Yesterday, Goldstein Media creative director Seth Goldstein was fortunate enough to speak on a panel about SEO and Paid Search at the SCORE eBusinessNow conference. Along with moderator Neal Wiser, of Neal Wiser Consulting, Glenn Gabe, of G Squared Interactive, and Lance Bachman of 1SEO, the discussion focused on how small businesses can get the most of optimizing their content for the search engines.

The eBusinessNow conference is put on by the SCORE Association, which is an organization that helps counsel America’s small business owners on how to get the most out of their business. It was a free  event and more than 300 small business owners were in attendance.

To learn more about the eBusinessNow conference and when it will be coming to your town check out their Website.

I found this great video put out by Common Craft and Search Engine Land:

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There has been a lot of talk lately about big brands like BMW and JCPenney trying to game the search listings by engaging in black hat techniques such as cloaking and link stuffing.

On the whole engaging in Black Hat SEO techniques might gain a brand a quick burst in the search rankings but over all the fall out is much greater. Getting banned from the Google search results is not work the small and temporary gain you might achieve.

Matt Cutts recently addressed a group of SEOs at Search Engine Strategies and explained that the search giant does in fact penalize big brands for engaging in Black Hat SEO.

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Justin Stein over at Search Engine Journal has a great article on the perils of ignoring search engine optimization when it comes to your business’ Website. Google and Bing are the only major players in the search engine space right now. Because of this and the fact that people turning away from traditional mediums like the yellow pages, it is imperative that SEO isn’t ignored.

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Image Credit: DeviceMag.co

Yesterday’s big announcement of Google Instant has left many in the SEO and Web community in general with lots of questions about what this new feature means for search engine rankings.

Google’s head of Web Spam, Matt Cutts, has published a blog post where he attempts to answer some of these questions.

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Google’s Matt Cutts recently posted a video on the search giant’s GoogleWebmasterHelp channel on Youtube answering an irate question from a Google user.

Ed, from the Caribbean wrote:

How can linking remain a major part of a search algorithm when the majority of Internet users are unable to post a ‘followed’ link on the World Wide Web? For example Twitter, Facebook, wiki etc. are all ‘nofollow’. It seems only a very small percentage of links count.

I was very pleased about Matt’s response.

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Google’s Matt Cutts had a interesting video on Youtube recently. He answered a question from a viewer who asked if the frequency of blog posts mattered when Google ranks a blog/site. Matt’s answer is interesting and true:

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A big part of SEO is something so simple but very time consuming… links. The more links you have pointing at your site the more value the search engines will give your site. Directories that are high quality are also a great place to get good links. Some cost money but are well worth it. Watch the video to learn more:

Mike McDonald over at WebProNews has a great video about how SEO isn’t dead it’s just redefining itself.  McDonald talks with Greg Jarboe of SEO-PR. Greg points out that those who aren’t adapting to the changing landscape of SEO is dead to them. But those who are willing to look outside the box and evolve with the changes then SEO is still growing and thriving.

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These are my links for January 8th:

• Google Toilet Paper : Optimize Your Wipe | Search Engine Journal – Here’s a fun Friday post about what could be easily mistaken for a new Google product launch to accompany the Nexus One and other new Google products : Google Toilet Paper (which gives a new meaning to “just Google it”).
• MediaPost – news and directories for media, marketing and online advertising professionals – If you were on vacation, similar to me, during the end of December you might have missed Twitter's big announcement. The company acquired Mixer Labs, the creator of GeoAPI, which provides developers with the ability to query data. That data can come from about 16 million businesses and thousands of points of interest. The technology also offers developers a layer on which to handle complex geographical queries and location-based services.
• National Weather Service: Twitter Storm Reports – GeoTagging is the act of associating geographical information with something, and Twitter has recently added the capability GeoTagging individual Tweets. This allows the NWS to correlate each Tweet to your location when it was sent. This capability will help to enhance and increase timely & accurate online weather reporting and communications between the public and their local weather forecast offices.
• Wanted: Your Weather Reports, Geotagged and Tweeted – If your natural reflex when the weather gets rough is to tweet about it, that reflex can now help the National Weather Service do its job better thanks to a new Twitter storm reporting program.
• Social Media Today | Social Media Policies of 113 Organizations – With companies searching for and developing standards for social media usage, many of them have come up with social media policies of their own.
• Top CMOs on Twitter – These are the top 63 Chief Marketing Officers around the world who 1) provide useful content and consistently engage with their followers on Twitter, 2) truly "get it" when it comes to the best ways to use Twitter and other forms of social media, and 3) were active on Twitter as of January 7, 2010. Please let me know if I have missed any CMOs who have 500 or more followers. After the review and confirmation process, he/she may be added to this list, which is updated regularly.
• The Dawn of Facebook’s People-organized Web – GigaOM – In 2010, Facebook is setting out to structure a social layer of the web, indexing web pages and objects by harnessing what its users say about them, including whether those users like them or not, and what they tag within them.
• Apple And Verizon: Are Two Star-Crossed Lovers Ready To Consummate? – Apple and Verizon. Two star-crossed lovers.

  A few years ago, when Apple originally set out with the idea of giving the iPhone to one carrier exclusively in the U.S., they first went to Verizon. But the network balked at some of Apple’s demands, which at the time of complete and utter carrier dominance in this country, must have seemed like a joke. So instead, Apple with with AT&T, and the rest is history.

• Anxious Yahoo BOSS Developers To Speak With DOJ About Microsoft Deal – In July 2008, Yahoo announced a radical new product called BOSS, or “Build Your Own Search Service” that lets developers tap into Yahoo’s core search index with an unprecedented amount of flexibility. Now, in light of the Microsoft/Yahoo search deal that was announced last summer, the future of BOSS is uncertain. That’s bad news for the many developers who have built projects on the BOSS APIs, some of whom are building businesses off of the service. Now, after being met with months of silence and uncertainty, some BOSS developers are taking action: they’ve scheduled a conference call with the Department of Justice to discuss their concerns.