The deadline for submitting your SEM Scholarship Contest entry was on Friday. It appears a lot of you were holding out on me, with a flood of entries arriving in my inbox late Friday afternoon.
The plan is to upload the entries, in no particular order, over the next four days. Once the entry is uploaded, the clock starts, and they have 4 weeks to generate attention and qualify as one of five finalists.
Here are today’s entries: The fi

By Jeff Horsager.
Testing is critical to the success of any marketing campaign. Testing provides actionable data that translates into increased ROI. It is results oriented and provides insights that allow you to improve any marketing campaign in ways that are measurable. Split Testing and Multivariate Testing Basic testing of ad campaign elements (such as ad copy) is often done through what is known as split or a/b testing. Split testing is

By Dustin Woodard.
Link baiting is all the buzz these days in the SEO industry. It’s really nothing new, people have been baiting for years. In fact, I’d say 98% of us would admit to baiting from time to time—and the other 2% are lying. What does it take to be a master baiter? Besides hands and a keyboard, a master baiter should have a creative mind, marketing skills and, obviously, be web savvy. I also believe link baiting should

1.) Don’t underestimate the intelligence of your viewers.
It is not an uncommon mistake for many marketers, both on and offline, to inaccurately assess the intelligence of their target audience.  While it seems that bad estimations run in both directions,  it is a grave error to assume you know more about your visitors than you actually do — more than anything, you must not assume your visitors are stupid.  Its easy to

By CK Chung (aka Kid Disco).
What if I was to tell you that you could cut the amount of time spent on a certain element of SEO by half and, at the same time, double your production for it. Is that something you might be interested in?
If so… read on, grasshopper. SEOs will generally kick-off an optimization campaign by examining analytics, performing keyword research, checking on-page elements, analyzing links, and so on and so forth. How

If you’ve not yet submitted your entry for our second SEM Scholarship Contest, you’d better get a move on. We’ve had some submissions, but no where near as many as the last contest, so your odds of being one of the five finalists are very favorable!
Remember you have until 9pm ET April 6th (tomorrow) to submit your entry and secure your chance to win the $10,000 prize package!
Your article can be as few as 400 words, s

Thanks to all of you who sent in an idea to promote Go Visit Hawaii.
We had a great response, each of you provided some valuable food for thought. A lot of suggestions revolved around a contest of some kind. As these were very similar - and as contests are something I already have a grasp on - I thought I’d go with an interesting idea, that didn’t involve an out-of-pocket expense.
So, Mahalo to Rob Williams for this interesting idea

How would you like a chance to win an iPod for simply sharing your advice for promoting a blog? Interested? Read on!
Mrs. Andy Beal has gotten the blogging bug and has dived head-first into the blogosphere. Her Go Visit Hawaii blog covers Hawaii vacation news and promises to keep readers updated on the latest Hawaiian travel deals and adventures.
So, I have a few ideas to kick-start her blog traffic, but would love to hear what id

Google Japan is giving away a 4GB iPod nano (with a Google logo) away! Well, you don’t just get it, you will have to compete with hundreds. Not sure if you need to be living in Japan, but I am sure that you will need to know Japanese to answer their questions.
Interested? Give it a try.
related: Want an Video iPod? - they are addicted to giving away iPods

How’s your entry to our SEM Scholarship contest coming along?
This Friday is the deadline for entries, so if you’ve not yet put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard), here are some things to consider.
  A strong title is key! If you take a look at those that did well last year, you’ll see that strong titles played an important part in their popularity.
Social media is a subject that is hot in search marketing right now. T

We’re already starting to see entries come in for the second SEM Scholarship Contest, which is awesome considering the deadline is not until April 6th.
The prize package is already worth more than $10,000, but it’s about to get another considerable addition.
The grand prize winner will now receive a full pass to the fall session of SEO Class! The two-day seminar is restricted to just 50 participants and provides hands-on, one on one a

