Keyword research isn't the most fun or glamorous component of any SEO campaign, but it is the most important. If you don't target the right keywords, your site won't rank well for appropriate search queries and your target audience won't be able to find you. Essentially, without the right keywords you are dead in the water and the rest of your SEO will go to waste. If you are attempting to conduct keyword research for your company without the aid of an SEO expert,

We have compiled the latest news and updates from the big three, Google, Bing and Yahoo as it relates to SEO and the search engines overall. WHAT'S NEW THIS WEEK WITH GOOGLE: Choosing the result you want just became easier Google has made it easier to see Instant Previews of your search results. You no longer need to click on the magnifying glass to see a visual overview of a page, you just need to move your mouse over a search result and hover over the arrows that appear.

Your website is your most critical asset to your search marketing"everything revolves around it. The keywords you target should accurately reflect webpage content, link building works to build your site's trust factor and ultimately drive traffic, social media profiles provide new ways for your brand to interact with your target audience and so forth. Without a great website to hold it all together, the rest of your search marketing efforts will just go to waste.

Inbound marketing could also be called "opt-in marketing." The basic premise of inbound marketing is to make your site appealing to those that are already looking for it. Instead of trying to force your message on your target audience, you are setting your site up to be found when your audience needs it the most. Inbound marketing )which involves social media, SEO and content marketing( is an incredibly powerful online marketing tactic.

A recent study found that the social bookmarking site StumbleUpon accounts for 50% of all traffic derived from social media , surpassing even Facebook as the leading source of traffic. While we have to take these numbers with a grain of salt"StumbleUpon exists solely to share links,

Below you will find our favorite blog posts that are related to SEO, search engine marketing and social media marketing from this past week. Please feel free to visit each, we hope you find them as helpful as we do! Is Your Brand Disconnecting on Social Media? B-to-B companies are struggling with how they approach social media because they need to act less like brands and more like people.

Quick, which is more important to your SEO"keyword research or site content? It's actually a bit of trick question. Keyword research and site content actually work together to create a well-optimized site. Conducting keyword research won't do much good if your site is full of low quality content. Meanwhile, great content needs some help appealing to the search spiders, which is where having the right keywords comes in handy.

Incorporating videos into your online marketing is essential to success. While coming up for ideas for your video marketing may be intimidating at first, the trick is to not over think it! Videos allow you to connect with your target audience in a new and engaging way and don't have to be expensive to be useful for your customers. Watch this week's SEO video lesson here! For more SEO video tips and lessons from Nick Stamoulis,

Twitter is one of the Big 3 of social networking )alongside Facebook and LinkedIn( and a valuable component of any social media marketing strategy. There are probably hundreds of blog posts out there telling site owners to get a Twitter account because they are "supposed" to. But what are the real benefits of incorporating Twitter into the online marketing mix? Can Twitter actually help your SEO or is it just another place to make noise and hope someone notices?

We have compiled the latest news and updates from the big three, Google, Bing and Yahoo as it relates to SEO and the search engines overall. WHAT'S NEW THIS WEEK WITH GOOGLE: Hide sites from anywhere in the world In March Google introduced the option to block sites from search results. Now, sites can be blocked on most Google domains anywhere in the world. WHAT'S NEW THIS WEEK WITH YAHOO: "target="_blank">Site Explorer transition to Bing Webmaster Tools Yahoo!

Brick Marketing is a proud sponsor of the second annual Digital East conference , held in Tysons Corner, Virginia on September 28th-29th, 2011. Brick Marketing President Nick Stamoulis says, "Brick Marketing is very proud to be sponsoring the Digital East conference this year. It's a great conference with a lot of information to be had by attendees. There is something for everyone to learn and take back to their office on Monday morning.

We are all a little guilty of taking the easy way out sometimes. Maybe we didn't have the time or energy to give it our all or maybe we thought we could get away with doing the minimum for a while. Whether it was your personal or professional life, just about everyone has taken a few shortcuts here and there. However, if you've take the "good enough" approach with your marketing )either for your own business or on behalf of clients(,

Attention all Boston-area B2B marketers! There is still time to register for the 2011 Boston B2B Summit . The event will be hosted at The Westin Waltham Boston Hotel from September 26th-28th. The program will feature 4 tactical training sessions, 5 attendee activities and expert panels The revamped B2B Summit is taking a more hands-on approach to B2B marketing than ever before.

When most SEO companies/experts/guides talk about link building, they are referring to the ongoing practice of developing links on 3rd party sites that point back towards your site. The goal is to create as many quality, diverse inbound links as possible to boost your trust factor in the eyes of the search engines. But off-site link building isn't the only thing a site owner should be thinking about when they start their SEO campaign.

It's happened to me dozens of times, and it will probably happen a dozen times more. I'll be pitching a potential client who I think is a good fit, only to have them go with another SEO company that is offering the same services for the low, low price of $99.99 a month! I understand that companies in any industry will try to underbid each other in order to win a client )especially when the economy is as unstable as it is right now(,

Below you will find our favorite blog posts that are related to SEO, search engine marketing and social media marketing from this past week. Please feel free to visit each, we hope you find them as helpful as we do! How Google + )Plus( Can Grow Your Online Business This post states that experts who have reviewed Google+ report that they found it to be more compelling and engaging than Facebook.

In the world of SEO, it is very easy to lose the forest for the trees. Sometimes it seems like the entire industry is only focusing on one thing and its importance for a site's SEO. That one ranking factor gets analyzed, over-analyzed and blogged to death by the industry. One such ranking factor is content. "Content is King" is replayed over and over online, and while that is true,

"The Definitive Social Media Guidebook: Ways to Integrate Your SEO and Social Media Marketing" is my attempt to develop a comprehensive social SEO guide for webmasters, business owners and marketing professionals looking to expand their knowledge of SEO and social media marketing. This guide takes a look at how social media marketing has infused itself in the world of SEO. No longer existing in separate silos, social SEO is changing the online marketplace forever.

If you find yourself focusing too heavily on one type of link source, you could be limiting the success of your SEO. First off, if your favorite link building tactic is ever labeled as black hat by the search engines )much like link exchanges were( then the bulk of your links are now on the wrong side of the Webmaster Guidelines! By taking a diverse approach to your link building,

Social media and SEO are more intertwined than ever before; just look at the creation of the latest social network, Google+. Google, the undisputed king of search, is making a viable attempt at entering into the realm of social media, solidly owned by Facebook. Meanwhile, Facebook and Bing have formed a partnership to personalize the individual SERP of every Bing searcher. What does this mean for site owners? If you want your SEO to succeed,