Clients that target a specific niche of well-informed customers may think that they don't need a Web site full of descriptive copy--or that they can get away with having product images and a one-line description to draw those customers in. But Robert Gorell says that even companies in the most obscure verticals need copy on their Web page. After all, the best SEO is great content. Take a retailer of industrial construction tools like 100-ton drill rigs, for example. Gorell counsels a search strategist who's struggling with getting this construction retailer to understand that they need more on-page …

Richard MacManus compiles a list of 10 recommendation engines, or services that combine a user's preferences with algorithms and shared community data to make recommendations for things like products and events. For example, Scouta factors in user activity on the platform to provide recommendations for all Web-based media, including streaming video and radio from around the globe, while The Filter is a social music recommendation service (backed by Peter Gabriel, no less) that functions as a playlist creation suite for portable media players like iPods. Criticker is a movie review community and recommendation engine, and Zync is …

Perhaps the better question is--do you want to be the next SEO superstar? If the answer is yes, then Lee Odden says you might need to get your priorities straight. "An amazing number of people seem to think becoming well known in the search marketing business is an end in and of itself," Odden says. "Establishing a well known brand and reputation in an industry is only worthwhile if there's something to back it up. Otherwise, all that is achieved is a hollow online existence requiring the constant feeding of "notoriety crack."" TopRank readers responded with comments …

There's no discounting the positive impact that a strong local search strategy can have for a small business--but Jody Nimetz argues that the same cannot be said about local search for big brands. "If you are Pepsi or Coke do you really need to establish a local search strategy? To me local search is useful and works best for small to medium sized businesses with one or possibly a couple of different locations," Nimetz says. While Nimetz says that local search can work for some larger brands, there are factors that make it less of a priority, starting …

Eric Enge follows up a previous post that tested the image-integration efforts of Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask for core search queries with this test for video results. Using 10 terms, including phrases with identifiers like "tom brady video" and without, like "nosferatu," Enge ultimately finds that there's lots of room for improvement, as "none of the engines have this perfectly scoped out just yet." Not surprisingly, clips from YouTube made up 20% of the searches--a nod to the wealth of video content that the Google property has amassed. But Microsoft and Ask didn't cull their videos from …

Omgili, the search engine for "subjective information" like product ratings and reviews, discussion boards and Q&A sessions, has rolled out its latest new feature: Google@Omgili. The service allows users to get search results from both Google and Omgili in the same window, with links to any discussions pertaining to the Google results. This is the latest of many updates and tools that Omgili has added since its beta launch in 2007, including last month's Omgili Buzz, which gives searchers a view of the most popular discussions on the Web in the form of topic clouds and graphs. …

Marketers can be skeptical about the scalability and viability of video classifieds as business model for a number of reasons. "Video classifieds can't be efficiently searched on a local or category basis; video production has been time consuming; video uploading has not been intuitive," says Peter Krasilovsky, a program director and analyst at The Kelsey Group. "And the value of most personal goods--the fodder for free ads--haven't been high enough to make the effort. Real estate and cars, yes. Easy chairs that cost $10, probably not." Still, companies like Real People Real Stuff have continued to move forward …