It seems like years ago now that I moved into my own apartment and started looking at cable and Internet options. In actuality it was only two months ago. When I discovered that Verizon Fios was available in my location, I automatically went online to activate an account and schedule an installation. I wanted the fastest Internet possible!

The online activation was simple and easy to use. In about five minutes I put in my information and scheduled a date. One second later I got what I thought was a confirmation email. The email lacked any sort of number or code however. I called customer service to alert them about my order and their neglect on confirmation numbers. The customer service rep explained that sometimes ‘the system‘ takes 24 hrs to send a number and I might get the email tomorrow. I hate phone calls like this.

These sort of phone calls continued for a few weeks and I started to get really upset. I had to steal crappy internet at home and it was not fun! So I started expressing my Fios related sorrows on Twitter. Within a few minutes, I received a DM from the Fios twitter guy. Finally! We talked for a bit on Twitter (see pictures) and I got a call from a few new Fios people who helped me and got my Fios installed on A Sunday morning. Now I have the fastest internet evar!

The morale of the story is that if this Verizon Fios employee was not monitoring Twitter for brand mentions, my anger would have left me to some serious brand bashing. Instead of writing this nice blog post that includes a link to the Verizon Fios site.. I would have posted a negative blog post, continued to tweet about how awful they were, and possibly participated in forum bashing. Not that I have a huge voice but I’m louder than just a regular chick, because I’m and SEO chick!!

I have been known to enjoy, and employ, a musical reference, on the odd occasion, and since I’m listening to Say Hi at the moment, I thought I’d go with it, yet again.

We talk about so much utter crap in this industry, and I’ve recently stated that I hate adding to the noise when I have nothing relevant to say. Don’t get your hopes up and think that I have anything relevant to say just because I’m writing now, of course, but I do think it’s quite interesting how we’re saying so much about NOTHING, but we’re not saying anything about what those of us with a bit of sense can do to stop all the massive levels of antagonism that are directed at almost anyone, with any opinion, in this field. Now I will be the first to admit that I do quite love a bit of controversy, especially when black hat SEO is involved, and I respect passion, no matter where it’s directed, but why is it that we feel the need to label another human being according to how he or she runs a business aspect of his or her life? That’s asinine.

“I’ve never before seen so much outward nastiness and I went to a private girls’ school until I was 13.” Jane “Kinky Pants” Copland

These camps that people have established themselves as members of are seriously freaking me out. What happened to being objective, being able to look at a situation and potentially judge it for the actions undertaken without calling the person performing those actions horrible names or likening them to Nazis or KKK members? Why must we judge people by how they do their jobs?

I’m a vegetarian, so go ahead and roll your eyes and gag thinking of tofu, lovely tofu, nom nom nom (Ms. Copland, I’m thinking of you.) When you’re done, think about this: a hunter who kills a deer and feeds his family with it is doing something that I don’t do. He’s killing an animal, and he’s eating it, and that goes against how I live and how I eat. However, I don’t HATE this person. I don’t even think he’s wrong, or bad, or anything like that…I just think he’s made a choice, or been forced into a choice, that I would not make given my current leanings and situation. However, if I were starving and had to kill a deer to eat it and survive, I’d do it wouldn’t I? After all those viewings of Bambi Meets Godzilla, you’re damned right I would.

What if I simply decided to start eating meat again? Would that make me a bad person? Let’s go back to the lovely Jane Copland, an avid meat-eater who enjoys telling me about her carnivorous activities. She and I have different eating habits…you have to eat to survive, of course, just like most people have to work to survive. We have vastly different viewpoints about what we should eat but you don’t see the two of us attacking each other online over it. Yet. That’s obviously a piece of steak cleverly disguised as a kiwi…in case you’re fooled by her innocent look.

And god forbid we get into religion (HA) or politics here, but do you actually dislike someone who has different beliefs than you do? Since I only enjoy outing people like Jane, I won’t out anyone for being a Republican but I will tell you, with complete honesty, that even though I am a rabidly liberal person who wouldn’t have voted for Joe Strummer on the Republican ticket, I don’t hate anyone who is planning to vote for someone other than Obama. That’s because I happen to be a somewhat well-adjusted individual who simply doesn’t care when other people have a differing viewpoint. I think it’s quite lovely that not everyone I know agrees with me on everything. Otherwise, who would I make fun of?

