To wrap up 2008, Bruce, Susan and Virginia look back at the big stories of the year. The recession of the past year forced out jobs and shifted marketing budgets. Yahoo almost merged with Microsoft but ended up struggling solo. Google released a mobile platform, Android, as well as a mobile AdWords program for the iPhone and Android devices. Social media also reached a new level of popularity this year and the search was on for a way to monetize social networks.

Barry Schwartz, editor of Search Engine Roundtable, news editor of Search Engine Land and CEO of RustyBrick, is today’s guest on the show. He talks to Virginia about the developments of 2008, including his favorite conferences, the ongoing black hat/white hat debate, link buying and engagement. Barry has reported on the search industry for more than five years and stands as an expert in the history and developments of search.

Bruce, Susan and Virginia finish off the show with Bruce’s industry predictions for 2009. During his PubCon interview with Mike McDonald of WebProNews, Bruce explained his theory of how personal, behavioral and intent-based search will cause a devaluation of rankings as an SEO metric. In his follow-up interview with WPN’s Abby Johnson during SES Chicago, Bruce stood behind his earlier statements and explained how the right tools can help in the changing search landscape.

This week’s episode of SEM Synergy features an extended interview with Matt Cutts, head of Google’s Webspam Team. As a major spokesperson for Google within the SEO community, Matt often speaks at conference panels and is interviewed by industry publications throughout the year. As the New Year approaches, Virginia sits down with Matt to get a picture of search in 2009. They cover increasingly important algorithm factors, Web 2.0 technologies that Google is working toward indexing, how purchased links are handled, spam concerns, the dropping value of rankings, and upcoming online trends.

Bruce and Susan are very interested in Matt’s comments on spam, prompting Bruce to dedicate a show segment to spam in early January. Another standout is Matt’s interest in mobile search, with AdWords Mobile Ads, the Google iPhone application and voice search capability, and Google’s open mobile platform Android pointing to how necessary it is that SEOs embrace mobile search optimization.

At PubCon last month, Bruce was interviewed by Mike McDonald of WebProNews. The topics Bruce talked about covered the importance of personalization, the devaluation of ranking as the prime metric for SEO, and the role of engagement objects on rankings going forward. There were a lot of people talking about Bruce’s comments, so Bruce, Susan and Virginia address the interview subjects on the show.

Then Virginia talks to Matt Inman, a Web designer and marketer who specializes in creating engaging Web content. Matt gives listeners a window into his work process for developing ideas, illustrations and quizzes. He says that quizzes are the most requested form of content that clients ask him for. He also explains how he gets his projects buzz on social media platforms like Twitter and Digg, as well as his strategy of giving designs away for free.

Susan, Michael, Maryann and Virginia then talk about engagement objects and how they play into people’s desire to see visual and interactive content. Images in search results have been found to draw more attention, and having images, videos and other non-text content on a site will improve the chances of showing up in blended search. Also, videos, games and widgets, which give users something to do on your site, may attract users to come back. Content is king, and content is more than just text.

Visiting the Bruce Clay, Inc. offices, Kevin Ryan, global content director for Search Engine Strategies and Search Engine Watch, sits down with Bruce for a conversation about highlights and lessons from SES San Jose, speaker submissions for SES Chicago, and upcoming webcasts on Search Engine Watch. Kevin also explains how the Orion panels cover high-level strategies, which help in gaining buy in from the top levels of a company.

Susan, Virginia and Michael use Kevin and Bruce’s conversation as a springboard to discuss the difference between strategy and tactics. While strategy is the overall plan devised to achieve a business goal, tactics are the tools used to perform the strategy. Susan uses the analogy of a battle, saying that if the goal is to win the war, the strategy is to send troops, and the tactics include parachuting down soldiers. Strategy is most often overlooked, even though the success of tactics may depend on a sound strategy.

Then the group takes a look at the issue of net neutrality. Net neutrality refers to the claim that everything on the Web (email, videos, Web pages) should be treated equally. Net neutrality advocates argue that ISPs should not be able to degrade or block any content or access to it on the Web. Net neutrality detractors argue that ISPs should be able to manage the Web content as the providers of Internet infrastructure. An instance of where the net neutrality debate is playing out in real life can be seen in the case of ComCast’s blocking of torrent seeding. The little-known issue of net neutrality legislation could have far-reaching effects that include changes in the way the Internet is accessed, how fast it will be, who will have access and what can be accessed.

Bruce, Robert and Virginia kick off the show with recent search headlines. In Google news, the search engine announced it will begin indexing audio and video files on YouTube’s Politicians channels. Google has been sued over its AdSense for Domains program, allegedly selling low-quality ads unlikely to convert. And the Google AdWords program got a makeover when they announced that keyword and placement targeting will be combined in a single ad group.

Then Virginia talks to Scott Polk, a new senior SEO analyst at Bruce Clay, Inc. Experienced as a consultant and in-house SEO, Scott talks about the transition from in-house to agency and the different demands of the two environments. Implementation, evangelism and the number of hats worn all vary slightly in each role.

