Spain is far from being the land of opportunity that it used to be; in fact it is clearly one of the more competitive markets from an SEO perspective, which is many affiliates’ bread and butter in terms of traffic. But, that is not to say that you shouldn’t really be looking at Spain as a legitimate area to expand your business.

The Market is Softer than the English Market

Based on internet world’s estimates, around 8% of the internet’s users speak Spanish as a 1st language, but according to w3 only 4% of web content is in Spanish. This ratio is essentially reversed for the English web, with 27% of users speaking English and 54% of web content being in English. Now of course, the benefit of English is that it is the global second language, but when it comes to logically targeting any market you will clearly have an advantage if you use the native tongue.

Keep in mind this was actually written quite a while ago for GPWA‘s Magazine, but was relatively recently published, (pre link disavowal tool).

Still some good actionable tips in this though.

SEO: Think Ahead

Before writing this article I asked myself what is the most common question that I hear  from clients, affiliates and pretty much anyone I meet in the online marketing sector that wants to pick my brain about all things SEO. The answer that I came up with was the inevitable, how can I future proof my SEO? Sure I’m doing great now, but what about in 12 months’ time? The answer to this question is by no means a simple one, and some of it may not be pleasant to hear if you’ve been working with some “grey” to “blackish” tactics in the past. However I’m going to try to cover the key points that you can implement to help secure your sites position in the SERPs and avoid penalties/the devaluation of your work down the line.

I’ve been in print in this issue IGB Affiliate Magazine. You can read this article and many more over at their website as well as below.

After saying over and over again that affiliates NEED to move into the social sphere and time and time again hearing stories of failures or lack of ideas I thought I’d run through some basic strategies that should be within the budgets of most serious affiliates. The idea of this post is about being cost effective as much as being big, we don’t need to generate millions of shares, but we should generate enough to justify link profiles.

I will be speaking at the RACE (Russian Affiliate Conference and Exhibition) in Moscow on the 7-8th of November 2012.

As I mentioned previously in my post about the Barcelona Affiliate Conference this was at the time unconfirmed which Read more

Well I’m off to another IGB conference (Barcelona Affiliate Conference) a little later in the year, and once again I shall be speaking, aside from one last currently unconfirmed date in Russia I think this should be last time for me till next year.

I’ll be sharing the panel with Dave Naylor, Ralph Teghtmeier and Peter Young talking once again on the topic of Staying Ahead of the Game in SEO.

Article In Print In IGB Affiliate July Issue

Since the recent blog network nuking handed down by Google and the WMT (webmaster tools) warnings that many affiliates will have received we have seen undisputed proof that being linked to from the wrong areas can get you a penalty. The real issue is what if you’re innocent? You’ve built great content, you’ve interacted with the community and built a website to be proud of, only to have a competitor throw a load of spammy network blogroll links amongst other filth to your site and you’ve been slapped, what now? Submit a re-inclusion to Google

This site was set up initially to be a learning resource for the Blueclaw interns prior to my resignation and new staff members to save me from having to repeat myself. So, don’t expect me to have SEO’d it Read more