Wow, I really meant to post this on Wednesday night but just didn’t get back to the hotel in time … and then there was the last day of sessions to attend so I didn’t get to finish and post on Thursday either … alas, there will be two posts today from moi. In the one about Thursday’s sessions I anticipate a final wrap up for the week.
Wednesday’s sessions: Local Search Marketing Tactics, Mobile Search Optimization, SEM Pricing Models, and B2B Tactics.
I got far more out of the Local Search Marketing Tactics session that I would have ever expected. The three speakers were equally impressive with their knowledge and presentation. The strongest message that I came away with, was that your local PPC effort needs to include both local targeted and national campaigns. The difference being, that in the national campaigns, all of your keyword phrases are going to include local city/county/state names.
I’m not sure why I came to the Mobile Search Optimization. When I look back at the schedule, I see the focus was for both organic and paid search, but there was absolutely nothing for the paid search. That said, I did learn that when you are optimizing for the mobile phone audience, follow all best practices for traditional SEO. There are other aspects to be aware of, the most helpful method that was mentioned is to use different Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), eliminating the need to recreate separate material. Nuff said.
I went to the SEM Pricing Models session with Stoney and was really happy with the information they put forward. Several different pricing models were outlined and we were provided with a few different case studies. I was interested to hear that some companies like Pole Position Marketing have different models for different clients. Not all clients fall under the same umbrella contract. This was a good session I enjoyed.
When I chose to attend the B2B Tactics session, I had hoped that I would learn something useful that I could apply to our client PPC accounts, learning something about marketing for the B2B. As it turned out, there wasn’t really anything specific to PPC at all. This session, like the Mobile Search Optimization were not really effective uses of my time. I did hear again about the importance of TESTING … every aspect of our business involves, if not re volves, around testing.
And now, on to day 4 ….