November 23, 2009

If you aren't at SES Berlin, go to SES Chicago for 11 topics breaking

Search Engine Strategies Berlin is being held this week at the Crowne Plaza Berlin City Centre, and SES Chicago 2009 gets underway in two weeks at the Hilton Chicago.

During the past 10 weeks, I've shared 10 important reasons for going to these must-attend events. For those of you who want to join in the chorus, they are: 10 authors speaking, nine trainers training, eight days a-learning, seven tracks amazing, six booths astounding, five brand new things, four keynote themes, three key trends, two early birds, and a ranking in the top three.

This week, I'll share an eleventh significant reason for attending Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2009 -- and it isn't "11 pipers piping." You should attend SES Chicago 2009 for "11 topics breaking."

According to recent research by Tradeshow Week, the top reason for attending conventions and tradeshows this year is to "keep up-to-date on trends and issues." And a close look at the conference agenda for Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2009 shows that the conference sessions will help you keep up-to-date on trends and issues -- big time.

When the conference agenda was first posted back in August, 11 out of the 65 sessions were totally new. In addition, another 11 sessions were "reserved for late-breaking topics."

Since then, Incisive Media has appointed of Mike Grehan as VP and Global Content Director for Search Engine Watch, ClickZ, and Search Engine Strategies. And Grehan has identified these late-breaking topics and speakers have been invited to keep you up-to-date on these trends and issues.

Together, these 22 totally new sessions represent the "bleeding edge" of opportunities and threats in the search engine marketing industry. And some of them aren't even about search engines -- they're about social media and social networking sites.

This is why savvy search industry veterans who have attended each and every SES Chicago since 2003 keep coming back year after year. They know this Search Engine Strategies conference gives them a sneak preview of the latest topics two to three months before their direct and indirect competition.

Below is the list of 22 sessions which are totally new to SES. You can't attend them all, but you'd be smart to attend as many as you can.

Totally New Conference Sessions on Day 1: Dec. 7, 2009

Search: A Real Time Paradigm?

YouTube & Video Optimization

New Exporters: How Search Marketing Can Be Used to Build Trade overseas

Online PR: Where to Next?

From Search to Discovery

Point/ Counterpoint: DIY SEM - The Pros & Cons

20 Secrets of Top Converting Websites

The Quest for Perfect Information: How Network Intelligence is Transforming Search

Customer Insights Via Search Engine Tools

Ghost Blogging, Tweeting, Content Production: Is it Ethical? Does it Matter?

What's the Link between Search & Social?

Totally New Conference Sessions on Day 2: Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2009

Developments in Information Retrieval on the Web

Social Media Checklist

Real Time SEO: No More Yesterday's News

PR, Social Media and Search

Totally New Conference Sessions on Day 3: Wednesday, Dec. 9

PPC or SEO? The Ultimate Search Marketing Battle

Advanced Paid Search Brain Candy

Facebook Rockstars Roundtable: Marketing For the Other Internet

How to Cut Your Corporate Budget Without Cutting Leads or Sales

The Oprah Winfrey Litigation: What Affiliate Marketers MUST Know

Eye Tracking Research Update

M2M: Cracking the Code on Marketing to Marketers

Next week, we'll look at a final reason for going to Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2009. In the meantime, just keep singing "11 topics breaking, 10 authors speaking, nine trainers training, eight days a-learning, seven tracks amazing, six booths astounding, five brand new things, four keynote themes, three key trends, two early birds, and a ranking in the top three."

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 2:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

November 16, 2009

Go to SES Berlin or Chicago for (Over) Ten Authors Speaking

During the past nine weeks, I've shared nine significant reasons for going to either Search Engine Strategies Berlin or SES Chicago 2009. For those of you who want to join in the chorus, they are: "nine trainers training, eight days a-learning, seven tracks amazing, six booths astounding, five brand new things, four keynote themes, three key trends, two early birds, and a ranking in the top three."

This week, I'll share a tenth important reason -- and it isn't to see "ten lords a-leaping." You should attend these events to hear well over ten authors speaking.

Actually, there will be at least 22 authors speaking at SES Berlin (November 23-25) or Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2009 (December 7-11), but I was already having difficulty fitting the facts into my version of the popular English Christmas carol.

Now, there will be 65 speakers at Search Engine Strategies Berlin and 172 speakers at SES Chicago 2009. So, why is hearing 22 authors speak an important reason to go to one of these must-attend events?

Well, if you've read Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, then you probably share his great love for books. And you probably also share his distain for a distopian society where "firemen" burn books "for the good of humanity."

When Bradbury became the first science fiction writer to win the Pulitzer Prize in May 2007, he told LA Weekly that his novel was not about government censorship. Instead, he said Fahrenheit 451 was a story about how people's interest in books had been destroyed by television, replacing critical thought with useless "factoids."

Now, I'm not suggesting that we should all be like Granger, the leader a group of wandering intellectual exiles in Fahrenheit 451 who memorize books in order to preserve their contents. Nor, should we act like Clarisse McClellan, the character in the novel who is unpopular among her peers and disliked by her teachers for asking why instead of how and focusing on nature instead of technology.

But, in an era when most YouTube videos are 2-3 minutes long, wouldn't you like to hear from someone who "wrote the book" on search engine optimization, search engine marketing, or social media? And, in an era where tweets are 140-characters or less, wouldn't you like to meet up with an author who has written 200-500 pages about Google, YouTube, or blogs?

This isn't a knock on YouTube or Twitter. Back in June 2009, the contested election in Iran between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Mir Hossein Mousavi led to massive demonstrations, with many Iranians going to social networks like YouTube and Twitter to share the upheaval in their country with the world.

Still, wouldn't you like to get an in-depth understanding of how your organization can use social media or search by talking with a person who has written a detailed account of this or another related topic?

So, who will you meet? Here are the 21 authors that I was able to identify:

Tim Ash, author of Landing Page Optimization: The Definitive Guide to Testing and Tuning for Conversions.

Andy Beal, co-author of Radically Transparent: Monitoring and Managing Reputations Online.

Bruce Clay, author of Search Engine Optimization All-in-One Desk Reference for Dummies.

Bryan Eisenberg, co-author of Always Be Testing: The Complete Guide to Google Website Optimizer; Waiting for Your Cat to Bark?: Persuading Customers When They Ignore Marketing; and Call to Action: Secret Formulas to Improve Online Results.

Mona Elesseily, author of Mastering Panama.

Eric Enge, co-author of The Art of SEO.

Jennifer Evans Laycock, author of The Small Business Guide to Search Engine Marketing and of the Zero Dollars, a Little Bit of Talent and 30 Days series.

Liana Evans, author of Social Media Marketing: Publicity Through Viral Marketing.

Rand Fishkin, co-author of The Art of SEO.

Andrew Goodman, author of Winning Results with Google AdWords.

Mike Grehan, author of Search Engine Marketing: The Essential Best Practice Guide.

Bill Hunt, co-author of Search Engine Marketing, Inc.: Driving Search Traffic to Your Company's Web Site.

Greg Jarboe, author of YouTube and Video Marketing: an Hour a Day.

Jeff Jarvis, author of What Would Google Do?

Kevin Lee, author of The Truth About Pay-Per-Click Search Advertising and co-author of The Eyes Have It: How to Market in an Age of Divergent Consumers, Media Chaos and Advertising Anarchy and Search Engine Advertising: Buying Your Way to the Top to Increase Sales.

Rebecca Lieb, author of The Truth About Search Engine Optimization.

Peter Morville, author of Ambient Findability and Information Architecture for the World Wide Web.

Ayat Shukairy, co-author of Landing Page Optimization: The Complete Guide.

Jim Sterne, author of Web Metrics: Proven Methods for Measuring Web Site Success; Customer Service on the Internet: Building Relationships, Increasing Loyalty, and Staying Competitive; Advertising on The Web; and World Wide Web Marketing: Integrating the Web into Your Marketing Strategy.

David Szetela, author of Customers Now: Profiting From the New Frontier of Content-Based Internet Advertising.

Shari Thurow, author of Search Engine Visibility and When Search Meets Web Usability.

Amanda Watlington, co-author of Business Blogs: A Practical Guide.

I know a couple of other people who are working on books, but haven't finalized their titles yet. And I'm sure I'm missing a few authors. Any oversights are unintentional.

Next week, Search Engine Strategies Berlin gets underway. But, we'll continue looking at more reasons for going to SES Chicago 2009.

By the way, if you register for SES Chicago 2009 by Friday, November 20, you can save up to $200 with the Advance Rate. That's enough to buy half a dozen of the books mentioned above.

In the meantime, just keep singing "ten authors speaking, nine trainers training, eight days a-learning, seven tracks amazing, six booths astounding, five brand new things, four keynote themes, three key trends, two early birds, and a ranking in the top three."

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 2:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

November 9, 2009

American Daily Newspapers Employ 25% Fewer People Than in 2001

I apparently caused a stir yesterday at the PRSA International Conference in San Diego. Actually, it was a disturbing fact -- or an inconvenient truth -- that I cited which caused the stir. So, don't shoot the messanger.

During the Q&A part of the conference workshop, "Looking Ahead: The Nexus of Social Media and Public Relations," Peter Himler, founder and principal of Flatiron Communication, asked a rhetorical question of the audience. I've known Himler for about 15 years, so I raised my hand when nobody seemed eager to speculate on when traditional media relations should be declared dead.

I'm presenting a PRSA teleseminar on Nov. 17, and I had been working on my presentation before heading to San Diego. So, I happened to have a data point at my finger tips that related to the question.

According to The State of News Media for 2009, which is published by the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism, 5,900 full-time newsroom jobs, 11% of the total at America's newspapers, were cut in 2008. By the end of 2009, newsrooms of American daily newspapers may employ 25% fewer people than they did in 2001.

Ad Age estimates that just under 150,000 people worked in magazines in 2008, down from about 170,000 in 2000. And in local television, news staffs, already too small to adequately cover their communities, are being cut at unprecedented rates.

So, that's why PR people need to embrace social media as quickly as they can. If they don't include blog outreach, YouTube marketing, Facebook marketing, and Twitter marketing within the definition of public relations, then PR will employ 25% fewer people than it did in 2001.

Okay, so maybe that was a little like shouting "fire" in a crowded theater. But facts are facts, and I was just telling the truth.

But some of the people in the room reacted like they were going through the five stages of grief described in the book by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, "On Death and Dying." They are: 1. Denial (This isn't happening to me!) 2. Anger (Why is this happening to me?) 3. Bargaining (I promise I'll be a better person if...) 4. Depression (I don't care anymore.) 5. Acceptance (I'm ready for whatever comes.)

To help the PR specialists in your company through the grieving process, you should have the SEO specialists take them to lunch. Eat some comfort food. And let them know that they will play a really important role in social media -- as soon as they get their arms around social media measurement.

Okay, that last part may be "tough love." They may not be ready to embrace social media measurement -- yet.

But, sooner or later, they have to move on. Sooner or later, they need to heed the advice of Cher in the movie Moonstruck: "Get over it!"

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Go to SES Berlin or SES Chicago for Nine Trainers Training

During the past seven weeks, I've shared seven compelling reasons for going to either Search Engine Strategies Berlin or SES Chicago 2009. For those of you who want to join in the chorus, they are "eight days a-learning, seven tracks amazing, six booths astounding, five brand new things, four keynote themes, three key trends, two early birds, and a ranking in the top three."

This week, I'll share an eighth great reason -- and it isn't "nine ladies dancing."

You should attend these events for "nine trainers training."

As I mentioned back in September, training is one of the three key trends. If you type "SEO training" into Google Insights for Search, you'll see that web search interest has grown steadily since 2004 -- and is forecast to continue growing in 2010. So, it's not surprising that more time is being added to the schedules of search engine conferences for training workshops.

But I often wonder if "in-depth training" is the right term for the "radical reorientation" that takes place in these intensive workshops. The small class setting ensures participants that their instructor is accessible for informal one-on-one or small group discussions of "why" as well as "how."

As Columbus discovered, training the crews of the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria how to sail west was a relatively straightforward task. The real challenge was convincing Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand that they wouldn't fall off the edge of the world.

Fortunately, the instructors of the SES training workshops are experts who know how to handle both ambidextrously.

So, what can you learn by participating in one of these training workshops?

SES Berlin offers a "Workshopsprogramm" on 23 November, the day before the "kongress." The program includes: • Link Building 2009 Workshop, which will be taught by Christoph Cemper, General Manager, and Melanie Arko, Project Manager CEMPER.COM. • Web Analytics Workshop: Data Into Action, which will be taught by Timo Aden, Gründer und Geschäftsführer, Trakken GmbH. • Best Practices der Suchmaschinenwerbung, which will be taught by Oliver Zenglein, Head of Online Marketing, be2.

Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2009 offers SEM training on December 10, the day after the conference. The half-day workshops include: • Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Workshop, which will be taught by Shari Thurow, Omni Marketing Interactive. • Landing Page Testing Hands On: Developing Your Action Plan, which will be taught by Tim Ash, SiteTuners. • Advanced Keyword Research, which will be taught by Ron Jones, Symetri Internet Marketing. • Social Media and Your Business, which will be taught by Sage Lewis, SageRock.com.

