Posts Tagged ‘SEM News & Trends’

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Multimedia Track, Tuesday 3:15 - 4:30 PM
Video Search Optimization

Moderator: Sapna Satagopan, Associate Analyst, JupiterResearch
Gregory Markel, President, Infuse Creative, LLC
Jeremy Clem, DoubleClick
Sherwood Stranieri, Search Marketing Director, Catalyst Online
Stephen Baker, Chief Revenue Officer, Everyzing

Sherwood Stranieri starts off noting that video is a great way to bring visitors to your site. With the rollout of blended and Universal search video can be even more important because of the exposure that good videos can bring. Sherwood suggests that you can develop some good video content throw a couple samples of them on YouTube which can bring people to your site which will gain traffic and links outside of YouTube.

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Conversion Track, Tuesday 10:30 AM - 12:00 noon
Web Analytics & Measuring Success Overview

Moderator: Alan Dick, General Manager, Vintage Tub & Bath
Matthew Bailey, President, Site logic Marketing
Lionel Largaespada, Group Account Director, Fathom Online
Laura Thieme, PresidentBizresearch

Matt Bailey started things off with a fantastic presentation. Probably the best I’ve seen so far. He’s very dynamic and engaging…. and funny. I’d hate to follow him. He talked not so much about the need for analytics, but the need for analytics done right. Matt makes it look fun, and I suppose, it can be. I tend to look at analytics as a process of interpretation. And it is, but if you take a different approach and look at it as a process of discovery you’ll find it much more engaging. He makes a great point when he says that analytics starts with a question and then we dive in to discover the answers from the data provided.

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Searcher Track, Monday 2:00 - 2:30 PM
Personalization, User Data & Search

Moderator: Chris Sherman, Co-Chair, Search Engine Strategies, San Jose
Jonathan Mendez, Chief Strategy Officer, OTTO Digital
Richard Zwicky, CEO, Enqisite
Dave Davies, CEO, Beanstalk Search Engine Positioning
Gordon Hotchkiss, Presiden & CEO, Enquiro Search Solutions
Sepandar Kamvar, Google

On a personal level, I’ve never had much use for personalized search. If I know my results are being personalized, I always want to know what I’m missing… what is it that the search engines think that I don’t care about? The most basic level where I have seen personalization implemented is my online DVD rental accounts. What I find is that I never like the movies they way that think I’ll like them based on my movie rating history. I’ll concede that Google is far more advanced than Netflix, but this does seem to be some pretty basic stuff here.

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Searcher Track, Monday 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Universal & Blended Search

Moderator: Chris Sherman, Co-Chair, Search Engine Strategies, San Jose
Greg Jarboe, President, SEO-PR
Sherwood Stranieri, Search Marketing Director, Catalyst Online
Bill Slawski, Director of Search Marketing, Commerce 360
Daniel Read,VP of Product and User Experience, Ask.com
David Bailey, Google

Greg Jarboe started out by saying unequivocally that Universal search is the biggest thing to happen to the search industry since Google’s Florida update in November 2003. He says that Universal search has so dramatically changed the search industry that newbies are at no more of a disadvantage than those of us who have been in the industry for years. I’ve written before on my take on Universal search, which isn’t necessarily favorable (quick synopsis: Ask does it better!). I’m not sure I fully agree with Chris regarding the advantage/disadvantage, but I do believe that blended/universal search has changed the landscape significantly.

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Click Z Track, Monday 9:00 - 10:30 AM
Public Relations Train Wrecks in the Interactive Biz: Disaster Can Be avoided.

Moderator: Kevin Ryan, VP, Global Content Directory, Search Engine Strategies & Search Engine Watch
Brad Berenz, Phd. Chief Content Officer, iMedia Communications
Rebecca Lieb, Editor in Chief, ClickZ Network

Seventeen minutes into this session I start to wonder if I’m in the right place. I’ve got Rob and Diana split going to some SEM sessions and I thought I’d give the ClickZ track a shot. Not sure what I was expecting, but it’s not this.

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It’s conference season for us over on the West Coast. Actually, conference season is all year, but I tend to stick to attending those that are close by… which all seem to happen in the last 2/3 of the calendar year. No worries, we’re all geared up to go. Sunday Rob, Diana and I will be heading over to San Jose for Search Engine Strategies.

We’ll all be sporting our new Gas Attendant shirts that we had made up. If you see us floating around, be sure to interrupt, push people aside, tackle whoever is in the way and introduce yourself. Ask us a few questions, buy us dinner… you know… the usual stuff.

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Shortly after Sphinn sphunn its way out to the public there were a host of SEOs scrambling to help get the word out on their blogs, writing posts about the new “digg for SEOs”. I’m not much of a newsbreaker here so instead writing about Sphinn without having given it a fair test run, I decided to wait a while. Besides, the word was getting out, all I would have done is just added another “me too” post.

A few days after Sphinn’s release to the public, Matt McGee wrote a post about the Sphinn effect, providing some illustrations as to the traffic increases that were the result of a single story he posted on the site. I wanted to go a bit further and show my results after about two weeks of Sphinning.

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According to Robert Gorell over at Grok.com’s Future Now, Universal Search Means It’s Time To Start Blogging. Basically, if you want to cover your search bases, he claims your best bet is providing fresh relevant content and what better facilitates that than blogging/podcasting & the like?

Blogging, while being more time consuming than most businesses realize, has always been a powerful and inexpensive way to build great conversations with customers and get the word out while also strengthening your company’s reputation on the web. Now, more than ever, it’s a great time to consider starting your company’s blog.

Yeah, you heard me… that was a slam on your mamma. But that hardly matters now, let’s talk about reciprocal links. They are not dead. I know it and you know it. But for just a second let’s pretend otherwise.

A while back there was quite a bit of scare mongering going around the SEO industry about how reciprocal links were dead. I had a potential client once tell me that so-and-so-big-name-in-the-SEO-industry told them that reciprocal links were dead. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it here again. There is nothing wrong with reciprocal links. It’s all about how you use/implement them that matters. No, reciprocal links are not dead and now I have the proof.

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Processes and checklists are an important part of my daily routine. I’m a very process oriented individual. Give me a checklist and I get things done. Give me a job without a checklist and I’ll create one. Give me a job that falls outside of the routine or is difficult to put into a checklist and I’m screwed!

I like to create systems for everything that I do and SEO is no exception. While not every aspect of search engine marketing can be programmed, categorized or easily referenced, (I have a mighty team to handle that stuff!) the bulk of the work can at least be outlined into a handy check list. With no further ado, I give you…

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