13 Ways to Sabotage Your SEO Opportunities

It's easy to go awry with Website development - from browser compatibility issues to colors that just don't work out.

Search engine optimization, an integral part of website - and beyond - is no exception. Often in ignorance, companies cause their own problems or allow issues to endure. 

Here are 13 ways you can ruin SEO (but you can avoid these with a little bit of effort):

1. Bring in an SEO specialist after the fact.
It happens all of the time. Someone hears about SEO.  And then he decides after a website development project that he could have used SEO all along. If a website takes shape without SEO, the road ahead will be that much tougher - lots of defects to correct (architectural flaws are just the start).

2.  Not understanding the difference between keyword research and keyword selection.
I've found that too much attention is given to finding potential keywords - relevant phrases that might lead to conversions. Sure, you need to go through those exercises. But keyword selection must be rooted in sound reasoning based on factors like where the website ranks today, how the competition is doing, the website age, nature of inbound links, etc.



http://www.webpronews.com/expertarticles/2010/09/10/13-ways-to-sabotage-your-seo-opportunities

Protecting Brands on Social Networks

Protecting Brands on Social Networks

As much as consumers worry about protecting themselves on the virtual Wild West of social media, brands worry too, particularly when it comes to securing trademarks. Brandchannel readers are well aware of the trademark battles faced by brands; just today, we looked at legal spats involving Starbucks and Lego.
So we were interested to read about TM.Biz, which just launched a proprietary tool for securing trademarks and brands on social media networks, marking a step forward for against cybersquatting.

The business model is simple: accounts and search services are free, but there’s a charge for generating reports and reserving names. For now, TM.Biz is targeting corporations, but a service for smaller businesses is on the drawing board.