img style=”border: 0px initial initial;” title=”BIGLIST SEO Blogs” src=”http://www.toprankblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/biglistseoblogs.gif” alt=”BIGLIST SEO Blogs” />
This week I’ll try something a little different with our /a>of online marketing blogs reviews and share a screen shot of the week’s best looking SEO blog to be added.
img class=”alignnone size-full wp-image-6652″ title=”Mikkel demib Svendson” src=”http://www.toprankblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/screengrab-demib.png” alt=”Mikkel demib Svendson” width=”450″ height=”292″ />
That honor goes to Mikkel deMib Svendsen who’s been blogging for a very long time, except it’s been mostly in Danish.
Recently, Mikkel decided to launch a /a>, which is great news if you know Mikkel. At my first SES conference I recall seeing this guy in a bright red suit taking lots of photos and not sure who he was. Then after seeing him speak on a few panels quickly realized the deep search marketing knowledge he was offering. Now you can get that insight online. This blog is a mix of both text and video SEO content, plus Mikkel has a new book on SEO you should check out.
And now for our SEM/SEO Blog reviews.
- strong>Link Building Best Practices – Eric Ward, aka Link Moses aka old school OLB (original link builder) has re-launched a link building Q/A and tips blog that offers new and updated posts covering one of the most important aspects of boosting web site traffic directly and indirectly: links! Of course, the blog already ranks #2 on Google for “link building best practices”.
- strong>seo zombie – Justin Briggs is the recent winner of Marketing Pilgrims SEM Scholarship with tons of fabulous SEO prizes including a press release announcing his accomplishment from TopRank. Justin makes sense out of SEO by providing tips and observations on SEO basics ranging from keywords to blogs to SEO Lessons.
- strong>Everett Sizemore – Aka @balibones is the SEO at Gaiam and recently launched this blog dedicated to SEO. Gotta love the tag line because it’s keyword rich AND creative: “SEO Consultant – Organic Farmer of Keywords and Tomatoes”.
Be sure to visit these blogs and recommend them to your friends. Heck, add them to your Blogroll. We did!
Blogs included in the BIGLIST have every reason to express their SEO bloggedy awesomeness with an impressive /a>.
img src=”http://24c.eu/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/8b5c3d76e9le-big.png.png” alt=”StumbleUpon” />
img src=”http://24c.eu/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/85e8a3948ark-big.png.png” alt=”Google” />
img src=”http://24c.eu/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/95cf85f1c8k-icon.gif.gif” alt=”Facebook” />
img src=”http://24c.eu/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/5d14d05fb0witter.png.png” alt=”Twitter” />
Update August 28th, 2009: Due to popular demand I added /a> to the list. Also I put Friendfeed at the end of the list as not that important. Btw. it’s part of Facebook now.
I’m still not entirely convinced that Facebook is useful for business and not only vanity but I’m sure some of you might point out case studies where FB made real sense. I have seen only a few of them until now.
/a> so it must make some business sense as well.
Many marketers lately argue that there is no single social media to go after for businesses trying to join the conversation. I disagree. There are 7 of them you have to join and use.
The 7 social sites every business and professional should use are:
- Delicious
- Yahoo Answers
- A niche social site for your industry (Sphinn for me)
- FriendFeed
It’s true that you have to find out where you fit in best. Maybe it’s even YouTube, Flickr or StumbleUpon instead of Delicious but those 7 sites are indispensable at first to find out. You’ll never even know what’s going on when you’re not there.
These 7 sites enable you to
- join social media on a business and professional level
- meet and connect with industry peers there
- find out about industry trends and what’s popular outside your niche
More than that you’ll find out what’s popular from your niche outside of it.
I was a big proponent of StumbleUpon a year ago and I’m still active there but it’s a site which is very difficult to use for business purposes other than actually reading about business. By now I think that it’s far better to get stumbled by others “accidentally” than actually engage yourself there.
Related posts:
- /a>
- /a>
- /a>
Update August 28th, 2009: Due to popular demand I added /a> to the list. Also I put Friendfeed at the end of the list as not that important. Btw. it’s part of Facebook now.
I’m still not entirely convinced that Facebook is useful for business and not only vanity but I’m sure some of you might point out case studies where FB made real sense. I have seen only a few of them until now.
/a> so it must make some business sense as well.
Many marketers lately argue that there is no single social media to go after for businesses trying to join the conversation. I disagree. There are 7 of them you have to join and use.
The 7 social sites every business and professional should use are:
- Delicious
- Yahoo Answers
- A niche social site for your industry (Sphinn for me)
- FriendFeed
It’s true that you have to find out where you fit in best. Maybe it’s even YouTube, Flickr or StumbleUpon instead of Delicious but those 7 sites are indispensable at first to find out. You’ll never even know what’s going on when you’re not there.
