Is there a better way to do social search? - Credit: BigStockPhoto.com

You’ve probably heard the news already. Google is making search more social with their new Search Plus Your World. Basically, results from or recommended by people in your social network (meaning Google+) are given high placement in rankings when you search.

You might have also heard the biggest criticism of this new search feature — that it’s anticompetitive. (Or at least that’s what Google’s big social media competitors have said.) While I understand that concern, I have bigger ones. I worry about how Search Plus Your World will affect the actual users of Google’s search engine. And I immediately found two glaring problems.

Search Becomes Redundant

The first thing I noticed after the introduction of Search Plus Your World is that my results were repetitive. I already knew so-and-so wrote about subject X and recommended Y. I saw that in their social media updates.

In and of itself, that doesn’t make the content more relevant. I’m using a search engine to find something new or specific. If I want to see what my friends recommend, I’ll check out their +1s, likes, or I’ll ask them on Twitter. Search engine users shouldn’t have to be bombarded with the same material they’ve already found elsewhere.

Google Gets Gamed (…Again)

As a Web publisher I’ve watched Google go after people they see as gaming the rankings system for years. Now it appears they’re handing these heavy promoters better rankings on a silver platter. That’s another trend I noticed quickly — people who are blatant self-promoters ranked high while more trusted sources (like closer colleagues and friends) didn’t appear in my results nearly as much.

Why did this happen? Because these folks are the link whore types who will link to, “recommend,” +1, etc. their own content all day long if they think it’s going to drive more traffic to their sites. These are the old Stumble exchange folks, the “tribes” that blindly link to each others’ content so their own will be promoted too, and the aggressive SEO link builders.

Now don’t get me wrong. These aren’t all bad people. But they do game the system, and the behavior borders on spam at times. I follow some of them because I like what they have to say on their blogs or I have an interest in what they offer elsewhere. That doesn’t mean I should be slammed with their self-promotional nonsense in search results. Keep it isolated to the social networks where I choose to let that through. Wanting to see something on Google+ (or any social network) doesn’t mean we want to see the same people and the same things promoted whenever we search the Web.

On the plus side, Google does let you disable Search Plus Your World (either in your settings or on a case by case basis). The latter option has its own problems though. The options aren’t labeled well, so I doubt the Average Joe searching the Web would even notice. You have to change the results after you search rather than being able to set your options up front. Their highlighting seems almost reversed (when personal results are turned on that button is grayed out — not a big deal, but I can see how it could get confusing).

Then there’s the worst part. You have to change this setting every time you use Google (whether it’s a separate visit or you just open another browser tab). The exception is if you run a new search in the same window where you already changed the settings.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not thrilled with Google’s aggressive tinkering with the default style of search results. If you want your search engine to work as a search engine (rather than a promotional tool for Google+), you need to login and change that in your search settings. I’m sure most readers of this blog are savvy enough to do that. My concern is more about an average user who doesn’t even notice the changes yet (given that the new settings and the ability to change them back aren’t clearly disclosed on results pages).

What are your thoughts on Search Plus Your World? Have you seen the same kind of redundancy I’ve come across? Have you also had issues with bloggers and other heavy promoters ranking better than more trusted people in your network? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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Social media helps you stay in touch with friends and family. You can use social media tools to stay on top of news and updates from your favorite companies or celebrities. You can use social media to promote your business and connect with customers. But did you know social media can also help you save money?

Let’s look at three things social media offers that can help you do that.

Company Social Media Offers

Some businesses offer special deals to their social media followers. If you follow their account or page or update stream, you might get special coupons or offers not made available to other customers. Or a company might give you advance notice of an upcoming sale, giving you a chance to get what you want for a great price before they run out.

Social Couponing

Daily deals sites like Groupon and LivingSocial help you save money by offering deep discounts from local businesses. These deals spread within social networks. Basically, you save because you’re a part of a large social group. Appealing to local masses is what drives the discounts, and you can find these deals in your email, on social media sites, or referred by friends.

Word of Mouth / Reviews

Negative social media reviews are just as important as viral deals when it comes to saving money. - Credit: Fotolia.com

Along the lines of group couponing we have the general viral nature of social media. Great deals spread via word of mouth (maybe you hear about a sale on a friend’s Facebook page or someone you follow on Twitter tweets a link to a discount code).

Word of mouth can save you money in another important way too. You can hear about bad deals or lousy products that you shouldn’t spend money on. For example, maybe the newest hot gadget is really glitchy and people are complaining on social media sites.

