Dave Chaffey

Please visit my SmartInsights.com site for more details.

I'm an established authority on improving digital marketing. I've been recognised by the Chartered Institute of Marketing as one of 50 marketing 'gurus' who have "shaped the future of marketing".

I'm also author of several bestselling Internet Marketing and e-business books recommended by the CIM and IDM for their E-marketing and Digital Marketing awards.

Are you practising advanced SEO in 2011?

I'm moderating the SEO roundtable discussions at the upcoming Econsultancy Digital Cream where client-side marketers discuss approaches to improve their digital marketing.

On the SEO table, the discussion naturally turns to "Advanced" SEO tactics. So to prepare for the event, I'm currently thinking through what is Advanced SEO and what is new for SEO in 2011.

This is a preview of what I think the major issues are to succeed with SEO in 2011 and I'll share what we discuss at the event afterwards.

by Dave Chaffey 01 March 2011 09:37am 13 comments

Trends and challenges in Web Analytics in 2010

It was good to attend Econsultancy's Digital Cream event last week. It was my first due to diary clashes, although it’s now in its fourth year. I moderated a roundtable on web analytics, which is one of my main digital passions, so it was good to see analytics was one of the most popular topics.

This post summarises the main challenges and gives tips on approaches the managers present are using to overcome them. The Econsultancy peer summits operate according to “Chatham House rules”, so there is no attribution to companies.

by Dave Chaffey 10 March 2010 09:51am 4 comments

Five killer new features in the Google Analytics update

Google announced a significant update to the capabilities of Google Analytics this week. If it were software rather than service, I would call it a dot release, maybe 3.2?

In an earlier Econsultancy post the emphasis about the release was on the enhanced mobile tracking. But for me, and I guess most marketers where mobile isn't significant, these are the features which will be most important...

by Dave Chaffey 23 October 2009 12:43pm 6 comments

Pattern Recognition with Google Analytics

These are some of the techniques I use for Advanced Segmentation in Google Analytics to spot weaknesses and opportunities to get better results from sites I analyse. Which techniques do you use?

by Dave Chaffey 06 July 2009 14:26pm 1 comment

Improving results from SEO - what makes the biggest difference?

Where should companies focus their SEO efforts? This question is front-of-mind for me at the moment since from March, I'm the tutor of the new advanced SEO training course from Econsultancy.

It's also a good time to review this since I attended and spoke at Search Engine Strategies (SES) in London last week, so it was interesting to see which topics got the most attention, and SEO was certainly more popular than paid search.

by Dave Chaffey 25 February 2009 12:05pm 10 comments

Audit checklist - best practice in managing digital channels

What is the best approach for reviewing an organisation's digital marketing strategy to identify ways to improve results from online channels?

This is one of the questions we will answer in the upcoming E-consultancy "Managing Digital Channels" Best Practice Guide.

This post presents ten essential steps to complete a digital channel performance audit and improvement plan audit based on initial interviews with senior e-commerce managers from a range of companies including Bupa, Dell, EDF Energy, FT.com, Mercedes Benz, Oxfam, Ted Baker, Thomas Cook, uSwitch and Virgin Atlantic.

by Dave Chaffey 26 March 2008 08:39am 3 comments

Simplifying SEO - Five laws of effective search engine optimisation

Alan Eustace, a Google VP of search engineering, announced last year that there are now over 200 signals that Google uses to determine document relevance for a searcher. Unfortunately, he didn’t go on to explain them all… :)

With this number of factors and constantly updating algorithms, it’s tricky when I want to explain to a site owner when training or consulting which really matter. So here are five laws of effective SEO I have defined to assess strategic focus on SEO - hopefully it's easier to remember five laws than 200!

by Dave Chaffey 31 January 2007 09:49am 0 comments

E-mail Marketing Best Practice Trends

A good, free summary of E-mail trends has just been published by E-consultancy from one of their round tables. This features much of the guidance in the new edition of my Email marketing book and in my Email marketing workshops.

Here is a summary of my take on the top e-mail trends, based on my experience in 2006, but with my thoughts on the first few prompted by the E-consultancy briefing.

by Dave Chaffey 24 November 2006 11:41am 2 comments