Susan and Virginia close out the show with a look at the different types of training courses. Training is one of the ways that Internet marketers can stay up to date with new technologies and search engine guidelines. Training seminars, remote training, and on-site training are all options that you will have to weigh based on your needs and resources. The Bruce Clay, Inc. SEOToolSet Training will be presented following SMX East Oct. 9-10. It’s a great opportunity to attend the white hat SEO training course that has, until now, only been offered on the West Coast.

The Robots Exclusion Protocol is a powerful tool in any SEO’s artillery, offering a number of methods to control how a bot crawls and indexes a site. Bruce, Robert and Susan look at Vanessa Fox’s article Managing Robot’s Access To Your Website for an in-depth understanding of the various commands available for robot management.

Virginia then speaks with Jonathan Dingman, author of Google Inside, for a look at recent developments of Google and, another of Jonathan’s topics of interest, WordPress. Jonathan is organizing WordCamp New York, to be held in October, for everyone interested in learning more about how to harness the power of WordPress.

Robert and Virginia finish up the show with a look at ways for marketers to differentiate their agency from others. In the competitive field of search marketing, concentrating on specific verticals, offering special technologies, focusing on a geographic region, or providing top-quality service can set you apart from your competition.

The issue of copyrighted content has come up again as the Associated Press is asking that bloggers or site owners pay to use their content. The requirement has re-raised questions of what constitutes fair use and highlighted the the strength of copyright in protecting content. Bruce, Robert and Susan discuss how webmasters can go about copyrighting their site content.

After Yahoo and Google announced their non-exclusive deal to run ads sold by Google in Yahoo paid search results, the agreement has gotten plenty of press — both positive and negative. Bruce Clay, Inc.’s Senior SEM Analyst Nick Guastella provides his analysis of the deal, complemented by his experience as an Overture employee at the time of Yahoo’s acquisition of the company in 2003.

Then Susan and Virginia sit down to talk about avoiding duplicate content. Scrapers, URL issues, mirror sites and syndicated content can all steal rankings away from your original content. Prevent filtered pages due to duplicate content with a range of solutions, from noindex tags to redirects to the submission of DMCA requests to search engines.

Our hosts start the show by talking about a few of the recent search headlines. Virginia, Robert and Bruce look to Matt Cutts’s post on Improved SEO Documentation Galore! to see what definitions and guidelines Google has updated, including robots.txt and nofollow documentation, along with further-clarified quality guidelines and the definition of a doorway page. They also talk about the recently passed Unfair Commercial Practices Directive in the UK and the fact that Google search results no longer offer the “watch video” feature.

Then Bruce interviews one of the newest members of Bruce Clay, Inc., Chris Hart, Director, Eastern Region Operations. Chris will be heading the newly opened East Coast office of Bruce Clay, Inc. in New York City and has 12 years of experience in the online publishing industry. The new office will help expand the offerings of high-quality SEO and SEM services by providing increased availability to clients across the country.

And finally, although a basic tenant of SEO 101, it’s not uncommon to see a site map missing from a Web site. The hosts discuss what a site map is, why it should be implemented, and tips for creating a site map. Along with improving users’ navigation of a site, site maps are also used by search engines to ensure more-complete crawling and indexing of a site. Including an XML Sitemap, intended only for search engines, is also recommended.

Bruce and Robert start off the show revealing some of the strategy applied to PPC campaigns at Bruce Clay, Inc. From conversion data to keyword selection, PPC campaigns should work together with SEO campaigns. Our hosts give away some of their tricks to avoiding non-converting clicks and choosing the words that bring your company into the users’ line of sight. Bruce explains what he sees as the conversion challenges of PPC, from branding to bidding.

Following up on this topic, Bruce talks to Dr. Ralph Wilson about his latest book, the third edition of “How to Develop a Landing Page“. Dr. Wilson is a veteran expert in the Internet marketing space, having edited and published the weekly email newsletter Web Marketing Today since 1995. His new book covers the customer research, copywriting, design, tracking and testing involved in crafting powerful landing pages.

In a special report to SEM Synergy, Bruce Clay, Inc. IT Manager Aaron Landerkin gives Bruce and the audience a rundown of the Omniture training he recently attended. As an authorized Omniture sales and support agency, our team prepares to master the full offerings of the Web analytics program and Aaron fills us in on some of the key tools and data offered by Omniture.

The Bruce Clay team has been attending a number of conferences recently. In our latest newsletter, Lisa Barone and Susan Esparza debated the benefits of attending both large and small conferences. With marketers facing the continuously evolving online space, attending training and conferences are vital investments. Along with staying up to date on trends, tools and methods, conferences and training are also great opportunities to network and increase brand awareness.

Then, the Bruce Clay IT Manager Aaron Landerkin sits down with Robert to talk about the role of IT at an SEO/SEM company and the unique challenges IT must meet in the marketing industry. As IT Manager, Aaron’s tasks include updating and managing tools and programming projects, checking the status of internal networks and servers, and creating custom tools and reports for analysts and clients. Aaron’s experience as an SEO has been helpful, but not required.

Finally the hosts discuss industry news. According to a Hitwise report on the most searched for brands of last year, it appears that Google is overcoming the address bar as far as navigation is concerned. One of the most searched for brands is YouTube, which has racked up 73 percent of the online video market. Requiring such a high amount of bandwidth, it makes our hosts wonder if YouTube is partly causing global warming… just kidding!