Saving money isn’t just about spending less on things you want to buy. It’s also about not wasting money when a product or service isn’t worth it. Social media tools and websites can help you on both fronts.

Your friends can tell you where the hottest deals are in the blink of an eye. Companies you love can reward you with discounts and advance sale notices for being a loyal customer and follower. And social reviews can tell you when it’s a better idea to buy now or avoid spending altogether.

How do you save money thanks to social media? Share your own tips or ideas in the comments below.

Credit: BigStockPhoto.com

The holiday shopping season seems to come to a close almost as quickly as it begins. Yet it’s a time of year retailers rely on. If you want to increase last minute holiday sales online, fortunately there’s plenty you can still do before the holiday shopping season passes you by. Don’t leave your sales figures to chance. Use your online presence to increase holiday sales today.

Here are some simple ideas you can implement on your own website to attract more last minute holiday shoppers this year.

10 Tips to Drive Last Minute Online Sales for the Holidays

1. Push gift card sales — instant or scheduled email delivery for even the latest shoppers.
2. Offer last minute offers to social media followers. They may even spread the offers virally through sharing.
3. Emphasize shipping deadlines to make people buy now when they realize if they order it later it’ll be too late. That includes express shipping options — even a day or two before the holidays might not be too late if they’re willing to spend a bit more.
4. Offer free shipping for orders of a certain value, even if you don’t usually do that. You’ll convince people to buy more.
5. 

   Free gift wrapping appeals to customers around the holidays, saving them both time and money! - Credit: BigStockPhoto.com

   Offer free gift wrapping, gift receipts, or other gift-specific perks that make things easier on both buyers and gift recipients. Also offer to ship directly to recipients.

6. Highlight seasonal items.
7. Associate certain products with common groups of people in your customers’ lives — “this would be a great gift for mom,” etc.
8. Offer gift idea searches by category / recipient group to help customers who don’t have specific gift ideas in mind yet. Tell them what to buy and then sell it to them.
9. Offer free gifts. If you sell books, free bookmarks would be an example. It can be something small. Or if you sell digital products you could do a sale where if they buy one download as a gift, they get the same download for themselves as a bonus.
10. Catch late buyers with after Christmas sales or year-end sales — for those celebrating later, looking to use their own generic gift cards (like American Express or Visa gift cards), or simply looking to save. Remember that holiday shopping goes beyond the actual holidays. Even if they use a store gift card, you can up-sell them with great deals to earn even more.

Don’t give up on reaching and exceeding your year-end sales goals just yet. Find ways to use the Web to drive last minute holiday sales. You might be looking for last minute sales, but plenty of buyers are out there looking for last minute deals too. Be the one to satisfy those needs and you can make the holiday season more profitable than you thought possible.

Credit: Fotolia.com

Every month we highlight some of the biggest news in the search and social media industries, bringing you stories you might have missed (and giving you the opportunity to share others we might not have seen). It’s that time again!

In fact, it’s our last update of the year. So let’s see what giants like Google, Facebook, and Twitter have for us this month with stories to send off 2011.

1. Twitter Launches Brand Pages

I guess Twitter was feeling a little left out with all the hype around the new Google+ brand pages finally launching. So they’ve decided to launch their own version to stay competitive. Two of the biggest benefits for brands are the ability to make your own logo / branding more prominent and the ability to promote a tweet to the top of your feed. So you can keep an important announcement front and center even if you continue to tweet follow-ups.

[source]

2. The Next “New Twitter” Unveiled

Alongside their new brand pages, Twitter announced another design change (making “new Twitter” the new “old Twitter”). I haven’t had a chance to dig into the changes much yet, but I like the cleaner look. The cluttered nonsense of the last “new Twitter” is why I clung to the old. It wasted too much space above the fold with things I didn’t give a rat’s furry little behind about and hid more actual tweets. So I’m glad to see Twitter fixing that issue. Check out the link below to see it (or the mobile version) for yourself.

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3. New Google + Feature: Ripples

If you’ve been waiting for any kind of Google + analytics to roll out, you might be happy about their new Ripples feature. While hardly comprehensive metrics, this “visualization tool for public shares and comments” will at least let you see how your posts or conversations have grown or spread across the network. I like the archival nature of it where you’re able to go back and review a past conversation in a new visual way. Kind of cool. Check it out in the video below.

