Including trust and credibility symbols on your Web site (like the VeriSign secured logo or a secure socket layer notification) can be one of the small tweaks it takes to help boost conversions. That's according to Tim Ash, author of Landing Page Optimization and CEO of SiteTuners.com. Amber Benedict reviews a presentation Ash recently gave during the PPC Summit, which focused on the small things site owners could do to make readers feel secure about providing things like contact info or making purchases with a credit card. "Trust symbols would include safe site logos and secure checkout logos," Benedict …

Vanessa Fox goes toe-to-toe with Steve Rubel in this piece, disagreeing with his assertion that a site's PageRank is the ultimate barometer of its influence in the online world. Rubel's argument, in a nutshell, is that since Google uses a number of factors to determine PageRank, and since Google is the primary starting point for most Internet users, its assessment of a site (i.e. the site's PageRank) is the best measure of whether you're producing quality content. Not so, Fox says. "I agree with him that we need better measures and the ones that we have are looking through a …

Ann Smarty rounds up a list of big brands that are tapping Twitter for its marketing and reputation management capabilities. Dell, for example, has created multiple profiles tailored to specific kinds of deals. "DellOutlet posts recent refurbished Dell computer offers," Smarty says. Meanwhile, Whole Foods recommends new foodie podcasts for their shoppers and invites them to in-store events, and Forrester Research is using Twitter to post snippets of engaging forum discussions. Smarty also breaks down the main ways companies use the micro-blogging/instant messaging network, which include making it an alternative customer service/support platform, to reach to their feedback, to …

YouTube recently rolled out "click-to-buy" ads for music (and gaming) videos that let viewers click over to Amazon.com or iTunes and buy the music (or game) featured in the clips. Unfortunately, the ad units are geared toward YouTube "partners," which typically are larger, more established companies. Smaller businesses seeking to use the video property for e-commerce and search benefits need to try alternative measures, one of which Grant Crowell outlines in this post. "For your YouTube Description field, lead with a hot URL to your Web site," Crowell says. "It serves as a direct call-to-action with good proximity to the …

On the heels of Ask's revamp comes Hakia's redesign. The semantic search engine features more structured results, and an influx of "credible" sites to pull data from. "In order to create this index of trustworthy sites, Hakia is asking volunteers to submit credible, peer reviewed sources," says Frederic Lardinois. "Credible sites are currently limited to health and environmental topics, but Hakia is planning to expand this quickly. By adding these credible sources, Hakia wants to go beyond '10 blue links' and give its users an alternative to popularity driven approaches like Google's PageRank."

"Mention the words SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and PPC (Pay Per Click) to most furniture store owners and you're sure to either see blank faces, or hear stories of frustration," says Heather Lutze. "Either they don't utilize these marketing techniques at all, or they've handed their company's Web site SEO and PPC activities over to an agency and have little idea what's going on with either, or they've 'done it themselves' and had lackluster results at best." So she dishes out some search knowledge with a furniture-based spin, schooling brick and mortar couch-shillers (and e-tailers) on keywords, the …

On the hunt for quality competitive analysis tools? Bryan Eisenberg reviews 14 "ways to spy on your competitors' web sites, without breaking any FISA laws," in this post. He discusses a trio of no-brainers from Google: Alerts, Insights for Search and Trends for Websites, as well as proven tools like Websitegrader (and its sibling Twittergrader). But Eisenberg also digs into lesser-known gems like Web Page Readability, which helps you compare the density and complexity of your page's copy to your competitors', and Attention Meter, which pulls ratings from across Alexa, Compete and Quantcast into one dashboard. …

Tad Chef says tp eschew all the "link building" talk (and tactics) in favor of more organic methods. "More and more conventional link building methods, like directory submission, are of less and less value," he says. "In fact soon we'll see a situation where all artificial ways of link building will be frowned upon." Chef serves up a number of suggestions for growing links naturally, including being useful to your target community by developing a WordPress theme, Firefox plugin or other free tool, as well as organizing a recognition ceremony like the Web 2.0 awards. Other …

No one can avoid talking about the current financial crisis -- and it's not enough to say that search will be spared because advertisers will start shifting their dwindling budgets online. You need a serious PPC strategy to ride out the recession, and Alan Rimm-Kaufman offers some tips for developing one. First, make sure your campaign objectives are clear. "This is not the time for hazy goals," he says. "Determine how aggressively or how conservatively you should be advertising, and stick to your numbers. If your SPCs (sales-per-click) decline, so should your bids." And tap robust bid management …

Ahh, the eternal question. If you were trapped on Gilligan's Island, would you want to be (or be with) Ginger or Mary Ann? Sonia Simone turns that question into a study of blog tactics and styles, noting that the best blogs are a hybrid of both function and flair. Ginger, for example, was a star -- no matter where she was -- and so her behavior reflected that. In blogging, that can be translated to pushing the envelope in terms of content. "Ginger is killer headlines," Simone says. "Ginger is linkbait. Everyone talks about her, everyone wants to …