Nate Turner gives us three ways to align a paid-search campaign strategy. For starters, he created a short list of questions to help marketers see how others outside the marketing team view the brand's products and services. This will help ensure that keywords, ad groups, ad copy and landing pages work efficiently, he explains. The results will provide material for new ad groups and messages.

The majority of Google's investments have been in solar technology, large-scale wind farms, and power generation centers, but this latest investment in solar energy moves the company into the consumer sector. It supports clean efforts that push for a more renewable form to help homeowners save money on utility costs, explains Rob Young. SolarCity's financing model lowers the up-front cost to consumers. Rather than have to buy solar panels, consumers lease them and SolarCity guarantees the equipment, along with providing installation, maintenance, repairs, support, and specific power output based on the consumer's region.

Google got the okay from regulators to bid on Nortel Network's 6,000 patents and applications, but Larry Dignan believes the search engine could pay more than $900 million if it wants the portfolio. He gives us a list of names for potential bidders, why Nortel delayed the auction, and what the winning bid could mean for one lucky company.

Can you find me now? That's what Apple iPhone users will say if the Cupertino, Calif. company gets its way. Bill Slawski tells us about a patent application based on location and social networking technologies. The patent from Apple describes the ability for people to find each other based on common interests, experiences or both. The description, complete with illustrations of the "buddy finder" feature, details how someone would create a personal profile or a personal preference list to specify what kind of people they would like to meet.

These five strategies that solve problems with quick solutions helped LivingSocial build its global market to more than 30 million subscribers. With a little tweak here and there, Michael Alexis suggests these tactics can work for most marketing campaigns. He reminds us that failures provide the most valuable lessons -- so don't be afraid to try something new such as combining social with email, mobile or search engine optimization.

Best practices provide an outline for marketers to learn from each other to map out and implement a strategy. So, Graham Charlton asked several SEO experts to share their thoughts on social search and whether the hype will become significant in the future. With mixed reviews and viewpoints, a variety of search experts, media directors, creative directors, CEOs and others weigh in.

Ken McGaffin and Susan Payton tell us 25 ways to gain links for a Web site from another site, helping to boost ranking on search engines. Most of the tips are common sense, but serve as a great reminder. The tactics include paying for listings, joining trade groups, submitting a tip, offering a discount, and bucking a trend. For each tip, McGaffin explains why it works.

Chinese Internet users spend 24.4% of their time on portal sites, 9% on entertainment, 6.2% on search, and 5.5% on social networking, Adaline Lau writes, citing comScore numbers. She uses those stats to introduce us to Youku, China's online video provider, which led the category as the largest entertainment site, capturing more than 19% of total unique visitors in Greater China. She compares Youku with Baidu, which holds the majority of market share for search in China.

Channel Intelligence (CI) added paid-search marketing services to its product search services with the acquisition of ClickEquation announced Tuesday. Terms of the deal for the acquisition completed on Monday were not disclosed. For now, CI will not make changes to the ClickEquations platform or operations. In the coming months, the companies will share more about future plans for search products. As CI's chief product officer, ClickEquations President Craig Danuloff will help shape the direction of the offerings.

Think of a paid-search ad as a landing page that catches the attention of the visitor and persuades him to click. Paras Chopra gives us a formula that he believes results in better-performing text ads. He calls out four elements of a landing page that marketers can incorporate into paid-search ads, including catchy headlines and persuasiveness that eliminates the fear of wasting time and money.