The Top 46 SEO Posts of the Year 2008

1) Problogger
URL: http://www.problogger.net/

Helping bloggers earn money, Darren Rowse offers blog tips, SEO know-how, and news for the professional and hobby blogger.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: 9 SEO Plugins Every Wordpress Blog Should Have

Problogger was the #4 ranked blog in our list of the Top 50 Marketing Blogs To Watch In 2009.

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2) Daily Blog Tips 
URL: http://dailyblogtips.com/

Improve your blog with Daily Blog Tips, a fast-paced blog featuring articles on blog design, SEO, promotion, monetization and more.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: 50 Simple Ways to Gain RSS Subscribers

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3) Scobleizer
URL: http://scobleizer.com/

Self-proclaimed geek Robert Scoble writes about SEO, the technology industry and especially Silicon Valley's Web, consumer electronics, computer, and other high tech companies.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: The Scoble Top Tech Blogger/FriendFeed/Social Media List

Scobleizer was the #1 ranked blog in our list of the Top 50 Geek Blogs for Entrepreneurs.

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4) CopyBlogger 
URL: http://copyblogger.com/

Brian Clark offers copywriting tips for effective blogging and online marketing in his popular blog, CopyBlogger.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: How to Change the World Using Social Media

CopyBlogger was the #9 ranked blog in our list of the Top 50 Marketing Blogs To Watch In 2009.

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5) Search Engine Land 
URL: http://searchengineguide.com/

Danny Sullivan and his team bring you the latest on search engines and the search marketing industry.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: Google Confirms RSS For Web Search Results

Search Engine Land was the #24 ranked blog in our list of the Top 50 Marketing Blogs To Watch In 2009.

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6) Matt Cutts
URL: http://mattcutts.com/blog

Google’s famous engineer and search spam fighter provides his own inside insight into the world of SEO in his popular personal blog.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: Improved SEO documentation galore!

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7) Pronet Advertising 
URL: http://pronetadvertising.com/

Pronet Advertising is a weblog about Neil Patel's personal experiences in the world of online marketing.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: StumbleUpon: The Antithesis of Google?

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8) Online Marketing Blog 
URL: http://toprankblog.com/

Online Marketing Blog offers digital marketing and public relations articles, resources and interviews on topics ranging from search marketing to social media to online public relations.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: SEO Basics: Top 3 Tactics To Improve Search Engine Rankings

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9) ShoeMoney 
URL: http://www.shoemoney.com

ShoeMoney is named after the blog's owner, Jeremy Shoemaker, and offers his practical advice on how to make money online.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: SEO Has No Future

ShoeMoney was the #30 ranked blog in our list of the Top 50 Marketing Blogs To Watch In 2009.

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10) Search Engine Journal 
URL: http://searchenginejournal.com/

Maintained by Loren Baker and team, Search Engine Journal provides comprehensive news on the search indsutry.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: The Huge Collection of Google Analytics Tips

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11) SEOBook 
URL: http://tools.seobook.com/

SEOBook is Aaron Wall’s popular blog, which as its name suggests, also offers his SEO book for sale.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: Interview of Neil Patel, Social Media Marketing Legend

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12) Marketing Pilgrim 
URL: http://marketingpilgrim.com/

Andy Beal discusses news from the search engine industry, blogging, rss and other internet marketing in his blog, Marketing Pilgrim.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: 8 Essential Free Social Media Monitoring Tools

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13) Search Engine Roundtable 
URL: http://seroundtable.com/

Barry Schwartz aka RustyBrick provides a comprehensive overview of the latest buzz in the search engine forums.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: Poll Results: Google AdSense Publishers Discuss 2008 Earnings

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14) Search Engine Watch 
URL: http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog

Search Engine Watch provides news and tips about SEM, SEO, and searching the Web, as well as analysis of the search industry, including the latest on Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Ask.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: Google's New Tools for Site Link Strengthening

