Stuntdubl Business Search Marketing Consulting

I love SEO conferences and meetups. I’ve met most of my favorite people on the planet at them. There’s also lots of douchebags, who really don’t get what an incredible community of people it is most of the time. I sat down with Mike McDonald and talked a little bit about what to do, and what not to do at SEO Conferences. I thought I’d do a written version for the things I forgot as well. So here is what you should do if you really want to be a total outcast douchebag at an SEO Conference:

I am a proud - card carrying member of IM-NY, and the group is a gathering of some of my most favorite people on the planet. Mr. GoodROI does a fine job of planning monthly events to entertain this group of wiley search vets. As with last year’s SES party - the boys have outdone themselves. IM-NY and Best of the Web Directory will be holding a Charity Party for SES NYC on Tues. 3/18/08 8PM - Midnight at Black Finn NY 218 East 53rd Street (map). The really great news is ANYONE can go to the party. No elite-edness here (yes, I can’t even speak properly). You will be asked for a $40 donation for all-you-can-drink fun with a bunch of awesome search marketing nerds who love to have a good time (remember this is a charity party you lushes). Here’s more information about the IM-NY / BOTW SES Charity Party. Please help spread the good word - one of these charities will get a nice big fat check. Please tell a few friends, and we look forward to seeing you there. For anyone willing to help as co-sponsors the party, I’ll throw in a few months of free advertising on my site - just drop me a line through my contact form. For the unintiated - this is Search Engine Strategies NYC.

I’ve been procrastinating far too long on this post - and unfortunately, it’s going to come out a bit rushed. Part of the reason for that, it’s hard to justify the ROI on blogging now because I actually WORK on projects that make me money, instead of just writing about how smart I am. While I miss blogging often quite a bit sometimes (it’s really fun to write about things you enjoy), I really like making money on fun and profitable projects a whole lot more. One of the best testimonials I can give for Jim Boykin and the Internet Marketing Ninjas Program (*yes, this is an affiliate link - please see below) is that after studying with him in the Ninja dojo in Troy, NY - I was much better equipped to work on the projects that I do now. The time I spent in the dojo has given me a skillset to earn an income for my lifetime. $3k is a WHOLE lot cheaper than the hundred thousand or so I dropped on college and business school. I’m not saying that IMN is the ONLY thing you’re going to need to make a boatload of cash, but it is at least worth a freshman and sophomore year at a MUCH cheaper price. There IS no college for this stuff - only the ninja underground.

Matt McGee has spent a lot of time and effort to build a pretty cool awards program for the best posts in search engine marketing - the SEMMY’s. I’m honored to be a part of it, and can only hope that one day we’ll have an awesome black tie, red carpet event to commemorate the greatness of our industry. I will be judging the Small Business category along with Andrew Shotland and Rae Hoffman.

Starting the ridiculous round of investment in such a terrible idea. Continue doing this, and the end will definitely be near. This is so bad I will even give them a link (though I’ve decided it should contain the anchor text “squidoo crackbaby”). Seriously - if you guys are GIVING away money to shit like this, I’ve got an awesome bridge in Brooklyn that we can put google ads on. Scraped content commented on by people who are too lazy to get a real job? I’m sure the quality control level should stay very high, and there will be no incentive for payoffs on terms like “mortgage” (because that never happend on dmoz). Why not listen to some folks that know about search, and social media for investment advice and ideas in the space, instead of a guy with a giant ego that knows how to job jump? This cute little hawaiian phrase is gonna be the pets.com sock puppet of this era. Maybe high risk is good, but putting the money into this project is just the first sign that NO ONE with the money has much of a clue what is really going on, and that they’re only going to learn the economics of search the really hard way. Please stop the madness. I generally try to only write positively - but this was just too much to take without ranting, after all the BS we’ve seen spewed from this man just to get a reaction.

It actually pains me to put Jason C’s name in a title after all the attention he gleans with the attack hook. This time he actually managed to get himself free SEO consulting as well. I just don’t bother to argue with the haterz like this anymore (at a certain point the skin thickens, and just knowing that your right provides more solace than public outbursts), but I have to commend Neil on taking the time to prove this guy wrong after all the flack and disrespect JC has shown the SEO community. He’s certainly not the first, but he has definitely been the extreme. It is admirable that Neil took the time to explain to someone who will never “get SEO” anyhow - if only to shut him up for a few minutes. Check out how Neil won the bet with only 10% of recommended changes made (Here’s the info on the challenge). It’s painful to think that Neil is helping to give the guy MORE of a soapbox to yell stupidity from, but at least everytime the subject of SEO pops up, the facts will speak for themselves (assuming he’s actually smart enough to implement the rest of the changes Neil provided). We’ll be looking forward to that official “SEO is awesome” statement, and timing how long it takes you to contradict yourself Jason.

Andy Beal started a really cool scholarship last year, and has brought it back this year. With an esteemed group of judges and then me - he’ll be giving away a bunch of great SEM prizes worth upwards of 10k to the lucky winner. There was some really excellent entries last year - and the big winner was Ben Wills, a very sharp dude (and also a real good guy) who wrote about the 5 Pillars of Social Media Marketing. Find out more about the search engine marketing scholarship at Marketing Pilgrim.