Microsoft is doing the executive shuffle with search, naming Yusuf Mehdi head of marketing for its MSN and search properties (i.e., Live Search). His team, which includes Brad Goldberg, general manager of the search business group, runs marketing, product management, strategic partnerships, and business development for the sites. Mehdi will report directly to Steve Ballmer, until the company brings in someone to run the entire online services division. Meanwhile, Bill Veghte, who previously headed up the MSN and search properties, has been named senior vice president for the Windows business. Veghte will still manage the Windows Live teams, …

Glen Allsopp offers some quick tips for promoting a new Web site. Of course, he touches on using StumbleUpon to find interesting blogs and sites within your niche, and then leaving comments on them (with a link back to your site), as well as Twitter and MyBlogLog. The most interesting tool Allsopp suggests using is creating a Gravatar. "Gravatars are the avatars that show up next to comments on many blogs (this is increasing all the time) and is built by the same team that builds Wordpress," he says. "Gravatar works by assigning your email address to a …

How do you choose the right keywords for your target if you don't know precisely who your target is? For example, a recent Forbes article found that there are many different kinds of sports moms -- each with different media consumption and product purchasing habits. Hockey moms are defined by their affluence, while many basketball moms live predominately indoor lifestyles. So should you not target the former with discount ads, or the latter with sunscreen ads? According to Stuart Larkins, targeting and demographic research is good -- but sometimes it can get out of hand. And he suggests …

Brian Carter throws some kerosene on the "rankings don't really matter in SEO" fire with this post, arguing that the metrics chosen by clients are the ones that should have the most weight (and get the most attention) -- be they rankings, traffic or conversions. "Every client has different needs," he says. "And every client has different key metrics." For some clients, it may be lead generation. In that case, you'd focus on the keywords and tactics that would generate the most leads. The same goes for sales. "But if you have a client (and we have several …