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Now Shoemoney is a friend of mine, but regarding his post SEO Has No Future today, I am forced to disagree with him. Not only does SEO have a future but judging by the number of SEO clients I am turning away, and the number of job offers I am receiving on weekly basis to take on in house positions, all during a shrinking economy and a recession, the future is looking pretty bright for SEO …

Yes Shoemoney SEO Does Have a Future »

Seems the giving away free templates with embedded keyword rich links has filtered up to the fortune 500 level as Hewlett Packard released a series of free templates today Hewlett Packard Giving Away Free Templates With Embedded Links »

I’ve often written that using a linkbait is like signing a contract with your readers. You’re luring them in with the promise of a reward at the end of the hook. Sometime you can give people what you promise but it’s not in a soundbite format and your readers feel like they never got the payoff.
When Your Title is Linkbait and Your Post Isn’t »

Hard to say which is more embarrassing or pathetic, the fact that their image hosting is over it’s bandwidth or the cheezy dating adsense banner. Sk-rt you make it hard for me to take you seriously.

Last week I attended the SMX Social Media Conference in Long Beach California, here are some of my thoughts about the event.
SMX Social Media 2008 Recap »

So hey Google care to explain why this isn’t a paid link page? Any reason you haven’t dinged the page rank of this known link seller or cut off their ability to pass page rank or anchor text? Now I’m not daft enough to believe that any of those companies gave money with the primary goal of getting a link, but at the end of the day no matter how altruistic their goals may have been, this implementation clearly doesn’t match with google recommended implementations.

The selective an uneven application of justice and rule enforcement is one of my major problems with the big G.

If you’ve ever wondered hey why should I go an SEO conference what the heck am I going to get out of it check out this interview with Gab Goldenberg, Sugarrae, Stuntdubl and myself from SMX West.

I had never met Gab before that afternoon, but he came across as nice guy, he didnt violate any of the SEO Conference Douchebag guidelines, and he ended up getting a decent interview, and A LOT of good information. He did the networking thing just right. So c’mon are you going to register for SMX Social or SMX advanced and start making conferences work for you?

SIDE NOTE
I’m not sure if this is confirmation I may have moved off Matt Cutt’s bad guy spammer list as he’s not mock throttling me in this picture … nah couldn’t be

If you follow me on twitter chances are you seen more than one rant on bad web design, bad CSS, and bad/sloppy coding. Sure I’m a reformed CSS Zealot who used write XHTML 1.1 valid code for kicks. I may have returned to slightly more normal life, but I still believe there’s value in writing clean code. I was migrating a client site from a development environment to a production environment, and when I signed up for webmaster central the results were pretty interesting …

Why You Need to Be Concerned About Sloppy CSS »

In my early days I played a bit more in the darker side of the game. I fully admit that I built and ran more than 1 or 2 scrapers, aggregators, and MFA style sites, but as a business model those type of sites are really on the decline, and not something I’d ever recommend to a beginner or intermediate level person. Why SEO Can’t Be Your Only Value Add »

So my buddy Loren Feldman over at 1938 media has been having grand old time giving a parody of Shel Israel lately. While it’s all been pretty funny I think there are a few points to learn from this. Are You More Entertaining than a Sock Puppet »

Dear Seth Godin,

I read your blog and I buy your books I like your stuff so much I gave them as Christmas presents to my clients, but when you write this kind of stuff it pisses me off

A quick glimpse at just about any profession shows you that the vast majority of people who succeed professionally also went to college

Really please stop it now, there are very few professions that require a college level education. Doctors, lawyers, accountants and so yep I’m with you, but for everybody else drive, and desire are much more important … really

While I was off doing some work Jill and Lisa engaged in a debate over whether or not we need SEO standards. Even though I’m a day late and a dollar short I’m still going to throw my 2 cents in. No Optimizer Left Behind »

As a young American boy growing up in the 70’s Evel Knievel was one of my role models. Aside from being a daredevil Evel possessed a strong understanding of marketing and engaged in a level of shameless self promotion that would have made PT Barnum proud.

Evel Knievel and Social Media Promotion »

I’ve never seen this before a code snippet as part of a Google Universal Search Result

Since I had some emails and phone calls of people looking to meet with me at the last show which I didn’t attend I thought I’d let you know where I’ll be next …

Aprill 11th - Jim Boykin of We Build Pages is running SEO Class now and I’ll be speaking on April 11th with a lot of other folks. If you’ve been to bigger shows and looking to take it to your knowledge to a more intimate level these smaller events are the place to do it.

April 22-23rd - I’ll be speaking SMX Social in Long Beach California. if you’re looking to get into social media, meet some of the key players, power users, and find out how to make social media work for you, this is the place to be. Don’t think it’s worth it … I was able to give Shoemoney some ideas last SMX show and get him started using twitter. Picking up a bar tab is always a great way to get someones attention in a good way …

I haven’t nailed down any summer and fall speaking arrangements yet, but I’ll let you know when I do …

I really find scandals interesting because people who are on the ball, plugged in, creative, not afraid to take chances and stir up a little controversy can do really well.

Case and Point Playgirl Magazine offered Ex-Governor Elliot Spitzer 1 Million Dollars to pose nude.

It’s a win-win scenario for Playgirl. Let’s go with the most likely outcome and assume client 9 says no, playgirl generated a decent amount of press, links, and attention, for the cost of a press release and some PR work.

Let’s enter dreamland and imagine he goes for the deal, I have no doubt that it would turn out to be the highest selling issue of Playgirl, attracting a huge amount of sales and advertising, more than enough to cover the $1 million dollar paycheck.

On March 18th the Internet Marketers of New York held our charity event and it was huge success. Thanks to BOTW and Search Engine Land for stepping up and covering the tab and donating door prizes. With their support we were able to raise over $16,000 which will be donated to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Also thanks to Search Engine Strategies for donating tickets to upcoming venues as prizes, to everyone who donated at the door, and to the other IMNY members who helped keep things running and for their generous support.

Um Hey Google can I ask why Google Grand Central isn’t part of the “Google Accounts” thing? I’m not saying turn it on by default, but at least make the systems talk to each other the way other google apps do. Heck even dodgeball (which could have been way cooler than twitter if you didn’t ignore it) uses a google universal login.

Why do I want to to be part of the google account? Um you know since GMail has contacts and Grand Central has contacts it might be nice and good for the users if the two shared data. I mean heck everyone and their brother can import data from gmail now, you guys have to have an easier way to keep that stuff in sync.

Now of course I won’t tell you how wickedly cool it would be if we could play grandcentral voice mail stright from gmail without having to hit the intermediate screen and how it would totally be good for the users, but just sayin’ ya know.

Of course I also think you should buy Jott and hook it in with Gmail and Grand Central. Because I use Jott all the time and when I show people how I use it to update my calender via voicemail they all have a light bulb moment and get how it would be good for the users.

Because you know when you do stuff that you say is good for the users (but really isn’t good for anyone but you) it’s nice if you do a little cosmic karma and actually do something is good for the users.

You know it’s not like I could have shared interesting ideas froma real google pwith the google team IF I had been invited to the top secret google meetup that really never happened.

I’ve mentioned using current events such as Britney Spears performance, and ghost riding the whip as ideas or jumping point for link bait. The recent scandal involving Elloit Spitzer and his involvement with a prostitution ring provide another opportunity, especially for sectors that are usually difficult to build links for.

Elliot Spitzer and Scandal Bait »