Make products and services look effortless to use, offers clear and concise, and articulate the benefits and processes that lead to success. These are some of the key points Noran El-Shinnawy has offered up, by insipiration from infomercials. Yes, infomercials -- those pesky 30-minute television commericals that typically run in the middle of the night. She uses three classic infomercial pitch principles to form a few of her own for search marketing. 

Mark Ballard analyzed aggregate holiday paid-search performance for a sample of clients that have been working with Rimm-Kaufman Group for more than 19 months. With charts and descriptions, he provides numbers on early Q4 growth, daily and mobile trends, and expected upticks into December. As indicators, he also points to numbers from comScore, IBM, the National Retail Federation, and others.

Preceived privacy threats in Google and other search engines have prompted the creation of a new search engine dubbed YaCy. The project, backed by the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE), unleashed the engine to the public Monday. Query results come from a peer-to-peer network of users rather than servers. Users need to download Windows, Mac or Linux software in order to run searches. David Meyer tells us the engine makes ranking a thing of the past. The user's computer creates individual search indexes and rankings, so results better match user intent over time.

Kayla Kurtz shows marketers a few paid-search workarounds, such as not being able to populate approved ads using keywords, or not seeing conversions in a high-performing ad group. Or better yet, not seeing any impressions in a new ad group. She provides detailed instructions, guiding us through all three problems to ease the pain. It's easy to see the big picture and glaze over the details. Take a few minutes to learn the details.

Melissa Mackey gives us the good, bad and ugly about Google's move to add paid-search ads at the bottom of search engine results, as well as on top and on the side of organic query listings. Before analyzing the findings she looks at performance data for clients before and after the addition of ads. Prefacing the discussion with a few caveats, Mackey tells us what it all means. She writes that conversion rates may fall a bit because of increased competition -- but guess what? That's going to happen anyway as more companies take to online and create search marketing …

Imagine walking through a department store looking for specific item, or an airport looking for a restroom or a Starbucks on the way to a terminal or a gate. Android users can now find their way through these labyrinths without a freestanding map directory or asking an employee for help. Ikea became one of the first department stores to tap into the tool that allows companies to add their building's directories and floor plan to Google Maps. Other initial partners include Mall of America, The Home Depot, select Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s locations. Click through to see Ikea's video ad.

What's a SnapTag? Jeff Hayzlett tells us it's a 2D barcode that highlights a brand's logo in a notched circle. The tag provides more interactivity and analytics for the brand, compared with what the online ad industry has come to know as QR codes. He explains how Glamour magazine posted a SnapTag on the cover and gained more than 100,000 code activations, 50,000 Facebook Likes, and 500,000 interactions that led to sharing the content. 

Why do consumers query items on a search engine, and what will they do with the information once it is found? Analyzing and understanding consumer intent can give marketers deeper insight into the psychology behind the search for products or services. Ron Jones guides us through the process and provides tips to help gain a better understanding of the buying cycle, matching keyword phrases, and analyzing the numbers. Jones tells us these steps can improve targeting techniques to increase conversions. 

Baidu, China's largest search engine, said it will invest about $470 million through December 2015 to help two million small-and medium-sized companies build their businesses. Melanie Lee tells us that China has 485 million users and is the world's largest Internet market. China's online search market has grown 77.8% to 5.51 billion yuan -- about $863 million U.S. dollars, she writes.      . 

Josh McCoy advises marketers to pay more attention to Web site visitors and what they do on Web pages. He sees too many clients make simple mistakes that detract from what he calls "visitor retention." McCoy tells us to be aware of the link between headings, first paragraph and anchor text, and to begin using HTML rather than PDFs. He advises marketers to prevent social from becoming a distraction and to mend broken paths, and provides a host of other suggestions that should keep consumers coming back for more content.