"What should I do on my LinkedIn profile?" As people become increasingly aware of the importance of social media and their personal brand, we hear this question more and more often. For businesses and career minded individuals, LinkedIn is often the de facto choice for dipping a toe in the water. As of August, 75+ million professionals have a personal LinkedIn profile (some even have several). How helpful and current their profiles are varies, but many have long since been forgotten. 

Since the beginning of search, the robots have crawled sites, chewed on links, and carefully digested each page. A page’s historical performance factored heavily in its ranking. Just as important were the inbound links that a page accumulated over time. Over the last year or so, this has all begun to change as the major search engines have experimented with three new factors that will dramatically change how we search (and how we optimize for search). 

Remember the good old days when a first-page search engine ranking was the Holy Grail? When social media was just for gossip, throwing sheep and re-connecting with old friends? Yes, it was a simpler time. Today’s landscape looks very different for those of us working to connect with our markets online. 

Let’s not mince words here. It’s probably because they don’t know you’re there, or they know, but they’re not going to search for your fan page just so they can click the like button. You should make it easier by adding Facebook’s new like box to your website. We've recently done it on this site. 

This one is a favorite. I'm all for anyone learning new stuff.  You're probably smart enough to learn anything you need to succeed online, but don't kid yourself, learning is hard work. If you're not already an experienced internet marketer, my advice is to seek professional help sooner rather than later. You can still learn the nitty-gritty, but you'll learn it a lot faster with a pro by your side, and save both time and money in the long run. 

A few years ago, the term "web presence" was tossed around as a universal mandate. "You've got to have a web presence," people would say. The truth is that showing up was never enough to get any meaningful results.  With billions of pages vying for attention, you'd better have a real strategy for getting to the top of the heap in your market.  This means not only adding more  than a few informational pages just  in case someone searches for you, but ensuring that the right audience finds them. 

Have you ever seen a clunker broken down on the side of the road, with huge shiny wheels? You no doubt get the picture, and we could probably stop here. The function of a site is to attract and inform both humans and search engines, and all that other stuff is just decoration. The bottom line is, use it only when it counts and make sure it's optimized.

The only thing more sad than a site that has never been found, is the one that soared to the top and didn't engage its millions of visitors.  With nothing to keep them on the site, it eventually drifts away toward obscurity. This particular race is never over, but by taking the right steps, your site can get to the top and continue to stay in the lead.

The world of multi-level marketing has crept into paid internet advertising.  Schemes promising top of page ad placement have emerged (and in some cases they actually deliver on the promise).  But when you look in the organic, or unpaid searches on the same page with paid advertising, nothing can be found.  Results from an organic search are typically what executives click on first, as that ranking has been achieved by a good reputation and hard work.  Most folks these days have learned to look at paid advertising with suspicion, because (duh) they paid to get there.  Organic search results include the important component of community, which along with hard work, is responsible for top level page positioning in search results.