Define your SEO goal before you get started: sound advice from Donna Fontenot, aka DazzlinDonna, Internet entrepreneur and search engine optimization guru. Once goals are defined, focus on the details like proper keyword research, and understand the phrases most likely to drive traffic. Fontenot believes that sites frequently already have a significant amount of content addressing the core topic, but you should still pick apart that content to evaluate with a fresh eye. Many times those fresh eyes can see what the original publishers could not. Don't forget to include technical issues -- ways you will promote and …

Don't integrate search into your campaign strategy for the sake of integration. That's the sound advice from Aaron Goldman, who looks at six benefits specific to integrating search programs in this post. Goldman believes if search and display ads are not tracked through one central platform, both channels will take credit for the same conversions. If that happens the campaign fails because it's inaccurate. In some cases, Goldman has seen duplication rates of at least 30%. Another benefit of integration: using the same look and feel helps to reinforce brand positioning.

In this post, Ann Smarty looks at five tools she calls vital for "search engine friendliness and Web accessibility" to optimize images. Listing the names of the tools and their functions, she provides a star rating for usefulness and graphics that demonstrates each tool's use. For example, there's the top-rated Web Developer FireFox Toolbar, which Smart gives five stars because of its variety of imaging analyzing tools. Other capabilities include displaying alt attributes and image dimensions, finding broken images, and outlining images missing alt attributes.

People who post the same content on a variety of sites (especially ones with listings like jobs or classified ads) create duplicate content issues for you instead of that dream of Web 2.0 SEOs: "free, unique content," according to Rand Fishkin. He believes this can cause search engines to stop listing your pages, and whole "subsections of your domain go unspidered or unindexed" because the search engines have determined that you're a "clearing house for materials they've already seen." Make users post content on your site in a different order and with more depth and detail.If job listings typically require …

It just got easier to search for the local Starbucks, the corner Chevron gas station or the nearest ATM machine on the street where you're standing. Google introduced Google Earth for Apple's iPhone and iPod touch earlier this week. A post on the company's blog suggests the tool brings the "power of Google Earth to the palm of your hand, including all of the same global imagery and 3D terrain." Google Earth lets users browse any of the company's 8 million Panoramio photos and read Wikipedia articles. You also can tilt the iPhone to adjust views for mountainous …

Microsoft upgraded adCenter, adding new features and links to help make managing campaigns easier. Several of the changes were requests made by community members. Among the new features: the ability to pause and resume ads and keywords, geographical targeting, and improved reporting performance on pages; faster reviews, dynamic feedback about why ads and keywords were disapproved, and inline notification when dynamic text causes your ads to exceed character limits. You can also now create multiple account users; and, in the U.S., get keyword bid suggestions and performance estimates for your content ads. Microsoft also added a "New Features" …

These words sometimes show up in Google search results, but what do they mean? Google software engineer Oliver Fisher, said the server that the site runs on probably has a hole, a security vulnerability, most likely from some out-of-date software. That vulnerability has been exploited and malicious code has been added to the Web site. It's most likely an invisible script or iframe that pulls content from another Web site that tries to attack any computer that views the page. If the attack succeeds, then viruses, spyware, key loggers, botnets, and other nasty stuff will get installed on your computer. …

Your PPC campaign has a quality score. Google, Yahoo and Microsoft reward relevant advertisers (and punish irrelevant ones) by instituting the quality scoring system, which simply put says: Advertisers who display relevant ads may achieve higher ad positions at lower costs-per-click than competitors who may be paying higher costs-per-click. The search engines want users to find exactly what they're looking for, and advertisers to get site visitors whose intent, expressed as a search query, match exactly what's offered by the advertiser's site. That way, satisfied users return to the search engine for dependable search results, and advertisers can …

Have you ever sent friends or family a couple of links to various sites like your online photo album that has the latest pictures from your trip to Kauai, a YouTube video, or a news article to save them from searching on their own? It's a pain copying and pasting multiple links in email. It would be nice to convert all of those links into one short link. Shrink2One is a free Web service that allows you to convert multiple URLS into one smaller URL Add links from the sites you want to share, along with a title, and …

Online video games and the advent of the networked game console have brought opportunities in search and in-game advertising. The online games connect families, build friendships and allow consumers to cross borders without a passport. So what's a marketer to do with this information? Identify pockets of the game industry that offer societal benefit and deliver your target audience. Kevin Carney makes a good case for exploring search campaigns and advertising in video games without going into grand details; rather, he provides examples of his real-life experiences with gaming. Demonstrating possibilities to reach your audience, he writes that …