Chris Hooley’s -ThinkBait-

While perusing some of the premium content over at SEOmoz for some new nuggets, I found the answer. The magic bullet. The ONE thing I need on my blog to harness the sheer link power of the internet.

And this was the result:

Now, I just sit back and wait for the ranks to ROLL right in! Thanks Mozzers!!

For y’all who didn’t know, NextStudent is having a web design contest worth $2,000 for the winner. I was thinking… (which hurt a little but I digress) this project is actually pretty web 2.0-ish. Think about it… Here’s some neat buzzwords and how the relate to NextStudent’s current web design project:

• U.G.C. - User Generated Content: Dude, the DESIGN for our company’s new makeover will be generated by the PEOPLE! That’s soooo social!
• Social Voting: The PUBLIC can VOTE on the design they want to see as the new face of NextStudent
• Blog: The NextStudent Redesign Contest Website is actually “just another wordpress weblog!” (that’s a play on words for the default blog description in WP, in case ya didn’t know)
• S.M.O. - Social Media Optimization: The winner of the contest with get a link on NextStudent.com, but more importantly all accepted design submissions can get a link on the design site itself and on my blog and a few other mentions. Blog links are sooo what S.M.O. is about!
• Networking: Everybody who participates is AUTOMATICALLY my best friend. Unless you hate me in which case you don’t have to actually be my friend. Ok that aint much of a prize but who cares I wanted to put it in there.
• Money: Ok not exactly 2.0, money is pretty old school but you can still make a bunch of it ($2,000) if you win the contest!
• Awesome: Hell yeah it is. And you ah too.

So hey do me a favor eh, tell some people about this contest. Especially if you think they’ll participate OR talk about it (especailly if they talk about it on their blogs and stuff, that’s always awesome)

w0rd.

The only thing that could possibly be more Irish for the SEM community is moving the SES to Boston… check that, I guess you could have it in IRELAND, but I digress…

NEW YORK FUCKIN’ CITY! S.E.S. Pub Crawl! St. Patrick’s Day!! I don’t know what YOUR plans are, but if you’re a REAL web marketer, you’re probably a party animal like the rest of us. If you’re a REAL party animal, you probably like pubs and pub crawls. If you REALLY like pubs or pub crawls, you’re probably Irish (and even if you aren’t you still pretend you are on St. Patty’s Day).

Here’s the deal, there is a prefect intersection of BAD ASS happening this Monday, in New York Fuckin’ City. I don’t know what YOUR plans are yet but drop them cuz the real bad asses in our industry will be doing ONE THING ONLY. And that’s whoopin’ it up, drinking green beer and Guinness (or Irish Whiskey if you’re extremely bad ass), and talking about how awesome Chris Hooley is during the S.E.S. Pub Crawl!

More details to come, but be ready mofos!

Chris Hooley Talks Chris Hooley, SEO, and Awesomeness in General

That.  Just. Happened.

It’s election year… time for smoke and mirrors!

I was hoping to catch some ESPN before heading to work, and instead of seeing “The Plays of the Week” I am watching a congressional hearing.  About baseball.  Not Iraq.  Not the recession.  Not about the so called “Economic Stimulus Package”.  About BASEBALL.

And two weeks ago, we had senators snooping around NFL Football.

And a few years ago we had all the media talking about a blow job.

Wanna know why they are talking about this stuff?  So the masses don’t look closer at what’s really going on… like the “War of Terror”.  The fact that the Democrats screwed up student loans so bad that kids won’t be able to get into school this upcoming fall.   The fact that Republicans screwed up consumer finance so bad that people can’t buy houses.  The fact that our dollar is doing so bad that vacation spots won’t even accept it any longer.

We’re going to hell in a handbasket here folks.  Hold on tight, times is gonna get real rough!

