Earlier today I thought it would be interesting to find out what people's favourite search conference in the UK. This has generated a great response already )150 votes to-date( - this is still running so please feel free to vote and invite your friends to do the same! Unfortunately it doesn't look like you can embed the results from the Facebook poll )if it is, please let me know how!

The results are in! We now have 202 votes for yesterday's ' do you buy links for SEO ' poll - and it's fair to say the results are very interesting. I've kept the poll running too, but I think we now have a large enough sample of data to start drawing a few conclusions.

Following Matt's SEO ethics post and having had many interesting discussions about buying links with some SEO's recently, I thought it would be interesting to run a quick anonymous poll to find out whether buying links still has a part to play in your SEO strategy. So here goes: This is intended to show what is actually happening in the industry, perhaps against best practice advice - so I think it will be interesting to see the results.

A bit of an old one, but a common question I get asked by clients is about their international SEO strategy. Which option is best? A new domain, subdomains or subfolders? I wrote a post on international domain strategy back in 2008, but a lot has changed since then - so it's probably time for an update.

Having recently assisted a client during a CMS )content management system( pitch selection process, I thought it would be useful to look at the type of features and capabilities I felt were important - or essential - from an SEO perspective. Image credit Flickr In terms of finding out this information, I would recommend the following steps: CMS product demo - giving a clear idea and overview about how the system works, how to manage content etc.

One thing I get asked frequently by clients is: how can we keep in touch with our customers on Twitter? The answer is actually very easy, but judging by the reactions when I've explained this, it isn't something which many people are doing at the moment. So I thought I'd list the process I'd recommend following in order to import your clients/customers into social media sites such as Twitter and Google+.

Tonight I was delighted to be invited to speak at the London Blog Club and presented about the WordPress plugins which I find most useful. Here are the slides from my talk: 20 Top WordPress Plugins - 2011 Edition - Kevin Gibbons, London Blog Club If you have any questions on this please let me know in the comments or on the meetup.com page. © SEOptimise - Download our free business guide to blogging whitepaper and sign-up for the SEOptimise monthly newsletter .

Having just presented on natural link building at a4uexpo Europe in Munich, I thought I'd publish my slides from the event. Kevin Gibbons - a4uexpo Europe - Natural Link Building If you have any questions just let me know in the comments. The session was alongside Kelvin Newman who did a great presentation which you can find here . © SEOptimise - Download our free business guide to blogging whitepaper and sign-up for the SEOptimise monthly newsletter .

Yesterday it was reported that J.C. Penney have showed signs that their Google penalty has now been lifted . The original penalty was imposed at the end of Feb for "shady SEO practices". Searchmetrics have published a report to show that organic search traffic is back on the rise again for J.C. Penney : Obviously we can only speculate about the SEO activity that J.C. Penney have employed in order to get this penalty turned around so quickly.

Another quick post, but here's my presentation from SAScon 2011 this afternoon. This was on how to use social media for SEO benefit in the travel industry. SAScon 2011 Travel SEO Presentation - Kevin Gibbons If you have any questions about this just let me know in the comments. © SEOptimise - Download our free business guide to blogging whitepaper and sign-up for the SEOptimise monthly newsletter .

Very quick post - but here's my presentation from SMX Advanced London 2011 earlier today: Long Tail Keyword Research - SMX Advanced London 2011 If you have any questions just let me know in the comments. © SEOptimise - Download our free business guide to blogging whitepaper and sign-up for the SEOptimise monthly newsletter .

If you're at Internet World this week )today, Weds and Thurs( make sure you come and drop by our stand )E3056( to say hello! You'll also have a chance to win a panda by tweeting #highfiveseoptimise to us! We're also delighted to announce the winners of our free SMX London ticket giveaway as Hannah Rampton , Dom Hodgson and Rob Nicholson - congrats guys, see you there!

The next few weeks are looking very busy here at SEOptimise, but it's a great chance for you to come and see us exhibit and speak at major internet marketing events across the UK and Europe! Here's where we'll be over the coming weeks: Internet World - 10-12 May 2011 We're exhibiting at Internet World this week )Tues to Thurs( - so come and visit our stand )E3056( for a free SEO healthcheck review and, following Google's recent algorithm change ,

It's been a few weeks now since the Panda algorithm update was rolled out by Google in the UK , so I thought I'd share some of the main findings we've found in terms of sites which have either benefited or suffered from the panda attack! Image credit: Flickr From what we've found there are two main reasons for being penalised by this: a( Google considers your site to be a form of content farm ,

I'm debating on a Who Owns the Social Space event at a social media week in London next week - so I thought it would be a good idea to outline why I think an SEO background is better!

There are often too many people in the search marketing and social media industry who proclaim themselves 'experts', but can any of us really justify the title? Image credit: Flickr Mashable noticed that there were 15,740 social media experts on Twitter and this was back in 2009. In fact, with the prevalence of blogs and Twitter, it can be hard to distinguish between the writers with something useful to say and those simply filling space.

Once again, we are proud to be a blog partner for the SMX Advanced London 2011 conference. The event takes place on 16-17th May 2011. In order to receive a 15% discount, just enter the code SEOPTIMISE011 when signing up online . There are different packages available and the prices go up after March 1st so it's best to book early! For coverage of previous events,

It was great to present at the Sphinncon conference today alongside Kelli Brown , Tal Siach and Miriam Schwab - I've posted my slides and tips below to share with everyone online: 10 tips to improve your social graph for search View more presentations from Kevin Gibbons . The idea behind this was to provide actionable ideas based upon Matt Cutts' announcement in December that social signals are a ranking factor .

We've created an infographic to help celebrate Christmas with our readers and clients this year: Have a great Christmas and a happy New Year everyone! Also, stay tuned to our Facebook fan page for some very embarrassing photos and videos from our Christmas party last week. © SEOptimise - Download our free business guide to blogging whitepaper and sign-up for the SEOptimise monthly newsletter .

As we all wind down for the Christmas week, I thought I'd revisit some of the best comments left on my guest blog posts over the year' Image credit: Flickr Regular readers of my Twitter feed will know that I am a regular guest blogger, often appearing on websites such as Search Engine Watch , Econsultancy and Search Engine Land , as well as writing here on the SEOptimise blog .