If you’re interested in adding this data to your business website but aren’t too familiar with the markup, microformats.org has made it really easy for everyone with their free hCard Creator.

Google has a nice guide here on how to configure the markup for your business. Note how Google states that the name formatting should use both fn/org. the hCard Creator just uses org so you might want to add-in the fn. It also has a field for ‘tags’ which it seems to be using Technorati for.

Here’s a screen shot of the hCard creator preview for Squareoak

UPDATE: TMZ is credited with first publishing Jackson’s death Thursday, June 25 at 5:20 PM

Yes Twitter is indeed becoming mainstream, so much so that Pepsi has added their twitter address to their cans, Dell ( @DellOutlet ) had made over $2 mil in revenue from their Twitter account alone selling discounted or outlet priced computers. A cat has over 600,000 followers. Celebrity Ashton Kutcher has 2.1 million followers, the most out of anyone ever. Someone started a Twitter petition that went viral, attempting to get at&t to “offer reasonable iPhone 3GS upgrade prices”. Businesses, celebrities, authors, individuals are all using Twitter is some way. You get it… the list goes on.

With that said, what would YOU call the ‘New Web’? Scoble wants to call it ‘Web 2010’. Some are calling it ‘Web 3.0’. Personally I think ‘Web RT’ not only touches on what’s happening now but also rolls off the tongue pretty nicely. Add your suggestion in the comments below and later we can put together a poll to figure out the best phrase for this movement.  Maybe your suggestion touches more on the mobile aspect of our time with the advent of the iPhone or maybe it’s about a loss of privacy. Let us know your thoughts.

There are hundreds of thousands of legal practices out there, all of which have a website and some of which engage in online marketing. Some firms are exceptional at this and in some cases; creep into black hat marketing tactics, while other firms have an utterly dismal online presence, having last updated their website years ago. What some firms may or may not know is that kicking your website into gear to be more interactive, more search friendly, and more indexable isn’t that difficult. Making small improvements to your site can really help and potentially lead to new business. The following are five simple ways in which you can bolster your firm’s online presence.

Create a Blog
Adding a blog to your site is a sure fire way to increase indexation. By blogging you’ll not only be adding new and legal related content to your site but you’ll also give your readers a way to subscribe to your content in their feed reader via your blog’s RSS feed. You can also sync your blog’s feed to your Facebook account or fanpage and your Twitter account so that both places will publish your content the moment it’s published on your blog. Additionally, services like Feedburner and Feedblitz can automatically capture email addresses and email your subscribers your blog’s latest post to their email inbox. Globally, Wordpress is the blogging CMS of choice which is free to download and install. There are thousands of free themes out there that you can choose from and later customize to match the look and feel of your existing site. Blogging will ultimately increase your indexation, traffic, and potentially bring in new business if you’re blogging about legal issues and answering common legal questions your readers may have.

Get Rid of Flash
There are so many sites out there that are entirely built on flash. Get rid of it! It may look pretty but it’s usually not helping. Are you interested in giving a prospective client a bouquet of daisies or providing the helpful information they seek? Your audience is looking for counsel and information on legal matters. Delivering the answers they seek quickly without being superfluous is more likely to gain new clients. Additionally and perhaps more importantly, flash can’t be parsed/read by search engine bots. The more your site is built on flash, the less readable and indexable it will be. Some flash is ok in small doses but do avoid building your entire site in flash.

Local Search Campaigning
Most legal practices are locally based and if this is the case for you then you should really be hitting the pavement with local search. Make sure your locality is represented in your title tags and or descriptions. For instance your title tag may look like:

Mesothelioma, Accident Attorney & Medical Malpractice Attorney, Boston MA | Bob Loblaw PPC

And you’ll want to be sure to canvas the local directories with you business information. Here are some places to get you started:

Best ROI:
Google Local Business
Yelp
Citysearch
Yahoo Local
Judy’s Book

Others to consider:
Local
Insider Pages
True Local
Super Pages
Dex Knows
Localeze
Yellowbot
Grayboxx

Editing Your Meta Data
Making sure your title tags and description tags are keyword laden and different on every page is an SEO 101 update that you can easily make. If you know what type of client you want and what they’d probably search for, take these keyword phrases and pump them into a keyword research tool like Wordtracker (paid) or Google Keyword Tool (free). Once you have a short list of targeted keyword phrases, add these to your title tags where appropriate. Make sure the title tags speak to the content contained on the page you’re editing the title tag for. You’ll want the description to be similar in that it contains some keywords and is relevant to the content on its respective page.

