Recently on Twitter a couple people mentioned that we should create tools similar to our Firefox extensions for Google Chrome. Then on TechCrunch there was a comment "As soon as I see the SEO Book toolbar for Chrome, I’ll be glad to uninstall Firefox." I read that and thought news to me.

First of all I think it is a bad idea because if Google owns the search engine and the browser then maybe that is not the best spot to have your SEO research stuff hooked up, but even beyond that I don't think we would make $1 more by creating those tools. Why? Because the people who use Google Chrome for SEO research are not the type of people who want to pay for anything related to SEO (outside of buying links perhaps).

My buddy Patrick from BlogStorm mentioned 'Imagine all the links you would get from people writing about the "Top 10 Chrome Extensions for SEO"' but when you think about it, what kinds of "customers" would those links bring? Entitled demanding and rude non-customers who pollute our sales funnel and waste our time. Eh...not really worth it.

Today a person running a COMMERCIAL SEO company told me "One of my employees loves the hubfinder and is now distraught that it's not free anymore. What would it take to get access to that tool?" And I responded with "if they are distraught over $300 then frankly they are quite pathetic, IMHO." He wants to CHARGE his clients, PAYS his employees, and then wants my time FOR FREE to ask how he could get FREE access to the fruits of our labor.

Distraught? Really? I couldn't imagine having the audacity to send that message.

And the truth is...that is 99%+ of the SEO market...everything should be free except whatever they sell. But we have to PAY $1,000+ a month for a web host, PAY for our vBulletin license, PAY for our SupportSuite license, PAY to license data from other sources, PAY to create tools to collect data, PAY to create new tools, PAY to maintain tools, PAY to advertise, PAY for a design + redesign, PAY for additional servers working creatively on future projects, PAY for the risks associated with being a well known public SEO, PAY to fly out to speak at SEO conferences & share information, PAY for upgrades to the site, SPEND lots of time on creating content for the blog, PAY PAY PAY etc etc etc

We have subscriptions with services like Compete.com and WordTracker because to us they are worth it.Which is why we buy AdWords ads, certain links, access to other sites and services, desktop software like AdvancedWebranking, etc. I have easily spent $100,000's on consulting, tools, and info-products. Was every purchase profitable? No. But in aggregate, there was plenty of profit to be had.

The people who are selling stuff but who are afraid to spend any money themselves often sell trash. They are not convinced in the value of what they sell (often because it is lacking). Or as Seth puts it...

Money is more than a transfer of value. It's a statement of belief. An ad agency that won't buy ads, a consultant who won't buy consulting, and a waiter who doesn't tip big—it's a sign, and not a good one.

You don't create a real business by being the free infrastructure for someone else's business while giving it away AND providing 1:1 support. That is why open source works so well...give away the software, but if they want 1:1 support from the source they pay for it. $$$

Yes we could use more links, but that is not a weakness in our business right now...we have something like a quarter million people using our stuff. If anything, I would love to donate some of this site's links to a few of our affiliate websites. ;)

Imagine having a quarter million+ non-customers. If you are at that scale your problem is not finding a way to get more people at the top of the funnel. At that scale the issue more becomes filtering out the bottom portion of the market without offending the people who might potentially become customers. Assume 5% of the 250,000 people are entitled ___holes. Assume another 5% of them are great people who just happened to have a minor issues in the conversion process (forgot their username, picked the wrong username, registered under the wrong email address, didn't get the welcome email, etc.). Could you imagine handling 25,000+ personal emails a year? Add in paying customers & media inqueries and now your up above 30,000. And that doesn't even include making close to 1,000 posts a month in our member forums and reading the nearly 100,000 posts that have been made there! I love the work I do (and love helping people), but I think this really expresses the sentiment nicely.

I had to add the following to our support feedback section to help make the pollution from non-customers more manageable

Free SEO Tool Issues?
A Polite Warning for Non-customers

We run the best SEO website with the deepest and richest customer engagement. But our resources are finite and our time is valuable.

We Give Away Lots of Value, But Our Company is Small

At the same time we have given away some of our free SEO tools to over 100,000 webmasters. We can not provide 1 to 1 support to an audience that large while still providing the amazing customer experience that our paying customers have grown to appreciate and expect. If you are not a PAYING member then we expect you to read the installation and usage documentation before filing a ticket.

Did You Read The Usage Instructions?

