Following the fun time I had at September's Yulbiz, I've decided to start a Yulbiz meme. A meme is like a blog version of the children's game tag, except that instead of just saying tag you're it, you have to talk about a specific topic.
Describe your personal brand and your blog's brand in 50 words or more.
Why do you come to Yulbiz?
Read on to see how I've answered those questions!
I'm motivated to blog because I realize that it's a powerful promotional tool and also because it's fun to see comments and traffic on your site!
My ultimate professional goal is to have a succesful business allowing me to enjoy life and live comfortably while having enough money to give to charity to have some impact on my environment/community/society.
I promote my blog through - big surprise - SEO! Amongst other things, I rank for Google Sucks, which happens to be Googled often enough, as well as SEO Specialist, Montreal SEO and SEO Montreal. As well, I like to comment on other blogs when I have a moment and other bloggers have written something interesting/intelligent.
My personal brand is outgoing, friendly, a bit mature for my age (20) and generally a fun guy to be around. I tend to smile a lot and crack jokes, partly because it feels good and partly because other people seem to like it. My professional brand, as you can tell by my Bookworm-SEO pseudonym is well-informed on the latest goings-on in the search marketing world. That's why I can offer cutting edge services like Local SEO and Online Reputation Management. Additionally, and particularly where my SEO ROI brand is concerned, the branding is upmarket and professional. You're not buying a discount service, you're investing in your future lead-and-sales-generation. That's what I delude myself into thinking anyways. Check out SEO ROI and tell me what you think!
I participate in Yulbiz because it's an awesome get-together of the local business/tech community. You meet some brilliant people and fascinating entrepreneurs, besides just enjoying a down-to-earth atmosphere amongst like-minded people.
Yulbiz September 2007 was another classic meeting of business bloggers.
The "incontournable" networking event, as one participant put it to me, saw some fresh faces and also some familiar ones my regular readers will have seen before. Heading that list of friendly faces are of course Michel Leblanc and Philippe Martin, cofounders and organizers of the event. They are, respectively, one of the most respected voices in internet marketing in Montreal and one of the top blog designers in Montreal.
Read the full post to find out about the other fascinating people I met and spoke with, including one awesome entrepreneur who's just raised $1M in VC funding (Round 1)! To start things out, I'd like to give kudos to the smart team at Les Affaires for coming by to do a story on Yulbiz. This included Mr. Jérôme Plantevin, journalist for Les Affaires, and tech blogger.
He was there with cameraman Benjamin Nantel (couldn't find blog for him, and I don't recall him saying he had one, but he's got videos on Youtube). There was also an editor from Les Affaires but somehow I didn't get his card (if you read this, please leave a comment to tell me who you are and where you'd like me to link!).
But then, I figure some credit should also go to Guillaume Brunet, who's left TD Meloche Monnex (your loss!) to go to Transcontinental (smart move!). Transcontinental, for those of you who don't know, is a Canadian media giant that owns, amongst others, Publisac and Les Affaires.
Mr. Brunet and others were also busily talking about the new Regie des blogues d'affaires - the first French language blog ad network, a la Pajamas Media and Federated Media. It's supposed to be fully operational since the 20th, according to Guillaume, but I can't see a site for advertisers and publishers to sign up. Congrats also to Guillaume for snagging a juicy speaking spot at a Quebec tourism industry conference.
A little later in the night I had the pleasure of meeting Benoît Marcoux, who is a veteran in this computer stuff. He used to program in C back in ... 1987! We're talking about when the Internet consisted of Usenet groups and Al Gore (sorry, Al, I couldn't resist ;))! Benoît registered Marcoux.ca back when you needed a company to register a .ca domain! You know, back when dinosaurs ruled the earth ;) (and when Al Gore was busy inventing the Internet). He is a management strategy consultant.
About the same time I met Phillipe Régnoux. He's working for 2RCommunications, when he's not planning a Quebec - Gabon entrepreneurship exchange. The man has got at least one thing right (and probably many more): it's business development, not charity, that will help Africa develop and solve its economic hardships.
Running through the beautiful cards I collected this Yulbiz I find the names of Jerome Paradis and Kim Vallee. Jerome has a software company and is currently developing some Web 2.0 type stuff and a Facebook app! The specifics aren't coming to mind at the moment, but I recall being impressed at the idea when he told me aout it. Kim is blogging on party tips and advice.
Other people I got a moment to speak to include Geoffroi Garon, whom I'd met at a Yulbiz a while ago, and who's taken his consulting skills in house at K3Media. Also interesting was Marc Snyder, who's a political consultant with the Mayor's office for Le Plateau. You can reach him at marc.snyder@ville.montreal.qc.ca.
I was also fortunate to once again (see my previous Yulbiz post) speak with Sylvain Carle, the popular blogger and serial entrepreneur behind A Frog in the Valley (his personal blog) and Praized Media. A loud congrats to Sylvain, Sebastien and Harry on raising their first round of financing from VCs!
(Speaking of VCs, the VC I told you about (my cousin's best friend) is called Liroy Haddad.)
Interestingly, Sylvain's two partners are both local search experts! Harry Wakefield and Sébastien Provencher both worked at the Yellow Pages Group for a while before moving on to other projects.
I've just gone to add Sébastien as a friend on Facebook and I see he's got a Restaurant Reviews App on his profile ... the man is familiar with local! And wouldn't you know it - Praized "will enable you to find and discover local places and merchants with help from people you can trust." By the way, though we didn't have a very long conversation, Seb, it was certainly nice talking to you at tonight's Yulbiz!
Did I mention I save the best for last ;)? Once again, great Yulbiz folks!
Knightey Night hosts this week's edition of the Make Money Online blog carnival. It features my interview contest giving you a chance to ask questions to web design business guru Brendon Sinclair, as well as an interesting case study on Elance. I also recommend this Beginner's Guide to SEO. I think every person entering the internet marketing world has tried to write an introductoryguide to SEO, following the "quality content" adage. This piece is nothing new if you've been at this for a while, but it's an excellent overview with even a moderately advanced couple of pointers, including avoiding having content too deep. The author's clearly gone to some effort, so kudos to them.
Google Stealing Internet Explorer 7 Search Share From Microsoft
Google is stealing search share on Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7 browser from right under Microsoft's nose. Look up Internet Explorer 7 on Google and you'll find a Google ad offering Google's customized version of Explorer - with the Google toolbar.
Normally, the new Internet Explorer should come with Microsoft search in the toolbar. But as you can imagine, when people download Google's improved IE7, the standard search included is Google search. Possibly to include product, blog, video and other search boxes as well.
At the same time as Google is advertising on Internet Explorer 7, Google's page on the topic and Yahoo's own "Optimized for Yahoo" Internet Explorer 7 are ranking for Internet Explorer 7. What that means is that
1. Microsoft are not practicing Search Engine Reputation Management well enough. Yet companies like McDonald's and Facebook seem to have gotten the memo on online reputation management... 2. Microsoft is not attentive to the SERPs when it comes to protecting its brand. Which is kind of odd - this is the company that sued a kid named Mike Rowe for creating the MikeRoweSoft company a few years back. 3. Microsoft's new browser will contribute to giving its competitors a greater share of the searches people do online. As if its crummy reviews weren't doing that already...
SEO Montreal is a Montreal-based local Search Engine Optimization consulting company. Nous sommes une agence spécialisée dans le référencement. It is part of the SEO ROI family.
