Tom Pick reminds us that CEOs and other executives need to appreciate the importance of their personal brand, but he doesn't mention that employees need to take heed, too. Whether you own a business or work for someone else, don't forget you are the "face" of that organization. Social media has made your online reputation personal. "That makes it crucial for business leaders even at smaller companies who may not in the past have considered themselves 'public figures' to manage not only their firms' online reputations, but also their own," Pick writes, offering suggestions on managing your online …

Rae Hoffman details advanced ad-targeting techniques found in Thesis Wordpress Theme to help you take advantage of the app in your own blog or Web site. She steps you through the process of specifying a specific ad for each individual page on your blog, overriding default ads for one post, and more. In this lengthy post, Hoffman explains that Thesis Wordpress Theme provides a template allowing you to make changes through a simple control panel, rather than altering Wordpress code. You can pick and choose the display pages, and mix and match pages and blog categories in the …

You may not have paid much attention to text, fonts, headers and titles in the past, but Rand Fishkin believes optimizing the words on the page for graphic appeal and readability is as important as the ability of search engines to find and recognize the content. There are no short cuts to improving search engine rankings, according to Fishkin. To gain quality links, you need to ensure your blog or Web site has good curb appeal. Why enter the house if the facade looks run-down, shabby, or difficult to read? So Fishkin explains ways to develop top-notch infrastructure, …

What if half of you who use Google as your default search engine switched to Microsoft or Yahoo? Stoney deGeyter admits to being a Google convert, but rants about wanting to see a little competition in search. Although Google earned it, he writes, the cons of having one dominant engine run the gamut, from a noticeable drop in traffic when losing the dominant spot in rankings, to disruptions in Web development when search algorithms change. As the saying goes, there are always two sides to every coin (perhaps three sides in this instance). DeGeyter also tells us the …

Ann Smarty gives us a laundry list of 14 Greasemonkey scripts for Google Search. Greasemonkey is an add-on for the Firefox browser that allows users to make quick changes to most HTML-based Web pages. Providing an overview of tools like "SearchJump," "Click Search" and "Try This Search On," Smarty tells us how to get the most from each. Her favorite script is "Keep Your Google Search Dates," which keeps the advanced date search dropdown on the Google home page and the search results page for easy access to the option.

Julie Batten wants to make it perfectly clear she never suggested you shouldn't run both paid (PPC) and organic (SEO) search campaigns simultaneously, especially if budget restrictions don't force you to choose. Batten provides a list of factors to consider when determining whether to deploy one or both paid search campaigns. SEO and PPC together can often run well together, but Batten suggests the idea has a few hidden dangers. Cannibalization, for example, can occur when SEO and PPC compete -- or one can be wasteful due to the success of the other, she writes. On the flipside, …

Get Google to read your keywords first. Things Google ignores. Don't link to sites in "bad neighborhoods." And, how to get your site listed in the search engine within 24 hours. These are some of the topics Jon Rognerud discusses in this post. Rognerud, for example, tells us not to waste time on keywords and description attributes meta tags; style, script and comment tags; and duplicate links. He also steps us through the process of getting Google to index your site quickly. Don't use Google's submission form. That could take between 2 and 6 weeks, he writes. And, …

Chris Brogan runs through 27 blogging secrets (one of which is the "weird number" -- like 27 -- in the headline) to improve your posts. Some of the tricks include starting with a question to get people to think, posting a photo, and writing unfinished posts so other can add to it in comments. Brogan suggests linking out to other blogs often. Tools like Simplaris Blogcast integrate your blog into Facebook. You also can use Twitter, Technorati and Digg to build trackbacks. Do these ideas work? Read the 148 comments from Brogan's blog post and then tell me.

Get past the first four paragraphs to meat of this blog post to find insight into a trend that relies on software bots and behavioral data to improve site ranking in search engine queries. The post suggests we could begin to see the "first serious SEO Surfbot Nets" rollout in a few months. While the term "bots" typically connotes "malicious software," it also refers to a network of computers using distributed computing software. These bots will simulate human Web surfing behavior to furnish search engines with behavioral data to help rank sites better, according Fantomaster.

Danny Sullivan gives Microsoft "tough love" in a post that describes the company's failings as a search engine. Apologizing for the need to deliver the grim message, he hopes the news "might filter up and out through to the rest of Microsoft, especially to the top executives, and ultimately help Microsoft succeed." Sullivan hopes the message will prompt Steve Ballmer to attend a search conference and give the SEM/SEO community a bit of peace. "The fact that Ballmer hasn't made the time is just part of my feeling that search is a 'chore' or 'homework' that Microsoft feels …