Will it matter to brands if the consumers they try to reach through advertising turn to prepaid smartphones? In the first quarter (Q1) of 2013, year-over-year total smartphone sales rose 42%, attributing 36% of the unit volume increase to prepaid smartphone sales, according to The NPD Group. The numbers released Wednesday point to year-over-year prepaid smartphone unit sales gains, accounting for 32% of total smartphone unit sales. Some of the plans are offered by smaller companies, such as Republic Wireless.

It's becoming more difficult to produce great content and apps that consumers want. More than 60% of apps in the Apple App Store have never been downloaded and of those that have, one in four are abandoned after their initial use, according to New Relic. There are more than 1.5 million apps available in the Apple App Store and Google Play, giving consumers an almost unlimited amount of options to choose from. This video offers a lot of great advice, but you can skip to 0:49 to get the best tips from this clip. View the content here.

Q1 2013 ecommerce sales grew 13% year-over-year to $50.2 billion, according to comScore. But believe it or not, several factors still stop consumers short from clicking on the "buy" button  -- such as when they optimize the site to rank high in search results, or click through to the landing page, but stop short of converting. Bryn Adler provides insights on how to make consumers fall in love with their products. He steps through four experiences and how to fix them to reduce the number of visitors who abandon their cart. Adler details improvements of up to 5% in overall …

Eric provides a guide to making paid-search campaign profits grow. Whether it's new campaigns, new platforms, new bid strategies, or new keywords, marketers need a plan to expand. He believes in an "easy 4-step process to keyword research." He covers topics such as knowing when to add a new keyword, identifying the correct tools to perform keyword research, using templates, and measuring the projected impact of keyword additions. Read the article here.

Still trying to figure out how Google+ fits into your marketing initiative? Jayson DeMers takes us through some tips on integrating G+ into online marketing initiatives. He begins with creating a profile and getting a badge, and then examines the process of initiating content and authorship, which means migrating the business listings on Google Places to Google+. Read the article here.

Cyrus Shepard created a "blueprint" -- a framework for those new to search engine optimization (SEO). Think of it as a guide for beginners to build on the basics that should help marketers gain ranking and get noticed in search queries. He estimates that marketers should see results in two to 10 weeks. The guide details the biggest mistakes, developing keyword themes and specific qualifiers, how to think strategically, and more. Read the article here.

What do search engine optimization (SEO) and conversion rate optimization (CRO) have in common -- and how can one help the other? Rebecca Churt provides the answers in a Webinar explaining how to master the combination of both. The in-depth video takes us through methods to make research clear, creating content for social, how to encourage email replies, and more. See the video here.

Drawing qualified traffic to a Web site requires more than getting visitors to arrive and look around. They need to perform an action, whether signing up for a newsletter or completing a purchase. Mark Purtell tells us that optimization needs to influence the traffic once the visitors arrive on the site. He provides a few examples of Web optimization principles and channels that marketers should integrate with SEO. Read the article here.

Matt Cutts wrote in a Twitter tweet to expect the next update to Penguin in a few weeks. Danny Goodwin tells us that the next generation, version 2.0, shouldn't come as a surprise. Google's Penguin update first rolled out April 2012, and was followed by two updates last year in May and October. He links to several articles to help marketers make this next transition. Read the article here.

Will Yahoo's search makeover help the Internet giant do over what it failed to accomplish the first time? Marketers are doubtful that Yahoo can make a comeback in search, but that won't stop the ailing tech company from trying. Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer will soon release tools that she believes will make it easier to find information on mobile devices and desktops with help from Laurie Mann, who Mayer pulled in to save search. When was the last time you used Yahoo search to find general information?