A few days ago Mike McDonald wrote a blog post about ranking factors in 2009. I completely agree with most of what he says in the article. To summarize, here’s what he says, with SEOmoz Rand Fishkin’s blessings, is important this year:

• Title tags
• Anchor text
• Link diversity
• Social media and mobile marketing

I would completely agree. I think Title tags have always been important as has anchor text. Link diversity hasn’t always been at the top of the list, but in the last few years it has risen to the top as Google has refined its link quality algorithms. Social media and mobile marketing as ranking factors are new on the scene and I think they’ll rise in importance. But probably not in ways that most of us will imagine.

So what do Mike and Rand agree are not important? Check this out:

• H1 tags
• Keyword density
• W3C validation

Again, great points. But I still think H1 tags are somewhat important. Not as important as they used to be, but important nonetheless. It isn’t even so much that they are bigger than everything else, but if your H1 tag is at the top of the page like it is supposed to be then it becomes a lot more important. If you fill your page with H1 tags then those H1 tags look spammy and become less important. The proper way to use H tags is in declining size from the top to the bottom, which is the same way that newspapers traditionally size their article heads, in the order of importance. If you do it that way then all the H tags are more important.

Still, good article. Thanks to Mike McDonald and WebProNews for a good discussion on ranking ractors.

Google has announced the publication of a new search engine optimization starter guide. I’d just like to say that if you are a new webmaster or you are starting a new website then this reading this guide is perhaps the best thing you can do. It won’t cover all the SEO bases, but it will give you a good basic starting point, which is important for new site owners.

Even if you are a veteran SEO or you’ve got a website that’s been around awhile, it wouldn’t hurt to review the basics. Google’s guide isn’t designed to tell you how to rank well in every search engine on the planet. It is designed to tell you how you can make the most SEO best practices for ranking in Google. In that regard, where else could you turn for solid information?

Even if you hire an outside SEO firm to handle your search engine optimization for you, Google’s starter guide should be on your reading list. By understanding the basics of Google’s ranking algorithm you can ensure that you know the SEO basics and if your SEO company is doing anything wrong you’ll be able to call them on the carpet or replace them. Remember, knowledge is power.

Keep in mind, however, that it isn’t a comprehensive SEO book. You won’t learn everything there is to know about search engine optimization. We’re talking about a starter guide. With that, I encourage you to read the guide to become familiar with Google’s ranking practices and then move on from there.

PageRank sculpting is an advanced SEO technique that caught on in 2007 when Google’s web spam czar, Matt Cutts, mentioned that YouTube was doing it. Since then, celebrity SEOs have hyped it up as a viable SEO technique to help webmasters increase the PageRank of pages on their site that they want link juice to flow to simply by using nofollow tags on links to pages that don’t need the juice. Simply put, you can craft your own PageRank for particular pages on your site by picking and choosing which links you want Google to follow and the ones you want it to stay away from.

Well, Matt Cutts recently made another public comment that has some SEOs worried, though evidently not Rand Fishkin.

Some SEOs are worried that they’ve spent hours upon hours sculpting their PageRank to no avail. But Google’s advice all along has been to focus on building great content and not building your website for the search engines. I agree with that completely. Besides, if you are a small business owner then your website wouldn’t benefit a great deal from PageRank sculpting. If you divide a PageRank 3 up between 20 pages you’ll see that you won’t benefit a great deal from that. PageRank sculpting was designed to benefit large sites with thousands of pages and if you take a PR7, for instance, divide it by a few thousand then multiply that by a few thousand more, it doesn’t take a math genius to figure out that you can increase one page’s PageRank considerably with just a couple of nofollow tags.

This is a clear case where small business website owners should just ignore the hype and the talk around a concept that wasn’t meant for them anyway. It’s a bit like being worried about the death tax when only 1% of the population has enough money to pay it in the first place. Don’t worry over nothing.

Go to Google Blog Search and type in “small business internet marketing”. If you see what I see, you’ll notice that Small Business Mavericks is right at the top of the page under the heading “Related Blogs”. How did it get there?

I read where Google improved its blog search feature and this is the result. I’d say that’s a pretty good improvement, wouldn’t you? But, it does get better.

You can search for results within the last hour and, even better, choose the dates you want to browse for the results you are looking for. I like that feature.

Google Blog Search is a good tool to use if you are looking specifically for blogs that have published information on a particular topic within a certain time frame. But it’s also a good SEO tool for businesses that want to target specific topics. If you write a business blog, make sure that you optimize your blog posts so that they rank well for your key terms in the search engines. The more people that know how to use tools like Google Blog Search, the more likely you are to get found for recent entries on your blog. It’s a simple way to market your content and effective.

