Brass Monki, custom sneaker designers, have designed a version of Google sneakers out of Nike sneakers. As you can see from the image above, the sneaker looks pretty neat! I can’t seem to find them in the e-commerce store, so I am not sure if they were pulled due to legal reasons or never posted there – and only available for custom orders. That being said, it appears these sneakers would cost about $550 to buy.

The unusual move comes as several U.S. cities elbow for a spot in Google’s new “Fiber for Communities” program. The Web giant is going to install new Internet connections in unannounced locations, giving those communities Internet speeds 100 times faster than those elsewhere, with data transfer rates faster than 1 gigabit per second.

Can you imagine walking around with this hairdo? The “Chrome Cut” is a haircut and styling that takes the shape and color of the Google Chrome logo. The picture was posted by Mayhem Chaos on Flickr.

Danny Sullivan was at Newport Beach yesterday, on Memorial Day and snapped a picture of a Google Boat at the dock. He posted the picture on his Twitter account for all to see. Danny admitted he had an urge to place a Bing sticker on the boat near the Google logo.

What would you find in Pristina, the largest city of Kosovo? A Google Fashion Store on the retail strip. Of course this is not a real Google store, but someone took the liberty to use Google’s logo for their store. This picture was posted on Flickr by Tony Bowden in June 2010.

Google +1 Website Button To Launch Tomorrow
Website owners will be busy tomorrow, as Danny Sullivan has confirmed that Google will be launching their +1 button for websites tomorrow. No doubt this will be the topic of discussion throughout the cyber world, Google’s ‘Like’ or ‘Tweet This’ button will be a hot implementation as social factors have been shown to impact search result rankings.

Twitter Introduces the Follow Button
The button lets the user follow her favorite writers, brands and more–without ever leaving the web page she’s currently on. Fifty sites, including The Hufington Post and AOL.com, have partnered with Twitter to launch the Follow Button

The techniques used by all three methods are designed to accomplish the same goal, which is to improve the search engine rankings of client web sites and specific web pages. The major difference is in the way companies use these techniques to achieve this goal. These SEO strategies have come to be known as “White Hat”, “Black Hat” and “Grey Hat”. Search engine optimization (SEO) companies utilize one or more of these approaches with varying levels of success.

Black Hat SEO is typically made up of shady, unethical and manipulative methods for obtaining search rankings. Whether you agree with them or not, there is no arguing with the fact that Black Hat methods involve a higher level of risk, but can also yield rewards, although not in an ethical fashion. Since Black Hat techniques tend to negatively impact the quality of search engine results and the search engine business model is to deliver high quality search results to users, web sites that employ these methods can net short term rewards, but run the risk of being penalized by search engines and possibly even de-indexed.

A few Black Hat SEO techniques are listed below:

• Redirecting search engine “spiders” or “crawlers”
• Mass-posting comments to blogs, forums and article sites
• Including keywords in a very small font at the bottom of web pages
• Burying searchable content in web site code
• Stuffing keywords into the invisible META data of web pages
• Improper use of META keywords and descriptions

White Hat SEO is considered by search engines, such as Google, to be ethical SEO that adheres to guidelines set forth by the search engine. White Hat SEO sometimes requires more work and can be somewhat more time-consuming, but in the long run will have a positive effect on your sites’ search rankings and hopefully avoid the risk associated with Black Hat methods.

Some White Hat SEO methods are listed below:

• Provide unique, relevant useful, keyword-optimized content
• Well written copy that encourages users to link to
• Clean code and script that runs fast
  
• Optimization of META tags – particularly the page title, but don’t over-optimize
  
• Using the correct keywords in URLs and not in strange places
• Submitting pages to directories and blogs; be sure to read Google quality guidelines
  
• Creating sitemaps to help “spider” navigation
• Providing links and being linked to from quality, related sites
• Using anchor text properly containing key words

Gray Hat SEO is exactly what you think it is. It consists of borderline SEO techniques that most likely won’t get your site de-indexed or banned from search results, but could pose a risk of getting your site penalized.

