Three star links:
- 10e20 brings us "The Ultimate Guide to Decoding Digg Speak." It's both amusing and surprisingly thorough. Pretty handy if you're an SMM noob and need to know what "those crazy kids" are talking about.
- Now we know why your socks keep disappearing when you wash them...they make a good snake sweater!
- Here's an interesting article about how the "Google generation" thinks differently. Generation Google appears to prefer multi-tasking, networking, multiple media sources,and images and video over text, while "digital immigrants" prefer the opposite. Interesting stuff.
- Speaking of interesting, here are 10 things you might not know about your credit card. I didn't know that merchants technically cannot require you to present ID when you use a credit card (unless the card is unsigned or, I'd guess, if you're buying alcohol).
- Tired of your coworkers stealing your coffee mug? Well, here's a pretty clever solution.
- My amiga Lisa Barone at Bruce Clay crafted up some handy tips on how to come up with a kick ass domain name. I recommend changing bruceclay.com to thelisabaroneshow.com. That's a pretty kick ass domain right there.
- Here's what Bill Gates' headstone will look like when he finally kicks the bucket (nerd humor courtesy of Jane)...
- SecuriTeam shows us how to sneakily find out the name behind an anonymous or obscure email address. It's a pretty clever way to take advantage of a bug.
- Payscale (who writes my boyfriend's checks--thanks, Payscale!) has some useful tips on how NOT to use online social networks. Don't be an abuser. Nobody likes you if you are.
- Got any extra urine lying around your house, Howard Hughes-style? If so, send it on over to NASA!
- The McCain campaign is spidering Barack Obama's website in order to spot any word changes. Politicians are some pretty stubborn sons of bitches. I like how they're never allowed to change their opinion on any stance whatsoever. If that's the case, shouldn't McCain still be in favor of using muskets in battle? (Get it? The dude's old.)
- Yahoo! is using an automated algorithm to select stories for its front page, which has led to a 25-30% CTR increase.
- Speaking of Yahoo!, this article confirms that getting a story on Yahoo! Buzz is much more valuable than getting it on Digg or getting StumbleUpon traffic.
- Hat's off to The Economist for being a good sport about Stephen Dubner's "pasty"/"pastry" misunderstanding. Their little package to him led to some smart brand engagement.
- Here's a fascinating peek at Craigslist spammers talking about how to get around Craigslist's verification system.
- A new Wordpress theme has debuted, and it's apparently one of the best thus far.
- Twitter has acquired Summize. I'm sure you Twits are all thrilled by this news.
- Ann Smarty writes about what to do with outdated but powerful pages on your site. She provides some simple but useful tips on making the most of pages that have gone kaput.
- SEO Book talks about the value of perception when selling/advertising.
- Richard Baxter has some advanced Wordpress SEO tips for your sidebar.
- Onward Search tells us where all the SEO talent is. I'll tell you where it is. It's in a brand spankin' new office in Seattle!
Four star links:
- Brent Csutoras reminds us that social media marketing is constantly changing and shifting, and that good social media marketers should be keeping up with the frequent changes and the various new sites that emerge. He provides a list of new social media sites and some important changes to existing sites.
- Jason Nazar shares 10 documents to help you start a company. It's a handy list of resources for those of you who are budding entrepreneurs.
- Mashable has some great advice on how to develop a social media plan for your business. The site provides 5 simple steps that can help you get started.
- NorthxEast.com has a list of the 50 most influential female bloggers. My friend and fellow SEO/social media marketer Tamar Weinberg made the list at #18. Congratulations, Tamar! Hopefully one day I can make it onto a list like this. That'd be pretty effin' cool.
- John Faulds created the "ultimate web design gallery resource," which is a table of over 180 web design galleries from around the world. Pretty impressive work, John!
- I think this is a great idea--create a conference series that focuses on your failures rather than successes. After all, we should be learning from our mistakes, shouldn't we?
- Marketing Experiments discusses ways to optimize your testimonials. Great tips--it's easy to think that you can just slap some testimonials onto a page and think that's that, and this post proves otherwise.
- The Google Cache posits an interesting hypothesis on what will bring about the end of paid links. I personally think this is a huge overkill--it's a dick move for a site to nofollow all of its outbound links. It's like a kid bringing a basket of delicious cupcakes into the classroom and refusing to share with anyone. That kid's an asshole.
- Yahoo's ignoring your footer. Frowny face.
Five star links:
- Particle Tree added a an "Emotional State" dropdown option on their support request forms and were surprised by the results. The feedback was immensely positive, and the emotional states that were filled out gave great insight into how their customers were feeling and how to better help them.
- The SEO Company did an interesting analysis of the mainstream media's propensity to link out to other sites. They state that "offering useful links actually makes visitors more likely to return to see what other interesting websites they might find in the future..." The post has a chart of newspapers who link out from their main stories and their blog posts, their domain strength, and a count of their inbound and outbound links.
YOUmoz entries:
- 10 Blog Posts I'll Never Publish Due to Controversy. Anonymousblogger shares 10 scandalous blog post ideas that will never see the light of day.
