Google can now indexed scanned documents – .pdf files and other images of print text. Wow!

This is great news because before humans – people like you me – had no problems reading scanned documents online, but the search engines did. Now you can scan your entire library of technical manuals and possibly rank for search terms within them. At least, in theory.

From Google’s official blog:

Consider a circle. Should it be read it as a zero, the letter ‘O’, just a circle, or the ring from my coffee cup? People learn to answer this kind of question very quickly, but for the computer it is a painstaking and error-prone process.

Check it out:

Here’s a link to the SERP.

Now view the .pdf document.

Incredible that the huge title across the top of the page on the .pdf file is the actual title of the document in the SERP, just like on a web page. How you can make that work for your website? Any ideas?

I’ve seen all kinds of websites. The worst kinds of websites in the world are websites that sit on Windows servers, designed using ASP, and use Javascript dynamic navigation menus. Why even build a website? It’s a combination of three of the worst design mistakes you can make.

Like anything made by Microsoft, Windows servers are loaded with code. You’ll typically find that many web hosts will offer a free website building tool with your hosting package. A great deal many of those are Windows-based. They suck. Don’t use them. Your website will be littered with code, making it difficult for the search engines to find the meat of your content so that they can index it properly. You are much better off using a LINUX or UNIX server. When interviewing your web host, ask them if their servers are LINUX or Windows-based. If they say Windows then shop elsewhere.

Windows servers and ASP go hand in hand. Why? Because they are both Microsoft products. If you guessed that ASP is littered with code that bogs down your website, you’d be right. Just like the Windows server, it’s got all kinds of useless code added in that makes it more difficult for the search engines to crawl your website. Build your website in HTML. It will get crawled better and will be more likely to get indexed by the search engines.

Javascript has some useful applications. There are things you can do on a website that will be difficult to do without Javascript, or that you wouldn’t even want to try without it. Embedding audio and video files, for instance. So Javascript is a great tool to use. But not as a navigation menu item. Why? Because the search engines can’t crawl it – yet.

There are other cool things you can do with Javascript. Most social applications use it. Without Javascript you couldn’t put all those widgets on your website. It’s a really, really cool coding language that has allowed webmasters to move beyond the basic formatting of HTML and into the world of Web 2.0, making user interaction one the defining principle of post-Bust Internet marketing.

So why is Javascript so bad?

The answer is it is only bad for certain use, namely, as a navigation menu. Yes, your navigation menu will look cool and your users will love the flips, turns, drop downs, flashing giggles, and other bells and whistles you embed into your website, but the search engines won’t crawl those links and your internal web pages won’t get indexed. And that’s why I recommend, instead, that you use an HTML navigation menu, because the search engines have no problem crawling HTML links.

One alternative, if you insist on using the dynamic Javascript navigation menu, is to place HTML links in the footer of your website so that the search engines have something to crawl. Otherwise, you’re really just building a website that looks pretty, but only you and your web host will know it.

Live Search wrote on its blog that it can provide instant answers. That’s great, but I think Ask.com proved years ago that instant answers weren’t always that good. But Jeeves didn’t quite do it the way that Live Search is trying to do. I actually like the Live Search model.

Here it is in a nutshell:

• Search the Live Search Encyclopedia for information
• Get local traffic by performing a traffic query
• Check your horoscope

I like the encyclopedia approach, especially if it’s free. But users will have to be able to get the information that they need right now. One failed search query and it’s doomed. But I’m not real sure it’s going to MSNs market share. It probably won’t. Still, if they can provide useful information at a snap, it’ll hold its own. What do you think? Is Live Search cool or a fool?

SEO cuts a lot of ways. If you write a blog, for instance, you don’t have to do every single post on a niche-related topic. You should a lot within your niche because, well, it’s just common sense. If your blog is about milk-based products then you’d better talk about milk-based products a lot or no one will take you seriously when you do. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t veer from your primary path from time to time.