Please note that if you are not a PAYING customer AND your issue is with our free SEO tools then we will NOT respond to ANY requests where you have not read the installation and operating instructions from the associated download pages.
SEO Tool Usage + Configuration Instructions

For your convenience here are links to the official resource centers for SEO 4 Firefox, Rank Checker, the SEO Toolber, & the download page. (The download page requires you set up a free account and login to it).

Need to Uninstall a Tool?

If you would like to uninstall something here are 2 ways to do that.

In his book Here Comes Everybody, Clay Shirky stated something along the lines of popularity being an imbalance between supply and demand of attention. Which is precisely why filtering is so important. If you don't filter out the laggards and freetards you are only holding back your own potential while giving your paying customers an inferior service to what they deserve.

Eventually it gets to where filtering through that noise becomes nearly a full time job. (Lucky for me I work twice as long as just about anyone I know), but anything that makes the sign up process more complex creates more noise (which potentially eats your time + harms your brand while creating 0 income). Plus the above quoted piece from our support section might turn off some potential clients...but it is always a game of filtering...help as many people as you can and hopefully try not to offend many people.

What we are scarce on is time. And that is also what many people new to SEO are scarce on. And what people who are willing to pay for correct information with rich context are short on.

Working through all the hype and misinformation and scammy offers can be a bit overwhelming. To a person who is new to SEO, it is already confusing enough to decide...

• which tools offer real value
• if they should use any software
• if they should use free or paid tools
• what combination of software to use

And if we duplicate our tools for many different browsers then that ends up increasing the maintenance cost WHILE harming conversion rates (because people don't know what they should chose, or why you have so many tools doing the same thing).

The capital and efforts spent creating (and maintaining) a second or third set of duplicative free SEO tools would be better spent creating more paid tool & content for our paying subscribers.

Updated on November 7th, 2013: years later Google decided to block the ability to deliver plugins from outside their store. read some of the below comments from years ago to see what's up next...

Update #2, September 8, 2016: After a developer was arbitrarily banned from the Google extension store, he found there was literally no customer support:

"I don’t think I will ever develop anything for the Google ecosystem again. ... I went on to search for a Developer Support page, but after half an hour of searching I found out that there is none. There is no support whatsoever for the developer besides Google’s own documentation. ... I just want you to think twice before creating a revenue stream based on the Chrome Web Store." - Zeno Popovici

Google typically offers no customer support for their products. the Larry Page philosophy is "the whole idea of customer support was ridiculous." That is their approach unless/until the customer support expense is required by challenge by a strong competitor.

Meanwhile, they are buying up more internet plumbing by buying an API management company, hosting third party content via Google AMP & warning they will soon label HTTP websites as insecure.

I'll pass on creating a Chrome extension. And I'll pass on using Chrome. If you are an actual practicing SEO & have an IQ above 70, you'd skip both as well.

Sorry I haven't made any posts in a while...as we recently took on a big project AND moved hosts on SEO Book (currently on a speedy quad core), and I wanted to have minimal activity around the time of the move.

Google recently announced adding breadcrumbs to the search results for some sites which offer hierarchical breadcrumbs in their navigation. The display looks likeso:

Each breadcrumb is a clickable link to the associated page (which could increase traffic to the target site in some cases), but the initial implementation is a bit sloppy for a couple reasons

• Google initial implementation shows the hierarchy (and places more emphasis on hierarchy) rather than listing the current page...this has a net effect of making the result look less relevant UNLESS the breadcrumbs are really tightly associated with each other and/or the site covers a small tight niche
• when people look at the search results they scan them and match patterns. the lack of showing the current page hurts perceived relevancy, and even when a search keyword is in the breadcrumb it is not highlighted

As an example of how far astray the above 2 points can go, check out the following listing for Joost's great Wordpress SEO guide.

While seeing the site structure might be nice...the exact reason people are using search is because they don't want to have to drill down through someone's site structure...they want the most relevant thing shown in the search results.

So did Google do this for relevancy? It is hard to believe they did given that they don't list the current page and employ no bolding.

Perhaps they want to make the results harder to scrape? Or they wanted to give advertisers even more options with the ads (many new ad formats hit the organic search results first)? Or maybe, as John Andrews mentioned, "Google would LOVE to eliminate the URL altogether. Just another try..."

Do I recommend using breadcrumbs? Historically I have, but if Google does not fix the above issues it will likely end up costing publishers some perceived relevancy, and in some cases I might not recommend using them except for on small sites or those with tight and descriptive breadcrumb structures. And on larger sites they might make more sense on category listing pages rather than on item detail pages.

