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If you want to succeed with search engines in the long term, you should not primarily focus on how the search engine works. Rather, you should focus on how the brain of the searcher works. Because if you understand how people search, you're halfway there to getting found when they search for your content.

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Of all the slams on marketing, one of the biggest is that it is, in a word, guesswork. That distinctly pejorative view of our shared business discipline is that it is without any discipline at all. We protest that this is an uninformed, tainted view of us. We insist marketing is an occupation of knowledge and information. We strive to soundly disabuse our engineering and sales and finance cousins of the view that marketing is just a bunch of guesswork. The only problem is: it's true.

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If ever there were a perfect tool for the job hunter, blogging is it. Think of a blog as the 3D version of your resume: in it, you provide context and meaning to the work experience and educational background you've so carefully wordsmithed in your resume. So let's talk about how to blog well. Here are seven rules.

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What do Target, iPod and Hoover have in common? These brands have learned how to catch a woman's eye. I know. Enough already about Target and iPod, you say! Still, for those of you interested in the women's market in particular, the connection between increasing sales with your female customers and the rise of aesthetic value is worth a closer look.

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When you're in the campaign trenches and knee-deep in metrics reports, it's easy to lose sight of some broader issues concerning your approach to email marketing. Here are some reminders to help you step back and reevaluate your email marketing efforts.

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Clients and consultants alike usually dread fee discussions. Here are six strategies to help you preserve your profit margins and your client relationships as you work through pricing discussions.

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This week, the SWOT Team asks: What holiday marketing programs have worked for you? Are some holidays better than others to reach customers and prospects? Join the conversation! Also this week, read your answers to: Is a blog is right for your business?

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Although we cannot completely trust the psychology that underlies our advertising decision making, we can work to make it more reliable by lowering stress, institutionalizing skepticism, living in the moment, and training and preparing for friction.

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This week, add your two cents to the question: How can a poor marketing employee promote a product with little budget available? Also this week, read your answers to last week's dilemma: What makes for an effective marketing kit?

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For marketers in the services industry, it's important to understand the key factors that enable us to profitably acquire and keep customers. Here are four factors that represent best practices for marketers.

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Successful sites don't happen by chance. A compelling online experience geared toward women is developed with care and the understanding that she has to be considered from the very beginning of the process. To help your site take up residence in her bookmarks, here are suggestions for developing a Web presence that connects with women.

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More and more, we need to be connected to a network of resources for mutual benefit and growth. And although you need these contacts to support your success, the approach to building a valuable network involves giving—not taking. The more you give to your network colleagues, the more they will be there when you truly need them.

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From time to time, the marketing world is taken aback by huge, quick, unpredictable and seemingly inexplicable successes. These marketing "hits" are products or services, entertainment locales or vacation spots, shopping malls or specialty stores that enjoy puzzlingly immediate popularity. Believe it or not, there's actually a formula for these seemingly unpredictable marketing wonders.

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Advertisers spend much effort psychoanalyzing consumers, trying to understand why consumers make the decision they do. It is rare that they turn those same analytical tools on themselves—to understand why they make their own decisions, especially when those decisions have led to trouble.

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You want to keep up with your marketing reading. But there's so much out there that you don't where to start. Here are four of our favorites from '04. And these recommended titles are as good a place to start as any.

CONTENT TYPE: Article | TOPIC: Writing

Developing a great logo is a strange mix of art, science, psychology and (in most cases) a good amount of luck. Last week, in part one of this two-part series, we discussed some fundamentals of logo development and design. Here, in this final installment, we delve deeper into the nitty-gritty: How to choose the right logo, the pitfalls of a too-literal logo, and, yes: size does matter.

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You must make very difficult choices if you want your Web site to work. You can't serve everybody. If you try to, you will serve nobody. The first step in developing successful reader personas is to decide which readers you are *not* going to focus on.

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Writing blog posts (and comments on blogs) is actually very simple. Keep your copy lively, factual, tight, clear, short and search engine optimized. Here are basic blog style guidelines to follow.

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Rapid commoditization of products and services is exasperating even the most skilled professionals. The solution provider is struggling to differentiate its unique products and services. Simultaneously, customers are putting the squeeze on margins and driving unique value to the lowest common denominator—price. How is this happening? Why is the trend increasing at an alarming rate? And how can you hold your price and get paid for the value you deliver?

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With more and more companies wanting to integrate their products into the lives of celebrities, now seems like a good time to take a closer look at celebrity product placement. Here are three common approaches and a description of what steps you can take to encourage results.