Answer Legal Questions
Establishing yourself online as an expert in your field can be done overtime by leveraging the following services. You’ll also want to consider using Twitter and the Twitter search site to find people who may have legal questions in your area. You can search geographically within Twitter under the advanced search option.

Best ROI
Twitter
Yahoo Answers
LinkedIn

Other Places to Consider:
Maholo Answers
Wiki Answers
Answer Bag
Yedda
Fluther
Wondir

Should your firm need a new, robust website or search engine optimization and search engine marketing services, please feel free to reach out. I’d be happy to discuss your online marketing plans with you.

You can contact Brendan here

There are tons of clever and creative ways to build a good email list of devoted followers and fans. I’m not going to go into the many different ways in which this could be done but I would like to point out one method that caught my attention during lunch today.

There’s a brand of chips out there called Zapp’s out of Gramercy, Louisiana. These folks make one of my favorite chip flavors, Spicy Creole Tomato spiked with Tabasco sauce. I have a penchant for spicy foods, especially Creole cuisine.

So I wanted to get the above picture into the blog post and I definitely thought twice before scanning an open and empty bag of potato chips but I luckily managed to do it without getting crap all over my scanner. On the back of the bag it says you can go to www.Zapps.com where you can register for their daily drawing and if you get picked, you win a free Zapp’s/TABASCO T-shirt! Running this on a daily basis is a very low cost, fun, and efficient way to build a targeted opt-in email list. However, when I visit the Zapp’s site, I don’t see anything about TABASCO, this limited edition flavor, the email registration, or any Zapp’s/TABASCO T-shirts. Has the T-shirt daily drawings ended? I’m sure they simply ran out of T-shirts but still had loads of this limited edition product to sell with the daily drawing info printed on the back.

Think they monitor their brand online? I wonder… hey Zapp’s, TABASCO, I have a proposition for ya. If you can find this post and send me a size L T-shirt (use the contact form to get my address) I’ll take a picture of myself wearing it and post it here on the Squareoak blog. I’ll also spread the post online, building brand awareness for Zapp’s and TABASCO over all of my social media accounts. This offer applies to both Zapp’s and TABASCO.

You have until April 10th to acknowledge you’ve seen this post in the comments section below. The promotional service offer will end after this date.

Wiep – The Perfect Link Request Email Template
Mashable – Top 20 Ways to Share a Great Blog Post
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Lifehacker – How Do I Attach A File in Gmail From the Windows Context Menu
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Search Engine Journal – Top Wordpress Resources to List Your Wordpress Blog & Build Links
Wiep – New Link Building Tool: BuzzStream
Mashable – HOW TO: Manage Multiple Social Media Profiles
TechCrunch – BackType Gets More Conversation Tracking Features, Seed Funding
Search Engine Roundtable – GetListed.org Brings Much Needed Tool for Local Search Marketers

A common urban sight like the above wouldn’t seem to conjure up much thought but to me, this image says many things. These bundles of Verizon Yellow and White Pages get dumped in my Brooklyn neighborhood seemly per quarter. They get left on the curb and just as effortlessly ignored as they make a b-line towards business model extinction. I’m trying to figure out why Verizon still publishes these. I guess in a neighborhood as diversified as mine, there are plenty of people who still rely on printed directories. For the most part it seems like these directories end up ignored as they eternally lie in apartment complex hallways or eventually in a landfill.

So my questions are:

• How much money is spent organizing, formatting, printing, and delivering these things?
• How is advertising within these sold to the advertiser?
• Just how effective is the advertising?
• What’s the carbon footprint of their production?
• If only 20% (based on how many copies visibly remain) of a community uses these, could this be considered littering?
• Are the chemicals used in the paper and ink environmentally toxic?

This not only seems like a dead and fruitless business model but also environmentally irresponsible. I would be willing to guess that:

• A lot of time, money, and effort is placed in production and delivery.
• The adverting is sold as part of a larger marketing package.
• The effectiveness of the advertising is near zero.
• The carbon footprint is extremely high.
• If these are as useless as they seem, the amount of litter would be astronomical.
• The chemicals used in production could be harmful in large quantities/concentrations.

Enjoy!

Warning Signs

Broken English
Broken English in a provider’s ad, pitch, or website doesn’t necessarily mean that their service is sub-par but more often than not this seems to be the case. The main concern would be that this provider is probably going to be working on your title tags, descriptions, URL structure, content, etc. They will be doing things and stuff to your site that require an intimate knowledge of the English language. They’ll need to be able to do appropriate keyword research and determine what keyword phrases are going to be most beneficial to your business. This would go for any strategy or campaign that has to do with content or keyword research, especially PPC.

