What are the five most annoying banners on the Internet? Cracked has the answer over here.

Takeaway for marketers: Yeah, it’s funny. But read it closely: There’s a lot of truth in there.

This blog post from Marketing Pilgrim, this blog post from PC World and this blog post from Seer Interactive make for some pretty heavy reading, but if you’re concerned about SEO issues they’re worth your time.

(And it all probably has something to do with why Google annoyingly moved their Web, Images, Video, etc. links from above the text field to the top left of the page.)

Takeaway for marketers: Google is changing their search algorithm in a major way that will, in turn, change their search results page in a major way. Prepare to take a fresh look at your SEO and SEM efforts.

Looking for your landing pages to sell more? Who isn’t?

Copyblogger presents this list of copy tips for maximizing every syllable on your landing page. Much of it is common sense, or should be.

Taking the time to ask whether your landing page is addressing these issues correctly is time well spent, particularly if you do something about it when there’s a problem.

Takeaway for marketers: Get to the point. Stay there.

Time suck alert: When it comes to online interaction with a brand, it doesn’t get much better than Planet M&Ms, which lets you do a bunch of stuff. You’ll probably get hooked on customizing M&Ms (plain or peanut). It’s fun to see how close you can match the look of an M&M to the look of someone you know.

Takeaway for marketers: It’s not about slapping an ad on the Web page, it’s about enhancing someone’s online experience.

In a world where search engine optimization and improving organic listings seems to be on the tip of everyone’s tongue, one might think that a Google search for “search engine” would find Google the number-one result.

Nope. Google comes up number six, below the fold and beneath Alta Vista and Dogpile.

I guess this demonstrates that nepotism isn’t a factor in Google’s search algorithms.

Takeaway for marketers: Are you caught up in a race to be #1 on Google? Do you need to be #1 on Google?