Archive for the 'SEO People' Category

As a brand new member of both We Build Pages and Internet Marketers of New York, I’m really proud to announce that last week’s Charity Party hosted by WBP raised more than $13,000 to benefit the Ronald McDonald House. That’s amazing.

It’s even more amazing when you know the back story.

Ten days before SMX East was scheduled to begin, Jim heard that IMNY would have to pull its big Charity event after too many sponsors had dropped out. Jim, a man known as much for his big heart as his crazy love for links, decided he wasn’t okay with that and commissioned the We Build Pages team to “make it happen”. And with that, the race began.

What followed would be a jam-packed week of crazy. We Build Pages Office Manager Rita Sickles was tasked with making sure that all of the many details that go into putting together an event like this were taken care of.

Would we serve food or just alcohol? Do we need prizes for raffles? What charity should we choose? Who can we get to sponsor? How much should we guilt them for? How much do we charge people to attend? Don’t forget the wristbands! And the flyers!

From there, Pat Sexton took the ball and ran with it, hitting the phones to woo potential sponsors. I don’t know how many of you have seen Pat Sexton on a mission, but…it’s intense. I’m pretty sure he didn’t sleep for three days as he wrangled up sponsors, took care of the prizes, and got everyone talking about what would be a great event. Our friend Jon Kelly was also there to lend his support, making sure that IMNY had a PayPal account set up for early registration. Everyone was on a mission to raise as much money as possible to benefit the amazing work of the Ronald McDonald house.

And when the big day came, it went off without a hitch. The event was a giant success: The turnout, the amount of money donated, and the smiling faces were all amazing. And none of that would have been possible without all the amazing attendees. So, we thank you.

We also want to thank our sponsors for the event. Without their very generous donations, none of the awesome that happened last week would have been possible. Major props, hugs and accolades to 10e20, BOTW , Search Engine Journal, SEOmoz, Sugarrae, SEMJ, Frank Watson, Search Engine People and Sure Hits.

Finishing out the Thank Train, more thanks go to the staff at Social Bar and Grill for putting up with us, Jim Hedger of WebmasterRadio for acting as MC for the evening, and to Jim Boykin for challenging the We Build Pages team to “make it happen” for charity.

We’d love to add to the $13,000+ that was raised last week. If you weren’t able to get your money in, do it now. Make your checks out to “Ronald McDonald House” and mail them to We Build Pages, 255 River Street, Troy, NY 12180 and we’ll forward them on for you. Let’s see just how generous the search community really is!

Below you’ll find a great mess of photos from the IMNY Charity Party. We hope you enjoy them. As Jim would say, we’re feeling lucky!

 Frank Watson and ShandyKing

 Pat Sexton and Rae Hoffman

 Jim Hedger

 The (scary) Oilman Todd Friesen and Jill Sampey

 Roger Monti and friend

 Avi Wilensky

 Rob Kerry, Emilo from Blogvertise and friends

Jonathan Dingman, Scott Polk, Jillian Taylor, Brent Payne

Rob Kerry, Emilio, Jim Boykin

Danny Dover, Pat Sexton, Scott Polk

Greg Niland

 Risa Borsykowsky

Rand Fishkin, Jim Hedger, Mystery Guest Fishkin

Dani Horowitz, Tamar Weinberg

Pat Sexton

 Virginia Nussey, Pat Sexton

Steve Boymel, Danny Sullivan, Aya Zook

Rita Sickles, Pat Sexton, Jim Hedger

 Jim Boykin, Chuck Price

 Carolyn Shelby, Pat Sexton, Chris Winfield

Ninja Shawn Rosko, Brent Csutoras

Roger Monti with Ninja’s Lauren Caldwell and Todd Heim

Chris Winfield, Danielle Winfield, Avi Wilensky, Frank Watson (back) John Kelly, Lauren Vaccarello, Todd Malicoat, Jim Hedger, Ben Rudnick, Tyler Shears

A group so cool Jim Boykin had to join

Jim Boykin, Shana Albert

 Lauren Vaccarello, Frank Watson, Jon Kelly

 (Special thanks to Tamar Weinberg for helping me identify some of the faces not in my mental Rolodex.)

Popularity: unranked [?]

