|
SES San Jose, an SEO Recap
By Jim Hedger, Contributing Writer, StepForth Search Engine Placement Inc.
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
» Click here for  PDF &  Word Versions
Search marketing conferences are serious fun, especially when
the conference is held in the Silicone Valley. Being at SES
San Jose is hard work comprised of a week in an advanced search
marketing university that offers field trips to various techno-Disneylands
including the Google and Yahoo campuses.
This is the largest annual search related gathering anywhere.
An estimated 7500 participants sat through over 70 in-depth
sessions covering virtually every aspect of search engine marketing
from the basic tips to the most advanced campaign strategies.
Having organized and run the world’s most comprehensive
series of search related conferences for several years now,
Search Engine Watch editors Danny Sullivan and Chris Sherman
(aided by a team of dozens of professional conventioneers),
plan their events to suit all skill levels and experience. At
any given minute, there is something new to learn, regardless
of how long one has been interested in search marketing.
The search marketing industry is enormous. Today it is much
larger than anyone involved (at any level) fully understands.
From the emerging worlds of social search and networking to
the SEM start-up firms establishing themselves by the dozen
per day, it often appears the online universe revolves around
search.
The growth of the search sector is occurring faster than people
in the industry can keep track of, partially because so many
other IT sectors rely on search as a function of their applications.
To make a long paragraph short, virtually every new online communications
technology has a search component and everyone, regardless of
their business or industry appears to want to develop a strong
search marketing strategy.
While the SES conferences are about search marketing, SEOs
and SEMs are not the only people in the building. Search is
obviously gaining prominence in mainstream marketing circles.
The proportion of representatives from brand name Ad Agencies
continues to increase every SES conference I attend. Similarly,
a larger number of small to medium businesses have sent staff
to learn as much as they can.
There are four basic types of people who attend SES conferences,
and several sub-groupings of each type. The first and most obvious
are professional search marketers from both sides of the black-hat/white-hat
divide. One can easily spot the pros gathered together in excited
gaggles of geeks. It’s not often search marketers get
to meet their peers face to face, speaking a common language
that makes most other people’s eyes glaze over quickly.
The second type of attendee is the newly minted In-House SEO,
the person given the terrifying job of figuring out everything
there is to know about search marketing in four days. They are
the ones typing frantically on their laptops, desperately trying
to retain every word their employer has paid for them to hear.
These poor souls are doomed to a long and difficult meeting
the day they return to their workplace and, by the second day
of the conference, they know it. There is no way they are going
to be able to explain to their bosses exactly what happened,
much less what was said and by whom.
A third type is the tradeshow exhibitors and the booth staff.
Many of these people make their living on the conference circuit.
They are easily spotted by the colour of their admittance badges,
which is different from that of presenters and attendees, generally
limiting their movement to the main hall and tradeshow floor.
Most people staffing the tradeshow booths are extremely well
informed and able to explain the topic or focus of their business
however their knowledge of other exhibitors tends to be limited.
At night, the tradeshow staff can be depended on to bolster
the numbers at the dozens of gatherings and parties SES conferences
are infamous for.
The fourth group of people found at SES conferences is made
up of speakers, presenters and personalities. These are the
ones who are either talking non-stop to small groups gathered
around them or are hiding in the private Speakers’ and
Media lounges. For this group, SES conferences are hard work,
the type others think is fun if you can get it. By the end of
the second day of the conference, you can spot these people
by their exhaustion.
Exhaustion is an issue for everyone attending such an intense
show.
There is a lot to learn and a limited amount of time to cover
everything one might be interested in. One of the drawbacks
to such a large event is that up to five unique learning sessions
run concurrently and a body can only be in one place at any
given time. No matter how well one plans their days, information
sacrifices are going to happen. Before attending an SES conference,
a prioritization session is in order to ensure one knows exactly
where they wish to be at any moment.
