The SEMMYs: My Personal Favorites

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 ;)