(I’m just gonna say it, no sense beating around the bush: This was not a good month for search/marketing posts. Summer doldrums, summer vacation, who knows. But there’s less than 20 links here, and a good chunk are Rants or LOL Funny!)

Here’s my roundup of the best search/marketing posts during July. If you’re new to SBS, this is a monthly feature and will lead to something fun later in the year. You can find earlier “Best Of”s for each month in the archives. Only rule is that my own posts are not eligible.

Small Business

• Christine/SEL: When Ignorance Isn’t Bliss, Part 2
• Christine/SEL: When Ignorance Isn’t Bliss: What You Don’t Know About Your Web Site Can Hurt You

Social Media

• Graywolf: Your Stories Never Go Popular Because Your Personal Marketing Plan Sucks
• Justin/Inside Facebook: Inside Facebook, NFO (News Feed Optimization) is the new SEO
• Muhammad/Pronet Advertising: Why Facebook Is Not A Viable Marketing Platform

Reputation Management

• Todd/Stuntdubl: Reputation Management Emancipation Proclamation - 10 Ways to “Own Yourself” Online

Link Building

• Tom/Link Building Blog: 5 crafty outside the box link-building tricks & tips

General/Online Marketing

• Bill/SEO by the Sea: The Influence of Search Result Listings (Captions) on Clickthroughs
• Jon/Optimize & Prophesize: Test Design Advice for SEOmoz on their Landing Page Competition

Web Analytics

• Avinash/Occam’s Razor: I Got No Ecommerce. How Do I Measure Success?

Rants

• Sugarrae: Newsflash: You’re Damn Right It’s a Popularity Contest
• Jennifer/Search Engine Guide: Of Course Branded Keywords Convert Better!
• Graywolf: 2007 Tour de France Winner - Wikipedia
• Eric/SEL: Five Things I Hate About Linking

LOL Funny!

• Lisa/Bruce Clay: People, Stop Checking Your Email in The Bathroom (”You may as well lick the bathroom floor and the side of the toilet while you’re at it.” — ewww, funny!)
• Simon/Search Engine Tigers: Spamarific MySpace
• Philipp/Google Blogoscoped: Web 3.0 Sites