As a relatively new discipline that explores new territory and aims for a moving target, SEO can feel like a ride through the Wild West. We even use lingo like "white hat" and "black hat" to describe the good guys and the bad guys—and like any modern western, the difference ... more

Businesses use YouTube to host video in the hope they'll turn up in search results, expand their audience, and generate leads, says Mike Hanbery at Webolutions. "Simply uploading a video, however, won't achieve any marketing goals," he warns. To get the marketing results you want, you'll need to search-optimize each and every video. ... more

"More folks turn to the Internet than any other medium—including newspapers, TV, or word-of-mouth—for local information," writes Tom Shapiro in an article at MarketingProfs. "Furthermore, a whopping 83% of local search users contacted businesses offline ... and half of all local business searchers eventually made purchases." These days, a basic local search strategy ... more

OK, SEO ranking reports are not dead... but Google's personalized search is making them less and less relevant. Learn why many are using the wrong metrics to measure success—and three ways to reach online customers despite personalized search. more

Bing-powered searches—those served by Bing.com and search.yahoo.com—accounted for 30.01% of all US searches conducted in the four weeks ended April 28, 2012, up 5% from the previous month and up 11% from the previous year, according to data from Experian Hitwise. more

What can gardening techniques teach you about growing a keyword plan? Quite a lot, it turns out. "When you plant seedlings, you need to plant them in groups according to how much sun they need and how aerated the soil should be," writes Jenny Halasz at Search Engine Land. "You ... more

A strong SEO program relies on backlinks—links to your website from external sources. "Those backlinks signal to search engines how influential and relevant your business is online," writes Chris Sheehy in an article at MarketingProfs. They "trigger local citations of your business and aid in deepening your local market penetration," ... more

Content curation is everywhere: 95% of surveyed marketers say they have curated content in the past six months (i.e., shared content from blogs, industry publications, or other online channels with customers or prospects), according to a survey from Curata. more

You've got a killer online video, but now what? In Part 2 of this online video master class, you'll learn essential tips for marketing an effective online video. more

When you work in SEO, it might seem that Google is always trying to trip you up. But that's not really the case, argues Brandignity: "They don't dislike all SEOs because ... we actually help catalog information and pages; that in turn helps their search identify which pages make sense to ... more

"I get asked about pay per click (PPC) marketing quite frequently by my full-service SEO and B2B SEO consulting clients," writes Nick Stamoulis in a guest post at the Resource Nation blog. "They want to know how much of an impact PPC is really going to have on their online ... more

"Blogs increase your credibility, boost your traffic, and put a personality behind your brand," writes Lindsay Atkinson at the Renegade Search blog. "But how should [a blog] be executed? Should it be hosted on your website or on a completely different domain?" The short answer is: It depends. To help you ... more

Word-of-mouth (WOM) recommendations from friends and family and user-generated content (UGC) are sources most trusted for information about the products people want and need, according to a new report by Nielsen. more

It's a no brainer. Local businesses that want to maximize their business results should implement hyper-local digital marketing. Learn key tips for effective local advertising that can help take your business to the next level. more

"Local search is one of the fastest growing categories of online advertising, expected to increase as much as 10% per year through 2015," writes Jon Schepke in an article at MarketingProfs. And with good reason. Consider the ROI of a local search campaign that Schepke's company implemented for an international hotelier: ... more

You've put an SEO program in place—but how can you tell if it's working? "Ultimately, the only factor that determines success is the bottom-line; like any investment, we do not think that our services are truly successful unless we can provide positive ROI," writes Taylor Cimala at the Renegade Search ... more

Links that point to your business website are one of the most important SEO factors that influence your online visibility and search engine ranking. Are you getting enough backlinks? If not, learn four reasons you may be falling short. more

Best-in-Class B2B companies generate on average 17% of their leads from social media channels, roughly 230% more marketing-generated leads than other companies (5%), according to a new report by Aberdeen Group, which examines the social marketing strategies of top-performing B2B companies. more

"Doing keyword research is like being a detective: you're always searching for those tiny but valuable clues that decide the fate and future of a case you are handling," writes Lior Levin in an article at MarketingProfs. If you're serious about words like sales, profits, and conversions, Levin argues, your research ... more

When you're thrilled with the results your SEO program generates, you might not ask many questions about how it's done—and let potentially problematic practices go undetected until it's too late. "Companies may not realize [when] employees may be taking shortcuts," writes Douglas Karr at the Marketing Tech blog. "And companies ... more

The use of social networks, particularly LinkedIn, among engineering, technical, manufacturing and industrial professionals continues to rise: 55% of surveyed tech professionals now use LinkedIn, up 18 percentage points, or 48.6%, from the 37% who did so a year earlier, according to a report by GlobalSpec. more

Search engines such as Bing and Google tend to change the way they render SERPs (search engine results pages) in reaction to breaking news, favoring placed results (e.g., news, videos, and images) above the fold rather than organic search results, according to a new study by Optify. more

In the push to optimize your Web presence for local search, it's important to avoid techniques that tamper with your anchor identity—the name, address, and phone number contained in your business listing. "Think of your anchor identity as your digital storefront or the glue that holds your online reputation together and ... more

Google Spreadsheets is an excellent tool for campaign tracking, reporting, automating, and aggregating complex SEO and social media tasks. Learn invaluable tips for using Google Spreadsheets more effectively. more

As advertisers continue to shift spending from traditional print media to the Internet, newspapers are failing to make up for the decline in print advertising revenues via gains in online ad revenues, according to a report by Pew Research. more