What will SEO and SEM look like in the year 2022? In this post by BCI staffer Bob Meinke, he dives into the possibilities of the future as marketers in his entry into a content hosted by SEO Chicks, dubbed "SEO: The Next Generation." Read more of The Optimized Future: SEO in the Year 2022.

Google recently reminded webmasters that page Titles matter and are an important part of the search results displayed. Why did Google write another post about "better page titles in search results" when the majority of webmasters already know that relevant descriptive Title tags are an important component of a properly constructed Web page? Google primarily uses the tag, if one exists, to display the hyperlinked headlines users’ see in the search engine results pages. Since that is the case, this is likely a reason Google elected to spend the time to remind webmasters of the value it places on page Titles. Read more of Why Page Titles Matter.

Late Monday, we announced the service “Local Paid Inclusion,” which we said gives local merchants higher rankings in the Places and local search results in Google, Yahoo! and Bing. We believed that the service offering was finalized between our backend partner and the aforementioned search engines. So far, we have determined that it is not [...]

Have you taken a moment to read about Google’s new privacy policy and how it affects the information you share, effective March 1? Privacy policies and terms of service aren’t exactly riveting literature, so if you haven’t rushed into cuddling up with the thing and getting to know it better, I don’t blame you. So, I thought I’d take a few minutes to give an overview of what it is and the important takeaways. In sum, Google’s new privacy policy is essentially a way for Google to try and ensure there won’t be mass public freak-outs or lawsuits over the new “Search, plus Your World” function, as well as more and more personalized search results to come. And as much as Google is trying to make this information public and available to its users, let’s be real, freak-outs will still ensue.

Our first newsletter of 2012 is packed with search marketing goodness, and we’re giving you a sneak peek into this month’s articles before it hits inboxes everywhere. If you love this edition, go ahead and subscribe to our SEO Newsletter; it’s a great way to ensure you’re up to date on the industry’s hot topics and provides a deeper glimpse into some of the trends and issues online business faces every month. So, without further adieux, here are the highlights of January's SEO Newsletter. Read more of 16 SEM Predictions, Understand Search + Your World, Guide to Google’s Freshness Score.

Since the flat site architecture concept appeared on the SEO horizon and gained some traction around 2010, many SEO consultants got it wrong. The flat site architecture concept is related to the click distance between pages in a site, and how relevancy is distributed according to internal links structure -- yet has nothing to do with URLs. The main misunderstanding was, and unfortunately still is, that you have to get rid of directories in URL structures. Although it is widely agreed that you may want to keep URLs short and locate keywords close to the root or left part of the URL, there are many reasons why you should keep a certain structure of folders or directories there. This is what I’m going to explain in this post. Read more of 3 Reasons to Always Have Structured URLs.

Welcome to 2012. It may rock for you, especially if you don’t make the same social media mistakes people did in 2011. If you’re doing any kind of marketing on Facebook this year, try not to make the same following 10 mistakes that are, unfortunately, all too common: 1. Overestimating the Importance of Facebook Pages Less than 1 percent of page fans ever go back to your page. You can create a custom tab and set it as the default for non-fans. So, your custom tab might be seen by non-fans, assuming they didn’t already like your page from a Like box on your website or the Like button on a fan-growth ad. Read more of 10 Biggest Facebook Marketing Mistakes of 2011.

Hate to say I told you so... scratch that. This time it feels good. Last month we let you in on the new direction of SEM Synergy: short-form video with an experimental format (Q&As, site reviews, couch-side kick backs). Today we're happy to present to you the first video episode of the SEM Synergy Web series. Topic du jour: Google instituting a ranking penalty on its Chrome browser after paid links were uncovered. Find the transcript for the video below, and check out the Bruce Clay, Inc. YouTube channel for a look at our still evolving platform for the video series. If you like it, come back tomorrow as we dissect the process of producing and publishing video content. As we learn, we plan to share our experiences with trying to create sticky and interesting show. To that end, I do my best Larry King impression as we dive into a hot, timely issue. Read more of Google Caught Buying Links: Bruce Clay's Analysis.

Social share buttons are a great way to spread the content you have deeper into networks across the Web – but which social share buttons are right for your site? Sometimes, the “catch-all” approach to buttons that we so often see isn’t the best route. You know, those widgets that produce a bunch of buttons for social communities for the sake of trying to reach everybody and their mother. Oftentimes, this can just confuse readers or make them think more than they should have to in order to share the content they like. There are several approaches to how you can identify which social share buttons you should include on your Web pages. One is checking traffic sources in your site’s analytics. Another is knowing who your target audience is and where they are hanging out socially online. And yet another is assessing the importance of individual social share buttons as metrics in whatever goals you have for the business. Virginia and I recently decided to do an analysis of the social share buttons on the SEO Newsletter article pages, since they hadn’t been refreshed in quite some time. I’m going to share with you what we uncovered about some of the social share buttons, what we plan to do with it and how you can better assess the social share buttons on your (or your client’s) site. Read more of How to Choose Social Media Share Buttons.

Day 3 of our "Best of Search Conferences 2011" is upon us, and this post wraps up the series here on our blog. Looking through the coverage, one thing we can say for certain is that there are a ton of enthusiastic, brilliant people in the search marketing community who have a passion for sharing ideas. Thanks to all of them, and special thanks to the conference producers who offer a vehicle for these people to share knowledge with the community. Today's Day 3 coverage is all about exploring thought-provoking topics in the areas of understanding your audience, holistic marketing, online reputation management and branding, plus cutting-edge topics from this year's search marketing events. And don't forget to check out Day 1 and Day 2 if you happened to miss them. Read more of Best of Search Conferences 2011: Day 3.