On December 11, SES Chicago 2009 offers partnered training. The full-day workshops include: • Search Engine Optimization Training, which will be taught by Bruce Clay, Bruce Clay, Inc. • Integrating Search Across All Online Marketing Efforts, which will be taught by Aaron Kahlow, Chairman & Founder, Online Marketing Summit; Ray "Catfish" Comstock, Senior Search Strategist, BusinessOnLine; Paul Sherman, President Emeritas, Usability Professionals Organization (OMI Professor); Jennifer Wessenmeyer, VP Analytics, Stratigent; Debbie Qaqish, Partner, Pedowitz Group (OMI professor); and Kevin Espinosa, Director eMarketing, Caterpillar.

Next week, we'll look at more reasons for going to either Search Engine Strategies Berlin or SES Chicago 2009. In the meantime, just keep singing "nine trainers training, eight days a-learning, seven tracks amazing, six booths astounding, five brand new things, four keynote themes, three key trends, two early birds, and a ranking in the top three."

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 2:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 6, 2009

PRSA 2009 International Conference Features Two Online Marketing Heroes

I'll by flying to San Diego this weekend to speak at the PRSA 2009 International Conference next week. Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank Online Marketing and a member of the SES Advisory Board, will also be speaking at the annual Public Relations Society of America event.

Odden is speaking on Monday, November 9, at 10:15 a.m. about "Help Google Find Your Releases: Top 10 Search Engine Optimization Tactics for Public Relations Professionals."

Nine out of 10 journalists, reporters and editors use search engines to do their jobs, according to a recent survey by TopRank Online Marketing. In this environment, public relations professionals must understand the ins and outs of search engine optimization (SEO).

So, Odden will help PR people find out how to choose the best key words, optimize their newsroom and press releases, build better links, and sell SEO to decision makers. Plus, he'll share "the No. 1 SEO tactic to implement today."

I'll be speaking on Tuesday, November 10, at 11:15 a.m. with Laura Sturaitis, the senior vice president, media and product services, at Business Wire.

How do you know your press release delivers value? Are there ways to increase a press releases' ROI?

Sturaitis and I will discuss real live examples and techniques to get the most mileage for press releases, especially in the Web 2.0 world. We'll explain why PR people need to work hand-in-hand with their Web team to see how visitors are getting to their site and moving through it. We'll also examine Web analytics for compiling, tracking and measuring activity deriving from the press release via the wires and elsewhere.

If you want a preview, check out my post on the ComPRrehension blog, which is entitled, "Does Your Press Release Deliver Value?"

Odden and I also spoke last year at the PRSA 2008 International Conference in Detroit. Why is this useful information for search engine optimizers to share with their colleagues down the hall in the public relations department? SEO specialists and PR specialists need to work together to handle the opportunities and threats created by Google universal search.

When Google announced universal search in May 2007, Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience at Google, said, "The ultimate goal of universal search is to break down the silos of information that exist on the web and provide the very best answer every time a user enters a query."

This radically changed everything we knew about search engine optimization (SEO) and public relations (PR). If your webmaster isn't optimizing content for YouTube, Google News, or Google Images, then who is?

With more than 12.8 billion expanded search queries a month on Google Sites in the U.S., this isn't a rhetorical question. In other words, the SEO specialists and PR specialists need to get out of their silos to ensure that their organization is getting found in all the right places.

As I told Michael Miller, the author of "Online Marketing Heroes: Interviews with 25 Successful Online Marketing Gurus," back in 2008, "For a good part of the 20th century, every part of the marketing mix was in a different silo. Advertising had its lingo and its metrics, and PR had its lingo and its metrics, and if you had a group that was focused on trade shows and events, they had their lingo and their metrics, etcetera. One of the things that is sort of a byproduct of keeping people in their silos is that things that the email marketing people learned ten years ago, or the search engine marketing people earned five years ago, the PR people in the same organization haven't learned yet. As a result, they keep doing what used to work but stopped working a long time ago, only nobody noticed."

I added, "To the extent that you can get the PR people interacting with the search people, they will discover that there are lots of things they can do together."

And Odden was also interviewed for Miller's book. So, your PR people will be getting the same advice no matter which online marketing guru they listen to at the PRSA 2009 International Conference -- or which chapter of Miller's book they read.

Odden and I both spoke at SES London 2008. Check out my video interview with him below.

Lee Odden, TopRank Online Marketing, at SES London 2008

And Odden and I are both speaking at SES Chicago 2009. So, there's no escaping our combined message: Get out of your silo; start interacting with other members of your marketing team.

Get it? Got it? Good.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 3:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

November 4, 2009

Go to SES Berlin or SES Chicago for Eight Days A-Learning

During the past seven weeks, I've shared seven compelling reasons for going to either Search Engine Strategies Berlin or SES Chicago 2009. For those of you who want to join in the chorus, they are "seven tracks amazing, six booths astounding, five brand new things, four keynote themes, three key trends, two early birds, and a ranking in the top three."

This week, I'll share an eighth great reason -- and it isn't "eight maids a-milking."

You should attend these events for "eight days a-learning."

SES Berlin starts on 23 November with one day of "workshop" and continues 24 and 25 November with two days of "kongress." Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2009 runs December 7 through 11. It starts with three days of conference sessions, which are followed by two days of training.

If you think no one can possibly cram eight days of learning into two events a couple of weeks apart, you'd be wrong. Andy Atkins-Kruger, Mike Grehan, Bill Hunt, Motoko Hunt, Anne Kennedy and Richard Zwicky, among others, will be at Search Engine Strategies Berlin and SES Chicago 2009.

Yes, yes, these road warriors are speaking at both events. But when they aren't speaking, they'll be sitting in other conference sessions learning. That's one of the secrets of their success. In fact, they'll learn more in eight days than many of us will learn in a year.

That's why I like interviewing well-traveled people for the SES Conference Expo's channel on YouTube. It's like interviewing the philosophers in The School of Athens, one of the most famous paintings by the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael.

And I know that no one would confuse the Crowne Plaza Berlin City Centre, where Search Engine Strategies Berlin is being held, or the Hilton Chicago, where SES Chicago 2009 is being held, with the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican, where The School of Athens decorates one of the walls. And I'm pretty sure that speakers at these two events won't be walking around wearing togas.

But there is much to learn from the industry's top search experts, including representatives from the search engines themselves. Here are some samples of some of the speakers who you will find walking around these events.

At SES Chicago 2008, Byron Gordon of SEO-PR interviewed Andy Atkins-Kruger, the founder of WebCertain. Andy discussed his favorite speaker and also talked about the state of search in Europe for 2009. Andy Atkins-Kruger, WebCertain, discusses SES Chicago and SES London 2009

At SES San Jose 2009, John Mulligan of SEO-PR interviewed Thomas Bindl, CEO of Refined Labs, about SES Berlin 2009. Thomas talked about the history of SES in Germany and says the current speaker line-up is the best the conference has seen so far, including coverage of such topics as social media, PPC, organic, etc.

Thomas Bindl, Refined Labs, previews SES Berlin 2009 At SES San Jose 2009, I interveiwed Mike Grehan, the newly-anointed VP and Global Content Director at SES, SEW, and ClickZ. Mike talked about the search world's attempted transition into social media, and the challenges this poses for traditional search engine marketers and organic search engine optimization professionals.

Mike Grehan, the new VP and Global Content Director, ties social media to search, SES San Jose 2009

At SES San Jose 2008, I interviewed Bill Hunt about his new book, Search Engine Marketing, Inc.: Driving Search Traffic to Your Company's Web site. Bill will be the keynote speaker at SES Berlin 2009.

Greg Jarboe interviews Bill Hunt about his new book

At SES London 2009, I interviewed Motoko Hunt, founder of AJPR, LLC, about mobile search. Motoko saids mobile search is exploding in Asia, with the creation of the mobile web back in 1999.

Motoko Hunt, AJPR, LLC previews mobile search panel at SES London 2009 At SES London 2009, I interviewed Anne Kennedy, Managing Partner & Founder, Beyond Ink, about search getting "all the credit." Anne said the clicks are there and we know that different people come from different places in their buying cycles.

Anne Kennedy, Beyond Ink, on the importance of search at SES London 2009 At SES San Jose 2009, John Mulligan of SEO-PR interviewed Matt McGowan, VP Publishing, Incisive Media, about upcoming SES shows at Chicago and Berlin. Matt says after having SES shows in various cities in Germany, including Hamburg and Munich, it was time to schedule one in Berlin.

Matt McGowan, VP Publishing, Incisive Media previews SES Chicago and Berlin '09

And at SES San Jose 2008, Byron Gordon of SEO-PR interviewed Richard Zwicky of Enquisite, about click fraud. Richard stressed the importance that ad networks place on users to file claims whenever they have identfied network errors and/or possible fraud.

Richard Zwicky, Enquisite, discusses click fraud

Next week, we'll look at more reasons for going to either Search Engine Strategies Berlin or SES Chicago 2009. In the meantime, just keep singing "eight days a-learning, seven tracks amazing, six booths astounding, five brand new things, four keynote themes, three key trends, two early birds, and a ranking in the top three."

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 2:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 28, 2009

Tweet This: 19 Percent of Internet Users Use Twitter

According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 19 percent of Internet users now say they use Twitter or another service to share updates about themselves, or to see updates about others. This represents a significant increase over previous surveys conducted in December 2008 and April 2009, when 11 percent of internet users said they used Twitter or another micro-blogging service.

Three groups of Internet users are responsible for driving the growth of this activity: social networking site users, mobile Internet users, and adults under age 44.

In addition, the more devices someone owns, the more likely they are to use Twitter or another service to update their status. Fully 39 percent of Internet users with four or more internet-connected devices (such as a laptop, cell phone, game console, or Kindle) use Twitter, compared to 28 percent of Internet users with three devices, 19 percent of Internet users with two devices, and 10 percent of Internet users with one device.

The median age of a Twitter user is 31, which has remained stable over the past year. By comparison, the median age for a LinkedIn user is now 39, down from 40, while the median age for a Facebook user is now 33, up from 26 in May 2008.

According to Pew, it will become more difficult to track status updating as an independent activity as social network updates feed into Twitter and vice versa. For now, it is clear that a "social segment" of internet users is flocking to both social network sites and status update services. This segment is likely to grow as ever more internet users adopt mobile devices as a primary means of going online.

Cindy Krum, CEO of Rank-Mobile, interviewed Mark Jackson, CEO of Vizion Interactive, about the Twitter panel discussion at SES Toronto 2009.

Twitter is no Google - Mark Jackson, Vizion Interactive at SES Toronto 2009

At SES Chicago 2009, Jackson will be speaking at the "SEO Through Blogs & Feeds" session, and Krum will be speaking at the "Cool Mobile Apps, Augmented Reality - It's a Brave New World!" session.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 5:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

October 26, 2009

Go to SES Berlin or SES Chicago for Seven Tracks Amazing

During the past six weeks, I've rolled out six great reasons for going to either Search Engine Strategies Berlin or SES Chicago 2009. For those of you who want to join in the chorus, they are "six booths astounding, five brand new things, four keynote themes, three key trends, two early birds, and a ranking in the top three."

This week, I'll share a seventh compelling reason -- and it isn't "seven swans a-swimming."

You should plan to attend SES Berlin or Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2009 to discover "seven tracks amazing."

Let's start with the two tracks at Search Engine Strategies Berlin. On November 24, Day 1 of the conference, one is the Fundamentals Track (Grundlagenkurs) and the other is the Advanced Track (Fortgeschrittenenkurs). On Day 2, one is the Issues & Strategies Track (Problembereiche und Strategien) and the other is the Tactics Track (Taktik).

What makes two different tracks on two different days amazing? Even the simple structure of the SES Berlin conference captures the complexity of the search engine marketing industry.

If this is your first search engine marketing conference, you may suffer from the naïve hope that you can learn everything you need to know in two days. However, attending sessions in the Fundamentals Track teaches you that you will have to come back again next year to attend sessions in the Advanced Track. Or, deciding which track to attend on Day 2 teaches you the difference between strategy and tactics.

According to Seth Godin, "Here's the difference: The right strategy makes any tactic work better. The right strategy puts less pressure on executing your tactics perfectly." He adds, "It takes real guts to abandon a strategy, especially if you've gotten super good at the tactics."

So, what makes simple structure so amazing it that the sessions you attend teach you what you don't know and the sessions you don't attend help you understand that there is still more to learn.

Now, let's turn to the five tracks at SES Chicago 2009. On December 7, Day 1 of the conference, they are: Search Fundamentals; Blended Search Results; Analytics, Conversion & Attribution; The State of Search; and Search on the Edge. On December 8, Day 2 of the conference, they are: Search Fundamentals; News & Advertising; Small Business Track; Geek Speak; and ClickZ/OMS Track. And on December 9, Day 3 of the conference, they are: In-House; Hybrid; Advanced Issues; Vertical, Retail, B2B; and Clinics.

What's so amazing about this? Well, back on September 28, I mentioned that one of the three key trends was "change." To back this up, I pointed out that only 12 out of the 65 sessions at Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2009 were repeats from last year's conference.

Well, if you look at this year's tracks, only two out of 15 are repeats from last year's conference: hybrid and Clinics. This indicates that the philosophical and theoretical framework of the search engine marketing industry is changing even faster than our knowledge of the latest search industry trends.

Or, to paraphrase former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, there are known knowns (things we know we know), known unknowns (things we know we do not know), and unknown unknowns (the things we don't know we don't know).

I think I know what he meant, but I don't know if I really know.

