Last week, I talked about what brand can’t do on the search results page. Today, I’d like to talk about one of the many things that brand can do on search. If brands can’t build an emotional appeal on the results page, they can certainly reinforce their presence at just the right time. Remember, we use search when our intent is squarely aligned with researching a purchase. We’re actively looking for information. And the appearance of brands can be a powerful influencer in these types of searches. Here are some of the surprising and not so surprising things we’ve found in our many brand lift studies….

Here are thoughts on three topics this week (that are coincidentally all from Google). The first: Google gives natural search optimization its blessing with the SEO Starter Guide.

Let’s agree right away that YouTube’s Sponsored Video isn’t the next Google Killer.

It’s not even the next Yahoo killer, even though comScore recently reported that YouTube is now the second largest search engine.Fittingly, around the time that the comScore news broke, Google publicly launched search-triggered Sponsored Video ads on YouTube. Does this mean marketers need to consider YouTube over Yahoo and Microsoft?

Forecasts for the health of the online ad industry for the next year or so continue to range all over the map, from modest growth to an “off the cliff” decline. Assuming the worst — that the same wave of retrenchments, layoffs, and failures we’re already seeing elsewhere in the economy continue for some time — let me present a few survival strategies for those who see their positions in jeopardy. I learned these the hard way the last time we had a collapse, back in 2000-02.

We all agree that the economy is not great, but there seems to be mixed feelings on the impact the economy is having and will have on paid search. Some feel paid search sits on a pedestal of tangible results that will keep funds moving its way, while others look toward subsequent impacts like declining conversion rates or a potential decline in online demand as offline advertising is minimized.

This whole question of branding in search came about because of a rather fuzzy definition: what exactly is brand lift? How do you measure it?

Even the best search marketers underutilize the power of search. This is because they fail to mine the great volume of data that search provides and to understand what that data reveals about the customer and his/her perception of the product or brand.

The biggest prediction I’ll make for 2009 is that it will be the first year where the device you search from will matter almost as much as what your query is. Having mobile scale as a viable search marketing channel will be the biggest driver, but this extends beyond smartphones. Consider how GPS is making in-car telematics mainstream. As I’ve been trying out some alternative devices lately, today we’ll look at the search experience on the iPod Touch, Amazon’s Kindle, and the Chumby.

Last week I was on a panel at DPAC (the Digital Publisher & Advertiser Conference) moderated by fellow Search Insider Aaron Goldman, of Resolution Media that focused closely on the issue of whether search is indeed “recession-proof.” Here are some observations and advice based on my talk addressing this issue.

Some time ago, I heard about an investment fund with a simple philosophy: invest in companies with small, repeat-purchase products that people grow to believe they can’t live without. What kind of product fits this description? My immediate assumption was cigarettes, but, as you may have guessed from the title, this fund’s primary investment was in toilet paper companies. There may not be much margin in such a commodity product, but nobody would consider the purchase of toilet paper to be an either/or proposition.