Web Equity by Mike Blumenthal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at www.blumenthals.com.

Last week, I was driving home from work when my car died in the middle of traffic. Eventually, it powered back up on its own and I was able to drive home. The following day, my girlfriend dropped it off at a auto garage in proximity to where we live. She told them the back story of how we recently had a battery installed by AAA and the car has been “acting up” ever since. She asked them to diagnose the problem and get back to her immediately because we had  to bolt out of town for a wedding the next day.

The garage contacted her a few hours later and said that we needed a new alternator and that he would happily have one installed for $600. We were in a hurry and they were adamant about having the car fixed there, but we decided to take it to an Acura dealer instead. There, we could get a second opinion (just in case) and make sure the part was a great fit for the car. I took it to the dealership and explained the situation. They tested the alternator and said there was absolutely nothing wrong with it. It was the battery, which had a bolt lodged underneath because it was improperly installed a few months back.

I’m not sure if the first garage we took it to was intentionally bamboozling us or if they simply had no clue what they were talking about, but nonetheless we nearly spent $600, whereas we spent $100 at the Acura dealership and the car has been running like new ever since. But what I am sure about is that both of these auto shops will be reviewed online. One will be negative and one will be extremely kind. And as these reviews build up over the years, users in need of this this type of service will see what kind of brand they are dealing with. In fact, many will filter their results for the highest rated businesses in the area. And who will be on top?

Birchwood Kitchen is a gourmet sandwich shop located in Wicker Park. They use their Twitter page to communicate lunch specials and upcoming events . Fans can follow Birchwood Kitchen on Twitter to get these updates and not worry about calling or stopping by to stay in the loop.

Social media is especially powerful if your store is a local favorite. The more attached locals are with your brand, the more likely they are to follow you on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook, for example.

Homer’s is a local music store in Nebraska that might benefit from such a strategy. They have a Facebook group page, but not a Twitter page that I’m aware of. At the time of this post, they have over 700 fans on Facebook, which represents a strong local following. By communicating with locals through these social platforms, they strengthen their brand by making their friends and fans feel like part of a community. Not to mention they are able to communicate what’s happening with their store, including special deals and promotions over the holiday season. A great way to prompt an already targeted market.

Scott Monty’s Social Media Blog
Follow on Twitter: @scottmonty

SEOmoz Blog
Follow on Twitter: @seomoz

Mashable Social Media Blog
Follow on Twitter: @mashable

Copyblogger
Follow on Twitter: @copyblogger

Silicon Prairie News
Follow on Twitter: @siliconprairie

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.