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4. Facebook Lets Users Post Longer Status Updates

Feel like your friends don’t ramble on enough on Facebook? Then you’ll be thrilled to know that Facebook now lets them post status updates of more than 60,000 characters if they so desire. It’s an obvious move to compete with the longer posts and more substantial conversations on Google Plus. But in their “we want to host your personal blog in addition to your network” kind of push, both companies are starting to feel more like LiveJournal wannabes (long after LiveJournal ceased to be cool).

[source]

5. Judge Rules Bloggers Aren’t Journalists

I’m not going to get into the details of the case and whether or not the blogger in question really did post libelous material. But what’s interesting in this Oregon case is the fact that the blogger wanted to hide the identity of a source. The judge basically concluded that bloggers aren’t journalists and therefore aren’t afforded protection by the state’s media shield laws. One reason is the fact that she has no “affiliation with any recognized news agency.”

Makes one wonder what constitutes “recognized” and whether or not this judge has any real understanding of digital media. What about traditional news outlets that also run blogs with lower editorial standards (and there are plenty)? I guess we’ll have to see how this plays out if it’s appealed.

[source]

6. Facebook Timeline Goes Public

If you hadn’t heard about Facebook Timeline when it was first announced, you’ve probably taken notice now. The new feature was publicly launched on user profiles. Basically Timeline allows you to highlight your most important updates and show friends a chronology of your life. That means you no longer have to worry about big updates being buried almost immediately by the mundane. Go ahead and enable Timeline today, adjust yours (such as by hiding things you don’t want there), and let us know what you think.

[source]

What other news have you seen lately from search engines and social media companies? Share your favorite stories in the comments below.

Credit: Fotolia.com

Whether you’re an affiliate who makes money promoting other people’s products or you run an affiliate program of your own, you can’t escape social media. Social media tools like Twitter or your favorite social network can both help and potentially hurt affiliates.

Let’s look at both sides of the issue — how you might benefit from social media as an affiliate and how a company’s social media activity could hurt your own affiliate sales.

How Social Media Can Help a Company’s Affiliates

As an affiliate, here are a few ways social media can help you:

• You can reach more people about promotions (although you should always disclose the affiliate relationship).
• Social media can help you build a bigger audience for your own website or blog as people click your links to see what you’re reviewing. That, in turn, means you have more traffic on your site that can be directed to affiliate offers.
• In addition to your own active social media marketing, you can include social buttons on your affiliate offers and reviews. That lets your existing audience spread the word even farther, helping you reach new people and make more money.
• Social media tools can be great for link building, which could help your affiliate site rise in search rankings (and lead to even more organic traffic).

How Social Media Might Hurt Affiliates

While social media tools can be great for affiliates, they also have the potential to hurt affiliate sales if the original company selling the products has a strong social media presence. Basically, social media makes it easier for them to reach members of their target market directly. That could mean there will be less need for affiliates in the future.

Will social media's natural (and free) word of mouth nature lead to a decreased demand for affiliates? - Credit: Fotolia.com

Affiliates are essentially paid to refer products and services. Members of a social network can spread the word through referrals just as much, if not more, and the company doesn’t have to pay them. From the company’s perspective, which is more attractive to you?

In no way am I saying that affiliate sales are dead or dying or that affiliate programs aren’t worthwhile if a company is already active in social media. These are just things to think about as you plan your own affiliate marketing strategy.

How will you use social media? How will you diversify the affiliate programs you join? And how will the social media activity of the paying company influence your own affiliate marketing behavior? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Credit: Fotolia.com

Each month we update you on what’s going on in the search and social media worlds. It’s that time again! Over the last several weeks, most of the news seems to have come from Google’s neck of the woods — largely due to the much-anticipated launch of G+ Pages.

From that change in the social media world to branding changes from two big players in the search industry, here are some stories you might have an interest in.

1. Google Plus Launches Pages for Businesses

The biggest news in the social media world lately was the launch of Google Plus Pages. Google upset some business owners previously when they were told not to sign up for Google Plus because the company wasn’t yet ready to handle business accounts. While the new Pages leave much to be desired (and updates are planned — such as allowing multi-user access), at least businesses eager to jump into the network now have the means to do so. What are your thoughts? Is this is a case of “better late than never” or “too little too late?”

[source]

2. Bing Deals Becomes MSN Offers

In our first rebranding announcement of the day, Microsoft is changing the brand identity of their daily deals service. No longer tied to the Bing branding, they will now be called MSN Offers.