Google announced product listing ads today, a cost-per-action ad program that shows images in the search results:

Product Listing Ads is part of our effort to simplify the advertising process for merchants with large product inventories. Some of the key features of Product Listing Ads include:

• Pay only for results: Product Listing Ads are charged on a cost-per-action (CPA) basis, which means that you only pay when a user clicks on your ad and completes a purchase on your site. Because Product Listing Ads is charged on a CPA basis, it offers a risk-free way for you to reach a larger audience on Google.com.
• List your entire inventory: Product Listing Ads requires no keywords or additional ad text. Whenever a user enters a search query relevant to an item in your Google Merchant Center account, Google will automatically show the most relevant products along with the associated image, price and product name. Product Listing Ads makes it easy for you to promote your entire product inventory on Google.com.

At this time, Product Listing Ads is still a beta feature and is only available to a limited number of retail advertisers. Over time, we'll increase the number of users who see Product Listing Ads as well as the number of advertisers able to participate.

Along with this launch, Google is also pushing product search harder in the organic search results. If you look back at our last post, it is not beyond the realm of possibilities that those product listing ads and product search could eventually blend (to some degree) and appear as part of the AdWords ads above the organic search results.

Given that only launched today, the current impact on the search results of the new product ads is quite noticeable.

The big problem with this vertical data is that it is not as fuzzy as general search is...so none of the above products are the popular video game. But in time Google will collect lots of click data and use it to help determine if they should broaden or narrow the exposure for a particular product, product class, or vendor. And if they are collecting conversion data on the back end it makes it that much easier to measure customer satisfaction - just look at what adds the most money to Google's bank account.

In a recent interview Marissa Mayer stated that universal search results appear on about 25% of search results pages, and they would like to keep increasing that number:

When we launched [universal search], it was showing in about one in 25 queries. Today, it shows in about 25 percent of queries. And we think there are probably times when those auxiliary [file] formats could actually help, and we aren't triggering them on our results page. That's something we need to continue to strive to do.

As Google collects that data they can expand this stuff at will. It becomes a simple game of math. And even while charging CPA Google will still be able to increase yields because there will always be some new funded project, ambitious brand manager, or CEO looking to increase stock volatility to drive up share price to where "the company" wants to buy customers without profit to increase marketshare. Some non-sense metrics beyond lifetime customer value will be used to justify the expenses, because it is so easy to do nothing and let Google do all the work - even though that strategy yields no long-term competitive advantage.

Matt Cutts said that Google will wait on caffeine (though pieces of it might already be implemented), but I seriously doubt that any short-term changes to the search results under caffeine would present anywhere near as big of a concern to webmasters as Google becoming (roughly the equivalent of) an affiliate in ecommerce, local, and lead generation - while using their search results to aggressively push into market leadership roles in those new markets.

Question: Who cares where they rank algorithmically if the algorithmic #1 result is below the fold?
Answer: Nobody!

And yet for certain search types that is the world we are increasingly living in.

I am not sure how sloppy and aggressive searchers (and competitors) will let Google get with pushing verticals...but I am betting that the limit is probably even worse than the above. And remember that it can get far more aggressive while not appearing so to the end user. As Google collects data they will make the vertical insertions more relevant. And each time searchers see search results with more banner-like junk in them, they are being conditioned to expect more of it in the future.

Google realizes that if they want to keep increasing profits from search they have to drive down the organic search results with either

• more ad units in different formats
• other filler (like Youtube)

Increasingly these types of shifts in the search results will drive affiliate SEOs (or at least the ones that care about product quality and customer satisfaction and long-term profit margins) to create their own products & services rather than marketing someone else's. If you own the product you have the fattest margins and can partner directly with Google for distribution, rather than fighting for scraps of scraps as the organic search results keep disappearing.

The upside for searchers (and publishers) is that as Google aggressively pushes to become a back-door algorithmically driven portal it leaves a market opening for Blekko and other search players which would be happy to make just a few billion here or there...the same hole AltaVista and Yahoo! left for Google. :D

The Free Credit Report ads have caused such user confusion in the marketplace that the government has felt the need to create a spoof site with $100,000 worth of amateur video to mock Free Credit Report.com. And yet even if you search for the official website [Annual Credit Report] to this very day Google is cashing in showing 3 PPC ads ABOVE the organic search results for that NAVIGATIONAL search query...sorta like how they were cashing in on eBay's brand recently.