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15) SEO Moz 
URL: http://www.seomoz.org/blog

SEOmoz is a hub for the search marketing industry, providing an SEO Services Marketplace, a popular SEO Blog, SEO Tools and premium content.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: The Web Developer's SEO Cheat Sheet

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16) Search Engine Guide 
URL: http://searchengineguide.com/

The small business guide to search engine marketing, this blog feaures articles from the top names in the industry cover topics including SEO, PPC, SEM, blogging, social media, adsense, adwords, Google, Yahoo, MSN and Internet marketing.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: Comprehensive Guide to Keyword Research, Selection & Organization

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17) John Battelle's Search Blog 
URL: http://battellemedia.com/

John Battelle, author of The Search, provides his commentary on search, media, and technology.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: Google SearchWiki

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18) SEO Chat 
URL: http://www.seochat.com/

SEO Chat is dedicated to helping business owners and marketing specialists perform SEO on their sites.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: A New Trend for Google

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19) Influential Marketing Blog 
URL: http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com/

Rohit Bhargava, VP of Interactive Marketing for Ogilvy Public Relations, provides unique insight into marketing online.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: How To Launch A Successful Blog In The First 90 Days

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20) BlogStorm 
URL: http://blogstorm.co.uk/

Popular UK blogger Patrick Altoft offers an abundance of tips on Internet marketing and SEO.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: How I use URL Search to get thousands of visitors

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21) GrokDotCom 
URL: http://grokdotcom.com/

GrokDotCom, written from a self-proclaimed "Martian perspective", is a blog that covers topics including web design, marketing, copywriting, usability, SEO, relationship marketing and consumer psychology, and much more.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: 14 Tools to Legally Spy On Your Competition

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22) Graywolf SEO Blog 
URL: http://www.wolf-howl.com/

Michael Gray blogs about social media and offers insight into the world of grayhat SEO.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: Hey Matt Cutts Be Fair if You Are Going After Paid Links

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23) Jim Boykin
URL: http://www.jimboykin.com/

Jim Boykin, CEO of an Internet Marketing and SEM company, offers Internet marketing and SEO advice and thoughts.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: What if a Human Reviewer Looked at your Backlinks?

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24) Half Again 
URL: http://halfagain.com/

Half Again addresses traffic building, content creation, search engine optimization, website development and most importantly, revenue generation.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: What’s my name, #$%&*?

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25) Garry Conn 
URL: http://www.garryconn.com/

A personal blog by Garry Conn, he provides tips on search engine ranking, making money online, search engine marketing, blog tips, Internet marketing, search engine optimization, WordPress, blogging, social bookmarking and networking and more.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: The Day After John Chow Lost To Google…

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26) Niche Marketing 
URL: http://andybeard.eu/

Andy Beard's Niche Marketing provides advice on search engine performance, Wordpress, niche marketing, affiliate marketing tips, and social media with "original opinion and loads of attitude."

Top 2008 SEO blog post: So What Have I Done Wrong Now Google?

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27) SEO by the Sea 
URL: http://seobythesea.com/

Bill Slawski muses on the inner workings of search engines, probes related patents and passes on other news of interest to webmasters.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: Yahoo Replaces PageRank Assumptions with User Data

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28) Small Business SEM 
URL: http://www.smallbusinesssem.com/

In this blog, author Matt McGee offers insight about search engine marketing for the smaller businesses out there.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: The SEO Success Pyramid

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29) Sugarrae 
URL: http://www.sugarrae.com/

At Sugarrae, you can get information on all things related to SEO, affiliate marketing, monetization and internet marketing.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: The Lazy SEO vs. The Lazy Monetizer

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30) Conversation Marketing 
URL: http://www.conversationmarketing.com/

Conversation marketing is exactly what its title suggests - an Internet marketing blog with " a little common sense, and a lot of ranting and raving."

