    <h2 align="center" style="color:#999999">Internet Marketing: A little history</h2>
    <p>  Sometime in 1995 a hip historian coined the term the "year of internet".  Everywhere everyone who was anyone was trying to get online and....well, do what?  The internet was kinda dull back then. My first ever internet activity consisted of waiting 10 minutes to download a 10 second video clip of a frog dissection.  A strange choice?  Yes, indeed, but back then, it was all a brave and exciting new world served up on the information superhighway...or,in those times of dial-up connections, more of a small two-lane road plagued with hazardous pit stops and mired with construction.  Back then, all you had to do to get noticed was be the first in your industry to have a website.  And there were always mind-blowing special effects like <a href="http://www.siteexperts.com/tips/html/ts12/page1.asp" target="_blank">blinking text</a>, you're very own <a href="http://javascript.about.com/library/blsnow1.htm" target="_blank">virtual snowflakes</a>, or my favorite, <a href="http://www.fredfrap.com/intro%20page%208.29.02.htm" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">psychedelic backgrounds</a>. If that wasn't enough, you could always just place thousands of keywords somewhere invisibly in your website to fool every search engine in the world into thinking that your website is better than all the others.  Flash forward to the present, it's certainly not 1995 anymore on the internet, with over 1.5 billion users and conservatively about 150 million websites, you're destined to the vagaries of the the second or third results page(or worse)for all but the most specific keywords searches.</p>
    <h2>Total Obscurity: the opposite of SEO</h2>

    <p>The idea that you can put up a website and just be found is optimistic at best. Unless you're market is an extremely small niche or local market (even then...), your website will most likely get lost in the shuffle of competitors who may have more money and a better established web presence.  If I can be metaphysical for a moment, if someone builds a website and no one visits it, does it even exist? Fortunately, there are a few things you can do on your own, that can help. The internet has the potential to be the great equalizer, allowing small to compete with companies with far more money. In fact, being more nimble and adaptable, small companies are often better equipped to respond to internet trends. Don't be fooled though, search engine optimization is a marathon, not a sprint, and it takes some real dedication. The benefit is, when you're done, you won't just have more traffic to your website, you'll have developed a real working marketing plan and vision.</p>
    <p>Enjoy the list, I'll probably be expounding on these in greater detail in the coming weeks.  This list will be just to get you thinking.  In future editions I'll link to resources I've collected from all corners of the web that will help give you the edge on your online competition.
    <h1><a name="checklist"></a>SEO and SEM checklist: Do's and Don'ts</h1><br />
    <h2>Some do's</h2><ul>
    <li><strong>Do use relevant keywords: </strong>What would people type to find your kind of business?  Put those words on your site: It's not about keyword density, it's about keyword variety.  Get in the mind of the searcher, keep industry jargon to a minimum and use words and phrases that you think people would use when searching for you.  Use as many of the phrases as possible in your page content without sounding forced. Get these words into your page title and heading tags too.</li>
    <li><strong>Do make your site intuitive and clean:</strong>  People like looking at pretty things, make your site one of those things, but don't sacrifice usability and intuitiveness for looks.  If people don't understand your site, they will surely leave (and never return).</li>

    <li><strong>Do develop compelling content:</strong>  People like surfing the web to read interesting things, or find just the information they were looking for, or just to have a laugh.  People don't like browsing the web to read your company's mission statement or sales writeup. There aren't many shortcuts here, but you don't need to write a book to get noticed. Add some new content every week, and you'll be surprised at your growth. Make that content informative, or funny, or controversial, or on current topics- keep making fresh content!</li>
    <li><strong>Do develop relationships with complimentary businesses and link to each other's webpages:</strong> The secret to having a site that search engines trust is being linked to by other quality sites.  This is a slow process, but a worthwhile one.  If there are any business directories in your field, try to get a link from them.  There are a lot of junk directories out there, some good ones are <a href="http://dmoz.org" target="_blank">DMOZ</a>, <a href="http://dir.yahoo.com" target="_blank">Yahoo Directory</a>, or <a href="http://botw.org" target="_blank">Best of the Web</a>.</li>
    <li><strong>Do keep your site fresh or risk Google finding it stale: </strong>Search engines rightly assume that sites which receive more frequent updates contain more relevant information.  Keep your site fresh by blogging, posting recent news, updating your content, or adding new content.</li>

    <li><strong>Do give people a chance to participate: </strong>Today websites are about interactivity and community.  Give people a chance to contribute with comments, a forum, a blog, or a subscription service.  Interactive websites help keep your site fresh and keyword rich, develop links, and help you maintain customer relationships.</li>
    <li><span class="style1"><em>Possibly</em> use Pay-Per-Click ads to see results faster</span><strong>:</strong> PPC advertising allows you to show up on the first page of results sometimes even on top of your big competitors.  These ads are how search engines make their money, but if you use them well, they'll make you money too.</li>
    <li><strong>Do track your progress:</strong> Use a good site metrics tool like Google Analytics to measure how your traffic grows(hopefully) over time.  You'll also get some insight into where the traffic is coming from and what they're doing when they get to your site. It can be a bit technical to use/install, but we'll cover this later.</li>

    <li><strong>Do test, test, test...:</strong>  You can't always know what's going to work or leave you high and dry with internet marketing.  Search engine marketing is part science and part art.  People are your variable, and despite our best efforts, we can never quite predict what people will think of your website!  Just look at some of the these web fads:  <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.burningpixel.com/Baby/Babygif.htm" target="_blank">dancing baby</a>, <a href="http://lolcats.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">lolcats</a>, and <a href="http://www.ikissyou.org/" rel="nofollow">Mahir</a>.
    Who would have thought?</li>
    <li><strong>Do stay the course:</strong> Changes don't happen overnight, but they will happen.  Keep at it.</li>
    </ul>  
    <h2>Some don'ts</h2>

    <ul>
    <li><Strong>Don't duplicate(copy) content from other webpages:</Strong> Or the Google secret police will find you out and make your site mysteriously disappear.</li>
    <li><strong>Don't use link farms:</strong> "Uh, what's a link farm?" A collection of sites interlinked with each other often deceptively. In theory, these farms increase the amount of sites linking to you, but in practice, they're havens for spammers and disreputable sites. You know the old saying that you are who your friends are?  Well, Google thinks so too.  Links from spammy websites makes your page look spammy.
    <li><strong>Don't repeat keywords over and over:</strong> You're righting for people first, and search engines second.</li>
    <li><strong>Don't rely on Flash or Javascript to display your page: </strong>Google can't see it, and there's a significant chance that a lot of your visitors can't see it either.  Both are great to add visual spice or some bonus functionality, but the technology just isn't there to support it's use for full site development.</li>

    </ul>
    <p>If it seems like a lot to remember, well it is.  If it was easy, everyone would be doing it. Search engine optimization has come a long way from the days of keywords and meta tags- and that's a good thing. But it means that succeeding in the <em>virtual</em> business world requires <em>real</em> work. But most people don't understand what's involved or don't care to try it- and that's your edge. Using just a couple of these tricks can give you results in a matter of days, but Search Engine Marketing is a long term online business growth strategy- and your business will be all the better for it.</p>