“I didn’t understand it before, but now I do: Twitter is partially to blame. It’s the high school hallway to Sphinn’s cafeteria.” Jane “Prom Queen” Copland

Is it something like a Michael Moore syndrome that’s making some of you get online, write all kinds of nasty nonsense, and get someone else’s attention for your vitriol instead of your abilities? If you’re a chemist reading this, I apologize, as I am not trying to make fun of your copper sulfate. Being extreme is fine, and it’s necessary in cases like drawing the world’s attention to genocide, for example, but SEO? As long as I have been doing SEO, the angriest I’ve ever been was when my minimum cost per click went from $0.15 to $0.17, and let me assure you that it didn’t make me get on Sphinn and start referring to people as the spawn of Satan.

“When someone mentions ethics and seo in a sentence, I am reminded of a passage in Catch 22, where you can only eat after you salute the flag. Why is that?” Lyndon “Geared Up” Antcliff, quoted from Lisa Barone’s ethics piece

As I’ve said, passion IS needed, all over, but it needs to be tempered a bit. Someone doing a bit of link bait that you think misled someone…god help you if that’s your biggest problem. I WISH I had the luxury of getting upset by things like that. Meanwhile, I can’t always get a cranberry orange scone at Starbucks. Sometimes I have to get a freaking muffin. I’ll save my hateful thoughts for those days.

Yes, it’s true.  Blogging can kill you.  Two bloggers have died from blogging according to the NY Times

Bloggers are dying out there people.  I mean, look at us poor SEO Chicks!  Look at the toll blogging has exacted from us - we’re often silent, recovering from near death.  I’m telling you, this blogging business is a dangerous thing.  Look at that empty tea cup next to me!  I could dehydrate!  I could starve to death, trapped on the couch under the laptop weakened from dehydration by lack of tea!  SOMEONE QUICK GET ME SOME CHOCOLATE!

Yes, blogging can be deadly and as such, those of us in the profession apparently need a rescue pack.  None other than the drugs giant Bayer has recognised the plight of bloggers and have created a bloggers relief pack.  You can pick one up from the Berocca Blogger Relief Pack page

So, what can prevent the deaths of thousands of bloggers?  Killing other things it seems.  Stabbing the “Dead Fred Pen Holder” with the provided Berocca pen and leaving it there, sticking out of it has a kind of sick satisfaction about it.  Getting in to the packet was so difficult, I was able to vent some righteous indignation about someone being _wrong_ on the internet while trying to open it.

Frustration is, however, more likely to lead to death and so the lovely Berocca folk have provided an anti-stress squishy ball with a happy face so you can crush the heads of all those annoyingly chirpy people who seem to plague those of us who are hung over.  You are meant to crush their head by squishing the ball in your hand and not by assaulting them with it I did find out.  Sorry.

Another toy for helping us bloggers relax is a never-ending bubble wrap keychain.  You can pop bubble wrap to your hearts content.  In fact, I have found it extremely effective at removing those annoyingly chirpy people from the general vicinity of my person.  Apparently bubble wrap and chirpy people are natural enemies.

Just in case you are blogging at work in order to try and utilise an environment where being fed while stationary is a possibility, there is another toy to play with.  It’s a panic button which throws up an excel spreadsheet which pops up when you hit the button in response to the boss getting close to your computer.  That way you’ll never again be caught surfing for porn blogging at work ever again.

Of course, the central point of this kit is the branded Berocca glass and a pack of Berocca to help keep Britain blogging.  I have to admit to some mild trepidation at consuming the vivid orange liquid concoction however after a night of heavy drinking blogging I was in need of some instant relief.  Possibly not as instant as I could have wished for but better than water or anything else I’d tried.

So why not do what I did and go and sign up for one of these blogger relief packs?  Heck, why not spread the word around - the toys are great fun and the Berocca’s not bad either!  Thanks for the chocolate… nomnomnom…

…but what can I do? Besides look to The Clash for inspiration, I mean.

