More than half (53%) of retailers' 2009 holiday advertising budgets are staying at the same level as last year, while 41% of retailers are seeing their ad spending allowances increase, according to analysis by Google and OTX, a consumer research and consulting firm.

While the vision of search activity reaching past the desktop has been around for a while, the proliferation of mobile devices and new technologies makes "anytime, anywhere" search easier. Marketers may not need all of them, but it's increasingly crucial to be aware of the disparate ways to reach consumers when, where, and how they search.

Now that Microsoft's and Google's partnerships with Facebook and Twitter are official, search is on its way to becoming the new kind of search engine that Bing promised at its launch.

Most consumers can name Google, Yahoo and Bing. But are vertical-specific search engines of the same value to marketers as the "big three?" Two experts take sides in the debate.

If a potential customer is intrigued by a TV ad, how can brands capture them when they search the Internet for information? This type of integration needn't be complicated. These tips can help capture the online buzz generated by your ads.

Imagine being able to give your best sales pitch to a prospect at the exact moment they make their buying decision. Now, with video SEO, you can. Unlike SEO for a Web site, video SEO can place multiple versions of a customized video about your business with major search engines, such as Google Video, Yahoo Video, MSN Video, AOL Video, Media Café and YouTube.

One of the most frequently overlooked ways to improve click-through rates (CTRs) on paid search campaigns is the effective use of negative keywords. Negative keywords are used to filter search impressions that include words or phrases unrelated to the product or service you are selling.

Search engine marketing is changing — and it's time to stand up and take notice. No longer is it enough to optimize content and create meta tags. While these elements are still important, social media has revolutionized SEO. All of the major search engines are now indexing blogs, images, videos, podcasts, press releases, social profiles, news and more.

When performing search engine optimization on your Web site, keep in mind the blend between optimizing for the "bots" and for your users. If you gravitate toward one over the other, your efforts may win over only one of your audiences, rather than appealing to both of them.

The natural search rank of your Web site is determined largely by link popularity — defined as how many well-ranked Web sites link to yours. Link analysis has been gaining more importance to the search engines, not less. Search engines look at the quality and relevance of links that point to your Web site rather than the number of inbound links. A high-quality link comes from a page that already has a high rank.