Most of the billions of Web sites out there today have a site map, labeled as such. So if you run a search on the term "site map" in Google, you should get a fairly decent indication of which sites Google thinks are most important, shouldn't you?

Here are the 25 organizations whose Web sites come up first in a "site map" search:

1. Google
2. eBay
3. Apple
4. CNN Money
5. Wikipedia
6. Microsoft
7. The Seattle Times
8. The Chronicle of Higher Education
9. The New York Times
10. Internal Revenue Service
11. FindLaw
12. CNET
13. The White House
14. U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services
15. Austin American-Statesman
16. U.S. Dept. of Defense
17. The Washington Post
18. U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs
19. LiveJournal
20. MapQuest
21. The Arizona Republic
22. MSNBC
23. International Monetary Fund
24. U.S. National Library of Medicine
25. Los Angeles Times

Whaddya know? Google thinks it's important. Of course, we've demonstrated this before.

Labels: google, Marketing Views, search, SEO, site maps

Most corporate execs know that organic search results are important to a brand's reputation -- at least, in an abstract way they do. But how can you show execs the impression their brand's Google results are making on potential customers (or investors, or employees)?

I like to use TagCrowd, which creates tag clouds based on word frequency. I simply take all the words in the first three pages of the search results for a brand, dump them in TagCloud and see what it spits out. It's a great tool for visualizing the terms people see (and thereby associate) with your brand.

Think of it as "brand cloud" for your online reputation.

For example, here's the brand cloud for one of the world's most popular brands, IKEA:



This is a brand manager's dream. Appropriate terms to describe the product ("furniture," "kitchens") are supported by positive adjectives such as "best" and "personalized."

By contrast, here's the brand cloud for Exxon:



The cloud prominently features negative terms such as "Valdez," "spill," "damage," and "exxonsecrets." It should come as no surprise that Exxon is not one of America's more popular brands.

Obviously, Exxon Mobil can't make the Valdez oil spill go away. But perhaps if it did more to curry favor with its customers and the general public, the Google results would paint a prettier picture.

Finally, here's a brand cloud for my agency (based on the first three pages of Google results for the term "Idea Grove"):



Try it on your own brand. You may be surprised by what you see.

Labels: brandcloud, Marketing Views, SEO, tag clouds, tagcrowd

Dear owner of http://www.spinthicket.com/results.php?q=Bill%20O'Reilly,

I'm the webmaster of http://comedianforpresident.com/.

We came across your site on the Internet and feel that it would fit perfectly into our collection of quality software-related links at http://comedianforpresident.com/.

The Google PR of this site is currently 0.

I would like to place a link to your web site along with a description at our site on the page, which we encourage you to check for accuracy.

We'd appreciate it if you place a link back to our site using the following HTML code (just copy and paste it into your links page).

On your page, the code will look like this:

Comedian For President

There once was a bad actor who ran for President-and he won. Fast forward 20 years, and an imbicile ran for President-and he also won. Maybe, in these very troubled times, we should elect a comedian for President of the United States of America. One thing is clear: he or she won't do a worse job, and most definitely will be a lot more amusing for this great nation.

If you'd like the description of your site modified, the category changed, or if you have any other cross-promotion ideas, feel free to email us.

Please link to us using the code above, and let us know where we can find the link.

Best regards,
John Rodriguez
administrator@comedianforpresident.com

This is NOT SPAM -- this is a one-time reciprocal link request. We have NO INTENTION to email you again. You can also reply to this email with REMOVE in the subject line to make sure we'll NEVER send you any more e-mails in the future.

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Labels: Comedian for President, Marketing Views, SEO

Hello, people who like PR news, media news, celebrity news, and marketing news. I am Scott Baradell, and I write a top marketing blogs, which is also a top media blogs, called Media Orchard.

At Media Orchard, we write about public relations as well as PR. We write about marketing as well as Marketing. And when it comes to strategic branding tips from pr consultants, you've come to the right place for corporate branding advice from marketing consultants.

What's great about writing a PR blog, or a media blog, for SEO purposes is that it in no way undermines the integrity of your top marketing blog. If you're a skillful writer, or borderline genius, it even almost reads like Shakespeare.

If Shakespeare were a friggin' idiot.

[Ike: I think I've started a new "meme" -- anchor text wars!]

Labels: Marketing Views, SEO