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It's interesting how aspects of our lives come into play. Prior to joining this Web revolution, or evolution, depending on your point of view, I worked in the world of consumer packaged goods. I developed and managed some of the office products that most of you probably use everyday. I became fairly familiar with even more products that I didn't manage, but was naturally exposed to. One of these was the Rolodex brand card file products after that parent company was acquired.

Even though I didn't manage the product line, there was always something intriguing about the products. In this highly electronic world we live in, business cards continue to change hands every day. At some point or another, I'd guess that nearly every TV sitcom has someone pulling a card or looking up contact information from a card file; or at the very least, one is seen prominently on someone's desk. It just lends credibility and is something we've grown to expect.

By no means do I see business cards disappearing anytime soon--so pull those boxes back out of the trash. But, keep in mind that even business cards can only take you so far. Beyond business cards, everyone (and every business) should make sure that they are adding LinkedIn.com to their marketing mix.

While there are a number of services that can help keep you up to date with your contacts--probably better actually--the mix of features as well as the huge and continued adoption of LinkedIn by professionals makes it a worthwhile Web marketing venue.

So how can LinkedIn fit into your SEO and Web marketing mix? Here are three key areas to focus on.

Links & Linking

Every LinkedIn profile is able to add three links to other sites. These could be anything--perhaps to your company home page or to your blog. What many may not realize is that these links are live, direct, and not "nofollowed" on the public profile page...which is the page that is openly available to search engine spiders.

Rather than using the default choices that LinkedIn provides when adding links though, select "Other:" to add relevant anchor text to your links. Of course, you also need to make sure that your public profile is set to actually show these links within the Web site section of your profile. Since these public pages are accessible to search engine spiders, they'll also pass PageRank and contribute to overall link popularity.

Now that you've added links, be sure to link to your public profile URL from other sites when appropriate. This way you'll drive a little traffic to the profile, and depending on the link, also flow a little PageRank through the profile page to your chosen Web site or sites.

Answers

SEO of course has a strong focus on-site and in regard to search engine spiders. But SEO is also part of the much bigger picture of search engine marketing (SEM). This becomes especially clear when looking at the social media arena. And no where is this more evident than in the LinkedIn Answers section.

The Answers section provides members a forum for asking as well as answering questions posed by other members. While search engine spiders may index and even return these pages, more importantly, these pages are seen everyday by real live human beings who may well be potential customers. Participating within the Answers section is an ideal opportunity to demonstrate thought leadership within your industry, draw additional attention to your Web site (since you did of course add a link to it from your profile as discussed above), network, and further build your brand image.

Optimization

Did I mention that your public profile may be seen, indexed and more importantly, returned within search results? What this means is that you have one more opportunity to rank, and not only rank, but rank via content that you control. LinkedIn is a great reminder that optimization is mostly focused on-site, but we should never lose sight of opportunities to optimize content we can control, residing on sites that may lead visitors to our site. And actually, LinkedIn may provide even more than one opportunity to rank since every employee's profile within a company may be one more potential search result.

Now this isn't a license to spam your LinkedIn profile. What it does mean is that it may be beneficial to give a little more attention to the summary information that you provide. Write it intelligently but also incorporating strong keyword-rich signals that are related to your brand, industry and Web site that you wish to be found for.

Best of all, even if LinkedIn decides to "nofollow" all links within profiles, or even block search engines from indexing member profiles, LinkedIn will still serve as an online marketing and networking channel to connect you and your business with potential clients and customers, which in the end, is what SEO is really all about.

But as I said earlier, don't go throwing out your business cards, or your card files. Who knows though, maybe in the future, business cards will look a little differently than they do today, and perhaps something more like this:

Brian R. Brown
http://www.linkedin.com/in/brianrbrown

Certainly allows for plenty of white space.

Link building is one of those challenging subjects that carries a lot of technical undertones. It's a subject that often requires some explanation, depending on the audience, as to why it is so important to begin with.

The importance of building links to a site is something that SEO (search engine optimization) practitioners understand all too well. It's not just a quantity thing, but a qualitative measure. Links aren't just a conduit for traffic; they serve as an important signal to search engines. Of course, it is the significance and understanding of this signaling that often steers the explanation of link building into a much more technical discussion.

Just last week I was in New York for an on-site training with the Institute for International Research. IIR is a great organization to work with and very interesting from an SEO perspective. IIR puts on large-scale events on a wide array of topics and an even wider array of industries, like the upcoming conference that search engine optimization expert Stephan Spencer will be speaking at called The Conference On Marketing.

So I found myself explaining link building to an audience that was nearly as diverse as their topics...varying responsibilities, positions, and technical expertise. This meant discussing the importance of quality versus quantity--that links from pages and sites that are authoritative within their topical area, with thematically relevant anchor text, hopefully from pages with lower numbers of outbound links, and higher PageRank may carry more value than other links. Of course, all of this is on a relative scale, though the ideal is finding links that score high on all these, and other, signals.

