We have been slaving away creating the top SEO Game of the Decade. To get your hands on one of these limited edition Top SEO Trumps packs we are inviting you to take part in our Top SEO Trumps Blog Off!
Here’s a preview of how the cards look:
Simply write a blog post that meets the conditions below to be in for a chance to win.
There are 46 Top SEO Faces from the SEO world, each ranked by:
Popularity on the web
Twitter followers
Google+ contacts
Fanciablility (we are keeping our judges a secret for this category)
Geek Cred
Can you guess who is hiding behind Danny Sullivan? If you can’t guess or want to see the other 45 Top SEOs then you can follow all those who made it into to pack by creating your own SEO circle from this one we made earlier, just click on the image to view or add this circle in Google+:
35 Limited Edition Top SEO Trumps packs are up for grabs.
Anyone can enter: SEOs, marketing people, social media specialists, bloggers, content marketers, and students, anyone who thinks they can write a good blog.
There are so many ways of winning that the playing field is wide open, there is a really good chance of winning so it’s worth a go. As all great SEO’s and Content marketers know, generating great content is just par for the course anyway. What have you got to lose?
Not only that, if you are one of our 35 finalists we will publicise your fine post using our many social media accounts, and link to it from all of our resources and blogs, as well as on our own well ranked site, so it would be good for your SEO too.
All you have to do is what you do best: write a great blog post.
You can publish your blog post anywhere (not necessarily on your own blog) as long as you identify yourself as the author somewhere in the post and tweet the link with hashtag as above.
After the closing date April 1st 2012
Votes will be counted and verified and prizes will go to the authors of the winners of the following categories:
The 5 funniest posts
The 5 most original posts
The 5 most useful posts
The top 5 posts that drive the most traffic to the destination link.
The 5 top most liked posts on Facebook – where that information is available
The 5 most +1’s on Google Plus
The 5 most tweeted posts – where that information is available
Good luck and get blogging!
Become a future top SEO trump with our many SEO related courses. SEO training will provide you with the best practice approach to optimising websites and content for higher rankings, you can then use the knowledge learnt on our Social Media course to market your website and build strong brand identity. If you want to measure how your site is doing (and your social media efforts) then Google Analytics training is essential, while Advanced Google Analytics training is available for those who already use it on a regular basis. Don’t forget, we also now provide Content Marketing training – great for building brand and author identity whilst gaining valuable backlinks!
Brighton-based car share website Catch-a-ride have just launched their photography competition and it is being judged by Silicon Beach Training‘s co-founder and photographer, Heather Buckley.
Catch-a-ride is set up to encourage people to car share by connecting drivers and passengers. This is a great idea to reduce travel costs, emissions and traffic!
Read more about the competition at Catch-a-ride’s blog or we’ve provided all the info below…
The Competition
The competition theme is ‘Car Share’ so send in your most interesting photo of people car sharing for a chance to win a fantastic prize. You can interpret that as you like but the most interesting one wins! Just don’t break the law of the road or your entry will be discounted.
The Prize
Up for grabs is a 16-megapixel Nikon Coolpix compact camera, perfect for taking more photos of your car sharing adventures!
The Rules
1) Only UK residents may enter
2) All entries must show a car share journey but must not include any activities that go against road safety
3) By entering, you agree that www.catcharide.co.uk may use your photo on their website. Photos will not be used for any other purpose.
4) Photos must be in JPEG format and a maximum of 1MB.
Due to an unprecedented number of entries to our Street Photography competition, our judge Eric Kim certainly had his hands full deciding a winner. He has sifted through all 579 photos and come up with a winner and five honourable mentions.
It was not just the number of entries that was high but also the quality so thank you Eric for judging the contest and thank you onOne Software for providing the prize, a copy of Perfect Photo Suite 6.
If you want to edit your photos and graphics to look professional then check out our Photoshop Training and Advanced Photoshop Training courses. The courses are designed to immerse photographers and artists into the intricate world of post-photography editing. We also have a dedicated Photoshop resources website where you will find loads of great tutorials, news, tips and downloads all for free!
Watch the video below to reveal the winner and honourable mentions or scroll down to view the photos.
Our new Street Photography Competition gives you a chance of winning onOne Software’s superb Perfect Photo Suite - more details on this great prize can be found below.