Sitemaps have only been in common use for a couple of years now, but there is still confusion around some aspect of them. Your site is not guaranteed a listing in any search engine just because you have a sitemap. In fact, none of the search engines guarantee that your site will be crawled or indexed just because you have a sitemap. However, a sitemap will make your website more crawlable and easier to crawl.

Because the search engine spiderbots crawl the web through links, you want to make sure that each of the pages on your website has a crawlable inbound link to it so that it can be crawled, indexed, and ranked. That’s what a sitemap does for you.

You should have a sitemap if you have a new site and you don’t have that many links pointing to it yet. You should also have a sitemap if your site is older with a lot of pages archived that have no linking structure, or that have a bad linking structure. Other times you might include a sitemap on your website are:

• When you have dynamic content
• You use AJAX or Flash
• You have a lot of videos
• Your website isn’t getting indexed

In essence, if you want to ensure that your site is crawled an indexed then a sitemap will go a long way to help you. But having one doesn’t guarantee anything.

There was a time when Internet marketers would argue over SEO and social media and debate over which is more important. They still debate the question, but most Internet marketers today see benefit in both. Gone are the days when a respectable marketer would shout SEO and dismiss social media marketing altogether. You are just as likely today to meet online marketers who swear by social media and dismiss SEO.

But that isn’t smart either. The fact is, to succeed in today’s online world, you need both. You are competing against companies that have a sound social media marketing strategy and a good SEO team. Some of those companies have deep pockets. You need to be a bit more stealthy.

Small businesses can employ success SEO techniques in conjunction with strong social media presences and build good solid businesses. It helps to be patient, study the field, and don’t just jump in where you aren’t sure about. Just a few minutes a day and you can build a good business with both social media and SEO.

Don’t panic at the words, “press release.” They aren’t difficult to write and they don’t cost a fortune to post. Why bother? Press releases attract attention. Small businesses should announce when they launch a new product, have a major announcement such as opening a branch or a merger, working on a charitable project, or when you’d like to announce a new trade practice that significantly changes the industry. Yes, the world needs to know–starting with the Internet world because now, that’s where press releases are featured first–online.

Before you start sweating, consider that you can use a press release template–and that press releases are only one page long–actually only a few paragraphs. Take a breath now. Check out PRWeb and other online press releases sites to guide you.

What will a press release (sometimes called a news release) get you? Interest. You may get a call from a newspaper or online news site that wants to feature your product or conduct an interview or include you in an article. Your local community wants to know–local TV, radio, and newspapers needs news to fill their pages and airtime. They like featuring businesses in the area.

Start with a great title. Keep it rather short and make it interesting. Use a larger font so it stand out.

Be sure that the title and first paragraph tells what the press release is all about–a summary of the entire thing. If they don’t read any further, would they know what you wanted them to know? The old question– who, what, where and when need to be answered. Press releases aren’t sales copy–so don’t try to make a sale or use jargon that sounds that way. It’s news. It’s a series of statements. Sound professional. Write in third person–so don’t do the “I am announcing.” Speak from a company perspective, “Jenkin’s Tires Announces…”

What’s great about press releases is that you already have many of these components. You can use your logo as the header of the press release. The ending paragraph of your press release is your contact information. The “About the Company” bio you have listed on your website is also used at the end of the press release. Be sure to include contact information–website, phone number, contact person is vital. You want to be contacted, so make it easy.

Your press release can be submitted to the various online PR sites and can range in price from free to quite pricey, so set a budget and decide what’s right for your company and what level of exposure you need. You can also email or fax your press release to television, radio and other media venues.

It’s that easy. Not as big and scary as you thought. Press releases get you in touch with the media–and helps spread the word. You have every right to announce important events, and the media needs your updates. So whether you do it yourself with a template, or pay someone to write a post a press release for you, it’s a powerful tool that can yield big results.

“Do you really want everyone to like you?” That’s what I told my teenagers when they were feeling the need to cave into peer pressure. Sometimes trying to fit in costs you your true identity. It’s the same for small businesses. Sometimes we try to cover too much territory. Our true power lies in what we’re good at. You’ve earned the right to call yourself an expert–by hard work, dedication, and doing one thing well.