Politics is something that most people really care about. It is political season. Why not endorse a candidate on your blog and give the reasons why you support that candidate. When you do this you are giving your readers a little bit of your personal values and you can do it such a way that it doesn’t turn people off. Steer clear of the controversies and stay on the positive aspects of your candidate’s views rather than the negatives of the candidates you don’t like. But be sure that you search engine optimize the post so that you garner the search engine benefits to draw in people interested in that topic.

When you SEO your political endorsement, pick a key phrase that you want to target. Don’t use the candidate’s name because that’s what most people use. There is a lot of competition there. Instead, pick a phrase that is associated with that candidate and target that phrase. For instance, Barack Obama’s campaign slogan is “Change We Need”. John McCain has often referred to himself, and has been referred to by others, as a maverick. These are phrases that are less popular than the candidates’ names but that are popular enough that people will search for them. You want them to find your post.

While you try to optimize your blog post to reach a political audience, keep in mind that your audience also consists of people who are potential customers. Don’t talk down to them or insult their intelligence. Keep it short, simple, and focused on the positives – then move on to the niche-related business without further ado.

A few days ago Rand Fishkin made a post outing another website that ranked for the term “SEO Company”. He called it an “embarrassment” to Google. I thought at the time that it was a bit too nutty for him to be doing that, but I didn’t mention. I just figured it was Rand using someone else’s success as target practice for his own self-promotion agenda. It seems I’m not the only one who thought that. Aaron Wall calls him the SEO Police.

Shoemoney wasn’t too happy about it either and posted this video:

Rand Fishkin is getting on the “manipulative techniques” band wagon, but it seems to be self-serving. Outing other webmasters for their success, even when it comes from manipulative techniques, could have a detrimental effect to the entire industry. I’m with Aaron Wall and Shoemoney on this one. Don’t buck up to Google. It’s a bit like the angels waging war on God. Who do you think is going to win?

A buddy of mine said that two SEOs with different approaches working together on the same project is like Obama and McCain working together to solve the Iraq issue. Is that true? Can two search engine optimization experts with different ideas about optimization work on the same project together?

First, can two SEOs disagree that much? Isn’t SEO pretty much a science? Don’t all roads lead to Rome?

As much as many of us would like to believe that white hat search engine optimization is an exact science, it isn’t. There are likely as many solutions to a problem as there are search experts working on it. Sure, some may be better solutions than others, some more effective than others, but at the end of the day a solution is a solution. It either works or it doesn’t. And for many problems, there isn’t just one answer. There could be multiple approaches that work.

It’s a bit like building a house. Two different architects could design a house and it will look completely different. Neither is wrong, they are just different. Two contractors could take the same blueprint and approach building that house from different methodologies. It will still look like the same house when it is finished, but they just approach the task differently. I’m not saying that one starts with the foundation and the other starts with the roof. It isn’t that drastic. But one could start on the living room and the other on the kitchen and still build the same house.

In SEO, there are principles that cannot be ignored. But that doesn’t mean that every SEO following those principles will do things exactly the same. If you are planning to use two different SEO companies on the same project, keep this in mind. Don’t create conflict where it isn’t necessary. Pick a plan and go with it.

Search engine optimization has both a bad rep and a salvation complex. Spammers, black hat SEOs, and other types of vermin have given our industry a bad name and many business owners are leery of anyone claiming to use SEO for better business. On the other hand, many of us have proven that SEO works when does correctly and ethically. But it can it brand your business?

I think it can. In fact, I know it can. The Brick Marketing blogs have done quite well as a branding item and we rank well for our keywords on just about every blog in the family. But understand that effective SEO isn’t sales. There is a limit to how far it can take your business.

A No. 1 listing in Google, for instance, doesn’t mean you’ll make any amount of money. You might get a lot of traffic from your listing, but in order for that traffic to convert you’ll have to sell to it and that means writing website content that closes sales. Branding, however, is about image. And when it comes to creating a positive image for your business, you should start by defining what you want that image to be. Then you should deploy every asset and strategy at your disposal – SEO included – to create that image. Successful branding, even branding that uses good clean white hat search engine optimization, should lead to closing sales.