CMO.com

Google is right now perhaps at the zenith of its power in the market. But the company risks its reputation if it continues to have a “tin ear” regarding key consumer issues.

SEO is a process that often takes a commitment of 10-12 months or more, but it’s been proven to offer the best return for online marketing when properly done. And there should still be evidence of making advances along the way.

Comments on our account of a clothing store's experience with Google Adwords and SEO ranged from critical to supportive of the Google offering.

While no one argues that Google’s dominance is in immediate jeopardy, Google is watching Microsoft closely, mimicking some of Bing’s innovations — like its travel search engine, its ability to tie more tools to social networking sites and its image search — or buying start-ups to help it do so in the future.

CMOs live under a lot of stress, and they're constantly pushed to turn around flagging campaigns in days or weeks. It makes them do some, er, quirky things.

Caller ID, spam filtering, and other ways of blocking unasked-for messages are are making "outbound marketing" (cold calls, email blasts) less effective. Better to do inbound marketing, in which you help yourself get found by people already looking for what you have to offer.

B2B search marketing differs from consumer-oriented search marketing in several ways. Here are two ways in which it's more complex, more challenging -- and, in my opinion, much more interesting.

If Facebook's search can garner better results than Google, then there is some trouble ahead for Mountain View.

There may be pros and cons to Google's new Caffeine web indexing system, but marketers who use Google to search and find relevant results can find some definite advantages. Find out how to make the most of Caffeine to perk up your site.

The effect of real-time search on current marketing programs isn't anywhere as near as substantial as search marketing or even social media marketing, however it's an area that smart marketers would do well to monitor and experiment with. Find out which social sites hold the majority of data sharing for real-time search.

Expect the Google buy to spark other demand-side platforms (DSP) to close shop or to merge in order to compete with Google.

Instead of gaming SEO or hiring someone to push you up the page charts, think about making a quality Website with tons of content.

For marketers looking to optimize their social media, here are a few reasons to join the bandwagon and embrace Facebook's new Open Graph Protocol.

Opportunities where social advertising and earned media intersect are potentially the most rewarding, however they will require tremendous coordination from experts in both social media camps -- earned and paid. Here are a few examples from MediaPost.

Marketers in the digital age need data and content, and there are lots of innovative tools coming out to organize the vast amount of stuff that’s out there. Here are four search engines that will be making huge waves in search by 2012.

For web searchers, real-time search means the ability to discover breaking news the minute it’s happening. For marketers, it presents a whole host of opportunities to increase online visibility. Here, TopRank provides five ways to leverage real-time search in your online marketing efforts.

Are your flowcharts still breaking out a sole line item for "online"? The line item for online should certainly be broken out and integrated into the overall mix. From a strategic perspective, it provides for interaction and engagement that cannot be found anywhere else.

For many, Page 1 in search has become the new holy grail of business owners and SEO practitioners alike. That being said, here are some specific observations the folks at marketing firm Vocus made about news in blended search.

Is social media driving more traffic to websites than Google? No. But that doesn't mean that SEO strategists should ignore it. Companies that are able to figure out how to plug consumers' social graph into their search queries will stand to gain a lot.

Google's latest activities, acquisitions and features all point to the fact that the search giant no longer has a close eye on web 2.0; it's already there. Here are five ways Google is now becoming a dominant social media player.

Are you ready to get started with Google Buzz? Read on for six Buzz marketing tips from HubSpot's Inbound Internet Marketing Blog.

Google is clearly skilled at selling online ads. But formulating a coherent marketing strategy for itself remains a work in progress.

Steve Rubel, senior vice president at Edelman Digital, says Facebook is unstoppable and will eventually become the next World Wide Web. There's a wealth of amazing things you can do within the site without ever leaving. Read more to see if you agree with his thoughts about the No. 1 social networking site. aren't just the next Google.

Last week, social search moved from an opt-in Google Labs experiment to a default feature on Google.com for signed-in users. Comprehensiveness is important to Google and Social Search is an effort to improve the relevance of search results, so it makes sense that Google would include them.