Just like last year, SmallBusinessSEM’s Matt McGee is hosting the SEMMYs, an annual awards event for search engine marketing content. So in case you took a sabbatical last year and want to catch up, I would advize you to take a look at all the great stuff that was nominated this year.

Until the 29th of January, you can vote for your favorite article in 17 different categories. I was nominated in the link building category, but because I hate those “hey, I was nominated, please vote for me here”-posts, I’ll list my personal favorites from all 17 categories first. And then I’ll ask you to vote for me afterwards ;)

SEO – How user data, links & document scoring may be used in the “brand” algorithm – Patrick Altoft (Blogstorm)
Reading patents is hard. Who -except Dave Harry or Bill Slawski- can read 293 pages of technical mumbojumbo without falling asleep, right? Well, that’s why I loved Patrick’s article, since he recapped a very interesting Google patent in ‘normal’ wordings.

PPC – 7 Incredibly valuable but underused free tools tor PPC marketers – Brad Geddes (SEL)
Although I don’t use PPC very often, I like reading about it every now and then. I had hoped to learn a little bit more from the finalists in this category, but because I love tools, Brad Geddes’ article is my favorite here.

Social Media – 7 Reasons your Social Media Marketing failed (and how to fix it!) – Todd Malicoat (Stuntdubl)
He wrote my personal favorite link building article of last year as well, but wasn’t nominated in the link building category, to my surprise. Since I am one of the contributors of the SEMMYs, I considered it to be partly my fault that his article didn’t end up on the judges’ table, so this was my sorry-Todd-I’ll-vote-for-you-in-this-category-in-stead vote. And a great article, obviously.

Local search – The Local Search Ranking Factors: Ranking High in Google Maps and Yahoo Local – David Mihm (Mihmorandum)
An excellent resource, written by an expert in local search. Whether you’re an experienced local search marketer, or you’re new and want to learn about it, this article is a must-read.

Blogs & blogging – Guest blogging: the ultimate guide – Glen Allsopp (Viperchill)
The finalists in this category were all excellent reads, and I voted for Glen Allsopp’s article about guest blogging. Not only because guest blogging can be a very effective link building technique, but also because his articles describes almost every aspect of the process.

Viral Marketing – Here’s hard data for headlines that spread on Twitter – Dan Zarrella (Copyblogger)
A good and catchy headline can be the difference between failure or success of your marketing campaign. Dan Zarrella analysed thousands of headlines and published his findings.

Analytics – Google Analytics maximized: deeper analysis, higher ROI & you – Avinash Kaushik (Kaushik.net)
Ten awesome analytics tips and the dozen-or-so links to additional analytics articles are more than enough to get you through one of those rainy Sunday afternoons.

Reputation Management – Online Reputation Management Guide – Rhea Drysdale (Outspoken Media)
I can not think of a reason why this article shouldn’t win. Pure online reputation management awesomeness.

Small Business – If I were launching a new small biz web site today – Matt McGee (Small Biz Trends)
Excellent, in-depth actionable advice for both new and existing companies. Matt shares his findings of I-don’t-know-how-many years of experience, which is probably invaluable to starting small businesses.

Google – Big brands? Google brand promotion: new search engine rankings place heavy emphasis on branding – Aaron Wall (SEObook)
Google’s brand update had (and still has) quite some impact on search engine rankings, as of February last year. Aaron Wall shows where and how big brands managed to get good rankings, and introduced the brand update to a lot of people.

Search Tech – The SEO geeks guide to information retrieval – Dave Harry (Huomah)
I mentioned how difficult reading search patents can be earlier. Well, this page contains 250+ links to such content. How about that for rainy Sunday afternoons…

Design & Usability – 25-point Website usability checklist – Dr. Peter J. Meyers (UserEffect)
It was either this one, or Daniel Ritzenthaler’s Taking the guesswork out of design, but Dr. Pete’s article won because it was numbered, and therefore more user friendly :).

Online Marketing/ General – Why trust matters & how to earn it – Matt McGee (SmallBusinessSEM)
Matt McGee asked a few dozen people to answer a bunch of questions about trust, and how to earn it online.

Industry – 10 Questions to evaluate a social media ‘expert’ – Ian Lurie (Conversation Marketing)
I love Ian’s writing style and probably hate those ’social media gurus’ just as much as he does.

Copywriting – 50 Trigger words and phrases for powerful multimedia content – Brian Clark (Copyblogger)
Brian Clark highlights 50 words that invoke and engage emotion. Whether you’re a copywriter or have to create some PPC ads every now and then, this is a great read.

Rants – What is the difference between Google’s secrecy & your privacy? – Aaron Wall (SEObook)
As a Googler, you can’t say something like “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place” to Aaron Wall, and think you can get away with it.

Link Building – I was quite surprised to see that both of my articles that were nominated made it into the finals, especially when I noticed that Gab’s 101 link buying tips and a few other great posts didn’t make it. My indispensable link building tools probably doesn’t deserve to win, but I think Link building from A to Z (a Youmoz entry) might stand a chance.

If you agree, you can vote for the post right here. And since it’s a Youmoz post, Rand (who’s also nominated in the same category) also wins a little bit, so it’s basically the best choice you can make ;)

Just a quick note that I’ll be speaking at the A4U Expo in Amsterdam next week. This two day conference, which takes place at Amsterdam RAI, is a must for everybody in Europe who has something to do with affiliate marketing, whether it’s as a merchant or as a publisher.

