Talk like you mean business. Act like you've inked the deal. Identify what clients need to know. These are among the five tips Dev Basu provides on pitching and scoring contracts. In a related link, Basu also provides advice on delivering the perfect client pitch. He reminds us people only absorb and recall about 50% of the information received, 24 hours after processing it. To help potential clients retain and process more of what you tell them about SEO, it's important to have a few key points clients can easily relate to -- among them, case studies of past/present …

The days of trading reciprocal links "willy-nilly" are long gone. Although Googlebot gained intelligence and squashed the free-trading days "into the links netherworld," it doesn't mean you can't barter for links, writes Donna Fontenot, who takes tips from real-world bartering techniques into the online digital world. Don't think of link bartering as the simple act of trading links with others, but rather "the bartering of services that may naturally lead to links," Fontenot writes. "The key is that links should not be a required aspect of the service trade, but that getting a backlink from the trade would …

Google and NASA have partnered to back a new school for futurists dubbed "Singularity University." Ray Kurzweil, "whose predictions about the exponential pace of technological change have made him a controversial figure in technology circles," will run the school, writes David Gelles. The school will sit at the Ames Research Center near Google's headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., and offer courses on biotechnology, nano-technology and artificial intelligence. No mention of how the curriculum would tie into search marketing or search engine optimization, but AI certainly has its place in SEM and SEO on the Web. The school is …

How do you track the value of "upper funnel" keywords -- those used by customers who "are early in their consideration life cycle," meaning they have not made up their minds what (or if) to buy? Getting to the answer, Avinash Kaush explains the long tail of search, providing advice on all the categories and the subcategories you might use for a particular subject. In his example, there are 11 "head" keywords and 22,181 "tail" (wow). Supported by charts, Kaush makes recommendations on ways to understand the customer purchase cycle, methods to map keywords, and measure success. Some …

Google tech support guru Shawn Purtell runs down six Google Analytics tools he thinks you should know. Tools include Report Enhancer, Business Notes, Goal Copy, and Enhanced Google Analytics. Purtell provides graphs and steps through instructions for using each tool. For instance, the Greasemonkey script plugin from Erik V. allows you to see social media and link bait statistics for your specific pages, he writes. Purtell believes the tool is an "especially useful add-on if you have a blog, or are trying to get more involved with social media and linking sites."

Ryan Caldwell provides a tutorial on how to get the most from StumbleUpon, even when you are marketing your own materials. After all, he writes, social media should highlight good content, but not just yours. Providing links to important tools that can "increase the potency" of your StubleUpon account, Cadwell explains how to associate your account with good content, find diverse sources for stories you might want to rate, and discover new text and video articles. He believes in tracking content through popular sites to find new stuff and suggests a few sites you might want to try.

Greg Sterling reports that Jill Nash, head of communications at Yahoo, will leave the company. And new CEO Carol Bartz appears to have some communication issues of her own. In her latest memo to Yahoo staff, Bartz tells employees to "plug the leaks," referring to the incident that someone forwarded her first company-wide email to bloggers. Wall Street Journal's Jessica Vascellaro wrote the most recent email suggesting a "weekly bounty on such people" and that Bartz "will throw in the first thousand dollars." Sterling notes Nash's departure is unrelated to Bartz's fist-pounding.

Tapping into "general business assets" for SEO rarely gets discussed at SEOmozBlog, so Rand Fishkin thought it time to explain how the two tie in nicely. The lengthy post suggests how to use "commodities beyond your website" to "improve the quality and quantity of traffic you receive through search engine optimization." Among those assets: partnerships on and off the Web, content you have never put online, and customers who have had a positive experience with your company.

Evert Veldhuijzen explains link-buying with a Russian twist. While "link love" from Russia (PR7 links) can save you a few bucks, it could put you in an uncomfortable position with Google, Microsoft and Yahoo. If Google realizes a major part of your anchor text profile is built on links to Russian pages, maybe even containing Cyrillic script, the search giant will penalize your site. Veldhuijzen offers up screen shots of search queries and rankings to demonstrate his point. He also provides guidelines for building links and anchor text the standard way, through directory submissions, articles, forums postings and …

Marketers in the travel biz who believe they have a handle on target keywords might want to think again, according to Elisabeth Osmeloski. It's no secret the travel industry has been under pressure to make campaigns count, as marketing budgets shrink, competition intensifies, business travel continues to tank, and leisure travelers look for deals. Osmeloski believes search marketers in the travel biz should consider designing a SEO strategy based on package deals, inclusive prices, and special offers they haven't optimized content around in the past. She explains how to enhance specific keyword text, and tracking, testing and fine-tuning …