But, even though I can't explain it, I have a funny feeling that the unknown unknowns about our industry now outnumber known unknowns -- and its time to question your assumptions about the known knowns, because many need to be re-examined.

So, let's just say that the search engine marketing industry is undergoing a "paradigm shift."

If you want the backstory on this shift, read the column, "When Community Is Search," by Mike Grehan, the VP and Global Content Director at SES, Search Engine Watch, and ClickZ.

Or, if you agree with Grehan that content is more than "Text, text, and more text," then watch my video interview with him at SES San Jose 2009 about the link between search and social.

Mike Grehan, the new VP and Global Content Director, ties social media to search, SES San Jose 2009

This is really why you should bring your whole team to either SES Berlin or Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2009. All of you not only need to learn more about the known unknowns, all of you must also discover some of the unknown unknowns and re-examine many of the known knowns to make it through the paradigm shift successfully.

Or, as Yoda observed a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, "You must unlearn what you have learned." Or, as Yogurt observed in the 1987 movie by Mel Brooks, "God willing, we'll all meet again in Spaceballs 2: The Search for More Money."

And speaking of money, the are special group discounts at the Windy City event. Although the first two conference registrants pay full price, the third person from the same organization, registering at the same time qualifies for 50% off his or her registration fee.

Next week, we'll look at more reasons for going to either Search Engine Strategies Berlin or SES Chicago 2009. In the meantime, keep singing "seven tracks amazing, six booths astounding, five brand new things, four keynote themes, three key trends, two early birds, and a ranking in the top three."

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 2:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 20, 2009

Go to SES Berlin or SES Chicago for "Six Booths Astounding"

During the past five weeks, I've provided five great reasons for going to either Search Engine Strategies Berlin or SES Chicago 2009. For those who want to join in the chorus, they are "five brand new things, four keynote themes, three key trends, two early birds, and a ranking in the top three."

This week, I'll share a sixth compelling reason -- and it isn't "six geese a-laying."

You should plan to attend SES Berlin or Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2009 to discover "six booths astounding."

I know, I know, most of us attend SES events to learn as much as we can in the conference sessions. Hey, I spend more than 80% of my time there, too.

But, I always make room in my schedule to walk the trade-show floor at SES events -- because I always discover half a dozen booths from companies that have astounding new products or services.

Now, it's hard to predict which six booths will astound you at Search Engine Strategies Berlin or SES Chicago 2009. But I do recommend that you make time to check out the expo hall.

And I can share with you half a dozen exhibitors that astounded John Mulligan, my colleague at SEO-PR, as he walked the trade show floor for SESConferenceExpo's Channel at Search Engine Strategies San Jose back in August.

If past is prologue, then you'll find that it's well worth your time to visit the booths in the exhibit hall, too.

Ryan Hupfer, HubPages, and Ren Chin, YieldBuild on exhibiting at SES San Jose 2009

Ryan Hupfer, Communicator of Awesomeness!, and Ren Chin, VP of Marketing, YieldBuild discussed exhibiting at SES San Jose 2009 with Mulligan. YieldBuild is an online ad optimization company which helps web publishers make more money from their online ads. This is done by formatting optimization, help publishers figure out best placements for their ads for their website and which networks perform best in which ad spot. YieldBuild supports different networks including Google AdSense, Microsoft PubCenter and Ad.com.

Steve Wiideman on Local Splash, search engine marketing solution at SES San Jose 2009

Steve Wiideman, owner of SEO Expert TV spoke at SES San Jose 2009 about Local Splash, a local search engine marketing solution for businesses that are regional or local. Local Splash has a proprietary application that helps businesses get higher ranking in the map sections of Google, Yahoo and Bing. Local Splash helps businesses by verifying their information, lock down the account and optimize it so it gets better ranking. Local Splash also looks at categories for all of your competitors to understand the best possible sequence of categories that a business can be placed in.

Jennifer Whaley, Century Interactive, on driving phone calls to your website at SES San Jose 2009

Mulligan also interviewed Jennifer Whaley of Century Interactive on the exhibitor floor at SES San Jose 2009. Century Interactive links website sessions to phone calls and tracks those phone calls, chats and clicks that result from print and web campaigns. Jennifer described the types of clients that Century Interactive caters and, in particular, those clients who don't sufficiently understand clickthroughs and bounce-rates but understand phone calls and helps them understand what key influences are driving their business such as keyword terms, referring websites, etc.

Paul Pellman, ClickForensics, on exhibiting at SES San Jose 2009 Paul Pellman, the CEO of ClickForensics, discussed the company's product at SES San Jose 2009 with Mulligan. Pellman talked about many of ClickForensics new initiatives, including their new interface for their publisher and ad network clients which allows their customers to drill down and monitor their existing source of traffic and quickly screen approve new sources of traffic and identify the quality of that traffic. Pellman said clients are seeing an immediate impact on the quality of traffic they deliver to their advertisers and feed partners and to be able to negotiate better deals.

Frank Rocco, Adfare Video Solutions discusses cheap video advertising at SES San Jose 2009

Frank Rocco of Adfare Video Solutions discussed exhibiting at SES San Jose 2009 with Mulligan. Adfare produces video ads in a short time frame and deliver them in less than $150 per video. Adfare can produce cheap video ads because it can take existing content, anything the customer or advertiser has online, and download those images or footage and build a script and produce a high powered, effective video within 48 hours. Adfare works across a variety of platforms, including mobile.

Wendy Roe, Pixelsilk, on exhibiting for the first time at SES San Jose 2009

Last, but not least, was Wendy Roe of Pixelsilk, who discussed the company's content management system. Pixelsilk debuted Bruce Clay's SEO toolset inside the company's Search Advice so you can get advice and recommendations for your SEO next to the content editor.

Next week, we'll look at more reasons to go to either Search Engine Strategies Berlin or SES Chicago 2009. In the meantime, keep singing "six booths astounding, five brand new things, four keynote themes, three key trends, two early birds, and a ranking in the top three."

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 2:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

October 18, 2009

NACA's Save the Dream Tour Tops 315,000 Participants in 7 Cities

We've been following NACA's Save the Dream Tour this year. The first three cities were featured in a case study at SES San Jose 2009 during the How to Optimize for Search & Engage the Community session as well as at the Social Media & Video Strategies Forum during the What Works: Best Practices / Case Studies for Online Video session.

Since then, NACA has held Save the Dream events in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Las Vegas -- and is currently in the middle of an event at the Cow Palace in San Francisco, which will run through Tuesday, October 20.

NACA's Save the Dream has been an incredible success with over 315,000 participants at the first seven cities, with many thousands having their mortgage restructured with interest rates permanently reduced to as low as 2%. Although there has been some skepticism about how they can do this, NACA has legally binding agreements with all the major lenders/servicers to achieve this.

I spent Friday and Saturday at the Cow Palace to see the event for myself. And I've decided to feature an update of their case study at SES Chicago 2009.

To date, NACA has issued 15 optimized press releases about NACA Save the Dream events in eight cities. These press releases have 2,120,603 headline impressions and 32,596 full page reads, according to PRWeb.

The documentary video about NACA's Save the Dream tour has only 2,920 views. But it has helped to generate coverage more than 29 stories on local TV stations.

NACA's campaign includes press release optimization, YouTube video, blog outreach, media relations, and Twitter marketing. Through the end of September, it had generated 363 posts, 300 tweets, 21 mainstream news stories, and 7 YouTube videos.

To get a sense of what these stories are saying, read: "The American Dream is not lost- NACA stages Save The Dream Events" by Clifford Wright in the LA Baptist Examiner. Or read "Thousands at Cow Palace seeking mortgage help" by Carolyn Said of the San Francisco Chronicle.

Bruce Marks, NACA's founder and CEO, was profiled by ABC News on Nightline Sept. 5, 2009. And CBS Evening News with Katie Couric featured a story by Anthony Mason entitled, "Homeowner Hero's War on Banks," on Friday evening, Oct. 16, 2009.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Subtitled, "The American Spirit: One Man's Crusade to Help Others Restructure Loans," Mason's story says, "With at least one in every 136 homes at risk of foreclosure, one man has persuaded some mortgage holders to renegotiate with borrowers."

According to Compete, there were 724,305 unique visitors to NACA.com in July, August and September 2009, more than double the 361,764 unique visitors to the site in April, May and June 2009, and almost triple the 270,486 unique visitors to NACA.com in July, August and September 2008.

Oh, and all those visitors arrived before the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric ran it's story last Friday. And if the five-day San Francisco event attracts 60,000 participants, which is how many the five-day Atlanta event did, then NACA's 8-city Save the Dream Tour will have attracted 375,000 participants.

That's an amazing story for a national non-profit community advocacy and homeownership organization. I'm just grateful that they're letting me help them tell it.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 9:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

October 12, 2009

Go to SES Berlin or SES Chicago for "Five Brand New Things"

During the past four weeks, I've provided four great reasons for going to either Search Engine Strategies Berlin or SES Chicago 2009. For those who want to join in the chorus, they are "four keynote themes, three key trends, two early birds, and a ranking in the top three."

This week, I'll share a fifth compelling reason -- and it isn't "five golden rings."

You should plan to attend SES Berlin or Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2009 to discover "five brand new things."

Most of the focus at these events is on the conference sessions, but I've always made time to prowl the floor of the exhibit hall to see "what's new." And I don't mean trade show tchotchke.

Now, sometimes I see a booth from a brand new company that I've never heard of before. And other times, I find a brand new product or service being demoed in the booth of a big brand name. And every now and again, I uncover the latest SEO or SEM tools in a sponsored session at the conference.

I know, I know, this is like saying that I watch the Super Bowl in order the see the commercials. But, that's why the official name of the event is Search Engine Strategies Conference & Expo.

Now, it's hard to predict the five brand new things you'll come across at either Search Engine Strategies Berlin or SES Chicago 2009. As either Niels Bohr or Yogi Berra once said, "It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future."

But, I've been attending five of more Search Engine Strategies a year for more than five years on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, so I'm reasonably confident that SES Berlin and Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2009 will feature their fair share of brand new things.

And I should probably say something like, "Past performance is not indicative of future results," but let me share some actual examples of the five brand new things featured at previous SES events by Byron Gordon, my colleague at SEO-PR, who conducts many of the interviews for SESConferenceExpo's Channel.

Acquisio PPC Management Client Demo & How-to

At SES Toronto 2008, Marc Poirier, Chief Marketing Officer of Acquisio, gave a how-to demonstration of Acquisio's online advertising campaign and client management / report generation tool. Acquisio is a PPC management software company that builds software to help agencies automate processes they have to deal with in their monthly campaign management. It is exhibiting at Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2009.

Stacey Jarvis, Microsoft Canada, on Bing, at SES Toronto 2009

At Search Engine Strategies Toronto 2009, Stacey Jarvis, Search Lead, Consumer & Online, Microsoft Canada, discussed Microsoft's Bing. Stacey said Bing has evolved from what was originally a pure search engine to a "decision engine." Bing is a Platinum Sponsor of SES Berlin.

Dan Morris, Brafton, on customized news feeds for websites at SES New York 2009

At Search Engine Strategies New York 2009, Dan Morris of Brafton, a custom news agency, was interviewed. Morris said Brafton writes for each client specific stories about breaking news developments in their respective industry, using keyword strategy and links. Brafton is exhibiting at SES Chicago 2009.

Alex Torres, Google, on Google tools that help to maximize your website's ROI

As Search Engine Strategies New York 2009, Google Enterprise Product Marketing Manager, Alex Torres, was interviewed about using Google's many tools, including website optimizer, Adwords analytics and Site Search to help website owners maximize their ROI. Alex discussed the reasons why Google expanded its offerings and recommends website owners to use a holistic approach when incorporating Google's website tools. Google is holding sponsored sessions at SES Chicago 2009.

Jeev Trika, Visibility Magazine, at SES Chicago 2008

At Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2008, Jeev Trika, Visibility Magazine, was interviewed. Visibility Magazine started in 2007 and focuses exclusively on Internet marketing strategies. Visibility Magazine is exhibiting at SES Chicago 2009.

Next week, we'll look at more reasons to go to either Search Engine Strategies Berlin or SES Chicago 2009. In the meantime, keep singing " five brand new things, four keynote themes, three key trends, two early birds, and a ranking in the top three."

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 2:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 5, 2009

Go to SES Berlin or SES Chicago for "Four Keynote Themes"

During the past three weeks, I've given you three great reasons for going to either Search Engine Strategies Berlin or SES Chicago 2009. For those who want to catch up, they were "three key trends", "two early birds," and "a ranking in the top three."

This week, I'll focus on a fourth compelling reason -- and it isn't to hear "four calling birds."

You should plan to attend SES Berlin or Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2009 to hear "four keynote themes."

Let's start with SES Chicago 2009, where there will be three keynote themes well worth hearing.

On Day 1, the opening keynote is being given by Jeff Jarvis, author of What Would Google Do? He is associate professor and director of the interactive journalism program at the City University of New York's new Graduate School of Journalism. He is also consulting editor and a partner at Daylife, a news startup.

Jarvis writes about media, technology and business on his blog, BuzzMachine. A former TV critic for TV Guide and People magazine, as well as the creator and founding editor of Entertainment Weekly, he has also been assistant city editor and reporter for the Chicago Tribune and a reporter for Chicago Today.