These 7 sites enable you to
- join social media on a business and professional level
- meet and connect with industry peers there
- find out about industry trends and what’s popular outside your niche
More than that you’ll find out what’s popular from your niche outside of it.
I was a big proponent of StumbleUpon a year ago and I’m still active there but it’s a site which is very difficult to use for business purposes other than actually reading about business. By now I think that it’s far better to get stumbled by others “accidentally” than actually engage yourself there.
Related posts:
- /a>
- /a>
- /a>
Continued here:
/a>
Does brand matter? That seems to be a question Google wants to challenge. Eric Schmidt /a> quotes like “brands are how you sort out the cesspool”. Google’s search algorithms this year have put more weight on domain authority (/a>).
But while Google is telling everyone else to build a brand, Google might be looking to compete head on with brands in many large verticals. According to /a>:
“LendingTree recently learned that Google imminently plans to launch a loan aggregation service in late August or early September of this year that would compete with LendingTree,” the complaint says. “Lending Tree has also learned that Mortech intends to make its pricing engine services available for use with Google’s new service and will send information related to mortgage loan offers to be displayed to consumer on Google’s Web site.”
The complaint further says that LendingTree has obtained screen shots of a trial version of Google’s service that further indicate that it plans to “provide customers with conditional loan offers in addition to lenders’ contact information.”
/a>. This is just more reason to develop longtail content and try to build distribution channels outside of search. It seems if you are too successful with search Google may do some self-serving to compete directly against you.
- How many of these services can Google offer /a>?
- Is your business model easy for Google to clone? What do you do if Google clones it?
Read the original here:
/a>
When I launched the membership site about a year ago I decided to set a membership limit at 1,000. Recently we have been getting a lot of word of mouth marketing and our growth rate has surged beyond my wildest expectations. We recently raised our price to try to curb growth, but promotion associated with that caused another rush of sign ups and even after we raised our price we did not see any slowing down on new subscribers. We reached our capacity and are closing off new premium memberships for a while.
Ironic that success creates a host of other issues, but I care too much and work too long. And I don’t want to lower the quality of our customer interaction and customer service to scale it to the moon. Recently I watched some TED videos about career crisis and motivation. One of the most ressonating quotes was Alain de Botton’s “You can be successful at everything. We hear a lot of talk about work/life balance – nonsense. You can’t have it all. So any vision of success has to admit what it is losing out on.” It’s so obvious to read that…but I certainly needed to hear it. 
In the worst recession in 80 years (perhaps a depression) I am not asking anyone to cry me a river for getting too much business. It is a problem most people would love to have. But we are drowning in opportunity with our other sites doing great and this site growing a bit quicker than I was planning on. Since opening I have made over 15,000 posts in the forums, and the rate of posting has only increased as our membership has risen. Just a couple months ago I was at ~ 12,000 posts.
As I have poured myself into this site we built a community I am proud of, but am falling behind on some other fronts – this week I was late writing a guest column for another site, I have 1,000+ emails in my inbox, and I have grown far too chubby (as seen in /a> /a>).
Our current customers will keep getting the same great customer service they have been, but I just turned off new paid submissions so I can lighten the load for a while. It is hard to justify letting my health slide to earn a bit more when so much of the earnings just get handed over to corrupt bankers. If I earn a lot but die young I can’t really count that as getting ahead. Well I guess I could, but I don’t want to.
If you would like to be notified of when we have some capacity again please /a> (you get a bunch of cool bonuses) and I will let you know when we are open to new customers again!
Thanks for reading and thanks for your help in building this site into a strong well known brand with so many loyal customers! 
Oh, and here are /a>!
Read the original post:
/a>
img src=”http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2506/3861918857_606925a974_o.jpg” alt=”Audience SES San Jose 2009″ width=”400″ height=”256″ />
There are many ways for company marketers to /a> in the digital marketing and PR space. A big part of TopRank’s consulting services are to provide clients with education so they can better implement recommendations and promote the advantages of SEO, Social Media and Optimized PR in house. We’re also active participants towards industry education on these topics through speaking at conferences.
September is the calm before the storm of speaking events for TopRank but October and November are packed with opportunities to learn strategy, hear case studies and understand specific tactics for implementation on the topics of Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing and Online Public Relations. Here are our upcoming events. We hope to see you there:
Oct 5, 2009 – MIMA Summit, Hilton Minneapolis
br />
Successful social media efforts build community, better connect brands with customers and can influence both media coverage and increased sales. Yet implementing a social media marketing program without optimizing content for search is literally “leaving money on the table.” Useful social content (blog, video, images, audio and applications) that cannot be discovered via search is a lost opportunity to reach audiences that are looking. Why do so many companies fail to leverage their participation on the social web for SEO? This session will provide specific “Do’s and Don’ts” of social media optimization and provide attendees practical examples of how companies can leverage SEO and social media content to improve their search marketing performance. This is a solo presentation by Lee Odden of TopRank Online Marketing.