On the flight back, as exhaustion was starting to settle in, I found myself trying to come up with some image that could encapsulate these concepts of link building. One of the great things about being in a state of exhaustion is that simple visuals often come to mind over more complex ones. At some point, my mind settled in on the image of a mobile...as in the sculptures you hang in the air, based on counterbalanced components. Some of these feature pieces that are larger, counterbalanced by a pair of smaller ones, and so on.

I thought this image was appropriate, how the largest piece represented that most ideal, highest-quality link. Every site has a link profile, composed of all the links coming into it. Some are highly relevant, some highly irrelevant. Some come from authoritative domains, others not so much. We really, as do search engines, expect to find a diverse mix of links, many of which we have no control over. But while those ideal links may take more effort to achieve, they often carry considerably more weight, and value, than a handful of low-quality links.

Link quality illustrated as a mobile sculpture.

It's important, when link building, to remember that most links have value and we must find balance--spend too much time just looking for ideal links, and your link profile will remain stunted, but just building links for links' sake will leave you out of balance, with links that convey no real value, off-topic from spammy sites.

Link building, like much of SEO, is about balance.

Making buildings greener is key to fighting climate change, Clinton told a packed audience.

(Credit: Gregory Wenzel)

CHICAGO--Fighting climate change requires making the nation's homes, offices, and schools healthier and more energy efficient, former president Bill Clinton told thousands attending the Greenbuild conference on Wednesday. Sweeping efforts to reduce the carbon footprints of buildings, which emit three-quarters of most cities' greenhouse gases, can measurably benefit the environment, he said.

"The sale's been made," Clinton said. "Otherwise Al Gore wouldn't have gotten the Nobel Prize. Now what we have to do is...to prove that this is not a big bottle of castor oil that we're being asked to drink."

To that end, the Clinton Climate Initiative has been engaging businesses and leaders of 40 cities to plot ways to reduce carbon emissions. The project launched in August 2006 as part of the William J. Clinton Foundation.

"This is the biggest economic opportunity that our country has had to mobilize and democratize economic opportunity since World War II," he said.

In partnership with Clinton's effort, GE Real Estate announced on Wednesday that it will "green" all of its operations, which comprise $72 billion worth of assets and 385 million square feet of property in 31 countries.

Clinton also announced efforts to help make the nation's schools more sustainable by retrofitting existing buildings to use less energy and fewer hazardous materials. A quarter of American students attend school in dangerous buildings, but renovations can save money and create long-term health and educational benefits, he said.

Clinton noted the efforts of Arne Duncan, CEO of the Chicago Public Schools, and other school leaders from around the country who joined him onstage. Chicago is retrofitting all of its schools to attain certification through Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. LEED ratings are run by the nonprofit U.S. Green Building Council, which produces Greenbuild. Other speakers lauding the benefits of sustainable design noted that there are more LEED-certified prisons than schools.

Audience members swarmed Clinton as he left the stage.

(Credit: Gregory Wenzel)

Clinton insisted that the United States and emerging superpowers should embrace a successor to the Kyoto Protocol by 2010. Clinton blamed the failure of Kyoto in the United States on both Congress and the Bush administration.

"If the coming giants India and China and those coming behind them--Vietnam Ukraine, all these emerging countries--if they insist on the old industrial society's patterns of energy use, it is true that the most calamitous consequences of climate change will occur," he said.

"We have no idea what we can do in terms of reducing greenhouse gases because we just got started."

A Cambridge, Mass. home is expected to get the highest rating from the Green Building Council at what appears to be market prices.

The two-unit building, which I took pictures of while it was being built, has got many of the green features you could think of: bamboo flooring, air-tight insulation, and a combined solar electric and hot water roof.

The developer and designers of the house--Sustainable Living and PowerHouse Enterprises--said on Friday that they expect the house to get Platinum certification, joining only about a dozen other residences with that rating.

And the price for this two-bedroom, two-bathroom townhouse in a desirable neighborhood? It's listing for $869,000, which appears to be in line with local prices.

Typically, green homes are custom-built for very wealthy people with a team of architects.

Getting the price to market prices is the driving idea behind PowerHouse Enterprise, according to company executives. To keep costs down, the designers use off-the-shelf components and assemble the home at the factory. It is delivered by truck and put into place by a crane.

Utility bills for the house should be 70 percent lower. Savings from space heating should be about $2,000 a year, according to PowerHouse.

For a look at PowerHouse Enterprises' PowerPod, a small modular home, see these photos and a video.

Fenway Park, the hallowed home of the Red Sox, is getting a 21st century green make-over.

The team is working with environmental advocacy group the National Resources Defense Council to spruce up the oldest baseball park in the nation, reports Architectural Record magazine, noting that the LEED green building rating system needs adjustment for sports facilities.

(Credit: MLB.com)

One of the consideration is a solar electric array to reduce the park's energy consumption as well as better ways to manage waste, including a recycling program, according to NRDC which is consulting with other professional sports teams.

The improvements are planned for the park's centennial in 2012.

Serious Materials, which has come up with a formula for eco-friendly drywall, has landed $50 million to build factories.

New Enterprise Associates, Foundation Capital and Rustic Canyon Partners participated in the second round of financing for the company, according to CEO Kevin Surace. Previously, Serious raised $5.5 million. The fact that the company was closing a large funding round came out earlier this summer.

