So, you are the marketing manager of your firm, and you've finally decided to pull the trigger and hire the search engine optimization company that you've been talking to for months. The budget has been cleared, the SEO firm is ready to start, and it should be just a matter of time before you start seeing a huge uptick in business. Right? Not so fast.

Link building is an essential ingredient in ranking your website highly on the major search engines.  There, now that we've got that brilliant grasp of the obvious out of the way let's move on to what you can do to actually create them.  Before we launch into the nitty-gritty of link building, no beginners guide would be complete without a brief explanation as to why links are important and the different elements of them.  Being a beginners guide this won't be an entirely complete list but it will be enough to get you going on the right path.  Understanding what you're trying to do will help you do it better and more importantly, understanding the “why” of the situation will help you stretch your tactics outside of this and other articles on link building.

I've been on a seesaw for the last year. I have a client who, for almost 12 months, has been asking me to rewrite their home-page copy because they dropped from the top 10 to position #11 (the dreaded second page!). My question to her was always, "Is your copy still converting the way you want it to?" She answered yes every time, to which I advised, "Leave the copy alone." 

Yahoo's president, Susan Decker is pushing a plan to centralize "numerous product groups, such as its mail, search and homepage divisions, into a global product organization amid intense pressure to boost earnings."

When Reece from PingZine handed me this assignment and told me I was interviewing Rob Malda I pretended to be excited and nodded my head knowingly while he educated me on Rob’s background. Honestly, I had no clue who Rob was. I guess that’s because I live in my own little Web Hosting and Reality TV world…but then I heard the magic word: SLASHDOT!

The Wall Street Journal reported that Microsoft have ended the talks with Yahoo and no longer willing to buy Yahoo for $33 per share.  Also, the Wall Street Journal reported that Yahoo reached an ad deal with Google that could generate $800 million in annual revenue according to Yahoo.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin wants to go to space and has made a $5 million down payment to book a seat on a private space flight.
Zillow.com CEO launched a new site that includes compensation figures.

AOL launched an updated radio services adding streams from 150 CBS Radio stations, custom channels and 200 AOL Radio channels. 
Google and Microsoft employees help China's earthquake relief effort.
Kaiser Permanente announced today a new program to link patient data to Microsoft consumer health platform

AOL, hoping to revamp its services, has a new branding strategy in place. Plans now focus on the AOL search engine and targeting specific niche audiences. Some naysayers are already contradicting its efforts; however, the results remain to be seen. Will other struggling search engines join the bandwagon?

Ichan attacked Yahoo severance plan and accused Chief Executive Jerry Yang of going to "inordinate lengths" to sabotage Microsoft Corp.'s bid for the Internet giant and reiterated that "the only way to salvage Yahoo is to merge with Microsoft.

In another news, Microsoft launched and enhanced version of its "Search AND Give" search engine. Consumers can start donating one cent per search to more than 100,000 schools and 900,000 non-profit organizations

Icahn wants to oust Jerry Yang, the Wall Street Journal reported. "Mr. Icahn, in an interview, accused Mr. Yang and the company's board of being disingenuous about their willingness to consider an acquisition offer and of setting up a costly employee-retention plan that would deter any deal

Microsoft's Live Search is now the default search engine on Hewlett-Packard computers sold in the United States and Canada beginning January 2009. Microsoft is building a custom, Live Search-enabled toolbar for HP customers.  As part of the deal, the default search engine setting in the browser on all HP consumer PCs will also be set to Microsoft Live Search.

Let me enlighten you about something you might not have considered. Ultimate conversions from pay-per-click (PPC) ads come from a process, not a single event. Oftentimes, online marketers focus on the effects of PPC copywriting and the click-through rate it achieves. That click-through rate is thought of as the end-all, be-all for the campaign. But, the overall goal of PPC copywriting is not to get people to click to your site. Clicking a PPC ad is merely step one. The ultimate goal is to get visitors to take action once they reach your site.

When the local search feature was introduced about a year ago, companies were excited to take advantage of these tools to enhance local or regional business, but have since begun to wonder about its usefulness. However, local search engine optimization has benefitted many businesses who wish to draw consumers to their doors by emphasizing the fact that they have a local address and can provide more direct, specialized assistance.

Microsoft's Ballmer defended his company's ability to compete in the search market and its pursuit of Google at the All Things Digital conference.

Google plans to expands its travel offerings and give users the ability to research travel plans, read reviews, see user's uploaded videos(YouTube) and photos. 

Yahoo Inc.  and Google Inc. could announce a search-advertising agreement as soon as early next week. Analysts have estimated that a deal with Google could boost Yahoo's cash flow by as much as $1 billion a year.

Microsoft announced a new "Cashback" search service that pays a rebate for buying products found through Live search engine. Users of the program can receive 2 percent to 30 percent if they buy items found using Microsoft's Live search engine. Microsoft will partner with more than 700 retailers and will offer advertisers a cost-per-acquisition model of payment, meaning that they only pay for ads that lead to purchases.

In Part 1 and Part 2 of How to Optimize for Google I discussed general website optimization, links, and Google webmaster tools. In Part 3 we will look at a number of other considerations which play a role in successful rankings in Google, and also touch on some tactics which are best avoided.

Icahn's efforts to unseat Yahoo's board has picked up new backers, the Wall Street Journal reported. Texas billionaire T. Boone Pickens bought 10 millions shares. In addition, Third Point LLC, the activist hedge-fund firm run by Daniel Loeb has bought four million shares in Yahoo since March.