A great post on SEORoundtable on what direction you should take if setting up a blog.

Particularly like the point about just start writing and let the blog find its own direction. Definitely something that rings true for Cagedether.

Read more.

There was a time where I used to be able to keep some facts and figures in my head. Years of keyword research coupled with trying to remember names of friend’s kids has whittled that out of me.

Now I’m left having to write small blog entries like this to keep placeholders for info I know I’ll need someday. Today it’s those Google search operators that help you learn a bit more about your site and what Google knows about it.

Here’s the blurb:

Google supports several advanced operators, which are query words that have special meaning to Google. Typically these operators modify the search in some way, or even tell Google to do a totally different type of search. For instance, "link:" is a special operator, and the query [link:www.google.com] doesn’t do a normal search but instead finds all web pages that have links to www.google.com.

Here’s the link:

http://www.google.com/help/operators.html

If you’ve got a new site you’re looking to get indexed, chances are you’re going to have to make some sort of link building effort. These days the way to go seems to be link baiting (building the kind of content/services) that will create buzz and attract links naturally. But still, there is a lot to be said for getting listings in relevant directories - both for the search and direct traffic implications.

Need a good list? Freelinks.com does a good job of pulling together a number of useful resources.