Just a quick post to let you all know that I was invited to guest blog on www.linkbuildingblog.com by Patrick Gavin (ok, I asked him, but still )

Check out the post here!

I cover 5 link building tips that you may well not have been aware of, you can go read it for yourself but I thought I’d give another shout out (and link to!) all the guys I reference in the post:

Firstly, Patrick Altoft for this great post on how to gain links from image hotlinkers. (And another hat tip to Caydel for the post on image optimisation)

Secondly, SEOmoz (jeez, I feel like I’m linking to them all the time so this time I’ll link to this instead!)……..Ah what the hell, here’s another one for you Rand and crew.

Thirdly, Andy Beal for this post on how to get sued for links.

Happy linking!

Just a quick post to say well done to everyone over at SEOmoz for their spectacular achievement of one million links (maybe one hundred billion can be the next target eh Rand?! Here’s a few more anyway )

One Hundred Billion Links! Mwahahaha!

Seriously though, good work guys! Keep em coming and here’s to the next million.

PS - We’ve been having a ball in the office trying to come up with these images, here’s a few that didn’t quite make the cut:

Your costume is in the post

Rand, we even ordered you a Dr Evil costume it’ll be with you in a couple of days and we expect pictures of you wearing it on the blog (maybe even a whiteboard friday wearing it!?) If he doesn’t Rebecca - you know what to do!

Send us your Rand/Dr Evil images!

Think you can do better?! Send us your attempts and we’ll update this post and link to them for you!

Update: We have our first entry:

This one comes courtesy of the guys over at NextStudent Loan Consolidation. They kind of broke the rules since we asked for you to upload the image yourself but since they did such a good job I let them off! (kind of puts our in-house efforts to shame!)

Update the 2nd, we have our second entry - this made me laugh a LOT (particularly Rebecca as mini-me!):

These guys also didn’t follow the rules (please, we’d rather you hosted the images on your own server) but since the image is too funny for words I’ve uploaded anyway. This one comes courtesy of www.rescuehorses.com.

Our compatriots, relatively near-neighbours and genius online music people, last.fm have been generating a bit of online controversy over the last few days by not taking part in the savenetradio day of silence which is designed to highlight the dangers to online radio of a change in US licensing laws.

They have a detailed explanation on their blog of exactly why they are not participating (the comments are as interesting as the post itself), though this post was only made last week when there has been some buzz on the subject for a while. The delay in explaining their position appears to be one of the main criticisms being leveled at them - especially at techcrunch.

Many people commenting believe there is something last.fm aren’t telling us, based on the fact that they are now owned by CBS. I think last.fm are doing everything right in order to explain their position and being as open as possible. In my opinion, the minor storm that has blown up around the issue is due to them taking a strong stand on something they believe in (one of their central arguments is that they don’t believe this is the best way of resolving the situation - especially as net silence is what some of their enemies want). Given that they are taking this position (which is inevitably one that polarises people), I believe they are handling their reputation management well by being as open as they can be.

One of the comments on the techcrunch post made me laugh (attributed to Somerset Bop who I believe should be Somerset Bob!):

Last.FM might have been bought by CBS, but it’s a British-based and British-run company, which might explain why it doesn’t appear to be taking part in the National Day of Silence - “national” meaning, in this case, the USA. If the Americans who organized it wanted global participation, maybe they should have considered calling it an “international” day of silence.

Disclaimer: I’m a big fan of last.fm - I use it to listen to spectacularly eclectic mixtures of music, from God is a DJ to Giacomo Puccini – Messa di Gloria (my excuse is that I find dance music and opera to be good music to work to). Having said that, I don’t know anybody there personally.

Matt Cutts has written an interesting post on the Google Sicko controversy where he has some great advice on company blogging with respect to your own and your company’s reputation.

First, some background. A googler wrote a piece on the Google Health blog (aimed at healthcare advertisers) with a negative slant about Michael Moore’s new film Sicko entitled does negative press make you Sicko. The author has since posted a statement saying it was a personal opinion rather than Google’s opinion. I quite like the tone of the retraction - and the clarification that the main thrust of the original post wasn’t intended to be a criticism of the movie but rather that an industry faced with criticism can respond through many media including online advertising.

Michael Arrington at Techcrunch, however thinks that:

…the damage has been done and egg is all over Google’s face.

Company blogging 101

Matt Cutts (Google spam-buster and often-times public face) has a take that centres on what he calls company blogging 101 where he has some very good advice. Matt’s advice will be highly useful to any company seeking to raise their profile through blogging, but some of the advice is also very good for situations when you are engaged in reputation management. In the reputation management context, the most relevant tips are:

• Don’t criticize other companies or people
• Don’t post when you’re angry
• If you make a mistake, don’t clam up

Finally, on a more light-hearted note, I love Matt’s new measurement of blog interest: the “milli-iPhone”:

I’d say this Sicko controversy is only 100 milli-iPhones of blog storm