Search marketers looking at launching search campaigns might want to know that while many believe Apple leads in mobile adoption rates, Samsung gained the No.1 spot in the smartphone market after several quarters. The Galaxy S3 goes on sale for its first full quarter, having sold 10 million in June.

James Agate built a public Trello board to help marketers visualize the acquisition and optimization of links, as well as content for links. He divided the steps into the elements of content tasks, research tasks, link tasks, and other tasks, breaking it down by month from one to six. This is how he approaches a link-building briefing for clients. The Trello board should allow anyone to drag and drop the elements to get started.

Following search engine guidelines doesn't always guarantee a smooth ride. Sometimes campaigns are suspended. Kayla Kurtz gives us a list of reasons why Google or Bing might suspend accounts, such as inaccurate ad copy, or assertions on landing pages that cannot be fully supported. She also provides steps to take to correct the problem. Typically, the engines will send an email explaining the problems.

YouTube added the ability to blur faces appearing in videos uploaded to the site to protect the anonymity of individuals in potentially dangerous situations, such as anti-government protests. The company notes that the feature, still under development, might not work properly in all cases. YouTube will offer the option under the video enhancements tool.

Elton John, Pete Townshend and Robert Plant are among the members of the British invasion who are signing a letter addressed to the British Prime Minister asking to help them protect online "their huge investments creating original content." They want search engines and online advertisers to "play their part in protecting consumers and creators from illegal sites," according to The Telegraph.  

Are consumers burning out on Facebook and Apple? Survey results published in an infographic by SodaHead.com find that 52% of respondents think they will spend less time on Facebook in the next year, while only 12% plan to spend more, and 36% think they will spend the same. In terms of Apple's rumored iPad Mini product launches, only 28% are interested, while 72% are "over it." The survey finds that fewer are excited about the iPhone5 -- with 26% saying they are interested, and 74% are over it.

Google Webmaster Tools last week identified "unnatural links" on SEOmoz, much to the surprise of Ruth Burr. The site has built what she calls an "SEO's dream," putting hours into building a community of passionate people who share views on the site and content from it. Burr explains how those links might have been interpreted by Google's bots, how spammy links might influence a site's rankings, and how to approach similar messages.

Link popularity has three parts and one influencing factor: link quantity, link quality, relevance and anchor text, according to Debra Mastaler, who takes us through each in a series of insights related to link building, answering questions like whether or not to post multiple articles on one blog site, so each acts as a link, or does only one article per blog Web site count as a link?

Some 37% of PriceGrabber survey respondents plan to compare prices from their mobile phone while in brick-and-mortar stores this back-to-school shopping season, and 14% said they would make the purchase from the phone. What will drive consumers to make a back-to-school purchase this summer? Survey participants could choose multiple reasons. About 72% of the consumers said sales; 66%, price; 63%, coupons; 43%, online promotions; and price matching and in-store only promotions were tied, with 28% of the vote.

Limit social and email calls to action to make them more effective, such as "Follow us on Pinterest" or "Like us if you like us." Rand Fishkin provides tactical strategies that can help marketers make better decisions. Just as marketers wouldn't put a zillion "buy" buttons on an ecommerce page, site visitors should have to visit social and email sign-up pages where calls to action outnumber other information. Fishkin give us best practices to streamline processes, including limiting the email page to two calls to action and promoting where action is most likely to happen.