Luckily, there are processes that allow you to have content removed from Google’s index. If you already have a Webmaster Tools account, you can use the Remove URL tool to speed up the process. If you don’t have a Webmaster Tools account, you will need to add a noindex meta tag and wait for Google to crawl your content again. More details are available at Google Webmaster Central.

Before finishing up this task, you need to make sure that additional steps are taken so that your content isn’t re-crawled by Google spiders and indexed again. These steps should be taken before a site is launched, but are often overlooked or unknown to whomever owns the site. You can learn more about this on Google’s help pages.

View SEOmoz’s Social Media Marketing Guide

Notice that the link within this widget that points to the SEOmoz domain. By simply providing users with code to embed this widget on their blog or other Website, SEOmoz gains valuable links back to their domain, thus improving their number of backlinks and the position of their Web pages in major search engines. This is a classic example of a well-thought long-term link building strategy.

If you don’t already know what Scribd is, it’s a social site that allows you to upload your documents and share them with others. Scribd has a large community, which makes it an ideal place to have a presence. This allows a company to promote its content and create brand awareness. However, there are SEO benefits, although they may not always be direct.

If you’re seasoned in the SEO biz, you know that a strong content strategy is critical for a long-term campaign to be successful. A content strategy is important because creating great content will eventually result in links back to your site. By sharing your documents on Scribd, you are sharing your knowledge with their growing community. This may lead to members promoting and sharing your content within the Scribd site or on their own Web site.

You don’t have to worry about duplicate content, either because your documents are embedded in such a way that the text cannot be crawled by spiders. Instead, the sharable document is more like a widget that you can paste on your side by copying some available code snippets. I’ve pasted an example below of a b2b article written by my employer, Movéo Integrated Branding.

If you have content to share with the Scribd community, I suggest you get started. It may lead to some links down that never-ending road of link building.

Building B2B Loyalty

What I want to discuss is the unfair standards that Internet banner advertising is held to. Because of technology, we can track how many users view the banner, how many click and how many of the clickers complete a conversion. But just because we can track this doesn’t mean it is the ultimate metric on whether a campaign is successful.

Think about traditional advertising for a minute. Millions upon millions of dollars are spent every month on advertisements that are placed on billboards and in the pages of a magazine. This is brand advertising. Obviously, there is value in these forms of advertising or they wouldn’t be used as often. But advertisers can’t track who bought what from them after seeing a particular billboard or magazine ad.

So why, then, are banner ads held to such a standard that they are only successful based on clicks and conversions? The answer is because we can track them. It’s not because it’s the best solutions, but that it’s available. Online advertisers need to be aware of the brand advantages that banner advertising to the right audience can produce. This is especially true if you can reach a large audience for a small price. Click-throughs and conversions may be low, but think about exposure you will receive. Something to keep in mind when analyzing your campaign.

AWR is the only Web ranking software I’ve used, so I have nothing to compare it to. It’s always done an ample job for me, however, so I have no problem recommending it. It’s great for agencies who have clients that expect tracking reports. Remember that no matter what program you use, none is completely accurate. It’s important to communicate this to your clients, if you have them.

Overall, AWR is easy to use and has a help system in place if you have any questions. You can learn more about what AWR can do for your Web site by visiting them at www.advancedwebranking.com.

Why go through the trouble? Submitting your feed to Google Base means that you know your content is getting indexed and it also allows your results to be enhanced with additional information like the day of the event, pricing, location etc. It may be the difference in getting a click.

It’s all part of a new era in search, sometimes referred to as blended search. Search engines (not just Google, but Bing and others as well) are displaying content in search results instead of only pages. It gives the user a better experience because they have a good idea of what they’re getting when they click on the link.

Yahoo! has a similar database called SearchMonkey. Try them both out if you haven’t already.

What I found valuable was the content on slide 13, which touched on the use of the canonical URL tag to combat duplicate content issues that are associated with session id’s. Now, this is hardly news for those who follow SEO trends. However, up to this point, I have been somewhat skeptical of this new method and how effective it might be.

This presentation gives me confidence that this method is worthy of use and one that I should employ it when working with clients that have similar problems. Any thoughts?

Google Images logo

Search engines have come a long way in the last few years. Blended search has come to fruition, which means we are no longer just searching for Web pages, but all kinds of content including images, blogs, videos, products, etc. Because blended search is so prominent, it’s important to make sure all of your content is indexed. This post will focus on how to get your images indexed by Google so that they will appear in Google Images and hopefully in regular searches as well.

The secret to getting your images indexed is simple – optimize them. I suggest the following:

• Use an appropriate alt tag on all images
• Give each image a title
• Add image height and width in img tag
• Name the file using a relevant keyword (dashes between words)

If you have some extra time on your hands, check out this blog post for additional image optimizations tips.

Another point that needs attention is making sure your images can be found by search spiders. Make sure to check your robots.txt file to see if you are preventing any spiders from crawling parts of your sites that have images you want in the index.

Google Webmaster Tools gives you the option to have your images crawled, but whether or not they are prominent in the results will depend on optimization. Also, be patient. It can take months before your images are indexed properly by Google, which is all the more reason to get this done as soon as you can so you can benefit from some additional traffic.

In the terms, Yahoo has agreed to have their search engine powered by Microsoft’s new search engine – Bing. By powering Yahoo’s search, Microsoft will increase their search volume and have access to valuable user search data. Yahoo will be able to drastically cut operating costs because they don’t have to invest in search engine technology and they will still receive 88% of ad revenue from searches on their site.

So what has changed from a SEO perspective? Not much. The Yahoo interface will look exactly the same as before, but the results will be produced from Bing’s algorithm. With that being said, you should see the same results in both Yahoo and Bing, once the partnership is in full swing.

Additional resources:
Mashable – Bing is the New Google, In One Way…
Yahoo News – Microsoft, Yahoo team up to ding Google with Bing

One way you can be sure to brand your Web pages is through title tags. Append the name of your company/Web site at the end of each page – I prefer to use the pipe, followed by the name of the site for all interior pages: Example article | Jeff Swanson. Having your brand appended to the end of each page’s title tag makes your listing immediately recognizable in search engine results. This will detract users from skipping over your listing, who might have otherwise visited a page on your site. Even if you’re not a well-known brand, this is an effective way to start branding yourself and catching the attention of users.

Aside from branding your Web site online, make sure to have attractive copy that will be inviting for the user. A combination of these two tactics usually means you can sit back and watch the traffic roll in.