As I was leaving a comment on Graywolf’s post about Guy Kawasaki and Link Payola, I realized I had more than a few words to say on the matter.

Google’s policy on paid links is impossible to enforce. Or at least it’s impossible to enforce fairly and consistently.

If I review an amazing product that was given to me for the purpose of reviewing it, does it make my review any less valuable? Any less relevant? No, of course not.

If someone gives me money to review their website – and let’s face it, just linking to someone is a form of review because you always check out a site before you link to it – it’s no different. As long as I’m not misrepresenting the site I’m linking to, I don’t see the harm.

There are billions of web pages online, and sometimes it takes a little motivation to get someone to look at and link to one of those pages. Money can be the motivation. Or a free product or service. And people need the motivation, because little sites won’t get recognized without someone linking to them.  The search engines will ignore them if no one links to them, but no one can link to them unless they can be found in a web search. Catch-22?

I think that Google should take the cue from Yahoo, who doesn’t care if a link is paid or not, as long as it has value for the user. Because seriously? If I’m looking for product reviews, I don’t care if the person reviewing it got the item for free, as long as they’re being honest and upfront about everything. As long as it lists pros and cons, that review is valuable to me, and I don’t want Google removing it from my search results just because it was paid for.

And if I’m looking for health information, and I follow a link to a helpful health website from another helpful health website, I would likely neither know nor care if the originating website had gotten some form of monetary compensation for placing the link.  If it helps me, that’s all I care about. But if Google’s going to penalize people for placing paid links, I might not be able to find either one of the helpful health websites in my web search. And for what?

If Google is really all about serving user intent, they need to focus more on worrying about their users.  Otherwise, this is all about AdWords. AdWords and AdSense provide relevant contextual paid links for many Webmasters out there.  The paid links they’re penalizing are really only cutting out Google as the middleman – and that doesn’t hurt anyone, except perhaps Google’s profit margin.

But back to Graywolf and Guy Kawasaki.  I don’t think Guy has done anything wrong, and I know that Graywolf doesn’t think that Guy has done anything wrong either. He’s just pointing out the flaws in the paid link penalties Google is handing out.  In the end, I hope Guy doesn’t get penalized; I hope the penalties disappear. And I’m not saying this because of Jim and his elite team of link ninjas.  I’m saying this as an Internet user who only wants access to the best information – whether the person providing the access has been paid for it or not.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Not sure if Jim’s seen it yet, but he’s part of the newest game show: SEO Squares. I love that he’s the only one without a speech bubble.

Popularity: unranked [?]

No offense at all to Graywolf, who believes it was sexist of BlogHer not to have male speakers at its 2008 conference, but I wouldn’t have gone there to hear him speak. If I’d gone at all, that is.

Let me back the train up a bit.

Until a few weeks ago, I was just your average mommyblogger. You’ve never heard of my mommyblog, and I’m not going to share it with you either. This world and that world exist on separate planes for me.

Had I been able to afford to accept the invitation to BlogHer, I would’ve wanted to hear women speak. Why? Because I would’ve been expecting to hear from other women who were doing what I was doing. Peers, not experts. Whatever expertise a man could have about blogging, he still can’t understand what it is to be a woman who blogs.

Like Michael Gray. From the crash course I’ve had in SEO and linkbait and whatnot over the past few weeks, he’s become one of the people whose advice and authority I respect. (By the way, this whole BlogHer controversy he’s kicked up is quite the linkbait. Nicely done.) But if I wanted to hear him speak, it would be at an SEO conference, not at the BlogHer conference.

I don’t think it’s about being closed-minded to new ideas, it’s about similarity. Sisterhood, if you will, but I think that has a rather campy connotation to it. A man who has all the know-how as far as creating and marketing a successful blog can certainly give an informative, educational presentation about blogging. But he can’t relate to me in the same way as a woman can.

On a very basic level, I think women join the BlogHer network because it’s the one place where they don’t have to face the "there are no girls on the internets" wall. (You know the "old" saying: on the internet, all the men are men, the women are men, and the kids are police officers.)

It’s not to say that the women of BlogHer only associate with the women of the BlogHer network. You can be a BlogHer member and still make your rounds in other internet circles, circles that include some brilliant male speakers. But when you’re in with BlogHer, I’ll be quite frank, you expect to be associating with other women who have been where you are.