- Tightening Your PPC Spend. Kate shares some tips on how to tighten your PPC budgets, such as tracking, setting budgets, dayparting, geotargeting, and more.
- The Social Graph API - Stop Making Me Find My Friends AGAIN. Chris Bartow talks about Google's social graph API, which lets you take existing connections on social networks and apply them to any new networks that you join.
- Flash Now Searchable, Isn't It? Franz Enzenhofer opines that we should still be cautious with Flash content, despite recent news that Google is now supposedly indexing Flash.
- Adwords - Monitoring Your Impression Share. HannahS talks about impression share, what affects it, and how you can how much coverage you're getting for your spend.
- It's a Link, Jim, But Not As We Know It. Scotie goes in-depth with reciprocal linking and triangulation linking.
- SEO Consulting is Here to Stay: Aaron Wall is Wrong (for once). Wilreynolds disagrees with Aaron Wall's post about "why traditional SEO consulting usually sucks," and he provides his counterpoints to the original post.
- "Money Pit" Users' Effect on PPC Budgets. Mitch Turk talks about "money pit" users and how they actually may be good for your PPC campaigns.
- Real Tools for SEO Copywriters. Webwordslinger breaks down the SEO copywriter's tool kit and identifies some light-hearted tools every copywriter needs.
Best of YOUmoz:
- The Ultimate Guide to the Google Search Parameters. Peter Wailes presents a thorough list of Google's search string parameters. It's lengthy but exceptionally valuable information. Thanks, Pete!
- Linguistics and SEO. Rhaden introduces us to the wonderful world of linguistics, and why it's important to SEOs and copywriters. It's a refreshing perspective and good info to have.
New events added to the Events Calendar:
- Forex Affiliate Convention July 25-26 at the Flamingo Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, NV
- Seattle SEO Meetup August 4th in Seattle, WA
- London Social Networking Conference September 22-23 at the Millennium Gloucester Hotel Kensington and Conference Center in London, UK
- Miami Social Networking Conference January 22-23 2009 at the Miami Beach Convention Center in Miami, FL
Upcoming events:
- SEM for SMB July 16-17 at the Hilton Austin Downtown in Austin, TX
- SMX Local & Mobile July 24-25 in San Francisco, CA
- Forex Affiliate Convention July 25-26 at the Flamingo Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, NV
New additions to the SEOmoz Marketplace:
Featured job postings:
- Social media and emerging technologies strategist for Morpheus Media in New York, NY
- Contracted social media guru for 1stchoicefunding.com in Neosho, MO
- Marketing manager for Celebrations.com in New York, NY
- SEO specialist for Marcel Media in Chicago, IL
Featured companies:
United States/North America:
- WindNet Atlanta Web Design in Atlanta, GA
- Marcel Media in Chicago, IL
- SixChannels in Houston, TX
- Whitespark in Edmonton, AB, Canada
- iClic in Montreal, QC, Canada
- MestreSEO in Itajuba, MG, Brazil
- QF Grafisch Webdesign in Etten-Leur, Noord, Netherlands
- SEO Scotland in Glasgow, UK
Featured resumes:
Currently looking:
- Hasaan A. Brown in Silver Spring, MD, is a diverse SEM specialist whose goal is to increase Internet visibility for targeted campaigns by creating and executing a well-planned SEM strategy.
- John Williams in Saline, MI, has over 13 years of professional experience in both outside sales and in online marketing.
Happily employed:
- Dan Perry in Chicago, IL, is an Internet marketer with over 7 years of experience. He has experience with increasing online traffic, as well as managing nearly 150 different sites and handling a monthly budget of over $500,000.
I love / hate it when I confirm the truth of something I'm reading. As I edit a guide on one half of my monitor, I'm reading the roundup on the other half and I read that. I then look over at the laptop and see Twitter.
Stereotype: I'm fighting it wrong.
Nice information.
I made it onto the Thursday Roundup! Weyheyyyyy!!! *dance*
This roundup took me forever to get through because of all the great stuff in it! Great job this week!!!
I hate to admit this, but when going through the Digg link, I watched that stupid lol cat video and died laughing. I am such a dork. Officially now.
By the way, I LOVE your reading roundup - way better than most blogs. Not only is the content very interesting (and has funny items in it too), but it is GREAT for scanning. I love your descriptive use of link names - means I don't have to read the descriptions. You have obviously being reading copyblogger a lot :)
Rich Page (web analytics fanatic)https://www.rich-page.com
Hahaha!
ZING!
Wah-wahh
Heyoooo!
Interesting.
Apply as needed to various items in ye olde Roundup. Good stuff this week :)
Went to take a look at that wordpress theme, but its licensed! Ridiculous...
umm events is giving me a 503 error - specifically the london social networking conference...
<smart ass remark>%500,000 is a lot . . . or not much, depends on if its %500,000 of $1 or $.01</smart ass remark>
Great resources as usual!
Oops, sorry. I fixed it, thanks.
Thanks for the link to my SEJ post. That's funny, Google alerts updated me of your scrapers mentioning my name instead of SEOmoz itself :)
Loved the Marketing Experiment article and great job as always!
Thanks for the love, and ditto on the overall great list. I see a nice bit of weekend reading dead ahead.