Nina had a well attended presentation yesterday, and she got some great feedback on her presentation. The session after that was mine, together with my buddy Mediadonis and Thomas Promny. It was a pretty good session, although I think my presentation was a bit too high level for some people... Here are the slides:

This morning's session was again with "der Mediadonis" and Volker Ballueder of WebCertain. This session was pretty cool with some great conversation about whether companies should be blogging or not. I talked about improving the conversation on your blog, and here are the slides for that containing 10 steps to improve the conversation on your blog:

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We now have a nice conference day ahead of us, where my Onetomarket colleague Nina is going to be speaking in public for the first time, after which we'll go "up on the roof" for Webmaster's on the Roof tonight, and make more fun and new friends!

In Munich for SMX: jetzt geht’s loss! is a post by Joost de Valk on Yoast - Tweaking Websites.A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on WordPress hosting!

First off: RIMC 2008, I'll be speaking there together with Hubert Diemel from Wegener, not too big of a conference, but it should be good fun and quality presentations with speakers like my friends Kristján Már Hauksson from Nordic e-Marketing, Dennis Mortensen from IndexTools and Dixon Jones from Receptional.

After that, it's on to SMX Munich, where I'll be speaking in the SEO & blogging session, together with my good pal Marcus!

Let me know if you'll be at either one of the conferences, so we can have a beer!

Conference Agenda 1st quarter 2008 is a post by Joost de Valk on Yoast - Tweaking Websites.A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on WordPress hosting!

SEOdays
My year started as a normal SEO, but got kicked in to high gear when I went on a trip to SEOdays, a Search Engine Optimisation conference organized by Jennifer Slegg and Dave Naylor. I loved every single minute of it, sharing tips and tricks with other, mostly English, SEO's. I made some new friends there, most importantly Dave himself. We started chatting on IM after the conference, and have been doing that on a regular basis since. At that time, hardly anybody had noticed me in the SEO world yet, but that would soon change...

SEOmoz ranking factors
Just a few weeks before I actually went to SEOdays, Rand invited me to join in the SEOmoz ranking factors research, which was released on the 3rd of april. At that point, people started noticing me and my blog, and I got in contact with more and more internationally renowned SEO's, learning from them and sharing with them.

WordPress plugins
In february, I had released my first WordPress plugin ever, a simple contact form with some added benefits, and over the year, I've been writing more and more WordPress plugins, getting great feedback from quite a few great people.

Google Analytics
Due to my work at Onetomarket, I got involved with and interested in Google Analytics more and more, I wrote a WordPress plugin, and published some hacks. This instigated some contacts from Avinash Kaushik and Justin Cutroni, and both of them have been inspiring my Analytics work greatly since.

A4UExpo and SMX Stockholm
In October, I went to two conferences, A4UExpo in London, and SMX Stockholm. There was a difference though with the SEOdays conference... These conferences were quite a bit bigger, and I went there as... a speaker. To be honest, I'd said to my colleague Roy half way through the year, that I wanted to speak on an international SEO conference within a year, at that time thinking that that was a tough goal to set. It turned out that it was a lot easier than I expected.

I had some great fun at both conferences. In London, I met up with loads of cool people: Marcus Tandler, Kris Jones and Aaron Baker from Pepperjam Search, my good friends from Conversion-Rate-Experts Karl and Ben, Jason Duke, Kevin Ryan, Dixon Jones and loads and loads more. This made the conference into much more than I could have ever imagined it to be... (and ow yeah, the Q&A session I was in was a blast)

In Stockholm I was in a few more sessions, and I finally got the chance to meet Rand Fishkin face to face, along with quite a few other nice blokes whom I made friends with, like Mel Carson and Mikkel deMib Svendsen. That conference too was great, and it seemed Chris Sherman, the conference host, thought I did a good job too, as I've already been invited to come speak at SMX Munich next year too.

