Options can be separated into two broad categories – search engine optimization and search engine marketing.

According to Social Media Today, SEO is the process of optimizing a website using keywords and website development to boost search engine listings – ideally to the area "above the fold" on results pages. A recent Practical eCommerce study revealed that 94 percent of online merchants use SEO in some way, and 62.4 percent said they felt their SEO efforts resulted in at least 50 percent of their site traffic.

Another way to build site traffic is search engine marketing, SMT explains. However, instead of optimizing a site, paid tools are used to attract consumers. For instance, paid inclusion and trusted feed programs, pay-for-placement management techniques like pay-per-click and link popularity/reputation development. Google AdWords is an effective way for companies to gauge the effectiveness of their SEM campaigns, and, in general, is a good way to boost traffic if their budget allows.

As with Panda, Penguin was enacted to keep Google's search engine results pages "relevant, useful and clean of spam," as Search Engine Watch states. This latest update looks to more effectively identify websites that use "aggressive web spam tactics that don't adhere to Google's quality standards," explains Matt Cutts, head of Google's spam team.

Specifically, it's looking for over-use of blog or link networks which may include an unrestricted number of links from pages that could be of poor quality, contain less than satisfactory content or use keyword stuffing to improve SEO.

"This is a wake-up call to those who may have relied in the past on low quality sites and suspect methods in order to build links and increase their rankings," said Pete Goold, managing director of integrated online PR social media and search agency Punch Communications. "Many businesses may be unaware that the SEO methods their SEO team employs, such as utilizing low quality blog and link networks, could potentially now be considered as 'aggressive web spam tactics' by Google"

Google cannot guarantee that the update won't negatively affect some companies' organic search results visibility.
 

But what about Bing?

"To many site owners, Bing is a mystery and is considered an afterthought in a search engine marketing campaign," the Elevate blog explains. The news source notes that Google makes up approximately 65 percent of global search engine queries, where as Bing and competitor Yahoo account of around 30 percent – a significant chunk that shouldn't be ignored.

What's more, when it comes to Bing's demographics, most of its users are over 34 years of age, and many are either retired or have had children.

So, besides realizing that a Bing-focused marketing campaign should focus on more mature topics, it's also important to understand how Bing looks at SEO.

According to the company blog, one specific point of interest that seems to be overlooked by marketers is the meta tag.

"Blank meta descriptions and poorly constructed ones are skipped over in favor of content we find elsewhere in an attempt to explain relevancy to the searcher in our search engine results page," notes the blog. Meta data acts as a "steering wheel" for SEO optimization once a site has been created

Much of these changes revolve around aesthetics and the way search results are displayed, while others are meant to help eliminate spam or enhance user experience.

Regardless, there are some universal actions to avoid when working on SEO that Google – no matter how often it changes it algorithm – will frown upon.

The news source notes in a separate article that these include working on SEO without a value proposition. Users need a reason to click on a site, revisit or recommend it to friends. If a company hasn't separated itself from the pack, no amount of SEO optimization will make up for the lack of interest.

Also,it doesn't pay to work on an SEO strategy from an "isolated silo," the media outlet states. Creating open communication with marketing, business development and SEO teams can ensure the best user experience.

Finally, getting caught up in SEO trends of the moment can spell disaster because, as stated earlier, SEO trends change. An example of this was when many sites started densely populating their pages with keywords. That method has since be chastised and is avoided by savvy SEOs.

Over the past year, Yahoo!/Bing experienced the largest advertising spend increase at 46.4 percent, roughly 20 percent more than Google’s 26.6 percent growth within the same timeframe. From the fourth quarter of 2011 through the first quarter of 2012, Google saw a decrease of 5.4 percent. This is a common trend following holiday spending during the fourth quarter, according to the research. However, Yahoo!/Bing experienced a 14.3 percent spend increase quarter-over-quarter. From the report, “The robust quarter may be attributed to Yahoo!/Bing’s push for increased utilization of broad match keywords, which lead to more competition in auctions. This growth also propelled Yahoo!/Bing to a 21.2 percent market share—their best quarter since before the two combined forces.”

Report data shows mobile search served as a driving force behind the increase in search spend; it accounted for 12.3 percent of total search advertising spend in the first quarter of 2012. Mobile clicks went up as well, seeing a 246 percent year-over-year increase. This boom in mobile advertising spend can be attributed to the growing usage of tablet devices, which accounted for 67.4 percent of the mobile search budget for the quarter.

With the steady rise of advertising spend among search engines, specifically Google and Yahoo!/Bing, more Internet and mobile device users can expect to see featured advertisements on their preferred search engines.

