As Barry mentioned, Google is playing around with Rich Snippets in the SERPs (mostly as it pertains to reviews and people for now), dictated by microformats and RDFa data. They’ve also released a Rich Snippet testing tool which allows you to easily see how your microformat or RDFa data would potentially be displayed. I’ve long thought that implementing microformats would be incredibly beneficial for search engines as it pertains to business and location purposes.

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

I tried to do some research to figure this out and I came across some strange results. This result here posted yesterday (June 24th) seems to be the oldest mention of Michael Jackson’s death, from a Twitter’er named Aimee Mitchell. Who when you visit her profile history, has deleted her previous mention of MJ’s passing. Additionally, Aimee’s history only goes back to June 20th. Very, very bizarre. There’s an earlier tweet below Aimee’s that also mentions MJ’s death but it’s repetitive/spammy and shows up multiple times under multiple accounts within older posts. It just seems coincidental.

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

I’ve been thinking about this for a while now. As we’re all aware, there was once a phrase called Web 2.0 that defined a time in online innovation, marking the arrival of various websites and apps that had a fresh, glossy look and feel, where social interaction was emphasized but form and function didn’t always align, and sharing content via social bookmarking, social news, and social networking was par for the course. Today however things have changed. It’s apparent who’s responsible for the revolution, yet only a fraction of the pie they are indeed a large piece. Twitter has brought real time information delivery to our desktops and mobile devices, something that didn’t previously exist. We can see the benefits and all the great ways in which businesses and individuals are leveraging Twitter so I think if there were one phrase that could define the web right now, it would be ‘Real Time’ or ‘Web RT’. This also cleverly touches on Twitter terminology meaning ‘retweet’.

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

Here’s a great list of 122 social media sites for your leveraging pleasure.

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.

These are some of the recent shiny and vetted finds from my Google reader. Thought I’d share them.

Wiep – The Perfect Link Request Email Template
Mashable – Top 20 Ways to Share a Great Blog Post
Mashable – Domain Name Search Gets Powerful with Domize
Lifehacker – How Do I Attach A File in Gmail From the Windows Context Menu
Mashable – 20 of the Best Plugins for Wordpress
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.

It took a while to put together but it’s finally here for your referencing pleasure. There’s a grand total of 311 SEO Tools, Social Bookmarking Sites, Social News Sites, Social Networking Sites & Social Media Sites listed here that I’ve used in the past to help me do what I do best. I’m sharing this with you today because I’m always looking for lists like these and it’s not often that they’re stumbled upon. Each link is alive and kicking, sorted by pagerank. If you like the list let your friends know about it, I’m sure it will come in handy for them too.

Enjoy!