Online Marketing Blog

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Search Engine Journal began announcing the winners of it’s 3rd Annual Search Engine Marketing Blog Awards today. Voting covered 19 different categories ranging from best conference coverage to best SEO blog. With that many categories, I’d be surprised if Loren posted them all in one day. It’s great link bait with this post as a testament. TopRank Blog was nominated in 4 categories which have yet to be announced.

The votes tally was interesting as quantity is not what wins, but quality. In other words, some blogs received far more votes than others, but their average score was lower than those blogs getting lesser votes with a higher average. This should be a consideration for participants next year to guide the way they contact their networks to draw attention to the voting. Congrats to all! I’ll keep a running tally of winners and runners up below as they are announced:

• Best SEO Blog Winner: Search Engine Roundtable. It’s refreshing to see another blog win this spot. SEOmoz and SEO Book tied for next best.
• Best SEM Industry News Blog Winner: Search Engine Land. Lots of good, quality competition in this category including next bester Search Engine Roundtable followed by Search Engine Watch, Web Pro News and Marketing Pilgrim.
• Best Link Building Blog Winner(s): Jim Boykin. A great win for Jim as he considered quitting his blog but the recent Internet Marketing Ninjas buzz didn’t hurt. Next best was Debra Mastaler with the Link Spiel.
• Best Social Media Optimization Blog Winner: DoshDosh. Maki’s blog is also up for best new/breakout blog of 1007. A TON of high quality, useful content comes out of this blog regularly. Tamar Weinberg’s Techipedia came in as next best.
• Best Search Marketing Facebook Group Winner: Facebook Whores for SEO, SMO and SEM Awareness. If you are an SEM on Facebook, if not why?, then chances are pretty good you’re familiar with this Rae/Graywolf creation. If not, then votes were certainly warranted by the creative name. Search Party Animals is what you get with next best on this one.
• Best Local Search Blog Winner: Small Business SEM. Matt McGee is very active as a blogger and within the online social media and SEO communities. It’s easy to see he practices what he preaches and his readers do as well. Next best is Local SEO Guide.
• Best Google Blog Not Owned by Google Winner: Google Blogscoped. Phillip Lenssens’s 80% Google content is 100% winner in both quantity of votes and top rankings. Next best blogs are no longer being mentioned.
• Best Search Engine Corporate Blog Winner: Google Webmaster Central. I’d have to agree on this one. Google does a pretty good job putting out practical info on the the Webmaster Central blog.
• Best Contextual Advertising Blog Winner: Shoemoney. There was tough competition (content wise) in this category with the likes of Problogger and maybe Jensense, but the Shoe took the gold.
• Best Affiliate Marketing Blog Winner: Shoemoney! Yes, that’s right. Jeremy Shoemaker hits it again with all that affiliate and content monetization goodness of his.
• Best Search Engine Community / Forum Winner: Sphinn. A pretty significant victory considering the long standing strength and popularity of WebmasterWorld.
• Best Search Engine Research Blog Winner: SEO by the Sea. Bill Slawski has carved out a dominant position in the niche of reviewing search engine patent applications and search technologies.
• Breakout Blog of 2007 Winner: Dosh Dosh. Pretty impressive since he was competing with the likes of VanessaFoxNude.
• Best Search Blogger on Paid Linking Winner: Matt Cutts. Proof that the power of the big G is big indeed.
• Best SEO Plugin for WordPress Winner: All in One SEO Plugin.
• Most Giving Blogger Winner: Rand Fishkin. Talk about a tough category: Barry Schwartz, Danny Sullivan, Matt Cutts and Aaron Wall plus many more.
• Best Search Conference Coverage Winner: Search Engine Roundtable. Very impressive blogging from a great team of bloggers. Loren should rename the awards to “The 2007 Barry Schwartz King of SEM Blogging Awards”.
• Best SEM Conference Coverage in Photos Winner: Everyone. Although, Loren does point out the comic Rebecca Kelly made and who deserves a thanks for taking my photo out of it.
• Best Overall Search Marketing Blog Winner: Search Engine Land, which also took the best industry news blog award. Danny and gang have been bizay!

I have to say, the best thing about awards like these is that it draws attention to some great blogs and recognizes the efforts of many of those that put a ton of effort into providing the SEM industry with insights, information, news and tips. The SEJ SEM Blog Awards is a good link bait effort as well and I’m sure it’s done a good job at attracting attention for Search Engine Journal.

In the course of reviewing over 600 blogs for the TopRank BIGLIST covering various aspects of the search marketing industry during the past year, there comes a unique insight into trends and categories people are writing about and reading.

In the case of the SEJ SEM blogs promotion, categories were created with certain blogs in mind to be recognized and that serves a certain purpose. Whether TopRank Blog “won” or not, (we did and we didn’t) is a moot point, although we are very, very appreciative for all the people that took the time to vote for us. Thank you.

I believe that there are many, many categories that deserve attention which were missed. When we review blogs for the BIGLIST, we look at the categories and tags that bloggers use to organize their content. There’s a lot more to the SEM industry than SEO, Affiliate, Local and Social Media.

Therefore, after SES London, we’ll run a TopRank BIGLIST Blog Awards that will involve those blogs that have made the BIGLIST over the past 12 months. Categories will be determined by reviewing all 500+ blogs and identifying the content SEM bloggers are writing about most as well as upcoming trends. What you’ll find with the BIGLIST Blog Awards is exposure to a variety of top notch blog content from many bloggers you don’t typically see promoted on other A List Blogger ‘love fests’.

If you’re a SEM related blog and haven’t made our BIGLIST or have been dropped, be sure to visit the requirements for inclusion and tips on how to get added.