Maybe we should be doing one of our world famous “pre-emptive strikes” on a few select morons who are running this country into the ground…

I’ve never actually been to Affiliate Summit.  I’ve had a few people offer discounts to get into the event (I can’t for the life of me recall who was offering me passes, if you still exist HIT ME UP!)  I’m still teetering on the edge here.  Should I go?  Should I bring my affiliate peeps?

As for the Elite Retreat, people already know I am a HUGE advocate of this event.   If you are thinking of going and you need some info about it, feel free to contact me directly.  I’ll gladly explain why I am such a huge fan and what it has done for me personally.   If you are defintely going and you haven’t bought your tickets yet, hook a brother up and buy it through my affiliate link so I can make a few bucks!

I have so much to say about my experience but the pain is too strong to write it all right now. But like every dark cloud, even THE Biggest Disappointment in Sports History had a shining moment for me. I was on TV! Watch the clip and relish my huge fame and instant popularity!

Wow, that movie was terrific eh? Send all movie script roles to me via my contact page!

Anybody need some? I can get them to you at the last minute. I live in AZ. There are very few of these bad boys left on the planet!

(I just magically turned into a ticket broker!!)

I can’t believe it… I’m having daily heart palpitations. I am going to be there when history is made. I am going to the biggest football game ever. Ever. This is the year Tom Brady and the Patriots make history!!

I’ll be in section 406 row 10. Watch for me on TV, I’m gonna do my best to hog the camera for at least one second to cement my immortality too. I’m high up, so the camera won’t likley be buzzing around where I sit, but my HELMET will insure that even if I am on for ONE GLIMPSE that I will be easy to spot.

Go Patriots! This is the biggest event I have ever headed to. I feel like I am going to explode!!

I bet those guys over at Ed Loan Funding (another Student Loan Consolidation Company in S.D.) are NOT partying it up right now.

WAY TO GO PATRIOTS!!!

Tired of all those pesky readers on your blog?  Sick of all that annoying traffic?  Had enough of building a community, getting links, or comments on your blog posts?  Well I have a revolutionary solution!  It’s simple, easy, and FAST!  It’s a secret I’ve utilized on several occasions; EVERY time it resulted in a drop in traffic, subscribers, readers and all those other problems that come with owning a popular blog.

The secret?  *looks both ways* sshhhhhh…. (it’s easy, just stop writing for a while).  60% of the time it works EVERY time!

If you’re a fan of Tom Brady, or funny random blogging, go check out Tom Brady Secrets. HILARIOUS stuff!

FYI- Jeff Dempsey contributed a ton to this blog, which is probably why it is so funny!

I like to think of Corporate America like it’s professional sports. Marketing, Sales, Operations, Finance, and IT superstars are no different than professional athletes with year round free agency. Some demand a high salary, some are lunch pale hard workers who roll up their sleeves, some are loud and brash and can make or break any company depending on their mood.

Like Terrel Owens.

T.O. is one of the best receivers ever in the history of the NFL, but his constant demand for the spotlight and bad attitude when he’s losing was like a cancer to prior teams. He moves to another team that allows him to be himself and enables him to work the way he wants, and next thing you know he’s the role model in the locker room and he’s doing everything he can to help his team win. He’s a player that needs an organization to bend a little to make room for his ego, and rewards that organization if they do.

On the other hand you have an organization with strong and strict leadership that does not bend; the New England Patriots. They would NEVER hire T.O. because HE won’t bend to their will. But their system can make known malcontents (Randy Moss, Cory Dillon) successful and happy players who conform and become part of the team. And they win. Big time.

Corporate America is no different. Some organizations have such strong leadership, and such great vision, that employees work twice as hard to keep up the winning tradition. The scary thing is however, that some employees are so good at what they do that they can single handedly change a corporation and it’s future. And sometimes, there are employees who are cancer. It’s scary when you have a sueprstar like Terrel Owens who can propel your team to the highest highs, or crumble the foundation of the organization.

The question is how to handle something like that? Do you pamper him like Dallas (seems to be working, right?) or do you fire him and look for people who can conform? And think, do you want to face that guy on the field if you do let him go?