[source]

3. Google Announces More Service Shutdowns

Google is still in house cleaning mode as they streamline services. More on the chopping block include Knol, Gears, Bookmark Lists, Wave, and more. Will you miss any of these services? Tell us why.

[source]

4. Google Checkout Merges with Google Wallet

Mobile payments and more from Google Wallet - Credit: Fotolia.com

You may have heard the recent buzz about Google Wallet as a mobile payment solution. But now Google is officially rolling their older Google Checkout payment processing service into the Google Wallet brand. Does Google Wallet make you feel more or less interested in using Google for financial services?

[source]

5. Google Music Store Launches, Enables G+ Song Sharing

Google already offered a storage locker for music, but now they’re officially competing with the likes of iTunes and Amazon with their new Google Music Store. How is this tied to search and social media? Aside from yet another venture from the search giant, Google is adding a social component to their music store. Users will be able to share songs purchased through Google on their Google Plus accounts, letting followers hear a song once on the social network for free.

[source]

What other stories caught your interest over the last several weeks in the search and social media industries? Share your thoughts and other news in the comments below.

Credit: Fotolia.com

Social media enables us to share our every thought on a whim, with anyone from friends to fans we don’t even know. That doesn’t mean we should share freely all the time. Some things other people don’t want or need to know. And sometimes it’s just about your timing.

Let’s focus on the latter.

How One Social Media User Put Facebook Over Family

Several months ago a relative of mine found out that her sister was pregnant. But she didn’t hear it from her sister directly. She didn’t even hear it through loud-mouthed family members who couldn’t hold their tongues. She found out she was going to be an aunt by stumbling across her sister’s Facebook update.

Some news is best shared privately first. - Credit: Fotolia.com

On one hand it’s understandable that someone would want to share that good news with friends, and doing so via social media makes sense for more casual relationships. But not your sister (and I believe her father also was informed well after the Facebook announcement). We aren’t talking about sisters who hate each other and are completely estranged. They’re not the closest, but the relationship deserved some semblance of actual respect.

This is an example of lousy timing of over-sharing through social media tools. It was stupid and insulting to members of her family. The Facebook update could have easily waited until she made a few personal calls to those for whom they would have been more appropriate.

This is just one example though. There are plenty of other things you probably shouldn’t rush to share through Facebook, Twitter, or your other favorite social media outlet before making a more serious effort to reach out to a few individuals first. Here are some examples.

Don’t Rush to Tell the World…

• You’re getting married (until you’ve told both families).
• Someone you know passed away (until their family and friends have been informed privately).
• You landed a new job (until you’ve told you’re current employer you’re leaving).
• You’re pissed at so-and-so about such-and-such (until you’ve let them know and tried to work it out).
• You’re single (until you’ve broken it to your former partner).

These might sound like crazy examples, but I’ve seen a few of them happen. Back in the day when Myspace was the place to be, I knew someone who used to rant whenever she was mad at someone or just generally upset. And she would often threaten to delete her whole account over it (and did a couple of times). The next thing we all knew things were fine and dandy between her and whomever she was upset with, and she acted like it never happened (until the next time).

I’ve also known people who updated social media profiles to reflect that they were single in lieu of actually breaking up with someone. Their ex was just supposed to know apparently — which means another friend probably saw the update first and sprang the news.

It’s unnecessary drama. And it’s easily avoided. How? Remember which relationships come first and respect those people enough to actually speak to them. Or has our quest for “conversation” online turned real conversation into a lost art?

Basics of the Largest Social Network

Facebook touts itself as a “social utility that connects you to the people around you.” The service is based on friendship and networking. Finding friends and making new acquaintances is easy. Find Friends gives you the option to import names from your email contacts, search by school and workplace, or browse by name. When you send a friend request that person has the opportunity to review your request. He or she can accept, deny, or ignore your request. New friends can recommend additional friends to each other, add names to lists (to distinguish between friends and family, for example), or send messages to each other.

How Facebook and Social Media has Changed our Daily Lives

Friends on social media are increasingly becoming people’s trusted sources of information, even more than search engines. News has become more social than ever. How we start and conduct business has changed. How we meet and stay in touch with people is affected by social media. Facebook is an outlet for personal expression. Facebook changes what we can influence.