"My keynote, like my book, isn't really about Google," says Jarvis. "It will be about the profound changes in the economy and society brought on by the Internet -- as seen through the success of the one company that has figured out and exploited them better than any other: Google."

Jarvis adds, "We'll have fun discussing the impact of search and the Google economy on every sector from media to advertising to restaurants to government.

On Day 2 of Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2009, the keynote speaker is Peter Morville, author of the best-sellers Ambient Findability: What We Find Changes Who We Become and Information Architecture for the World Wide Web: Designing Large-Scale Web Sites. He is also the President of Semantic Studios and blogs at findability.org.

During his keynote, Morville is expected to expand on the themes found in his published works, including the idea of findability and the importance of a navigable and friendly user interface.

"At SES Chicago, this will be my first opportunity to talk about ideas in my new book - about the future of search and discovery," says Morville. "In addition to exploring the relationships between information architecture, ambient findability, and search engine optimization, we'll also be covering mobile search, decision engines, augmented reality, and emerging technologies that will change the way we find everything from answers and articles to products and people."

On Day 3, the keynote speaker is Dan Siroker, the web entrepreneur known for leading the analytics team for the Barack Obama presidential campaign. He also served as the Deputy Director of New Media on the presidential transition team.

Siroker's team of software engineers and analysts were responsible for optimizing the effectiveness of the Obama campaign's online operations that ended up raising over half a billion dollars, registering over 2 million voters, and enabling 3 million phone calls to be made in the final four days of the campaign.

Before joining the Obama campaign, Siroker was a Product Manager for Google Chrome and, before that, he worked as a Product Manager for Google AdWords.

"SES Chicago is, of course, in the President's hometown, so I'm really looking forward to sharing the lessons my team and I learned during the Obama campaign and how these practices can be applied to any data-driven decision," says Siroker. "Whether you're a developer, designer or marketer, if you're building a product or selling an idea, you can use data to do it better."

The fourth keynote theme will be delivered by Bill Hunt, the President of Back Azimuth Consulting and co-author of the best selling book "Search Engine Marketing, Inc.: Driving Search Traffic to Your Company's Web Site", who will be the opening keynote speaker at Search Engine Strategies Berlin.

Hunt is currently on the Board of Directors of the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization and writes Bill Hunt's Rants & Raves blog, which provides digital marketing commentary from a global marketing road warrior.

Hunt firmly believes that when we understand the searcher's intent, where a searcher is in the buying cycle or even understanding the type of search they are doing, advertisers can better intersect with the current demand for their type of products and services to increase sales. That's a keynote theme worth going to SES Berlin to hear.

Next week, we'll look at more reasons to go to either Search Engine Strategies Berlin or SES Chicago 2009. In the meantime, keep singing "four keynote themes, three key trends, two early birds, and a ranking in the top three."

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 3:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

September 28, 2009

Go to SES Berlin or SES Chicago for "Three Key Trends"

During the past two weeks, I've given you a couple of reasons why you should go to either Search Engine Strategies Berlin or SES Chicago 2009. For those who want to sing along, they were "two early birds," and "a ranking in the top three."

There are other compelling reasons to attend one of these upcoming Search Engine Strategies conferences -- and it isn't to get "three French hens." That might have been persuasive back in the Middle Ages, but it hardly seems relevant or important these days.

The compelling reasons driving us to attend SES Berlin or Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2009 are "three key trends."

The first key trend is change. Nothing in search marketing is as certain as change. And it appears that the pace of change is accelerating.

Back in 2005, I wrote, "I know that half of what I learned at last year's show is obsolete, and I had to go to this year's show to find out which half." As I continued to track Search Engine Strategies into 2006, this trend continued, unabated. And this was reflected in the conference agenda, where about 50% of the sessions changed from year to year to keep up with the latest search industry trends.

But I've just spent some time comparing the titles and descriptions of sessions for SES Chicago 2009 with the ones for Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2008. And only 12 of the 65 sessions at this year's conference are repeats from last year -- and one of these is the Site Clinic, which may have the same title and description, but features entirely new content.

This means that more than 83% of the content of this year's conference is brand new. Mention this to the folks in finance if they ask, "Didn't you go to this event last year?" Do you think they could afford to skip a financial conference if 83% of the generally accepted accounting principles had changed since last year?

And if the bean counters need an example, mention that Bing didn't exist a year ago -- and now it is grabbing market share, according to the latest comScore qSearch analysis of the U.S. search marketplace.

So, what should be on your search radar for 2010 and beyond? As I said last week, the search engine marketing industry changes so rapidly, that you need to attend SES Berlin or Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2009 to stay up-to-date on the latest market trends.

The second key trend is training.

Last year at SES Hamburg, there were two days of conference sessions. This year at Search Engine Strategies Berlin, there is a day of Workshopsprogramm as well as two days of conference sessions.

At SES Chicago 2008, there was only one day of training workshops. At Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2009, there are two days of training workshops -- one offering a selection of half-day workshops and the second featuring a full day of training by Bruce Clay. In addition, SES has partnered with Market Motive to offer online certification courses.

Now, if type "SEO training" into Google Insights for Search, you'll see that web search interest has grown steadily since 2004 -- and is forecast to continue growing in 2010. So, it's not surprising that more time is being added to the schedules of search engine conferences for training workshops.

But I often wonder if "training" is the right term for the frequent updates that are needed in the rapidly changing search industry. I've heard the term, "lifelong learning," but I've never heard the term, "lifelong training."

But consider this: If you took an SEO training course before May 16, 2007, it wouldn't have covered universal search. Since then, Google has incorporated information from a variety of previously separate sources - including videos, news, images, maps, and websites - into a single set of results.

So, optimizing your website for the era of 10 blue links is like drinking milk two years after the expiration date.

Fortunately, the instructors of the SES training workshops are experts. And their small class settings ensure that you will learn the latest strategy and tactics for today's fast changing search world.

The third key trend is Mike Grehan.

In August, Incisive Media announced the appointment of Grehan as VP and Global Content Director for Search Engine Watch, ClickZ, and Search Engine Strategies. He is one of the big names in our space and has a global reputation.

Grehan wrote one of the first books on search and worked in a senior management capacity on the agency side of the business for a very long time. He has been associated with Search Engine Strategies as a speaker for many years and he's hosted SES London for the past two years.

SES Chicago 2009 will be the first conference to reflect his thought leadership. You can get a preview of his big ideas in the video interview below, which was conducted at SES San Jose 2008.

Mike Grehan, the new VP and Global Content Director, ties social media to search, SES San Jose 2009

Next week, we'll look at more reasons to go to either Search Engine Strategies Berlin or SES Chicago 2009. In the meantime, keep singing "three key trends, two early birds, and a ranking in the top three."

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 7:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

September 23, 2009

Go To SES Berlin Or SES Chicago For "Two Early Birds"

Last week, I told you to go to SES Berlin or SES Chicago for "a ranking in the top three." This week, I'll continue with the search engine marketing industry version of "two turtle doves."

Altogether now: "Two early birds, and a ranking in the top three."

Search industry veterans know that the Early Bird Rate for SES Chicago 2009 ends this Friday, Sept. 25. If you register by then, you can save up to $600 on a Platinum Passport.

Now, the agenda overview of the SES Chicago conference has just been posted. So, you can look over the agenda and decide that this is a must-attend event. Or, you might notice that 11 of the 65 sessions are "Reserved For Late-Breaking Topic."

Why is this a great reason to sign up now?

As I said last week, the search engine marketing industry changes so rapidly, that you need to attend more than one or two Search Engine Strategies conferences a year to stay up-to-date on the latest market trends.

And Mike Grehan, Senior Vice President of content for Search Engine Watch, ClickZ, and Search Engine Strategies, Stewart Quealy, SES Advisory Board Co-Chair and VP of Content Development, as well as the other members of the SES Advisory Board understand this.

So, they've posted titles and descriptions of three keynotes and 50 sessions -- so you know there will be plenty of new content to learn -- and save enough slots to address the late-breaking topics that industry veterans know will pop up between now and then.

Hey, a number of us are budgeting the same way. I can tell you where 85 percent of my fourth quarter budget is going, but the last 15 percent may get shifted around to take advantage of new opportunities or to counter unexpected threats.

But you don't need to be an industry veteran to take advantage of the Early Bird Rates. You just need to make your move more than two months before your more cautious competitors.

SES Berlin also offers "Early Bird" rates. At least, that's what it says on the website before explaining the details in German.

To help us non-German speaking search engine marketers understand why we should attend, here is John Mulligan's interview with Thomas Bindl, one of Europe's leading authorities on search.

Thomas Bindl, Refined Labs, previews SES Berlin 2009

With the exception of the "Search around the World" session, which will be in English, all of the other sessions at SES Berlin will be in German. The session are also organized into a Fundamentals Track for those who are new to the field and an Advanced Track for search engine marketing industry veterans.

In the coming weeks, I'll share more reasons why you should go to SES Berlin November 24-2w5 or SES Chicago December 7-11. If you come up with some lyrics like "12 bloggers blogging," let me know. I could use some inspiration.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

How To Pimp Your YouTube Channel and Other Miscellaneous Advice

This may seem like shameless self-promotion, but if you read all the way to the bottom of this post, you'll benefit in ways that you wouldn't imagine. Besides, I figure that you'd want to know how to pimp your YouTube channel and get other miscellaneous advice. I could always blog about this topic, but the details have just been dished out in three videos and a podcast.

Let's start with the interview that Mike McDonald of WebProNews did with me at SES San Jose 2009. (Actually, the video starts by itself, but don't let that throw you.) The video is entitled, Finding Marketing Value in YouTube.

With people being increasingly drawn to video content, everyone is trying to capitalize on video sharing sites such as YouTube. I told McDonald, however, there is one problem: it isn't always easy.

YouTube is known for funny videos of cats or children. While these videos may go viral, they will likely only produce a one-time audience. In other words, these kids and cats may not to do the same thing again, which means there would be no reason for viewers to return to that channel for more content.

To be successful on YouTube, users cannot simply upload a single video. Statistics show that in an average minute, 24 hours of video has been uploaded to YouTube. As a result of this large amount of competition, I tell McDonald that users should create a series of "compelling content" in order to bring viewers back continually.

Users have to have a reason for wanting to come back to a particular YouTube channel and it is up to the content providers to produce that desire. Is your YouTube channel creating that appeal?

Now, I should provide equal time for other views.

Over at ReelSEO, Mark R Robertson interviewed me at SES San Jose 2009 about Leveraging the Power of YouTube for Search Marketing. I told him, "One of the most important trends in search is YouTube. It is the second most popular search engine on the planet."

But I suggested a two-pronged approach:

1. Optimize your video so that it can be found in searches 2. Involve yourself in the community, which helps breed the sharing aspects of YouTube.

I then told a story about Monty Python. I interviewed Monty Python's producer about their YouTube efforts. The producer originally just went looking for a way to help keep pirated copies of Monty Python's work from being uploaded all over the place. So they created their own channel and began posting their work themselves -- in a higher quality.

As an afterthought, they put a click-to-buy link at the bottom of the video so that users could click and be taken straight to Amazon to purchase DVDs. A funny thing happened when they did that: sales went up a staggering 23,000%.

The point of the story, obviously, is that although YouTube is not thought of as a direct-response marketing platform, as it continues to evolve, it's turning into a direct-response marketing solution faster than people may realize.

But wait! There's more! Check out the YouTube video below. Mike Grehan, Senior Vice President of content for Search Engine Watch, ClickZ, and Search Engine Strategies, says my new book "won't help you find the answer to life, the universe and everthing in it, but I guarantee it will help you get your videos found on YouTube, Google and other sites. So, read this book. It will change your life. You'll become more wealthy, more attractive to the opposite sex."

Mike Grehan, SVP for SEW, ClickZ and SES on YouTube Marketing: An Hour A Day

If you find this hard to believe, then check out the podcast on DishyMix.

This all started when Susan Bratton saw me dashing through the San Francisco Airport, with a new copy of my book, "YouTube and Video Marketing: An Hour A Day."

Bratton says, it "is another one of those Wiley tomes that plunges all the way to detail hell on every aspect of using web video for marketing. This book is a must-read that will get you up to date on the constant changes YouTube is putting into place so marketers and Google can milk this phenomenon for everything it's worth."

The random encounter at SFO got me invited on DishyMix, where Bratton has just posted her interview of me. It's entitled, Episode 117: Greg Jarboe: Pimp My YouTube Channel, 6-Steps to SEO PR and Roosevelt's Arena.

According to Bratton, "Start making video and let Greg tell you how to produce it, research the keywords and optimize your video so you can get found, watched and loved."

She adds, "And in case you still want to get those press releases out there, Greg gives us his updated, freshly reformulated 6-Step Process for Optimizing Press Releases for the News Services."

If you like those DishyMix episodes where the guest delivers how-to advice in painstaking detail, then this is the show is for you. According to DishyMix, it is "packed with great tips, insider short cuts and a level set on the world of online video marketing, banana-milkshake fueled Jarboe works his buns off for you."

I know, I know, even I would take these comments with a grain of salt.

So, if McDonald's video, Robertson's video, Grehan's video and Bratton's podcast still don't provide you with enough details about video optimization, then you have options.

You can attend today's Online Publicity Workshop at Market Motive. It starts at noon Eastern, 9 a.m. Pacific and is entitled, YouTube & Video Marketing.