YouTube has announced the winners of the YouTube 2007 Video Award. The winners of the Awards were chosen in a democratic way - by the YouTube users (I can’t guarantee that no one cheated). And the award goes to: Most Creative - Here It Goes Again by OKGo
Best Comedy - Smosh Short 2: Stranded by Smosh
Best Commentary - Hotness Prevails by thewinekone
Best Series - Ask A Ninja by digitalfilmmaker
Best Music Video - Say It’s Possible b

It’s back!
After the phenomenal success of last year’s contest, the Marketing Pilgrim SEM Scholarship Contest is back and this time it’s bigger, better and badder than before!
Not only will the winner of the contest have a chance to kick-start their reputation as one of the world’s leading search marketers, but they’ll win a prize package worth over $10,000!!!
Yep, we have a fantastic prize list this year. Not only d

** Congratulations to Rhea, who was chosen at random to win her choice of either a Zune or iPod. Rhea, please email me for details on your prize and thanks to all that entered! **
…going to be announced at 4pm EDT today.
We’ve already picked our random winner and I’ll post that person’s name and MyBlogLog profile on this post at 4pm today.

Time is running out to join our MyBlogLog community and be entered to win a free iPod or Zune mp3 player.
Sometime before Feb 16th - which means this week - I’ll randomly select one lucky member of the Marketing Pilgrim MyBlogLog community to win the prize.
And, if you’ve already blogged this contest, you win an additional prize.
Full details here.

Despite all of the grief that came my way yesterday, the MyBlogLog contest is still alive and well.
All you need to do is join our MyBlogLog community and you’ll automatically be entered to win a Microsoft Zune - or if you hate the idea of owning anything MSFT, we’ll send you an iPod instead

After I announced I’d be giving away a free Zune MP3 player to one lucky member of Marketing Pilgrim’s MyBlogLog community, Shoemoney decided he’d throw down the gauntlet.
His challenge? That sex still sells and people who join MyBlogLog are essentially only one step above MySpace users (my words, not his), and would rather see a photo of an attractive girl in a tight top, than win a Zune.
It’s an interesting challenge, and while I’m more interested in building community members than beating Jeremy, it will be fun to see who “wins” this social experiment.
So, in the meantime, I’ll ask you

So, last month we gave away an iPod just for reading our RSS feed. The lucky winner simply spotted a secret message and took the prize. This contest is even easier!
Step 1 - Join Marketing Pilgrim’s MyBlogLog community.
Step 2 - Er…that’s it. We’ll pick one random member sometime before Feb 16th.
Easy enough? All we want you to do is join our MyBlogLog community and you’ll be entered to win a “shiny” (that’s for you Lisa!) new Microsoft

Congratulations to Kevin Henney who wins an iPod Shuffle for spotting our secret RSS-only message last Thursday.
Thanks to all of you who subscribed to the Marketing Pilgrim feed. We hope you’ll keep your subscription due to the great content, but just in case you were about to hit the “unsubscribe” button, you’ll be pleased to know we’ll be running another contest in the New Year.

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I must admit, putting together the Marketing Pilgrim SEM Scholarship contest was a lot of fun, hard work too, but mostly fun. There’s a lot of talented up and comers out there, and I believe many who entered the contest will become more familiar names in 2007.
During dinner at SES Chicago, David Temple suggested it would be good to hear from each entrant and see what they learned from their efforts to win

If you’ve not already subscribed to our RSS feed, now would be a good time, as the deadline for drawing is this Friday. We’ve not yet posted the secret message - available only to RSS subscribers - that will see one lucky winner receive an iPod or possibly a Zune.
Full details of the contest can be found here.
Here’s that feed again - http://feeds.feedburner.com/marketing-pilgrim
The hidden message could come at any time before Friday!
P.S

If you’ve not already subscribed to our RSS feed, now would be a good time. We’ve not yet posted the secret message - available only to RSS subscribers - that will see one lucky winner receive an iPod or possibly a Zune.
Full details of the contest can be found here.
Here’s that feed again - http://feeds.feedburner.com/marketing-pilgrim