Google is at it again, doing things that most of us don't understand and probably won't understand for years to come. The most recent thing Google has done is to build a barge. Not a virtual barge, a real barge, docked in San Francisco Bay, we call it the Google barge. A second one has been towed into Portland Harbor, Maine and reportedly, two more are under construction.

Twitter’s IPO price was set at $26 per share, valuing the company at $18.34 billion. Trading began on November 7th with the price rising to a high of $50, then closing at $44.90. At the end of the first day of trading, Twitter was valued at $25 billion! Keep in mind, this is a company that has never turned a profit and posted a loss of nearly $65 million for its most recent quarter.

Many companies use videos to promote their brand, products and services. Some are taking it to the extreme, using pretty amazing cameras like the GoPro to demonstrate a product from the user’s point of view. These unique and sometimes extreme videos go viral and spread not only brand awareness but they also send huge SEO or search engine optimization value back to your website by linking back to your site.

There is nothing new about Twitter tweeting, but on September 12, Twitter’s tweet was significant:

Obviously, some online reviews are fake. According to a 2012 report from Gartner Research, “between two and six percent of online reviews are fake or deceptive.” Jenny Sussin, a Gartner analyst and co-author of the report, found that, “In the hospitality industry, you are more likely to see bookings go up when you have better ratings. For restaurants, a half-star increase in the review average can cause 7:00 pm bookings to go up 30 to 49 percent.”

Keyword data encryption is on the way from Google, which means the search engine giant will no longer reveal the keywords that sent traffic to websites from search queries. By the end of 2013, Google intends to encrypt all organic keyword search activity, with the exception of clicks on Adwords PPC ads. What does this mean for website owners? Any keyword search done through Google will eventually come back with the wonderful (not found) message in your Google Analytics account.

Recently we have been looking over some of the SEO factors from the last couple of years. Some of them made us laugh, because a lot of them are still very relevant. Of course some of the factors seemed a bit elementary compared to what we are doing in today’s search environment. It goes without saying that we are still trying to achieve natural-looking link profiles. This is something that will most likely always be relevant and a consideration to Google, unless they take a completely different direction with their algorithm. Let’s face it though, anything is possible at this point. But what pieces of the SEO puzzle do we need to consider in order to be successful with SEO in 2014.

When you think about ranking high in the search engine results or getting a good traffic source, you probably aren't thinking about Bing or Pinterest. But, it’s time for that to change and it’s time for you to ramp up your Pinterest SEO efforts. This sounds a little silly, but Bing now includes your pins in their search results. This means if you do an image search on Bing, they will now display results from your Pinterest boards. This is huge for many marketers, not to mention Bing is one of the only search engines that is still providing keyword search data.

If you own a small business and you aren't advertising on social media, it's time to start thinking about it. Facebook is one of the best options at this point with their advanced targeting features which allow you to hone in on certain demographics and interests. The social media companies look to make a lot of money because, simply put, advertising on social media works. That's why most small business need to start thinking about how they can best utilize social media advertising as part of their overall online marketing strategy.