Miss Judith recently berated the rest of the Chicks for not writing much…well, she did it quite nicely, I hasten to add. Still, it really made me think about why I haven’t been writing lately, and the reason is simple: I’m bored out of my freaking mind right now.

There is definitely a lot going on with the industry, but so much of what is out there for our consumption deals with personal issues. This person doesn’t like THIS one, this idiot thinks another idiot was rude, this asshole thinks that someone was wrong to criticise him or her for making a truly stupid analogy, etc. Several of my good friends, people that I have the utmost respect for (plus Rob Kerry, ha!), have taken a LOT of heat over things ranging from speaking their mind, nicely of course, to trying to do the right thing and prevent Sphinn from becoming even more of a suburban high school drama. If you like gossip and silly antics, you’re probably happy right now. If you actually give a damn about anything else, good luck finding much about it.

As much as people like to talk about how meaningful things other than link development are, from what I see, not much else truly means all that much. Since I own a link development firm, talking about it in this blog doesn’t really interest me…I LIVE it. Otherwise, what’s left? The newest search engine that MAY compete with Google? Whether Yahoo and MSN will merge? How to prevent people from snooping on your site? Yet ANOTHER piece about how to properly code a robots.txt file? You can see where I’m going…Boredom City. Consequently, I am struggling to write these days. There is simply nothing that I haven’t said, or that another SEO Chick hasn’t said, or that one of you hasn’t said. There are so many bloggers out there blogging about the same things right now. You can read 10 different opinions on one tiny little tidbit, all written within an hour of each other. While it’s nice to read differing voices, sometimes it becomes a bit difficult to actually want to add to the noise.

I’m not bored with what I DO every day, actually, nor am I bored with the industry in general. I am simply bored with writing about it, because the online space is becoming incredibly cluttered with people who seem to know absolutely nothing about anything; they just want to create disturbance. They harass people in comments, they trash everyone who says anything of any value, and they attract like-minded followers who, in turn, attract their attention and they feed off each other. Instead of joining in, I’d rather focus on making sure my company makes a profit, and that my clients get what they pay for. I’d rather watch Father Ted DVDs and order broccoli and tomato pizza. I’d rather watch “Control” again (spoiler alert! Ian Curtis DIES at the end!!) even though it makes me cry and I become depressed for days, spending money on a variety of crap that I don’t need, and eating lots of chocolate doughnuts. I’d rather talk to Flora and Tw@ and make rude comments about Liza’s Facebook photos. Those activities, however, don’t make for good blog fodder. Well, the conversations with Flora and Tw@ would but I don’t want to incur the wrath of all the people we constantly talk trash about so…

Take a look at the current (as of this writing, obviously, I mean) headline stats on Sphinn: 8 on the front page are about social media in one form or another, whether it’s fake profiles or Digg; 3 are about Cuil; 4 are pieces dealing with numbers of either “this many experts say x” or “this many reasons to do or not to do y”; and the rest are all variations on themes we see all the time like new Firefox extensions or what’s wrong with Wordpress. Honestly, I understand that there are many people just starting out in the industry, but how many ultimate guides to SEO do we truly need? We’re also seeing tons of recaps of various conferences, further reducing the desire of many people to actually attend these once enormously popular events. Now, it could be argued that Sphinn isn’t representative of what’s going on in the industry, and as much as I would like to believe that that is indeed true, I really don’t, sadly. BO-ring.

So, until there’s a major Google Dance or people start going to federal prison for buying links, I really don’t have all that much to say unless anyone is interested in which bands I’m going to see this summer. I’ll continue to discuss anything interesting with the people I trust on IM or Facebook, or make prank phone calls.

Aside from the bundles of work that I am doing at my agency, I have also been helping my friends become bloggers. Non-Industry friends come to me all the time and ask about blogging. Usually through some sort of barter system and in this case “chocolate chip pancakes”. It gets to a point where these bloggers are the only people producing interesting blog content on the internet today. Look at how big networks like Blogher have become!

Obviously there could be a lot of black hat type stuff going on if you employ all of your friends to blog about client related topics. I am sure it’s done quite often. But I work with my friends on Mommy Blogs, Music Blogs, and others for pure amusement (and pancakes). It teaches me about how non industry bloggers are really using the internet and social platforms. This helps me to understand the space around me with much more efficiency which to me is worth it all.