Oct 19, 2009 – DMA09 Conference, San Diego Convention Center
br />
If you’re an in-house marketer that’s frustrated with your current SEO campaign (or new to SEO and need some basic tips), this is the session for you! Thought leaders are on hand to teach you everything you need to succeed with your SEO campaign—from SEO 101 to advanced technical and conversion tips. Two sessions (morning & afternoon) will be led by SEO Copywriting and Content Strategy expert, Heather Lloyd Martin. TopRank CEO Lee Odden will participate in the morning site review session.
Oct 22, 2009 – Digital PR Next Practices Summit, Grand Hyatt New York
br />
Every element of digital communications has its own degree of importance, but there is one thing that consistently ties it all together: Search. In this vein, knowing how to optimize Web content for search is as crucial as knowing how to write Web content that supports your messaging, heightens engagement and meets bottom-line goals. This panel will untangle the Web of confusion surrounding how search engine optimization and marketing actually work; it will also provide you with the tools that will make media professionals and journalists more apt to engage with your brands online. Speakers include Daina Middleton and Lee Odden.
Oct 29, 2009 – MN PRSA Conference, Minneapolis Metropolitan Ballroom, Golden Valley
/a>:
1) Panel discussion on social media – Rick Mahn, Lee Odden, Albert Maruggi & Greg Swan
2) Taking iMarketing to the next level with the intersection of SEO & Social Media for PR– Lee Odden
Nov 7, 2009 – PRSA 2009 International Conference, San Diego Marriott Hotel & Marina
br />
Where do news releases, media training, message development and the tenets of crisis management fit into the new world communications order? A panel of thought-leading professionals shares examples of successful social edia/public relations programs across a range of industries. Learn how to jump-start promising new media tools and channels in your organization and incorporate them with many of the core public relations skills you’ve honed over the years. This panel is moderated by PR industry veteran, Peter Himler this panel includes: Rick Clancy, David Bradfield, Rob Key and Lee Odden.
/a>
Nine out of 10 journalists, reporters and editors use search engines to do their jobs, according to a recent survey by TopRank Online Marketing. In this environment, public relations professionals must understand the ins and outs of search engine optimization (SEO). Find out how to choose the best key words, optimize your newsroom and press releases, build better links and sell SEO to decision makers. Plus, attendees will learn the No. 1 SEO tactic to implement today. This is a 75 minute workshop by Lee Odden.
Nov 10, 2009 – WebmasterWorld Pubcon, Las Vegas Convention Center
/a> – Does social media prevent the need for search? Does social media play an important role in search? This session will discuss both worlds with moderators Vanessa Fox & Brian Carter plus speakers: Tony Adam, David Wallace, Bill Hartzer and Lee Odden
/a> - Online PR has become a profound contributor to search engine optimization as well as proving to be its own qualified driving channel. This presentation will show how small businesses can take advantage of online PR to increase traffic links, and how to overall do good business. Moderators Alex Bennert & Taylor Pratt plus speakers: Jiyan Wei, Lee Odden & Sean Jackson
/a> – This session is a round-table discussion featuring the prime bloggers and reporters of search examining the state of the industry moderated by Greg Hartnett and with panelists: Michael McDonald, Barry Schwartz, Lee Odden & Loren Baker.
Be sure to watch specific announcements and details plus discounts and giveaways for many of these events at strong>TopRank’s Digital Marketing News Blog.
img src=”http://24c.eu/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/8b5c3d76e9le-big.png.png” alt=”StumbleUpon” />
img src=”http://24c.eu/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/85e8a3948ark-big.png.png” alt=”Google” />
img src=”http://24c.eu/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/95cf85f1c8k-icon.gif.gif” alt=”Facebook” />
img src=”http://24c.eu/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/5d14d05fb0witter.png.png” alt=”Twitter” />
“Easy reading is damn hard writing,” opened chancellor Roy Williams at last week’s Wizard of Ads training seminar, ’12 Languages of The Mind.’
Never is this quote from Nigel Hawthorne (not Nathaniel Hawthorne, as it’s commonly credited to, per Williams) more apt than when you are a writer of any trade struggling to find that opening hook.
(To serve a personal example, the percentage of time I spent drafting this opening paragraph will exceed the percentage of time spent on any one remaining section of this entire post.)
/a> serves perhaps the greatest challenge when finding that hook, as we copywriters are encouraged to begin our posts with keywords as far up and to the left as possible in our titles. (This post may be a bad example, as a blog that begins with ‘SEO Copywriting’ carries the promise of inherent fascination within.)
