesconference.com/london/
Start: 20/02/2012
End: 24/02/2012

Think Visibility

Location: Leeds
Category: On-line Marketing
URL: http://www.thinkvisibility.com/
Start: 03/03/2012
End: 03/03/2012

UK SEARCH CONFERENCE 2012

Location: London
Category: Search
URL: http://www.dontpanicprojects.com
Start: 09/03/2012
End: 09/03/2012

Distilled – Link Love 2012

Location: London
Category: Search
URL: http://www.distilled.net/store/t/ll-ldn-2012/
Start: 30/03/2012
End: 30/03/2012

Internet World 2012

Location: London
Category: On-line Marketing
URL: http://www.internetworld.co.uk/
Start: 24/04/2012
End: 26/04/2012

SMX Advanced London

Location: London
Category: Search
URL: http://searchmarketingexpo.com/london/
Start: 15/05/2012
End: 16/05/2012

SAS Con

Location: Manchester
Category: Search
URL: http://www.sascon.co.uk
Start: 17/05/2012
End: 18/05/2012

Online Marketing Show

Location: London
Category: On-line Marketing
URL: http://www.onlinemarketingshow.co.uk/
Start: 27/06/2012
End: 28/06/2012

Distilled – Search Love 2012

Location: London
Category: Search
URL: http://www.distilled.net/
Start: 29/10/2012
End: 30/10/2012

SMSS London

Location: London
Category: Social Media
URL: http://socialmediastrategiessummit.com/london-2012.html
Start: 06/11/2012
End: 08/11/2012

If there are any that I have missed off this list please let me know and I will get them added.

Andy.

So without further a do…

1) Follow People Of Similar Interests

This one has been pretty useful, find people within your industry or share a similar interest who tweet often and are fairly active. These active users will often follow you back, afterall they are doing the same job you are. One of the fastest ways for you to do this would be to search twitter for # tagged keywords, if you sell “blue widgets” perform a search on twitter for “#bluewidgets”. Another way to find users of similar interest would be to use www.followerwonk.com and “search twitter bio’s” for the same keywords.

2) Tweet Often

Pretty straightforward to understand, Tweet Often! this shows you are an active Twitter user and people will continue to follow you provided you have something interesting to say…

3) Engage With People

Important in social media not just Twitter, you must always remember to “engage” your followers, get them talking! Find out what makes them tick, what they hate what they do for a job anything but just get them talking. If you can build relationships with people on Twitter they are more likely to “Re-Tweet” your posts and share what you have to say with their followers. Always try to “engage” active users who have a healthy following, this way you will reach a wider audience.

4) Mix It Up & Look Human!

You are not a Robot! so don’t act like one! Its fine sharing your useful information and promoting your services & products, but soon enough people will get fed up of you ramming your marketing efforts down their throats! You need to post some “non-promotional” tweets too, such as “Hey all, how has your day been?” etc… This should come naturally if you engage people from point 3.

Remember MIX IT UP! (Think GO COMPARE! how annoying is that guy! Don’t be this guy on Twitter!).

For those who don’t know who this guy is.. check out this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUyxIoitg_M

5) Stumble!

A little technique I’ve found to be one of the most effective by far is to use “StumbleUpon” to find interesting articles to tweet about. Simply sign up to StumbleUpon, add your interests and start stumbling, anything you find which is interesting to you (and your followers) share it on your Twitter profile.

6) Start A Blog!

Start your own blog, start blogging and produce interesting posts, share these on Twitter….. Simple… Ish… Blogging itself can be fairly difficult to start with, but I find that once you start it gets easier.

If you run your own blog remember to install some “social” share buttons especially the Twitter button, make it easy for your readers to share your content.

7) Automated Tweets

Hang on!! This sounds a little like a robot I hear you say, and yes I agree with you to some degree. Automated tweeting is a fact of life if you are serious about marketing via Twitter. If you sat there manually Tweeting how would you get anything else done? or would you consider employing somebody purely to Tweet on your behalf? of course not!

There are a few tools out there which offer “automated tweeting” I personally prefer to use “Hoot Suite” or “Timely“.

8) Use # Tags

Hash tags are great for generating new followers, if you place a “#keyword” tag within your tweets people searching Twitter will easily be able to find your tweets and then follow you. This is effectively the opposite to a point i made at the beginning of this post. Instead of you searching for related followers by searching for hash tags, you are the hash tag this time!

9) And finally…Cleavage!

Ok this tip isn’t supposed to be taken seriously, if you spend enough time on Twitter you will undoubtedly start collecting followers who seem to be spam bots of some kind, they usually have a “nice cleavage” display picture. I can only assume they are apealing to the red blooded males in this world! Who would follow BOOBS!

Try looking through your friends “following” lists see if they are following any spam bots.

Thanks for reading, let me know if you have any other tips to add.

Follow me on Twitter here – http://twitter.com/#!/Andy_Morley

Andy.