VASEM Group

Simon Heseltine (searchenginetigers) graciously volunteered to organize a SEO/SEM group for Virginia.

He's working out first meeting details and will post them on MeetUp soon so if you're interested in knowing more, throw this link into your reader http://www.meetup.com/rss/g/seo/72/new/
for updates and pop over to MeetUp and sign up.

SMO - Good For Nothing Or Some Links?

Today on SEL I wrote about finding linking opportunities in the social media sites and associations. I'm a big believer in finding an established demographic and working it for links and contacts.

Overall the social media sites aren't good for much else when it comes to linking. Places like MySpace and Friendster allow a clean link in your profile or through their blogs but other than that, link opportunities don't exist. The power behind those sites comes in the community and networking and quite frankly, that takes way more time than I have.

Yes, you can build 50 MySpace profiles and each will have a clean outbound link but then again you have to BUILD them, and get others to link to them for those profiles to amount to any kind of link juice. Otherwise all you're doing to wasting time building a handful of MySpace pages no one will see.

Building profiles, lenses, pages or whatever you want to call them takes time, energy and resources few of us have. If you have a person solely dedicated to building your presence in the ever growing social space, forums, groups, webrings or whatever else is out there then power to you!! But if you're like the rest of us and don't have that kind of time, what do you do?

If you want to play in this space you need to pick a social community that's going to give you the biggest bang for your buck and work it. For example, if you think a weight loss site like LosingIt has the demographic you're targeting, get involved. Budget a couple hours a week to posting and going through the site until you can find an opportunity to build links. They're there , you just have to look.

And what about using Digg? It's been my experience that Digging articles and stories doesn't amount to much on the average. Yes, a ton of traffic will ensue but solid one-way links from credible sites doesn't happen often. The article gets added to scrapers or picked up on budding blogs but overall -I don't see credible news sites or business owners pick up what they find on Digg.

Does that mean you should skip Digg altogether? No. Every little bit helps but I wouldn't count on sites like Digg as your only linking tactic. Add the Digg effect to your linking arsenal but work the social media sites that can influence your sales for maximum, long term results.

Virginia Tech

We've been glued to the television and the Internet for the last couple of days watching the tragedy unfold in Blacksburg. Luckily everyone we know with children enrolled in Virginia Tech tell us they're safe and home now. We feel for our friends and their children for what they've gone through and can only imagine their pain.

Our local paper inserted a VT flag in today's edition, our's is hanging on the front door. Driving through town I noticed almost every house doing the same, it's an awesome show of support.

My nephew is a graduate of Tech but other than that, we have no ties to the school. I guess it doesn't really matter, we're Virginians and that makes us Hokies at heart.

Why I Blog MeMe For YouYou

I was tagged by DazzlinDonna in a blog meme called “Why I Blog”, which shouldn't be confused with the other meme that circled around called "Why I Started Blogging".

Since I'm quite sure no one gives a rats ass why I blog or why I started blogging, and since I'm not in the mood to come up with five cute, memorable, heart wrenching or somehow engaging tidbits that may or may not enlighten you further into my psyche, I'll forgo that crap and just say this:

I started blogging because I felt compelled to keep up with the SEO Joneses and because my writing skills suck and I need the practice.

With the exception of the word bingo, this post has all my favorite words in it. Bingo Bingo Bingo.

Have a nice day.

AndyH, Justilien, Eric, MikeG, and BillS you've been tagged and Stephen, you've been linked back to!

Webxperience Turns 2 Save 50%

Cristian Mezei and his crew at the Webxperience Directory are celebrating their two year anniversary by offering half price submissions between now and April 17. (see here for full details).
Here's the offer:

We appreciate your contribution up until now and we wanted you to know that Webxperience! celebrates it’s 2 year anniversary today, so for the next 3 days (until Tuesday night, GMT+2), submissions are 50% off.

At $15 a pop they're not expensive to start with but hey, every little bit counts so go submit a site and save some dough. But wait - there's more!

Christian is also offering a bonus prize to anyone who writes about the anniversay:

Bloggers who will write about our anniversary will get 2 free listings (one express one Premium) in Webxperience!.

Awww... that's really nice and I appreciate it but - I'd like to donate my submission to the Ronald McDonald House Charities as a show of support for the party that went on Monday night during SESNY last week. I had wanted to attend but ended up elsewhere so....Christian, please add this very deserving charity instead. Here's the details:

www.rmhc.org. Ronald McDonald House Charities.

Ronald McDonald House Charities, a non-profit 501 (c) (3) corporation, creates, finds and supports programs that directly improve the health and well being of children. Its programs are grassroots-driven to enable the Charity to offer help where children need it most - right in their own communities. RMHC makes an immediate, positive impact on children's lives through its global network of local Chapters in 50 countries and regions and its three core programs: the Ronald McDonald House®, Ronald McDonald Family Room and Ronald McDonald Care Mobile. RMHC and its global network of local Chapters have awarded more than $440 million in grants and program services to children's programs around the world.

Thanks Christian and Happy Anniversary :)

SES New York

I flew into NYC yesterday to take part in the pre-conference training programs SES offers, I started in the morning and presented the traditional linking while Jennifer hosted the viral/link bait program in the afternoon. We had a great time and met some really nice people in our sessions who had flown in from all over the world to attend SES.

