Once defined as the sum of all customer experiences, brand in the age of social and search may be better described as the sum of all experiences and conversations.

Achieving search marketing results in 2012 requires more strategic execution than ever before. And, assessing those results requires more sophisticated reporting than just traffic and rankings alone. Optimization - and integration - of search, social media, and PR 2.0 channels is now essential for generating and measuring the ultimate campaign outcome: targeted, right-fit conversions.

Any good search marketing campaign has a multi-pronged approach to achieving top rankings. Blending such factors as site structure, content relevance, and online press releases will influence your site’s chances for success. Starting in 2011, engagement is a key metric that can be measured by activity in the social networks and how much time is spent by users on your site.

Search Engine Marketing turns traditional advertising efforts into online conversions and sales.

Tapping into what already exists online such as photos on Flickr and reviews on Yelp gives users a richer experience. From a search perspective, this infographic illustrates how including all the social media content on your site could also prompt other sites to link to your site. This in turn will help drive up your rankings in the search engines.

Once an SEO gets to a certain level of expertise, he or she can typically select a list of key phrases and map out exactly what steps are necessary to get those phrases ranked. This week's infographic demonstrates what that equation for ranking success may look like for a long-tail phrase.

Most likely, you've said it and heard it a thousand times. When it comes to SEO, content is king. But, have you ever really thought about how many touch points a well-written and well-optimized piece of content encounters on the web? This week's infographic demonstrates exactly how an optimized article can find its way to your target audience.

As the opportunities to reach customers grow with new technology, so do touch points with your brand. When consistent messaging is developed, remember that search is an important component of that branding initiative. This week's infographic shows how search fits into the customer influence line-up.

Linkbait comes in various forms that can be used in creative ways to drive traffic to your site.

Perhaps the greatest benefits of organic SEO are the unexpected rankings a site can get by earning a top spot in the engines. This week's infographic demonstrates how, through solid search marketing, related phrases can get ranked without additional or intentional efforts.

Don't make the mistake of thinking content that isn't html-based can't be optimized. A PDF document gives SEOs one more chance at ranking for targeted keywords. This week's infographic illustrates some simple tips for optimizing PDFs.

Search engine results aren't realized simply from optimizing your website anymore. Gaining an understanding of the multi-channel nature of the Internet is key to successful online marketing campaigns.

With so much effort that is focused on writing great content, acquiring links and social networking, the search spiders are sometimes overlooked. If a site can't get indexed, it can't get ranked. This week's infographic displays some of the common ways the spider can get trapped and unable to maneuver through your site.

With so much good content on the web, it's inevitable that the same information will be displayed many times over. Whether it's a blog post pointing to good statistics, an RSS feed pulled into a complementary site, or blatantly copied material, duplicate content can be an issue. This week's infographic shows how search engines make distinctions between original and duplicate content.

Redirects always inspire questions. Which type should I use? What will happen to all my links? Are they permanent or temporary? This week's infographic illustrates the differences between 301 and 302 redirects.

The Algorithm. If an SEO had a nickel for every time that phrase was mentioned in a day. Over time we've become more comfortable with the main triggers that affect search rankings. But, it's leveraging the sum of all factors that can really give you an advantage over the competition. This week's infographic explores the lengthy list of both well proven and somewhat subjective factors that go into a ranking algorithm.

There are many aspects of the blogosphere that make it attractive to search marketers: the sharing and distribution of content, the potential for viral marketing and link bait, and the associated linking opportunities. But, so much more goes into the relationship we have with blog communities. This infographic describes both the tangible and intangible benefits of engaging with the blogosphere.

Not all links are created equal. Most search marketers already know the answer. But, how do you differentiate between links to figure out which ones are better than others? The above infographic visualizes the various site and link components that combine to form link juice.

Just like you choose to buy products from companies you trust, search engines factor in levels of trust when determining which websites to include in their search results. Whether it's an issue of security, privacy, or just easily-accessible information, every little bit helps when it comes to the search algorithm.

It's hard to dispute that the Long Tail is an important concept in Search. A lot of times, though, we tend to think of the long tail as being a B2C concept by relating it to specific product names in ecommerce situations. But, it's just as relevant in the B2B world. One-word phrases bring businesses up against a lot of competition, but the benefit of increased traffic may outweigh the expense of ranking. On the flip side, credibility-building site assets like case studies can be optimized with longer-tail phrases in order to boost the probability of conversion. Where does your SEM campaign fit into the curve?

Having relevant keywords as the anchor text of a link is extremely beneficial to an SEO campaign. Because search engines depend on links as a sort of pathway around the Internet, anchor text helps categorize what a destination page will be about as well as what it may be relevant for in a search result.

With so many tactical options available to today's search marketer, it can sometimes be difficult to determine which approaches are best for achieving specific goals. Should press releases be optimized for increased brand awareness? Or, will a PPC campaign achieve better results?

Google, Yahoo, and MSN have all agreed to support one method of submitting a site's pages: through an XML map placed on the root of a website. Search engine sitemaps provide a quick and easy road map for crawlers to follow in order to locate and index each of the pages on your site.

Compelling video content can potentially open the door to site traffic, targeted visitors, and increased brand awareness. Here are some basics that you should follow in order to enhance your rankings in the search engines for your videos.

Optimizing your audio files takes more than just recording your message. Be sure to follow these steps to ensure your podcasts have the best potential of being found by the listeners and search engines alike.

The seo power of RSS feeds is realized through many channels, but it's greatest impact is the ease of use to the reader.

Image optimization is a powerful way to visually display your products in the results of search engine queries.

Cloaking is often used to gain rankings in the search engines by providing false sites to the engines. Humans see the real site, but the search engines see an entirely different version.

Google uses 2 distinct "bots" to help index the Internet. The Deep Crawl bot comes about once a month and looks at all the known pages of a web site. The fresh bot comes on a more frequent basis, but only to the pages that are considered most important for a particular site.

301 Redirects are used when you want to permanently retain the value of all the links pointing to an old site and guide them to a new URL.

Launched on May 16, 2007 Universal Search from Google includes the most relevant content from the web, whether it's a podcast, video, news release, image or web site in the search results page.

Link Baiting is used to get many in-bound links pointed to your site. Through great content or some humorous hook, you can create a viral marketing affect using this technique.

Robots.txt file simply tells the search engine crawlers the places they are not allowed to index on your site.

When optimizing for highly-competitive terms, strategically clustering related phrases around the main keyword can cause a halo effect in the SERPs.

As a visitor refines their search criteria, there are certain patterns that emerge in their queries.

Google assigns a numeric weighting from 0-10 for each webpage on the Internet; this PageRank denotes your site’s importance in the eyes of Google.

The strongest search marketing campaigns pursue rankings for a combination of high-traffic phrases that are likely to bring many visitors to the site as well as highly-specific, 3- or 4-word phrases that are more likely to convert a targeted buyer.

Search engine results aren't realized simply from optimizing your website anymore. Gaining an understanding of the multi-channel nature of the Internet is key to successful online marketing campaigns.