For [Annual Credit Report] the government has stepped in and said what is right for the consumer. But the Google AdWords team has different ideas. "Increasing user choice" means the official site at best ranks #4.

It doesn't matter if you are a white knight SEO. This free credit report link doesn't matter if Google is going to put scammy AdWords ads at the top of the search results where most searchers think those are the most important results.

Google is cashing in on searcher ignorance and misplaced trust, at least while they can - just like other scammers pushing reverse billing fraud would do.

Search competition is important, because without it, consumers lose out on choice. You can see the absurdity of Google's position when they claimed sitelinks on AdWords ads increase user choice. Giving the most dominant players in any market more share of voice only aims to consolidate the marketplace further. If they wanted to increase user choice they would show more result diversity on the page and/or more search results on the page, not just show you more from a big spending market leader.

When you think about Google moving into lead generation and becoming an affiliate play you can see they have massive upside potential. Why? They are the default way most people search the web. So even if someone is searching on a brand and making a navigational search, Google still gets a bite on the apple and shows up as the source of conversion. Don't pay Google their tithing? Too bad, they will sell your brand to leading competitors.

And they are aiming to extend out with this strategy. Not only did the Google Chrome browser replace the address bar with a search box, but Google has been pulling back on data they put in some search results to drive a second click onto other Google properties.

Here is my favorite local Indian restaurant on Google

Up until this past week that listing had a phone number on it. Now it doesn't. I am required to make 1 more click so Google can show their large local search marketplace and their dominance over local/maps search.

In the short run Google makes it easy to embed themselves in your business. Analytics and testing are free. They provide services at a loss to gather data and destroy marketplace competition - exerting their monopoly power without being called a monopoly. Cell phone providers get the Android operating system for less than free. Ecommerce players get a new commerce site search option. Content players get an enhanced Friend Connect. In the short run they make life easier and margins thicker. But after competition is removed from the marketplace look for Google to claw back on partners - just like they did to LendingTree, domainers, and anyone with a brand or a local business listing.

BEWARE: Information wants to be free. Attention wants to be monetized. After net-neutrality will we need a Google neutrality?

I have been meaning to interview Shoemoney for a while now, and after the most recent Elite Retreat we decided to do just that.

I read a recent newsletter you put out about hitting rock bottom and remembering that as a key piece of 1.) what helped you grow 2.) what helped you sustain that growth. How many successful internet marketers do you know who have similar stories? How many do you know who became successful without first having hit rock bottom?

There was a couple key things in helping me grow.

I think a big key in growing was investing in myself - instead of wasting money on cars or excessive crap I did not need I purchased a lot of books and learning material. I also went to a lot of conferences to learn more about the industry. The only thing I was certain I could count on in life is that everything changes fast and what i was doing today was not going to work for very long. I still do a lot of this today and it helps me grow. Thats why you see me attend so many events a year.

I also surrounded myself with successful people. If you look around your circle of friends and you are the most successful... its time to change your friends.

Sustaining growth for me was leveraging my current position into bigger and better things. I started with 1 website in 2002ish that grew to be the biggest mobile community on the internet and learned how to monetize it. I shared my journey on a blog and built a pretty authoritative site in the "making money online" arena. I leveraged that into starting my own advertising network and growing it until we sold it. That got a lot of really big companies attention and they wanted to invest in us. I have leveraged lots of things to build a strong brand which we are leveraging into other things. Always be leveraging your position - thats the key to sustaining growth!

I think about every successful internet marketer has the same story. They usually start by hitting it big on a website or affiliate offer then leverage their position. I meet new "over night millionaires" all the time. But rarely do any of them leverage their position and go on to do anything else. Most are one hit wonders.

I think hitting rock bottom is a common thing you find with the people that leverage their position. They know what it feels like to have nothing and be hungry and they always want more.

I see you as one of the few internet marketers who routinely gets coverage in the likes of TechCrunch and other areas outside of our little bubble. And you were able to get Seth Godin to come speak at Elite Retreat. What are some of the keys that helped lead to that broad-based opportunity?

I have a interesting relationship with Mike Arrington (techcrunch owner). I used to mention him from time to time in blog posts and even poked fun at this name once saying it sounded like a-ringtone. I was stunned the first time I was mentioned on his site Techcrunch. I think it was the whole mybloglog fiasco. I have been to Mike Arrington's house a couple times to meet with his staff about some ideas I had for Techcrunch but did not even say hi to Mike. Then shortly after leaving Mike would email me like "what the hell why didnt you say hi". I dunno I am just not that guy. He looked busy and know he gets harassed a lot. I have a ton of respect for him... I mean he doesnt just own the most read blog on the internet... he owns the most read publication period.

