The newest site to be added to our portfolio is Missouri Scenic Riverways, which serves as a directory of canoe rentals, cabin rentals and scenery guide for the Missouri Scenic Riverways.

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Google unveiled SearchWiki last week, saying that it would allow users signed into Google to change the ranking of personal search results. The tool also lets users delete or add comments to searches.

The comments are shared with other users and signed with a person’s username, Google said. Re-ranked search results are only seen by the signed-in user and do not affect other people’s results. Google contends that the tool makes searches more useful because users can benefit from community edits of search results.

Some bloggers quickly criticized the tool, while others have posted a script to disable it, thus returning search results to their original format.

TechCrunch blogger Michael Arrington, for example lamented that the new feature allowed pornography spam to show up in the search results for the TechCrunch blog. “Cheers were heard across the Internet earlier [Saturday] when Google’s new SearchWiki search interface inexplicably vanished,” he blogged. “Perhaps, just maybe, it was gone for good. Or at least when it returned it would have an opt-out feature.”

The interface soon returned, however, prompting him to criticize the interface for allowing comments like the spam that “scar Google’s once pristine search results page.” He provided a link to a script that would enable people to disable SearchWiki.

A Google spokesperson said in a statement that SearchWiki just launched and the feedback the company is getting from most users is that it is a “really cool” addition. “We’re always open to input, and we will be iterating and improving SearchWiki based on usage and feedback,” the spokesperson added.

Dave Weinberger, a fellow at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, said that Google committed two rookie mistakes in the development of SearchWiki. “First, opting us in is obnoxious enough, but not giving us a way to opt out is unsupportable,” he added. “Where’s the big ‘No thanks’ button?” Second, he added, the results page shows users the nicknames of others users who have voted a page up.

“So, now the whole world will see that ‘dweinberger’ not only searched for ‘Angelina Jolie’ but thumbs-upped the page of closeups of her tattoos?” he added. “Guess who just changed his nickname to something less identifiable! This is a feature without value — the list of names isn’t clickable or complete [and it does not] tell you how many people voted it up — unless you recognize someone’s nickname, in which case it has negative value.”

The Google spokesperson added that when a user moves a site up to the top of their search results, SearchWiki will then include that user’s Google Account nickname next to the icons on only that person’s search results, not the public SearchWiki site.

“So it’s actually inaccurate for [Weinberger] to say that others can see your nickname associated with sites you promote or delete,” the spokesperson said. “Others can only see comments you made associated with your nickname, not whether you promote or delete a site.”

Michael Zimmer, an assistant professor in the School of Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, added that Google has long pointed out that it tracks, collects and processes what users search for and click on, in order to improve the quality of search results.

“With SearchWiki, Google can now amass an even larger data set of user behavior, including how particular users rank certain results, what results they don’t find relevant, and even what results should be there that Google’s spider hasn’t yet discovered,” he noted. “In short, users are now performing much of the crawling, indexing and ranking functions that Google has previously stated was done to near perfection through its algorithms. And what do users get in return for providing this labor to Google? Better results, perhaps. But also some serious privacy concerns.”

How can your company start to increase its familiarity and trust online? As sales slow and employees have more idle time, utilize that time for online public relations. At the very least, it can help sustain sales over the coming months. Once the economy turns around, you’ll have a competitive advantage with better links, better brand image, and more traffic.

There are a couple approaches to this — even a few for those petrified of the concept. First, think of this as relationship building. You’re developing positive online public relations with people and communities, not just going after links. People should think of your site when a particular product or service is mentioned.

For the “very” traditional salespeople who may be resistant to change, explain it as just another form of networking and building relationships. Equate an industry conference to an industry-specific discussion board or forum. Once they see it’s all about relationship building, they’ll see more sales opportunities than your Internet-savvy newbie.

Here are some online public relations strategies to get you started in building link popularity.

Answer Questions

The easiest and least stressful way to start building a positive image online is by answering questions. Have staff monitor forums, e-mail lists, Q&A sites, and other social sites for questions relating to what your company does. Have your staff give straightforward answers to people’s questions and provide additional resources when appropriate. Make sure it’s in a non-promotional language.

Over time, your company will build a great reputation within those communities. The other members will reward you with links from their blogs and sites. Plus, they might even start recommending your company on the social site!

Guest Blogger

Contact blogs related to your company about being a guest blogger. This is a great way to get in front of a targeted audience, build traffic, and a solid reputation. These blog postings provide a great link, exposure, and a lot of new organic search traffic. Don’t forget your local and community newspapers. Many are looking for topic-specific bloggers.

This is also a great way for a new site to get organic traffic from search engines while waiting for their own rankings to increase.

Write a Column/Articles

Contact newspapers, journals, magazines, industry sites, or other related sites about contributing articles. This is another great way to build links, branding, and traffic at the same time.

Instructional Videos

Put together different instructional videos covering different topics. Then give them away for free for others to republish — with a link back, of course. This technique can be combined with the strategy of answering questions for an even bigger impact. When answering the question post a link to the instruction video.

Have your staff boost your online image and develop links during idle time during these down economics times. This will broaden your staff’s marketing aptitude and hopefully provide a moral boost. Plus, your sales staff will discover some effective online sales techniques. This can help to sustain sales now and, in the long run, the payoffs will make your competition cringe.

Search Engine Marketing has been controversial in the past with many Search Engine Optimization companies using unscrupulous methodologies to get sites up the rankings quickly. These methods are now largely discredited and using them can get a site banned from search engines.

