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.

Today’s show is all about widgets, and to start us off, Susan Esparza, Michael Terry and Virginia Nussey look at how widgets can help your business. From desktop widgets to Web widgets to mobile widgets, these portable snippets of functionality have become increasingly popular during the last year. They can generate viral buzz for your brand, creating links by entertaining consumers.

Patrick Sexton, SEM manager at We Build Pages, is a widget developer and strategy expert who writes about leveraging the medium on his blog SEOish.com. He talks to Virginia about creating a cross-platform widget strategy and the best ways to go about branding widgets. Patrick will be speaking on the Wonderful World of Widgets panel at PubCon.

Then Susan, Michael and Virginia examine some of the potential downsides of widgets, an opinion that centers on security issues and distraction tendencies. By embedding outside code into your page, users are susceptible to the third party’s prying eyes. Furthermore, as widgets become more commonplace, it’s important to remember that ad blindness symptoms can apply.

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.