by Stoney deGeyter This is part 8 of a 12 part series on keyword research . This series will guide you through four distinct phase of the keyword research process, providing you step by step guidelines to help you gather, sort and organize your keywords into an effective marketing campaign. I've been sick for the past week so my apologies for any of you eagerly waiting for the concluding posts in this series. Let's go ahead and jump right back into it.

by Karri Flatla I'm not ready to talk about how Twitter has benefited me or my business yet-we have a complicated relationship. But I think it goes without saying that a lot of people )or should I say "peeps"( would like to grow their Twitter following, and I think I've cracked the code. Whatever your social networking goals are, the following tactics will not only increase the number of people following you,

by Mack Collier One of the biggest concerns I hear from companies and small businesses about blogging is 'what if someone says something negative about us?' Unfortunately, having a blog won't automatically mean that no one will ever say anything negative about your business. But here's what a blog does do; it allows you to take an ACTIVE ROLE in the conversation that's happening about you online.

by Jennifer Laycock I've written quite a few articles about building and launching a viral marketing campaign over the past couple of years. In general, I write about the brainstorming process or how to put your pitches together. In this new series, I'll be looking at the six key components that make people remember a message and therefore, make it more likely they'll pass it on.

by Jennifer Laycock Here's the funny thing about social media. It's all talk. It's a wonderful, amazing, effective way to get to know people...but it's all about the talk and not the action. It's a great starting point, but you really need to "seal the deal" with offline interaction as well. It's a point Mack Collier did a nice job of making over The Viral Garden this past weekend.

by Paul Jahn In the last year, Twitter has been quite the buzz for online marketers. We use it in different ways. It could be for pimping out events, linking to different blog posts, or just random tweets about our pet peeves, what we're eating tonight, or the status from the latest "your-favorite-team" game. It's been a marketing tool, but it can be a better customer service tool )I'm a big fan of customer service(, especially if you have an e-commerce site.

by Jennifer Laycock I've written about the need to understand how "public" our thoughts, ideas and conversations are these days. Hundreds, no thousands of others have issued the same warnings. I think most people still figure we're talking about what you post online, but if you think about it, it's really not the case. There's a powerful lesson in this today from Sheila Scarborough on the Every Dot Connects blog .

by Jennifer Laycock If you've ever read a Miss Manners column )or stepped foot outside your house( you're well aware of the sheer number of people who simply have no concept of proper etiquette. If you've set foot on a social network like Twitter, Facebook or MySpace, you've probably learned this lesson a second time. While there is no Miss Social Media Manners to turn to with your questions on the best way to interact with folks online,

by Jennifer Laycock Everyone learns in different ways. Some of us embrace articles, some adore podcasts. Some prefer to learn by doing and some prefer to learn by watching. It's this last group of people that's been targeted by a new site called IMBroadcast.com . Launched by Search & Social's Dave Snyder, Jordan Kasteller and Search Engine Journal's Loren Baker, the site aims to pool internet videos put together by online marketers into an easy to access social community.

by Jennifer Laycock One of the most annoying tasks you might face as a web site owner is moving your site to a new host or domain. I've done this a couple of times and am actually in the process of doing it again as I shift one of my hobby sites to a new domain. Since I've never been a big fan of the "technical stuff" I always appreciate it when a good post goes up explaining how things work. That's exactly what Mike Churchill did on the Key Relevance team blog last week.

by Jennifer Laycock I've been reading a lot of posts lately from small business owners and search engine optimization companies talking about the push toward organic search during a bad economy. After all, good organic search campaigns tend to deliver some of the most effective )and least expensive( traffic your site is likely to see. Unfortunately, this isn't always the case. In fact,

by Manoj Jasra Google continues its steady stream of updates to its Analytics product by unveiling numerous new features. This time Google adds features that will be quite useful to enterprise level clients. Google's intent was to add more flexibility into the reporting so that users have the ability to see data sliced & diced which ever they want.

by Jennifer Laycock I've written quite a few articles about building and launching a viral marketing campaign over the past couple of years. In general, I write about the brainstorming process or how to put your pitches together. In this new series, I'll be looking at the six key components that make people remember a message and therefore, make it more likely they'll pass it on.

by Mike Moran As we hear optimists tell us not to worry, it won't be as bad as the Great Depression, it seems clear that we're looking at very difficult economic times worldwide. And, as veteran marketers know, any economic downturn means lower advertising expenditures. And so, Google announced a huge gain )what?!( in revenue last week. What's going on here? Alan Rimm-Kaufman says it's the prisoner's dilemma playing out. As the economy worsens,

by Sage Lewis In the news this week, we learn that the internet is not immune from the effects of the economic downturn. According to Search Engine Watch , both Yahoo! and Zillow are cutting jobs. On the flips side, Marketing Pilgrim reports that 60% of marketers are increasing their online budget, while 80% are decreasing use of traditional media. Also, marketers are still learning how to harness the power of mom blogger, and Google releases two new tools.

by Jennifer Laycock Debra Mastaler has a great post over at Search Engine Land today that follows up on some questions posed at the Link Building Bootcamp at last week's SMX East conference. Debra fielded questions about both side wide links and the "quick links" that sometimes come with exposure on social media sites like Digg. She's got some great insight into both. When it comes to site wide links, she explains why it's important to use them judiciously.

by Jennifer Laycock If you've been enjoying Stoney's series of articles on keyword research and organization , you may have found yourself rethinking your own keyword strategy. If so, you might be looking for some more ideas on how to start building out those lists. Stoney gives a great overview of how to find and identify core terms in part two of his series,

by Sage Lewis Google gains the spotlight with the story of the week. They added a new tool under diagnostics that shows you errors for URLs in your sitemaps. Sage walks you through his Webmaster Central account, showing you how to access these errors and explaining what they mean to you and why it's important to fix them. Check out our small business news site.

by Diana Adams I've previously written Paid Search Advertising Roadmap , Paid Search Rules and Alphabet Soup and PPC . Now let's start looking at keyword matching. Keyword match types Each of the three major PPC platforms follow a similar approach, with Google AdWords and MSN adCenter using essentially identical match types and Yahoo! Search Marketing being a little more confusing.

by Jennifer Laycock With fears about the economy impacting everyone's bottom line, small business owners who don't already obsess about ROI are likely to find themselves digging deeper into their data in the coming months. Chances are good they'll start with metrics like conversion rate, cost per lead, time on site and pass along rates. Those are all good, but I can't help but think they're overlooking one that's absolutely essential.