Erin tells us how to use data trends to identify PPC opportunities by comparing performance history at the keyword level, predicting and planning, and breaking down the data into plain English. She explains how linking your PPC account with Google Analytics or other data program can help you understand your site's visitors and identify opportunities to expand.

Tom Critchlow tells us five ways being a search engine optimizer can make you better at online dating. Among the lessons applicable to both search and romance: "add trust," do research, and "test, test, test." For example, "test which profile picture will get you most dates by using the My Best Face feature" on dating site OKCupid, which "lets you see which profile image works better for you and gives you lovely graphical breakdowns of the data to show you which demographic your image works best for." On the SEO side of testing, he suggests: "Try segmenting your website …

David Harry says for the past few years he's been "collecting" Google patent filings that pertain to targeted advertising for TV. Now he delves into how those patents will be used to create a system that can "monitor watching habits; monitor audience size and composition; predict viewing success rates; offer networks potential (targeted) advertisers," among other features. "As a geek, this is great stuff," he writes. "As an ordinary person concerned about privacy issues, however, "I am starting to become very concerned....At what point to we implicitly trust our data with such mega corporations?"

For those looking to improve Web site visibility in Google search, Amit Agarwal has tapped the shoulders of Google exerts to answer your SEO questions. He's turned the Q&A into a PDF file you can download for offline reading. There are 25 questions asked and answered. The topics range from page load speeds to getting more pages in Google Index to XML Sitemaps, and more.

Not many SEOs like link building. It's tedious and exhausting, but necessary to optimize Web sites and gain rankings. Rand Fishkin show marketers how to use sitewide, reciprocal, and directory links, which often get a bad rap as black SEO services, while staying on the white side. He demonstrates how to implement them carefully so they become very effective without stepping over the line.

Eli Goodman analyzes the way people search today to determine the potential of Facebook, which hosts more than 600 million U.S. searches each month, with the potential to become a serious player in search marketing. He walk through how to evaluate the average number of words per search, suggesting this metric provides insights into how consumers adapt search behavior to shifts in technology and culture. A graph helps to visualize the change.

John Battelle explains that "Apple's genius has always been in seeing the value of something that already exists, and taking that value to a new level." After speaking with clients and Apple media relations, he details what marketers should know to get a return on investment from iAds, including rates. Apple will sell iAd launch packages for $1 million or more, depending on exclusivity terms, and the company will charge 1 cent per impression, a $10 CPM, and $2 per click. Then he talks about things the industry doesn't know about the iAd, like what data Apple use to …

Building awareness for the brand through high-quality content is useful not only for Web site visitors, but search engine crawlers looking for pages and information to index. Here are four ways high-quality content can help your business.

Thought you could optimize just about any brand? This one's just enough to drive any SEO expert crazy. Google "M.I.A's New Album" and you get the title. That's ///Y/, or Maya, the singer's real name, according to Addy Dugdale, who runs though several examples to make the point that getting found in search engines for some is no easy feat. Maybe someone can help her figure it out by July before the next tracks are released.

Tad Chef explains five common Twitter SEO best practices, describing how to get better performance from optimizing the content, and what to expect as the outcome. For example, making tweets spread virally is perhaps the most important discipline of Twitter SEO, he writes. So add popular terms and keywords to your tweet to make people want to retweet. He suggests a list of words.