If you don’t have tickets yet, A4U is offering a 10% discount, but you’d better register asap.

I will be discussing link building tactics for publisher-side affiliates, as it can be very difficult to obtain links for affiliate websites sometimes. Bas van den Beld and John Straw will also be sharing their thoughts during the ‘Beyond linkbait’ session.

If you’re attending to the A4U as well, or are near Amsterdam on the 28th or 29th of April, and want to catch a beer (or two), feel free to leave a comment or to drop me an email. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to make it to the Queen’s Day party, but for those who have the opportunity to be in Amsterdam during Queen’s Day: don’t miss it!.

This week, during the Blow Your Mind Link Building Techniques session at the SMX in London, I had the opportunity to share a panel with Lyndon Antcliff, Tom Critchlow and Jay Young. It turned out to be an awesome session.

Overview of the SMX, by Mark Bovenkerk, MarkBovenkerk.nl

Lyndon kicked it off with a breakdown of his famous 13-year-old-hooker-bait and explained which psychological factors the story contained. He made it perfectly clear that his story wasn’t just a lucky shot, but that every aspect of it was a well thought through. His lemon-colored Powerpoint has to be one of the best ones I’ve seen during the SMX.

Up next was Will Tom Critchlow, who showed a loophole in the (British?) tax system, that lets you buy links on charity websites tax free. Of course, you shouldn’t buy them for the link, but to support the charity. He also discussed how expired pages, abandoned websites and even bankruptcies can be (or lead you to) possible link targets. He closed off with a few examples of how niche forums (did you know there are even forums for lemon juice fanatics?) can be awesome sources to pick up linkbait ideas.

After Tom, it was my turn to do some stuttering on stage. The attendees didn’t start throwing lemons at me, so I guess I did an acceptable job for a first timer. I’ve included my presentation below. I know watching just a few sheets isn’t the same as attending the session, but it’s the best I can do :)

Jay Young closed it off with a presentation about negotioting links and other useful tips. His points that intensifying your link building efforts during seasonable peaks (to look more natural) and to adjust your anchor text every now and then are worth highlighting.

After these four sessions, Rob unleashed a discussion about paid links. Bottom line of this discussion: buying links is something that you should do with care and variation, and you should be aware of the risks.

The SMX has been pretty interesting (and LondonSEO was excellent as well), so I’m already looking forward to next year’s edition.

Last week, I had the chance to addend the SearchEngineStrategies in London, together with three of my colleagues. For me, it was the second time to attend a search engine conference, the SES in New York last year was my first.

Unlike usually, I haven’t seen a lot of reports and recaps of the sessions of the SES London. I’ve seen more than a few, but not as much as normally. Since Lee Odden already discussed the session Beyond Linkbait: Getting Authoritative Online Mentions perfectly, I’ll refrain to the other link building related session only.

Dixon Jones, Matt Paines, Ken McGaffin and Brian Turner were the speakers during the session that discussed Linking Strategies. Receptional’s Dixon Jones opened this session with an excellent presentation.

Next up was XSEO’s Matt Paines. He discussed a few of the most popular and common link building strategies and explained which strategy still is effective (according to him) and which one isn’t. I missed the enthusiasm and passion that most speakers have, which resulted in a presentation that I actually didn’t like. No offense, but I really didn’t.

Ken McGaffin was the third to give a presentation. While he left the link building business for a job at Wordtracker a while ago, he showed that he still most definitely knows what he’s talking about. One very important point he stressed out was the fact that, for optimal results, your marketing department, Public Relations and SEO/ Link Building should work together to a common strategy. Ken also gave 6 possible strategies to get a better link profile. In stead of naming the ordinary stuff, he listed some interesting tips that you don’t see every day:
1. Control the flow of your existing links
2. Find out who links to you and how
3. Get the most out of existing links
4. Look at sectors where you’re weak (new market opportunities)
5. Look for emerging markets (gave the example of Mark J. Penn’s MicroTrends)
6. Plan your initiatives for the year ahead

The last in row was SES virgin Brian Turner of BriteCorp. You certainly couldn’t tell that it was his first SES presentation, which means he did a remarkable job. He divided all links into three different categories; Submitted links, Paid links and Editorial links. Brian also explained how you can obtain links from each of those categories and mentioned that the last category is the one where you want your links from.

As you can see, this was a very short recap of two days SES (I missed the first day). While I’m not very good at summarizing PowerPoint presentations, I still wanted to share this.

Well, that’s because both Jim Boykin and Debra Mastaler’s The Link Spiel won a Search Blog Award in the Link Building category. Congratulations to both! I can’t think of a better result than these two finishing in first place together, because I’ve been reading both blogs since the moment I started to read about SEO.

While Search Engine Journal already covered the overall results, here’s the list of all the nominees in the Link Building category with their final scores:
1. Jim Boykin (3.2)
2. The Link Spiel (3.2)
3. Wiep.net (3.04)
4. Eric Ward (2.99)
5. Martinibuster (2.92)
6. Justilien (2.87)
7. LinkJuicy (2.77)
8. Link Building Blog (2.62)

Although I am really amazed, impressed and delighted at the same time to see that -if you look at the averages- I finished third, I think that the results are a bit biased because of the way of voting. I’m sure that this was a bit unclear for at least some folks (although Loren explained it crystal clear). I also think it’s impossible to believe that 25% thinks Eric Ward’s blog only deserved a single point. Nevertheless, I’m still honored that my six month old blog was nominated for such an award in the first place :)