Pennsylvania's Secretary of Revenue Dan Meuser issued an extension today for online businesses with a physical presence in the state to become compliant with licensing and sales tax collection. As we reported in December, the state originally requested compliance by February 1, 2012, but Meuser's announcement indicated that businesses will now have until September 1, 2012.

Knowing how to update your Facebook page, write an engaging blog, or create a viral YouTube video is, commercially speaking, worthless without knowing how to make them produce sales. Right? The truth is this: social media's sudden arrival and instant popularity is causing most corporate marketing managers, executives, and small business owners to lose perspective on the ultimate goal—selling. In this struggling economy, putting bread on the table trumps being most "liked" or highly "engaged with." Doesn't it?

The affiliate industry in the UK is strongly positioned. Since cost per acquisition became the common currency a few years ago we've seen the emergence of what I'd call affiliate "brands," a handful of spectacularly successful affiliates who are driving our industry mainstream. This is obviously a positive development as it means we stand to take a greater slice of advertisers' online marketing budgets, but it also brings challenges, first and foremost in the area of transparency.

Taken in combination, these three major market shifts will make 2012 significant as the starting point of a fundamentally different time for online marketing. From this point forward, online advertising will dominate, social e-commerce will emerge as not only viable but preferable, and the mobile platform will be commonly accepted and utilized for advertising. Online marketers who know how to take advantage of these areas will be in a position to flourish.

There is such a hunger for information on the local level by so many folks who don't have the time or money to make a trip to a conference. It's been fun to see the meetups help some people break into the industry and others mature their affiliate marketing efforts. I'd love to see the meetups expand to more cities and countries, and maybe even have a series of mega-meetups in various cities where we do a day of workshops.

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Creativity pays dividends :.)

This infographic from Onward Searth details the salary ranges and top 20 SEO markets in the US.

Link prospecting is definitely one of the most critical parts of targeted link building, as this is the process that initiates your campaign’s goals, specifically in acquiring valuable links from high quality and relevant websites.

People hardly buy anything without seeing it. Usually they also want to touch it, hold it and take it for a spin. You really can’t do those things online (unless it’s web based software). So to compensate for all of that, you need to work twice as hard to make your products come alive via excellent photography and graphics.