Twitter recently changed its title tag on user bio pages to include the rel=”me” attribute on links. That is pushing some people’s bios up to No. 1 on Google and has some marketers concerned. But there is a fix for that.

The rel=”me” attribute looks like this:

a href=”http://www.searchengineoptimizationjournal.com” rel=”me”

The purpose is to identify the relationship between web properties or identities that are owned by the same individual. Many social sites and directories use the rel=”me” attribute automatically when users link from their bios on those sites to their own blogs and websites. That’s fine, but social users typically do not link back to their social bios in the same manner. But they should.

According Microformats.org, the rel=”me” attribute is there for the purpose of notifying the search engines that links pointing from one site to another identify an individual as the same person. It’s called identity consolidation.

So you may want to include the rel=”me” attribute on links that point from your own domains to your social media bios. In fact, I highly encourage it. And you should also include the attribute in other links that point from one site to another, even those you own. For instance, if you have blogs that serve three different niches and you include a link in each of your bios on those blogs to the other blogs you own, be sure to include the rel=”me” attribute in those hyperlinks. This will give the search engines an idea that you own all three blogs and your own properties stand a better chance of ranking higher for your own name when people search for you which will help with your long term search engine optimization and online reputation management. That’s how rel=”me” should work.

There’s an interesting story from Google’s Matt Cutts about Google going retro. Only it’s not really Google. It’s a Google cool script for Google.

Here is what the Google retro script looks like:

I see one huge problem with this: You have to use Firefox and Greasemonkey. Weird.

Greasemonkey is a Firefox add-on that allows you to customize the way certain web pages look using bits of Javascript. It makes sense then that this tool could be used to customize the way Google’s search engine looks. One of Google’s employees created the script for Greasemonkey that allows anyone to see links to other search engines and allow you to make a search on those other search engines if you don’t find what you are looking for at Google. Interesting.

But here are a few questions I have:

1. If Google is the best search engine then why would anyone think they could get the information they seek elsewhere?
2. If changing Google’s appearance is all that great then why not just create a Firefox add-on that allows all Firefox users the ability to make their searches somewhere else. Same idea, but this opens up the possibility to more Internet searchers.
3. And if you can create a Firefox add-on that does the same thing then why not just create a Google gadget that does it, which would open up the possibility to even more users since anyone on any browser could use the Google gadget?

Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s a great idea. But since most people still are using Internet Explorer, this script cuts out more than half of all Internet searchers. Secondly, since the percentage of Firefox users is pretty small, it cuts out about 75% of Firefox users. So there are only a handful of people online that will be able to use this cool feature, and most of them are Web developers. I’d like to see Google adopt it as a feature of its personalized search feature. Now that would be awesome!

Minisites are coming back into vogue. In the early days of the Internet, most websites were small sites – 3-10 pages. People were learning to build websites and optimize them for search traffic. In the late 1990s, supersites starting gaining more power and by 2005 it was pretty well established that large supersites were the way to go for massive traffic and niche domination. But savvy Internet marketers and now starting to understand that you can accomplish the same goal with hundreds of minisites that dominate a niche.

Here’s what you do to make killer minisites that make you money:

• Do great keyword research as part of your on site search engine optimization.
• Identify long tail keywords that have little competition but are growing in search popularity.
• Create your minisite using your long tail keyword and 2-5 related keywords; make sure each page is optimized to one keyword.
• Drive traffic to your minisite with a blog, articles, Twitter, social bookmarking, pay per click advertising, and social networking sites.
• Be sure to track everything with a solid analytics program.

If you build one successful minisite for your niche, you can go on to build more minisites that make you money and dominate your niche.

Matt McGee has made a list of local search companies on Twitter. Just look around the popular social site and you’ll find all kinds of businesses using it to connect with their target markets, everything from lawyers to poets. It’s sort of become the ultimate social site, a bit like an online golf course. You show up to showcase your lousy game scores and close the business deal of a lifetime.

We’ve covered some of the search engine optimization benefits of Twitter in previous posts. There are plenty more, I’m sure. But what about doing business in general?

Don’t think you can just go on Twitter and start selling stuff. I guess you could, but people likely won’t buy that way. Instead, start a Twitter account and watch what others do for awhile, then start interacting. Join conversations, build relationships, and learn how to use the tool. Do a little promotion, but don’t make every blog post a promo. Instead, focus on building value. That’s how companies from local search firms to International giants are using Twitter.

When is the last time you check your server logs? By taking a look at your server logs from time to time you can uncover what search terms people are using to find your website through your on site search engine optimization efforts. Then you can and search for those same search terms at each of the search engines and see what you see. Why do you do this? To see what the top three search results are.

The top three search results for any search query usually do a good job of answering the question the searcher has in mind when making that query. Visit those pages and see how they answer the question. Then go to your page for that search query and add content to it that answers the site visitor’s question. Make sure you put that content near the top of the page so that it can be easily found by the search engines and by your human visitors.

You might even add some keywords or h-level tags to your page to help them out in the search rankings. It might even behoove you to add some graphics with alt tags and some title attributes to your links. Whatever you need to do to help your pages rank better will increase your traffic counts and your chances of converting that traffic to dollars. Check your server logs for opportunities.

In the ever-evolving world of web design, one question that seldom pops up is, “Do I really need that sidebar for my website?” It is generally assumed that a sidebar is necessary. But is it?

There are lots of reasons why you can include a sidebar in your static website design, but understand that there are very few musts in design.

The main things to consider with any web design are:

• Functionality
• User experience
• Optimization
• Navigation ease of use

In a word, you want your website to be easy to use for the visitor, offer up a positive experience that keeps them coming back, be easily found in the search engines, and be laid out simply so that visitors can navigate easily between the pages as they are searching for what they want. Did I mention that you should make things easy to find?

If you need a sidebar to reach those goals then by all means add a sidebar to your site. I’m not saying you shouldn’t. I am saying that you should make your site unique and meet the needs of your visitors. A top-level navigation system is just as effective as a sidebar navigation system. But which is right for your website?

When it comes to web design and site structure (thing to nail down prior or during the search engine optimization on site process), there are very few hard and fast rules. Don’t do something just because someone else did it. Test the elements and see what works for your website.

Internet marketing guru Stephen Pearce tweeted a suggestion this morning for an awesome use of Pingler (remember, we suggested that this morning? We got it from Stephen). Here’s another gem from Stephen Pearce, who has 12,5239 Twitter followers and has been a successful Internet marketer since the very early days. He knows his stuff.

Stephen suggests tweeting your important links such as

• YouTube videos
• Articles
• Blogs
• Social media profiles (including your Twitter bio)
• Landing pages

Essentially, anything you can promote you should Twitter it. Make sure you use hard links, not tinyurls (this is very important for search engine optimization and link bulding reasons). Then, ping your Twitter stream. PING! Ping it, man. Stephen says to do it every day.

Why? Because Twitter will then become a link directory for your own links that sits on the ping lists of other websites where those links can gain some link juice and provide you with back links. Awesome suggestion.