Bryan Eisenberg taps Homer Simpson to look at the humorous, but serious, side of optimizing your Web site. Before launching into a few analogies and evaluating conversion rates, he compares Web site optimization with ways the cartoon character might diet and get fit. Getting fat and tipsy on data, chowing down on empty calories, and engaging in lightweight lifting are topics discussed in the post. Eisenberg heeds the warning that too many companies optimize similar to the way Homer Simpson might exercise. "They run a test, optimize a single landing page, or even give full-force optimization a try …

Content management has become a major hurdle for SEO specialists at large companies' built-out sites. Aaron Wall suggests a few easy ways to avoid "site decay" and misguided links, and serves up advice on reclaiming lost link equity. Wall believes if someone links to a page on your site that no longer exists you are wasting link equity and traffic. "Some content management systems offer features or extensions that can be used to track 404s and other errors," he writes, pointing to Drupal, which offers an "error log and redirection plug-in that shows you pages people attempted to …

Some of the toughest questions might expose your ignorance, but not asking them could put you in a position to miss a crucial piece of information for the project. Stoney deGeyter suggests a few questions that both SEO experts and clients must ask to ensure a successful SEO campaign. Among advice deGeyter dishes out: Remain open to new ideas and remember constructive criticism could mean the difference between success and failure. Success means being open to change. "SEO isn't all about technical strategies or the implementation of knowledge," deGeyter writes. "Success and failure can be determined by the …

Don't hire an SEO company that puts links to their other clients on doorway pages, offers to sell keywords in the address bar, or has had domains removed from Google's index. Janet Meiners Thaeler tries to take the guesswork out of finding a good SEO company. She encapsulates a few tips from Google for companies looking for a SEOer to help get your Web site in top shape and then adds a few of her own. Thaeler suggests making sure you understand the SEO company's strategies and specialties before hiring. Common sense says that if they've branded themselves …

Rhonda Abrams talks to the SEO novice in this post - the one who puts up a Web site and expects to rank high on Google, MSN and Yahoo search engines without first understanding the power behind SEM. The post defines two main ways to make sites "highly visible" on search engines. Abrams also plugs her latest book, "Successful Marketing: Secrets & Strategies," and clearly defines a few basic terms every person attempting to optimize their site should know.

Ask yourself the tough questions. Observe, think and plan SEO strategies before taking action. Sound advice from Stoney deGeyter, who believes SEO campaigns don't succeed solely by focusing on keywords, great copy and Web site architecture, but rather by what you do internally to build and support the platform. Whether you're performing SEO for your own site, hiring a consultant or firm to provide SEO services, or you are the SEO provider serving various clients, you have knowledge and communications skills that factor into building a successful optimization campaign, deGeyter writes.

Search has historically been an afterthought, not typically integrated into Web site analytics, content development and Web site design, according to Augustine Fou. In this post, he suggests reasons for integrating a search strategy more strategically into a larger campaign. For starters, you might just find a goldmine in search terms if you know how to mine them. More then 80% of consumers begin their online journey with search, accounting for 8 billion searches per month, a Forrester Research metric Fou cites. Search queries in phrases, rather than single words, can tell you questions customers have that may …

Jonathan Dingman expresses his enthusiasm for plug-ins and provides us with nine he has come to love. The apps include plug-ins that give site owners the option to integrate videos in their post, as well as give site visitors the ability to subscribe to comments, a must for any WordPress site. The SEO Slugs plug-in lets you focus on writing, rather than fretting about ensuring every aspect of your post is SEO -friendly. It strips words like "a," "you," "what" or "can" from the permalinks of your post, since those keywords are ignored by search engines, Dingman writes. …

Marshall Kirkpatrick asks how much traffic could a link to your Web site drive if highlighted just below the search box on Google.com. According to one estimate from traffic analysts Compete.com, the link on Google for the G1 Android phone by T-Mobile delivered an estimated 800,000 unique visitors who clicked that link in the seven days it was on the site. Kirkpatrick provides a link to the post by Complete and some analyses on the numbers, injecting a bit of surprise at the stats. According to Complete, the Google.com link only delivered 40% of the traffic that the G1 …

Google Labs launched the virtual world Lively, complete with build your own avatar features, in July, but on Wednesday posted a note to the official Google blog indicating it would take down the site at the end of December. In the post, the Lively team wrote described Lively as a site meant to give people the ability to interact with friends and express themselves online in new ways, but acknowledges "when you take these kinds of risks not every bet is going to pay off." Google urges users to capture their hard work by taking videos and screenshots …