I decided to share this information by asking my best new trainee how she feels about the blogosphere.

Dana Malave is a newbie Mommy Blogger @ Zen 4 Kids and a Motivation Blogger @ My Life In Abundance. She has only been blogging for about a month but is quickly picking up why using Social Networks, tags, proper anchor text, commenting, and engaging is so very important.

Here are some questions I asked her:

1. What is your blogging inspiration? My blogging inspiration is knowing that I can speak my mind freely, touching upon any subject I want. My family gets to see a side of me that they never knew by reading my blog everyday.
2. How do you find your constant flow of content? For my mommy blog, being a mother of two children, I spend a lot of time in the playground. I look around and see things that are happening that bother me and it inspires me to write. For my Motivation Blog, I use my life experiences in hopes that sharing my story will inspire people to be more motivated in their own lives.
3. What are your blogging goals? My blogging goals are to reach as many people possible in all age groups and all ethnicities and make them feel like they are not alone. I’d like for my blog to generate money and good reputation.
4. Where do you see your blog in the next 3 years? I see my blog opening the window for me to have motivational conferences worldwide.
5. How much do you care about Ads and Networks? Joining networks helps me to promote my blogs and generate some revenue at the same time, which is great.
6. Do you actively use Social Networks like Facebook and Twitter to promote your blog? Do you find value in them for social reasons as well? Yes, I use Facebook, Twitter, Ning and Myspace to promote my blog and reconnect with old friends. And I constantly look for product support from Business twitter accounts like @wholefoods while food shopping.
7. What blogs do you read? I read a lot of blogs on Blogher, that covers a lot of the female focused blogosphere. I also read many blogs on Cafe Mom.

In the world of Social Media, it is becoming more and more important to ask questions and learn about non industry bloggers and Twitterers. These are the evangelists of our clients brands and they are voices to be reckoned with. They are more accessible than publishers and can easily build fantastic relationships with you. So next time you come across a blog that interests you or the likes of your clients, talk to them!

It’s 6 o’clock in the morning, I got up especially early (whilst my daughter is still asleep) to write this post as I feel I can’t just let what I read yesterday rest and not comment.

As you may know SMX Advanced in Seattle was on last week, I didn’t go this year but attended last year. SMX Advanced is where funnily enough ADVANCED SEOs speak and attend to; learn more, broaden our horizon, share and network. Well at least that’s what I thought.

Yesterday I read this blogpost on Bruce Clay by Lisa Barone where she writes about “SMX Advanced going to the “dark” side.” The blogpost truly shocked me (and as Lisa Barone is prime blogger that might even been her intention) In fact it disturbed me to the point I even considered to put a no-follow on the link to the post, but decided to leave it, as rightly everyone should be able to voice their opinion, although I strongly disagree with Lisa’s comments and the way she went about this blogpost.

But even more so I am really disappointed and a little disturbed of Danny Sullivans comments in this blogpost. Yes of course he has his SMX brand to protect but don’t pooh on your own doorstep. At one point he literally singles out individuals:
“I’ll single out Jay Young. No, I don’t think it’s anything goes. I do think there are ethics in marketing and limits you don’t go past….” I don’t think it was needed to single out anyone really. I know Jay very well, and he is a first class SEO and respected in this industry. Jay simply stated the obvious saying that buying links can still improve your rankings. Because it does! Most SEOs STILL do buy links, he was simply saying don’t by 100,000 of them, over night and from a link farm. Be clever about it. Yes it can be argued that this is black hat’ish, BUT why is it blackhat? Because the Googlesaurus say so, that’s why. If the Google Algorithm didn’t put such a big emphasis on incoming links and other areas such as age of domain you wouldn’t call link buying black hat technique. Who says a new site is less relevant than an old site? The algorithm says so, that doesn’t mean that its actually true!!! That’s for the user to decide!! Hang on, I’m actually going somewhere with this….