Top 2008 SEO blog post: 10 SEO and Marketing-Friendly Title Tag Formulas

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31) DaveN 
URL: http://davidnaylor.co.uk/

David Naylor, more commonly known as DaveN, started working in the SEO industry over 8 years ago and never looked back. This blog is his account of his experience.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: Natural Link Building Top 20 Tips

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32) Inside the Marketers Studio 
URL: http://www.marketersstudio.com/

Inside the Marketers Studio is the blog by interactive marketing speaker, strategist, columnist, and marketer David Berkowitz.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: Blog Search Stuck in Beta

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33) Phoenixrealm 
URL: http://www.phoenixrealm.com/

Phoenixrealm SEO Blog contains up to date SEO and Web Design news, as well as unique, informative SEO articles and tips that are mainly targeted at the beginner to intermediate SEO level.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: How To Tackle The Duplicate Content Problem

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34) Stuntdubl 
URL: http://www.stuntdubl.com/

All around SEO guru and independent consultant Todd Malicoat’s blog about SEO, social media and the business of search marketing.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: Your Brand Size Matters with Big Site SEO - Why Big is the new Blackhat - Intent, Extent, and Semantics

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35) BlueHatSEO 
URL: http://www.bluehatseo.com/

The Law of Diminishing Values is one of the reasons why BlueHatSEO is one of the only SEO blogs that has all dofollow comments as well as top commentators providing industry insight.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: Open Questions #4 - Diminishing Values On Outbound Links

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36) Search Marketing Gurus 
URL: http://www.searchmarketinggurus.com/

Learn about search marketing from industry experts at Search Marketing Gurus, with coverage of SEO, paid marketing, email marketing, rss feeds, blogs, podcasting, viral marketing and much more.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: Barack Obama The First Social Media President?

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37) Search-This 
URL: http://www.search-this.com/

Search-This was created to provide information on: SEO along with website design, development, website promotion and Internet marketing strategies.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: Thinking Outside The SEO Box

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38) Traffick
URL: http://www.traffick.com/

Traffick is Andrew Goodman's enlightened search engine analysis in a handy blog format.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: "Everyone" Can't Do It For Ya: Finding Your Tribe

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39) aimClear 
URL: http://www.aimclearblog.com/

aimClear is a search marketing blog for in-house, agency, advertising and PR professionals.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: SEO, Colored Hats & The Pollyanna Pissing Match

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40) Johnon 
URL: http://www.johnon.com/

Johnon.com is John Adnrews' personal blog about SEO, internet marketing, and the tragic comedy of the competitive web.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: “Just Make Good Content” is Bullsh*t

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41) Pandia Search Engine News 
URL: http://pandia.com/sew

Pandia Search Engine News provides just what its title suggests - the latest news on search engines, Internet searching and search engine marketing.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: 5 basic tactics for improving your search engine rankings

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42) Oilman
URL: http://www.oilman.ca/

Oilman is a Canadian geek's "random rambling thoughts" on SEO, SEM, and Web 2.0.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: Shame Shame Shame Findlaw

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43) SEO Refugee 
URL: http://www.seorefugee.com/

Dedicated entirely to search engine optimization, SEO Refugee offers forums, a blog and periodic SEO cartoons its owner, James Cook.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: Is SEO Blogging Worth It?

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44) SEO Blackhat
URL: http://seoblackhat.com/

The popular SEO Blackhat blog covers blackhat SEO, linkbaiting, and link spamming.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: Want to Abuse Google’s New “Hot or Not” Buttons”?

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45) SEOpedia 
URL: http://www.seopedia.org/

Visit SEOpedia, the largest Romanian SEM community, for fresh insight into the world of search.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: Google Sitelinks: The Ultimate FAQ

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46) 10e20 
URL: http://www.10e20.com/blog

10e20 is Chris Winfield's blog offering a unique perspective on SEO, social media marketing, design, programming and being successful in today’s new media world.