Getting Your Account Started

Go to Facebook.com. Follow the prompts to get started. To create your profile you’ll want to add your picture, bio, basic info, interests, your school/work details, plus your favorite books and movies. A Profile is a collection of information that a Facebook user chooses to share with others.  Users can select privacy settings for their profiles and control what information is available to whom. A new profile in Facebook is a blank-slate. You have the opportunity to fill in as many blanks as you like, make friends, join groups, add applications, play games, subscribe/follow interesting people, and like companies or organizations. Every change you make to your profile is reversible. You can easily update a profile picture, change your hobbies, unlike a page, or get rid of applications. You can even block applications and people.

Facebook Security and Privacy

Many parents have joined Facebook to find out what their family is doing online and to help keep their children protected from predators. Facebook is not recommended for anyone under 13. Many parents that do allow their children to use the powerful networking tool restrict its use. Parents can set up the account for their child and keep the password secret. This way the child may only login when the parent is home.

There are many options to customize your privacy settings. Facebook security has changed, so even if you aren’t new to Facebook, go to your account and security tab to check your settings. Here’s what mine look like.

Secure Browsing should be enabled. You can also do this manually by making sure https is in your browser’s address bar. Login Notifications, when enabled, will email you when your account is logged in to from a computer or device that hasn’t been used before with your account. Login Approvals takes it a step further. You chose to login to new devices with an additional security code. Active Sessions will tell you wherever your account has been accessed from. Privacy Preferences allow you to adjust even more.

Your default settings will depend on how you use the tool. If you use Facebook as a way to promote your business, you may wish to make business related posts public. If you are like most people, you only want to share with your friends. How Tags Work allows you to set who sees pictures or content tagged with your name. You even have the option to approve posts before they go live. On Apps and Websites you can turn off annoying applications, control how much of your profile they can see, if your profile is searchable, and if you want to see personalization on websites. That means if your friends have said something about a site on Facebook, it will show up when you visit that site. Limit the Audience for Past Posts is pretty self-explanatory. You can also change your sharing options on a post you’ve previously shared, right from your feed. Blocked People and Apps let you add friends to a Restricted List. Those on that list will only see the posts you make public. You can block users entirely so they can’t even see you’re on Facebook (possibly useful for an ex-boyfriend). You can also block events and applications here. If you block games, you won’t see your friends’ game requests in your feed. Yes, I did skip How you Connect.

If you want people to be able to find you on Facebook, you’ll want everyone to be able to look you up. Same goes for if you want to receive friend requests. You may choose to limit who can send you Facebook messages to your friends only. Who can see and write on your wall, you probably want to keep to friends only. Remember you can also choose to adjust the privacy by post.

When you update your status you have the option to choose privacy settings for that specific post. Select public, friends, or custom. You can now choose by specific lists as well. If you arrange your friends by those who live near you, family members, coworkers, and acquaintances – you can share just what’s right for them.

Take the time to adjust your privacy settings. When you do, you’ll ensure a more secure and satisfying Facebook experience.

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When Google Plus launched several weeks ago most of the buzz I noticed around it came from the professional social media community, for obvious reasons. As the user numbers climbed people started wondering who was using Google Plus. There were reports that “male geeks from the US” dominated the G+ network early on. But that wasn’t what I saw in my own networks, both personal and professional.

Of course user bases change, especially during strong growth periods like Google Plus experienced over the last month or so. And they can vary quite a lot from one person’s network to another. In the end, the only user base that matters is the one you’re connecting with. For me that’s a pretty diverse group including social media consultants, freelance writers and authors, online business owners, and offline friends and family members.

With that in mind, I want to share some observations from my own networks during the earliest days of Google Plus, including its surprisingly quick adoption by my “everyday” (read: not professionally in tech or social media) connections. But first, let’s look at the more tech-savvy.

Google Plus Adoption in the Tech Crowd

Despite reports of male geeks dominating Google Plus, that wasn’t the case in my own network. A good number of my current and past clients fall into this group, and they were one of the slower groups to adopt G+. They were also the most diverse group in how they used the network.

For example, many showed up to play with their shiny new toy, but they never really made an effort to have conversations there. It was more about staying on top of something new so they weren’t left behind.

On the other hand, a few are some of the more active members in my G+ circles now — sharing so many updates I’ve had to place them in their own limited circles so they don’t dominate my stream with the latest tech news or blog posts.

