Over the past few years, QR Codes have become more mainstream and can be seen in most day-to-day activities. There are examples of some very good uses of QR Codes as well as some badly thought out QR Codes . QR Codes are great for getting offline marketing messages online quickly. Adding QR Codes to typical offline marketing material such as posters, flyers, business cards or event badges allows the user to see the message instantly.

Over the past few months I have been concentrating on improving my time management skills with the introduction of a number of different tools and processes. During that time I noticed CRM software becoming more integrated with online marketing tools and wanted to share those with you. Online Marketing CRM Integration Using CRM tools, like Workbooks .

Over the last few months I have been trying to work on improving my time management skills, not only at work but in my personal life as well. I am forever being told that I am late or don't do anything on time, and that is just from the wife. So I took to improving my time management skills, and thought that I would share with you a few techniques that I am using now in my working life.

On 23rd November the SEOptimise team attended OxonDigital, a local digital and networking event that I have created in Oxford for all things digital. The focus of the latest event was Social Media and Blogging for businesses with presentations from Ali Luke and our very own Marcus Taylor. The event was well attended, with over 40 members in the audience from various backgrounds and coming from as far as Banbury.

Have you seen the potential of SEO but are struggling to convince your boss or colleagues? You are not alone. SEO can often be viewed as a difficult, techy oddity, and not something that every company needs. Small-scale businesses often think they won't benefit from spending money on online marketing. To help you explain the .

Last week Google released yet another algorithm update, and although it wasn't Panda 2.6 or Panda 2.5.2, it has affected up to 35% of searches. The newly-named 'freshness update' is built on the Caffeine update that was launched last year, allowing Google to provide the very latest content. Google's Amit Singhal states that "Given the incredibly fast pace at which information moves in today's world, the most recent information can be from the last week,

Last night 300 UK search marketers attended the Emirates Stadium, London for the very first UK Search Awards. With 16 categories and over 50 nominees, including SEOptimise for best agency, best travel search campaign and best blog, the event brought together some of the best agencies in the UK. The search awards started with a drinks reception followed by dinner, before the host - Andy Crane from the lunch time show on BBC Radio Manchester - started proceedings.

Last Tuesday I gave a presentation on SEO Tactics to Tame the Panda at A4U London, alongside Kevin Gibbons. The presentation was aimed at affiliates who had been hit by the Panda update although the majority of techniques that I provided could be used on any website that was hit. Timeline Panda first hit in the US back in February 2011, affecting up to 12% of all Google search results. Since then, there have been five iterations of the update,

Do you spend hours hacking around Microsoft Excel every month to create a compelling SEO report for your clients, knowing that they are probably not going to get read or even opened? In my post below I have provided five tools that can help improve your SEO reports, taking them from being the standard Excel spreadsheet to a report that can be given to anybody at any level within your client's organisation.

As an SEO it is essential to report on the metrics that will show the progression of the project that you are working on. These reports need to provide the client and yourself with actionable information, whilst also being able to outline your KPIs clearly. All reports should ideally include metrics from both on-site and off-site activity, providing the client with a clear understanding of what improvement has been made.

It's that time of the year again when 600 enthusiastic online marketers descend on Brighton for the annual SEO conference organised by Kelvin Newman. With the agenda packed full of interesting presenters and topics, it certainly looks set to be another great event. SEOptimise will be providing the very best points from each presentation session by session and updating this blog post. If you are unable to make BrightonSEO this year,

Kevin and I are speaking at a4uexpo London in October in the session Post Panda: Affiliates' Guide to Surviving Google )2.30pm day one(. We're currently working on the presentation and thought it would be a good idea to reach out to our readers in order to ask: what are your biggest challenges in SEO? This is going to be largely targeted at affiliates - so looking at challenges such as: 'how to add more content?',

In recent weeks I have set up Google Webmaster Tools for a number of different clients, some of whom wanted some documentation on how this could be done. Based on that document I have decided to publish this very basic beginner's guide for those who are unfamiliar with the set up process of Google Webmaster Tools. What is Google Webmaster Tools? Google Webmaster Tools )GWT( is a free and easy way for webmasters to view their own website the way that Google sees it.

In recent months I have found myself using the Google URL builder tool significantly more across a range of projects, including tracking emails and tagging PPC accounts. One of the most frustrating things I found about the Google URL builder tool is how time consuming it was and the fact that I was constantly copying and pasting the URL into a spreadsheet to record what was being tracked. After searching for a simple free tool that would help make this process more efficient,

Richard Fergie recently conducted an in-house training session in which we looked at Analytics - Google Analytics in particular. The session was based on two parts, Technical and Business, the latter of which discussed reporting. The technical part of the session included a hilarious explanation of how users, browsers and analytics pass around cookies )Tesco double chocolate chip in this case(,

Over the past few months I have been conducting lots of SEO Audits for a vast range of clients of all sizes. One thing that always seems to come out of the audit as a significant action is to look at the URL structure and duplicate content, with a special note for the product URL. I find it extremely frustrating that with today's technology and the skill set of most developers, CMS Platforms still generate multiple URLs for products associated with several categories.