SEM for the Small Business

I've become a contributor for COSE's MindSpring website in the Technology/SEO category. The first post is a starter of SEO resources for the Small Business. It would be great to get your suggestions about small-business specific SEO resources to add to the list.

18 Questions Your CEO Forgot to Ask When Building Your Website

Great article on StuntDubl.com discussing the benefits of building SEO into your list of priorities when first launching your website. Plus it's chock full o' links to other useful resources. Definitely something to keep handy when doing a new site.

JAWS Video on the Cusp of SEO Friendly

A highly intelligent coworker of mine recently emailed me a great video from Accessify.com. It's about how screen readers can be a tool for web development and design. But the video just misses out on scoring an A+ for failing to mention SEO.

Here's a basic explanation of how this tool helps development, design & search marketing work hand-in-hand...

Tools like JAWS are typically used by blind people to read/hear a website. Your site's code should be "user friendly" for this audience under the American's with Disabilities Act. A nice side benefit of compliance is that your "user friendly" descriptions are typically also keyword rich, helping to reinforce your target keyword set with search engines.

The video walks you through how a JAWS screen reader reads a site's code. This is a fantastic way for designers to understand the usability of their design, for developers to make sure their code is clean and for search engine marketers to evaluate opportunities for keywords. And the moderator keeps mentioning how people who are blind will appreciate easily understood language, but falls short of calling out the specific search marketing implications.

Reviving Anorexic Web Writing

Great article - note, it's an article not a blog post as discussed in a previous Media Hatch post (yes, mine are posts) - yesterday on A List Apart. My fave quote:

The client balked. “Can’t we just add that (content) later, once the design is finished?”

My inner writer growled, but my outer designer smiled, accustomed to the request. “Sorry; can’t do it. The content is the heart of the website. I can’t build you a body until you give me a heart.”

How Does Your News Rank on Search Engines?

I know it's a bit last minute but I'm speaking tomorrow on Online PR at a Business Wire event here in Cleveland. Pretty cool. Laura Sturaitis VP of New Media Development at Business Wire is the other presenter. I'm looking forward to hearing what she has to say about how the distribution services are looking to evolve. More on this post-presentation.

Who Owns the Media?

At Optiem we preach to our clients to think of themselves as CNN, companies are now their own news channel and need to be creating media accordingly. Instead of waiting to "rent" the feature article on the nightly news, shoot it yourself and put it on YouTube. Write and distribute an online press release. Support the story with an optimized case study or article validating your topic. Submit the PR/article/case study to other Web 2.0 news channels like bloggers who write on topics in related industries.

But what happens when someone picks up your media and makes it look like their own? What happens when JohnDoe.com, repurposes your content on their site for search engine value? We've seen several instances of this recently where content is pulled through and the original source is credited, but not in an SEO friendly fashion. No backlinks, no keyword rich anchor text, nothing. Just an "Original source XXX". Its even worse when you get into image hosting and bandwidth issues.

I know this is an age-old SEO dilemma, and search engine spiders are getting better at identifying these sites. But how are others handling? Sure you can submit the offending site to Google through the Digital Millenium Copywright Act but other avenues are there?