Is your head buried in the sand or does your technology organization understand and leverage the powers of online marketing, search engine optimization and social media to share information, content and advice with your community and client base?

Hello from Toronto and the 2010 Search Engine Strategies conference.  David and I are guests at this years Canadian stop and enjoying a great opportunity to share best practices and ideas with many of our peers in the online community.  It is great to actually see faces in this usual face-less world that is emerging.

It is no secret that the online search world is evolving, is your business prepared for the upcoming changes or are you still attempting to catch up with older techniques?

Today’s age of the knowledge worker empowers users and search is one of the most important ways many learn about what you have to offer and teach the market about your offerings. Search can be a complex yet adaptive strategy and the time is now businesses large and small to take control of how and where people find them online.

Interested in understand the latest on how Google’s search techniques impact the marketplace? Does Microsoft’s advertising strategy tweak your curiosity but allow prospects to find you?

The 2010 Toronto Search Engine Strategies may just have the answers for you. Now underway at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Toronto this annual event brings the sharpest minds together for 2 days of intense collaboration on search engine techniques and facilitates the sharing of best practices amongst conference delegates.

It is no secret that the Internet is evolving and the way small business across North America look at new ways to market their business challenges even the sharpest of marketing minds. SES 2010 provides a forum for online marketers to learn the latest techniques on effective link building, pay-per-click advertising, social media tactics, real-time search effectiveness and many more business and marketing strategies.

Now in it’s seventh year, SES Toronto is organized and programmed by the SES Advisory Board and SearchEngineWatch.com, the leading authority on Search Engine Marketing (SEM), including Search Engine Optimization and Pay-Per-Click.

What are some of the emerging trends? Is it Google’s recently announced “Caffeine”, which is a complete overhaul on how Google indexes websites? Will this shift from crawling the net looking for content to a real-time database of online content change the way many of our VAR businesses show up on search results?

Will Social Media continue the onslaught that has attracted the attention from experts, enthusiasts and hobbyists? Gobbling up the attention span of business professionals to casual surfers across everywhere? How important will Facebook and Twitter be in the next year? Will the “instant on” social media services play impact search results and help position business when prospects look for products and services? “We can’t continue to keep our heads in the sand.” states Ulistic Senior Advisor David West.

These questions and others will be discussed in the keynotes, breakouts and in the hallways throughout the 48-hour conference in downtown Toronto. Peter Morville, President of Michigan’s Semantic Studios kicked it all off with his morning keynote address on how search patterns influence the decisions and actions people make. “We really need to understand our users and the vocabulary and the words they use,” said Morville, talking on understanding how people search for information throughout many facets of Internet, mobile and Internet search.

Follow Search Engine Strategies on Twitter #SESTO.

First off, a big Calgary style thanks to David and our guest of honour Mr. Chris Brogan for a great kick-start to my small business podcast once again.  It has been a busy quarter with Ulistic and our weekly podcast took a back-burner position as we ramped up our Small Business Internet Marketing Training Program and all other Social Media Consulting services we are offering to Calgary and International business.  Thank goodness Diane (Chris’ Assistant) and I made this appointment many months ago.  We felt we had to honour it, and what a show it was and happy we went through with it.

Chris, David and myself chatted like old friends for 30 minutes plus a few extra minutes at the beginning of the call.  It was refreshing to hear Chris’ approach on social media and online communities and to know that our approach is not much different from his.  For a while now we have been working with small business across Canada and focusing on strategies and techniques on leveraging online services to connect with clients, foster community and create strong alliances.

While some focus on the tools (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn), we have shifted our focus to understanding the process and the messaging but also keeping in check that our clients still have products and services they deliver.  They have sales goals to obtain, financial benchmarks to reach and shareholder value to deliver.

Chris also opened my eyes a bit wider to the power of Twitter once again.  I am still on the fence about its overall success however I just have to think back to how I met George Garcia at Calgary’s Park2Go.  (George dropping my car off on Sunday and next Friday again.  I met George through social media services and it is an honour to call George a friend and a trusted colleague.)

So many great new ideas were shared during Chris Brogan’s appearance on the Ulistic Orange Files Podcast.  Download our show now at Canadian Small Business Social Media Podcast.