Serious drywall samples bring glee to model

(Credit: Michael Kanellos/CNET Networks)

The company's product is the equivalent of Jell-O instant pudding of the clean-tech set. Most drywall is made from gypsum baked at high temperatures. The cooking process releases substantial amounts of carbon dioxide. By contrast, Serious has a formula in which chemicals are placed into a mold and then congeal into drywall. It takes very little energy and thus results in low carbon dioxide emissions.

Serious, in fact, hopes to run its first factory, which will be capable of churning out over 400 million square feet of drywall a year, on a 100-kilowatt solar system. The new funding potentially could allow Serious to build two to three plants in the U.S.

EcoRock, the name of the eco-friendly drywall coming from Serious, will cost more than standard drywall, but the premium won't be prohibitive, the company has said.

Serious makes samples of EcoRock now, but won't get into volume manufacturing for commercial sale until next year. However, it already sells QuietRock, a soundproof drywall, so it has an existing sales channel. Snoop Dogg bought some for his house.

QuietRock has also helped it establish a channel for sales for Serious, which is key in the conservative, slow-moving building materials market.

Foundation, meanwhile, is expected soon to announce an investment in a company that makes eco-friendly cement.

It's a water-based molecule that repels water.

That's Hycrete's business in a nutshell, according to CEO David Rosenberg. The company has a molecule--which consists of a water molecule with a long hydrocarbon attached--that links up to metallic ions in whatever it's mixed into. In the right circumstances, the molecule behaves like an oil and pushes water away.

The company currently sells its material to concrete manufacturers and contractors who use it to replace the bound-to-fail plastic membranes employed to keep water out of building foundations and freeway pilings. With Hycrete's molecules mixed into the cement, water can't get into corrode rebars or start wicking into the foundation where it can create long-term problems.

"One of the fundamental problems with concrete is that it is a hard sponge," he said. "Through capillary action it sucks water in."

So far, contractors have mixed the substance into 53 major projects, including sound barriers on a freeway in New Jersey. In the future, the company may mix its material into drywall to prevent moisture seepage. You could also mix it into roofing material and then put a green roof--rooftop lawns are getting bigger in urban environments like Tokyo--on top of your house without worrying about trickle down.

Grandpa's invention
Hycrete is something of a family affair. Rosenberg's grandfather, Michael Rhodes, actually invented the material about twelve years ago. A serial inventor, Rhodes worked on a number of projects for NASA, including a solid rocket fuel.

With the growth of the clean tech market, concrete is suddenly hot again. (It hasn't been this way since the Roman Empire.) Building contractors are vying to green up their projects by installing environmentally friendly HVAC systems and carpets. Concrete, which invariably goes into every project, is a natural extension of that.

A couple of building supply companies already sell concrete made of fly ash, a leftover byproduct of coal-burning power plants. Putting in concrete cuts down on the pollution utilities would have to otherwise dispose.

Hycrete allows contractors to not use plastic membranes, which in turn lets the builders earn points under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards. The more LEED points you get, the greener your building is.

More importantly, though, it can cut down costs and risks. In the building world, no one likes the waterproofing contractor. The membranes often fail and the end result is legal disputes.

"A lot of people get into this big fingerpointing game with the waterproofing contractor," he said. By using Hycrete's additive, the membrane is eliminated. The company also promises to warrant its performance. Hycrete, in fact, sticks around for about 90 days after the building is complete to make sure things worked out properly.

Traditional waterproofing also takes time. One builder estimated that construction time was reduced two months by using the additive.

When most people think of green buildings, they imagine slick corporate headquarters or millionaires' trophy homes.

But a lot of the technologies and practices used in expensive green buildings are becoming more accessible.

Over the past several months, I've visited a number of commercial certified green buildings (like the Genyzme Center in Cambridge, Mass.) and I just returned from the Solar Decathlon, a competition to build the best home powered only by the sun. Of course, I've researched improvements on my own humble abode outside Boston.

So let's talk green. I'm hosting an Ask the Editors Live forum (click here for the link) on Thursday (tomorrow, October 18) where I'll take questions from you on green buildings and homes. Please join us!

Some topics we can discuss: solar electric and solar thermal, materials, small wind, lighting, biomass, and costs. And I'm happy to share some data and experiences from past coverage. See you tomorrow, Thursday at 11:00 Pacific!

Lumeta on Tuesday announced a manufacturing deal with Chinese solar panel producer Suntech for Lumeta's solar roof tiles.

Under the deal, Suntech will supply solar modules for Lumeta's building-integrated photovoltaic roof tiles.

A power-producing roof.

(Credit: Lumeta)

Lumeta's Solar S Tile, launched earlier this year, looks just like terracotta concrete roof tiles but are covered with a solar cell that generates electricity. Lumeta, a subsidiary of DRI Companies, announced the supply deal at the Solar World 2007 industry conference.

The solar industry is pursuing building-integrated photovoltaics as a way to reduce the cost of solar electric installations.

One advantage of solar roof tiles is that they don't look any different from a regular roof. However, it is unclear whether they are as economical as traditional solar panels.