SeoAlchemist

As I woke up this morning to greet the last day of 2007, I started thinking to myself the things I want to change for next year.

2007 was an interesting and successful year for me and for Search Engine Journal, as I grew as a person and Search Engine Journal grew as a search marketing resource. We have an excellent set of contributing writers and authors like Julie Kent and Arnold Zafra, and still have guest spots from the ultra opinionated Carsten Cumbrowski along with deeper looks into SEO from Eric Lander.

Personally, I’ve also expanded my SEO consulting and link building services, bringing on some incredible clients and running successful campaigns. In addition, I’ll also be a partner in three upcoming ventures which have taken a bit of my time as of late, but should be well worth the effort in due time. Over the past year I’ve also relocated to a new city, made some good friends both inside and outside of search and am finally settling down and focusing 8 years of online marketing experience into a planned and proactive future for me, my family and the Search Engine Journal team.

So, thinking about the tradition of laying down New Year’s Resolutions, I’ve been mulling over one or two personal resolutions for 2008, but thought it would be nice to put forth some New Years Resolutions for SEJ in 2008, and mix them up a little.

• Less Noise. Instead of trying to cover all of the search news which comes out daily, perhaps writing more opinion and tutorial will be of greater value to our readers. In October and November I started publishing more link building and SEO tutorials and lists, and these attracted a good deal of positive reader response, bookmarks and interest; so I’m thinking that this is a good sign.
• Try other search engines more often. We cover a good deal of the search engines beyond the Big Four, but personally I do not use them much. I generally use Google and Ask.com for research and Yahoo for local, maps, travel and entertainment. When I’m introduced to a new engine I’ll use it a bit that day, and go through my favorite client keyterms, then cast it off to the side. Perhaps randomizing which search engine is powering my Firefox search box would be a cool way to figure this out.
• Use Spellcheck more often. I blog using w.bloggar which has a horrible Spell Checker which misses a lot of terms. I really need to work on my spelling and not rush some of the posts I’m getting together in the morning.
• Try Yoga and start doing Aikido again. Injuries from lifting, football and car accidents in my younger years, including some major broken bones, have left me a wreck, especially being 6′5 and generally an awkward guy. I used to practice Aikido religiously for about 2 years and was in the best shape of my life at the time so I think I’m going to get into that again, and I think I’ll try yoga. The end result should be enhanced flexibility and strength, less injuries, balanced chi, and a drop in weight. All good.
• Network more online. I love to blog and email, but I do not participate in the forums or social network groups as much as I should, or can. When it comes to forums I find myself posting more in the Baltimore Orioles forums and not in search ones. In the past I tried picking one or two forums and keeping up in the conversations, and back in the day I was all over Sitepoint and other forums, but have not really had the time of late.
• Walk more, drink more water, stretch three times a day and get more massages.

I’ll think of some others later and possibly add them to the comments, but I have to get some other work done before picking up my suit from the tailor and buying some shoe polish.

So, what are your New Year’s Resolutions? Personal or professional, please feel free to share them below.

Baidu.com says CFO killed in China accident from the AFP reports Shawn Wang, Baidu’s CFO died on December 27. Wang was in a fatal accident during a holiday vacation in China.

He joined Baidu in 2004 and helped Baidu with their extremely successful IPO and NASDAQ listing.

Click to continue reading…

There’s a new kid on the online block named Knol and even this early in the development stage, some people are already predicting that it could bring about yet another significant change to the way we share information on the Internet.

Knol is a new Web service being developed by Google that is meant to serve as a virtual storehouse of knowledge on the Internet. With content being contributed by various experts on different topics, it will behave much in the same way that Wikipedia does currently. In fact many industry experts have made the suggestion that Knol is set to become a direct competitor to Wikipedia and other similar types of web sites.

Google is of course the go to web site as far as search engines go, being the most popular search engine web site today by far. If Knol is as successful in drawing a widespread following as the developers hope, it could bring about the Google’s transition from a search engine into a company that creates and publishes Web content. (more…)