Successful SEO projects require buy-in from key stakeholders across the company. Duane Forrester believes marketers should look at the project like a sandwich. Similar to business, sandwiches typically have three layers: top, middle and bottom. Educate executive management, or the top layer, on the benefits of an organic search campaign so they understand how it impacts their strategic vision, Forrester writes. The middle management will need return on investment numbers since it makes the decisions to move resources from project to project.

Rand Fishkin has updated the list of the most linked-to content on the Web, which shows rises and falls in link popularity across the Web's most popular sites and pages. The list reveals some interesting trends; for example, Twitter surpassed LiveJournal.com and WashingtonPost.com. A few of the Web's most popular blogs rose significantly. For example, Huffingtonpost.com rose 10 spots, and TechCrunch.com rose 13. Surprisingly, Whitehouse.gov was a big winner, too, jumping 10 positions. Among the Web's biggest gains for root domains: Icann.org, up more than 71 spots; Co.cc, 29; Vimeo.com, 28; Etsy.com, 26; Tumblr.com, 23; and Yelp.com, 22.

Janet Meiners Thaeler identifies strategies that might classify a SEO company as dealing in "black hat" -- deceptive or unethical SEO practices. These techniques include keyword stuffing, or repeating "words or phrases so often that it's unnatural to read," and overusing bolded links. Such techniques, and companies who use them, should be avoided. While black-hat practices might get your site to the top of a page in the short term, long range it could get your site delisted from search engine rankings. Also, companies that guarantee higher rankings on competitive search keywords should set off alarms. "It's important to …

Manoj Jasra gains insight into the importance of monitoring error pages through an interview with Josh Katinger, Accession Media president and co-creator of Errorlytics, which centralizes reporting and handling of 404 "Page Not Found" errors on Web sites. Katinger tells Jasra that if you own a site that depends heavily on ad revenue, which in turn depends on page views, fixing your 404s can preserve site visits and page views. "Letting pages on your site continue to 404 is like throwing money out the window."

It's a daunting dilemma, especially for small companies on tight budgets. Does the paid search or the SEO campaign come first? Some SEO professionals believe you need to start with both. Jeremy Martin doesn't make the decision for marketers, but does provide information to help those interested get started. Martin provides the basics such as testing methods through A/B testing or split testing. Paid search might return quicker results, but cost more in the long run. "With SEO the key is consistency," he writes, adding that SEO professionals need to consistently build links through blogging, directories, forums and creating …

Listen up, marketers: Paid search lifts brand metrics, particularly when paired with other media. That's according to Kevin Lee, who summarizes new research presented at the Re:think 2009 conference, the 55th annual convention of the Advertising Research Foundation. Presented by Angela O'Connell, head of cross media research at Google Europe, and Lucas Hulsebos, media research director at MetrixLab, the research validated Lee's long-held theory about the effectiveness of paid search. The research analyzed media interaction to determine lift in brand metrics as consumers were exposed to advertising in a variety of media, according to Lee. He tells us …

Marketers know the best media strategy combine paid and organic search. But convincing management to invest in both might not be easy, especially as budgets remain tight. Sami Carroll provides fodder to pitch the boss or the client and execute the plan. Benefits from combiningg paid and organic search campaigns range from improving the ability to block competitors' ads, to improving brand recall for your company. Some suggestions from Carroll include maximizing results on a limited budget, capitalizing on early research, knowing what to leave in and take out, and paying attention to the results in analytics.

Can SEO professionals over-optimize a site? Yes, according to Rand Fishkin, who discusses "unnatural content development," and other mistakes SEO professional make, including keyword stuffing and internal linking. Search engines will penalize such practices, according to Fishkin. If stuffing keywords only gives you small incremental benefits, reconsider, he says.

Here are some fairly basic, but still useful, "Non-Google SEO" ways to promote business. This tool chest doesn't include pay-per-click, email marketing or affiliate marketing campaigns. Instead, recommendations are for the likes of niche communities, local search tools, and shopping and review sites.

A little off the SEO beaten track, but a worthwhile post to include in today's newsletter. Now that you've gotten your fill of Ashton Kutcher and his million followers in Twitter, or Oprah's decision on when to send her first tweet, it's time to get back to work and stop blaming the recession for recent failures. Marketers and SEO professionals who want to survive this recession will stop talking about Oprah and learn something new, work harder than everyone else, and do the leg work, according to Lisa Barone. Take some risks and shut up, Barone writes. Stop …