No, this isn't duplicate content. I will explore the world of online video, including what it takes to be successful and how to use some of the lesser known tools to prepare and track an online video marketing campaign.

Or, can also attend SES Chicago 2009. On Day 1, Monday, Dec. 7, I'll be speaking at a session entitled, "YouTube & Video Optimization."

Online video marketing is crucial in today's marketplace. More than 158 million Americans watched an average of 8.3 hours of online video during July 2009. That's more viewers than the 151.6 million Americans who watched Super Bowl XLIII, which reached the largest television audience in U.S. history.

My solo presentation will provide you "with proven, practical guidelines for developing and implementing video marketing for your organization." At least, that's what the SES Chicago website says.

And if you register by this Friday, Sept. 25, you can save up to $600 with the Early Bird Rate. See, it does pay to read all the way to the bottom of these posts.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 7:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

September 16, 2009

Go To SES Berlin Or SES Chicago For "A Ranking in the Top Three"

As you plan you schedule for the rest of the year, consider attending SES Berlin, which will be held November 24-25, 2009, and SES Chicago, which will be held December 7-11, 2009.

For a sneak preview, watch the interview with Matt McGowan, VP Publishing at Incisive Media, by John Mulligan of SEO-PR. They talk about the upcoming SES Berlin and SES Chicago events.

McGowan says after having SES shows in various cities in Germany, including Hamburg and Munich, it was time to schedule one in Berlin. He says attendance is expected to be around 500 for SES Berlin in November. And SES Chicago is expected to attract thousands of marketing executives, managers, professionals, specialists and consultants in December.

Matt McGowan, VP Publishing, Incisive Media previews SES Chicago and Berlin '09

Now, why should you go to one of these shows at the end of the year?

There are a dozen reasons, which I will roll out over the next several weeks. But, let me begin by singing the SEO version of "A Partridge in a Pear Tree."

If you read my article in Search Engine Watch back in January 2007, you already know the words. If you didn't, they are: "A Ranking in the Top Three."

If the search industry didn't change so rapidly, then you could attend one or two Search Engine Strategies conferences a year and stay up-to-date on the latest market trends.

But, Google issues two to four press releases a month and two to four blog posts a week that impact your search engine ranking or represent a new marketing opportunity. For example, Google Fast Flip was announced just this week.

Fast Flip is a new reading experience that combines elements of print and online articles. Like a print magazine, Fast Flip lets you browse sequentially through bundles of recent news, headlines and popular topics, as well as feeds from individual publishers. As the name suggests, flipping through content is fast, so you can quickly look through a lot of pages until you find something interesting.

At the same time, Google provides aggregation and search over many top newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Salon, Fast Company, and Newsweek. And it gives you the ability to share content with your friends and community.

Fast Flip also personalizes the experience for you, by taking cues from selections you make to show you more content from sources, topics and journalists that you seem to like. In short, you get fast browsing, natural magazine-style navigation, recommendations from friends and other members of the community and a selection of content that is both serendipitous and personalized.

Google has also made a mobile version of Fast Flip with tactile page flipping for the iPhone and Android-powered devices, so you can browse on the go.

And, Microsoft isn't shy about making announcements early and often, either. Just this week, Microsoft introduced a new Visual Search feature on its Bing search engine to make Web content more visually appealing. Although not directed at news, it displays some categories of search results using thumbnail images instead of text.

So, if you attended SES San Jose in August 2009 and don't go to another event until SES New York in March 2010, I estimate that you'll be about seven months behind the eight ball when you get there.

Now, if you don't mind letting your search engine rankings drop below the top three listings for several months -- or if you aren't worried that your competitors will take advantage of new opportunities before you find out about them -- then happy holidays.

However, if falling behind in a rapidly changing world does concern you, then take a serious look at attending SES Berlin, which will be held November 24-25, 2009, and SES Chicago, which will be held December 7-11, 2009.

If anyone asks you why you're going, simply sing out that you want to get or need to keep "A Ranking in the Top Three."

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 2:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

September 13, 2009

Trade Show Exhibtors at SES San Jose 2009 Have Good Stories to Tell

A month has passed since SES San Jose 2009 -- and you might think that all the good stories to tell have already been told.

But most of the press and blog coverage focused on the conference side of the Search Engine Strategies Conference & Expo. And the trade show exhibitors also had a lot of news to share over on the Expo side of the event.

Now, instead of uploading all the videos from SES San Jose to YouTube in the same week, we've learned that it's better to upload a few each week to SESConferenceExpo's Channel on YouTube. This enables viewers to digest the major stories at a reasonable rate, while also giving them a reason to subscribe to the YouTube channel to get ongoing updates more than five times a year.

Among the trade show exhibitors with good stories to tell was Jennifer Whaley of Century Interactive. John Mulligan of SEO-PR interviewed her on the exhibitor floor at SES San Jose 2009.

Century Interactive links website sessions to phone calls and tracks those phone calls, chats and clicks that result from print and web campaigns. Whaley described the types of clients that Century Interactive caters and, in particular, those clients who don't sufficiently understand clickthroughs and bounce-rates but understand phone calls and helps them understand what key influences are driving their business such as keyword terms, referring websites, etc.

Whaley went on to describe the analytics that Century Interactive uses when servicing their clients; this includes a java script loaded on a website which captures each website session. To learn more about Century Interactive's innovative Web technology, watch the video interview below.

Jennifer Whaley, Century Interactive, on driving phone calls to your website at SES San Jose 2009

Another trade show exhibitor with a good story to tell was Steve Wiideman, owner of Local Splash. We gave him a mic at SES San Jose 2009 and asked him to talk about SEO Expert and Local Splash.

He discussed his local search engine marketing solution for businesses that are regional or local. Local Splash has a proprietary application that helps businesses get higher ranking in the map section of Google, Yahoo and Bing. Local Splash also helps businesses by verifying their information, lock down the account and optimize it so it gets better ranking.

For example, by syndicating a client's business information across the Web to business directories and search sites, Local Splash in turns adds new destinations to their list such as superpages and over time, ranking improves. Local Splash also looks at categories for all of your competitors to understand the best possible sequence of categories that a business can be placed in.

Steve Wiideman on Local Splash, search engine marketing solution at SES San Jose 2009

Another trade show exhibitor with a good story to tell was Tim Musgrove of Digger. We also gave him the mic at SES San Jose 2009 to tell it.

Musgrove discussed the free trial accounts that Digger gave away at the conference. He also talked about Digger's auto-generated topic pages which auto-creates landing pages for content-rich websites.

Tim Musgrove, Digger, at SES San Jose 2009 on semantic technology and free trial software

Wendy Roe of Pixelsilk also talked about exhibiting for the first time at SES San Jose 2009. She discussed the company's content management system.

Pixelsilk debuted Bruce Clay's SEO toolset inside the company's Search Advice so you can get advice and recommendations for your SEO next to the content editor.

Wendy Roe, Pixelsilk, on exhibiting for the first time at SES San Jose 2009

And last but not least, Mulligan interviewed Frank Rocco of Adfare Video Solutions in front of the exhibitor's booth at SES San Jose 2009.

Adfare produces video ads in a short time frame and deliver them in less than $150 per video. Adfare can produce cheap video ads because it can take existing content, anything the customer or advertiser has online, and download those images or footage and build a script and produce a high powered, effective video within 48 hours.

Adfare works across a variety of platforms, including mobile. In the interview below, Rocco discussed one example of local video being used in a mobile platform.

Frank Rocco, Adfare Video Solutions discusses cheap video advertising at SES San Jose 2009

There are more good stories to tell -- but I save those for another day. Hey, it's a long time between now and SES Chicago 2009. So, come back again for an update.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

September 7, 2009

SES Brings SEM and SEO Training Workshops to London

SES holds search engine marketing and search engine optimization training workshops one the days before and after its major conferences on both sides of the pond. But SES is also bringing in SEM and SEO experts to teach full- and half-day of SEM and SEO training workshops in London on Monday, 26 October, 2009.

Andy Atkins-Krüger of WebCertain Global Ltd and Dixon Jones of Receptional LTD will teach a full-day workshop entitled, "Essentials of a Successful SEO Project." The full day of training covers both core and optional elements, allowing SEO practitioners of all levels and skill sets to investigate the areas of SEO most important to their organization.

At SES London 2008, I interviewed Atkins-Kruger about the more serious aspects of organic seo and paid search optimiztion when operating internationally. Check out the video interview below.

Andy Atkins-Krueger, WebCertain, at SES London on YouTube

At SES London 2009, I interviewed Jones about link building strategies. He said there are three elements to developing search engine presence. These include: What does somebody search for, what is on the page and how you link it all together. Check out the video interview below.

Dixon Jones, Receptional LTD, on link building strategies at SES London 2009

There will also be two half-day SEO training workshops at the SES event in October. The first is entitled, "Introduction to Mobile Marketing & Mobile SEO." Taught by Cindy Krum of Rank-Mobile, this 4-hour training session will cover basic mobile marketing strategies that are attracting mobile traffic today.

At SES New York 2009, Crum said mobile search has arrived, especially with the development of such mobile products as the iPhone. Check out the video interview below.

Cindy Krum, Rank-Mobile, on mobile search at SES New York 2009

Finally, Lee Odden of TopRank Online Marketing will teach the half-day "Social Media & SEO Synergies Workshop." This intensive, 1/2 day workshop will help companies better understand the social web and how a combination of social media and search engine optimization can help increase awareness, better connect with customers and grow sales.

At SES San Jose 2009, I interviewed Odden about the integration of social media and SEO. He stated that social media participation produces content, which others can link to, in turn helping your search engine ranking by providing more inbound links. Check out the video interview below.

Lee Odden discusses the integration of social media and SEO at SES San Jose 2009

As you can tell, I know all four of the instructors -- and can personally vouch for their expertise. Plus, this in-depth training in a small class setting ensures that your instructor is accessible for informal one-on-one or small group discussions.

Now, if you don't live in London, you might also want to know about the Autumn Days promotion being held by Starwood Hotels and Resorts, which offers great hotel deals throughout Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Hundreds of participating Sheraton, Westin, Le Méridien, St. Regis, The Luxury Collection, Four Points by Sheraton and W Hotels are offering a discount of 20% off bookings for stays of two nights or more.

For example, The Park Lane Hotel in London is one of the Starwood Hotels participating in the Autumn Days promotion, which runs until 8 November 2009 with bookings valid for stays until 31 January 2010. The Park Lane Hotel is located in Mayfair on Piccadilly, which is less than a mile -- or a 5-minute taxi ride -- from the Incisive Media offices at 32-34 Broadwick St, London, where the SEM and SEO training workshops will be held.

Or, if you want to stay near the airport, the Sheraton Heathrow Hotel offers a discount of 10% for stays just one night. However, you'll miss the pubs -- er, networking opportunities -- near Piccadilly. You must choose, "but choose wisely," as the Grail Knight advises in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989).

(I should disclose that Starwood Hotels and Resorts is a client, but I figure that you'd still like to know about its Autumn Days promotion. For further information and bookings visit www.autumnbreak09.com.)

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 2:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

September 5, 2009

ABC News Nightline Story Looks at NACA's Save the Dream Tour

Last night, the incredible success of the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA) was featured on Nightline on ABC News. Entitled "The Financial Terrorist," the story went on the frontlines to Cleveland, Ohio, with NACA CEO Bruce Marks, "a man trying to restore the American Dream."

It's worth noting that Marks is a self-proclaimed "bank terrorist," according to a recent interview in The Boston Globe entitled, "Taking bank chiefs to task to save homes." Marks explained, "Bank terrorism is a nonviolent way we personalize the consequences of CEOs' actions. When someone loses their home, they lose their neighbors, they lose their community, and their kids lose their friends and their schools. It's personal. Lives have been devastated. We go to the CEOs' homes, usually on Sunday morning, which is family time, in their gated communities."

I featured NACA's Save the Dream Tour in a case study that I presented at SES San Jose 2009 during the session entitled, "How to Optimize for Search & Engage the Community." I also presented excerpts of NACA's Save The Dream tour documentary produced by DigiNovations at Social Media & Video Strategies during the session entitled, "What Works: Best Practices / Case Studies for Online Video."

NACA's Save The Dream tour documentary - excerpts (produced by DigiNovations)

NACA's "Save the Dream" tour has already helped thousands of homeowners avoid foreclosure, restructure home loans, and reduce mortgage rates. It has used 9 optimized press releases, blog outreach, have a dozen YouTube videos, social media marketing and old fashioned media relations to generate 29 local TV stories, 18 articles in daily newspapers, 272 blog posts, and 246 Twitter tweets. The combined coverage helped to attract over 35,000 participants in Cleveland, 45,000 in Chicago, 40,000 in St. Louis, and 60,000 in Atlanta. But, as I mentioned back at SES San Jose 2009 and Social Media & Video Strategies, NACA's Save the Dream Tour isn't over.

It will continue at upcoming events in Phoenix, AZ, at the Phoenix Convention Center from Sept. 25 to 28; Los Angeles, CA, at the LA Convention Center from Oct. 2 to 5; Las Vegas, NV, at the Thomas and Mack Center from Oct, 9 to 12; and San Francisco, CA, at the Cow Palance from Oct. 16 to 20, 2009.

NACA projects that they will be able to help 80% of those who apply. NACA can do this because it has secured legally binding agreements with most of the major lenders and servicers, which covers 90% of the at-risk homeowners.

