Yum. I see this when I wake up…

I got a new place and now live in Puerto Rico in the lovely lovely Old San Juan. It is a very pretty place. Have a look…

Aaron Wall presents…

A guide to search marketing for non profits and NGOs. Yum. Good stuff.

In addition to being smart, gorgeous, ridiculously talented, and pig kissing yummy, Lisa Barone is also one year older.

Happy Birthday!

Allow me, dear Lisa, to give you the appreciation your cats do not.

You need not feed me or strain my feces out of a box or anything to get my appreciation. You need only keep writing and making me smile and giggle.

As I did one year ago (wow. a year? to me it has only been, like three beers or something ago. time is weird like poo) I create my only post solely dedicated to one person for Lisa, Lisa, and Lisa Barone.

This is mostly due to how fabulous and wonderful she is.

She is sooo wonderful that I will now embarrass her with photos of the last year of me and Lisa.

A Year of Me and Lisa

Evil and Lostfulness got together and spawned a creature named Rebecca, so sometimes me and Lisa have to look at maps…

I bet you have always wondered if Lisa can eat corn, choke on it, laugh, and stain her shirt all at the same time. The answer is yes…

Can we rock out in Vegas amongst our rocking friends?

Oh yeah… and I don’t just mean any “oh yeah”.

I mean the type of “oh yeah” that was in Ferris Bueller and had a “doo bomp bomp” after it.

Can we share magazines covers with eachother?

Are we drunk? I can’t tell….

Can I make her pout? Yep.

The next photo is a photo that I cut Jane out of. Lisa will be okay with that…

Speaking of cutting people out of photos, here is what will happen to you if you happen to be in a photo with Lisa when her hair looks good (or if she is wearing her knee socks)… you will be cut out of it and become one of her Facebook profile pics…

Do I like Lisa? Very. very, a whole bunch alot yes…

Speaking of hair, now for a story that even Lisa dosen’t know about….

It was Valentines day. I was worried about Lisa, because she had told me that her hair had been “ruined” by a stylist (it ends up that it wasn’t ruined, it was only like a millimeter shorter, but I didn’t know this). I was drunk. I was really drunk, and I was flipping out, I thought her hair got chopped off, like a foot of it or something and I started feeling bad, I was really really worried. I had a host of things I was stressing on at that moment, but I was actually rather concerned, and I wanted Lisa happy. If someone would have asked me what I wanted I would have responded…

“Lisa. Happy.”

I did what any man would do in such a situation.

I went to Walgreens.

“Where”, I asked the nice lady working at the counter, “are your crayons?”

She told me the aisle and I stumbled towards it, hoping desperately that there was also colored construction paper in the same aisle. Like I said I was drunk, I wasn’t sure at that point how many Walgreen aisles I could handle.

I bought crayons. I bought construction paper.

I took a cab home (I lived two blocks away but I really was drunk). Cab driver was ass. I tipped him bunches.

I entered my apartment, sure of my path. I must write to Lisa a crayon on construction paper story. Her hair is gone. She is sad. Must, using my enormous talent, create a smile for Lisa.

Here is the story that I never sent to her…

The story begins…

“For Lisa” it says, “A crayon Story”. “From Pat”

“Once upon a time there was a really huge big frog”

I brilliantly create a frog with nothing but colored wax and paper, and it is  so good, it is like I am God.

“One day the frog saw a fly”

“The huge ass frog smiled because he knew he would get some fly”

Frog goes for fly….

Uh oh…

WTF?

“OOOf”

“Long story short, the fly kicked the frogs ass”

“Happy frog gets his ass kicked by a fly Valentines day. ”

THE END

Not a clue what that means, but on a personal note, Lisa… Giorgia would have loved you. That’s why I like you so much

Happy bday pretty.

I am actually close to SEOmoz, somewhat. I have been in the North Bend east of Seattle. I found out that I could get to the PCT trail (the trail I am hiking) by hiking about 40 miles from North Bend. Well I did so, in miserable weather for the first two days, and when I got to the PCT I found out there was 70 inches of snow on it. Basically, it is impassable due to avalanche danger, so I hiked back and the weather cleared up and it is amazingly beautiful up here. It was kinda fun to use my crampons (spikes for snow travel).

I will later take a bus to the Seattle airport and fly my pretty little butt to New York for the widget conference I am speaking at, a day early. I plan to blow everyone’s mind. It will be fun.

Then… WARNING SEOMOZ, I will be back in Seattle on the 20th of June. So Jane, Rebecca, Scott, and all you other pretty mozzers had best have an idea of where I can take you to drink.

After that, WARNING HOOLEY I will be in Arizona.

Oh and before that, WARNING BOYKIN on the 18th I might, (if I can).

