As this is a search business column, I thought I would move this month's post to the furthest end of the search spectrum with a post on linkbait. It's one of the areas of SEO where there's sometimes a reluctance to fully commit by clients, primarily due to it being a speculative activity. In my experience, clients are appreciative of transparent SEO delivery, and increasingly see it as a strategic and established marketing discipline. That said,

The inaugural SAScon event was held way back in April last year, and so it's pretty exciting to know that this not-for-profit event is going to be coming around again for this year too. Better still, it's going to be bigger and better than last year, with more time for networking and more time taking in the line-up of line-ups! Key Facts for SAScon 2011 Date: 19th & 20th May 2011 Venue: The Hive SAScon tickets are available here!

I have been in the fortunate position just recently of being able to pop in to meet the guys from the MEC Dubai offices and a number of other expats in non-related sectors too, and this got me thinking about all the challenges and opportunities that these people must face in establishing new team's in countries around the world so thought I would compile a few thoughts that came to mind when thinking about this.

A compendium of random stats I've found interesting from 2010 It's that time of year again, where people are in full swing of 2011 planning so I thought what better time to share a few of the takeaways from 2010 news and views that may well rock your 2011 world. I normally write a more typical search business column , but this time around as I've been in 2010 review and 2011 planning mode recently,

Tackling the development of a new search and social media course is no mean feat - ask Aleksej Heinze, from Salford University's Business School! He's been the driver behind a new academic-led, industry-supported search and social media course . With MEC's support for the course , Aleksej and I have met a number of times to discuss areas of the course's content, with a view to develop not purely from an academic stand-point, but to consider real-life scenarios.

Two weeks ago I attended the open evening and formal launch of a unique course in Search and Social Media Marketing. What makes it unique is that it was launched by an academic institution, the University of Salford in Manchester, with support and backing from SEMPO, the industry body for the search industry. What really pleases me about this is that it is a course that is very much led by the industry's activity,