The ‘Street’ theme is open to your own interpretation, just get your feet on the street and start snapping!
If you are after some inspiration have a look at Eric Kim’s work, Eric is a well known and respected Street Photographer from LA.
The successful winner will also gain lots of exposure through our Twitter and Facebook accounts. Follow us on Twitter to see if you’re mentioned as our own weekly favourite entry! It’s worth following Heather on Google+ too (the photographer of the image above).
A big thank you goes out to everyone that entered our Lifestyle Photography Competition and to Anne Herbert for supplying the fantastic prize of 2 classic prints on aluminium mounts.
As with previous competitions, the standard of entries was very high and our wonderful judge Nicole Young very kindly spent her weekend judging them all for us.
And now – the moment you’ve all been waiting for, drum-roll please! The winner and honorable mentions are revealed in the video below:
If you are a Photoshop user looking to add to your skill-set, or ever need to produce professional vector graphics (logos, maps etc…) – Illustrator is a very powerful addition to your tool kit.
Illustrator Training Course Review
Stephen Whitehead - Competition Winner
I’ve been using Adobe Photoshop professionally for over ten years now – and Adobe Illustrator is a package that I’ve wanted to train in for some time – but could never justify the budget.
However having now taken the Silicon Beach two day Illustrator introduction course I would recommend anyone who is a frequent user of Photoshop or has ever been interested in creating digital art and identities to consider taking this course.
Now that I am able to work with vector graphics – I feel as though I’ve found a missing piece in my understanding of digital design.
For me this was without doubt the most creative and downright fun training course I’ve ever been on; not only for discovering the tools and functions of the software but also for the wonderful trainer David who led the course.
He was animated, funny and with years of industry knowledge – was extremely knowledgeable.
David encouraged questions and took a real interest in demonstrating how Illustrator could help all of the delegates who came from a wide degree of backgrounds – across print, education, marketing and digital sectors.
He helpfully offered some mnemonics to help us to remember the various tools in the package.
I came away with a real buzz and feeling of accomplishment afterwards.
So thanks to Silicon Beach and MyTrainingManager for this wonderful prize!
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We’re really pleased Stephen was so happy with his course. If you’re interested in attending any of our Adobe Training Courses – feel free to call us on 01273 622272 for more details.
We run regular competitions – so be sure to keep checking the competitions section of this blog for future opportunities to win free courses and other great prizes.
Our prize for the Environment Photo Competition was a place on any 2-day course here at Silicon Beach – however as our winner Charles is based in the USA – he wasn’t easily able to attend.
If you’re interested in entering our current ‘Lifestyle’ Photography competition - with a chance of winning 2 stunning aluminium mounted prints of your choice – HURRY! it ends on 2 September!
Charles didn’t want his prize to go to waste, and was keen that a local not-for-profit organisation benefited. So – having done a little research online - he very generously donated his prize to Brighton Museum and Art Gallery.
The Museum was thrilled to receive the free place and have chosen to send a delegate to attend our Social Media course in August.
Paula Wrightson, the Museum’s Learning Officer, said:
“I was delighted when Brighton Museum was donated the prize. The first thing I did was have a look at Charles Tu’s winning photograph, which is a fabulous piece of work and I immediately thought how kind of him to think of donating his prize to us.
The offer of a place on this course could not come at a better time. We all think we could use social media better to promote Brighton & Hove Museums but feel we are not quite all on the ball yet or using new media as effectively as we could.
My interest is in promoting museum events like gallery tours and our more unusual experiences like our ghost-related programme at Preston Manor … we probably do far more in museums than people realise.
Ghost event attendees are usually slightly younger than the typical visitor and more likely to be users of social media.
I am keen to promote Preston Manor via social media to get a buzz going about this extraordinary buildingand its ghost story. We are lucky to have a real-life Victorian ghost story at the Manor – and right now I am in the middle of planning a fantastic new season of ghost events starting over Halloween.
I have spoken with a colleague who attended a course at Silicon Beach Training and she spoke very highly of the course and the trainer.”
We’re really pleased that Charles was able to find a worthy home for his prize – and we’re really excited to see the results of Paula’s Social Media campaign to promote Preston Manor after she attends the training in August.
Voting is now CLOSED in our contest to find the most creative Google+ profile design using our 