There’s some thinkbait for you execs and CEOs who have stars in your corporation. Is your team strong enough to do without your star? Can you afford to pamper your execs who deliver on a consistent basis? Is it even worth it? Do the rules change when somebody is that important? Is ANYBODY that important?

Today’s advice for you corporate climbers is short and sweet. Be a bulldozer with ballerina shoes. If you KNOW you are right, you KNOW your decision is best for your company (and yourself) then you can’t accept a “no” right? Problem is that egos, agendas, and personalities can sometimes cloud a company’s decision making ability. And as a good get-along-guy or get-along-girl (which is what you need to be to get anything done in executive management) you must understand how important it is to keep people happy… or better yet how to NOT piss people off. Sometimes you need to dance.

Sometimes it’s tough when your decisions face opposition. But when your decision is right, you need to push forward. There IS no “no”. Become a bulldozer with ballerina shoes. Dance around what you can, roll over if you have to, but push forward no matter what stands in your way.

Me!

I’ve spent too long minoring in the majors and majoring in the minors. I gotta get back to what got me where I am at today. For those who have forgotten who I am, I’m Chris Hooley. The Fonzie of SEO. I work for the best Student Loan Company on the web. I am a father, a son, a sumo wrestler, and an interpretive dancer / figure skater.  I will be your guide to pimping the web and pwning corporate America.  Stay tuned kiddies, I’m back with a vengeance!!

There has to be a better way.  I have dozens domains that I want to create sites out of.  Free templates that I can edit myself.  Access to tons of awesome writers.  But creating the sites takes hours!  Set up hosting, configure, upload files, configure, install database, configure, etc etc etc.  It’s a pain in the arse.  Then once the sites are up, they crash from too much traffic (third host in 6 months, all the same problem)

These sites don’t have enough income potential to spend big dollars hosting them, but if I launch them all and keep my writers pounding out awesome stuff and driving traffic eventually these sites will be worth the effort.  But for now, no upsidedown-ski on hosting costs.

Anybody know a better, more efficient way to pound out lots of real wordpress blogs?  I am not looking for splog software, I just want to build out my sites so I don’t have all my chickens in one basket so to speak.

They have it coming. I have been a good user / member for years. Never did anything I wasn’t supposed to, contributed to conversations, dugg stuff I liked, rarely submitted a thing, almost never dugg stuff down, and they banned me anyways.

My attempts at getting my account back have been ignored. Because they decided to screw with me, I have decided I don’t need my old account. I don’t even want it. Instead, I will be letting my new bots submit the crappiest content ever. I think we are due for a little auto register bot as well to help automate this crap submission. I’m even writing a bot to auto bury which will have targeting capabilities.

Digg, there was no good reason for you guys to ban me, I did nothing wrong. Now you got it coming. Mess with the bull, you get the horns.

Jeff Dempsey is a man of many talents. Farting, creating half ass partially SEO friendly blogs, updating web pages, whining, all kinds of stuff. Most of you know him from his first blog, I am Better than U. Some of you know him as the guy who got all my buddies to change their blog links to my site to his (the now defunct ChrisHooleySecrets.com). Others may even know him from our controversy, the one where I made it known that I own his soul.

Now, you will begin to know him as the man who saves mens’ testicles by growing a mustache and encouraging other men to do the same. The Great Stache Off has begun, and the response has been overwhelming. Jeff has had to turn away more than half of the contestants due to the workload it has caused. This my friends, is a very good thing.

Jeff has been hard at work trying to re-rank his newer, boss mandated blog for my name. To alleviate some of his workload so he can focus on the Stache Off, I have decided to give him a little help here. He just needs a handful of strong blog links to Chris Hooley Owns Jeff Dempsey to grab that top spot and get this thing over-with. That’s right, I am actually encouraging people to link to Jeff’s blog with the anchor text “Chris Hooley” so he can outrank me. Let’s just say it’s my contribution to his charity even