ReadWriteWeb

One of the topics we touch on from time to time here at ReadWriteStart is the importance of solid design aesthetics for Internet startups. One of the key elements in creating a user-friendly design is A/B testing - a process by which two or more variations of a design element are tested with different groups of users. A/B testing, however, doesn't apply strictly to the visuals of a site; it can also be a useful tool for startups hoping to learn what their users like best.

While the social, real-time Web is hogging all the buzz as of lately, it's still important to keep an eye on good old fashioned search engine optimization for your company's site. SEO can be an expensive endeavor, especially if you hire an expert, but it doesn't have to be.

We've covered the basics on how to improve your business website's search rankings, and here are a few tools to get you started without breaking the bank.

Twitter just made a small, but important change to its search service available at search.twitter.com. It's now parsing shortened URLs in order to discover additional keywords to aid in searches. In other words, Twitter isn't only returning tweets where your search term is found in the 140 characters of text contained in the tweet itself, but also when your search term appears in the URL behind the pre-shortened link, like those from Twitter's default URL-shortening service, bit.ly, for example. (For more on this story see our additional coverage, Twitter Now Parses Hashtags, URLS & More.)

It's one thing to have resolutions for the new year. I, for example, plan to lose weight, learn Python and design the perfect handbag. But since nothing satisfies like the quick achievement of a short-term goal, here are eight things every good nerd needs to to before the ball drops later this week.

These tasks comprise a quick to-do list that will leave you feeling competent and prepared for the decade that approaches. Also, you can play the condescension chip and start chiding friends who haven't checked off these items yet.

Earlier today we posted about Answers.com's rise as a revenue and page-view generator. Through user-generated Q&A posted to WikiAnswers, the company is crowdsourcing heaps of daily content, ranking high in search across a variety of subjects, subsequently seeing steady traffic and, finally, cashing in via Google ads. It's a simple business model, but from a user standpoint there remains one question: Are we seeing quality solutions?

KillerStartups hopes to ensure that entrepreneurs get quality solutions. The company launched Startups.com as a WikiAnswers-style Q&A site specific to business.

A few weeks ago, Google announced the beta launch of Caffeine, the company's next-generation search infrastructure. At that time, Google said that most of the changes in this update were under the hood and that users wouldn't notice a difference in search results. At its core, Caffeine is basically a major overhaul of the Google File System. There have been some discussions about whether this update will bring any other major changes to page rankings or the importance of certain categories in the search results. Summit Media, a UK-based digital marketing agency, compared search results for 9,000 keywords (PDF) in Caffeine and Google's default ('vanilla') search and, interestingly, didn't find any major differences between the two.

It's happening to more and more of the blogs I read: the personality, quirkiness and unique voice that once made them so appealing to me are fading. In their place, an SEO-driven uniformity that puts keyword placement ahead of pretty much everything.

That approach has been afflicting newspapers for some time, as clever headlines give way to the kind of blandness that only a machine could love (which is no coincidence, because machines are the target audience). And many pro bloggers who rely on AdSense for their revenue have been doing it for years.

While we liked Digg's new DiggBar for its features, its release also created quite an uproar in the SEO community. Now, Digg has announced that it will change the way the DiggBar works, which should pacify a lot of Digg's critics. Among other things, the DiggBar will now only appear when users are logged in to Digg, so that content providers will continue to receive full credit from search engines, without Digg's iframe getting in the way. Digg will roll these changes out over the next week or so.

I'm going through an SEO overhaul of our company's website. There is definitely a combination of art and science that I never appreciated until having to do it. So, to save others some time, here are some very basic things that any business should do to optimize the ranking of its website in search engine results. Nothing explained here is necessarily a secret or difficult to find out. The trick is to find a good cookbook and a process that is easy to follow.