But, to achieve an affordable solution, participants also need to bring the following documents to one of NACA's Save the Dream events: a) Pay Stubs (most recent available 30 days) b) Monthly Mortgage Statement (most recent available) c) Property Tax Bill (most recent available) d) Homeowners Insurance Bill (most recent available)

It also helps to register for the event. At the first four events this summer, NACA had over 500 staff and volunteers who put in long hours and lots of hard work to help homeowners save their dream. Nevertheless, the turnout has been unprecidented.

As Chris Camp of WSB News in Atlanta reported, "Over four days, 60,000 people have been standing in the hot Georgia sun... hoping for salvation in the midst of America's money crisis. Now it comes down to this. A woman sobs uncontrollably, comforted by friends and her mother....When she lost one of her jobs, her entire world teetered on the edge of disaster. Instead, she came to the Georgia World Congress Center, hoping for a miracle. She found one: the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America."

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 12:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (18)

September 2, 2009

Richard Jalichandra, CEO of Technorati, and the Power of Social Media

As I mentioned earlier today, lots of sessions at SES San Jose 2009 and the Social Media & Video Strategies Forum focused on the link between search and social media. In fact, the co-location of the two events was as good an indication as any that the two topics were of interest to many of the same people.

While many of those sessions were held at the McEnery Convention Center, others were held next door at the San Jose Marriott. One of these sessions was entitled, "In the Now: Conversational & Real Time Marketing."

With the advent of Twitter, micro-blogging, and mobile video, the publishing model has been turned on its head. How can marketers take advantage of these new tools? This session at the Social Media & Video Strategies Forum discussed topics ranging from social media's role in the Iranian elections to Ashton Kutcher.

Following the session, Lee Odden, a member of the SES Advisory Board and the CEO of TopRank Online Marketing, interviewed Richard Jalichandra, the President and Chief Executive Officer of Technorati, who was one of the panelists.

Jalichandra cited the example of Kutcher and his Twitter base of more than 2 million followers. He said companies want to develop their brands in the social media space, but they can't always get the reach or scale of a successful viral campaign.

Jalichandra added that as a social media ad network, Technorati encourages companies to place their brands beside the conversation and mix it with a viral component which should help build a successful social media campaign.

Richard Jalichandra, CEO of Technorati, and the power of social media at SES San Jose 2009

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 3:14 PM | Permalink

August 31, 2009

Global Search Market Tops Over 100 Billion Searches a Month

comScore has just released a study of the global search market that shows more than 113 billion searches were conducted in July 2009. This represents a 41 percent increase compared to a year ago.

Google attracted significantly more searches than any other search engine with 76.7 billion searches conducted, giving it 67.5 percent market share. Yahoo! ranked second worldwide with 8.9 billion searches (7.8 percent share), followed closely by Chinese search engine Baidu with 8 billion searches (7.0 percent share). Most of the top search properties worldwide experienced significant growth in search query volume versus last year, with Russian search engine Yandex growing at the fastest rate (94 percent) among the top ten.

It is worth noting that Europe accounted for the highest share of searches at 32.1 percent, followed by Asia Pacific (30.8 percent) and North America (22.1 percent). Among the five global regions, Latin America exhibited the heaviest search behavior per person with an average of 13 search usage days in July and 130 searches per searcher. Europe had the second highest overall search volume per person (117 searches per searcher) while North America exhibited the second heaviest frequency (12.5 search usage days per searcher).

This makes it as important to attend SES Berlin November 24-25, 2009, as it does to attend SES Chicago December 7-10, 2009. Why?

As Mike Grehan, the newly-anointed VP and Global Content Director at SES, SEW, and ClickZ, told me earlier this month, search isn't a static topic. The changes in the industry are accelerating. Can anyone afford to be behind the times in this new era?

Mike Grehan, the new VP and Global Content Director, ties social media to search, SES San Jose 2009

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 3:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 19, 2009

People Still Talking About Charlene Li Keynote at SES San Jose 2009

Almost a week later, people are still talking about the Charlene Li keynote at SES San Jose 2009. It was entitled, "How to prepare for the future of search."

If you weren't there, it's difficult to give you a flavor of the discussions that were triggered by Li's comments. But we tried something different and interviewed some of the conference attendees immediately after the keynote -- along with interviewing Li, the co-author of Groundswell, to get her to expand on some of her remarks.

Below is a video that has just be uploaded to SESConferenceExpo's Channel on YouTube. Hopefully, this will enable to get an idea of why SES keynotes aren't always lectures by a sage on the stage. They can also be round-table discussions moderated by a guide on the side.

Marketing is going through a similar change. As Li says, companies must create relationships with users of the social media space in order to foster more trust and authenticity. And Pattie Simone of Womenentrepreneur.com and Lisa Buyer of The Buyer Group discuss what this means to them and their clients.

Charlene Li, co-author of Groundswell, and the future of search at SES San Jose 2009

The impact of social media like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter on the future of search will be profound. But it's hard to predict. That's what makes this a discussion that extends beyond a specific conference held on any given week.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 1:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 18, 2009

SES San Jose 2009 Attendees Give Conference & Expo High Marks

SES San Jose 2009 ended last week, but attendees are still talking about the conference and expo. And they're giving the event high marks.

You can get a sense of that by looking at the photos in the SESConferenceSeries' photostream on Flickr. For example, hundreds of marketers attended the Extreme Makeover: Live Site Clinic on Thursday, August 14, 2009. It was moderated by Elisabeth Osmeloski, Director of Online Media at Advertures in Search, and speakers included Matt Cutts, the Software Engineer Guru at Google, Tiffany Lane, Search Quality Team at Google, and Greg Boser, President of WebGuerrilla LLC at the session.

You can also get a sense of the quality of the conference content by watching the YouTube videos below that feature attendees of SES San Jose 2009. Each was handed them the microphone and asked what they thought of the event.

Greg Alexander, The Net Impact, on attending SES San Jose '09

Aditi Jasra of Web Analytics World describes attending SES San Jose '09 Ryan Guerra shares his experience attending SES San Jose 2009

Tiffany Phan, CEO Training, describes her experience at SES San Jose 2009

Michael Balistreri, iMOS, describes his first experience at SES San Jose 2009

Lauren Balistreri, iMOS, on attending SES San Jose 2009

Patricia Santos Fontes, Globo.com and Ines Goncalves, Google on being at SES San Jose 2009

Now, if you've just received the email from Jackie Ortez asking you to fill out the SES San Jose Survey, please take the time to respond. The organizers of the conference use the feedback from attendees to get a better perspective on the event. As Jackie says in her email, "Your opinion is highly valuable to helping us continue to improve the SES conferences."

Over the past couple of years, I've seen speakers and whole sessions dropped because attendees didn't give them high marks. So, treat the SES San Jose Survey seriously -- because the results are really, really taken seriously.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 4:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 16, 2009

A Chat with Michael Fischer of Coldwell Banker Real Estate

I have seen the future of YouTube, and it works!

Last week, I had "A Chat with Michael Fischer" at the Social Media & Video Strategies Forum in San Jose. Fischer is the Senior Vice President of Marketing at Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC.

We talked about coldwellbanker's Channel on YouTube, which offers consumers a new way to search for and interact with real estate information and listings. Named Coldwell Banker On Location, the channel was created back in May.

On Location is the first branded YouTube channel to use dynamic IP lookup to search for videos, which automatically serves up local results when visitors first hit the site. To create On Location, Coldwell Banker Real Estate closely collaborated with both YouTube and Google to develop what is arguably one of the most comprehensive and immersive brand channels on YouTube.

And I'm kicking myself for not mentioning this YouTube channel in my book, YouTube and Video Marketing: An Hour a Day, which I finished writing in May. It's like visiting Boston in April 1912 and missing a trip to Fenway Park, which had just opened that month.

Two areas of strategic focus set Coldwell Banker On Location apart from other real estate Web sites. First, it showcases the power of video to bring real state more vividly to life -- offering behind-the-scenes looks at towns and neighborhoods, smart tips and timely news on real estate topics, and video listings of homes for sale. Second, content posted to On Location has a strong emphasis on local information and insights, so consumers can dig deeper into the areas of the country that interest them most.

Supporting this highly localized perspective is one of the more unique aspects of Coldwell Banker On Location -- the ability to search for videos through a special map feature that has been developed specifically for the site. The map "widget" is a prominent feature at the top of the On Location site and the main starting point for consumers searching for a home, a specific area of the country or more information on a real estate topic.

Visitors to the site are automatically shown video search results from their own area / zip code. Then by clicking the link "Browse By Map," consumers can enter the city / state or zip code of their choosing - which pulls up all videos posted to On Location associated with that area. These video results are displayed as icons on the map.

Each search returns a wide range of video results, including video listings, spotlights on that local community and Coldwell Banker sales associate/representative profiles. Consumers can click through to view specific videos - as well as connect back to the main Coldwell Banker Web site to learn more about a specific property for sale.

At the end of the session, I interviewed Fischer about some of the Coldwell Banker Real Estate agents who add their individual personalities to the YouTube video experience.

Michael Fisher of Coldwell Banker discusses Coldwell Banker's successful viral marketing campaigns

Some of the video and written content for On Location is supplied by a select group of content providers, including the Associated Press, CNN, Reel Productions TV, This Old House and TurnHere. Coldwell Banker On Location complements the company`s main Web site at www.coldwellbanker.com - including the "Learn" section which features educational content as well as news articles and updates on the real estate sector. It extends the company`s social media strategy, which includes Facebook pages for the brand and its two founders, Colbert Coldwell and Arthur Banker, a Twitter feed and profiles on Flickr and FriendFeed.

In addition to using YouTube as a platform, Coldwell Banker Real Estate is using Google's ad networks and channels to promote On Location. This includes both Google and YouTube search ads, YouTube banner promotions and Google TV.

Development of the On Location site was a collaborative effort by Coldwell Banker interactive agency partners, FD Kinesis and Bootstrap Software, Inc.

I am especially impressed that the the nation's oldest real estate organization is also the most innovative. Coldwell Banker Real Estate is not only thinking outside the box when it comes to YouTube, it is also thinking outside the website when it comes to video marketing.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 9:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

August 13, 2009

Matt Cutts of Google Joins Extreme Makeover: Live Site Clinic at SES San Jose

Matt Cutts, the Software Engineer Guru at Google Inc., will be joining the panel during the Extreme Makeover: Live Site Clinic at SES San Jose 2009 on Thursday, August 14, 2009, from 10:30 to 11:45 a.m. The session will be held in Room C at the McEnery Convention Center.

Cutts will be joining Moderator Elisabeth Osmeloski, Director of Online Media at Advertures in Search, and speakers Tiffany Lane, Search Quality Team at Google, and Greg Boser, President of WebGuerrilla LLC at the session.

In case this is your first SES conference, Cutts works for the Search Quality group in Google, specializing in search engine optimization issues. He is well known in the SEO community for enforcing the Google Webmaster Guidelines and cracking down on link spam. Cutts also advises the public on how to get better website visibility in Google.

Cutts joined Google as a software engineer in January 2000. Before Google, he was working on his Ph.D. in computer graphics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has an M.S. from UNC-Chapel Hill, and B.S. degrees in both mathematics and computer science from the University of Kentucky. Cutts wrote SafeSearch, which is Google's family filter. In addition to his experience at Google, Cutts held a top-secret clearance while working for the Department of Defense, and he's also worked at a game engine company. He claims that Google is the most fun by far. Cutts talks about webmaster-related issues on his site at http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/.

This interactive session takes volunteers from the audience and examines their websites live to provide general feedback about improving them to gain more traffic from search engines.

I interviewed Matt at SES San Jose 2008 -- back before he'd shaved his head on a bet with his team at Google. He talked about his job interview at Google in 2000. The video interview is one of the most popular on SESConferenceExpo's Channel on YouTube.

Matt Cutts, Google, discusses mobile search at SES San Jose 2008

The Extreme Makeover: Live Site Clinic was already on a lot of people's list of must-attend sessions. But, with Cutts added to the panel, get there early just to get a seat.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 2:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 12, 2009

Josh Groban Fans & Grobanites Finding Clay Shirky Video Interview at SES San Jose

Truth is stranger than fiction. Yesterday, Clay Shirky gave the keynote speech at SES San Jose 2009. In his keynote, he discussed the Grobanites for Charity, which works with Josh Groban fans and the Josh Groban Foundation to raise money and support underfunded charities.

If you don't know who Josh Groban is, ask your daughter or mother. He is a Grammy-nominated U.S. singer-songwriter.

The video interview with Shirky was uploaded to YouTube yesterday.

The Deon Designs blog embedded the video in a post entitled, "Clay Shirky discusses the shift in user behavior in a Web 2.0 World at SES San Jose 2009."

This triggered a large number of tweets -- and 28% of the views the video has received so far have come from Twitter.

Another one of the external links to the video is from the Josh Groban Official Message Board.

Oh, and the first comment on the video came from freim93, who said, "Very cool shout out to the Grobanites!!!!" The second comment came from Rocker742, who says, "Yeah!!! Grobanites for Charity rocks!"

And 16% of the views of the video can from YouTube Search. And the top search term is "Josh Groban." The second term is "SES San Jose."

So, Shirky is an adjunct professor at New York University in the graduate interactive telecommunications program, where he teaches courses on the interrelationships of social and technological networks, particularly how they shape culture and vice versa.