Facebook is already working to improve its existing search capability, with the intention of helping users better sift through the volume of information offered on its site: status updates, articles, videos, etc. However, doing so, according to reporter Douglas MacMillian and senior writer Brad Stone, is largely a matter of necessity; Facebook’s general Web search results (i.e., obscure content, unrelated banner ads) are “crude” at best. This could be one of the reasons why Web pundits speculate CEO Mark Zuckerberg is taking the next big step.

“Search is the best form of monetization on the Web by far, and [Facebook is] leaving that on the table,” says Doug Leeds, chief executive office of search engine Ask.com.  “From a business perspective, you have to think about going into search.”  But, for Facebook, it may not be that easy: Google currently controls 67 percent of the search market in the U.S. and has sophisticated technology to track a trillion Web pages, report MacMillion and Stone.  Facebook, on the other hand, offers only a fraction of information, mostly material that is new, to its users.

Whether Facebook will go up against industry giant Google in the search engine sphere, right now, remains a question mark.  What’s clear is that, come May, when the company is expected to go public, users will experience an improved search capability when they log into the social network.

This is just one of multiple deficiencies researchers found SMB websites to be suffering from. An additional 65.7 percent of websites didn't contain a form-fill option for consumers to request information, while six in 10 of these websites didn't contain a local or toll-free phone number. Not providing this information hurts SEO rankings, because Google can't index as much company information.

"The data … certainly point to considerable market opportunity for SMB marketers and aggregators, as many SMB Websites today are deficient across multiple dimensions," said Steve Marshall, director of research with BIA/Kelsey. "As you go through the data, it becomes pretty clear that while the world is shifting to a social, local, mobile orientation, most SMBs are just not there yet."

Another way to improve SEO is to be present on social media platforms. However, a simlar study from the Software & Information Industry Association revealed that while 90 percent of marketing executives use social media, more than half (54.5) invest less than 10 hours per day on campaigns. Thrity-five percent spent just one to five hours on social media. 
 

From Google’s blog: “Our privacy policies have always allowed us to combine information from different products with your accounts. However, we’ve been restricted in our ability to combine your YouTube and search histories with other information in your account. Our new privacy policy gets rid of those inconsistencies so we can make more of your information available to you when using Google.”

However, the majority of survey participants don’t see it that way. According to the survey, 56 percent of participants ages 18–29 felt dissatisfied with personalized search results because they claimed it limited the information they got online as well as which search results they saw. Those surveyed in the 30–49 and 50+ categories agreed with this statement at 67 percent and 70 percent, respectively. Overall, 65 percent of survey respondents viewed personalized search as a negative, as opposed to just 29 percent who indicated they were in favor of the service because it provided results more relevant to the user.

These results show users across all age brackets are, for the most part, uncomfortable with search engines collecting their personal information and using it to shape results. While Google’s privacy policy was put into place to cater search results toward individual users, the survey indicates the majority of users disapprove of the limited information that comes with personalized search.

While LinkedIn is likely the most popular option because of its ability to grow business connections, there are other social platforms that B2B marketers prefer as well.

For instance, the study also found that beyond blogging (27.7 percent), 15.3 percent of B2B marketers felt Twitter works for lead generation. And with more than 300 million members, why wouldn't it be a worthwhile option to nurture potential conversions?

Business 2 Community suggests that in order for marketers to reach the largest amount of potential leads, they must join or host a Tweet chat, use hashtags to start a community conversation about a specific topic, create a two-way discourse rather than just send out promotional messages, ask questions, take polls and share relevant news.

The best B2B tweeters should also ask themselves if they follow influencers in their industry and if they're listening to consumer questions and complaints and following back. These are key components to marinating a reputable Twitter presence and possibly gaining lead conversions.

Respondents indicated they plan to spend more than 25 percent of their digital budgets on the following: ad networks, direct publisher buys, and search engine optimization/search engine management (SEO/SEM). In the SEO/SEM category, online advertisers plan to allocate at least 25 to 50 percent of their advertising budgets to this area alone; an additional 12 percent intend to spend more than 50 percent of their budgets on SEO/SEM in 2012.

When asked how their budgets will change in the year 2012, 35 percent of survey respondents said their SEO/SEM spending will increase, while 39 percent indicated they will stay the same.  These numbers reflect the growing importance being placed on search engine optimization.

Overall, the survey data shows a shift in advertiser attention toward SEO/SEM. More than a quarter of companies surveyed plan to allocate a significant portion of their budgets to this area in the year 2012, indicating that a growing number of online advertisers are looking to improve website visibility for their companies.