Google Gadgets & SEO

I am congratulating SEOmoz not only on their new office (which looks cool as poo).
But more for their new hires. I think one of the better moves they have made was to hire Jennifer.

Jennifer Lopez

I do not know the inner workings of SEOmoz, but I can confidently say that Jennifer is one of the more impressive people I have met and dealt with in the last few years (I don’t remember when we actually met, but as you all know I am usually drunk).
One of the first conversations about Jennifer I ever had was someone accusing me of “trying to steal her”. I sorta was. update: I was trying to “steal” her because she was a talented developer who understood stuff I was talking about. She was clearly a talent.

She really got what I was talking about when I talked (and for anyone who has ever talked to me you know that is a feat). Later, for another company I suggested we use her, and when I contacted her that time, she again understood what I wanted, and she provided a very professional outline for the project.
When she was applying for SEOmoz she asked if I would recommended her, well the truth was, I would have jumped through rings of fire for her to get that job. One of my happier moments was when I learned they had hired her.

Danny Dover

The other impressive person I have always admired is Danny Dover, who started writing great straightforward posts that in my opinion had been missing since Matt left. In addition to being smart and able, he also had the balls to accept my invitation to fly out to Arizona one time for a party where I was supposedly going to drink him under the table.

I didn’t, but in my defense I was drinking for hours before he showed up.

But the real point here is that Danny writes really useful stuff. I admire that.
Another wonderful new hire is Joanna Lord.

Joanna Lord

Joanna is like 27 times smarter that anyone talking to her realizes.

I am not sure what her role will end up being for SEOmoz, but if they are using her for their clients PPC then they are likely having some very happy clients.
I think nowadays it is alot more clear how talented she is because she has been speaking up a storm at conferences.

What a great addition to an already great staff.

Why am I writing This?

I used to be an avid contributor to SEOmoz and I stopped. I have to admit, as many of my contempories know and maybe feel themselves, there was a certain personality to SEOmoz a few years ago.

I had a comfort zone that included Rebecca, Matt, Scott, and Jane. They were a big part of why I was there. It was like a family to me.

Three of those people are now gone, but I really think it is time to take a second look at SEOmoz again, at least that is what I will be doing.
I hope others do too. It has always been a great community and it is chock full of great talent again.

Try them you will like them:  SEOmoz blog

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After a long period of refection I was thinking warmly of a few people. In a tweet to @lookadoo I said something like “thank goodness for people like @rustybrick (Barry Schwartz) because he actually knows who rocks in forums and I hope he knows about you.’ this was a tweet I said to @lookadoo who to many of us who have been around for a few years know by a few other names.

I began my online stuff in forums, mostly help forums where I tried as honestly, patiently, and informatively as I could to answer peoples questions.

There were alot of us in the Google Webmaster help group circa (errr, years ago?) and I have to say I simply respect them. People like @halfdeck (i think the last time we spoke we were arguing, but I love that. The other as I mentioned above was @lookadoo. There was also John Mueller @johnmu, who now works for Google. These are twitter names obviously, but please check them out).

But this post has Barry Schwartz and Aaron Wall in the title. I am gonna talk about them….

Aaron Wall

I will start with Aaron Wall of SEOBook fame.

It is really important for me to be honest here about him, I am writing this from a lovely home looking over the ocean in Puerto Rico, but what I really wish more people knew about me is this…

When I got into SEO I was homeless. I did not own a computer. It wasn’t some cute, nice version of homeless, I was flat out homeless.

While I do not really want to highlight that fact (it is embarrassing), I constantly will highlight when I am talking about Aaron Wall. I have zero reservations about it. The reason is that although I may look bad for being homeless back then, it is the perfect compliment to Aaron what he did for me.

I had been working in the forums and at the Google help group and I kept realizing that just about everything people were asking about or having problems about were already covered in the Google webmaster guidelines. After literally talking to hundreds of people about how they can improve their site to be more visible in Google I decided to write a website that explained the Google guidelines in detail for layman.

I really felt a wrote a great site (feedthebot.com) and I didn’t really know what to do with it.One of the big voices online then was Aaron Wall. I wrote him a simple email (I can’t find it, but if Aaron want to post it he can feel free). It said something like…

“I can not afford your SEObook, but I want it, As soon as I get money, I will pay for it, and I will try to hook up other people with whatever I learn”

He wrote back to me and gave me the book free of charge.
That is Aaron Wall.
In about a month I was able to pay for the book and I did. But the thing to remember here is that he just gave it to me for nothing. This kindness has never once left me and I have never written a post that I felt would be helpful to others without thinking of Aaron.
Sorry Aaron for this public compliment, but it is really true. Some of my tutorials, like the one to make Google gadgets, have been used by tens of thousands of people. The only reason my tutorials are good and real is because of you Aaron, so deal with it.

Barry Schwartz

I do not have a sweet or historical story about Barry, what i do have about Barry is the same thing you have about Barry, alot of knowledge.
Barry has been following our space for years and his insights are always right on spot. His work on Search engine roundtable, Search Engine Land is widely and universally known to be simply superb.
My public thank you to Barry is this.. Thanks for paying attention when we are not. My other public compliment is this..
Thank you for creating great apps that are useful.
Barry was creating iPhone apps that were great when the “norm” was to create apps that where invasive and pretty much begged and manipulated people to get more users. That was what the norm was, and there was Barry creating apps that were so damn useful they they out shined the other apps.
I love that.
Anyways, they are good people and if you want to be good people in this field I suggest you research and read them.

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