It's not always easy to convince management to implement a specific strategy -- especially mobile. Kristina Kledzik serves up tips to support optimizing mobile Web sites by explaining how to convince key players of the importance of understanding the problem and knowing enough to recommend solutions. Read the article here.

Gold Coast Cadillac is paying Google an average of $3.24 when a smartphone consumer clicks on a Google search ad from March through June for its dealership, reports David Barkholz. Aside from the higher cost per click, demand for mobile keywords continues to rise. Barkholz provides several examples of rising prices for auto dealerships. This is one industry example -- and marketers can expect to see more.

Qihoo 360 told Reuters it's in very early talks with Sohu.com to buy the company's search engine, a deal estimated at $1.4 billion. The deal would help Qihoo compete with Baidu, China's No. 1 search engine. Analysys estimates China's mobile Internet market will double to about $48 billion in 2014, according to Reuters. Earlier this week, Baidu said it would acquire 91 Wireless app store from NetDragon Websoft.

Attempting to compete with Google Maps, Apple has acquired the Toronto-based startup Locationary, which uses crowdsourcing and game techniques to create a database location and business information data, reports All Things D. The company, known for its "clean location data," could help Apple build out new mapping services.

Sherice Jacob shares a few social slip-ups made by big brands like Harry & David, Amy's Bakery, Whirlpool, Gasp Jeans Australia, and Abercrombie & Fitch. The examples show how far a few angry consumers can go when a company fails to respond or responds in a negative way. Jacob said she wrote the post to help businesses learn from the mistakes of others rather than point out their shortcomings. Read the article here.

The banter between Google CEO Larry Page and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer gets quite amusing in the imagination of Forbes contributor Mark Rogowsky. The lengthy fictitious conversation ranges from advertising to cloud computing to profits and losses. For example: Ballmer to Page -- "Bing is doing great. Our online division only lost $372 million and even Apple likes us now. We've done better with Bing than you have with Motorola. We've made something outta nothing; you made nothing outta something."

Stephen Aarstol tells us why a top search engine results page means more than a click. He points to the Google user study compiled by Slingshot SEO that estimates the No. 1 Google organic rank acquires 18.2% of clicks and the No. 2 spot receives 10.05% of clicks. In a new content-driven world, Google assigns social signals and authorship higher weight in ranking factors, which means relevant and authoritative content will legitimize a page for keywords that relate to a niche. And while Aarstol makes good points on why the top spot matters and that the "undervalued point of SEO" …

It's common. Too many things to do and not enough time to do them. Sam Owen serves up some tip on reducing paid-search campaign audits to 10 minutes. He provides nine audit tips aimed at helping marketers iron out the wrinkles, and still manage to catch major issues and oversights, by detailing irrelevant keywords, daily budgets, correct destination URLs, misspellings, and more. Read the article here.

Baidu agreed to pay $1.9 billion for the mobile app store 91 Wireless. China's largest search engine will take a majority stake in NetDragon Websoft Inc. (777) and all other shares. Bloomberg reports "the deal gives Baidu control over China’s most popular third-party store for smartphone apps as it tries to navigate the shift from desktop computing, where it has 82 percent of the nation's searches, to mobile devices."

Although not a financial analyst, Russ Mann set out to analyze whether Google's stock price will hit $1,000 per share or if it does, maintain growth. With that hypothesis, he compares findings from Covario's search spend growth forecast with Google's revenue and stock price. Google reports Q2 2013 earnings at the close of the stock market on Thursday, July 18, 2013. Read the article here.