Williams’ seminar, as many who have attended /a> in the past can attest, proves extremely difficult to distill into a bite-sized blog post, making a starting point even more difficult to craft (…and so I chose a mildly profane quote, which seemed as a good a hat-rack as any.)
This was no simple ad or copywriting seminar. We learned more than just how it is that we as writers write. Rather, our discussions (sometimes linear, more frequently not) focused on how the entirety of the human race thinks, reasons, believes and dreams. In almost no instance, will our thought process be as flat as the paper or monitor where are words are broadcast.
So how can we overcome the inherent flatness of our mediums to give our words deeper meaning? One way is to understand how to effectively use ‘portals.’ For the philosophical thinker, dreamer or writer – think of a portal as a doorway to another world, where the deeper meaning and additional knowledge you are about to receive is only partially visible until you cross its threshold. For the SEO copywriter, think /a>.
(If you’ve just returned from the portal I’ve provided, you return with knowledge and insight you would have never otherwise had, including:
- Walt Disney, like Roy Williams, truly understood the additional languages needed by man, as evidenced by his quote, “Of all our inventions for mass communication, pictures still speak the most universally understood language.”
- Images can help you both better tell a story, and via hyperlinks, drive traffic back to your website.
- TopRank Senior Account Manager /a> dresses up her dog each Halloween. )
Ideas that circulated through the room during those two days touched on art, music, mathematics, physics, metaphysics, thought particles, mirror neurons, Elton John, the Wizard of Oz and The Matrix – in seemingly equal parts.
As a writer whose primary objective with this post is to provide actionable tips, distilled from two days of deeply profound thought, my dual fears are providing too much and too little.
As such, below find the top three tips that will stay with me as an SEO copywriter. To further encourage you to attend a training at Wizard Academy, I must reiterate that the three actionable tips that will help me professionally pale in comparison to the new ways of thinking that will undoubtedly help me personally (after my travel grogginess wears off, that is.)
- Know Where To Begin – Have the confidence to create a killer opening, whether it’s the headline of a website, title of a blog post or subject line to an email campaign. An exercise conducted during the session focused on ‘chaotic ad writing’ where chancellor Williams took creative opening ad lines from 5 attendees (chosen at random) and matched them to the businesses of 5 other attendees (also chosen at random.) My opening line, ‘You’ll Never Believe What The Tornado Blew Into My Bed’ (inspired no doubt by the /a> that was devastating my neighborhood as I sat one-thousand miles away) was synched with a business consulting firm. Perfectly.Try this in your own writing. Open yourself up to the promise of complete creativity and do not be afraid to insert details personal to you. Do this right and you will open up your own doors of perception while simultaneously opening portals into the minds of your clients and prospects. It is these same portals that have likely been closed for some time, lest they risk ingesting awful ads or web copy, that are just dying to be reopened for something compelling.(Specific rules for the SEO Copywriter: You will need a keyword for this exercise. And if you are writing a website, your opening lines should not be so out there that you cannot sustain a theme. And you should not – I repeat – should not – conclude this exercise with copy for your client that matches how you speak, versus how they speak.)
- Know What To Leave Out – Humans are a great deal smarter than they are given credit for, unless they work at the airport. Humans are also a great deal less patient than they are given credit for, like me at the airport.What this means to an SEO copywriter, or truly any writer, is that we can leave out details – provided we offer a reason for the reader to make their own connections.If you write compelling website copy for an ice cream manufacturer with a one of a kind turbo-powered churner, you don’t have to talk about how the churner works. Your audience probably knows how a churner works, and if they don’t, they probably don’t care. They want to know why it makes your client’s ice cream taste better than any other kind. This is what will sell.The same rule applies to any type of creative writing. It doesn’t matter who the lizard king is, what matters is that you are sucked into his story so you take the time to envision who he is. ‘Ice cream’ and ‘lizard king’ are just flat words until you let the reader give them meaning by filling in the details.
- Know When To /a> – Tie everything back together and close the loop you’ve created in your reader or customer’s mind.Clever nerds, or readers clever enough to follow my portal, will have picked up on the loop I began in the title of this post and connected to several times throughout.Esoteric? Maybe. But I’m targeting those who are interested in marketing and copywriting who were, like me, nerdy in high school. If you can close the loops you create by connecting the last mental image you present to first mental image you create, you will break through and secure permanent mindshare in your reader or customer’s brain, and be a far better writer than nearly anyone who stands before you.
img src=”http://24c.eu/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/8b5c3d76e9le-big.png.png” alt=”StumbleUpon” />
img src=”http://24c.eu/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/85e8a3948ark-big.png.png” alt=”Google” />
img src=”http://24c.eu/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/95cf85f1c8k-icon.gif.gif” alt=”Facebook” />
img src=”http://24c.eu/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/5d14d05fb0witter.png.png” alt=”Twitter” />