Top 2008 SEO blog post: The Ultimate Guide To Decoding Digg Speak

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Top 10 Most influential marketers

Top 10 Most influential marketers of 2008

10. Avinash Kaushik

What can a mechanical engineer with an MBA do for online marketing? Apparently a lot!
Google analytics transformed the way online business is done and Avinash was instrumental in that transformation. Rand Fishkin another top 10 marketer of 2008 notes:
“Avinash has made marketers across the web more responsible and more informed when it comes to measuring their successes and failures. Through his book, blog and evangelizing, he reaches tens of thousands of companies and websites that can take truly actionable intelligence from his advice.”

As a thought leader Avinash puts a common sense around the often frenetic world of web research and analytics. That combined with the philosophy of investing in talented Analysts is the key to long-term success. He is also a staunch advocate of listening to the consumer, and is committed to helping organizations unlock the value of web data.

Avinash Kaushik is the author of critically acclaimed book Web Analytics: An Hour A Day. He is the co-founder of Market Motive Inc and the Analytics Evangelist for Google.

Avinash works with some of the largest companies in the world to help them evolve their online marketing and analytics strategies arming them with the tools to become data driven and customer centric organizations. He is also a frequent speaker at industry conferences across the US and Europe, such as eMetrics, Ad-Tech, iCitizen, and SES.
You'll find Avinash's web analytics blog, Occam's Razor .
You can also follow Avinash on Twitter

9. Darren Rowse

If you blog, then you must know Darren Rowse. He is the guy behind Problogger, the largest blog dedicated to blogging and monetizing blogs. Darren started blogging in 2002, and went full time at blogging in 2004.

Just how popular Problogger? When Darren reported that he saw a drastic increase in his subscribers count by using pop-ups, many “top marketers” and bloggers started implementing pop-ups on their blogs!

During 2008, Darren continued the transformation of Problogger from a typical blog about blogging into a full online portal for all bloggers. More recently, Darren started Twitip a program that provides its subscribers with useful twitter tips.
Follow Darren on Twitter

8. Jackie Huba

As a speaker and a business advisor, Jackie has worked with thousands businesses at association conferences such as Microsoft, Ulta, Discovery Education, Yahoo and Verio.

In 2008, Jackie and Ben McConnell founded the Society for Word of Mouth (SOWM), a free social network for the true believers of word of mouth (or the merely curious). The “society” aims to provide a premium educational resource for making word of mouth fundamental to the DNA of any organization. Jackie’s evangelism of citizen marketing and her efforts in creating SOWM won her our top woman marketer of year.
Follow Jackie on Twitter

7. Aaron Wall

There are tens of thousands of search engine optimization specialists out there. Aaron Wall joined the industry in 2003, perhaps a latecomer to the field. Yet, during the last 5 years, he left his mark on the industry. Aaron’s first major accomplishment was publishing the SEOBook. And while there are many books that cover the topic, Aaron kept his book current by updating it over 70 different times in a span of 3 years. The book won the praise of both industry experts as well university professors.

In early 2008, Aaron took a drastic change by turning his SEO book into a full online community that offers over 100 online training modules, tutorial videos, custom SEO spreadsheets, exclusive tools, and a community support forum. True, there are many SEO forums, however many of them are riddled with wrong or inaccurate information. And many top SEO professionals no longer spend time on forums. That is not the case with the SEO book community forum. The caliber and quantity of top SEO experts who are ready to answer any question sets the forum apart. Let alone the personal effort Aaron invests ensuring that no question goes unanswered.

Aaron continues to post regularly on his blog which is one of the most popular SEO blogs. He usually focuses on providing online marketing strategy tips and answering various SEO related questions. You can also download a variety of powerful seo tools that he makes available free to the public.