Some Gray Hat SEO techniques are listed below:

• Including keywords in odd places so that your content scores well for SEO
  
• Posting the same article to multiple sites using multiple versions
  
• Recruiting bloggers to write about your company on their blog
• Trading links with another websites to build links

Although using Black Hat and Gray Hat SEO techniques can sometimes yield quick results, in the long run, search engine marketing companies that effectively use White Hat techniques will provide you with the best chance of achieving higher search rankings and consistently maintaining them. White Hat techniques will definitely help your longevity in SEO, because having integrity and being trustworthy are never a bad business practices.

SEOMOZ is one of the most robust sites on the Internet dedicated to providing SEO software. One of the tools you’ll find there is the SEO Toolbar. This tool plugs directly into the toolbar of FireFox or Chrome and gives you access to page metrics and a variety of SEO tools while you surf so that you don’t have to open a separate piece of software. Some other tools are Open Site Explorer, Trifecta, Linkscape, and Juicy Link Finder. All of these tools are incredibly useful in giving you the information you need to let you know how effective your ad campaigns really are. You can have access to all of these tools by paying a subscription fee.

Another popular SEO Tools site is SEO Book. They also provide a toolbar to plug into your browser that provides several useful tools. There is also a free search engine ranker tool that will let you know how your pages are ranking on Google. SEO Book also provides a keyword tool to help you choose the most effective keywords for your campaign. All of the tools on this site are free. One of the cool things about this site is that they provide their search engine optimization software in the form of Google Gadgets that you can insert directly into any page.

SEO Company is a site that provides links to over 140 SEO tools that are submitted by independent developers. This gives you the ability to find tools that are designed for very specific purposes. It also ranks tools based on their functionality and the number of downloads. If you can’t find the right SEO software to suit your purpose here then it may not exist.

SEO Tools is another smaller site that provides tools that you can use to customize your Google search page in order to make it more effective for your personal style of browsing. This site offers tools such as a domain report tool, server response checker, and SEO cloaking checker.

There are many more sites that provide the best search engine optimization software on the Internet. These are just a few that offer a lot of tools, the most customized tools, and the most effective tools. You should be able to find a tool to accomplish about any goal that you might have by visiting one of these sites and downloading one or several of their very effective tools.

Pictures and images are one of the most important types of content. A customer will be more likely to buy what you are selling if the images of your products are clear, colorful, and help to describe the product. Always include images that point out the particular strengths of your products.

Videos are a newer, more interactive component of website content that has grown in importance with the proliferation of high speed Internet. Nowadays most users have connections that are fast enough to view videos. Since people now have the increased bandwidth they are looking for richer content that they can see and hear instead of just reading text and looking at static images.

Widgets are a relatively new way to display interactive, dynamic content. An example of a widget would be a mortgage calculator on a realty website or a payment calculator on the website of a car dealership. These widgets can provide a service to a user and provide a new source of content that you can use to attract other users.

Blog posts are another way to keep fresh, up to date information on your site. Since blog posts are updated often with current information they have the ability to build followers that come back time and again for new information. This is a great source for dynamic content.

The creation of custom applications that users can download is another great source of original content. If you develop good quality, useful plug-ins for FaceBook, WordPress, or even smart phone widgets and apps then you can keep attracting users for as long as your applications are relevant. Applications for social media sources are especially good sources of content, because word of mouth can help to spread the popularity of your site.

E-books are an ambitious form of content. The Internet has provided an outlet for many art forms that help to expose new artists to the masses who would never have had a chance to share their art otherwise. It is definitely more ambitious than maintaining a blog, but if you can develop a following it is a very good source of content.

Incentives or awards can also help attract users. Provide an incentive to your top contributors. Everyone loves to get a good “at a boy”. If you give awards for contributing quality content then you will have more content to choose from and your users will try harder in order to provide good quality content in order to reap the rewards.

Most SEO professionals today will tell you that content is key to the overall SEO strategy. These are just a few sources that will help you drive traffic to your websites. Hollow advertising that provides no real value to the user is simply not going to command the ranks that good, solid content will provide.

1. Ask to see previous work and speak to previous and existing customers. This will give you some idea of what kind of track record the company has and the quality of work they turn in. If the company is hesitant to show you past work or allow you to speak with customers then beware.

2. Ask them how much experience they have in your particular industry. You want an SEO that has some idea about what drives traffic in your particular market.

