It’s just having a conversation, and hopefully starting more conversations, about the topic you are most expert in, passionate about and building your authority and web presence at the same time.

I am using this to help ease the way for traditional marketers and small business owners into the blogosphere and on-line community participation to give them that edge, but it’s really about all your marketing efforts. Just read this article on my favorite blog, and got inspired.
Relationships and community are being enhanced and built on-line. Funny, in the 90’s, during the dot com frenzy in which I was fully entrenched, we on-line enthusiasts were accused of destroying a sense of community. Now it seems as if we’re re-establishing it in a world where it is sorely lacking. Go us!

On-line where things could be so impersonal, to have a conversation and build relationships and community is the path to success. For years now we’ve been saying product is product now. It’s the value add that makes people decide on one vendor or another. One step further, it’s the trust and familiarity with PEOPLE behind the product and service.

Let’s get involved with each other!

The Design vs. SEO question has come up so often in my career that it really does warrant a blog post.

So many business owners want their home page to be gorgeous, AND think that means little and often NO content. I would like to redefine beautiful design in the web industry. The current misconception is that a beautiful design means three things:

1. The entire home page fits “above the fold”

2. There is lots of movement and color

3. Content is for interior pages and less is more on the home page

The redefinition take into consideration:

1. “Above the Fold” - This concept in itself is not sustainable as the designer and business owner have no idea or control over the size and resolution of the visitor’s monitor. The average monitor size and resolution is growing so are you willing to redesign in a year or so? Also, (and more importantly) search engines use the home page to find out what you deem important on interior pages. People have done studies on this concept. Here’s the article I read this morning that inspired me to write this post.

2. Movement and color - As a user/buyer I think less is more here, for sure! I’ve seen home pages that are entirely built in Flash. Most people have landed on a particular page based on a search. The home page should clearly let them know they’ve found what they are looking for and point them to more information about that topic. These days, with new search friendly animation you can certainly use flash and Ajax and other “Web 2.0″ technologies to do exactly that. I have rarely seen it done well and is usually distracting. Often, because the business owner doesn’t understand what is SEO friendly and what isn’t and the web developer wants the job done quickly and profitably, the appropriate technologies and methodologies to achieve SEO advantage as well as the desired “effect” is not even attempted. Even if the business owner knew about these things, is developing an Ajax solution in the budget? Simplify.

3. Content is for the interior? Just like in modern warfare, the front line has disappeared. Every page is a “landing” page. The official home page, being the top page regarding the directory hierarchy (unless it’s flat) and having the appropriate home page name (index, home, default, etc.) is more of a signpost to the search engines about the most important information on the site than a “welcome” page to searchers.

The bottom line and sustainable concept here is - the home page content should be as long as is needed to emphasize the importance of interior pages, to create an intuitive experience for the visitor and to provide the most useful information possible.

The best idea for the home page as it relates to content is to keep it fresh! If you have a blog, feed the teasers to your site’s home page. Post industry news articles there. Or just go update it on a regular basis. Stagnant home page content will not rank as well as frequently updated content.

WebProNews reported that SMEX - West covered Search Marketing from a “holistic” standpoint.  Here’s an exerpt.

Universal and/or blended search incorporates data from local maps and results, images, videos, blogs, forums, whatever’s out there. Personalized search whittles all that down based on user behavior. Soon, each person may have a different set of search results from the next person’s.

To succeed in that online environment, businesses are going to have to learn to be everywhere, managing an online presence from a number of angles. That also means businesses will have to know how to manage their online reputation by effectively combating negative information about them, too. Holistic.

What does that mean to your Sustainable Search Marketing Strategy?  It means, take an inventory of your digital assets; image, video, audio files; and find the appropriate channels of distribution for them.  Sit down and discuss which products or services you’d like to promote right now and develop some great footage or podcasts and go for it.  

 It’s not just about your digital content, though.  It’s time to start working on your social media presence.  Get a Facebook account and list your site(s) there.  Get involved in appropriate forums and on-line communities.  Start a blog. A half hour a day could do you a world of good.

I saw this video today…  The concept is intriguing!  A computer with all free, open-source software that only uses 20 watts of electricity.  I love that it has it’s own OS and a bunch of people writing software for it and sharing it in an on-line community.  The same community also reviews the software.  I find this VERY exciting conceptually but I’m reserving judgement until I know more.  If any of you have one of these, I’d love to know your experience.  I might just buy one, at $199 I can’t go wrong.  If I don’t like it, I can give it to my in-laws or use it as a door stop…

I just watched Google’s own Adam Lasnik give an interview at the London SES.  It is gratifying to report that Google, who really founded this notion of sustainable search marketing, is continuing the trend. 

Adam Lasnik is the brains behind Google Webmaster Central and is the liaison between Google and webmasters of all shapes and sizes, keeping us all in the know about what Google would like to see us doing.  Thankfully, it all really makes sense and is sustainable.

1. With regard to use of new Flash and Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) technologies, Adam was asked what Googles guidelines are.   The answer is go ahead and use it - it adds to the usability of the site.  Just make sure that you use <noembed> to indicates what text should be used when an embedded object can’t be viewed, and <noscript> to define an alternate content (text) if a script is NOT executed so that no matter who lands on your page, they can get the appropriate content from your flash and ajax objects.  The other important thing here is that you use the same text in those tags that you use in the object’s content and don’t use the tags to stuff keywords. 
2. Duplicate content is another hot topic covered, and one about which I have given some good advice and a little bit of wrong information as well…  Duplicate content is fine if it is inadvertant or useful to the user and is appropriately attributed to the originator.  So don’t worry about putting no follow on your printer friendly pages etc. 
3. Along with the duplicate content question, the idea of page rank sculpting came up.  Page Rank Sculpting is the act of aranging content so that pages you deem important get the best page rank, and isn’t diluted by content on other “less important” pages.  It is a fundamentally unsustainable idea, in that it will have to be rescultped as often as page priorities and algorithms change.  Achieve rank and position for important pages by linking to them from the home page and by obtaining other quality links to them.  The natural way!

What ties all of these ideas together is sustainability.  Don’t worry about the algorithms, or contriving meta information for specific keywords.  Focus on the needs and experience of the user/customer.  Provide them good and useful information in a natural and intuitive manner and you will do well.