Originally Google had considered acquiring Facebook—a prospect that held no interest for Facebook's executives—but an investment was another enticing option, aligning the Internet's two most important companies. Facebook was more than a fast-growing social network. It was, potentially, an enormous source of personal data.

PulseRank could soon become a standard industry buzzword and practice for SEO professionals attempting to optimize Web sites, as engines move from static into real-time search. That's the promise of up-to-the-minute information streams -- the type that come from the microblogging site Twitter.

On an intuitive level, most of us understand that it’s better to deliver our message to the right people. We know that we shouldn’t panhandle – but then we go out and do the opposite of what we know is right.

As we’ve learned in Lewis Carroll’s book and through real life experiences, sometimes curiosity and experience reveal new and more effective and efficient ways to get from here to the ever elusive “there,” even though we ventured into the unknown.

There are currently two big shifts going on in the direct marketing world that affect email marketers: the decline of direct mail and the rise of social media.

Manta newsletter from today re BING and SEO in relation to it. Also a couple of good articles about leveraging video and blogging as a critical part of SEO strategy.

Over at Top Rank, Lee Odden piggybacks off a recent conversation he had with Brian Clark and asks if direct marketing can succeed out there in social media or if there’s no place for direct marketing messages in the Social Web. In case you’re keeping score, Lee thinks the two should be separate, while Brian finds that social media is the perfect place to market directly to customers. Surprisingly, or at least to me, I find myself agreeing with Brian.

One of the biggest reasons that SMB sites fail to rank and attract visitors is because of a lack of content on their sites.

I've gotten a lot of email recently from folks asking what they can do to get involved in the world of search marketing and SEO. Tonight, Mystery Guest and I attended the Seattle Job Social event and had a really interesting experience talking to people about SEOmoz, the positions we're hiring for (SysAdmins of the Northwest, please email us!) and the field of search engine marketing. The same issue came up again and again - how do I break into that market?

Google is traditionally the main area of focus when it comes to search engine optimization. With the search engine giant so far ahead of the game in terms of search market share, it's not hard to understand why.