Visit the seo training program.
Follow Aaron on Twitter

6. Pete Cashmore

In 2005, Pete Cashmore, a web technology consultant, founded Mashable. Mashable focuses on up-to-the-minute news on social networks and new websites, internet start-ups, etc. Over the last 3 years, Mashable rapidly grew to one of the top 10 blogs in the world according to Technorati.

While some might describe Pete as a Tech blogger, he is a lot more than that. Mashable is yet another example of how news and technology blogs play a critical role in helping web companies push their messages online. The site's writers have been quoted in The New York Times, The Washington Post and hundreds of technology publications.

Pete was selected as a Top 25 Forbes Web Celeb in 2007, while Mashable was chosen as a must-read site by both Fast Company and PC Magazine. In mid 2007, BusinessWeek featured Mashable as one of the world's most profitable blogs.
Follow Pete on Twitter.

5. Rand Fishkin

The second SEO expert to make our top 10 list is Rand Fishkin. Rand is the CEO of SEOmoz which he founded in 2002. Over the last four years, he has been able to grow SEOmoz to one of the most visible companies in the search marketing world.

Rand and his team at SEOmoz are always thinking outside of the box to bring innovative and attractive services, content and ideas to their users. Rand’s Beginner's Guide to Search Engine Optimization is most concise introduction to SEO for any beginner. As an SEO services firm, SEOmoz has been able to deliver great value for its client. And the company’s blog is one of the most popular blogs in the industry.

In September of 2007, Rand accepted a 1.1 million dollar in private investment in SEOMoz. Since then, SEOmoz has grown even more. In October of this year, Rand announced the release of the Linkscape Tool which provides: “online access to the link data provided by our web index, including ordered, searchable lists of links for sites and pages, and metrics to help judge their value.”

While some hate the idea of Linkscape, Danny Sullivan said:
“Personally, I'm not too worried. You want to compete with me and get links in places where I'm listed? We get listed in places where editorial rules. So just knowing where we're at doesn't get you in the door -- you have to be good enough to walk in. And if you are good enough, well, good I guess.”

Aaron Wall provided an evenhanded analysis of Linkscape.
During 2008, SEOmoz grew into one of the largest and most successful online communities for SEO professionals, proof that the private investment was indeed a wise decision. Expect to see a lot more from Rand and his team in 2009.
Follow Rand on Twitter

4. Michael Arrington

Michael is corporate attorney, entrepreneur and editor of the influential TechCrunch blog.
Officially, TechCrunch is dedicated to obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies. But TechCrunch does a lot more than profiling, it has actually helped many startups finally find a breakthrough by providing them with the exposure they need in their early stage. At the helm of it is Michael Arrington. Forbes puts it best:
“Who do savvy investors and tech-business cognoscenti turn to for help finding the next big thing? The site obsessively profiles and reviews new Internet products and companies--a mere mention can make or break a start-up, and a positive review of a service can translate to overnight success.”

Michael might disagree to be dubbed as an online marketer (and you don’t want to get on Michael’s bad side ;), but in many online marketers opinions, he represents the ultimate new generation of marketers: Those who market companies online without ever taking on the official role of a “marketer.”
Follow Michael on Twitter

3. Brian Clark

If you are sick of practicing law, what should you do? How about start one of the most successful and influential online blogs. Brian Clark founded Copyblogger in 2006 and grew the blog readership to 45,000 members during the last 2 years.

Brian’s formula to growing his blog:
“by applying copywriting techniques to blogging, I accomplished two things. One, I created my own little unique niche by bringing a new approach to both copywriting and blogging, and two, I got a bunch of generous bloggers as readers who helped spread the word. I owe it all to them.”
To understand the influence of Brian Clark, consider the most successful programs he released in 2008. His Teaching Sells program opened its doors for a short period of time before closing membership. The program has influenced many other marketers to switch from an ebook format to offering a community based teaching programs.
Follow Brian on Twitter

2. Guy Kawasaki

From writing one of the most popular blogs online, to creating Alltop, to his heavy use of Twitter, authoring several top selling books that are must reads; Guy is a unique entrepreneur, thought leader and a top marketer of 2008.