Google Plus Adoption with the General Public

Now let’s look at the “friends and family” group. These are people I know offline and who aren’t quite social media obsessed. I expected them to be slow to adopt a new tool. After all, their friends were already on Facebook for the most part and they get quick messages and updates via Twitter. Why use Google Plus?

I was surprised to see that those offline friends were actually some of the first G+ members, some even getting there before me. However, their posts have been few and far between. The posts they did share were often about how confused they were with the new platform (“How do I do this on Google Plus?” kinds of questions). There may have been an exchange or two. And then silence. It seems this group is still figuring out where G+ fits into their online social lives.

Google Plus Cheat Sheet for Those Still Figuring Out the Basics - Credit: wilgengebroed (via Flickr)

Those in Between

The bulk of my Google Plus circles are filled with business contacts — largely the freelance writer and author crowd. These are people who aren’t just casual users wanting to chat with friends, but also not necessarily heavy into the tech scene. One of the more interesting things I’ve noticed is that they’re the most active group there — even moreso than some in the PR and social media industries.

I was surprised by this at first, but it actually makes sense. Being writers, I think the appeal of G+ is the ability to write whatever we want and share it with whomever we want. We love to write. Twitter can be too limiting with character counts. Google Plus addresses that. We have a great overall community, and we love to share. Facebook didn’t fill that need for all. Google Plus gives us greater control over that sharing. Our own blogs are great for niche content but they don’t always lend themselves well to more personal updates that colleagues would have an interest in. Google Plus lets us share those kinds of posts without taking away from the focus of our blogs. It’s a natural fit. So really, it isn’t surprising that writers are one of the best represented occupations on Google Plus.

That’s how everyday Joes, tech geeks, and the majority in between have adopted Google Plus so far. My network won’t necessarily represent yours. Perhaps your offline friends fit that “U.S.-based male geek” demographic and dominate your Google Plus connections. Maybe you work in another area somewhat surprisingly well-represented there (I was surprised to see teachers high on the list linked above for example).

Who’s using social media most in your network? Are your contacts slow to adopt or jumping right in? How are they using it? Tell us about it in the comments below.

Credit: Photospin.com

When website projects involve web designers and SEO’s, it’s almost a sure fire recipe for conflict. However, it doesn’t have to be that way if both sides are willing to communicate and understand each other’s point of view. In an effort to help designers, I’ve written down some of the most important and easiest to implement aspects of SEO that all web designers should know about and use in their projects and work flow.

Masthead – The masthead is one of the first things people see when visiting a website. It can create a powerful dramatic impact, impart a sense of trust, and create a lasting impression. It’s also one of the spots most abused by web designers. Not to stereotype, but let’s be honest. Most designers work on big monitors, double monitors, or, worse yet, big double monitors. This has a tendency to distort their sense of proportion. Lots of designers produce mastheads that are 200-300 pixels tall. Once I even worked on a website with 450px masthead. My recommendation: stop wasting so much screen real estate. When I build a website for myself, I have a limit of 100px. Why so small? A masthead almost never produces any revenue. Unless you are putting advertising in it, keep it small and let people get to the page so they can “do” whatever it is you want them to do when they reach your website.

Image Replacement – No discussion of website mastheads would be complete without talking about talking about links, CSS, and image replacement. For usability, your masthead should link back to your homepage. That’s standard operating procedure at this point. The image should also have an ALT tag with the company name and logo. Don’t try and be tricky and add extra keywords in here.

Here’s where things get a little controversial. Google is never going to recommend using an image replacement technique to get anchor text keywords in your masthead. They have said it multiple times, and IMHO they are doing this because they know that, if they open the door a crack, people will take advantage. However, in my experience, it’s just not a real world solution. Using anchor text works much better than an ALT tag. So my recommendation is to use a well known image replacement technique like Leahy/Langridge Method or Gilder/Levin Method. Avoid the -9999px type of things and stay away from adding in “extra keywords” or “helpful keywords.” If it’s not in your masthead logo, don’t use it … period.

Drop Down, Fly-Out, Rollover Menus – This is another one designers love to use, but remember to be careful. If you are going to use it, make it so that search engines can crawl through the URL’s. Generally this means avoid Javascript (even though Google can understand some Javascript) and use a CSS solution. If you’re unsure, use a text browser or search engine spider simulator.

