[In Case You Missed] Most Popular SEO Blog Posts of 2009

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2009 has been an incredible year for SEOgadget HQ. At the begining of 2009 SEOgadget, for me, was a place for me to express my views on SEO and produce articles that I hoped would add value to the community that has supported me for a long time.

In January 2009, I was still an in-house SEO Manager working for a well known travel company in the UK. One year later, SEOgadget is a Limited company with a growing and carefully chosen client base. I’m delighted with the progress this little website has made, and the opportunities it’s opened up for us along the way. It’s extremely important to note that a great deal of encouragement comes from the kind words of commenters and supporters and friends on and offline. There are too many names to mention, but your contribution and support is greatly appreciated!

On reflection, 2009 has been a momumental year for SEOgadget, and here are the top 10 blog posts we’ve written and you have so kindly supported.

10. Google Keyword Tool [External vs Beta] – What’s the Difference?

On the 24th September 2009, Google announced a revision of their Keyword Tool, the imaginatively titled “Keyword Tool (Beta)”. What were the differences, if any, between the data supplied by the old tool compared to the new (beta) tool?

9. Google’s Vince Update – Brand or no Brand?

The Vince update caused quite a lot of upset in the UK when it finally hit our shores. The “Brand or no Brand?” debate was an attempt to get to the bottom of the mysterious changes by using data collected from Link Analysis tools such as Linkscape. Plenty of data and charts to keep you happy.

8. Guest blogging for (a lot of) backlinks

In this post, I evaluate the usefulness of the “guest blogging for links” methodology, discussed from the perspective that blogging on heavily scraped sites (where content is copied and reposted on 3rd party sites) can benefit you much more than guest posting on less heavily scraped sites.

7. The SEO Career Kickstart Guide : How to get a Job in SEO

Starting out in SEO from scratch is not easy. Knowing what resources to draw upon and where to look to find them is all part of that first challenge. This post seeks to offer guidance to beginners wishing to kick off a career in SEO.

6. Tools to Speed Up Your Site – Ready for 2010

The latter part of 2009 has focused very much on site performance, largely because Matt Cutts mentioned Google could begin to use page load times as a quality indicator and a contributor to the ranking algorithm. “Tools to speed up your site” was my advice to SEOs on which tools are available to improve the performance of a website.

5. Get high rankings by building authoritative, irrelevant links?

Do you really need large numbers of “relevant” links to get a site to rank for your top keyword? Using data gathered from Yahoo and Linkscape I set about attempting to find an answer to exactly that question.

4. My SEO “must have” extensions for Firefox

A list of my favourite SEO extenstions for Firefox with some exceptionally useful additions made in the post comments.

3. The Future of SEO – Structured Markup

I’m keenly interested in subjects related to Microformats and HTML5 and how these emerging standards will impact Search Engines and SEO. “The Future of SEO – Structured Markup” explains the concept of structured data and why data presented in this format could be so important to search engines in the (near) future.

2. XHTML 2.0, HTML5 and SEO

How will HTML 5 and XHTML 2.0 affect the way we do search engine optimisation? An early look at how the two emerging web markup standards will affect the way we do on page / front end technical SEO.

1. Google Page level penalty for comment spam – rankings and traffic drop

While I was on holiday this year I was comment spammed quite heavily. As a result, an important keyword to SEOgadget was lost in Google’s rankings. This post analysed that situation and became quite popular, with mentions in the digital marketing press and many SEO blogs around the world.

So, that’s it for 2009 – I’ll be looking forward to what’s in store for 2010 on Search Cowboys later today. In the meantime, have a very happy New Year!