Bryan Phelps - Utah Search Engine Optimization

Earlier this month I was fortunate enough to attend my first Internet Marketing conference with some co-workers from OrangeSoda. Overall, it was a blast. Lets start at the beginning…

Day 1

• Wake up in Orem, Utah at 3:30 a.m. to catch our flight to Vegas.
• Arrive in Vegas, catch a cab to Circus Circus. Survived several near death experiences with the cab driver who appeared to have some serious shakes from who knows what he was on.
• Unfortunately we were too early to check-in so I got to carry my backpack which contained my laptop and everything else I brought with me around the conference hall. Some of my conference-experienced co-workers were smart enough to pack their laptop and clothes separate so they were able to leave their luggage at the hotel.
• Managed to somehow stay awake through several PubCon sessions. They were interesting but 3:30 a.m. is even earlier than it sounds.
• Return to the luxurious Circus Circus where I can finally unpack my bag. Tried to be positive and convince myself I was experiencing the “historic” side of Vegas while I sat down on a bed that appeared to be a rock covered by a wood board covered with a stained comforter.
• The night picks up…off to see Blue Man Group. Lucky enough to hear a new dirty joke from the cab ride to and from the show. The Blue Man Group put on a good show and we all enjoyed it.

Day 2

• Head back to the conference hall and enjoy another day of PubCon sessions. It was fun to see/hear some of the popular SEO experts speak on various panels.
• Raided the exhibit hall for some schwag…picked up some good stuff from IZEA, Best of the Web & others and had some interesting talks with various link brokers/blog review companies. It should be interesting to see how and which paid linking companies evolve as Google cracks down.
• One highlight of the day had to have been the live domain auction. I was expecting to go for just a little bit and see some domain auctioning action but it turned out I was with a domain buying h igh roller who bought coveted domains such as DogShowTickets.com and cBatteries.com.
• Checked out the Wynn Buffet which was pretty tasty except for the sushi which Alex talked me into eating. Overall the buffet was excellent but unfortunately the sushi didn’t stay with me through the night. Thanks Alex!
• Wandered the streets of Vegas and took it easy.

Day 3

• Checked out of Vegas’ finest hotel, Circus Circus and got to carry all my laptop, clothes and schwag around for the rest of the day.
• Most of the PubCon sessions weren’t of any particular interest to me on this day but I heard the live site reviews were good so I checked some of those out and they were pretty interesting. Might have been nice if they screened them beforehand so they weren’t just “you need more links”.
• We took our final taxi ride/dirty joke to the airport and finally headed home.

Although it may not sound and probably didn’t look like I was having a blast (I was sick pretty much the whole time), I really had a great time. The sessions were informative and inspiring and listening to Chris (co-worker) carry on unusual conversations with cab drivers made me laugh harder than I have in a long time. Overall, PubCon was great and I hope to make it to more conferences in the future.

• Double Listings StomperNet Video

  (tags: seo)

• SEOmoz | Segmenting Search Intent

  (tags: seo seo-news)

• Whois lookup and Domain name search

  (tags: tools)

• 30 cool blog designs

  (tags: wordpress wp-themes webdesign)

I’ve recently began some side projects to explore other revenue incomes and have had moderate success. It’s been okay but not amazing. One new company called Widgetbucks has been awesome though. It has been outperforming many other popular ad networks for me including the ever popular Google Adsense. There are 2 possible explanations:

1. It’s truly paying more per click than adsense.
2. My adsense clicks are substantially lower than most publishers so what I think are high earnings with Widgetbucks are just average earnings for publishers who are better than me.

Either way, if Widgetbucks continues as it is, I will be much happier with this little side endeavor. If you’d like to try it, click the link below. Yes, it is an affiliate link and I will make money off of you. It’s okay though..would you rather Widgetbucks keep all the money or help out your good friend, Bryan?

All aboard…my money train is finally arriving. And I’m not talking about the 1995 thriller starring Wesley Snipes, J-Lo and Woody Harrelson. How does potentially limitless returns on a minimal investment sound? Well after a shocking revelation from not one but TWO fortune cookies I had at a single sitting with my wife at Panda Express, I realized that my time has come. And who is driving this money train? None other than Conductor Dan from Today Was Awesome.

If you review this amazing business opportunity, you’ll see that Dan received a fortune cookie stating that he will be traveling and coming into a fortune. Here’s where the story picks up…the following are pictures of the fortunes I received… on the same day. Coincidence? I call it fate.

****Images have been cropped to protect the ugly.
So when I was confronted by Dan and invited to buy some shares of his potential fortune, I knew the fortune cookie never lied and bought big.

I know what you’re thinking….so does this mean that you’re actually friends with Dan? Well, that’s a little bit of a stretch. We’ll go with friend/coworker. All I know is that I was confronted with an unlimited opportunity by a friend/coworker who is known to do some traveling. So now, it’s just time to sit back and wait for the train. The money one, not the one that blows its horn past my house 8 times a day.

Well, I’ve dropped considerably in the Utah SEO keyword race so I’ve found a new niche. I’m going for “Utah SEO Dark Lord”. Apparently this is the technical term for a good SEO specialist. Here’s my proof of qualifications:

SEO Master - 97%Are you an SEO Expert?

This was a new SEO quiz available on SEOMoz.org. It’s a fun little quiz to try out and apparently a very successful link building tool as their link is included in this neat-o badge you get at the end.

***If you’re on a feed reader, you’re missing out on the sweet SEOMoz graphic

Update: All out of invites!

I have a bunch of invites for Google’s recently acquired Grandcentral. If you’re not familiar with this cool little service, you can learn more about it. It has many purposes but its definitely a great way to screen calls. Grandcentral gives you a new local number, you log in and tell it where you want those calls forwarded to, you can pick your cell phone, home phone, work phone or all of the above. Or you can have it forwarded nowhere and use it as another voicemail box. Which is pretty cool because then you can log in and listen to your voicemails through your computer. You can also set up options for specific callers and send unwanted calls straight to a prerecorded message. So basically there are tons of features and right now, its not available to the public. so if you’d like an invitation to use, it send me a note.

OrangeSoda is hiring a full-time SEO Specialist/Guru in our Orem, Utah location. Check out the SEO job posting for more information.

My own personal Pro and Con section for this position:

Pro’s

• Growing company with cool people
• Opportunity to manage SEO campaigns for large and small businesses
• Great team environment throughout the company

Con’s

• Working for Alex (the smiley makes it okay to make fun of your boss)
• Might lose an eye during one of the foam dice wars.