Jeff Carlson's blog

Every once in a while you'll stumble upon a site that really makes you say "wow, that is some great content." Well I found one of those sites yesterday. It's this site http://www.forwebdesigners.com/. It has a boat-load of stuff for anyone who does design work. Everything like:

• Ajax
• Blogs
• Colors
• CSS
• Flash
• Fonts
• Forums
• Generators
• Graphic Sources
• Icons
• Inspiration
• Magazines
• Photoshop Tutorials
• Stock Photos
• Templates
• XHTML

It's basically just a list of links. But there are tons of links. Links to some great design resources. Give it a look, you could spend days checking out some of the cool stuff here.

SES Milan 2008
Milan Marriott
Milan, Italy
May 27-28, 2008
http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/milan/

SES New York 2008
Hilton, New York
March 17-20, 2008
http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/newyork/

SES Local 2007
Hyatt Century Plaza Hotel
Los Angeles, CA
November 28-30, 2007
http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/local/nov07/

The best way to get links back to your site is to go to other blogs, forums, social networking sites, etc. and place your link there.

For social networking sites you may have to sign up and create a profile. Which is fine because there you should be able to include your link, and better yet, you can share information about you and your site. There are tons of social networking sites: activerain, myspace, facebook, youtube, friendster, classmates, digg, del.ici.ous, flickr, linkedin, mybloglog, squidoo, technorati, twitter to name a few. New ones appear all the time. Also, it is a good idea to write some interesting original content on each of these sites. Something that will entice readers to visit your site.

For blogs and forums, the best way to go about it is to visit other sites in your niche find threads that you can contribute to. Look for questions, or areas that you have expertise in and post good, helpful information. You don't want to say, visit my site it's great...LINK. That is considered spam. You want to contribute and be a helpful part of the conversation, and then put your link in your signature.  read more »

I've been suffering a bit from writers block lately. Every blogger will tell you that it's very hard to stay focused on one topic for years. Things get old and boring kinda quick. That's why most blogs crash and burn.

I've been surfing around and compiling a list of my favorite and inspiring blogs and posts. I stumbled on this one called Essential Posts that Every Blogger Should Know. Great stuff in there. Lots of other helpful information on the North East blog. Good stuff.  

I have been using a technique that works quite well. The idea is, you search for other sites using your keywords, and figure out how to get your link on their site.

Here's what you do. Go into your stats for your site. Find out what people are typing in to find your site. So, for instance if they are using Michigan Fishing, Michigan Salmon Fishing, Lake Michigan Salmon Fishing, etc. Jot those down.

Now go to Google and type in your keywords, starting with Michigan Fishing. Go to each site. Dig around the site and find either a contact page or an email address. One way or another you need to contact them.

Once you've done this with all of your keywords and about the first 5 pages of Google for each. You've now compiled a very nice list of sites that your readers might be interested in. Contact each site, and see if they will trade links with you. It's a good idea to have their link on your site when you send the email. This shows that you are honest.  read more »

Social Networking seems to be the "It Thing" these days. Everyone is on Myspace, everyone uses YouTube and there are countless others. Matter of fact, it's becoming very challenging to keep track of them all.

I've converted all of my WordPress sites to full fledge social networking sites using Drupal. My thought is, even if nobody ever signs up and uses them, they still function like my old WordPress blogs...but better. They are more search engine friendly and they have a ton more features and are more stable.