In the end its all about connections and networking. Some of the Techcrunch staff writers were readers of shoemoney.com and would comment on my stuff every once in a while. They even syndicated some of my youtube content.

I was introduced originally to Seth Godin by Darin Rowse (problogger). Over the years Seth has been very awesome to me and it was truly a dream to have him speak at the Elite Retreat conference last month.

How much of your work day goes into doing the public stuff vs behind the scenes business development stuff vs working on conversion optimization vs working on new ideas?

I LOVE the public stuff. One of the hardest things in running my own business out of my house when I started was the lack of social interaction. I am a very social person and love to meet people. Biz dev has always somewhat naturally happened for me (as I am sure for you also Aaron). As you do things people notice and they want to be apart of what you are doing. As far as a split goes I would say it varies but I spend 10% of the time maintaining what I have 10% of the time on misc stuff and 80% of the time trying to make it grow.

You are very good at doing linkbait stuff to cause publicity, but doing it in a way that does not harm your credibility much. What are some of the secrets to doing that?

This is a great question. I am always amazed at how people say I am "linkbaiting". Here is the deal.... I have a blog... which contains my thoughts and ideas... and I am a pretty emotional and sometimes volatile person who is not afraid to express myself publicly. Everything I post is from my experiences.

The most linked page on my site is my check from Google for 133k for 1 month in sept 2005. Is that link bait?

The 2nd most linked page on my site is about how I used to be 400lbs and all the strugles that came with that. Is that link bait?

the 3rd most linked page on my site is about my addiction to MMO games like world of warcraft. Is that link bait?

I can tell you on the last 2 I was so super nervous about posting them I almost didn't.

I can only think of 1 time I intentionally did a linkbait post asking if George Bush was a great president or greatest president ever? Then I followed up 1 hour later with the amazing results.

I am not a news site trying to "break a story".

So how do I get a lot of links and maintain credibility.... man I dunno. I can barely complete a sentence yet I get credited for being a literary genius at times...

And, like the above question, you are very good at monetizing the audience of your website, but doing it in a way that does not harm your credibility much. How is that other people get flamed for monetizing every so slightly, but you are able to do it so aggressively without much blowback? Is it your brand positioning? Or?

I make no bones about who I am or what I do. I am not a starving artist. I am a capitalist pig. I am an affiliate marketer. People follow my blog because of my ability not only monetize but to do it in ways never before done. It is VERY challenging to monetize a audience who studies ways to make money on line. Its like selling ice to eskimoes or lap dances to strippers.

You are known in part for that AdSense check. If you were just starting out today would AdSense still be part of your strategy?

Absolutely. AdSense is a great place to start in monetizing a website. Its how I started. Its incredibly stupidly simple to implement and really for all the services Google provides they take a very small cut of the money you make. I still monetize some of our stuff with AdSense but its more of a last ditch effort to monetize.

If you got on the web today with nothing where would you start? Would you first try to create a distribution channel, start with an offer that worked, etc.?

I get that question a lot... The truth of the matter is I have no clue. I almost would like to be put in that position to see. It would be an interesting experiment to take on a new identity with zero money or reputation and try to make... say 5k in the first month without using any previous contacts or connections or properties. I would like to say I could easily do it. But only one way to find out.

I would create a lot of wordpress/blogger accounts as affiliate sites for various products and try to get some sales via free traffic. Then take that money and buy traffic to those sites.

I seriously would love a challenge like this if we could ever make it work.

What books would you suggest someone new to the web read right away? What books have been most important in helping to shape your success?

I highly recommend everything Seth Godin writes. The Dip helped me more then any other book I have ever read. All marketers are liars helped me understand why my blog was so successful (its a great story at the end of the day if you look at where I started to where I am now). Purple Cow taught me the value of being #1 in your industry and separating yourself from the pack.

I also recommend the 4 hour work week by tim ferris. Even though its 99% fluffy crap that book has 10 excellent takeaways for time management that can help anyone.

One of the biggest problem for creative entrepreneurs is spreading too thin working on too many projects. How do you prioritize opportunities?

