Tag Archives: work

  • 02
    Nov 15
  • 3

Moving on from Linkdex

Category:News,Personal Tags : 

Life is basically a set of choices. These choices determine what happens. Make no choice and you have no life.

Today marks a day in which I have personally made another choice. Well, the choice was made over a month ago, but today the choice becomes reality.

As of today I am moving on from Linkdex. After a year at the business I made the choice to pursue directions that are close to my heart.

I have always been a teacher, trying to help people get insights and learnings and make them better. I think I’ve also done that at Linkdex in the past year. Now it is time for the next step in that.

Linkdex has been a very intense ride. Lots of travel, lots of insights, debates and lots of exciting times. I’ve seen things from a different perspective. I’ve hopefully also been able to get some of my vision on marketing inside the heads of people at Linkdex. There are great people working at Linkdex, I hope they can make their dreams come true!

In my next steps I’d like to get a bit closer to how I believe marketing should be done. I am looking forward to steering this again at State of Digital together with Sam. I am also looking forward to helping a more diverse set of clients get a better grip on their marketing efforts. The lessons I learned at Linkdex will definitely come in handy there.

I’ll still be flying the world!

So in the near future, there will be more speaking, training and consulting for me in the next year. Starting next week in Las Vegas! If you want to be part of that, just drop me an e-mail!

  • 26
    Nov 14
  • 0

Yes, I am joining the Linkdex team!

Category:News Tags : 

I have some news, which some of you saw coming, and may surprise others: I am joining the Linkdex team!

In the past few years I have been doing a lot of different things. I’ve set up blogs like Searchcowboys and State of Search/ State of Digital. I’ve been doing training sessions for business schools and colleges, I have worked with the DMA, I have been consulting for big and small companies like KLM, MTV and Koozai for example and I have been speaking around the globe on digital marketing related topics.

All that time there was one thing that I was missing: working with a team of smart colleagues. Of course there is the State of Digital team, which I love working with, but they all have day jobs on the side as well. At Linkdex I will get the opportunity to work with smart people who are actually hired by Linkdex.

In the past four years I have met with the people of Linkdex many times. Mostly at conferences. People like Matt Roberts and Collette Easton have turned into friends on those trips. We also worked together on different occasions, like for example the e-books we published together with State of Digital and Linkdex. In all those years Matt Roberts from Linkdex has asked me a few times if I didn’t want to come and work for them. The timing was never right.

Linkdex2014Now however the moment seems right. With State of Digital we are on route and the site is ready to take the next steps based on the strategy we have set out and with Sam Noble helping me out there I am getting a bit more time on my hands. Which makes that when Matt asked me the last time I started considering working with Linkdex and got more excited every time we talked.

And now we are making it official: as of December 1st I am joining the Linkdex team. working on the Social and Digital PR and Marketing for Linkdex and Momentology!

This gives me the opportunity to work with a great team of people and built out a product and a website which both have a lot of potential!

But wait, what about the other stuff?

As said, I do a lot of different things. And I will continue to do so. I will be spending a lot of time at Linkdex yes, but the consultancy for companies like MTV and KLM will still be there, as will the training sessions for Beeckestijn and others. I will also still be speaking around the world and State of Digital will run as usual. I will be more on the background there, but don’t worry, I will be there!

Is there time for that you ask? Well, we’ll have to see of course, but I think there is, since the way I do consultancy is different from others: you hire me for example for half a day, not for a long term period, it’s session based. The training sessions are usually in the evenings anyway and State of Digital can be done everywhere. I also won’t be working full time for Linkdex so there will be plenty of room for other things as well, so don’t be afraid to get in touch about that!

For now I am happy to make this announcement and excited to be working with Linkdex. Keep an eye out for all other things! More news to come soon!!

  • 23
    Aug 10
  • 2

The every-day life of an SEO in Ripon UK

Category:search Tags : 

About 2 weeks ago I spent almost the entire work week somewhere ‘up north’ in the UK. To be more specific, I was in Ripon, above Leeds. It is a stunning place which has everything a former history-student loves: there is a cathedral (really!) which has “secret passages” and was built on top of a small chapel, there is a really great country side, there is someone who blows a horn at the four corners of the obelisk in the Market place every night at 9PM to tell the town everything is safe. And lets not forget the houses which look like you walked onto the set of a movie which plays in the 16th or 17th century. Last but not least there is a really nice restaurant, called the Old Deanery, where you are not just getting great food, you really get the feeling you are getting an inside in the every-day life of Ripon. The owners are very open and hospitable and drinks after diner have never been so pleasant.

So why this free review? Well because I liked it off course! When in Ripon I had a very good week and I want to share that with you. But I wanted to share a little bit more. I was in Ripon, not for a holiday, but with a purpose. I was visiting one of my SEO-friends, Dave Naylor and his wife Becky and his company Bronco. It wasn’t just a pleasure trip, me and Dave have been working hard in the week on stuff which will be announced soon. The trip however is worth mentioning for several reasons, next to the great town of Ripon.

The search industry sometimes is just like high school. You have the geeks/ nerds, you have the popular girls and guys (who in this industry very well can be geeks ;- ) ) and you have those who want to be friends with the popular guys and girls. This makes that  sometimes people get a wrong view on how people actually are. If you are a ‘rockstar’ you might live like a rockstar.

It sometimes even gets worse when you are not in the industry. Then people tend to think SEOs are lazy and they don’t have to work hard, because all they do is ‘trick’ the search engines.

Off course all of this is wrong and most of us know that, at least I hope they do. But the week with Dave made me realize that sometimes we just need to say it out loud: SEOs are just people, who work hard for their money.

When talking to Dave in that week he asked me what I thought of the way he lived and how I looked at it. I told him I liked the way of life and I liked his company a lot. It reminded me of the first company I worked in when I first started to work in the Internet. Its a very informal company which has a flat organization. Dave is one of the guys who sits with the guys.

And that was one of the things which really came forward that week: the “rockstar” Dave Naylor is “just” one of the guys at his office. The smartest guy at his office, yes, but as a person, just one of the guys. If you’ve met Dave at conferences you will know he’s always in for a bit of laughter and fun. I saw the every-day life of an SEO in Ripon UK, and apart from that rural village, its not much different than how he is when you meet him at conferences. He’s having a lot of fun at the office.

So it occurred to me it had to be said: there are many wrong views on SEO and SEOs as a person. Sometimes its good to see that an SEO is just another hard working person in a rural town : ). The search market has ‘rockstars’ but ‘rockstars’ are people too.

Well enough with the ‘sermon’. In Ripon I had a lot of fun and through this post I wanted to thank Becky and Dave again for their incredible hospitality. Thanks guys! It was fun, we had great food, drinks, laughter and we even went to see a Leeds United football game. I will always be an Ajax-fan first and foremost, but Leeds United sure will be on my ‘to follow’ list.

Last but not least, have you ever seen Dave Naylor sing? Here’s your chance:

PS, I almost forgot to mention I met “Bob the campervan“, who fits in great with the historic town 😉

Short bio

* Highly sought-after professional keynote speaker, trainer and strategist
* Awarded European Search Personality 2015
* More than 15 years of web experience
* Award winning consultant, trainer and professional speaker
* Founder of State of Digital
* Longer bio here

Bas van den Beld - Communicate like a pro - Get in Touch!