Rich McIver's post lists nine mistakes that search marketers can make with their PPC campaigns -- focusing on landing pages with vital information hiding below the fold, pages that ask for unnecessary (READ: less-than-valuable) contact information, and a PPC ad that doesn't even link directly to a tailored, specific landing page.

Founded in Australia, CrowdFound is a social-bookmarking site that aims to "harness the power of the crowd to bring you the best content on the Web." The service predefines specific categories and subcategories of info (like sports, music, and business) and then users submit and vote on which categories to place content in. According to the founders, it's this topic-centric focus -- rather than a focus on the users and their profiles -- that separates CrowdFound from communities like StumbleUpon or Digg, and also, ultimately helps the user discovery engine make up for the "shortcomings" of traditional …

Mike Blumenthal's post details a frustrating problem that some local businesses are having with multiple (often erroneous) listings that appear in Google's Local and Maps data. Since Google Maps aggregates data from a wide variety of sources (including its own indexes, sites like Yelp, IYPs and other local business listing services) getting listed with them is often the first step in a small or local business' SEO strategy. But the process for removing fake or incorrect listings is a bit unclear, spans a six- to eight-week waiting period, and places the onus firmly on the business owner -- …

This lengthy post by the Solas Web Design firm explains the thought process and nuances of redesigning a Web site that's been in existence for more than five years. With a nod to maintaining the site's domain equity and search engine "trust" --the firm set out to improve the basics with keyword research, metadata and tagging updates. Moving beyond the granular nuts and bolts of SEO, the firm then counseled the business owner on how to create a blog and fill the site with other searchable, relevant and useful content. Though the example given is of …

In the midst of all the meta-data a Webmaster has to stay on top of, sometimes the idea of crafting (or updating) a creative, concise site meta description gets lost in the shuffle. While the big engines will scrape what's included in the original directory submission (or in an open source like DMoz), that description may be inaccurate, outdated -- or worse -- unappetizing to searchers. This San Diego-based search consultant makes an example out of CBS and its "Survivor: China" show, using screenshots and links that show what can happen when the creation of meta descriptions is …

Google will be upgrading the AdWords Keyword Tool with features aimed at making the free service more refined and easier to use. Blogger Jeremy Mayes lists the changes -- including new filters that narrow down the kinds of results advertisers get.

Often, an SEO project will require the tweaking and upgrading of a site that has been functioning relatively well. Perhaps the owner just wants the one-two punch of more traffic and better conversions -- or maybe he's adding a blog or launching a new product. Whatever the task, Tamar Weinberg argues that doing an in-depth analysis of the site's current traffic and demographics should be the first step. Summarizing a Cre8asite forums discussion, Weinberg cautions that the focus should be on improving the overall site experience for new and existing users --while making a strong effort to avoid …

Piggybacking on a Mashable post, Doug Caverly notes that Yahoo's former vice president of business operations, Matthew Heist, has left the Web giant for travel meta-search engine SideStep. Heist will act as the company's senior vice president of global search. While personnel changes in any competitive industry are par for the course (Google recently lost engineer Benjamin Ling to Facebook), Yahoo has had an exceptionally tough time in recent months -- following a major reorg in August, and the ousting of CEO Terry Semel in June.

Stoney deGuyter's post is all about Help pages and FAQs. While not all sites need them, the ones that do benefit from making them easy to navigate and optimized for searching -- since answering a searcher's initial questions effectively can lead her to purchase your products or services. DeGuyter lists four quick ways to ensure that a site's Help section serves its purpose -- from being extensive enough to include product support, contact details and printable or downloadable info, to determining whether to have an in-site search function that just cruises through the help pages or extends to …

Jeremy Crane waxes poetic about being too old to go "back to school" in this post -- noting that kids in school today have the Web and search engines to make their studies that much easier. He takes a look at the search stats from the big four in September, finding that overall search volume hit the highest level here in the States, with nearly 7.8 billion queries. At about a 4.4% increase from last month, it's a great example of a seasonal surge. It's no surprise that Google is at the top -- but what's interesting is just …