My wife has a saying - Prioritize the potentially profitable projects. That is exactly what we do. I am running 6 companies here going on 20 employees. I dont have the luxory of working on "fun" projects. I am not working from my basement in my underwear with zero overhead anymore. I have to make thousands of dollars a day just to break even.

You created a Huskers quiz where people who scored high enough "won" a trial of NetFlix. What made you think of that strategy? How often do you come up with such ideas? How do you test out such ideas?

Really that is one of my hobbies. I love to find little stuff that can make a couple hundred dollars a day. Its not something I would devote company resources to but its fun to play around.

In the case of the husker football quiz it seemed pretty simple. In Nebraska all we have is the cornhuskers and people are die hard fans always debating stupid facts about former players. So making a site where people could test their knowledge to "win" something just made sense. Most people never know they can get a free subscription just by going to the site or that I get $30 if they sign up.

Affiliate marketing is a art. Its not a science. Its all about creativity and pushing boundaries.

Many affiliate networks are known for spying on their affiliates and cloning their accounts. How do you prevent that from happening?

There is nothing you can do to prevent it. I have seen it happen with my accounts a lot... the funny thing is they still can't do what I do.... even with all the data right in front of their face. I have had affiliate managers tell me they cloned my exact keyword campaign on Google adwords with same adcopy and everything and got 1/2 the earnings per click.

In the affiliate game lots of people clone each other's work, causing returns to race toward 0. What do you differently that allows you to see success after success with affiliate marketing?

Great follow up and glad you asked it since I almost went into this in the previous question.

First and formost testing. We spend 10-30k a day on ppc networks (and have for a long time). This testing gives you an education that you need to make it work. I can honestly give you my exact landing page and keywords/adcopy for something that is working for me right now and guarentee you can't make it work. You don't know what targeting we are doing... what kind of day parting... etc etc. Its not like it was 7 years ago.

This is why a lot of people are so bitter on forums. They spent a full day copying everybody elses shit and cant make it work so they whine. They dont want to actually do any real work testing stuff on their own or being creative.

Its the same reason why I could not give you my position as CEO/CMO for ShoeMoney Media Group, inc and think you could keep the company nearly as profitable even though you have access to everything I did.

What do you feel the biggest risks to your business are? What keeps you up at night?

I don't feel my business has any risks right now. We are very diversified. Between our web properties, subscription income, affiliate income, and new projects about to launch we have never been so stable. I also have put away enough money that our accountant says my wife and I could never work again and live the exact same life style. Most people would be very satisfied with that.

I say bullshit. I know it can all be gone tomorrow. Ive seen it happen to some good people.

I believe that a lot of blogs have been watered down over the past few years as a.) competition has increased and b.) the benefits of sharing information publicly (with people who will likely compete against us) has decreased. Based on that thought, here are a couple questions...

Do you see the recent rise of membership websites as being a cyclical trend until the next wave of people fighting for popularity start gaining it, or more of a longterm trend as free ad-based business models become less profitable due to a glut of inventory?

In general I see a lot of new fly by night people talking in theories and crap with no experience. They write huge long lengthy posts but don't ever have any numbers to back up what they are saying.

They study patents filled by companies and what that could possibly mean and all that stuff while guys like me and you are still in the trenches actually doing stuff and sharing our experiences a long the way.

The ShoeMoney answer is going to probably come off very egotistical but whatever. I do not believe we have any competition for what we do. In everything I have ever done whether it was build the largest mobile community, start my own conferences, build an advertising company, or writing a blog being very transparent about exactly what I do, I feel I have ZERO competition. I do my damnest to be #1 at whatever we do and we have a pretty good track record for achieving that goal. Shoemoney.com in 2009 will make 400% more then it did in 2007 when we first accepted advertising. We get over 50 inquiries a day for our advertising rates & we are sold out for all spots until Jan 2010. The most interesting part is the shoemoney.com blog is not a very significant portion of our company income. It just happened.

What blogs (and other websites) do you still find yourself reading religiously?

here I will give you exactly what is on my iPhone right now:

Thesuperficial.com
techcrunch.com
seobook.com
johnchow.com
problogger.net
jensense.com
seoblackhat.com
mattcutts.com
perezhilton.com
tmz.com
buddytv.com (various sections).

As you can see its a decent mix of internet marketing/seo and celebrity gossip ;)

Thanks for the interview!

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Thanks for the great answers Jeremy. To learn more about Shoemoney, check out his blog. And if you want some great local SEM info, affiliate marketing info, and SEM tools you might want to give his tools project a try, as he currently has trials available for under $10!