I think the stamp “black hat seo” should be based on INTENT not necessarily technique. Still with me? Basically if you are doing SEO for a (new) site that is in a highly competitive market, it is NOT going to be possible to rank and gain traffic on a well constructed and content optimised site alone. That’s just a fact. Buying a few links and investing in a proper link building campaign is something you have to do to get into the really competitive market. Unless you are not planning on ranking before 2048!!! BUT that doesn’t mean the website in question isn’t relevant or useful to the user. And the end of the day, that’s what we are all working for right? Both SEOs (well most) and the engines, getting fantastic relevant and good quality websites ranked so that the user will be satisfied and find what they were looking for!!

Back to the point, so called “black hat seo” techniques are important for the development of your skills as an SEO. That doesn’t mean you have to use this knowledge and techniques, but KNOWING them WILL help you understand how the engines work, what you can and can’t do. We NEED these people to share, we should be grateful that they will share not condemn them and pick on them. I can with my hand on my heart say that I am a white hat SEO, BUT you know what, the ONE person I have learned the MOST from in this industry, is in fact a black hat, and a very skilled one as well. That doesn’t mean he is some dodgy marketer spamming the web with any random crappy website to rank his clients. A good black hat doesn’t do that

Anyway, I’ll leave the black hats that attended SMX advanced a suggestion for a T-shirt to wear to the next event (so that people don’t mistake advice for orders!!)

A couple of weeks ago I read a post about “Why the SEO World is like High School” and it really made me giggle. The SEO Chicks are the Cheerleaders of the SEO World, ha ha! Now, after chuckling for a while at this post I started thinking “Hey I wonder what all the other SEO Chicks and Chicklets were like at High School?” and whether that could make a good “just for fun” post. I sent an email to all the chicks and chicklets and asked them to send me a photo and a blurb. AND OH MY GOOGLE was it funny. We are probably the most Unlikely bunch of cheerleaders! Don’t get me wrong, we don’t mind being called cheerleaders in your post Ken. Quite flattering really, especially when you see the evidence below of what we were like at high school. Can you guess who’s who? Some are quite obvious

“The Goth Rebel Geek”

In my four years of hell, aka high school, I was in the Math Honor Society and was the editor of the school literary magazine. I also wrote “Julie is God” on all the desks that I sat in, skipped school in order to steal my old grandmother’s car and drive to the next town over since they had more skateboarders to watch, read Lolita under cover of a hymnal in church, and went through a LOT of eyeliner. The only thing I ever cheered for was the newest Cure album.

“The Last Amazon Geek”

I wasn’t really a part of a group at high school, but always stood up for whoever was picked on and always got into fist-fights to defend others. I was nicknamed “The Last Amazon” as I had… ehm…a slight short fuse and plenty of attitude. When I wasn’t busy beating someone up I spent my time trying to make people laugh. I wasn’t popular with other kids OR the teachers. I did come second place for prom queen though, but not because I was pretty; My mum insisted that wearing hot- pants and fishnet tights would be totally cool on prom night. I looked like a hooker!

“The Actual Cheerleader Geek”

My family loves sports so I was groomed from the start to be a cheerleader. I was a cheerleader from 2nd through 8th grades, and then chose to simply be a “booster” (pep squad) during high school. By the time I’d hit my high school years, I was already too geeky to be a cheerleader. I didn’t necessarily “look” geeky (I don’t think), but I hung out with the geek crowd, which was not conducive to making the cheerleading squad.

“The Eclectic Geek”

I defined myself as ecclectic by listening to heavey metal, working at archaeological sites, hanging out at museums and wearing crystals. I cruised through school, bored with everything except the computer lab where I spent much of my free time. I learned how to make friends & date online in the mid 80’s. Martial arts and spirituality filled my teenage years with meaning and shape. I spent time in Israel at bording school where I learned how to field-strip and fire an M16. I always thought I’d be a lawyer and work with my dad. Never did I ever think I’d move to the UK and get married.

“The Rock Chick Geek”

In high school I played Varsity Softball and rock music. I didn’t usually go to many classes but ended up graduating with honors. I considered myself a rebel and a bad girl. I hated jewelery and fashion but loved chains and the color black. Never in my wild dreams did I expect to be working for a Top 20 Interactive Media Agency.

