My team at Sparkplug Digital recently developed an infographic that provides actionable tips for conducting a self-check of your SEO strategy.
See full-size version.
Infographic by Sparkplug Digital
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I read fewer books in 2011 than the previous year and finished with 14.
Books read in 2011:
-The Hunger Games
-Search Engine Optimization Secrets
-Start with Why
-Poke the Box
-Opportunity Screams
-The Happiness Advantage
-Onward
-4 Hour Work Week Expanded
-Enchantment
-Content Rules
-Fascinate
-The Art of Non-Conformity
-New Rules of Marketing and PR
-Marketing in the Age of Google
I didn’t quite reach my goal of reading 52 books in 2010. But I did read 23 very good books. I will try again in 2011.
Books read in 2010:
-The Art of Non-Conformity
-Branding Basics for Small Business
-The Accidental Billionaires
-Marketing Lessons from The Grateful Dead
-Word of Mouth Marketing
-Upside of Irrationality
-The Referral Engine
-The 24-Hour Customer
-Daemon
-Drive
-Delivering Happiness
-Open Leadership
-Six Pixels of Separation
-Rework
-Flip the Funnel
-What the Dog Saw
-Crush It
-The Blind Side
-Linchpin
-The Road
-The Next Evolution of Marketing
-The Lost Symbol
-Switch
My favorite book of the year was probably Accidental Billionaires.
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After delivering Diet Coke to Ian Lurie of Portent Interactive on December 7th in what has been called “The Great Diet Coke Delivery”, a lot of cool things have happened.
Ian Lurie wrote about the story on Conversation Marketing: How Social Media Works
I wrote an article about the experience and submitted it to SEOMoz’s YouMoz blog and unexpectedly it was promoted to the main SEOMoz blog: How I Got The Attention of One of the Top SEO Bloggers With Diet Coke
Ian followed up with a great article in response to a commenter and discussed why being nice is a good marketing tactic: Being Nice Isn’t a Marketing Tactic. Or Is It?
A marketing agency in Brazil also wrote an article telling the story in Portuguese.
Jon Cooper from Point Blank SEO mentioned the story in his post Link Building Strategies – The Complete List
The response has been overwhelmingly positive and I was even contacted by a director of marketing in the medical field who offered me great feedback on my company website. The comments on SEOMoz were really supportive and I’ve been able to meet some great new people in the SEO community.
Finally, as I noted in an update to my SEOMoz post, Diet Coke sent me an interesting note via Twitter:
I finally received the package from Diet Coke today: A week’s supply of Diet Coke and a nice note.
The note says:
Hi Charles,
We loved what you did for our fan @portentint on Twitter. In fact, we loved it so much that we wanted to follow your example of social media savvy and give you a Diet Coke surprise of your very own.
Please feel free to enjoy it yourself, or use it to surprise other extraordinary Twitter fans in need of Diet Coke.
Thanks again and stay extraordinary.
Yours,
Diet Coke
Thanks Diet Coke! The unofficial drink of SEOs everywhere.
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“You’ve got to find what you love…Your work is going to fill a large part of your life and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking, and don’t settle.”
-Steve Jobs 2005 Stanford Commencement Speech
“Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life.”
-Confucius
One of the most important decisions we make in our careers is whether we should choose to pursue work that we love or work that we don’t love. There are many reasons why people choose the latter, but ultimately the former is often the better choice for maximizing both happiness and success. Here are just a few reasons why you should strive to find work that you love and consider quitting your job if you don’t love it.
You will be more successful
Dan Miller, author of 48 Days to the Work You Love, talks about the common myth that people who choose work that they love will be poor and be forced to survive on beans and rice. Often the opposite is true because you are more likely to excel at work that you are passionate and enthusiastic about.
You will be happier
Ideally your work should be something that increases your happiness rather than subtracting from it. Since work often takes up a majority of our waking hours, doing work you enjoy will lead to a greater sense of well-being throughout the day. On the other hand, having frequent negative feelings during the day from your work is detrimental to your sense of well-being.
According to Dan Gilbert in Stumbling On Happiness
Your work days will seem to go faster
If you have ever been so engaged in a task that you lose track of time and suddenly notice that hours have flown by, you have experienced what Mihály Csíkszentmihályi calls the state of “flow”. Engaging in work that you love will result in frequent periods of flow and your work days will seem to fly by, which can be a very good thing (much better than work days that seem like they last forever).
You will have more energy after work
One sign that you are doing really engaging work that you love is that at the end of the day you feel more energized than when you started. If you feel completely drained and exhausted then it might not be a great fit for you. Having energy to do things after work is important so that you can pursue life goals, exercise, and enjoy your free time.
You will inspire others
A lot of people are stuck at jobs that they hate because they think that finding work that you love is not possible. By doing work that you love you can show others that it can be done and provide inspiration for those who feel trapped in a job that they hate.
A great book to read about finding work that you love is 48 Days to the Work You Love
Photo credit: jiuguangw
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