3. Ask if they already represent a competitor in the same industry. This doesn’t mean that there will be a problem or conflict. Just make sure that the company has guidelines and principals in place to prevent the inadvertent exposure of your strategy to another competitor.

4. If you plan to market your site internationally make sure they have some experience with the culture(s) and language(s) that you plan on marketing your site to. You want to be able to maximize your exposure without offending your prospective users. You also want your keywords to be specific to your target audience so that your site shows up in their search results.

5. The level and method of communication about your campaign is also very important. Ask when and how you will be informed of changes to your account and as to the progress and effectiveness of the campaign.

6. Develop a clear understanding of how you will be able to measure the success of your marketing campaign. You need to determine how you will know that the SEO campaign is actually performing for you.

7. You will also need to know in what timeframe you can expect to see results. Depending on your situation, it might be better to go with a company that expects results in 6 months rather than a company that projects results in 2 years.

8. Beware of SEO or marketing companies that send you unsolicited email or other marketing materials. If you receive advertisements out of the blue make sure you research the company very thoroughly.

9. SEO companies cannot guarantee a number 1 ranking on a search engine. These rankings fluctuate depending on many factors, so beware of companies making grandiose guarantees.

10. Be wary of SEOs that will list your links on thousands of search engines or that use terms like “link popularity”, “free links”, or “link spamming”. Most of the time these types of campaigns don’t increase your page ranking.

There are many ways to determine if an SEO company is the right one for you. Mostly, it’s just a matter of personal taste, how the SEO lines up with your specific goals, and good old common sense. If an SEO is making promises that are too good to be true then most of the time they are. Just keep your eyes open and do your homework.

If you’re using an SEO company from the beginning of your design they can give you advice on things like the use of certain technologies. Some web technologies are more SEO friendly than others. Flash, Silverlight, and AJAX are all technologies that greatly aid in the usability and enhance the appearance of your website. However, these technologies are not very SEO friendly because they hide the content that is used by search engine crawlers to index your pages. So, the use of these technologies is certainly a plus, but an experienced SEO company can provide you with guidance as to when and how to use them in order to maximize the visibility of your pages to search engine crawlers.

An SEO company can also provide many other services that will help to make a new website a success as well as breathing life into existing sites. Often they are experts at researching keywords and content development. They might also have special expertise in certain market areas. SEO companies can also provide technical expertise on hosting and domain structuring to help you maximize your public exposure. If you want to maximize the amount of traffic to your site then hiring an SEO company is a very positive step in the right direction.

1. When formatting links you should try to include keywords that pertain to your site as often as possible. You should also include as much descriptive text surrounding the keyword as you can in order to catch any keyword phrase searches. Most users search for specific phrases rather than single keywords.

2. Link to other sites and get them to reciprocate. Linking to other sites can drive traffic through your website. A user might be following a link through your website, but if your content and design is good it might catch their eye and they might stop to visit your site along their journey.

3. Use links in javascript menus and dropdowns. This will provide clear text that a visiting web crawler can read.

4. Try to construct a collection of quality back links. You don’t want just any site linking to you. If you have disreputable sites linking back to you it might damage the reputation of your site by association.

5. Add keyword phrases to your links in order to help drive local search traffic to your site. For example, if you have a commerce site that sells baseball uniforms try including your location in the keyword phrase of your link such as “Tuscaloosa Baseball Equipment” instead of just “baseball uniforms”. This will help attract searchers looking for specific topics relative to their area.

6. Make sure that you don’t have specific pages inside your site included as part of your domain name. For example, http://www.mydomain.com/home.html should not be part of your domain name. Leave off the home.html and setup your web server to automatically use this as the start page. By using the page title in the domain name you’re splitting your links and degrading your page rank.

7. The quickest way to get a spider to visit your site is to get links to your site included on another reputable site. If those sites are being indexed then the spider will eventually follow those links to your site and index your pages. This is much faster than going through the lengthy search engine application process. You shouldn’t count on this method as an alternative to the search engine application processes, but you should use this method in conjunction with it to go ahead and get the ball rolling while you’re going through the application process.

The use of links is one of the most important SEO strategies. Internal, external, back, and forward links are all important in how they’re formatted and where they go to and come from. By using your SEO savvy to construct your links you’ll be rewarded with the page rank you’re seeking.