The importance of Search Engine Optimization is further highlighted by the results of the list of SEM studies quoted below:

* A study from IMT Strategies demonstrates that a company’s presence on relevant search engines is the most important medium for maintaining high brand awareness ‘ more important than the printed media, radio or TV commercials (Sales & Marketing Management Magazine, January 2001).
* A study by Direct Marketing Association found that search engine optimization/positioning was evaluated by webmasters as the single most important activity for generating traffic to the website (66%), followed by e-mail marketing (54%).
* A poll by Iconocast concludes that 81% of UK internet users find websites via search engines (Source: June 2000, Forrester Research Inc., “UK Internet User Monitor”).
* The tenth user survey from “The Graphics, Visualization & Usability Center” (GVU) showed that 84.8% of respondents found information on websites from search engines.
* According to a study published by NPD Group, 92% of online users making a purchase over the net use search engines to find the relevant website.
* A study carried out by IMT Strategies discovered that search engines were the most popular medium (46%) for finding websites. Random surfing and word of mouth shared second place (20% each).
* Search engines are the “busiest” and most used websites on the net - cf. RelevantKnowledge or MediaMetrix studies.
* A study carried out by Jupiter Research in March 2001 gives search engines 9.1 points on a scale from 0 - 10 as the most important online media. The No. 2 spot got 6.3 points.
* According to a study among marketing executives search engine optimization/positioning was considered the most profitable website marketing activity. Far more effective than, for instance, banners, e-mails and offline marketing (Source: WebCMO).
* A study carried out by the NPD Group showed that more than twice as many of those asked could recognise the names of the companies in the top three placements of the search engines as could recognise the names of companies which used banners.

Is your company looking for someone to improve your search engine rankings through search engine optimization and marketing? Let us help you today!

The process typically involves geographic-based keyword analysis. Business locations are segmented into neighborhood, Zip Code, city, county, state, region, and other geo-qualifying derivations. Unique Web site pages serve as geo-based entry points to capture local consumers searching for local businesses. Authoritative geo-based external linking strategies serve to anchor a business location and relevancy.

In the next few years, we’ll see a significant rise in small business adoption of Web sites and Web site marketing solutions. These all require local Internet marketing. Understanding how to employ a local search optimization strategy will become fundamental for Internet marketers servicing small businesses.

But don’t get too comfortable with what you already know about local SEO. A new form of local SEO is being thrust into the mainstream. It requires different methods and tactics. In this two-part series, I’ll address strategies underlying a new form of local SEO.

This new form of local SEO was born as a result of major search engines Google, Yahoo, MSN, and others segmenting their local search properties to create distinct local search engines.

Major search engines decision to create distinct local search properties came as a result of an increased understanding of user intent. Combining their knowledge of user intent with a basic knowledge of local consumption patterns, the engines created unique local search results based on algorithms tailored for local search.

Local search engines promote a business location and proximity to the searcher, as well as its reputation and core details. These factors come together in the local search arena to create a new canvas for search engine optimizers. This canvas, which is currently blank for most businesses, takes the form of structured business profile pages, user reviews, and business ratings. These factors will soon become a key concentration point for search marketers and small businesses alike.

One of the most distinctive local search engine characteristics is a reliance on user-generated content. User-generated content is provided to search engines directly by the public. User-generated content is, by nature, biased.

New local search engines (even Internet Yellow Pages shifting to become pure local search engines, such as Verizon SuperPages.com) understand the importance of aggregating detailed, qualitative, and rich business content from business owners and customers.

User-generated content is an inexpensive way for local search utilities to aggregate qualitative, rich business content that can drive a pure local search query. Such content isn’t easily obtained through traditional business data providers, such as InfoUSA and Acxiom, nor by crawling the unstructured Web for local data when nearly half of all small businesses don’t have Web sites.

From an SEO perspective, user-generated content provides a unique opportunity for businesses to manage and monitor the distribution of their core business data as well as published opinions regarding their businesses. Today, all major local search providers enable businesses to self-populate structured business profiles while enabling users to generate reviews and ratings.

User-generated business profiles provide rich business description details, often referred to as meta content, within a structured display environment. Business profile meta content includes such data fields as brands offered, services provided, certifications, payment types, hours of operation, and other core business descriptors.

Free to the business owner, basic business profiles replace the function of Web page content in traditional SEO. Profiles provide optimizers with a structured business information template to boost a local business rank within the local search engines utilizing traditional on-site optimization tactics.

User reviews, published opinions about a business, are another form of user-generated content used by local search engines. In theory, these reviews are derived from actual customers. In practice, reviews can come from a business owner, a competitor, or a local search engine optimizer.

Ironically, business profiles (even paid profiles) submitted by business owners may contain user-generated content in the form of user reviews that’s not provided by the business owner.

There’s no real corollary in traditional SEO to the feeling of posting a quality business profile, only to have another user interject his opinion of the business within that profile in the form of a review. It’s like someone spray-painting on your garage or planting flowers outside your home.

User-generated content also takes the form of ratings. Business ratings generally appear as a numerical star ranking. Most important is the fact many local search engines enable a user to sort business listing results on the basis of ratings. It’s simple and painless to give a business a rating as an owner, a customer, or even a competitor.

When was the last time you rated your business, or your client’s business, across the new local search utilities?

What’s your star value?

In local search, user-generated content is king. It creates a unique opportunity for those with the foresight to formulate local SEO strategies.

Yet, user-generated content will soon create a disquieting quality-control problem for local search engines, much as spam and over-optimization affected traditional search engines.

In part two of this series, we’ll look deeper into the emerging field of local SEO and the role of user-generated content. In doing so, we’ll take a closer look at a new breed of user-generated business content providers that help shape the local search marketplace.