Guy was born in Hawaii in 1954. He finished his undergraduate degree from Stanford University in 1976 with a major in psychology which according to Guy was: “the easiest major I could find.”
He then moved on to complete the MBA program at UCLA and ends up working at Apple. Guy describes the experience:
“When I saw what a Macintosh could do, the clouds parted and the angels started singing. For four years I evangelized Macintosh to software and hardware developers and led the charge against worldwide domination by IBM. I also met my wife Beth at Apple during this timeframe-Apple has been very good to me. Around 1987, my job with Apple was done. Macintosh had plenty of software by then, so I left to start a Macintosh database company called ACIUS. It published a product called 4th Dimension. I did this for two years and then left to pursue my bliss of writing, speaking, and consulting.”

Guy is a founding partner of Garage, a seed and early stage venture capital fund. He is also the co-founder of the increasingly popular Alltop, an online magazine rack” of popular topics; the success of which is attributed to social networks tools such as Twitter.

Guy’s must-read books include:
The Art of the Start,
Rules for Revolutionaries,
Selling the Dream,
How to Drive Your Competition Crazy,
The Macintosh Way,
Hindsights,
Reality Check
Follow Guy on Twitter

1. Online Marketer of the Year: Chris Hughes

The historic victory of president elect Barak Obama is the largest event of 2008, and perhaps the century. Mr. Obama ran a successful campaign that relied on connecting with normal people by any means possible. The campaign relied heavily on social media outlets to reach out to potential voters, increase their knowledge of Mr. Obama and rally their votes. Chris Hughes was at the heart of that campaign.

Chris is one of the youngest on our top 100 list. He was born in November 26, 1983. Yet his list of accomplishments is large. Chris has not only led one of the most historic campaigns in our lifetime, but is the co-founder of Facebook.

Chris took his intimate knowledge of social media to create My.BarackObama.com, The Obama’s campaign's official online social networking website. The Guardian discusses Mr. Obama’s online strategy:
“Obama's campaign team is everywhere online: YouTube, MySpace, Flickr, Twitter and Facebook, whose co-founder Chris Hughes worked for the campaign from early last year. They mobilised supporters and organised communities, registering 1.5 million volunteers through myBarackObama.com and raising $600m from 3 million people. Obama's campaign also built a consensual database of 3m mobile numbers by promising that in return, supporters would get campaign news before the media. And so they did almost immediately with the announcement of Joe Biden as vice-presidential candidate. "

It was a masterclass in political campaigning - a high water mark," says Mark Flanagan, head of strategic communications for No 10. "They have built on the lessons from Howard Dean, and let people build their own networks. myBarackObama.com was inspired." Obama even managed to pull off intimate discussions with major donors over dinner, posted to the campaign's YouTube account. "He's just a fantastic political communicator. There's no sense of artifice - just a melding of the candidate and the human being," says Flanagan.”

There is no question that Chris was instrumental in building the online support for the campaign, however some wondered what would happen to the online social movement and tools created as a result. Chris answered this in his last post:
“In the coming days and weeks, there will be a great deal more information about where this community will head. For the moment, let's celebrate this victory and know that the community we've built together is just the beginning.”

You can read some of Chris’s writing on his My.BarackObama.com blog, he has not updated his blog since the election of the President Elect.
100 to 50 Most Influential Online Marketers of the Year
49 to 11 Most Influential Online Marketers of the Year

Top 10 Most influential marketers of 2008

Top 10 Most influential marketers of 2008

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Top 10

• 1. Online Marketer of the Year: Chris Hughes - myBarackObama.com
• 2. Guy Kawasaki - Alltop
• 3. Brian Clark - Copyblogger
• 4. Michael Arrington - TechCrunch
• 5. Rand Fishkin - SEOmoz
• 6. Pete Cashmore - Mashable
• 7. Aaron Wall - SEOBook
• 8. Jackie Huba - Society for Word of Mouth
• 9. Darren Rowse - Problogger
• 10. Avinash Kaushik - Occam's Razor

Search engine optimization (SEO)

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the search results, or the higher it "ranks," the more searchers will visit that site. SEO can also target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.

