It's not easy being a B2B marketer of the digital variety. Trust me. The problem is that 99% of the online world seems to be built specifically for the consumer market, and us B2B types have to try to divvy up the 1% that's left. And that's where it gets challenging.

Following a March 15 Wall Street Journal article, "Google Gives Search a Refresh," the topic of semantic search has again become a hot-button issue for SEOs and webmasters. In that article, author Amir Efrati refers to coming changes across Google results pages, largely derived from enhancements in its core semantic search capabilities, as "among the biggest in the company's history and could affect millions of websites that rely on Google's current page-ranking results." If this "new" news is to be believed, then Google appears primed to make good on its promise to better understand both the Web and the intent …

Google, in an effort to keep up with advances in search and not rest on its laurels, is updating how it handles searches by leveraging a semantic engine to help provide more accurate results. This is a massive undertaking, in which Google is attempting to better understand the real intent of user search queries. Google semantic search clearly could have a huge impact on SEO practices: it will be a lot harder to game the system, as it won't be all about keywords anymore. But what about paid search marketers? Does this new advance mean anything for us?

Last week, my column was about how branding differs between search and more traditional brand channels like TV and print. It came from a recent client conversation I had. Rob Schmults from Intent Media added a well-thought-out, on-the-mark comment that deserves a follow-up. There are three points in particular I want to dive deeper into.

Aaron honors Whitney Houston with a search-related take on one of her greatest hits.

For months now, marketers have been debating the benefits of Google+. With other options for social engagement, why should you make Google+ a priority?

When a chief political advisor to Republican Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney commented that his campaign would essentially reset after the primaries, the advisor used the image of shaking an Etch-a-Sketch as his metaphor. For any brand inserted into territory it would normally avoid like the plague, Etch-a-Sketch had a dilemma as it faced one of three choices: 1. Say and do nothing, and wait for the story to go away. 2. Object to the use of the Etch-a-Sketch brand in such contexts, and publicly reinforce its core brand values. or 3. Seize an opportunity to turn a potential lemon into …

We're all familiar with the adage "actions speak louder than words." It underscores the premise that, despite what people may tell you about themselves and their preferences, their actions will often differ. In the book "Consumer.ology," author Philip Graves explores this phenomenon in the context of consumer behavior patterns. Graves believes that focus groups and questionnaires can lead to faulty data, which in turn can lead to poor product development and/or market receptivity to a new product or service.

I was asked an interesting question by a client the other day: "What is the minimum spending threshold for paid search? Below what level does it not make sense to invest anything?" The answer, of course, is that there is no minimum when it comes to paid search. Each click you buy generates a potential lead. But the reasoning behind that answer speaks to the unique nature of search, when compared to traditional brand-building channels.

Every day in nature, avalanches both big and small occur, in areas so unreachable and remote that humans never see them. In the world of real-time publishing, avalanches of traffic, shares, links, and social signals also occur every day, both large and small in scope, but they have a highly beneficial impact on publishing efforts. These opportunities for massive attention are largely being missed by content marketers, at least in the participatory publishing sense, and marketers need only open their eyes to see them.