After that, I have to return to my hiking trip, but right before I do I plan to get trashed and have some kind of party, I haven’t decided what city to do it in, I would do it where Lisa Barone is, but I don’t think she is old enough to drink yet. (she is going to hurt me for that one).

Oh, and I want to thank Raffi for being so hospitable at SMX. You rock.

One more thing, I shaved off my beard so we can stop now with the whole raised by a grizzly bear thing okay? Can we do that?

I am back to the dashing and mysterious Pat. I am back to “ain’t no one as dope as me, I’m just so fresh, so clean.” Pat. I am back to the “The soap in my bathroom gets sad that it has to get smaller and smaller and go away from me” Pat. I am back to the… okay, I stop.

That’s all. Just wanted to throw that all out, I will be offline for a couple days. See you then.

I was at SMX Advanced in Seattle basically to see some friends, and to discuss with a few trusted folks about my upcoming year. I didn’t really attend sessions, and as someone who didn’t attend sessions I discovered something. There were alot of people who didn’t attend sessions, but were there just to interact with others.

I love the SEO industry, even though I am almost entirely out of it now with my gadget/widget strategy stuff. Almost every successful widget spread I have seen has been very Google guideline friendly (white hat) and is orientated around the user, or based on actual interaction that helps or entertains users.

I love the discussion that occured around the wonderful Lisa Barones post “SMX Advanced goes to the darkside“. Her article discusses that the flavor of SMX Advanced was a bit Grey hat.

I liked the discussion because (as always) Dally Sullivan is open to discussing critiques, which I admire, and I liked the discussion because it really highlighted some of the basic reasons why I got into gadgets in the first place.

A couple years ago, I would answer the questions of new webmasters alot. They always were, basically, “How do we get on top of Google results?”.

They were never, “How do I do more business on the internet?” or “How do I make more money on the internet?”.

It was considered a given that search engines were the best way to do this, so the questions were always orientated around “being on top of the search engines”.

I started to ask myself “What if there were no search engines?” and “How do I create an online presence that does not depend on Google or search rankings?

If you have read my article “The Hitchhikers Guide to Linkless SEO” you know what direction of thought I ended up going in.

I realized that you do not need search engines at all to create major brands and millions of users.

Think about this. You use Twitter, Facebook, and StumbleUpon right?

You didn’t find those in a search engine, you use them because of interaction. You read about them or were invited by someone or they were suggested to you.

No search engine needed.

Twitter, StumbleUpon, and other social media is not dependant on search engines. They would be the same success they are even if Google didn’t exist.

This isn’t sinking into the search community very quickly, but you really don’t need search engines for everything.

This needs to sink in, particulairly for advertisers. How you advertise is changing and how you bring people into contact or awareness of your brand is changing.

It is really simple, and it is called “Word of Mouth”.

Social media is, in it’s essense, “word of mouth”. Understanding that is key for internet marketers.

Back to SMX Advanced. Danny Sullivan knows his shit well. I would challenge him to offer sessions that offer real ways for businesses and advertisers to actually interact with social media instead of teaching people how to “use” social media for links or other SEO goals.

The goal isn’t links in social media. It is interaction. It is word of mouth.

If the only thing you use social media for is link creation, then you are missing the point.

Advice like…

“If you make a profile on several social media websites, you will get several links which may help your ranking.”

Is the same thing as…

“How to get reciprical links, or Wikipedia links, etc., etc.”

The most advanced and forward looking marketing looks at social media not as an opportunity for links, but as an opportunity for interaction and brand awareness. I would love to see Danny, Brett, and other conference organizers embrace this idea more and see it reflected in their sessions.

I like that Danny has the SMX – Social series and I would recommend them as the most effective sessions you will likely find on leveraging social media.

But at the same time, those sessions are also of the same flavor that gave Lisa pause about SMX Advanced. How to “trick” or “linkbait”, I hope to be proved wrong on that, but we will see.

I am now leaving for my backpacking trip, and I should be online next in approximately a month (beginning of May).

Take care!

I will be leaving in two weeks on my backpacking trip (I am hiking from Mexico to Canada on the Pacific Crest trail).

I will be on the trail for the first month or so without ever leaving it, there is no way to contact me so if you need to talk to me about something, do it soon

My general schedule for the hike is a total of five months, with a couple of weeks off in June to attend (possibly) SMX Advanced in Seattle and to speak at the WidgetWebExpo in New York. I will end my trip in September and will speak at SEM Canada.

In other words, I am not available for anything really unless it has already been arranged.

The first five hundred miles are shown on this map, I am starting at Campo, on the Mexican border…

After this portion I will check my emails, possibly blog a quick hello, and then be on my to the Sierras and the rest of my trip.