But, this video interview with him could be just another example for his course. Check it out. This is the link between search and social that everyone has been talking about.

Clay Shirky discusses the shift in user behavior in a Web 2.0 World at SES San Jose 2009

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Top Stories from SES San Jose and Social Media & Video Strategies

Both SES San Jose 2009 and the Social Media & Video Strategies Forum got underway today. So, there were lots of stories. Here are the top ones:

Barry Schwartz of the Search Engine Roundtable posted Keynote: Clay Shirky, Author of Here Comes Everybody. Search Engine Rouhdtable is using a live blogging tool to provide the real time coverage. Check out Barry's story and the tool.

And if you want to hear Shirky's keynote, head over the WebmasterRadio.FM, where they've uploaded Clay Shirky Keynote at SES San Jose 09.

WebProNews Videos posted Breaking News: Matt Cutts Explains Caffeine Update. Yes, yes, Cutts talks about the project called "Caffeine" that will re-write the architecture for Google's Web search. But, you will also want to check out his new bald is beautiful look.

More WebProNews Videos

Lori Ho of the adCenter Blog posted From SES San Jose - Search: Where to Next? Recap. She writes, "The usual suspects are here and the conversations are buzzing - one topic that keeps coming up over and over again is the question 'Where is Search going?'."

Trevor Claiborne of the Official Google Website Optimizer Blog posted Conversion is the word at SES San Jose this week.

I interviewed Mike Grehan, the newly-anointed VP and Global Content Director at SES, Search Engine Watch, and ClickZ, about the link between search and social. Oh, we also ask about Stickie the Shoehorn. Check out the video interview below.

Mike Grehan, the new VP and Global Content Director, ties social media to search, SES San Jose 2009

Derek Edmond of the aimClear Blog posted SES San Jose C-Suite Track #1: The Adaptive CMO. Edmond covered the solo presentation by Brian Featherstonhaugh, Chairman & CEO of OgilvyOne Worldwide.

Adam Singer of the Online Marketing Blog posted SES SJ: How To Optimize For Search & Engage The Community. Singer not only covered my solo presentation, but he also got me to share my "secret sauce" with him over lunch.

Cindy Kerber Spellman of SearchFuel posted At SES San Jose? Check Email, Tweet & Catch up on SearchFuel @ Blogging Centers. She says, "great things are brewing in the Silicon Valley this week."

Last, but not least, Blair Vincent of Idearc Search Marketing wore a golden cape to promote Superpages.com over at the exhibit hall of SES San Jose 2009. Hey, I not making this stuff up.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 12:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 11, 2009

SES San Jose 2009 Kicks Off with Over 5,000 Attendees

The Search Engine Strategies (SES) San Jose Conference & Expo and Social Media & Video Strategies Forum both get underway on Tuesday, August 11, 2009. More than 5,000 attendees have already registered to attend.

I caught up with Matt McGowan, Vice President and Publisher for Incisive Media's Interactive Marketing Group, including SEW, ClickZ and SES, and asked him to provide an overview for the week.

Now in its 11th year, SES San Jose is organized and programmed by the SES Advisory Board and SearchEngineWatch.com, the leading authority on Search Engine Marketing (SEM). The conference will be packed with 70+ sessions covering PPC management, keyword research, SEO, social media, local, mobile, link building, duplicate content, multiple site issues, video optimization and usability, while offering high-level strategy, keynotes, an expo floor with 100+ companies to help you grow your business, networking events and more. My video interview with McGowan is below.

Matt McGowan welcomes you to SES San Jose 2009, highlights a week of Search Engine Strategies

Of course, I am just following in the footsteps of WebProNews Videos, which did a preview of the event last week. Check out their video interview below.

More WebProNews Videos WebProNews to Cover SES San Jose 2009

Although there will be blog, Twitter and video coverage of SES San Jose, the Social Media & Video Strategies Forum, and the Local Search Summit this week, experienced attendees know there's nothing like being there. Still, if you want to listen in to the keynote presentation by Clay Shirky, author of "Here Comes Everybody" on WebmasterRadio.fm on Tuesday morning at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 1:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 6, 2009

Live Certification Gauntlet at SES San Jose 2009

No one will be beaten to death. At least, I don't think there will be any physical punishment.

But on Tuesday, August 11, from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m., Market Motive U will be holding a Live Certification Gauntlet in Exhibit Hall 2 where the keynote is given.

If you've never seen one, it was common practice in the French army, especially for thieves. In some traditions, if the condemned was able to finish the run and exit the gauntlet at the far end, his faults would be deemed paid, and he would rejoin his comrades with a clean slate. Elsewhere he was sent back through the gauntlet until death.

You can witness this new form of mental punishment that compels a person to run between two rows -- a gauntlet -- of experts who ask tough questions as he or she passes.

Yes, this is what it takes to be certified in search marketing. Come watch current students and recent graduates of Market Motive U address the toughest questions under the scrutiny of the Internet Marketing Dream Team - comprised of top speakers, authors and consultants - all on one stage!

This session is open to all attendees and runs like a wild fusion between American Idol, a PhD dissertation defense, and a lightning-round news round-table show. This event will feature: • Live site and campaign audits • Tough on-the-spot questions • Lightning round-type quizzes • No holds barred critiques from the Internet Marketing Dream Team.

Each panelist will have completed up to three months of Market Motive Master Certification and will vie for faculty endorsements during this live session. You can witness each dissertation on the latest search marketing standards or submit your website or campaign for a chance for it to be evaluated by the new masters of Internet marketing.

The Dream Team Faculty includes: Matt Bailey & Jennifer Laycock on Social Media, Jamie O'Donnell on Online PR, Avinash Kaushik & John Marshall on Web Analytics, Todd Malicoat on SEO, Andrew Goodman on Paid Search, and Bryan Eisenberg on Conversion Optimization.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 3:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

August 5, 2009

Audience for Online Video-Sharing Sites Has Nearly Doubled

According to a survey by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project conducted in April 2009, the share of online adults who watch videos on video-sharing sites has nearly doubled since 2006. Fully 62 percent of adult internet users have watched video on these sites, up from just 33 percent who reported this back in December 2006.

Online video has also become a bigger fixture in everyday life, garnering 19 percent of all internet users who use video-sharing sites to watch on a typical day in April 2009. This compares with just 8 percent of internet users reported use of the sites on a typical day in 2006.

The report is based on the findings of a daily tracking survey on Americans' use of the Internet. The results are based on data from telephone interviews conducted by Princeton Survey Research International between March 26 to April 19, 2009, among a sample of 2,253 adults, 18 and older.

According to Mary Madden, Senior Research Specialist at the Pew Research Center, online video watching among young adults is near-universal; 89 percent of internet users ages 18-29 now say they watch content on video sharing sites, and 36 percent do so on a typical day.

While much of the content on video sharing sites is user-generated, there is also a growing archive of professional content available through YouTube and newer network-sponsored video portals like Hulu. Efforts to lure viewers to these portals appear to be paying off, as 35 percent of internet users now say they have viewed a television show or movie online. By comparison, just 16 percent of internet users said they had watched or downloaded movies or TV shows when asked a similar question in 2007.

I know, I know, I've just written a book entitled, "YouTube and Video Marketing: An Hour a Day." But just because I'm biased doesn't mean I'm wrong.

The Pew Internet & American Life Project found that the use of video sharing sites currently outranks many other headline-grabbing internet pastimes among American adults. For example, the 62 percent of adult internet users have watched a video on online video-sharing sites like YouTube is greater than the 46 percent of adult internet users are active on social networking sites, or the 11 percent who use status updating sites like Twitter.

So, think about that as you consider which sessions to attend at SES San Jose 2009. You can attend The Next Wave for Online Video, Extreme Makeover: Live Twitter & Blogging Clinic, or both sessions.

Or, you can attend the Social Media & Video Strategies Forum, the Local Search Summit, or both events.

Based on the latest data from the Pew Research Center, online video-sharing sites are among the topics that you'll want to be able to discuss intelligently. And if you really want to master this subject, check out the YouTube and Video Marketing Workshop on Friday, August 14.

Or, you could sign up for one of the other training workshops. I know all of the other instructors: Shari Thurow of Omni Marketing Interactive, Jennifer Evans Laycock of SiteLogic, Bill Hunt of Back Azimuth Consulting, Amanda Watlington of Searching for Profit, and Cindy Krum of Rank-Mobile, LLC. There are a lot of topics that will be on the test.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 5:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

125,000 People Have Attended NACA's Save the Dream Events

According to the St. Louis Post Dispatch, NACA says 40,000 people attended its Save the Dream event in St. Louis last weekend. KTVI Fox 2 in St. Louis reported the same figure in their coverage below.

According to NACA, 50,000 people attended it's event in Chicago the weekend before that. Gailann Jarocki of the Chicago Residential Examiner listed 16 lenders who were going to be on-site at the event. And WLS-TV ABC 7 in Chicago was there to document the event.

And according to NACA, 35,000 people attended the Save the Dream event in Cleveland. Although some were disputing this number, Ohio Congresswoman Marcia Fudge (D-11th District), who brought NACA to Cleveland, bristled at the mistrust and skepticism over NACA and the Save the Dream event.

"This is jealousy of the worst kind," she told WKYC in a phone call from Washington. "Every time we get something good going that's helping people, there is somebody to try to tear it down."

Now, I find it interesting that most of the people who are questioning the numbers are from organizations that should have been doing something to help homeowners avoid foreclosure, restructure home loans, and reduce mortgage rates -- but got upstaged by NACA, a national non-profit community advocacy and homeownership organization headquartered in Boston.

According to NACA CEO Bruce Marks, "The NACA homeownership program, which is without cost to those participating, is our answer to the huge subprime and predatory lending industry. NACA has conclusively shown that when working people get the benefit of a prime rate loan, they can resolve their financial problems, make their mortgage payments and become prime borrowers. NACA's track record of helping people who have credit problems become homeowners or restructuring a predatory loan debunks the myth that high rates and fees are necessary to compensate for their credit risk."

But, I also have my own reality check. My wife looked at the list of cities on the Save the Dream tour and didn't see Boston, where NACA is headquartered. But she knew a friend that needed their help, so she recommend that she call NACA's toll-free number: 1-888-302-NACA. According to my wife, her friend got help with her predatory or unaffordable mortgage.

NACA has now arrived in Atlanta, Georgia, where they will hold another Save the Dream event from Friday, August 7, until Tuesday, August 11. In other words, they've added an extra day to deal with the volume of people expected to turn out.

So, quibble about the numbers, if you want to. The reason I'm going to feature NACA's case study at the "How to Optimize for Search & Engage the Community" session in the Search & Community Track at SES San Jose 2009 on Tuesday, August 11, at 10:30 a.m. I'm doing this because NACA has exceeded the combined total of 25,000 homeowners, who participated in the first three Save the Dream events in Columbia, SC, Stamford, CT, and Washington, DC.

They've done this with an integrated marketing campaign that includes search engine optimization, public relations, social media, and video marketing.

That's a story worth telling.

And I'm going to showcase "Documentary: NACA's 'Save the Dream' - Mortgage Restructuring and Renegotiation Rescues Homeowners" during the session entitled, "What Works: Best Practices / Case Studies for Online Video," which will be held at the San Jose Marriott at the Social Media & Video Strategies Forum on Tuesday, August 11 at 3 p.m.

That's because this is a story worth retelling.

Documentary: NACA's "Save the Dream" - Mortgage Restructuring and Renegotiation Rescues Homeowners

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 7:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (37)

August 4, 2009

SES San Jose 2009 to Feature Search Engine Foosball Smackdown Rematch

If you attended SES San Jose last year, you may have seen the Search Engine Foosball Smackdown. It was a heated event between Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo! Each search engine sent some of its best foosers to see who would dominate (well, at least who would dominate the foosball table).

Microsoft was knocked out in the elimination round, although that was before Bing. This left Google and Yahoo! to battle it out in the finals.

The Yahoo! team of Daniel Wong and Jake Rosenberg took home the coveted Stonetemple Cup after a tough finals match. Check out the photo by Kelsey Jarboe to see just how seriously everyone took this event.

But, that was then, and this is now.

Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft will be meeting for a rematch at SES San Jose 2009. According to Eric Enge, the president of Stone Temple Consulting, the teams have been changed as each search engine has brought in their best and brightest foosers -- and there's no telling if some of them are ringers.

Who will take home the the coveted Stonetemple Cup this year?

Will this match tell us what will be the dominant search engine of the future?

Will the matches tell us anything about the working relationship of the new tag-team wrestling team created by the Microsoft-Yahoo! deal?

Will Adam Lasnik or Maile Ohye of Google show up in cheerleading costumes?

You need to be there to know the results before everyone else has tweeted about them in the Twittersphere, posted the news for the blogosphere to comment on or Digg, or uploaded a video for the YouTube community to discover, watch and share.

In other words, don't wait to see the story on ESPN 8, "The Ocho" along with everyone else. Be in the front row to document the outcome yourself. The Tweeter, blogger, or YouTuber who posts the story first has the greatest chance of getting the most links.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 6:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

July 30, 2009

Charity Party Will Be A Blast - Are You Coming

The IM Charity Party will be another great event this year. Where else can you find an open bar for 4 hours where you can meet on an intimate level all the major speakers at SES San Jose?

The organizers are asking people to sign up through the website so they can be fully prepared.

