Recently interest has grown in local search, bringing with it a variety of new and better tools, writes Mike Ramsey. He provides a list of those he can't live without. They perform such tasks as citation building, review monitoring and posting, and geo-tagging and targeting.

Jen Lopez provides tips on increasing Twitter followers. And although it's important to think about increasing influencers, rather than followers, Lopez reminds us it's still a numbers game. The more followers the better chance the site, or Twitter handle, will gain quality influencers willing to retweet tweets. Lopez tells the story from experience, though it did start out as bit of a challenge to beat Rand Fishkin at the number of followers she could gain.

Oli Gardner explains "Everything a Non-Marketer Needs to Take a Business from Zero to Hero Online." The piece delves into such topics as landing pages, social media, email marketing, lead generation, setting up a Twitter account, and more.

A comment made by Scott Moore, partner and regional executive producer for the MSN group, during a recent L.A. event could foreshadow a major event in the tech sector. When asked his opinion on the next acquisition target, Moore simply said, "Twitter." This could explain why the Wall Street Journal reports that execs at both Facebook and Google, among others, have held "low-level talks with those at Twitter in recent months to explore the prospect of an acquisition of the messaging service."

SEO professionals know there's no cookie cutter method to ranking No. 1 in search engine queries for any particular keyword or phrase, but there are best practices to use as a guide. Zeke Camusio lays out a road map, providing tips on keyword cannibalization, quality links, number of links, and indexed pages. .

Marketing professionals seem to come up with one catchy phrase after another. This time it's the "galaxy effect," which refers to keyword targeting paid search campaigns to the "entire universe of prospective customers." In other words, don't do it. Glenn Gabe tells us why, providing ways to tone down the effect once it's identified. He also explains that audits usually identify pain points in the campaign that need fixing such as adjusting campaign settings, revamping account structure, refining keyword targeting, and changing network targeting.

Google confirmed that executive Wael Ghonim was released from Egyptian custody on Monday. Reports suggest his social-media expertise played a role in Ghonim being detained. Ghonim ran a Facebook page that others used to coordinate protests in Egypt. Reports suggest that others were arrested with him.

How did Arianna Huffington build up HuffPo for a big payday of $315 million? "There is no celebrity slide show beneath her tastes and no SEO trick she won't employ if it will get her traffic," writes Slate's Jack Shafer. "HuffPo pulled off one of the greatest acts of SEO whoring in the history of the Web yesterday," he adds, explaining how a HuffPo post ran with the question "What time does the Super Bowl start" to rank first in Google returns. "I'm not judging Huffington here as much as I'm describing her," he explains. "Some of her innovations may …

A historic event took place on Thursday. The international body responsible for distributing Internet addresses completed the final allocation of IPv4 addresses, which has been the primary communication protocol for the Internet for more than 20 years. Companies have begun to make the transition to the next generation, IPv6, but not fast enough, according to some. Microsoft tells us why it joined others like Google and Yahoo in the move.

The "Colbert Report" satirized Google's copycat accusation of Bing. Danny Goodwin reminds us Colbert and Bing worked together to help clean up the Gulf after the BP oil spill last summer in a promotion where every time Cobert said "Bing" in any context on the show, Microsoft would donate $1,500.