“I say, ‘Babe, just get a hold of yourself, and pull yourself in, man, ’cause this is it.”…from the movie screenplay The Trip

“Like the circles that you find…in the windmills of your mind.”…Dusty Springfield

A couple wacky ideas about SEO that up until now I’ve been afraid to write about:

First, I’ve felt for quite a while that the prevalence of ADD amongst people in the search marketing profession had to be quite high. I wasn’t particularly comfortable bringing this idea to light…so I never wrote on the topic. I was quite surprised to see Mark Jackson addressed it and from the best I could tell, my fears about talking about the SEO/ADD connection were unfounded (and many in the community seem to see ADD as a career enhancement and a badge of honor).

“The future is wide open…” Tom Petty

I’ve written about Twitter several times recently, so I’m not looking to tax your patience with another Twitter post…however, there is a story I wish to share that occurred last night at the SEMpdx / pdxMindshare event.

When newbies use Twitter for the first time, they tend to make conversation or post their thoughts without any sort of strategic plan. I certainly did this in my earliest twitters. As I began to spend more time here, I realized that I could segment my followers / people into several strategic groups and if I could make sure that some of my tweets were relevant to each of these groups, I could increase the volume and quality of meaningful interactions with others.

People who follow my Twitter stream know that I like to share examples of stupid mistakes that people make when sending their resumes to our company. But, as Seth Godin correctly (I believe) pointed out, resumes really aren’t that necessary for really exceptional people because exceptional people have enough publically available information online that proves their suitability for relevant job openings / contract engagements. A truly exceptional person need only express interest in a position and the discussion can skip right into discussing the terms and conditions of the work to see if both sides have compatible expectations.

“You think this a free ride? You want to play, you got to pay!” Bruce Springsteen

We get a lot of interesting messages sent to SEMpdx via our website. Most of the folks contacting us are either search professionals reaching out to our organization, vendors looking to reach the search marketplace or people looking for advice on search services. We do our best to assist all who make inquiry to us. Occasionally, the process breaks down and somebody doesn’t get the help they need. We’re sorry when that happens and we do our best to make amends.

“Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.”… Ralph Waldo Emerson

So you’ve developed a great keyword list for your SEO Campaign. Congratulations! Now, I’m here to help you optimally integrate your keyword research into your Search Engine Optimization efforts. Here are several important techniques where your keyword list can effectively be used for SEO:

In conjunction with the launch of his book “*Personality Not Included“, Rohit made the generous offer that he would do 50 5 question interviews with people who contacted him. I was one of the lucky 50 :.)

Rohit, what is the theme of your book?

“Why do you feel you have to turn everything into a story? Because if I tell the story, I control the version. Because if I tell the story, I can make you laugh and I rather have you laugh at me then feel sorry for me. Because if I tell the story, it doesn’t hurt as much. Because if I tell the story, I can get on with it.” Nora Ephron, Heartburn

Aaron Wall is…well, you should know who he is if you’re reading this blog :.)

1) Why should somebody choose your platform to learn SEO (as opposed to learning SEO in a classroom setting or an online educational service)?

I have been “kicking the tires” of the premium content offerings from SEOmoz and SEOBook and had planned to write up my impressions as to the value of each. However, my exploration of these two sites led me to a conclusion quite a bit more profound than I anticipated which I would like to share with you.

Today, I saw a probably the most extraordinary juxtaposition of stories that I’ve can ever remember seeing.

This morning, I read Bill Simmons “Save Our Sonics” column which began:

In six years of writing for ESPN.com, this is the longest piece I’ve ever sent to my editors — nearly 15,000 words of anguished e-mails from Sonics fans around the country.

“You´ve gotta be
Cruel to be kind in the right measure,
Cruel to be kind it´s a very good sign,
Cruel to be kind means that I love you,
Baby, you´ve gotta be cruel to be kind.”… Nick Lowe

In the agency setting in which I used to work, I didn´t do a lot of the direct client communications for a couple reasons:

Without getting overly political, I don’t think the great American tax rebate will do much to stimulate our economy. Most people will use it to pay already existing debt such as credit card bills or mortgages and I don’t think overall consumer spending will increase that much.

However, this is a simple way to change this…to use your tax rebate money to stimulate “The” economy and “Your” economy.

Use your tax rebate to buy a premium domain name.

In my opinion, the Kindle as it is now constituted is nearly worthless. However, I think that it will evolve and take on some of the features of the pocket / tablet PC…and at that point, they will become much more valuable & useful to a mass audience.

The more interesting question is that will writers adapt their style of writing to take advantage of the medium?

This is a brilliant social media marketing idea…NBA Dunk contestant Rudy Gay is leading up the following promotion: Upload your best slam dunk videos to You Tube and he will select one dunk to perform at the NBA All-Star Game Dunk Contest.

A great way to engage the community to follow the new videos being uploaded to You Tube & participate in their evaluation. There’s a pretty good chance that a certain number of viral videos will emerge from this process and when one of these dunk videos goes viral, Rudy’s promotion is taken along for the viral ride.

Google’s Toolbar 5 has an interesting feature guaranteed to draw the ire of the domaining community.

From the features page:

Address Bar Browse by Name
Browse by Name helps you find a site even when you don’t know its URL. Just type the site name into your browser address bar, and Toolbar will take you there automatically. For instance, try typing “oxford” into the address bar to go directly to the university’s home page at www.ox.ac.uk.

I first read about the concept of “blog bets” in Henry Abbott’s ESPN’s “True Hoop” basketball blog. Essentially, Henry would make bets with the other basketball bloggers and the loser would have to blog about the winner’s choice of topic.

To the best of my knowledge, the “blog bet” concept has not surfaced in the search community…so, I figured it’s time to introduce it. However, in order to get others to participate, I’ll have to put forth the opinion not shared by many folks. So, here it is…

“Because something is happening here…But you don’t know what it is…Do you, Mister Jones?” Bob Dylan, Ballad of a Thin Man

The phone rang at the appointed time.

“Mitch, it’s Denny Fowles…I’m the person who emailed you about purchasing your domain forecasttheyears.com.”

“Hello Denny. You know, I’m quite puzzled by your interest in my domain. I purchased it name for its sentimental value and to get a total stranger to offer me $500 for it out of the blue is somewhat suspicious to me. Can you explain to me your sudden interest?”

Until about a week ago, I had never knew that the city of Maywood Park, Oregon (750 people located in a small part of East Portland) existed. When I first heard of it, I immediately checked to see if the domain had been taken…and since it hadn’t, I took it.

Another reminder as you learn new facts and ideas to train your mind to check if a relevant domain name is available…and to grab it if you can.