SEO Weekend Update 03/03/2008

Hi all. We are back and almost recovered from last week’s big SMX West show. We hope you enjoyed all the liveblogging coverage and getting to meet Susan. She’s fun. Sometimes. [And much to Eric Lander’s surprise, I’m not 45. –Susan] Did you know that one in ten Americans are chronically sleep deprived? Yeah. It’s because one in ten Americans just went to a search conference last week.

Onto the headlines!

How Do You Pick Your Conference Sessions?

Michael Valentine wrote an interesting post today over at Reality SEO entitled SMX West Day Three: Matt & Danny and Rand! Oh My! where he takes a stance against those who pick conference sessions based on the celebrity of the speaker. When I first read the post my first thought was to stand on my desk and cheer along as Mike ripped the tiaras off this industry’s finest, but on second glance, I realized that sometimes there’s a reason for said tiara.

We do our fair share of liveblogging around here and when we pick the sessions worth covering, that decision isn’t at all based on celebrity. I’m not going to cover an off-the-wall session just because I think Microsoft’s Derrick Wheeler is ridiculously hot. I’m also not going to pick a session because Rand Fishkin/Matt Cutts/Michael Gray just so happens to be sitting on the panel. I look at the session as a whole and decide whether it’s (a) worth our time to cover and (b) whether or not it will serve our readers.

That being said, the speaker list does play a big part in what sessions are worth attending, as some speakers are just better at communicating information and insight than others. Having done this for awhile, I also happen to know which speakers are notorious for phoning it in and rehashing the same presentation nine million times, changing nothing but the first slide. When I see those names pop up, I tend to skip the session, regardless of the topic.

Michael commented that when he chooses a movie to watch he bases his decision off the genre, subject or movie review. That sounds pretty dangerous to me. As interesting as a movie or session is at first glance, if the speakers are a bunch of Linksey Lohans, it’s going to flop. I don’t swarm the stage for SEO celebrities, but I do know what names I trust and which ones I can afford to pass on. When it comes to session selection, speaker reputation counts.

Blogging Made Me Pretty & Popular

To my parents who were sure I would grow up to a crazy cat lady (shut it. I inherited the cats) who eats peanut butter out of the container with one finger while watching TV at 4 in the morning, get ready to feel bad about all those sad looks you gave me as a child. ABC News says that blogging boosts your social life. Yes, I have a social life. Take that! [Now you’re just making up things to make yourself feel better. –Susan] No way, it’s been documented!

That’s right! According to research (research!), blogging for just two months can help you to feel less isolated and to build better social support and friend networks. The study also found that users of social networks are less anxious, depressed and stressed. Granted it’s because these users are typically coming from nerdy beginnings to start, but still. Doesn’t that make you just want to run out and join Facebook Right. Now. Okay, go do it. And then add me as a friend.

Fun Finds

Bill Slawski takes a superb view at advances in crawling the Web. The amount of smart in that man’s brain is overwhelming.

Loren Baker touches on the old Dedicated Vs. Shared IP Addresses argument. The answer is dedicated. Just do it. He also has some pretty smart things to say about Mahalo.

Copyblogger says that throwing in typos actually engages your reader. See, Bruce, I meant to spell all those words wrong. It was a feature, not a quirk.

Lisa Barone is a writer, content marketer & VP of strategy at Overit Media. She's also a very active Twitterer, much to the dismay of the rest of the world.

See Lisa's author page for links to connect on social media.