Mercurythread

What is great content? #infographic

Michael Briggs — Wed, 22 May 2013 22:33:13 +0000

How to resize a webpage to fill an iframe

Michael Briggs — Fri, 03 May 2013 15:11:41 +0000

My coding skills are a bit out of practice these days – I hack about in PHP a fair bit but in terms of CSS I need to brush up. So when someone said to me – can we resize a webpage into an iframe so we syndicate the content I thought no prob.

And TBH its so easy even I worked it out in under 10 minutes, using no JavaScript, with only Google for assistance. You know when I say that I had to cobble together stuff from Google as TBH I didnt really like the responses I was getting.

So the code below is what I’ve came up with…

Which displays as :

Anyway there is another implementation over @ http://epicureanadventures.co.uk/2013/05/03/one-minute-holidays-from-thomson/

My Life on Twitter

Michael Briggs — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 20:01:45 +0000

Stop Ranking for Keywords and Start Ranking for People

Michael Briggs — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 21:25:38 +0000

It sounds trite. It sounds almost Fishkian in nature. That if you want to get high quality traffic through natural search you should stop thinking about your audience and not yourself. I left one of my early SEO jobs purely because of this beliefs : ranking for keywords is how we get people in (it’s the what in the equation) but we’re really looking to make sales (the why in our little equation), rankings are merely how we drive people.

Think of it from a client perspective when they employ you as an SEO agency/contractor. What do they care about? Really think about it. What are their goals? It’s a business goal, and every time it’s likely to be something measurable. A sales target, a visibility goal or a traffic metric (and yes I did put that in declining order of importance from my point of view. It’s our job as marketers to achieve this goal. We prove this by measuring what we’ve achieved and what we’ve done to achieve it and refine and implement as we go.

The Simplified SEO Process

Select Keywords -> Fix some content stuff -> bung in some links -> Cross Fingers -> Hopefully get results and achieve goals

And this is often what I see people doing and talking about.

What does Google want from content?
Whats the minimum amount of content I need to get the traffic?
How many ads can I jam on a page without being smacked by Panda?
How do we get links?
How do we get links and not get spanked by Penguin?

Most of the SEO I read about is like a procedural drama. Its flow chart SEO. If we do this and then do that we get something and then we add some more. Baking a cake is probably more interesting than being an SEO in these situations.

And here’s my real rant. So many SEO’s seem to forget about anything that isn’t the machine in all this. Feed the beast. With a disregard for the human element.

SEO puts sellers and buyers together. And keywords are the path between them; think of it as dating. Keywords put these people together but we still need to help them get into bed. We need to close the deal.

And if all you’ve done if keyword stuff some content and flung in some links that managed to game a computer program then it feels like you’re a spammer not an SEO.

SEO needs to be about the life cycle of the audience relationship with a website. Why would they come back. How do this couple from a one night stand to a marriage? What does the audience need to turn the impulse to buy into a sale.

This whole post was ranty and angry and TBH not what I intended. But let the record show that I was angry about my chosen industry on this day.

SEO WARS : Retro SEO Satire Flashback Video

Michael Briggs — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 21:36:19 +0000

This just made me roflcopter : had forgotten all about it.

Fantomaster Vs Rand Fishkin

My Favourite part :

Rand Fishkin : “I use interesting content to generate links”
Fantomaster : “you are not my child”

Defintions of Social Media Platforms

Michael Briggs — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 13:06:35 +0000

Just read this and it was too good not to share (and twitter wasn’t long enough). So here is social media platforms explained using Donuts! Yaldy.

Twitter – I am eating a donut
Facebook – I like donuts
Foursquare – This is where I eat donuts
Instagram – Here is a vintage photo of my donut
You Tube – Here, I am eating a donut
LinkedIn – My skills include donut eating
Pinterest – Here is a donut recipe
Google+ – I am a Google employee who eats donuts

Well and truly stolen from the wonderful aimclear blog

TAGFEE – Is this an SEOMoz Concept?

Michael Briggs — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 11:46:10 +0000

It’s 4am and I’m awake; which is very strange as myself and my duvet are enjoying a renaissance in our relationship due to being on holiday for three days. Anyway as I’m reading my RSS feeds when I wake up and catching up on twitter and facebook groups etc I end up on the SEOMoz website purely as I want to take the free version of the API and run a quick hack on some data to cross reference where the Moz Link Metrics were in relation to domains that I knew Google had whacked the day lights out of in penguin.