Pat is happy

For any business stuff you would normally talk to me about, I highly recommend you go to Hamlet Batista instead, who has a team of developers, a great business ethic, and the creativity to do gadget projects. He can probably take care of you well.

Some photos in a gadget of the independence celebrations…

I love Kosovo, and lived there for several years. I watched the war start and I stayed there until it was over, and then some. I met the woman of my dreams there, and I am very happy that Kosovo will be recognized by the international community. It is a beautiful place. I remember getting woke up early on a March morning nearly ten years ago by the bombs, and how everyone was smiling even though the bombs were falling because the bombs signaled the US intervention. We just started drinking and celebrating, good stuff. That was a good day.

For those wondering why the American flag is in these celebrations, well, a long time ago in America we would help other countries simply for humanitarian reasons. If you are like 25 or younger this sadly might seem weird, since for the last 8 years or so we haven’t been dong that so much. We just have been invading or supporting oil rich countries, but it used to be we would actually help other countries without the greed factor. Hopefully we will get back to that America soon. In 1999 the US led an UN military effort to stop the ethnic cleansing of native Albanians in Kosovo.

That effort is a big part of why Kosovo can now declare it’s independence.

Update: I am very slanted in my views of Kosovo because of my history there.

I will be doing the Pacific Crest Trail this year, which means I will be likely offline for several months.

The Pacific Crest Trail is a trail that goes from Mexico to Canada through some of the roughest and most remote areas of North America. It is 2700 miles long. Click the map to get an idea.

I have done almost 1800 of the miles before, but in like 300 mile chunks.

This year I am going for the whole enchilada. The whole thing in one season. Because of the ice on the mountain passes, there are only realistically 6 months tops in a year to do this. If you hike around 20 miles a day, you can do it in around four or five months.

In any case the three main things I want to put out about this is…

1) I will not be available from mid March until September / October

2) I will be asking some of you to help me in the upcoming months

3) If you see a way to make this work for a charity somehow or a TV thing, or you want to sponsor the documentation of America’s remotest hike, email me at guidelineguy@gmail.com

Learn more about the Pacific Crest Trail at PCTA.org, a very good group, I support them whole heartily with both money and time.

Updates: I have added a photo, and some text, and included an explanation of why, if I am found dead, the police should look at Greg Boser and Todd Friesen.

I am often drunk and at conferences I am even oftener drunk.

I had a blast at Pubcon and got to spend time with, and get to know some really great people more than I did before.

There are about 50 thousand photos in this post that I have stolen, so you may want to wait a second and let them all load.

Las Vegas is a very very fun place to be. You get to dress up and play games and pretty girls bring you drinks for free. It is also very big, I walked around the town and explored alot and now my feet, which are not used to shoes, are killing me.

I spent alot of time with the Best of the Web guys and Frank playing poker into the wee hours of the morning.

Speaking of poker, the charity SEO poker event went off wonderfully and the tshirts got there on time (big relief, there was a chance that they weren’t gonna be ready).

It was great to see how many people dressed up. Here are two very talented people I admire, Rhea and Carolyn , posing for a pic with little ole me.

In addition to the tourney at the Venetian, there was a great deal of poker going on at the Wynn…

There was alot of hanging out at the Wynn bar…

Here are two very pretty people looking very pretty…

And here are two very pretty people looking, er, different…

I think, but I am not sure, that in the above photo Ciaran was thinking “Watch! I can look like an ape!” to which Jane countered with “Yeah, but can you puke in your hand?”

Just to be clear Jane was not puking, she was laughing at Ciaran.

Ciaran is a smart, witty, and fun guy which is why he is on my list of people to kill so I can have a better chance with the ladies.

One of the things I was looking forward to doing here was spend some time with Jane from SEOmoz, and spend time together we did and as we did so we looked ridiculously hot.

Jane is a very intriguing person to me from her writing on the blog and I have always enjoyed her comments, but we always seemed to miss each other at conferences, plus she has a whole bunch of neat stuff in her eyes. I now officially feel like I know her well enough to be as smart ass with her as I have been wanting to be all along.

The most wonderful of wonderfuls Barbara Boser was out in force and here she is with Dax…

Barbara is magic. I feel good and happy whenever I see her. Also of note, her husband Greg is planning to kill me because…

I dared to play with one of his and Todds reindeer games.

They were spreading some mis-information around via twitter, and this (false) info was spreading like mad across Vegas. I wanted to hijack the misinformation and turn it around to where the misinformers became the misinformed. Ends up I couldn’t because some of the majors players I needed to do this were “enjoying” themselves severely successfully at the Microsoft party and even though I was standing right next to them, they just were not getting it.

