One of the most talked about changes introduced by Google on May 31, 2012, is the launch of a paid program from Google Shopping based on Product Listing Ads (PLA).

Since its announcement, we have seen a huge change in shopping results. Google Shopping listings replace the current Google Product Search listings, which are part of the organic search listings.

In this post, I will explain what Google Shopping is all about, how it affects retail merchants and outline steps to mitigate the impact and seize opportunity.

For many search marketers tactical approaches to managing and optimizing SEO campaigns fills much of their time in their very busy diaries. However as SEO and social media disciplines merge, the importance of SEO is slowly rising to the top of many a C-Level agenda as a key driver of business goals including top line and bottom line.

Understanding where your competitors are positioned in SEO is one important aspect in today’s competitive landscape for meeting your organic search goals.

As search marketers, we know that there are proven methods of improving our page rank such as creating unique and relevant content with the right keywords, promoting this content, and building links from the domains that matter.

These are methods that have been used for the past ten years and while, these methods have been quite effective, SEO is more complex today.

The rise of social media as an effective SEO tool, the growing competitiveness of SEO, and tough guidelines by search engines, call for a re-evaluation of how we have been doing SEO.

What do you think is driving growth in the SEO enterprise technology market?

The biggest single driver for growth is the ability to measure the current business impact of SEO and forecast future returns. The market has transitioned from a technology and feature conversation to an ROI conversation.

One of the early innovations at BrightEdge was to integrate with site analytics technology (such as SiteCatalyst, Webtrends, Google Analytics ) to track and measure the economic value of SEO-driven sales.

On Wednesday I will be moderating a panel at BrightEdge Share 12, on the theme of a "New Direction of SEO" and will be joined by Raj Rao, VP of Global eTransformation at 3M, Leo Haryono, SEO Director at Macy’s and Andy Johns, Product Manager of User Growth at Quora.

What's exciting about this panel is that the challenges these brands face represent the entire range of challenges facing our industry – from B2B search targeting, to consumer facing e-commerce, to growing a startup by leading with content. The role SEO plays in the growth of these brands is both critical, yet nuanced, and part of a broader marketing strategy.

Speaking at the BrightEdge Share12 Conference in San Francisco yesterday, Lloyd (above) laid out the way Adobe allocates its search resources and how it uses content optimization to improve ROI across all channels.

One of the themes of the industry panel I moderated at BrightEdge Share 12 was whether Google is still "a Black Box"… and whether marketers needed their own Black Box to deal with Google's Black Box. Have marketers entered a new era of automation where, in a Spy Vs Spy scenario, big data appliances are able to measure, analyze and respond to each other? I caught up with Leo Haryono, Director of SEO at Macy's says and Lemuel Park, CTO of BrightEdge to get their view on this question.

To handle the more than 100TB of data processed each week by BrightEdge, a San Mateo, California, startup that helps companies manage their search engine rankings, CEO and founder Jim Yu wants data workers who grasp the entire scope of big data processing.

What do 26,000 keywords tell us about the latest Google 7 change and the new Google SERP?

As the Google SERP continues to evolve and brands aim to increase their control over search results, the emergence of a new type of SERP has interesting implications for SEO Managers.

Several Weeks ago, BrightEdge updated their S3 product platform to enable users to integrate SEO with digital marketing social marketing and paid search channels. We caught up with Jim Yu at SMX East to get an overview of the new additions to the platform.