Here are some ideas for keeping your website as relevant as possible, without completely overdoing it:

• Don’t overdo your backlinking. You don’t want to call too much attention to yourself, and the surest way to do that is to point too many backlinks to your site too soon. The surest way to tank your website in Google’s results are to add several dozen (or more) links in a very short amount of time. They’ll red flag that quickly, and your site will suffer because of it.
• Do get your site into local directories. This is especially true for those companies that service local clients (i.e. chimney sweeps, plumbers, contractors, etc.). This is the surest path to legitimacy in Google’s eyes.
• Don’t buy backlinks. No matter how unlikely it is to happen, if Google discovers this, they’ll de-index your website. Plus, why buy something that can be gotten for free. There are plenty of free places to put your backlinks.
• Do add fresh, relevant content to your website. This is precisely why blogs are so important. They add new content (if you update them) on a regular basis to your website, and give you an opportunity to display your expertise to your potential client base.

Websites are important because that is how people are finding businesses. The yellow pages are a thing of the past that will not be coming back. You don’t need a website that has all the bells and whistles, but you do need one that lets your potential customers learn about you.

The heroic (only partial hyperbole here) denizens of Reddit understand the danger of SOPA, and what it will mean to the internet. Under this legislation, for example, banks and credit card companies would be forced to cut off funds to websites accused of intellectual property theft. Note the word accused. No presumption of innocence. No due process. For a much better breakdown and explanation of the larger ramifications of SOPA, see this Google Doc called “SOPA for Dummies.”

Jim Cooper (D-TN), my congressman, told the Nashville Scene “we must stop the damage that online copyright piracy causes our performers and songwriters without undermining the spirit of the Internet and our freedom of speech.” This is all well and good, but his sentiment is undermined by the continuing revolving door between government and lobbyists. Two senior aids for the congressman sponsoring this legislation, Lamar Smith (R-TX), are now going to work for entertainment lobbying firms. Of course, it’s the entertainment industry that has long been a proponent of any law that limits how intellectual property can be used.

Now, Reddit is taking aim at the politicians who are supportive of SOPA. The first one they are going after is Bob Corker (R-TN). In an effort to be non partisan, a Democrat will soon also be in their crosshairs. This shouldn’t be too hard since, tragically, this is the one issue that seems to bring Republicans and Democrats together. So, this coming election season, we’ll see if Bob Corker is the first politician to be “GoDaddy’d.”

• Firefox - There are faster browsers (Chrome) and more elegant ones (Safari), but there are none that have the add-on ecosystem of Firefox. Every optimization tool in the book is available as an add-on to Firefox. It doesn’t have to be your browser of choice for your personal browsing, but it’s a must when scouting out your competition.
• SEO Quake - This Firefox add-on gives you the ability you the ability to see where you or your competitors rank in Google, Alexa or a host of other web metrics. However, do yourself a favor. If you are going to use this add-on, use it 1 of 2 ways. Either use it only sparingly, or disable everything but Google PR. Otherwise, you could find yourself unable to search Google for 30 minutes to an hour. They only allow a certain amount of searches of PR via their API.
• NoDoFollow - This Firefox add-on gives you the ability to determine whether backlinks from a website are DoFollow or NoFollow. For the uninitiated, it definitely matters. DoFollow means the links allow the googlebot spider to follow the link to the website that is linked. NoFollow, obviously does not allow this.

None of these are guarantees that your site will rank at the top of the Google search results. There are too many variables in play to promise that. However, if you use these tools as they are intended to be use, you will certainly be a step ahead of your competition.

• Keywords - This is the backbone of internet search. Think about this way: how do you search the web? If you want to find the best plumber in Nashville, TN, you enter “best plumber nashville tn” into your search engine of choice. Thus, if you are a plumber in Nashville, TN, you want to optimize your site for those keywords.
• Backlinking - This involves links from other websites to your website. It’s pretty pretty basic, but it is absolutely vital. Whether you are commenting on blogs, forums or Web 2.0 sites, you need to be getting your website’s link onto other websites.
• Social Media – Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn are not the end all be all. However, they are still quite important. The best online marketing can come by “word of mouth”, and social networks are some of the best places to do that. Remember, do it smart. No one is interested in looking at content online that comes across as “spammy.”
• Content, Content, Content - Nothing is better than good content. Your pages, your blog posts and any other content should be of high quality. Use this good rule of thumb: would you direct your family toward it for information?

