Following SMX East, Scott Polk and Virginia Nussey sit down to talk about what they learned from the conference. Scott was in the booth and found that a smile and a hello went a long way. In the session rooms, Virginia heard a lot of great information regarding personalized search, the dreaded Google monopoly and the insights into human behavior provided by searcher data.

Then Virginia talks to Brent D. Payne, SEO specialist and manager for Tribune Interactive. Brent explains his tactics for evangelism and getting buy-in, pointing out that the time and way you approach management is critical. He also points out the strengths and drawbacks of working on SEO for a large enterprise company and the social media efforts he has seen his traditional media company embrace. Before signing off, Brent talks about the Big Watah grassroots campaign and some of the lessons he took away from SMX East.

Susan Esparza then joins Virginia and Scott to take a further look at how the Big Watah event highlights the power of viral marketing. From a small buzz to a conference phenomenon, the viral tactics that took place in spreading the Big Watah meme hold lessons that companies can learn from. While this example took off almost effortlessly, it may take companies many tries before they find that perfect concept, but such an effort is more than likely worth it.

SMX East is going on this week in New York City, attracting many talented and experienced search and social marketers to the Big Apple. Read the blog this week for liveblog coverage of the sessions.

Cindy Krum, Director of New Media Strategies, Blue Moon Works, talks to Virginia about how to optimize for mobile search. Eric Lander, Associate Editor at Search Engine Journal and Organic Search Manager at ADP/BZ Results, looks at enhanced listings. Then Kate Morris, SEM, RateGenius.com, sits down with Virginia at the WebmasterRadio.FM Search Bash to talk about white hat secrets and contractual issues in SEM campaigns.

Returning last week from SES San Jose, Bruce, Susan and Virginia consider the highlights of the conference. Strong sessions, constant networking, and great opportunities for visibility were the norm. Whether listening to experienced SEOs debate tactics in the conference hall or over dinner, the Internet marketing action never slowed.

While at SES, Virginia got a chance to talk to Live Search Webmaster Center Program Manager Jeremiah Andrick. Jeremiah gave his insight into the improved functionality of the recent Webmaster Tools update and explained how by supporting the online publishing community Live Search is helping the end user gain access to the best content available.

Then Susan and Virginia give some suggestions for ways to direct search engine bots on your site. When search engine bots visit your site, you want to make it as easy as possible for them to crawl and index your pages. Effective bot herding can be achieved through a site map, robots.txt file, Meta tags and nofollow attributes.

Many of the hosts of SEM Synergy are attending SES San Jose. Live from the expo room floor, Virginia interviews three of the presenters.

Chris Winfield, President of 10e20, sits down first to talk about his presentation on Igniting Viral Marketing Campaigns. He explains what viral markeing is and the main places conversations are taking place online. He gives some ideas of good content and his tips for someone trying to start a viral marketing campaign.

Then, Cindy Krum, Director of New Media Strategies at Blue Moon Works, stops by the WebmasterRadio booth to talk about her session. Presenting on panel Death of the ‘.mobi’, Cindy explains why marketers should be interested in mobile. She talks about how mobile rankings differ, even among different mobile devices. And then she touches on the different site architecture solutions for addressing mobile search.

Wrapping up the show, Dave Snyder, Search Specialist at JRDunn.com and co-founder of Search & Social, talks about his session Successful Tactics for Social Media Optimization. He explains what it is that companies can get out of SMO and where people should focus their visibility efforts. He then shares what he’s looking forward to in the search mini-con he’s organizing in October, Scary SEO.

Unfortunately, due to technical issues, this program is no longer available.

With Bruce heading out to SES San Jose next week, he and Robert take a look at the subject of the panel on which Bruce will be speaking. Black Hat, White Hat: Playing Dirty with SEO covers a much-discussed topic in the SEO industry - one that has increasingly found the limelight following the Give It Up session at SMX Advanced in June. Bruce explains that black hat tactics may be a fine method of experimentation for SEOs’ personal domains, however, search engine-approved methodology is often a more sustainable business model.

Then Bruce talks to Kevin Ryan, the VP and global content director of Search Engine Strategies and Search Engine Watch. Kevin speaks to his goals and direction for the show, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this month. With constantly updated session topics and a growing number of attendees, SES continues to offer strong opportunities for education and networking in the highly-competitive industry.

Susan and Virginia close out the show with a look at the sessions and events they will be sure not to miss. From the keynotes to the parties, there are more than enough activities to keep all attendees busy for the four-day long conference. Certainly, you’ll find blogger Lisa Barone, Susan and Virginia at the Google Dance and Search Bash come night fall!

