DISQUS

I agree that unless it's part of your job, there's no reason for the company to pay employees to IM, Twitter and play with their Facebook/MySpace accounts. There should be clear and reasonable policies communicated as well.

Heck, if staff have so little to do that their social media usage is of concern, then the company has other problems to solve, like getting more clients and increasing workload.

Here, here!

For many that haven't experienced it, such inspiration can seem cliche. Sort of like "Great things come to those who wait - but only what's left over from those that hustle". Being consistently passionate about something is infectious to those around and motivates them to want to help you reach your goals. Great advice Jacob and best of luck in your endeavors. :)

Opinions are great aren't they?

Blogs have different purposes as you have indicated. My blog is a marketing tool. It's an ad for our consulting business. As long as the content we promote satisfies the needs of our prospective clients to become clients, to attract talented employees and marketing partners then I believe we're doing our part to advance the industry by building a successful business within it.

Thanks for the opportunity John, it's appreciated and I think the podcast turned out well.

Cheers,
Lee

toprankblog, aka, "Online Marketing Blog" has 1,952 subscribers according to Google Reader but Feedburner reports 3,613.

Hmmm. $100m in advertising in a bid for search engine market share. That sounds awfully familiar....

Am liking the "Twit this" option Michael. We'll have to add that to the social bookmark tool.

Get famous, rich and really good looking by using our social book bookmarking tool from TopRank!

Hi Michael, I like the new design!

This is an interesting topic as I have a post in the works for Monday titled, "Search Engine Rankings Are Dead". With personalized search and other factors, rankings on standard search engines are no longer an accurate proxy for measuring the effect of SEO efforts.

Cheers!

This is something I noticed after our blog hit the 100 fave list. It's not only cheapened by the favorite swapping, it doesn't send any traffic any way.

In the end, it's still a list and some people go nuts over lists. :)

I'd be curious to know what you think about the proliferation of regional search marketing conferences.

Seems like a win win situation to me. Attendees get hands on, personal attention. Well known and talented SEOs actually get paid half decent to speak.

Ooh, that's some smart link building there Andy!

I guess if I was going to get banned for something it might as well be for outright scamming, which isn't an option for a variety of reasons including: risk/reward is too high, degrades the community content, it's not sustainable.

Our banning had to do with Digg users hating SEO content. Read Graywolf's "How to be a dirty digger" for more on that sort of activity.

Hi Michael, yes I will be at SES San Jose for sure. I'm bringing some of the TopRank crew as well! I've sent an email to you so we can coordinate a time to meet. Cheers!

One thing many blog owners using the addthis widget don't seem to consider is that it sends readers to a third party web site. What if that site goes down? What if that site starts to show ads that distract them from the actual bookmarking?

Of course I'm biased because our Social Bookmarks tool lets blog owners add bookmark links (as you have above) and keep readers on the blog as much as possible.

The numbers for Google Bookmarks are very significant in light of their use for Google personalized search results.

Anyone that's really interested in social bookmarks should come to SES New York where Todd Malicoat, Michael Gray, Neil Patel and myself are presenting a session called, "Bookmarking Strategies".

Hey now, #6 doesn't look good on you Andy. What about #7? :)

Congrats and well deserved!

Yeah right monchito, what if the dentist's own teeth are crap? I'd say no thanks.

"internet marketing consultant" eh Andy? Sounds like a invite for some fun. :)

We get at least 1-2 inquires per day for SEO or related services because prospects found us by searching. So go ahead and buy in to the advice that SEOs don't need to rank well on such terms. It just means more business for me.

As far as ranking well as a requirement for selecting a vendor, the agency should at least do well on their niche terms but I agree with Jordan that client results are more effective.

As far as made for Digg content, I think it's giving Digg an awful lot of credit. Top ten posts and lists etc have been around for a while.

We still publish such posts with no possibility of being submitted to Digg because readers respond to it.

Interestingly enough, since our site is not allowed to have stories submitted to Digg the past two months, Online Marketing Blog traffic, page views and RSS subscribers (not counting the Google Reader boost) are up 30%.

Hey Bill, good luck to you. It's all so very curious.

Hey Andy, BTW, thank you for the heads up on the commenting issue on toprankblog.com. Am not sure why that is happening. Can you email me the email address you use for comments and I'll be sure to whitelist it.

Thanks,
Lee

Hi Andy!

Yes you do indeed have a fine blog here and are now scheduled to be added to our list in the next update. Updates are posted to the master list at: http://301url.com/semblogs

Cheers!

Wow. If that happened with MSI, I wonder how Fortune Interactive is doing?

It's one thing to jab fun (Beal) at a stupid comment (Pasternack) and quite another to perpetuate it (Ball). Pitting SEO and PPC against each other does not serve clients.

It's a nifty tool, but it requires you to leave your site.

These tools embed the same functionality all in one button on your blog:

Social Bookmarks
http://www.toprankblog.com/tools/social-bookmarks/

RSS Buttons
http://www.toprankblog.com/tools/rss-buttons/