Watch Out Europe Here I Come!

Well the big date is finally approaching! Ash scene has finally chilled out and barring any other unforeseen natural disasters I’ll be off to Europe in a couple days. I’m extremely excited to say the least as my best buddy and I have been planning this trip for over 18 months now. This is my first time going to Europe and I just can’t wait to experience a wider breadth of cultures and environments and really expose myself to all that these cities and countries have to offer.

At the same time as I prepare myself for a once in a lifetime opportunity I just want to take a few minutes to reflect on the past couple years and highlight some personal successes as well as some work accomplishments. I was originally planning to really pimp this post out but due to time constraints just going to lay it out there:

- Last month had the privilege to speak at SMX about Google Sitelinks (on the organic side of course). Was a really nice way to cap off my two year anniversary in the industry that I’ve come to know and love so was really cool to be speaking alongside the names of many of the top dogs in the internet marketing scene. It actually went really well and was really pleased with my first shot at public speaking; hopefully I get some more opportunities in the future.

- Couple months ago took part in a group interview on Search Engine Land featuring 30 of the top link builders out there. This was probably the coolest for me as I literally have read a very high percentage of all of these SEO/link building experts work that has been published and truly respect their work in the industry. So to be included alongside all of them was really awesome as I wrote about earlier in a previous post. Here are the three parts of the group interview:

http://searchengineland.com/30-link-builders-discuss-backlink-analysis-for-campaign-design-part-1-35275

http://searchengineland.com/71-technical-factors-for-backlink-analysis-from-30-link-building-experts-part-2-37240

http://searchengineland.com/backlink-analysis-20-uses-beyond-link-building-part-3-of-3-39141

- I’ve also written over a dozen posts since I started for Search Engine People, and am quite proud of them and think they really offer a lot of value; especially for beginners starting out in the industry. Just want to record them all for historic purposes so here they all are. A few of them have even been featured on some of the top sites on the industry including MediaPost, Search Engine Land, Search Engine Journal and a couple of others.

- The first post I ever wrote!

http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/the-art-of-eluding-google-is-it-even-possible.html

- Two part series on search queries for link building (still holds true today!):

http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/the-power-of-search-queries-for-link-building-the-basics-and-beyond-part-1.html

http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/the-power-of-search-queries-for-link-building-the-basics-and-beyond-part-2.html

- One of my favourite posts of all time and I still use these same core tools ’till this very today and start all my SEO training with these essential tools (and my SEO spheel which I’ve pretty much gotten down to perfection these days):

http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/cool-tools-firefox-extensions-for-seo-enthusiasts.html

- Massive series on paid directories within link building and SEO:

http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/the-history-of-paid-directories.html

http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/link-building-101-the-power-of-directories.html

http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/link-building-101-how-to-evaluate-the-power-of-directories.html

http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/link-building-101-the-power-of-directories-part-3.html

http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/top-25-most-powerful-web-directories-list.html

- Another one of my all time favourite posts:

http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/identify-nofollow-juiceless-links-guide.html

- From last year when I live blogged SES for Search Engine People:

http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/signals-what-relevancy-indicators-are-search-engineers-watching-for-today-ses-toronto-day-1.html

http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/beyond-linkbait-getting-authoritative-online-mentions-ses-toronto-day-1.html

http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/the-ins-and-outs-of-twitter-ses-toronto-day-1.html

http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/information-architecture-site-performance-tuning-seo-ses-toronto-day-2.html

http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/tool-time-the-search-marketers-free-to-cheap-goodie-bag-ses-toronto-day-2.html

- And a two part series I wrote about recently regarding tips for crawlability and indexability:

http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/crawlability-enhancers-tips-for-deep-crawling-success.html

http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/3-indexability-tips-maintaining-indexed-pages.html

I believe that’s all the posts although to be honest not 100% sure, either way at least most of them are now documented here.

-My drumming has improved dramatically! Got a pretty killer drumset these days, at least my cymbals and snare drum are kickass; actual drums are pretty shwag but ah well, I’ll upgrade one day. When I get back from Europe going to try and start posting some clips of me rocking out in an attempt to get my name out there a bit and hopefully start gigging again in the TO music scene; been too long since I rocked out onstage.

- On a personal level, my health has improved dramatically and really looking forward to getting back from Europe to take this area of my life to the next level and finally be pain free once and for all! Old hockey/rugby injuries plus a shitload of time in front of a computer aren’t a good combination let’s just leave it at that. But after hours and hours of health professionals working on me (physio, chiro, naturo, osteo, massage, and more – I’m not kidding) I’m pretty much a little health expert on my own so now know what it takes to be pain free so excited about that and think the nice 7 week vacation will definitely help me out

That’s what I’m most looking forward to is just to refresh myself both mentally and physically and really let loose and have the time of my life in Europe. So on that note, should probably start packing sooner or later so be back in a couple months to hopefully post at a more consistent rate but happy I got this one off my shoulders before I left; wasn’t what I originally planned for but it will do, at least it’s out there now.

I’m out of here; Watch out Europe Here I Come! PEACE!