Like all industries, the travel industry was impacted by the 2009 recession. To better reach and entice customers to "get on board" with new cruise deals and offers, Expedia CruiseShipCenters knew they needed to rev-up their online marketing efforts during a very challenging economy.

In the previous two parts of this series I covered two effective keyword discovery methods: search engine query analysis and permutation. Now we’ll take a look at another powerful way to build a massive keyword footprint: competitive intelligence.

I may have spoken on this subject before, but wanted to reiterate its importance. I have recently witnessed the benefits of how sending email marketing campaigns to an active and engaged subscriber list can help your email deliverability and sending speed. It is more than recommended to separate out your inactive subscribers from your active subscribers. You will almost certainly see a much improved difference in email sending speeds and delivery.

I've read and watched some great contributions recently looking forward to 2010 and predicting what the trends will be. A year is a long time in online marketing, so I can see that it's hard to gaze any further into the future. But as the year comes to a close - and the decade too - I've been thinking about what I've witnessed over the last 10 years. It makes me wonder if history might have anything to tell us about what's likely to happen in the 2010s, so I thought I'd get out my crystal ball...