“The Mermaid Geek”

From the age of 11 to 22, I spent nearly thirty hours a week under water, so I don’t remember all that much about high school apart from how much I disliked the uniform. The first two years of high school were the best because I wasn’t swimming all that much and I had more time to hang around the Wellington train station and flirt with Wellington College boys. After that, everything gets a bit chlorinated.

“The Fitness Geek”

“Not so unlikely cheerleader actually… I started our first cheerleading team in High School back in South Africa. Me and my friend Luiza actually held auditions for team members and had proper pom-poms - aaahhh the good ole’ days…I’ve always been a bit different and a lot crazy. I love dancing, but was unfortunate enough to graduate in a time when academic achievements were the priority. So I never pursued this passion. Instead I spent a lot of time cruising between my other two passions - marketing and fitness. Never in my wildest dreams would I have not gone for something I believed in. I’d rather try and fail (as many times as it takes) than never to try at all - not shy and retiring, me…”

“The Punk Geek”

I was the last person you would have thought was a cheerleader when I was a teenager. I wore a lot of black (okay some things never change) read all the time and went to a lot of punk shows. By the time this picture was taken I was more nerd than hellion.

“The A-Student Geek”

In high school I played softball and basketball for a couple of years, was generally a straight-A student (unless I got lazy, in which case a few sold B’s streamed in every now and then), and wasn’t uber-popular but well-known enough to have friends in most every social group or clique. My junior year of high school I got suspended for making a web site (on Geocities!) that complained about my school and a couple of teachers that I had. Since I was a good student, however, I was able to make up all of the assignments I missed during my suspension, so I guess you could interpret it as I got 5 days off from school. When I returned, I found out that a lot of classmates had rallied around me in support of Free Speech. That whole sequence of events landed me the honorable title of “Most Likely To Take Over The World” my senior year of high school.
—————————————————————————————————
Laughed enough at the ridiculous outfits and hairstyles? Actually some of these photos looks relatively “normal”, ehm except from me and Julie of course (the words yodeling and crack springs to mind??!).

Now, I thought it would be quite fun to make a little meme out of this, a “High School Meme” (I’m so original), so that we can laugh at some photos of YOU when you were a teenager. So I’m going to tag 5 people and challenge/dare you to post a photo and a description of what you were like in High School (and then tag another 5 people etc):

Jon Myers
Ciaran Norris
Mel Carson
Dave Davis
Nic & Cher

EDIT: Just had a second thought, we REALLY should tag Ken that started this whole High School thing. Ok I know I said tag 5, but since we are starting the meme, we can bend the rules. So KEN YOU’RE IT!

In case you are living under a rock….

Twitter is just another one of those social platforms that you didn’t want to grow attached to but knew you would. It has become unavoidable at this point. If you don’t tweet, I bet at least five of your Facebook friends have synched up their Tweets to their status update. It’s gotten to the point where even my friends who aren’t within the internet marketing industry (all 5 of them) have a Twitter account, whether they know how to use it or not doesn’t really matter. I doubt they will sign up for Pownce and the whole point of any of these wastes of time are for them to exist for the masses.

I have noticed that it all breaks down to 3 different types of Twitter users:

1.There is the Twitter user that tweets all of the time. This is the person who just tweets nonsense once an hour. You read their tweets but might form an opinion on them just based off of the value of their update. Maybe they are humorous and you appreciate the smile it gives you or maybe its just random crap that doesn’t even flow and becomes annoying. Sometimes these people also converse with each other too much, they should be instant messaging each other. If you know these people you might want or not want to follow them.

2.Then there is the marketer twitter user. This twitter account might be owned by a blog, a news source, or a blogger. The updates might be fed by a bot and are on a schedule. The only purpose of these tweets are to inform you when they add new content to their site. This has become really useful because I don’t always have a chance to read my reader and I am updated about blogs I read through a second source.

3.Finally there is the tweeter that I favor the most which is a great combination of the two. This person tweets things that come to mind, links to things that they like, links to things they are marketing (whether it be a personal brand or a client) tastefully. I’d like to think I am this kind of tweeter. Donna, also does a great job of this.