Flash and Ajax – If I had to name the two biggest obstacles people build into their websites, Flash & Ajax would be near the top of the list. It’s not that they are bad by themselves, but people use them in all the wrong ways. Using Flash, Ajax, videos, or any rich media in your pages is helpful and sometimes necessary. And let’s be honest–it’s a lot easier to sell a big ticket item like a sports car with Flash or a video. Using Ajax to change the contents of a page based on user actions absolutely can make a better user experience. However, if you design navigation or links to your website–especially mission critical parts of your site–using only Flash or Ajax, it’s unlikely a search engine will find it.

Page Titles & Meta Descriptions – Make them different for every page. Really, it’s worth the effort. Having the same title and meta description site wide is like wearing the same outfit to every singles event or date you go on. Google finds it just as appealing as the person you are trying to date. Also, don’t put the name of the website at the front of the page title; instead, put it at the end. It’s a very simple thing that really improves rankings. The title tag and meta description are what usually appears in a search engine listing, so try to make them interesting and click enticing.

H1 and Hx Tags – Put an H1 tag on every page. I know it’s ugly by default, but use CSS to make it look any way you like. Your H1 can match your page title but it doesn’t have to. It can be slightly different or completely different if it needs to be. Use H2, H3, or other Hx tags in your pages and navigation when it makes sense.

Breadcrumbs – Breadcrumbs can be a powerful tool. They can help with usability and SEO. They help the user know where they are and can help them move “back up” the navigation tree. Make the breadcrumbs links if at all possible. The actual links should closely match or be identical to the page title for maximum SEO value.

URL’s and File Names – Try to keep file types out of the URL if at all possible (http://example.com/directory/page/). Moving from .html to .asp, .php, .jsp or any other technology becomes a huge pain in the butt after the fact. Yes, there are ways to work around it using htaccess or other tools, but if you do it right the first time, it’s a non issue down the road. Keep file names and directory names as short as possible. Include as few keywords as possible. When you get beyond four or five words in a URL, the value drops off dramatically.

Mobile Websites – Don’t create a separate mobile website. Using m.example.com or example.com/mobile/ will just lead to problems down the road. Even if you can detect user agents and redirect, it creates problems. Instead detect for mobile browsers and serve lighter content and use a different CSS file.

Canonical Issues – The website should only work on http://www.example.com or http://example.com, not both. If it does, you need to fix that problem.  Here’s a tool to help you generate the proper htaccess file.

Duplicate Content – Website content should only exist on one page or URL. If it exists in more than one place, you are leaving it up to Google to figure out which one they think is best.You can help Google by using the rel=canonical tag, but don’t rely on that to solve problems you shouldn’t be creating in the first place.

Moving Files and 404 Pages – Make sure your website has a 404 page and serves a 404 header response when someone looks for a page that isn’t there. Serving a 200 header response is called a “soft 404″ and is bad. You can check with a page header checker. If you need to take down or move a file, set up a 301 redirect. Again the htaccess generator can help you if you don’t know how. Use the header checker to make sure it’s a 301. Using a 302, meta refresh, javascript redirect can lead to problems with search engines.

Number of Images and Image Size – Images may look nice, but never use an image where text will do. Search engines can’t actually tell what an image is. They use the surrounding text and filename to make a best guess. Size images properly. Don’t have a 1000px image and size it down to 200px using CSS. If you have a page with lots of images, use thumbnails and link to larger images.

File Size – File size has recently become a factor in search engine rankings. The faster you can make files the better. Remove superflous images whenever possible, use image reduction tools, and limit third party scripts, widgets, or tracking tools whenever possible.

Navigation – Try to keep the navigation as easy to understand and clutter free as possible. Once you start getting over 100 links on the page, it becomes harder for search engines to crawl through them all. Using navigation that changes based on user input (via ajax or javascript) is a bad idea: search engines will never “see” the secondary links.

Page Footers – Don’t clutter up a page footer with lots of links. It becomes hard for people to find/use them. Search engines don’t pay a lot of attention to footers anyway because people have abused them too much in the past. Don’t assume it’s ok to link to yourself in the footer of website. Ask the client first. If it’s ok, rather than linking to yourself from the whole site link, to yourself just on the homepage or, better yet, have a single page or popup page that links to you. It’s much better for you in the long run to have one strong link than hundreds of weak ones.

Sitemaps – Unless the website you are building is large, you don’t need a sitemap. But having one helps. Ideally you want an HTML sitemap and XML sitemap. There are plenty of free tools to generate them for you if you don’t know how. Keep them up to date and submit them to the search engines through webmaster central when you make a change.