In its simplest form, search engine optimization (SEO) used to be about three things – making your content crawlable, linkable, and usable. Gaining greater visibility on search engine results pages was relatively easy. Depending on your business model, it was also much easier said than done.

Nimble smaller businesses routinely outmaneuvered larger enterprises when it came to securing specific query-relevant rankings in the search engines, especially in Google. Ultimately, relevancy had to be redefined by shifting algorithmic weightings toward trust and authority, and away from feigned popularity and repurposed content.

Now, SEO needs to be as conversational as it is contextually relevant, in order to be well represented in Google’s most recent algorithmic shifts. True to form, enterprise level SEO initiatives will have to play a game of catch-up this year in order to reap new opportunities from social search results.

[Read] How Google Search Plus Your World is Changing SEO by PJ Fusco

[Q] How can retailers best deal not only with the early 2010 Panda update (and how are they dealing with this so far?), but also the more recent “fresh” update?

[A] Obviously continent differentiation is essential for affiliates – there needs to be a unique measure of a value-add for users. It’s not enough to simply take a feed from a retailer and roll in into your navigation and front-end services. Some affiliates are rethinking how they use reviews, social media and other UGC, others are localizing to go with the lay of the land, so to speak.

I don’t think the freshness factors of Google’s more recent algo update really affects this facet of the ever evolving Panda algorithms. Where the algo update might help out online retailers is for annual events if white sales, black Friday sales and such are treated as regularly recurring events, like conferences and TV series, presidential elections and such are said to be treated with the algo update. Time will tell if this does help ensure only this year’s or the freshest content is indeed available to searchers. What’s really interesting about this is that I’ve always recommending doing some link harvesting for annual events. In order words, when possible, take last year’s event and 301 it to this years. If you have to recap some of the details from last year, send the content to a new URL and don’t promote it. This algo change could render this not process of link harvesting unnecessary, but you still could use the canonical tag to have the same affect in Google at least if the algo update does not perform as anticipated or expected.

Retailers need to avoid falling into a useless content trap to avoid having their results dampened by Panda updates. And let’s be clear about this, Panda is an not an penalty maker, although it may feel like it if your site has been affected by it. Content created by internal site search refinements and programmatic creation of internal site search results pages have created Panda problems for a few online retailers. Canonical tags for preferred content and meta robots exclusions for low quality content can help to get a retailer out of Panda snares, but it takes time to alleviate the issues and regain the domain trust and site authority from  Google.

There are two primary ways people can interact with Google+ Brand Pages:

1. The +1 button: The +1 button is analogous to Facebook’s ‘Like’ button and allows Google+ users to indicate that they support or recommend a particular brand’s Google+ page.
2. Circles: Give fans the ability to take a more Twitter-like approach by following a favorite brand in Google+ space.

Which method of interaction will prove to be most pertinent or most popular?

Both have content sharing capabilities that mimic Facebook and Twitter so in my opinion, it doesn’t really matter, these are the two pertinent Google+ metrics of the moment. What is of interest is Google’s glaring lack of originality and innovation in the social sphere.

As suspected when Google decommissioned [+] from its repertoire of search query operators, Google Direct Connect functionality makes it easy to discover Google+ pages for brands. To discover some brand pages for yourself simply go to Google and search for [+], followed by the page you’re interested in (like +Cabelas). Then you can ‘Like’ them or ‘Plus’ them or ‘Circle’ them or ignore them as you please.

Don’t let a code freeze put your SEO initiatives on ice this year. Make the most of this holiday sales season by implementing a few last-minute optimization tactics that can scale across the enterprise and make your search engine marketing campaigns shine.

Since there are essentially three pillars of successful search engine optimization – technical tactics, content optimization, and link building – take a look at three strategies you might be able to add into your SEO projects yet this year: Microdata, Freebies & Harvesting Links.

[Read] 3 Holiday SEO Projects by PJ Fusco

If you find "The Periodic Table of SEO Ranking Factors" too complex and "What Fuels Social Marketers?" too intoxicating, try sitting down to sup on The MyPlate Guide to SEO Ranking Factors.

On MyPlate SEO Ranking Factors:

1. Produce high-quality, engaging content rooted in keyword research and aligned with your online marketing performance metrics.
2. All this content should be wrapped in a search engine-friendly site architecture that is built on W3C coding standards to attain optimal crawling efficiencies.
3. Of course, all MyPlate SEO ranking factors are best consumed with a spork, because sporks are far more adaptable than spoons or forks.

Off MyPlate SEO:

1. Links being just like drinks, in that you can almost never have too many of them, should always originate from related hubs and authorities that to not reside on MyPlate.

References:

The Periodic Table Of SEO Ranking Factors

What Fuels Social Media Marketers?