Being an SEO who has spent the better part of his career working
for small to medium sized businesses, I spent much of my in-session
time at Organic and PPC marketing seminars. Here’s a small
sample of some of the most relevant information for smaller
SEO/SEM companies and their clients. Links attached to each
session name are directed to the live-time coverage provided
by Search Engine Watch editor Barry Schwartz and his team of
reporters. Other links might point to blog entries or images
posted by attendees or presenters.
Introduction to Search Engine Marketing (no coverage) This
general session is hosted by conference organizer Danny Sullivan
and is a “must-see” for beginners or those not fully
familiar with the changing search landscape. Giving attendees
a brief overview of the industry, Sullivan separates organic
or natural search and paid-search advertising options, explaining
the parameters and permutations of both search marketing approaches.
Running at the same time down the hall, Greg Stirling moderated the
Searcher Behavior Research Update session covering how
search users interact with the various search engines. Armed
with years
of industry research, the panel members discuss and dissect
the way typical searchers use the various search tools focusing
on predicting and taking advantage of common behaviours.
Meanwhile, just down the hall, SEW Executive Editor Chris Sherman
is moderating a survey session called Social
Search Overview.
Joining Sherman onstage is Grant Ryan from Eurekster, Tim Meyers
from Yahoo, and Nils Pohlmann from MSN.
While Danny talks about the overall search scene, Greg examines
how we behave while using search and Chris demystifies social
search, another important session is unfolding down the hall
covering paid search options. Compare & Contrast: Ad Program
Strategies covered how each of the paid advertising programs
and networks run by the major search engines operate. Knowing
the differences between each is essential for small businesses
and SEMs running multiple paid advertising campaigns.
Please keep in mind; these are the first sessions of a very
busy four days. We’ve just completed the first 90-minutes
of SES San Jose’s schedule.
After a short coffee break, the late-morning sessions start
and the huge conference hall empties again.
Search Engine Guide editor Jennifer Laycock moderated the Search
Term Research and Targeting seminar with Christine Churchill
and Dan Thies sitting on the panel. Unfortunately, there was
no coverage of this session and my time was occupied attending
another session down the hall.
The seminar I needed to see at this hour was the on titled,
Social
Search: Up Close With Yahoo. This session covered the
multiple social search platforms Yahoo has introduced over the
past year giving specific tips on using tools such as Flickr,
Yahoo Answers and Yahoo 360. Hosted by Chris Sherman, the panel
consisted of several Yahoo Senior Product Managers and Yahoo’s
Director of Project Management, Tim Meyer. The panel also featured
Joshua Schachter, Director of Engineering from del.icio.us.
Unfortunately, since I was intent on learning more about Social
Search, I missed most of the session titled; Does
Demographic Targeting Matter? Knowing the search marketing industry knows
a lot about specific user habits, I was curious to find out
how, or if, they used this information. While I heard too little
to fully grasp the nuances, the part I saw suggested that the
collection of user-specific information is very advanced but
still has a long way to go before demographic targeting accurately
delivers tailored advertising packets to unique users.
Lunch on mid-Monday was interesting. Danny Sullivan hosted
a working-group lunch (attended by more than 3000 people) with
the Google
Sitemaps Team. At the lunch session, the Google representatives
spoke about the changes to the sitemaps system from its new
name (Google Webmaster Central) to improved
functionalities in the system.
After lunch, I began the process of collecting those 2 full
notepads of interview notes and was unable to attend any of
the afternoon sessions. Here is a short run-down of sessions
that would have been of interest to SEO shops and their clients.
Anne Kennedy moderated Shari Thurow’s session on Search
Engine Friendly Design. The foundation of your search marketing
campaign rests on the way your website is designed.
Down the hall, Detlev Johnson moderated a session called Searchonomics:
Serious and Fun Stats.
Search Advertising 101 is another survey course but an essential
one for new comers or those who don’t feel they fully
understand how PPC advertising works. Moderated by Dana Todd,
Search
Advertising 101 is, “… especially geared
toward beginners, with details on programs from major providers
and advice on how to succeed.”