I don't usually make it into the conference a day early or on the first day for that matter so coming in and watching the craziness that comes with setting up a show for thousands was a treat and a flashback to my previous life. There are huge crews of people working assembly-line-fashion stuffing thousands of conference bags, booths being assembled to handle registration, speaker and press rooms being wired and so on. It's quite the process and I commend the SES/SEW staffs for making all run so smoothly.

Ran into Todd and chatted for awhile, it's always nice to catch up with people you don't see often. As we stood there, Todd introduced me to Cameron and Neil. Neil good naturedly took a lot of ribbing from me about some recent "in your mouth" photos I had seen of him in a bar and then proceeded to mention there was a video out there as well. Paris Hilton - move over, Neil Patel is the new online wench to watch.

LOL.... with all the snarkiness that goes on around SEOLand it's nice to know there are still people who laugh at themselves.

Tomarrow I'm going to try my hand at blogging a couple of sessions for SEORoundtable. I've never done this before so it should be interesting. I have Danny's intro to search marketing spiel as well as the keyword session with Chris and Dan. Not sure it was the best move to pick Danny's session given his propensity to talk at 95 mph but I thought what the heck, if I can blog his session I can do anyone's.

I'm going to take part in the Linking Basic's session on Wednesday morning and then head home to spend time with my children who are out on Easter break all week. Hopefully they won't have to go through chocolate detox when I get back, I left them with their father and piles of Easter candy so no telling.

If you're coming to SES I look forward to seeing you and if you're at home enjoying Easter break I hope you have a great week.

Happy Weekend.

Happy Easter

and

Passover Blessings

to my family and friends celebrating both.

Danny Does NPR and Interview Opportunities

Frequently when we talk about links you hear the comment - "get to know the journalists in your area so they'll write about your site" (or some variation of that line) but we don't always hear how or where to find them.

Earlier today I was looking at the NPR site after Justilien pinged this a.m. and mentioned he heard Danny on NPR's Marketplace last night. Always eager to listen to what Mr. Sullivan has to say (nose tan deepening), I popped over to NPR to find the interview.

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2007/04/03/PM200704033.html

While I was hunting for it, this call to action for experts/information on a handful of topics caught my eye and attention. These kinds of story requests are golden as they are an open invitation and a way to make contact with the media in your niche.

Here's what it said:

HELP US TELL THE STORY

We want your insights to help us in our reporting in these areas. Share what you know:

Is the subprime crisis affecting you, your work or where you live?
Help public radio cover Hispanic communities
Have you started a business?
What does sustainability mean to you?

Someday, when I get a big girl blog (cough) I'll be able to cut and copy examples of the actual ad in it's original format but for now, there it is.

So......in the future, when you're out there building links and doing this kind of work: (which is fine by the way, it works)

Keyword + add a site

Keyword + submit a site

add the phrase "help us tell the story" (and it's variations) + keyword and see what pops up! Then get to work sending in your articles and research papers and become the credible source journalists turn to in your industry - like Danny is with NPR! :)

Get A Free Link By Doing Someone Else's Work

The nice people at the Business Seek Directory have come up with a smart way to police their directory and spread a little linkcheer at the same time.

Find a Dead Link Offer:

Find a dead link on BusinessSeek.biz in your own category or any other category or article and we will provide you with a Sponsored Listing for a six month period free of charge.

Not a bad deal for a couple minutes work, I'll take the bait.

Thanks BusinessSeek and hat tip eKstreme

.EDU Links and the Maytag Repairman.

I live about 25 minutes outside of Richmond and travel up there a good bit to shop and work. When I read today that Richmond native Clay Jackson had been picked to be Maytag's company spokesperson (translation - the new MayTag Repairman) - I thought YEAH! Local man makes good. Cool.

I poked around the website MayTag used to launch and chronicle the search and hiring of their new repairman and was struck by its overall marketing and link potential. It was that employment blog that led me to think about jobs and job training which led to thinking about schools which of course made me think about edu links.

Whether you're a virtual or bricks & mortar company, offering information on your website about the job training programs you offer can attract people and links. Include detailed information on the training classes you're offering, job training requirements and any Federal and State regulations there might be to cover all the bases on your particular industry. Training is a hot topic and often cited as a resource when journalists are covering stories on the employment outlook in your niche. Make your site the resource they turn to when they're looking for factual and trend information.

Job training programs and their outlines are also eagerly sought after by high schools, community colleges, vocational schools, universities and teachers in general.

You'll need to be pro-active in contacting these opportunities as they typically don't have the time or resources to seek you out. Follow an online introduction with an offline brochure for added credibility and include references to any local students currently employed by your firm.

Once you think about how you can use your job training programs to secure quality links, it's easy to expand and develop programs for job fairs and your basic job opportunities as well. Job fair information is always welcome at places like your state and local employment commissions, Veteran Affairs offices, Chamber of Commerce and industry associations. While you may not always net a clean link from these government entities (although sometimes you will!), you'll definitely get a lot of eyeballs.

Web 2.0 True Grit.

Ever wondered how much some of these new Web2.0 type sites are worth and if there's any perceived value behind them? Apparantely eSnips CEO Yael Elish has.

Editor-at-Large Erick Schonfeld of Business 2.0 posted a slide Ms. Elish made showing the approximate value for may high-profile Web 2.0 sites by correlating publicly available Alexa Web traffic numbers with the value of known deals like YouTube's.

















Yes, this is less than scientific given the use of Alexa info but it's interesting anyway. I'd be curious to see where all these sites stand in six months and again in a year. If you had told me last year Orkut would still be around and valued at a billion dollars I would have said you're nuts my friend!