In his first appearance at the conference, Beal reflected on his “dumbass decision” to give over the keys to Search Engine Lowdown, and jokingly asked the audience at his talk to change their links from SEL to his new Marketing Pilgrim site.

Although Jeremy Zawodny had said the first result for “Andy Beal” in Google would be “Andy Beal Drinks Google PR Kool-Aid?”, it actually came up fifth. Beal probably won’t be real thrilled that SEL’s web site is the first result in the Google SERP, but from the notes iEntry CEO Rich Ord sent along from PubCon, Beal seems to have moved along.

Part of that move sees him presiding over Marketing Pilgrim, as well as his duties as president and CEO of Fortune Interactive. It’s safe to say he’s qualified to talk about SEO and search-related topics.

At PubCon, Beal talked about blogging and publishing. His experience has led Beal to launch a blog marketing service. That experience came from writing extensively, and networking with other industry pros who are also bloggers; he calls them “motorcycle friendships.”

Beal reviewed some broad strategies in entering the blogosphere. Making that RSS feed for the blog available and getting it into the various blog search engines is an important step.

Make a list of blogs that cover the same industry, and add them to the site’s blogroll. Then, let those sites know that you have launched; that could lead to a link or two from established blogs. Inbound links from authoritative sites are more precious than gold to a new blog.

Some might overlook this step, but Beal recommends sending out a press release. Include links to the site and the site’s RSS feed. He also suggests including subscribe buttons for ‘My Yahoo’, ‘Bloglines’, and other sites that aggregate feeds for readers.

A blog shouldn’t be a Wall Street Journal in tone; the medium works best when the blogger has an opinion and can defend it effectively without taking criticism personally. Blogs should be open to comments, and bloggers should take care not to delete comments without a good reason. Disagreement is not a good reason.

For those who see dollar signs in the blogosphere, Beal recommends being specialized and offer prospective advertisers exclusivity for the term of their ad unit placement. Emphasize the brand and the associations with other blogs, and don’t obsess about page views.

Most importantly, update the blog daily, preferably multiple times a day.