Other sessions addressed SEM
via Communities, Wikipedia and Tagging, Domain and Address Bar-Driven Traffic, and measuring
Multichannel Metrics.
So ended the first day of SES San Jose. After the hard working
learning sessions, dinner gatherings and an evening full of
private parties is in store. I’m not going to try to explain
the parties except to suggest anyone interested should read “Surviving
SES San Jose” for a bleary eyed bird’s view of SES
San Jose nightlife.
On Tuesday, an Advanced Organic Track promised a strong series
of SEO focused sessions. Again, there were five types of sessions,
known as “tracks” running concurrently so a number
of information sacrifices need to be made.
The first seminar called, “Can
You Please Them All?” had
three well known SEOs, Aaron Wall, Michael Murray, Dave Davies
joining Ask.Com VP Rahul Lahiri and moderator Detlev Johnson
in a free flowing session covering optimization techniques for
the Big4 search engines, Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask.
Following that came a period with five essential SEO sessions
running at the same time.
Heather Lloyd Martin and Jill Whalen shared the stage for their
staple, “Writing
for Search Engines” session. Next
door, a session, “Landing
Pages Testing and Tuning” outlined
how to best create, test and tweak paid-ad landing pages to
increase sales or click conversions. In the next room, a panel
addressed Search
Arbitrage Issues, while in yet another room,
a session explained how to best establish Blogs
and Feeds for SEO purposes.
For more experienced SEOs and content heavy sites however,
the must-see presentation was Duplicate
Content and Multiple Site Issues session. There is a great deal of concern about
duplicate content. This session outlined what to and not to
worry about and how search engines recognize “ownership” of
content.
The next essential session, The
Bot Obedience Course was hosted
by Danny Sullivan and featured, Jon Glick from Become.com, Vanessa
Fox from Google, Rajat Mukherjee from Yahoo and SEOs Dan Theis
and Bill Atchison. Understanding and effecting bot behavior
is one of the most powerful tools for SEOs.
The feature SEO session for small businesses and boutique SEO
shops, “Big
Ideas for Small Sites” presented common
sense wisdom to a crowd of nearly 1500. Adopting a Small is
Beautiful attitude, moderator Anne Kennedy and panelists Jennifer
Laycock, Matt McGee and John Carcutt outlined SEO and PPC strategies
designed to help the smallest business or single-person SEO
shop compete with established competitors.
Each presenter in the Big Ideas session referred to common
sense marketing with Jennifer Laycock noting, “Common
sense is our greatest equalizer”. From where Jennifer,
Matt and John stand, planning, prioritization and diligence
mark the difference between success and failure when competing
against bigger businesses with larger marketing budgets.
Using a variety of search mediums ranging from the general
SERPS to Local search, Vertical search tools, and news releases,
the presenters offered the best of their strategies and success
stories in a highly successful session. For SEOs and small business
marketers, this was one of the highlight seminars.
The next session of important interest was the Usability
and SEO session featuring Matt Bailey and Shari Thurow. Website
usability is one of the keys to effective SEO. This session
was a must-see for SEOs, small businesses, site designers and
webmasters.
The final, do-not-miss, sessions for SEOs covered Website
Analytics and Measuring Success and Local
Search Marketing Tactics.
View the innumerable images from SES San Jose on Flickr. (see
tags: SES, SES
San Jose, Search
Engine Strategies, SES2006,
GoogleDance, and Search
Strategies)
SES Conferences are important events. Held in several venues
around the world, SES is a professional cultural experience
that shouldn’t be missed, sort of what attending a serious
university located on the Las Vegas strip would feel like. The
most important aspect of an SES event can’t really be
conveyed in words. It comes from the instant camaraderie between
colleagues and the immense networking opportunities the gathering
presents. I am looking forward to the next major show in April
in New York. Hope to see you there too.
BACK to the StepForth Search Engine News
|
