When the Lamp & Shade Shop in Santa Rosa got a letter demanding $169 to keep his domain name, he was suspicious. Nathan Halverson of the Press Democrat uncovered the scam in his feature on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) which has guidelines for determine what is right.

When J. Crew Group saw teasers for Michelle Obama’s upcoming appearance on The Tonight Show, they recognized their outfit. Knowing that clothing costs were an issue with women in politics, J. Crew built a landing page and bought the keywords “Michelle Obama” on Google, Microsofe and Yahoo.

With a new, search-engine-optiized website and Google AdWords advertising, Gould stainless boosted sales 30% and added new staff to keep up with the growing business.