by Sage Lewis

Do Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld in a Shoe Circus store make for a good viral campaign or just a really bad commercial? YouTube wants you to decide. Meanwhile, CNBC and LinkedIn are partnering to report each other's information, and JP Morgan analysts are reporting that search advertising will suffer in the economic downturn, just not as much as traditional media and display ads. Search Engine Watch announces AOL's PlatformA as having an iPhone ad optimization solution, and Google can now boast about it's new face recognition "name tag" feature for Picassa.

Free White Paper: How to Optimize for Google

A free 10 page white paper on how to optimize a website on Google the right way - so the website succeeds.

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by Miriam Ellis

I haven't written a book report since 6th grade, and this isn't really one, but having finally gotten around to reading Nobel Peace Prize Recipient Al Gore's The Assault On Reason, I find myself trying to reason my way through some signals that are striking me as a little bit off.

For the record, I thought this book was brilliant. Its critique of America's current political and environmental climates was stinging, clear and soulfully rendered. As an SEO, however, I feel that a worthy (and non-political) discussion could take place in our industry around Al Gore's assertion that the Internet has the potential to improve democracy.

Gore puts forth the idea that television has created a very passive public because of its one-way delivery system. When you watch TV,...

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by Stoney deGeyter

This is a continuation of a series of website marketing checklists. Check out all Web Marketing Checklists in this series.

What this is about: This list covers aspects of how content appears on the website, focusing on the visual aspects of the content rather than the words.

Why this is important: Great content can get lost if it's not easy to read thrown into an otherwise cluttered page. Ensuring that your content fits visually into the site is just as important as having good content to begin with. If you want the sales message to get across, your visitors will need to read it.

What to look for:

- Short paragraphs: Keep paragraphs relatively short. No more than seven lines each.

- Uses sub-headings: Break content up using headings and...

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by Stoney deGeyter

This is a continuation of a series of website marketing checklists. Check out all Web Marketing Checklists in this series.

What this is about: This checklist explores the development of your site's web content including readability issues, message and overall effectiveness.

Why this is important: Content is an essential part of the persuasion process. Pretty, image-based sites may be appealing to the eye, but it's the content that appeals to the emotional and logical centers of the brain. The inclusion of content as well as the effectiveness of the writing are all crucially important to the sales process.

What to look for:

- Grabs visitor attention: The headline and very first sentences should get the readers attention and make them want to keep...

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