• 5 Reasons Why You Should Get Your AdWords Professional Certification

Here are five important reasons why you should get yourself certified as an AdWords Professional.

• Whiteboard Friday- The Renewed Value of Branding

A discussion about how shifts of engines affect brand-based marketing as well as the changes from when engines gave more weight to established brands to having enhanced attention to personalized search, click patterns, and brand preferences.

• Is Google Getting Too Personal?

After Google announced that they will be rolling out a more personalized search even for those who were not logged in into their Google account last year, the SEO community wonders how this will affect future rankings and if clients can see the same rankings as they do? A test was done taking a client’s real-world keywords to see how much rankings has changed depending on how you measured them.

• Improve your Search Campaigns with Smart Cross-Selling

Cross-selling is one of the most powerful tools in improving ones conversion rate. Here is a walk-through on something practical that will immediately impact the conversion potential on any website.

• Are You “Google Pagerank Certification”? I Hope Not

Someone spotted a product at WebmasterWorld which is being sold claiming that it is “Powered by Google Pagerank Certification” of “PR6″.

• Bing Advertising on Intellitxt

A thread on WebmasterWorld reported about Bing’s search engine advertising on Intellitxt. Intellitxt are ads which pops up when you mouse over a word.

• AOL Wants to be Your Local Reporter

According to and internal communication with employees, AOL plans to expand Patch, its network of local news blogs from 30 websites to “hundreds” by the end of  2010.

• Google Earn $500M in Typo-Squatting Ads… Says Researcher With No Bias Whatsoever

Moore and Edelman, two researchers from Harvard University conducted a simple calculations on how much Google earns and comes up with an estimate of $500M.

• How to Build Links, Increase Traffic and Exposure

Getting your content published on other websites is one of the best ways to increase traffic and exposure as well as build links. If you do not have enough time for content writing, some tips are also presented to help you increase target goals.

• Why Brand Building isn’t Enough

A simple explanation on how and why differentiating a product through branding is not sufficient when it comes to promoting products online.

• Universal Search Optimization 101

Tips on how you can optimize your universal search results or the non-traditional results usually seen on SERPs. These results could be images, videos, shopping, local search, news, and other rich content.

• SEO Industry Cries Foul Over Google SEO ‘Services’

Google’s Norwegian Inside AdWords blog recently announced that they will be offering SEO services to some websites. This kind of service is not the first since Google offered the same online clinic through Google India blog last month and in Google Spain Webmaster blog last September.

• Bing Demos StreetSide with Flickr Photos, Live Video and “Bing Sky”

Microsoft’ Blaise Aguera y Arcas featured a new crowdsourced-version Bing Maps at the TED Conference in South California. This version intergrated photos and even live video that is shared by others. Also, Microsoft will soon launch “Bing Sky”, the ability to use Bing to look up in the sky and see what’s in the space above.

• Google Buzz Publishes Who You Email

Here listed are some of the disadvantages of Google Buzz. One problem when using Google Buzz is that it automatically publish your contacts list- the ones which you usually email and chat with the most.

• Whiteboard Friday- How Search is Changing

Rand discusses the recent changes that seem to signal the coming of another big shift in how the engines determine results.

• 30 SEO Bookmarklets to Save You Time

Here are the list of 30 Bookmarklets that will help you save time working on your SEO process. Thee list is divided into sections namely: Site Indexation Queries, Backlink Data Queries, Specialized Search Queries, Domain and Traffic Data Queries, Social Media Data Queries, and How to Construct Your Own Bookmarklets.

• Google Maps to Add “Google Store Views”

Google is trying out a new product called Google Store Views. This product allows people to walk into the store using Google Maps just by clicking it. When asked for a statement, a Google spokesperson said that they (Google) are always experimenting on new features for Google Maps.

• Toyota’s Recall Antics Spread Virally

The Toyota recall fiasco has been all over the news lately and making this whole thing even more serious when Jon Stewart talking about it in Comedy Central.

• AzoogleAds IS doing it again!

AzoogleAds CMO Michael Sprouse said that there is a good chance of holding another party at the Playboy Mansion. This time, bigger and better than that of last year’s, which was dubbed as the party of the decade.

• Whiteboard Friday – Choosing an SEO Consultant

Rand and Will Critchlow of Distilled discuss about how to Choose and SEO consultant, or any consultant for that matter, and what are the things you need to know before hiring one.

• Getting Started Publishing on Google News

Here are some things you need to consider to get your articles indexed and ranked in Google News. These include Google News SERPs, Getting Articles Discovered, Categorizing Articles, Ranking Factors, Optimizing Multimedia, and Additional Recommendations.

• Google Earth Adds World War II Imagery

Google Earth users can now view and compare the Earth today against what it was during World War II The World War II images were taken in 1943 on more than 35 European countries

• It’s A Feeding Frenzy for Keyword-Rich Domains

A detailed explanation on how you can increase your rankings and get your site on page 1 with keyword-rich domains and by using three tactics such as the 301 redirection of keyword-rich domains, content-rich doorway pages on those domains, and moving existing sites onto those domains.

• Some Insight Into How Bing Handles WWW vs Non-WWW Canonical SEO Issues

Brent Yount, a Program Manager at Bing Webmaster Center explains the importance of www and non-www and how it affects your site.

• Link Building With a Small Budget

This article features some helpful tips to get good rankings for businesses with small budget. These include donation of services for publicity, becoming a columnist or guest writer, asking clients for online recommendations, etc.

• E-mail Marketing 101

Things you need to know and consider when using e-mail marketing as communication tool. These include whether or not to e-mail marketing provider, where to get a database to market to, the frequency of sending e-mails, how to avoid spamming, the landing page should fit the e-mail and the offer, how to use graphics and, social media and e-mail marketing.

• Whiteboard Friday – Optimizing Topic Pages

Marshall Simmonds, CEO of Define Search Strategies and Chief Strategist of New York Times is featured to discuss whether or not to use topics pages and how to use them effectively. Marshall breaks down how and when they can be effective, pros and cons, etc.

• Indexation for SEO: Real Numbers in 5 Easy Steps

A 5-step process on how to get better data of the number of pages Google indexed- better than what the search engines provide through “site.” queries.

• Ballmer Blogs His Thoughts On Google, China

Steve Ballmer, Microsoft current CEO has spoken out about his opinion on Google’s decision and China through a post via The Microsoft Blog which was launched about three weeks ago.

• Google Adds Click-to-Call Phone Numbers

According to the Official Google Mobile Blog, phone number seen on mobile ads are now clickable. This means that users can call any establishment, which phone number is featured on the mobile ad by tapping it. Moreover, since mobile web search is location-enabled, the phone numbers featured on the ads are those of establishment that are nearest to your location.

• Bing Rolls Out In-Depth Stocks and Fund Pages

Bing just announced its in depth “stocks and funds pages”, which aims to provide a detailed information about key finance metrics and easy to understand summary of key stock information.

• 25 Tips from 25 PR Experts

Here are some 25 interesting and helpful PR tips from 25 famous PR experts such as Joan Stewart, Paul Hartunian, Brian Solis, and many others.

• Social Media: What It Is, How To Use It, and Where To Begin

A brief feature about Social Media- the different types of Social Media and its examples, Social Media ROI both qualitative and quantitative, how to monetize it, and how much time to spend with it.