evilgreenmonkey

I was recently asked by Incisive to start writing a column for In-House SEM in the SearchEngineWatch Experts section. My first article looking at brand protection went live a few days ago, and I should be writing a new article at least once a fortnight. You can find a list of articles that I write from my Bio page, although I highly recommend subscribing to the SEW Experts RSS Feed. And before you mention it; yes I do look stupid in that photo, no I’m not smiling and yes I did take the picture using my Mac webcam rather then getting a professional to do it.

Places you’ll find me:
SearchEngineWatch Experts - As above.
SearchEngineWatch Forums - Spending a lot of time here due to my new responsibilities as the Admin.
Search Engine Roundtable - I feel guilty for not putting more of an effort in for Barry on his site, although most of my forum time is spent looking after SEW. I’ll try to get posting here again soon.
SEO Blokes - I need to post here more often, I think we all do really.
evilgreenmonkey - Sorry I haven’t written much SEO stuff, you’ll find some good content on my SEW Experts column though and I should have some more white/grey/dark-grey hat posts coming here soon.
LondonSEO.org - I only post event news on this site, although any UK SEO/PPC/Affiliate guru should get their arses along to these events. They’re free and you meet loads of cool people (don’t worry, I don’t include myself as “cool people”).

When I’m not working 14 hours a day, I use Lee Odden’s marvellous blog list in Google Reader (it helps my karma) to keep up on the industry news. I’m also impressed with the kingdom that my mate Rand is building for himself over at SEOmoz. Rand has a bit of the Charlies Angels thing going on over there, I’m sure he only hires pretty people. The mozzers always had a big following, although I’m starting to find people who only ever read stuff posted by moz HQ. I think that Scott will be the first mozzer to use his power for evil, tempting readers into a spiral of eBooks, self-help courses and getting links to his network of MFA sites.

Right, I’m off to look for an office, an apartment and a hangover cure that works.

I’m sure that we’re all still in the morning stage after losing our beloved ThreadWatch, although there’s a new site in town - and I’m not just on the rebound!

Threadwatcher.com is a sparky new SEM/internet news portal launched by Earl Grey (Syndk8), which takes a lot of influences from Threadwatch and in my personal opinion, many from The Register as well. Now apart from SearchEngineWatch (like our new look?), Threadwatch and The Register were/are my top must-visits of the day. Combining them into one juicy SEO/internet geekfest is just, well… a dream come true. It’s not the busiest site in the world in terms of visitors, stories or comments at the moment, although it’s down to us as an industry to change that.

My only concerns:

1. Keeping content fresh and interesting requires a big commitment from the editors.
2. Although Threadwatch has always been “edgy”, Syndk8 is way beyond that. Threadwatcher.com may not need to appeal to the mainstream SEM industry, but at least has to be inviting to the typical ThreadWatch reader. Anyone who has read Syndk8 knows what the language and tone is like (which is fine for its audience), but I don’t think that such a writing style will go down well with Threadwatcher’s target audience.
3. No geeky gadget section! I’ll make the site my browser homepage if a gadget tab is added

Anyway, take a look, register your username on the site and have a browse around. I think you’ll grow to like it and I look forward to seeing how it develops.

My New Years resolution for 2007 was to become a published author, with the thought of writing an SEO book which tackles search from the corporate and in-house point of view. This idea fell by the wayside when several friends in the industry also announced similar intentions (although with different angles and subjects).

The book which I was planning would not just cover the basic Best Practice areas, but also tackle issues such as Black Hat SEO and dealing with agency bullshit. I’ve worked with some of the biggest brands on the web, and really think that there’s still a lot to be learnt when dealing with corporate websites.

Would you read such a book, and should I follow my ambitions?