The news that broke yesterday about Yahoo and MSN search merging is big news for anyone providing an SEO service.

Negotiations about merging Yahoo and MSN have been ongoing for years but finally a deal has been struck. When I heard the news I was surprised as the launch of Bing was only announced very recently and MSN have obviously put a lot of research and development into the new search engine.

If you want to build an SEO friendly ecommerce site ideally you need to find an SEO company before you develop the site. Often website developers do not incorporate basic search engine optimisation into the site build. This can cause major problems getting your ecommerce site to rank.

Internet advertising agencies in general frequently conduct keyword research. However, if you are new to search engine optimisation or just want to know how your SEO agency should be doing SEO keyword research the below just might help.

Today Louise Goldstein gave a talk at the North London Network event on How To Grow Your Business Using Google. The afternoon was successful and there were a range of businesses present.

Search Engine Marketing is a hot topic and there is so much to say here are the slides that accompanied the presentation.

Many internet advertising agencies have come across this problem. SEO agencies and designers often had disagreements regarding flash sites in the past. However for some time now it has been possible to optimise these often highly stylish virtual pieces of art. Last year Adobe released Ichabod with help from Google and Yahoo! This tool allows search engines to successfully extract textual data from websites which enables indexing.

If you are always complaining "I can't find my site on Google" then you certainly have problems. You have gone to all the trouble of building a website but you are getting no visitors to your site. At BDR we speak to people every week who ask "How do I get on the first page of Google?" and "How do I get to the number 1 position on Google?"

Have you ever used Google Insights for Search? It is a really great way to keep up to date with emerging trends within your industry. You can use Google Insights to compare the search trends for up to 5 terms at the same time. The results will be displayed in a neat graph that also plots related news headlines. You can often explain peaks in search volume with news stories about the query.

There is lots of information around that states Javascript is bad for seo. But with Google improving and changing its algorithm all the time is this still the case? So should you use Javascript in your web pages?

As an SEO agency it is our job to find know these things. Our research uncovers that you can use Javascript you just have to be careful where in the page you place the code.

People have been saying the mobile will be the next big thing in media for years. But with poor battery life and expensive roaming tariffs being barriers to entry this year might actually be the year when the mobile gets its place in the digital marketing mix.

The mobile phenomenon is heavily spurred on by the iPhone as the other handset makers strive to keep up. But will mobile sites take off to the extent that website owners will want their SEO agency to perform mobile SEO?

The Internet can provide businesses with a truly global audience. Small and medium sized enterprises are able to cross international borders with little costs. However what about small businesses that want to remain that way. You may have a service you are only able to provide locally. Local seo is an area of search engine optimisation that continues to grow in popularity.