If you haven’t honed in on your area of expertise, ask yourself:

What makes my company unique?
If I had to only do one thing, sell one item, what would it be?
If I had to let go of one line of service or product, what would it be?
What do I do/sell that no one else does? (Or very few)
What services do I offer that fills a real need or void?
If someone introduced me/my company at a party, what would they say?
What other business is the most like mine?
Does my website really state your expertise?
Do my keywords reflect my products or services accurately–or are they only close but not spot on?
What segment of the market have I not quite tapped into yet?
What do I enjoy doing the most? What’s easy for me?

Once you answer a few of these questions, then make sure you input these changes into your online marketing, local marketing, and traditional marketing plans. What good does it do to specialize and then not let people know what you’re good at!

Ways to promote your expertise:

Do a news release (also known as a press release)
Start a separate website that focuses on your expertise–and list is as a separate page on your main site. Besure to list your new site on the various directories. Go to OpenDirectory.com and register your site. Now that you’ve learned a thing or two about websites and SEO strategies, implement your knowledge.
Begin to blog about your expertise–what you have to offer, how you got to be good at this one area, and focus on how you can help others.
Change or add pertinent keywords and keyword phrases
Pitch yourself to a radio show. Start using your voice and stating that you’re an expert in a given field. Don’t consider it arrogant. If you’re really good at something, then it’s a service to offer your advice and direction to others–as long as it’s presented in a way that’s helpful.
Do a search on your area of expertise and check out the competition. You should have less now that you’ve narrowed your focus. What are they doing right? How can you tweek your site to offer something slightly different?
Mention your expertise when it’s appropriate on your social media–especially in your profiles on LinkedIn and Facebook.

Author Marcus Buckingham reminds us in his book, Now, Discover Your Strengths, is that we shouldn’t try to be good at everything. Our brains are even hardwired at birth to begin to pull away from the less strong connections, and that our neurons bundle around one strong cord–that’s how we begin to specialize–and why some of us can play the piano and others can whiz through calculus. By fleshing out and then promoting your expertise, you begin to define your small business and discover your true market.

You always want to show yourself in your best light–online or in person. So why limit yourself on LinkedIn? Did you know that how you present yourself can make a big difference? This is important whether you own a a small business, work for a large corporation, or own a company. LinkedIn is about connectivity, so make sure people have something to connect to.

An important hint to making the most connections on LinkedIn is to take the time to fill out your whole profile–much like a resume–be sure to include past companies, education, affiliations and activities. Most people who sign up for LinkedIn only list the their current employer, or company they own. This limits your contacts. You want lots of ways for people to identify with you–from your recent award, to where you went to college–to your love of kayaking.

Another smart thing to do is to include a link to your profile as a part of your email signature. Make it easy for people to check you out. That way, you don’t have to brag–just “point.” Walt Whitman said, “it ain’t braggin’ if you really did it.” But there’s no need to toot your horn when you can simply link to see your credentials and get to know more about you.

Another benefit of LinkedIn is that it makes your profile information available to search engines. In fact, LinkedIn ranks high on PageRank. So when someone Googles your name, your LinkedIn page will come in high. That’s impressive. Be sure to click on “full view,” and not private setting. And all you had to do is fill out your profile and start connecting with co-workers and business associates. Make sure you customize your public profile’s URL as your real name (or whatever name you use for business) so that it doesn’t use the default. Take it one step further and use your LinkedIn profile link when you comment on blogs or other internet activity. This will strengthen your rank as well.

LinkedIn is all about connections, but it’s up to you to make the most of it.

In our current economic challenged times, you may be trying to cut every corner possible, and while that’s one way to save money, in marketing, you may choose to take a different approach. Small businesses oftentimes stay in business because they have something unique to offer. Why not take that one step further and ask yourself what’s your specialty?

One thing I’ve noticed is that while many businesses are hurting, others are thriving. Why? They have what people want. And believe it or not, not all customers are looking for the cheapest Many are willing to pay a higher price to get a premium product or a specialty service.

What products or services do you get the most feedback on? What gets the most word of mouth advertising? That’s your niche. Take the time to develop that area of your business and then watch the results. Do you notice a response?

Consider starting a second website just for your specialty line. If you’ve learned a lot about search engine optimization (SEO), you may welcome to chance to create a website from ground up–choose your domain name based on your niche service or product and with specific keywords that set you apart from your competition–and then post your website on search directories. Remember, you can link between the two sites and point to content you’ve created that features both sites.

It’s ironic, but it just might work. Instead of tightening the reigns, narrow your focus.
Promote what you do really well.
Market to the segment of the market you fit,
You may just find that your small business will begin to flourish–by specialized marketing.