If you use a measured and well balanced approach to your website’s SEO, you are much more likely to achieve your online marketing goals.

One such hot button topic that has been bantered about is internet filtering. Certain sections of the US government, as well as a large portion of the telecommunications industry, want the ability to force an ISP (Internet Service Provider) to divulge our internet habits. They say this can help them root out terrorists, stop child pornography and stop sharing of copyrighted materials.

These seem like noble ideals, and they are in their simplest form. My fear, however, is there will be a compromise of our privacy. The right to privacy is a very American one, and a right we must defend rigorously. I fear the temptation to use this information in ways we can’t comprehend and wouldn’t approve of will be too great. I cannot condone large organizations (governments, corporations, etc.) with seemingly endless resources being able to spy on me.

Another big issue recently in the news is internet throttling. Internet throttling is the practice of slowing down the connection speeds of users taking up a lot of bandwidth. An example would be people who upload large amounts of video to the web.

The ISP’s call this practice reasonable network maintenance. They claim these users are slowing down connections for everyone else and are overloading the network. Whether or not this is true is up for debate. Comcast just received a stinging rebuke from the FCC for throttling users without their knowledge. Instead of stopping internet throttling altogether, they are now just being upfront about it.

This is a Pandora’s Box. Once we allow some content to be blocked or inhibited, where do we draw the line? Deregulation has put the power in fewer and fewer hands. The FCC rebuke aside, there has been very little in the form of accountability. The telecommunications industry is a very powerful lobby, and has large resources available to petition our government. We need checks and balances to make sure our rights and freedoms are observed.

Wherever you stand in the political realm, these are issues that have and will continue to affect you. I encourage you to contact your US and state representatives. Ask them where they stand on these issues, and if they plan to protect your privacy.

You’ll see two badges on this site. Each blog post has one that allows you to bookmark the entry at sites like Del.icio.us, Reddit, Technorati and others. There is another one on my About page that links to my LinkedIn profile. If you read my other two blogs, empireofgeek.com and jonathansanders.net, you’ll see me promoting the EFF, or Electronic Frontier Foundation, with web badges.

Web badges allow you to help promote things that are important to you. On the flip side, creating badges for customers to put on their sites is a great way to promote your brand. If people like your product, they will absolutely want to promote you. It is a very easy way to advertise, and it costs almost nothing.

For most small businesses, spending lots of money on single digital images simply isn’t cost effective. However, taking photos yourself presents its own challenges. If the photos you take aren’t good, they can make sure site look bad.

In the last few years, several low cost stock photography sites have sprung up. These provide viable alternatives, and make your site look professional. One site I use is iStockPhoto. Small web optimized photos can cost as little as $1 to $2 dollars. They even have vector graphics and video to spice up your website.

Use whichever service you want, but do consider adding stock photography to your site. It can really make a difference.

I use Google Analytics for all of my websites, and I’m able to see what my readership consists of. If I wanted to appeal to a tech-savvy audience, I would be able to see what kind of browsers they were using on what operating systems. If I wanted to target a specific geographic location, I would be able to see if my advertising is bringing in visitors from that location.

There are some limitations to GA. If an individual uses certain ad filtering programs and extensions, the results for that user can be blocked. People that often clear their cookies can also be missed. Despite these shortcomings, the benefits make Google Analytics a vital tool.

First, let me define the term “blog”. It is a place on a website that is continually updated with new, relevant content, and it often contains pictures, video, links, etc. An important aspect of a blog is “pinging”. This is what makes it a blog versus a static page. Pinging is where you link to a service that notifies the search engines that you have new content.

A website has many uses, but I’ll highlight two. One use is as a brochure. You directly lead people to the site, and you don’t rely on people to “find” you on Google. The second is just the opposite. You want people to find your site. You rely on leads from search engines for business.

This second use is where blogging may be very helpful. By maintaining a regularly updated blog, you are telling Google and Yahoo you have new fresh content. This drives up page ranking, and increases the leads you receive from search engines.

When telling your webmaster you want to setup a blog, make sure you understand exactly what you’re asking for. This will help you to know what you really want to accomplish.

We’ve been hearing the term for a few years now, and it seemed to be an ambiguous term. On a basic level, it refers to the increase of interconnectivity and social interaction on the web. Examples of this would be Google Docs, Facebook and YouTube.

It seems that more of what we do, be it productivity or play, involves interacting on the web. When creating your website, thinking in these terms will help you keep your site relevant.