Long story short I “outed” the info. (No, it wasn’t Gillian, it was me)

There were many evil grins enjoying the games and I screwed it up for them, which I think would have been fine if I coulda pulled it off and turned it on them. But I didn’t. So basically I outed the info needlessly, which made me look like a butt and resulted in several very large, very devious men being mad at me

Below is a photo of two people…

I am terrified of one of them and the other makes me smile when I see her…

I will give you a clue, Gillian of SEOmoz is the one that makes me smile. The other is of course Greg Boser.

<begin kissing up to Greg>

Have you subscribed to Greg Boser’s feed yet? It takes just a second, really. If you didn’t catch that last link you can also subscribe to Greg Boser’s (AKA Web Guerrilla) here here and here. You know what I was just thinking? Real Estate Marketing Do Follow BoDog Social Media Santa Clarita. Did I mention his feed?

</end kissing up to Greg>

Okay I also spent alot of time with the men of SEOmoz (see Rhea, I talk to people who aren’t girls) we went out to dinner together and ordered endless meat and beer and whiskey and got the night started out right for Mel, who later had an interesting time.

Here is Mel from SEOmoz enjoying his first PubCon Las Vegas…

It was good to chat with the whole “man crew” of SEOmoz, they have an appreciation for drinking and I like that, but what I like more is I know have a better idea of who is who so I can pick their brains

David Mihm who is a great website designer and SEO blogger, was out and about, and it was good to run into him.

He took a great photo of me holding up a wad of hundreds and some chips…

Neil Patel, who gave a great presentation btw…

I think it was Barbara who might of captured the best photo ever of Frank…

Tamar and Susan and Lisa had a contest. It was called the “Who can carry the most bags?” contest, here I am with the winner of that contest (it was a tie).

Rebecca Kelly is about the yummiest and funniest person around and has the ability that I respect over all abilities. The ability to be a smart ass. The worlds most important people were smart asses.

Unfortunately she brought her boyfriend.

It wasn’t enough for her to just bring her boyfriend however, they also had to be crazy adorable together… Bastards

What is even worse is he seems like a really, really nice guy. Damn you Jason.

The other man I jokingly wished didn’t exist is Brad Cornelius who is married to Rhea Drysdale. I got a chance to chat with him, and dammit, he is super nice too… Argh.

Brad can borrow my longboard whenever he is in Hawaii.

I was sitting here thinking of the best way to compliment Rhea, and then I remembered that literally, the only time I sat down and thought, actually thought, during the time I was in Las Vegas was when she asked me a question and I wanted to give her my truest opinion I could.

Okay the SEO-Chicks were everywhere during PubCon, and It was great to finally meet Judith (DeCabbit), who I knew from only her SEOmoz and SEO-Chicks posts. And of course Lisa is always a welcome sight too…

SEO-Chicks just turned 6 months old, and that post is a really interesting one to read, as is their about page, and their t-shirt page is a great place to buy a SEO Chick t-shirt which when worn, is bright green and yummy link and photo bait.

Here are some faces that I was glad to get to spend some time around…

Chris Winfield was funny as hell at the craps tables. He is a very happy looking guy. His wife is nice and gorgeous to boot (psst – she wears glasses). And as far as the other two suspicious looking guys, they from Best of the Web, in case you couldn’t read the shirts. Everyone at BOTW is devious. I like that. Did you know that BOTW has a blog? I also had some more fun rolling with Cameron and it was good to finally meet Kid Disco.

Sarah wrote an article on SEOmoz that I was utterly impressed with, it is probably an article that everyone should read. You will certainly benefit from it if you do. The article is called…

“Why You Should Go Through the Trouble of Registering Your Copyright When Everyone Tells You That Your Work is Protected Automatically”

When I met her at Pubcon however, what I was impressed with was how f***ing hot she was. Oh my God, she is like a prettier version of Lauren Bacall. And she ain’t scared of the alcohol either. Nice. Here she is with Jane… Yum.

Okay now we get to the apple of my eye, Lisa Barone…

There are many, many neat and wonderful things I can say about Lisa. The only thing I have had in my life constantly is writing and reading. I adore writing, and I am a lifelong writer. Lisa is my favorite writer in SEO and she successfully writes with a clear and distinct and humorous voice and I admire that greatly. She has really inspired me a couple of times, and while I can not give her the title of “muse” yet, she is getting damn close. She is wonderful and wonderful and wonderful and good.

However…

I would like to share with you some of her first words to me at PubCon… (Rebecca are you listening? This is a good quote)

“I’m sorry Pat, it is just that you look really good and, well, I am not used to that”

What the hell was up with that Lisa? But I forgive you. I am not sure if you know this or not, but you are adorable.

Finally I just want to thank everyone for making me this happy…

Take care all and forgive me if you weren’t mentioned, but this post is getting hella long. Thanks for a great time.