Browsing Tag: seo

    Miscellany

    How’s This for a Domain-name Fail by Yahoo and MSFT?

    March 30, 2012

    Discovered this while writing my latest Search Engine Land article:

    Back in 2009, when Yahoo and Microsoft announced their big search deal — where Bing results would power Yahoo search — both companies created a special website just for the occasion: www.choicevalueinnovation.com. Both Bing’s blog post and Yahoo’s blog post linked to it. Here’s the link at the end of ex-Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz’s post:

    bartz-post

    Get this: That domain now belongs to Press Control Services, an electrical manufacturing company in Lewisville, Texas!

    I don’t know how or when they managed to score that domain, but can you imagine how many inbound links it has due to the Yahoo/MSFT history?? Wow. Talk about some good old-fashioned SEO. Well played, folks. Well played.

    pcs-home

    Miscellany

    My Two New SEO T-Shirts

    September 9, 2011

    I’ve mentioned before that I’m kind of a t-shirt collector, and so I have to share the two new ones that just arrived.

    I think I might have to wear one or both of these during SMX East. I posted this first one on Twitter and Google Plus, and so far it’s a unanimous “Yes” vote to wear it at the conference.

    seoshirt-2

    But I also have this other SEO t-shirt that I like. Might have to find a way to work this one in the carry-on, too.

    seoshirt-1

    If this was SMX West or Advanced coming up, I’d totally bring both of them — and I’d wear them both while moderating sessions! But for some reason, SMX East is a little more … formal, shall we say? … in my mind, so not sure how to make this work. We’ll see…..

    Miscellany

    Why I’m Gonna Cut Back on Speaking

    January 30, 2011

    matt-speakingI had a few replies and emails today after I said on Twitter that SearchFest will probably be the end of my time as a speaker on the SEO/SEM circuit. Probably should’ve just expressed myself through a blog post and avoided the 140-character limits, since there are several reasons I’m feeling this way:

    1. I don’t have time to put together the kinds of presentations I like to do. This is purely my own problem; not blaming anyone but me. I spend a lot of time putting together my presentations. I always see and hear stories about speakers doing their PPTs the night before they speak … but I always take several weeks on each presentation. Don’t know why; it’s just the way I am.

    And it’s somewhat stressful: I’ll be doing a 25-minute presentation on small business social media at SearchFest three weeks from now. A preso that long will take even more time than normal, but I haven’t even started and the event is only three weeks away. Too busy doing client work, working on my U2 book, and all the other stuff happening these days. I fear that SearchFest will not be getting my best work.

    2. It feels repetitive. I’ll be coordinating four sessions at SMX West in March, and I also thought about pitching to speak on a panel or two. But in reviewing the open sessions, I felt like I had nothing new to say on any of the topics. It feels like I would’ve been saying the same things that others have already said better than me.

    3. Right now, there’s little personal benefit in speaking for me. The main reason a lot of speakers want to speak at our industry conferences is to attract new consulting clients. But I’m not taking on new clients right now and probably won’t be for long time; I have a great and small set of clients I’m helping now, and have recently committed to more work with Search Engine Land and Sphinn. So, “at least I might get some new clients” isn’t a justification for speaking.

    So that’s pretty much it. I’ll keep doing GetListed.org Local University events as long as they’ll let me, and I’ll keep coordinating/moderating sessions at SMX as long as Chris and Danny want me to. And I’d love to continue attending other industry events, because hanging out with friends and chatting is just awesome fun. But the speaking part? I’m gonna try to eliminate that as much as possible … at least until I have something new to say and enough time to say it well.