“We will submit your site to over 500 search engines!”
Wherever you just saw this – run, run away! There are many crappy programs out there that will auto-submit a domain to hundreds of search engines. Many hacks think or want you to think that there’s value in this when there’s none. The only search engines that people care about and use is Google, Yahoo, MSN, Baidu (Chinese), and Yandex (Russian). You don’t have to submit your domain to these engines in order for them to find you. The more links you have pointing to your domain the easier it will be for them to realize your domain exists.

“We’ll get you to rank #1 in Google!”
If you’re niche is incredibly unusual and there’s not a lot competition this may be true but more often than not, this is complete and utter BS. Due to high competition, more authoritative domains and their age, the chances of your domain ranking 1st for ‘widgets’ is highly unlikely. Not to mention Google cycles its results, provides you with results based on your individual search history, serves results based on the geo-location of your IP address, throw in about 200 other variable ranking factors and you get tailored SERPs. This isn’t to say that they can’t be (to a degree) leveraged in your favor but that takes a lot of time and a lot of careful and expert link building (among other strategies). An experienced and advanced search marketer would never tell you that they could get you to rank 1st in Google for your term. Expect an evaluation of your domain and its niche and then expect your potential search marketer to give you realistic expectations of what they can achieve.

“Let us handle your link exchange program!”
Ugh, if anyone touts this as an important aspect of a campaign then they’re way off base. Some people today still think that exchanging links has a great amount of value and granted link building in general does but the simple fact that your link is on their domain and their link is on yours doesn’t mean much. What it probably means is that you’re participating in the outdated mentality that exchanging links is a great SEO strategy. It’s a waste of time and you’ll want to avoid anyone selling this technique.

Sites or places to Avoid When Searching for an SEO/SEM provider

Craigslist
Every once in a while you can find a legitimate and experienced person posting on here and if you do find someone good, chances are they’ll be relatively inexpensive in comparison to the larger firms or more well known folk. However, about 90% of the postings on here are by inexperienced providers who will probably end up damaging your domain and will take your money in exchange for little value.

A Search Engine’s Paid Search Ads
If a search marketing company has to pay their way to make a dent in the SERPs then how are they going to provide any real value to your business? Specifically search for the services you’re looking for and browse through the listings. Note that there are many companies listed in the organic SERPs that are using unfavorable techniques to gain visibility for general terms like ‘seo services’. Get as detailed as possible in your search and the chances of you finding someone who meets your needs will be more likely.

Low Grade Directories
There are hundreds of thousands of low grade directories out there and just about anyone can submit their website to them. Trusted directories are usually hand edited, have good, reliable content, and do not require a submission fee. Directories you can trust would be DMOZ, Yahoo’s Directory, Business.com, Best of the Web, and the Librarian Internet Index.

Some Good Places to Look for an SEO/SEM Provider

SEMPO
SEMPO stands for Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization. There are hundreds of search marketing companies listed here and most are well-known, reputable firms. You can search for providers using a few different filters, including a search within your geographic area.

PubCon, SMX, or SES Speakers
These are industry conferences that are held all the time in various locations nationally and overseas. Visit the conference websites and see who’s been speaking and in what capacity. If you’re interested in hiring someone who specializes in viral content, check out the session details of past conferences and see who’s talking. If you find someone but there’s no contact info listed just Google them. You’ll be sure to find their domain and contact information.

Sphinn
I hesitate to suggest Sphinn since there is a lot of misinformation and gaming happening here but there’s also a lot of really good and reputable people who participate. If you go to Sphinn and click on the Network tab and then Hot Spinners tab you can see the popularity percentage of user submissions. I’d say about 95% of the people listed here are very good at what they do. If you click on their usernames you can access their contact information. Send them an email or IM and see what happens. If they don’t provide the services you’re looking for I’m sure they’ll know someone who does.

Word of Mouth and Referrals
It’s always good to ask people you know. Most of the big players in this industry don’t do any advertising because they don’t have to. They’ve worked with enough happy clients and have received enough attention to get client inquiries on a regular basis. Send out an email to friends and family and see if they know of anyone. If they do reply back, Google the person’s name to see what you can find. If they’re experienced they should have a website, their name should be associated with or mentioned on other domains or social sites, and they should be able you provide you with a list of references.