It is probably not surprising that a group of SEO and online marketing consultants enjoyed Jeff Jarvis’s recent book What Would Google Do?.  After all, ensuring that our clients can be found via Google (as well as Yahoo and MSN) is our job.

In the beginning of the book, Jeff lists a few simple rules for ensuring and that you or your company can be easily found online.  Here are a few of our favorite tips:

• “Construct information (on your website) so it can be understood by machine and man.  In a word, be clear.  If you’re a dentist, say you’re a dentist, not a smile doctor.  Use the word “dentist” in the title of the page, the headline, and the beginning of what you write - make it so obvious even a computer couldn’t be confused.  This also means that when human beings come to the page, they’ll know what you do.  Clarity is always beneficial.”
• “Give everything you publish a permanent address - a permalink - so it can attract and accumulate more traffic and links and so Google has a place to which it can reliably send the people looking for you.”
• “Create separate pages for separate topics.  If you’re a restaurant, have a menu page and a directions page so, when I go searching for ‘Jeff’s Chop House menu’, Google can send me straight to your menu page.”
• “Once people come to your page, make sure you make it clear where they are: Put your brand on every page.  When people go looking for an answer and find it via a click from a Google search, they often don’t know where they have landed and who gave them their answer.  Take credit.”

On a related note, “Book Report Wednesday” is the newest feature on our SEO company’s blog , so check back next Wednesday for more of our favorite reads.