After the debate-inspiring conference that was SMX Advanced, our hosts take on one of the most popular topics concerning the show. The issue of whether or not SMX Advanced has moved to the “dark side” — spurred by black/gray tactics discussed, most notably, at the link building and Give It Up sessions — has generated heated debate across the Web, including on the Bruce Clay blog.

Jeremiah Andrick, Program Manager of Live Search Webmaster Center, speaks with Virginia from the SMX show room floor. Jeremiah talks about the Robots Exclusion Protocol, the Microsoft 404 Toolkit, what webmasters can find in Live Search Webmaster Center, as well as why he likes attending industry conferences.

Then the hosts sit down to discuss the benefits of publishing a corporate blog. From enhanced internal communication to improved customer service and media relations, the upsides to a blog are great. However, blogs require resources and support to work, which can only occur when the whole company understands what can be gained.

The hosts of SEM Synergy report live from SMX Advanced in Seattle, WA. Bruce Clay, Inc. sent a group to the conference and exhibition, including blogger-extraordinaire Lisa Barone, new writer and radio show coordinator Virginia Nussey, senior account analyst Gary Luke, the director of the new East Coast office Chris Hart, and of course, Bruce Clay.

The SEO and blogger known as Graywolf, Michael Gray, took a few minutes out of his schedule Tuesday for an interview. Michael was a speaker on two panels at the conference: Bot Herding and Give It Up. On the show he shares his perspective on how NOT to implement social media campaigns and the common mistakes he sees in the field.

Then Virginia sat down with Derrick Wheeler, Senior SEO Architect for Microsoft, about how he oversees the thousands of Microsoft sites. He explains how his team manages best practices, selects tools, creates reporting guidelines, and maintains quality standards for Microsoft.com sites.

Siloing and PageRank sculpting have seen some controversial debate lately, bringing Bruce and Robert to discuss the site architecture technique as it has been developed and practiced by the Bruce Clay, Inc. team. The themeing approach with PageRank benefits puts the emphasis on landing pages through linking, directory structure, or both. When implemented correctly, our clients have never seen less than a 30 percent jump in traffic when their sites are siloed.

In preparation for SMX Advanced in Seattle, Susan talks to producer Danny Sullivan about what to expect from the two-day conference. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is almost guaranteed to show up in the conversation, along with the latest themes and topics of the search industry to be included in this expanded show. You can bet Bruce Clay, Inc. will have a few faces there.

That’s right, Bruce Clay, Inc. will be represented at SMX Advanced from June 3-4. Susan and Bruce highlight some of the sessions that promise to educate an enlighten, including the “Creating Value In Your SEM Businesses” panel on which Bruce will be speaking. Some of the other topics covered include lead tracking, search friendly development and international SEO.

Following the ad:tech conference in San Francisco, Susan gives us a rundown of the sessions she attended and the hot discussion points of the week. For session by session coverage of ad:tech, visit the Bruce Clay blog. Susan covered sessions on branding, online video, local and mobile search, multicultural marketing, acquisition and retention strategies, and much more.

Bruce will also be speaking to Jim Sterne, founding president of the Web Analytics Association and the host of the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit, coming up in San Francisco in May. Jim gives listeners a basic understanding of how Web Analytics can help your site, the metrics tools available to webmasters, and of course, what to look forward to at eMetrics.

With Web Analytics on the mind, the hosts discuss some of the latest Analytics headlines. The new Google Analytics benchmarking feature allows users to compare their site’s data to others in their industry or other industries. But it also raises concerns about data privacy and the integrity of the opt-in data sharing policy. Yahoo!’s acquisition of IndexTools stands out for the way it might allow the search engine to compete with Google in providing high-quality free or low-cost Analytics.

Hosts Bruce Clay, Robert Esparza and Susan Esparza introduce you to the brand new WebmasterRadio show SEM Synergy. For some time now, Bruce Clay, Inc. has wanted to launch a show that discusses how SEO, PPC, branding, design and analytics are all parts of a much larger whole. In our experience, a multi-faceted Internet marketing campaign will be exponentially more successful than a campaign that employs only one aspect. In adding to the conversation, we look forward to expert guests coming on the show to give their insight on a variety of Internet marketing aspects.

At ad:tech San Francisco, many of these aspects are sure to gain attention, such as online video, local and mobile search, and branding in advertising. Susan will be liveblogging a number of sessions, so be sure to check out the Bruce Clay blog for all the highlights.

Finally, our hosts will spend some time covering the latest industry headlines. Google has been dominating the news with the dancing SERPs of the Dewey update, its intent to sell off the Performics search marketing company, and its whopping share of the online advertising market through the DoubleClick acquisition.