It’s all about expectations. If I go to some big political shindig, I expect to hear from members of my own party. Al Gore may have lots of interesting things to say, but people aren’t going to the GOP convention to listen to him. Likewise, Karl Rove isn’t going to be the keynote speaker at the Democratic convention.

Maybe I’ll get to go to BlogHer next year (Jim?) and Graywolf can prove me wrong by delivering a really amazing presentation when he’s in the spotlight.

- QualityGal

P.S. I do hope to hear you speak at some point in the future, GrayWolf!

Popularity: unranked [?]

In a few weeks (April 11th) we’re having the first SEO Class of the year.

It will be held at the Franklin Square Inn in Troy New York (just north of Albany).

The presenters that day will be:

• Chris Winfield (10e20)
• Michael Gray (Graywolf)
• Kim Krause Berg (Cre8pc)
• Ted Ulle (Tedster)
• Barry Schwartz (Rustybrick)
• Greg Niland (GoodROI)
• Jim Boykin (We Build Pages)

On April 12th we’re taking a bus to NYC, Those who attended the class on the 11th are welcome to join us for the full day trip to NYC on the 12th.

The class costs $2995, or can be free with your purchase of internet marketing ninjas (get you 1 free pass to a SEO Class).

We have about 30 seats filled and we can only hold about 40 people, so if you’re planning to attend, I’d sign up ASAP.

There will also be SEO Classes in Scotland, San Francisco, and Dalles (details), later this year.

Cheers!

Popularity: 2% [?]

Since Donna let the cat out of the bag, I thought I’d follow suit.

A handful of SEO’s are in a contest to lose weight, and to help charities. You can help us as well.

The Women:

DazzlinDonna from SEO Scoop
playing for Hospice Foundation from America

Jennifer Laycock from Search Engine Guide
playing for HMBANA Milk Banks

Nathania Johnson from Bold Interactive
playing for Thyroid Cancer Survivor’s Association

Debra Mastaler from Alliance-Link
playing for Dream Catchers Therapeutic Riding Center

Scottie Claiborne
playing for Sistercare Battered Women’s Shelter

The Men:

Aaron Wall from SEO Book
playing for Amnesty USA

Jim Boykin from We Build Pages
playing for Unity House in Troy NY

Simon Heseltine from Serengeti Communication
playing for Kids Wish Network

Jeff Quipp from Search Engine People Inc.
playing for Tuberous Sclerosis Canada

David Wallace from SearchRank
playing for The Phoenix Rescue Mission

Ben Cook from BloggingExperiment.com
playing for Ronald McDonald Mobile Program

The Rules (listed on SEOsFightFat.com):

"During the two month period between February 1, 2008 and March 31, 2008, each SEO will attempt to lose weight using whatever methods he or she thinks is best. On March 31st, the woman who has lost the most weight (based on a percentage of weight loss) and the man who has lost the most weight (again based on percentage) will be in a finalist face-off. On April 1st, all of you will vote and choose the winner of the challenge from those two finalists. The final winner’s charity will receive all of the sponsorship pledge funds."

So I know what you’re all asking yourself, "How can I help sponsor this cool charity contest" – hey, glad you asked! Check out the Sponsor page.

Why you should sponsor this event:

1. The money will go to one of these charities, and I’m sure all of them can use the contributions to help make the world a better place.

2. All those who donate $20 or more will be entered into a drawing, where 1 name will be chosen. That person/organization will win a one year subscription to Internet Marketing Ninjas (a $2995 value) (Sorry, search engines and search engine employees are not eligible).

3. Sponsors will be listed on the Friends page. (FYI, all links are no-followed….this is not the time or place to debate links).

Google has generiously donated sitewide support, and We Build Pages has donated on my page.

OK, I’m out to win!

Check out SEOs FIght Fat for Charity

Popularity: 2% [?]

Marketing Pilgrim is doing a second SEO contest where you can win over $10,000 in prizes.

Check out all the goodies that are being given to the winner!

All you’ve got to do to enter is prior to April 6th:

…submit an article on any subject related to search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click advertising (PPC) or social media optimization (SMO)

All the details can be found here on how to submit your article.

I’m honored to be one of the judges and I’m looking forward to reading all the entries.

Are you feeling lucky?

Popularity: 2% [?]