Anyway when I was wandering about in a pre-sunshine daze (yes in Scotland in Summer we don’t get sun light at this time in the morning). And by using my random clicking monkey surfer in flannel pj’s I stumble across the TAGFEE mission page ; something I’d really paid very little attention to previous (I still stick to the no asshole rule as my basic mission statement).

TAGFEE: Transparent and Authentic, Generous, Fun, Empathetic, Exceptional

So I read about TAGFEE – it seems ok as a concept be a decent; moral sense, company and by creating a strong team and wider community exposition of these values then the company will be a “good” company to work for and do business with. Having met a few Mozzers (I mean those who work at SEOMoz rather than fans of the ex-Smiths front man Morrisey – not saying that the two are mutually exclusive) I’d say that they seem to be a good group of folks and polite – even when my Scottish brogue after a couple of Shandies has became inpenetrable.

Anyway this was meant to be a question rather than an early morning rambling but did SEOMoz come up with the concept of TAGFEE or did they just show me it? Long way for a short cut – now I’m off to finish looking at domains which have had a Google smack in Panda and comparing their variables against that in link analysis tools.

#RamblingOver

What is a pingback?

Michael Briggs — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 15:31:20 +0000

OK so my use of this term @ #TBUMBR (Travel Bloggers Unite – Umbria) seemed to start a bit of a panic (and TBH it was someone else who used the term pingback – not me in the first instance). Basically a “pingback” is a piece of technology that sits inside your blog and when you mention someone else’s content (assuming they receive pingbacks) they get told automatically in their website that someone else has linked to them.

Over at wordpress.com they say that :

pingback: is designed to allow bloggers to :

inform other bloggers whenever they cite an article from another site in their own articles ¹

Let’s take a simple occassion I write an article about travel bloggers I’ve met over here in Umbria, Italy and mention a nice blog post they’ve written about Italy (take this about the Paris to Italy Sleeper Train over at the blog written by @Jools_Octavius) the next time he opens his wordpress installation it will let him know I’ve mentioned his article and his blog (upon accepting the pingback) will provide a link to my article which cites his article.

That’s it. If you’re really wanting to learn about pingbacks (which yes are kinda like trackbacks) you can see more over at the following articles ;

Geeky Stuff about Technical Definitions of what is a Pingback

http://www.kryogenix.org/writings/tech/pingback - Original Pingback Specification
http://www.hixie.ch/specs/pingback/pingback - Updated Pingback Specification

Cool Pics I Ripped from Google Image Search

Michael Briggs — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 11:21:11 +0000

God knows why but I was looking at oranges (google still cant look at an image file and distinguish between an orange and a sunset was the point I was making). I found some cool pics with oranges and I aint posted in ages so I thought that I would stick some of them here just for the fun of it.

Cat Made of Oranges

Hahaha - I've never seen a cat made of oranges before. I have now

So here we have another strange picture of an annoying orange

Soma Records

Feels like I need some Soma today I tell thee.

Soma - I guess I need to find a mad man in the country and try and stabilse him with some Soma. But hey I like being a beta - at least I dont work as hard as an alpha and I aint as stupid as a delta

All done. Am fed up with oranges.

Virgin Media Broadband Connection #RantOfTheDay

Michael Briggs — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 23:11:45 +0000

I’m trying really hard to keep it together. I don’t think I’m winning. All day my internet connection has been bottoming out to less than I used to get on my old dial up 256 kbps connection.

It doesn’t matter which device I use (3 laptops, an ipad and an iphone) always the same. Get a decent signal and then whack it vanishes.

At first I thought it was my router and some TCP issue. Have restarted my router numerous times, changes the wireless settings (fixed channels vs auto channel selection), I’ve plugged it in which gave me 1 meg and tbh I’m getting angry. I need my Internet to work (am meant to be working now and not raging through the 3g connection on my iphone).

So I give up – for ages I’ve fought against going with sky purely because I believed in the value of my internet connection.

And to drive me up the wall I get the following every time I contact the online support :

22:38 Connecting...
22:38 Connected. A support representative will be with you shortly.
23:02 Connection closed. Attempting reconnection...
23:02 Connecting...
23:02 Failed.

That’s a real sample. Waste of time. As one of the tweet responses I got earlier on today said “I looked up the word “oxymoron” in the OED the other week – Virgin Media Customer Service was the definition“. Not surprised. Just annoyed.