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In a article released early this week by Yahoo! news it was stated, "More Americans are Googling themselves — and many are checking out their friends, co-workers and romantic interests, too."

What results when you put your name into that little magical box on Google? Are people finding what you want them to find when they Google your name?

When was the last time that you turned to Google for answers about your future or former boss, collegue, or partner?

5 Things you can do to control your name on the Search Engine Results page.

Register your First and Last name as a domain name. Setup a website

Hello,

We just finished our Adwords Bootcamp this week. It was a great time and everyone learned a ton. You can read more about our past workshops and check out pictures on our Bootcamp Graduates Page.

Today's tip comes from something we have discussed in both of our past workshops.

Occassionally at the bootcamps when we are evaluating one anothers website this comment is is heard, "I think..." or "People are probablly more likely to search for..." or "The reason I laid our the site that was because, I like..." IF you notice in each of these comments the focus is on what "I think"

We met with a few workshop participants at Cito's Coffee Shop in Yaletown for a little SEO and website Q & A. Pictured here is Rodney Bartlett and Patricia Houlihan. Rodney is busy helping Patricia get Feedburner setup for her Ubertor website. We work remotely throughout Vancouver and will let you know what coffee shop we plan to be at so that you can pop in and ask questions or just catch up. To stay up to date on Reachd Event dates go to http://upcoming.yahoo.com/group/3680/

 

Yesterday the Google Webmaster team made a big annoucement about sitemaps. Currently they offer two types of sitemaps a general website map and a mobile sitemap. With their announcement yesterday they introduced video sitemaps. This new video sitemap will make it easier for Google to index your videos. The announcement is new, if you'd like more info about how to setup a video sitemap check out the Google webmaster blog. If you are using a CMS like ubertor or another system you will have to wait for them to integrate the video sitemap but don't worry the guys at Ubertor are sharp and you can bet they will be keeping a close eye on the video sitemaps

I've spoken to a number of people over the past few months who are totally pumped about the idea of learning more about Search Engine Optimization but there are a few drawbacks --- Either they don't live in Vancouver or taking the time off work is difficult.

If that is you, then we've got some good news. The Reachd team is researching the possiblity of offering training online. 

In order to deliver the best online SEO training we need your help: Would you take 10 minutes and fill out this 6 question survey? Here is a link to the Survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=l4ZX4k_2btjJIvdG4ehOPX8A_3d_3d

We

Today's Tip is about a new feature in Google Webmaster Tools http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools

Google has recently added a new feature to the webmasters tools called "Content Analysis"

The purpose of the tools is to evaluate the content on your site to see if you are in danger of having a duplicate content penalty. The tool is still in beta so it may be a bit buggy still, but is a good tool to check out. You can find the tool by logging into your webmaster account and then clicking on the diagnostics tab.

So What's the tip? Be sure to have unique title's for each page of you website. One of the

Do you use Google Maps?

You better believe we do at our house. Whenever we are going to visit a friend or whenever we are looking to find a restaurant or any other directions to a place that we haven't been to before. Google maps is always my friend when I am traveling and when I am at home.

I'm sure that many of you have noticed that Google maps is often included in the search results. I asked Matt Cutts about that briefly when I spoke with him at PubCon in Vegas. If you haven't watched the video with Matt Cutts he's got some great things to say.

 His comment regarding the search results and maps was

Our Essentials workshop just ended. You can read the about SEO workshop particiapants on our SEO Workshop graduates page.

We had a good group and took some extended time for site reviews during this workshop, which in my opinion is one of the hightlights of the Bootcamp. Find out more about our Search Engine and Adwords Bootcamps

One piece of advice that really stood out throughout the site reviews was the need for a call to action. Many of the sites that we looked at were beautiful sites, with some awesome information but the call to action was lacking. Most visitors to your sites need to be told what to do or "gently" lead

Great News! I've completed the requirements to become a Google Adwords Professional. 

Three basic requirements for become an adwords pro.

1. An comprehensive knowledge of the adwords advertising system 2. Completion of the Google Adwords Professional Exam 3. Management of $1000 / month in your Google Adwords account.

Do you use Google Adwords? If you are a real estate agent, do you market your listings with Adwords?

If so, you should consider become a Google adwords professional. Imagine someone listing their property with you and they check your credentials. Upon checking your creditials your potential

This is a very special edition of the SEO Tip of the Day. It is not everyday that you get an SEO Tip right from Google, but today we did get to hear from Matt Cutts from Google. Matt talked about two things that we would like to point out to you.

1. The importance of an XML sitemap. With a sitemap you are making Google's job of crawling your site much easier. If you want to get a deep crawl of your site then make sure you have a site map

2. Avoid Flash and Javascript menus. Eventhough Google is getting better at crawling Java and Flash menus, the easiest menus for them to crawl are the menus built with text links and styled using CSS.