Many SEO experts have gotten their professions down to a science (or maybe more of an art-form). You should not give up trying to compete with the major players. SEO can be achieved through the use of well-written and compelling content.

On the web, content is king. I know that you’ve heard it many times before, but it’s the truest expression for getting visitors to your website, and converting those visitors into buyers. Many businesses decide to redesign their websites without considering the fact that their content is old and dated.

When redesigning your website, take the opportunity to evaluate every single piece of content on your site. Here are some steps toward making your content stronger, thus improving the rank of your site in search engines.

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Yesterday Google announced the launch of "Google Caffeine". Caffeine is a new search index that enables Google to serve searchers with the freshest possible results. The way that Google currently works is that it indexes pages in its directory at a rate of about once in about two weeks, depending on the content source (more regular and notable content producers get indexed more frequently). Caffeine indexes small parts of the web at the rate of  hundreds of thousands of pages per second.

What this means for you is that the more regular that you produce content, the higher in search results that you will appear in your given industry. What better way of producing content is there than a business blog? Not only blogs, but what about social networking sites? Now is the time to boost your SERPs, and hop on the social networking bandwagon!

Some companies are taking the next step with social-networking sites. These retailers are selling direct to consumers.

Large retailers have taken advantage of their social media presence in the past with special promotions. Hallmark ran a special twist on the Mother's Day card as a tribute to Moms on Facebook with the Hallmark Mother's page. Since April 19, over 1000 users have sent tributes to their moms, with Hallmark Facebook fans now totaling over 68,000. This is up from just 250 fans last November!

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Microsoft filed a lawsuit Tuesday in U.S. District Court for Western Washington against Salesforce.com for patent infringement. The complaint alleges Salesforce.com violated the nine patents including:

• 7,251,653: Method and system for mapping between logical data and physical data
  
• 5,742,768: System and method for providing and displaying a web page having an embedded menu
  
• 5,644,737: Method and system for stacking toolbars in a computer display
  
• 6,263,352: Automated web site creation using template driven generation of active server page applications
  
• 6,542,164: Timing and velocity control for displaying graphical information
  
• 5,845,077: Method and system for identifying and obtaining computer software from a remote computer
  
• 5,941,947: System and method for controlling access to data entities in a computer network

So be careful how you conduct data mapping and design software or you too could be in for a surprise!

Both companies are investing heavily in building competing platforms for cloud computing — Force.com from Salesforce.com and Microsoft's Azure.

Business spending on software services is up as companies realize the economy enters a "second phase of recovery". This is according to John Chambers, CEO of Cisco Systems Inc. The Commerce Department claims that the business spending on equipment and software rose at a 13.3% annual rate in the fourth quarter, the fastest growth since early 2006.

Cisco's third quarter earnings represented a return to balance across the board by geography and customer segments. Cisco has a track record of emerging from recessions and continuing to grow. We should all follow suit!