What do bartenders and websites have in common? Both need to be optimized to succeed. So says Jill Whalen in an amusing article at Search Engine Land. She demonstrates how the rules of optimization may dually apply to 'tenders and 'sites alike: Rule #1: Optimization shouldn't turn people off.  ... more

Google is a powerhouse of information on a range of human behaviors, emotions, and opinions, and it offers insight into what people might care the most about concerning a given topic, according to a post by Duke and MIT professor Dan Ariely on his blog, PredictablyIrrational.com. more

Traffic to retail websites grew in December as the online holiday shopping season reached a crescendo—while consumers' holiday festivities generated a surge in traffic to flowers/gifts/greetings and e-card sites, according to comScore. In addition, traffic to shipping sites reached a 2009 high as consumers rushed to ensure timely delivery of ... more

In view of improved expectations of economic recovery, the US advertising market is forecast to fall just 0.1% this year, according to a revised forecast from MAGNA. The reassessment is a slight improvement from MAGNA's forecast issued in December 2009, which projected a 1.3% decline in ad spending. more

More than four out of ten (44%) of visitors to Google News scan headlines without accessing newspapers' individual sites, including many "power news users" who consult news sources as least twice a day, according to new study from Outsell. more

Your own keyword analytics data is the most valuable marketing asset of your company, says WordStream’s Larry Kim in an article at MarketingProfs. The data contained in the keyword report from your Web-analytics application—which tells you how people are finding your site through paid and organic search—comprise a far more effective ... more

Google continued to dominate search, accounting for 72.3% of all US searches in the four weeks ended January 2, 2010, up 1% from a month earlier, according to Experian Hitwise. Yahoo followed with 14.8% of searches, Bing with 8.9%, and Ask.com with 2.5%. more

Paid-search spending worldwide by US-based high-tech and consumer-electronics advertisers grew 16.6% in the fourth quarter of 2009 over third-quarter levels, after having grown 7.7% in the third quarter, according to a study from Covario. more

Over one-half of surveyed consumers across 11 countries used their mobile phones during the 2009 holiday shopping season for in-store activities such as comparison-shopping and getting peer feedback, product information, and coupons, according to a study from Motorola. more

By using new campaign-management techniques, smart marketers can gain a sizable and lasting advantage over the competition in the auction for keywords—ensuring their ads show up high in search results without dampening ROI. more

How does an SMB owner run a business day to day, do his/her own marketing and promotion, and make sure the biz keeps going and growing? Just maybe, SEO+Sex=Success! more

As Max Starkov writes in an article at Hotel Interactive, the hotel industry is the perfect candidate for managing customer relations via mobile devices. "Using the mobile space to provide intelligent, unobtrusive and highly personalized services convinces customers that this is their service," says Starkov. And one of the hot tools ... more

Display advertising is forecast to grow 13% in 2010 after a dismal performance in 2009 (down approximately 5% in the US), while US search advertising is forecast to grow 13%, up significantly from 2009's roughly flat year, according to research from JP Morgan. more

Mobile browsing accounted for 1.35% of all Web browsing worldwide in December, up some 20% from 1.12% in November, with Google's Android operating system the largest percentage gainer during the month, according to data from Net Applications' HitsLink Market Share more

"Links allow your readers to select which offer or detail they want to understand better or read more about, without distracting them with information that may not be useful," writes Maria Pergolino in a post at the Marketo blog. Another benefit: They also enable marketers to gauge a reader's interest ... more

Though US online advertising is forecast to decline 4.6% in 2009––the first drop since 2002––the recovering economy, combined with basic structural changes in how marketers and the public use media, will lead to growth in early 2010, according to eMarketer. more

According to research from SEMPO, more than 64 million US wireless subscribers surfed the mobile Internet in May 2009—almost twice as many as in the previous year. That accounts for more than 20% of the total US population, 28% of US wireless subscribers, and more than 40% of desktop Internet ... more

US adults spent an average of 13 hours a week online in 2009, off slightly from last year, when average weekly online use was 14 hours, according to a poll by Harris Interactive. However, usage varies greatly: 20% of adult Internet users are online for only two hours or less ... more

The television industry will close out 2009—a year dominated by shifting advertising budgets and a poor economy—with lower-than-expected revenues of $15.6 billion, a 22.4% decline from 2008, according to BIA/Kelsey. more

Major search engines now have their own image-search functions that provide image-search listings in regular Web-search results, writes Pandia Search Engine News in a recent article. And although searchers may have different reasons for using image-search engines, all of those searchers may be potential customers, subscribers, or readers. So, if ... more

The smartphone market will climb to 37% of global handset sales in 2014, expanding from 16% of market share in 2009 to 37% in 2014, with emerging markets driving the growth, according to Pyramid Research. more

Among the top 300 Web search terms, Facebook was the top-searched term overall in 2009, accounting for 0.67 percent of all searches, according to Experian Hitwise, which also found that Google has been the most-visited site of 2009. more

How will the world of personal branding, and business, evolve in the coming year? Here are William Arruda's top 10 predictions for 2010. more

When McDonald's launched its specialty coffees earlier this year, its banner ads inviting consumers to "McCafé Your Day" were all over the Web. Great branding, but does such online advertising send customers to local establishments? The short answer: When combined with search, it does! According to Christa Hoyland, editor of QSR Web, Google research ... more

In late October, Twitter launched its Lists feature, which might just improve your life in a panoply of organization-friendly ways. The new feature helps you sort your own contacts based on personal relevance, but—maybe more importantly—it also provides you with ready-made groups of people to which to target your messages. ... more