Link Journeys for May 21, 2011- the “Rapture LOL” Edition

So yeah… no rapture. Imagine that. Guess I better publish this thing, today, then, huh?

Links

• Rapture Tech Support – Great example of how someone can take advantage of current events on the web to rapidly build an audience (and have a lot of fun, too). When I first followed this account, it had around 300 followers. 14 hours later it had over 5,000.
• Marketing Ethics: Persuasion vs. Manipulation
• How Your Worst Enemy Can Become the Key to Your Blogging Authority
• Power Up Your LinkedIn Profile
• Readable – make websites easier to read as you surf

Blogs

These are all from my blog consulting clients this week. Everybody’s doing such amazing work, I wanted to showcase them.

• WorkLife Nation – Judy Martin is the maven of the work/life merge. I did both the design and consulted on the rebranding & relaunch (her traffic went all explody).
• Vivid Ways – A drop-dead gorgeous blog on personal development with a lot more heart than 99% of all other blogs about personal development.
• Christine Livingston – Psychology for Smart People – Because there’s more to life than just A Different Kind of Work, after all. Watch how both of these blogs evolve to see some marketing strategy play out.
• Silver Magpies – Who knew a site about vintage silver could be so awesome? Nancy’s “use it every day” attitude is a shot in the antiques arm! When we first started it looked like a not-quite-there-yet blog. Now it looks like an honest-to-goodness-you-can-buy-something-here e-commerce site. With a kick-ass blog and marketing strategy.

Products

• Professional SEO Training Course – Learn SEO like a PRO – (affiliate link) Solid course in a series of PDFs which covers everything from the absolute beginning to more esoteric SEO topics. I had a chance to see the course materials (disclosure: I was granted free access for review purposes) and it’s straightforward and clear.
• ProposalPad – Create beautiful, effective proposals quickly and easily
• UsrJoy – Get feedback on your site from visitors

Books

Disclosure: I was given review copies of these book by the publisher and the links are affiliate links. By the way, I got a $11 affiliate payment from Amazon, so now I can finally die happy that I finally got something out of their miserably stingy program.

Oh, wait… no rapture today. Damn.

• Everywhere: Comprehensive Digital Business Strategy for the Social Media Era- It’s a great “social media meets business strategy” book. It’s really written for companies on how to develop their social media strategies, especially in-house. For example, what social media positions should be created within an organization and what they should be called. A freelance social media expert could get a lot out of this book to help her deal with companies and get hired.
• Engage, Revised and Updated: The Complete Guide for Brands and Businesses to Build, Cultivate, and Measure Success in the New Web
  This book is the online brand marketing bible. Everyone reading Remarkablogger should read it, period.

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