Elisa Gabbert believes it's time to become contrary when creating content. She says zig when others zag, and zag when others zig. The most successful search marketers blaze the trail rather than follow. Contrarian content earns attention and boosts engagement metrics, from traffic and social shares to email, comments and links, she explains. Here's how.

I'm sure you have heard the saying that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Rand Fishkin explains how to remove the blindfold and make objective decisions to move businesses forward. He compares babies and parents to Web sites and owners, suggesting that we all see the beauty in our own creations. He suggests, among other things, that we look at the data when determining the performance of Web sites. A data-driven approach can be very insightful in terms of convincing a manager or the management or a team or client that the Web site needs improvements to move …

Carolyn Jung put together a list of restaurants where some of the biggest deals in Silicon Valley have and continue to happen. She said it's not the Hollywood celebrity types that catch the eye of some patrons around Los Angeles, but rather those who change the world through technology. The list includes places like The Village Pub, Buck's of Woodside, and Calafia Cafe.

Programmatic buying in mature markets worldwide continues to grow, but hurdles remain, with most U.S. brands or agencies on behalf of brands still struggling to execute models. eMarketer cites research from the Association of National Advertisers and Forrester Consulting that found nearly one-quarter of U.S. client-side marketers understand programmatic buying. but most were relatively uneducated about technique.

Dan Shewan tells us about a series of events, workshops and Q&A session aimed at supporting small businesses. The events support Small Business Week. The video highlights an interview with Kristi Anderson, VP of marketing for GetOutfitted.com, presented in a Google+ Hangout focusing on how paid search paid off for the small business where she works. Anderson won Wordstream's $25,000 marketing makeover competition last year.

Google has added public transit routes and schedules in Google Maps to help those without cars, or people who would rather take public transportation. An interesting fact that many people might not know, especially those living in California, is that more than 70% of the world's population does not own a car. Google added every transit route in Great Britain, along with those in Chicago. In fact, Google added transit data from six continents, 64 countries and more than 15,000 towns and cities worldwide.

Earlier this week, EU’s top court ruled that Web giants like Google can be forced to remove irrelevant or excessive personal information from search engine results. In its wake, various experts are considering the ruling’s broader implications, especially for Google’s US consumers. “Some lawyers argue that the ruling will probably only be applied for searches done and displayed in Europe,” The Wall Street Journal reports. “The court specifically said, however, that companies can’t get out of compliance simply by saying their servers are outside of Europe.” 

No surprise here. Google has been spotted talking with car manufacturers about its self-driving car. The project director estimates it will be about six years until the cars hit the road and become a reality. The biggest issue being discussed with the company is whether or not Google will design its own car or make the software and operating system available to automakers.

Kristina McLane gives us five tips on sitelinks. And even before she gets started, one of the best pieces of advice points to shorter is better. While Google gives marketers 25 characters to fill for each sitelink, between 18 and 20 characters typically have been more effective for desktop and even shorter ones work better for mobile.

Anyone can now go to the Google Glass Web site and purchase one for a mere $1,500. The company still calls it the Explorer Program, with a caveat that explains that you should get them while you can. TechCrunch alludes to the fact that these specs may not be around forever and the technology may end up in another device.