BigGuide is now using Shrink The Web to generate thumbnail images of Websites. Their free service is perfect for Web directories, blogs, and any other site that wants to jazz up their site with thumbnail images of Websites that they refer to in articles, posts, or directory listings.

Getting it setup isn’t too difficult and they provide good support (i.e. information) on their site.

Probably what I like most, besides the “free-ness” of the great tool, is that you can choose from among 6 different sizes ranging from petite to in-your-face. We use the ‘large’ here on BigGuide, which is one size down from in-your-face.

For more information visit their Website: Shrink The Web

If you have a twitter account or have clients that do I recommend you read the post on Mashable, ‘The Top 10 Twitter SEO Tips‘.

Without stealing their thunder here are the most important tips to takeaway imo:

Choose a good handle (username):

Be sure to pick an optimal handle that’s relevant to your brand or campaign and easy to remember.

Select a good account name:

Your name is what appears next to your profile, which can be different than your handle/URL. You obviously want an account name that promotes yourself, your company or your brand.

Write a good bio:

Write your Bio so it includes the most important, mission-critical phrases for your brand. Use all 160 characters! Your bio is consistently indexed so its contents are what provide your Twitter page with its core relevance.

Share the URL with everyone:

Now be sure to point to your Twitter profile from other sites. For example, you can integrate your Twitter URL into your website by placing a call to action on the site for your customers to follow you on Twitter. You could also integrate your Twitter URL within your site’s Global Footer, which appears at the bottom of every page of your site. Both of these options offer usability to your site visitors and help drive your Twitter URL up in the search engines.

The beginning of your tweets are important:

The “lead-in” of each tweet is important for SEO as it determines what appears in the tweet’s title tag when it shows up as a search result on Google. Approximately 42 characters are factored into each tweet’s title tag, including the account name, as well as the initial characters of each tweet. Keep in mind that your full tweet and all its characters are still being indexed by major engines, though.

Happy tweeting!

Be sure to follow us! @BigGuide -  http://twitter.com/BigGuide

Ask 100 webmasters which web directories are the best and you’ll get 100 different answers.

Before trying to answer this one must first ask what the definition of “best” is. Is it the number of targeted visitors a directory delivers to a listed site? Or is it the “link juice” or SEO value delivered to the site? Are there other factors that might be considered as well, such as, exposure (listing viewed, but not clicked on)?

The “best” directories are the ones that will deliver a webmaster the best bang for their buck. Where “bang” equals a combination of: exposure to targeted prospects + targeted traffic. Most of us have a finite budget and need to carefully choose which directories to invest in to get maximum “bang” or return on investment (ROI).

Take BigGuide, for example. We offer permanent listings and charge a modest review fee of $7 USD to pay for the time it takes to review, describe, and enter the listing. How many sales does your listing need to generate to recoup your small review fee? Is there risk that the listing won’t ever generate a sale? Of course there is. But, with 400 unique visitors finding their way to BigGuide each and every day over the lifetime of that link you’ve got pretty good odds of generating $7 worth of business and/or traffic.

Although this scenario is self serving, it is exactly how we go about selecting web directories worth investing our scarce resources in.

Some of the best web directories available can be found right here in our Web Directories category or in All Top Directories. There are plenty of directory lists like Directory Critic, the VileSilencer friendly directory list, and many others.