CSS3.info
My other blog, css3.info, which has nothing to do with search and a LOT to do with web standards, grew immensely too this year. For most of that I have to thank Peter Gasston and David Storey, both now regular writers on that blog. We've now started officially partnering with the W3 to aid in the further development of CSS, and we've had the chance to interview loads of "big names" in the CSS world last year.

This blog
Well, need I say more than this:

Onetomarket
Though this was the year my first teacher into the SEO world, Remco Westerik, left Onetomarket, many, many exciting things have happened there. Our SEO team grew into what I now sincerely believe to be the best SEO team in the Netherlands, with great colleagues, new and old, keeping me focussed at all times. Working with clients like KLM, Wegener, Amadeus, Emagister, BookIt and many others is a privilege, and I really, really enjoyed it this year.

Our Spanish offices grew exponentially this year, and I've been there a few times and had numerous contacts with colleagues there, and I can honestly say that these guys have come up to our standards in a speed I would not have expected. It's great to be working in a multinational team with so many great people.

Conclusion
In all, I can say that 2007 was a wonderful year, and that my expectations for 2008 are even higher. I wish you all the very, very best for 2008, in your business life's but also in your personal life. I hope to see a lot of you, both in the real world and on this blog!

All that rests me now is tag another person to talk about his 2007 business highlights, and there's one person who immediately came to mind, as he has reached a lot this year, both with his blog and with the Dutch section of the IAB: Marco Derksen. But well, it turns out he already took part in this blog tag game... Sigh :)

So, I need to pick someone else, and the next guy I'd love to here of is Jorg Ruis, of Weekendje Weg.nl, so Jorg, take it away!

My 2007 business highlights is a post by Joost de Valk on Yoast - Tweaking Websites.A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on WordPress hosting!

• Yesterday morning, the session on what's new with the algorithm with Rand, Mikkel deMib and myself, was really great, some nice discussion about paid links and PageRank (sigh...), and loads of other nice stuff.
• Last night, eating with Mikkel, Mel Carson and lots of other nice people, and after that drinking a lot with these guys and the great guys from Nordic eMarketing who were singing some nice Icelandic songs as well.
• Today: two sessions which I spoke on, which both were very nice, though the Scandinavians don't ask a lot of questions... Seriously: if you go to a conference, ask questions, discuss, that way you can learn loads more!
• Lunch, in which I had some great discussion with a few folks, including Shane Whaley from booking.com, which was really good!
• A discussion with Adam Lasnik from Google, how we should get clients who've been doing black- greyhat stuff back into the index when they really want to go clean and came to us to do that.

In other words: great fun!

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I'm just now finishing up my presentations for the two tracks I'm presenting in on thursday, and they'll be fun I think. The thing I'm looking forward to the most is the "What's new with the algorithm?" panel I'm speaking on together with Rand, Vanessa and Mikkel, I'm very curious as to what will come up.

If you're going to be at SMX, and would like to have a beer, drop me an email. I'll be there starting this afternoon until friday morning.

Next stop: SMX Stockholm is a post by Joost de Valk on Yoast - Tweaking Websites.A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on WordPress hosting!

We'll be discussing just about everything the public wants us to, and more! It's going to be loads of fun, and the good part is that I don't have to prep a presentation :)

The week after that, I'll be at SMX Stockholm, where I'll be speaking on two tracks and one panel. At the panel I'll be the rookie, as I'll be on it with Rand Fishkin, Vanessa Fox and Mikkel de Mib, and Chris Sherman will be moderating. We'll be talking about "what's new with the algorithm", since that's loads of stuff, anything could happen. No presentation to prepare for this one either, I have to for the two tracks though: Global Search Marketing Tactics and Essential Tools for Search Marketers. Both subjects I think I can add a bit of value on.

Looking forward to going to these two conferences, and maybe I'll meet you at either one of them?

Conference schedule is a post by Joost de Valk on Yoast - Tweaking Websites.A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on WordPress hosting!