There are still many people who are well recognized in the industry who don’t like Twitter and choose not to use it ….like Lisa. In my opinion it is not as necessary to use Twitter as it is to use Facebook. You can simply use Twitter scanners like Terraminds (which has been on the fritz lately) or Tweetscan for market research. I have had huge success from using these tools.

Just like any other social media trend, micro-blogging has to be used on a schedule. Some tweeters update once and hour or more and this can be really annoying if you are running a Twitter api like I do. It can be super distracting if your api uses sounds and your computer just tweets all day, but of course you can control this. However I like it because it makes me feel like I am working in a park somewhere with birds……

Keeping tweets to a regular 5 to 10 time basis keeps your followers familiar with you and the types of updates you are doing. Likewise you don’t want to be updating with links at heavy work flow hours because chances are nobody will click them.

Another thing to keep in mind is tweeting during or at conferences. This is how Twitter became popular. During conferences Twitter goes crazy with updates and can be really distracting if you are not attending but helpful if you are looking for links with info about the conference. Because of SWSW and SES NY. I have turned my Twitter sounds off because it is just too annoying.

Nevertheless you can chose to be the Twitter user you want to be for whatever purpose you are doing it. But as with any social content platform; know your audience, be present, and be consistent.

If you are new to Twitter, there is a special language spoke, please refer to the Twitter Glossary beforehand.

PS: Color wars are happening now at Twitter. Here is a great video that explains what this is…

I’m so excited to announce Donna Fontenot aka DazzlinDonna as a guest blogger here on SEO Chicks. She is officially an SEO Chicklet. After minor stalking from me and Julie =) Donna has agreed to contribute to SEO Chicks. Now, how cool is that?!!??

I’m going to get a bit soppy here and tell you just how big of a deal this is, for me and the other chicks. Donna is one of the pioneers of this industry, and although she probably doesn’t realise this, one of the reasons I became passionate about this industry. She has the technical knowledge to roundhouse kick any smart arse SEO dude and the humour to get away with it And she is such a damn nice person. Ehm yeah I know, I am her stalker….The first blogs I followed in the SEO world, was Donna’s SEO Scoop blog and SEOmoz, and I read it religiously, so it goes without saying I’m super excited that THE DazzlinDonna will be guest blogging here, right here…wohoo!

Donna will be posting her first post in the next few days, so watch this space!

UPDATE: It has come to my attention that this post looks rather weird if you’re viewing it through a feedreader. So don’t. Click through, I tell you!

To start, I’d like a show of hands. Who uses Gmail? I hope everyone in the room has their hand up at the moment, because Gmail is one of my favourite things in all the world. It has its problems, it’s had is security flaws, but it has always treated me very well. Believe me: I’ve been around the block when it comes to email providers. I was a long-time user of Yahoo! and I was also one of Yahoo! Mail’s more loyal fans. Y! Mail just wouldn’t do all the things I wanted it to, and its constant badgering that I should “upgrade” to its newer version drove me nuts. The newer version also made me want to put a fork through my face. About two years ago, I beat out all the other Jane Coplands and snapped up a desirable Gmail address. It was heavenly.

However, there is always a little price to pay for lovely free things, and Adsense is that price when it comes to Gmail. Targeted Adsense is always a source of amusement, but it’s even more amusing when it thinks its targeting your personal emails.

I was going to just post screen shots of the ads that have made me laugh, but this would be far more interesting as an interactive game. There are no prizes for doing well… I’d promise to send you an SEO Chicks tee-shirt but I have no control over such things and I don’t want to get in to trouble with Lisa.

Honestly, I know you come here to learn. But you can learn all you like next week at SMX West, or by reading the recaps. Thus, I present to you, Jane’s Amusing Gmail Adsense Game.

Question 1:

Question 2:

Hi, CK! Just making sure you noticed.

Question 3:

Question 4:

There is no question associated with this advertisement. I believe it speaks for itself.

Question 5:

Question 6:

Question 7:

Question 8:

In all seriousness, you sometimes cringe when you think about the content with which your ads might be associated.

However, that was fun, wasn’t it? You have no idea how long it took me to make those polls not mess up the pictures’ alignment, so please look grateful. Have a nice Sunday and see some of you next week in Santa Clara!