As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work and what people search for. Optimizing a website primarily involves editing its content and HTML coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines.

The acronym "SEO" can also refer to "search engine optimizers," a term adopted by an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients, and by employees who perform SEO services in-house. Search engine optimizers may offer SEO as a stand-alone service or as a part of a broader marketing campaign. Because effective SEO may require changes to the HTML source code of a site, SEO tactics may be incorporated into web site development and design. The term "search engine friendly" may be used to describe web site designs, menus, content management systems and shopping carts that are easy to optimize.

Another class of techniques, known as black hat SEO or Spamdexing, use methods such as link farms and keyword stuffing that degrade both the relevance of search results and the user-experience of search engines. Search engines look for sites that employ these techniques in order to remove them from their indices.


Webmasters and search engines

By 1997 search engines recognized that webmasters were making efforts to rank well in their search engines, and that some webmasters were even manipulating their rankings in search results by stuffing pages with excessive or irrelevant keywords. Early search engines, such as Infoseek, adjusted their algorithms in an effort to prevent webmasters from manipulating rankings.

Due to the high marketing value of targeted search results, there is potential for an adversarial relationship between search engines and SEOs. In 2005, an annual conference, AIRWeb, Adversarial Information Retrieval on the Web, was created to discuss and minimize the damaging effects of aggressive web content providers.

SEO companies that employ overly aggressive techniques can get their client websites banned from the search results. In 2005, the Wall Street Journal reported on a company, Traffic Power, which allegedly used high-risk techniques and failed to disclose those risks to its clients. Wired magazine reported that the same company sued blogger Aaron Wall for writing about the ban. Google's Matt Cutts later confirmed that Google did in fact ban Traffic Power and some of its clients.

Some search engines have also reached out to the SEO industry, and are frequent sponsors and guests at SEO conferences, chats, and seminars. In fact, with the advent of paid inclusion, some search engines now have a vested interest in the health of the optimization community. Major search engines provide information and guidelines to help with site optimization. Google has a Sitemaps program to help webmasters learn if Google is having any problems indexing their website and also provides data on Google traffic to the website. Google guidelines are a list of suggested practices Google has provided as guidance to webmasters. Yahoo! Site Explorer provides a way for webmasters to submit URLs, determine how many pages are in the Yahoo! index and view link information.


As a marketing strategy

Eye tracking studies have shown that searchers scan a search results page from top to bottom and left to right (for left to right languages), looking for a relevant result. Placement at or near the top of the rankings therefore increases the number of searchers who will visit a site. However, more search engine referrals does not guarantee more sales. SEO is not necessarily an appropriate strategy for every website, and other Internet marketing strategies can be much more effective, depending on the site operator's goals. A successful Internet marketing campaign may drive organic traffic to web pages, but it also may involve the use of paid advertising on search engines and other pages, building high quality web pages to engage and persuade, addressing technical issues that may keep search engines from crawling and indexing those sites, setting up analytics programs to enable site owners to measure their successes, and improving a site's conversion rate.

SEO may generate a return on investment. However, search engines are not paid for organic search traffic, their algorithms change, and there are no guarantees of continued referrals. Due to this lack of guarantees and certainty, a business that relies heavily on search engine traffic can suffer major losses if the search engines stop sending visitors. It is considered wise business practice for website operators to liberate themselves from dependence on search engine traffic. A top-ranked SEO blog Seomoz.org has reported, "Search marketers, in a twist of irony, receive a very small share of their traffic from search engines." Instead, their main sources of traffic are links from other websites.

Wikipedia - SEO