by Diana Adams In my last post I identified where paid ads display on the different search networks. This time I thought I'd create a brief outline of what the ads themselves actually look like, and explain some of the basic 'rules' associated with each search network. Basically, all ads include three parts that you see, and one that you don't. The parts that we see displayed include Headline , one or two Description lines, and a Display URL .

by Ross Dunn Over the past few days I have inexplicably come across a number of marketing tools that were new to me; I am not sure if it was by chance or a lot were just released or something. Anyway, I am still testing a few of the more promising ones but one free tool called 4Q could really help many a webmaster understand their visitors better. 4 Questions )4Q( Have you ever wondered why your website isn't functioning as well as you originally anticipated?

by Jennifer Laycock It's no secret consumer generated content is hot. Both McDonald's an Apple have bought the rights to content found on YouTube and turned them into commercials in recent months. Consumer generated content has a "real" feeling to it and can often be purchased for far less than the cost of custom created ads. So I'm wondering, why haven't more small businesses thought of exploring this option? Big companies are already scouring sites like YouTube. In fact,

by Jennifer Laycock If you are a Google AdWords advertiser and rely on Google's conversion feature to help you figure out your campaign budgets, you'll be interested to learn more about some conversion tracking features they put into place last month. John over at PPC Hero has a nice write up on the features and how you can apply them.

by Sage Lewis This week, Sage addresses Shoemoney's article "SEO Has No Future," in which Shoemoney talks about Google-influenced search results and the pervasive problem of web spam in the industry. Sage proposes that the article is possibly nothing more than a link baiting ploy and that the industry maintain focus on optimizing the visitor's experience.

by Stoney deGeyter Securing the Domain Name The other day I was in a race to buy a domain name. A personal title I had been throwing around for fun with my friends suddenly got broadcast to thousands of people in a blog post. As I read my clever little title, available for all eyes to see, I suddenly realized that I need to buy that domain name before someone else does. I immediately jumped to my favorite domain registrar, typed PimpMcFly.com )don't ask(,

by Jennifer Laycock As a hobby blogger in the "mom" realm, I often get swamped at conferences by companies looking to market their products to women. These companies have figured out that women are online en masse and they're communicating their likes, dislikes and daily lives with friends and strangers. I applaud their initiative in trying to reach out to women on the web,

by Mack Collier One of the best bit of social media advice I ever received came from Chris Brogan when he said that when you want to decide if a social media tool is for you, observe how someone that is really good at the tool uses it. Right now Twitter is hotter than Memphis in August, and one of the true power users of Twitterville is Laura Fitton , who is known on Twitter as Pistachio .

by Stoney deGeyter I'm gearing up for a 1-hour webinar that I'll be doing for SEMpdx next week. I've got more information on that below, but the SEMpdx crew asked their members to submit some questions that they would like to get answered during the presentation. Instead of waiting, I thought I'd go ahead and answer the questions here: I would like more information about what this really is... I know that the e-marketing is the direction everyone is going,

by Simon Heseltine When deciding where to build your bricks and mortar store, one of the main determinants is the neighborhood. If you're a toy shop, or other type of store catering to kids, you don't want to go in next to the 'adult novelty' store, or the strip club. After all, your neighborhood sets the tone for the type of clientele that you can expect to enter your establishment. What about online? If you're not hosting your site yourself,

by Jennifer Laycock With so much focus on social media and fostering conversation these days, companies both big and small are trying to figure out the best way to grow communities. Looking around at the number of blogs dedicated to the topic, you'd think there was some complex formula you needed to follow to get one going. Of course George Oates from Flickr would tell you you're wrong . In a great post over at A List Apart last week,

by Scott Buresh Roughly a year ago, local search engine optimization was all the rage - the new frontier in search engine marketing. For a while, it seemed that everyone was interested in the local search angle - even multi-national companies. However, for many companies selling products or services to the entire United States, or even globally, it seemed like a non-starter.

by Stoney deGeyter This is one of those Basic SEO posts, that i feel silly writing about because "everybody knows" this information already. But then I look at websites of prospects and I realize that not everybody really does know. Or maybe they do and they just forget. In any case, this will be a quick reminder / refresher. Most duplicate content issues have to do with on-page content.

by Jackie Baker This week we're looking at an e-commerce website for educational toys, Brainwaves Toys . I met the proprietor, Karen, at Small Business Marketing Unleashed last month. She's having a blast with the site because she's passionate about what she sells, but she's new to website marketing and looking for ways to improve. As always, I asked three questions that are critical to guiding website analysis: Who is your target audience: Mothers, fathers, grandparents,

by Sage Lewis Sage addresses the failure of Microsoft's attempt to buy Yahoo!. The winners and losers of the whole ordeal are brought to light in an article by Andy Beale at Marketing Pilgrim, in which, ironically, Google comes out top winner, despite Yahoo!'s successful acquisition of Fast Search. Google also takes center stage with their artist-driven iGoogle themes that are now available,

by Sage Lewis Twitter and DirectTV go head to head this week by creating and solving customer service issues at the same time. Mack Collier's article "Worst Example of a Company Twittering?" exposes DirectTV's bumbled use of Twitter, explains the frustration that can cause, and encourages companies to use social media tools "as the rest of us do." The DirectTV/Twitter saga actually begins with Stoney deGeyter's tweet about the company's presence,

by Debra Mastaler Beth Kanter of Beth's Blog recently published an interview she did with Jonathan Colman of The Nature Conservancy . Jonathan is their Associate Director of Digital Marketing and he shared some insight on how the Nature Conservancy )a non-profit( was using social media as part of their marketing mix. A lot of the interview struck home and made me think about the parallels between traditional linking and social media promotion.

by Scott Allen Yesterday, I stumbled across a large ad agency website that promised to be interesting. As soon as I clicked on the link in Google, my senses were assaulted by a splash page, followed by a Flash intro, all before I could enter the site . Yes, it took two clicks before I was even at the homepage ...that is appalling! Why on earth is anyone in this day and age still creating websites with splash pages and Flash intros, let alone both on the same site!

by Stoney deGeyter There is no better way to create an infinite amount of duplicate content on your site than to force session IDs onto each visitor )and search engine(. Typically, session IDs are used for tracking a single visitor's navigation path through the site, including the adding or removing products from the shopping cart. They are great for tracking purposes, but really, really bad for search engines and inbound linking. Ok, first of all,

by Karri Flatla I'm probably going to lose a lot of Friends with this post, but I need to get some stuff off my chest about Facebook. If you're a real Friend, you'll listen without judgment. If not, it was nice Facebooking with you. I hope there are no hard feelings left in my wake. Like most of us, my love affair with Facebook started out hot 'n heavy. Almost daily )sometimes even hourly(, I watched my Friend meter go up like an investor watches a stock ticker.