Remember this is a charity event and the donation is a tax deduction. There will be some great people and raffles of all types of cool industry prizes.

Sign up today! And even if you can't attend feel free to make a donation for a worthy cause.

Posted by Frank Watson at 1:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

July 29, 2009

Search and Community Case Study at SES San Jose: NACA's Save the Dream

The Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA) Save the Dream tour will arrive in St. Louis on Thursday, July 30. Their buses will pull in front of St. Louis University's Chaifetz Arena at 2 PM filled with hundreds of staff and volunteers. St. Louis is the third stop on NACA's 10-city tour to help homeowners take advantage of an historic opportunity to make their mortgage affordable.

About 35,000 people attended the first Save the Dream event in Cleveland. About 50,000 people attended the second Save the Dream event in Chicago. This is a dramatic increase over the 25,000 people who attended NACA's first two Save the Dream events last year in Columbia, SC, and Washington, DC.

One of the reasons why turnout has increased this year is NACA's use of optimized press releases, blog outreach, and YouTube videos to let people know that the national non-profit community advocacy and homeownership organization offers unprecedented solutions for homeowners caught up in the current mortgage and economic crisis. During the Save the Dream events, borrowers can get mortgages restructured the same day.

The Obama administration just finished its meeting with mortgage servicers this week to get them to modify hundreds of thousands of home loans for Americans so borrowers can avoid foreclosure. But even before that, NACA secured legally binding agreements with all the major servicers to restructure loans to what homeowners can afford based on a documented affordability analysis.

I will be showcasing this case study during the session, "How to Optimize for Search & Engage the Community," which will kick off the Search & Community Track at SES San Jose 2009. During the "What Works: Best Practices / Case Studies for Online Video" session at the Social Media & Video Strategies Forum, I'll also be taking a closer look at the documentary video about last year's tour that was uploaded to YouTube on July 1 of this year.

Documentary: NACA's "Save the Dream" - Mortgage Restructuring and Renegotiation Rescues Homeowners

To date, there have been 338 posts about NACA's Save the Dream events -- 170 on Twitter, 151 in blogs, 10 in mainstream news, 3 comments, 3 forum replies, and 1 video. In other words, NACA's story has been retold 338 times this month.

But NACA's success story isn't over. After spending July 31 to August 3 in St. Louis, NACA's Save the Dream tour continues to the World Congress Center in Atlanta, GA, August 7 to 10. For more information, go to NACA.com.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 9:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

20 Authors of Business, Marketing, PPC and SEO Books Speaking at SES San Jose

Bring a couple of book bags to Search Engine Strategies San Jose 2009 because there will be more than 20 authors of business, marketing, PPC and SEO books and speaking at the conference. I should disclose that I'm one of them.

Now, there are a lot of great conference speakers who haven't written a book -- yet. I should know. I've been speaking at SES conferences since 2003, six years before I wrote a book. And writing a book isn't like Doc Ostrow getting a Krell brain boost in the movie Forbidden Planet (1956).

Nevertheless, getting a book published does indicate that you've got more than 12 minutes of PowerPoint slides to share with attendees. And, it's "something that never looks bad on your permanent record," according to Greg Marmalard in the movie Animal House (1978).

As a new author, I'm also beginning to learn that tracking where you rank on Amazon.com is almost as addictive as tracking where you rank in Google. Now, Google guidelines do not recommend the use of products to check rankings. However, Amazon.com welcomes them. For example, Rankforest provides sales rank tracking for authors and publishers. They can view historical charts, export rankings, compare items, create alerts, and more.

So, as you look over the agendas for SES San Jose, the Social Media & Video Strategies Forum, and the Local Search Summit, you might want to know about the subjects that the conference speakers have written about as well as the topics that they are going to address. Here are the 20 authors that I know will be speaking at one or more of these events:

Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations.

Charlene Li, co-author of Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies.

Tim Ash, author of Landing Page Optimization: The Definitive Guide to Testing and Tuning for Conversions.

Optimizing Landing Pages -- Tim Ash's Tips and... Footwork

James Colborn, author of Search Marketing Strategies: A Marketers' Guide to Objective Driven Success from Search.

Bryan Eisenberg, co-author of Call to Action: Secret Formulas to Improve Online Results, Waiting For Your Cat to Bark?: Persuading Customers When They Ignore Marketing, and Always Be Testing: The Complete Guide to Google Website Optimizer.

Bryan Eisenberg Always be Testing: Google Website Optimizer

Mona Elesseily, author of Mastering Panama.

Eric Enge and Stephan Spencer, co-authors of The Art of SEO.

Dave Evans, author of Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day.

Andrew Goodman, author of Winning Results with Google AdWords.

Andrew Goodman- Winning Results with Google AdWords

Mike Grehan, author of Search Engine Marketing: The Essential Best Practice Guide.

Bill Hunt, co-author of Search Engine Marketing, Inc.: Driving Search Traffic to Your Company's Web Site.

Greg Jarboe interviews Bill Hunt about his new book

Greg Jarboe, author of YouTube and Video Marketing: An Hour A Day. http://www.amazon.com/YouTube-Video-Marketing-Hour-Day/dp/0470459697

Greg Jarboe - Mysteries of Online Video

Avinash Kaushik, author of Web Analytics: An Hour a Day.

Rebecca Lieb, author of The Truth About Search Engine Optimization.

Rebecca Lieb, eConsultancy, on her new book about search engine optimization at SES NY 2009

Lance Loveday, co-author of Web Design for ROI: Turning Browsers into Buyers & Prospects into Leads.

Robert Scoble, co-author of Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers.

Ayat Shukairy, co-author of Landing Page Optimization: The Complete Guide.

Shari Thurow, author of Search Engine Visibility and When Search Meets Web Usability.

Amanda Watlington, co-author of Business Blogs: A Practical Guide.

Now, I'm probably missing a few authors -- especially a couple of conference speakers who are still writing books that haven't been announced yet. Still, if you review the list above, you could fill a bookshelf with all the titles that have already been written by speakers at SES San Jose, the Social Media & Video Strategies Forum, and the Local Search Summit.

So, if you will be attending Search Engine Strategies San Jose 2009 for the first time, then imagine entering Flourish and Blotts for the first time. It's the popular bookstore in Diagon Alley where most Hogwarts students purchase their schoolbooks.

Who knows. Maybe famous wizard author Gilderoy Lockhart will be holding a book signing at the store.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 6:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (15)

July 22, 2009

Lee Odden of TopRank Chats About Intersection of Search and Social Media

Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank Online Marketing and a member of the SES Advisory Board, discussed the intersection of search and social media today with AdWeekMedia Connect. The chat topic: How marketers are leveraging the SEO and search advertising opportunities within social media.

Odden has embedded the recorded chat stream on his Online Marketing Blog.

At SES San Jose 2008, I challenged Odden to wear his best Tommy Bahama shirt at this year's event. He may have forgotten the challenge, but I haven't. That's right, the Tommy Bahama shirt challenge is still on.

Odden is teaching a DMA Certification Workshop entitled, "Social Media Marketing and SEO - Working Together for Dramatic Results," on Monday, August 10.

He will also be moderating a session at the Social Media & Video Strategies Forum on Tuesday, August 11, entitled, "In the Now: Conversational & Real Time Marketing."

On Wednesday, August 12, Odden will be speaking at a session at SES San Jose entitled, "Social Media: White Hat vs. Black Hat."

He will also be speaking at a session at SES San Jose entitled, "SEO Through Blogs & Feeds," on Thursday, August 13.

At SES Toronto last year, I asked Odden and Dave Snyder, search strategist and marketer for JRDunn, whether Twitter was the ultimate time waster, or a great tool? You'll want to check out their answers below.

Twitter and its Uses & Abuses for Marketing at SES Toronto

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 4:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Search and Community Track at SES San Jose: NACA's Save The Dream Tour Update

I've just been told that 35,000 people attended NACA;s Save the Dream event in Cleveland July 17 - 20. And the Search Engine Watch community played a role in the record turnout.

On Friday, July 3, I posted "Search and Community Track at SES San Jose: NACA's Save The Dream Tour" to this blog. In my post, I embedded a documentary video created by DigiNovations of Concord, MA, that provided background on NACA's Save the Dream program, which has helped homeowners across America restructure and renegotiate home mortgages and home loans they can no longer afford.

Documentary: NACA's "Save the Dream" - Mortgage Restructuring and Renegotiation Rescues Homeowners

Despite the fact that this was the Friday before the July 4th holiday, more than 75 of your tweeted about the post.

Then, on Saturday, July 18, I posted an update: "Thousands Turn Out for NACA's Save the Dream Event in Cleveland." I mentioned that Jeff Maynor of WKYC-TV, Channel 3 in Cleveland, had reported that thousands turned out for NACA's Save the Dream event.

Again, despite the fact that fewer people read this blog on weekends, more than 45 of you tweeted about that post.

And, since the event continued through Monday, July 20, the "thousands" that had already turned out ended up becoming 35,000. To put this in context, a combined total of 25,000 homeowners participated in the first three Save the Dream events in Columbia, SC, Stamford, CT, and Washington, DC.

Oh, and NACA's Save the Dream tour isn't over. It's now headed to McCormick Place in Chicago, IL, where over NACA 500 staff and volunteers will help homeowners from July 24 to 27 avoid foreclosure, restructure home loans, and reduce mortgage rates. Then, it continues to Chaifetz Arena in St. Louis, MO, from July 31 to August 3. After that, NACA's Save the Dream tour heads to the World Congress Center in Atlanta, GA, from August 7 through 10.

Simeon Lewis of Chicago is one of the thousands already helped by NACA. "My home was all but lost until NACA stepped in and reduced my adjustable interest rate from 8.625% to 2% fixed. I'm saving nearly $600 a month."

If you know friends or neighbors who need mortgage relief, then spread the word. Tell them to go to the Neighborhood Assistance Corporate of America website at NACA.com and sign up.

At SES San Jose 2009, attend the How to Optimize for Search & Engage the Community session on Tuesday, August 11, at 10:30 a.m. I'll feature NACA's Save the Dream tour in my solo presentation. You'll learn how a national non-profit community advocacy and homeownership organization headquartered in Boston used YouTube videos, optimized press releases, blog outreach, media relations, and Twitter to offer unprecedented solutions for homeowners caught up in the current mortgage and economic crisis.

It's a story that deserves to be retold.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 12:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Measuring the Marketing ROI of Attending SES San Jose

If you register to attend SES San Jose 2009 by Friday, July 24, you can save up to $200. But you already knew that.

The bigger question that you -- and other Chief Marketing Officers -- are looking to answer is this: How do you measure the return on investment in going to a search engine marketing conference?

Now, measuring marketing ROI isn't a hard science. It's more of a social science. But there some reasonable approaches that you can use to figure out the value of attending SES San Jose 2009.

Ask yourself this question: Can I afford to skip this event? The answer will depend on how rapidly you think the search engine marketing industry is changing. And, unless you've been cryogenically frozen for the past year, you'll know that a lot has changed since SES San Jose 2008.

That will be the theme of the Opening Keynote by Clay Shirky, the author of the new book, "Here Comes Everybody." Shirky is a writer, educator, and consultant on the social and economic effects of Internet technologies. He is an adjunct professor at New York University in the graduate interactive telecommunications program, where he teaches courses on the interrelationships of social and technological networks, particularly how they shape culture and vice versa. He consults to a variety of organizations on network technologies, and is an acknowledged expert on collaboration tools, social networks, peer-to-peer sharing, collaborative filtering, and open source development. Shirky has spoken and written extensively on the Internet since 1996, with regular columns in Business 2.0, FEED, OpenP2P.com and his own shirky.com blogsite. He has appeared in The New York Times, Time, The Wall Street Journal, the Harvard Business Review, and others. In his new book, Shirky explores how organizations and industries are being upended by open networks, collaboration, and user appropriation of content production and dissemination.

Shirky's keynote will be followed by a session on Day 1 of the conference entitled, "The Adaptive CMO: A New Paradigm for Digital Marketing." This session sets the stage for the C-Suite track and provides a strategic view of how marketing is constantly evolving and will define the critical role that search must play. The rules have all changed and all bets are off. Brian Featherstonhaugh, chairman and CEO of OgilvyOne Worldwide, will present his point of view on how brands are built, why the "four Ps" are no longer valid, how corporate cultures are created, and what happens as the world goes digital.

The next session in the C-Suite track is entitled, "The View From the CMO's Office." Search marketers and non-search marketers have traditionally had difficulty communicating in the language of their disciplines, often creating friction and unnecessary conflict. This session will walk you through the day-by-day challenges of the CMO from two viewpoints: the traditional CMO and the CMO who has made the move to digital. This session will explore how both disciplines can educate each other and explore such issues as the nominal percentage of marketing spend that is allocated to search.

During the afternoon on Day 1, there is another session in the C-Suite track entitled, "Integration: The New CMO Imperative." With the popularity of sites like Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, and Twitter, brands increasingly need to engage with their customers outside their website. The portability of content and viral connectivity that occurs online requires a new approach to branding. If you attend this session, you will learn strategies for increasing brand awareness and protecting brand equity in today's socially connected web as well as tactics that can be implemented in today's resource and budget constrained environment.

Next in the C-Suite track is a session entitled, "Budget Migration: Going Digital Without Impacting Your Brand." The move to a predominantly digital marketing strategy can be overwhelming. Migrating from staid traditional channels to the open waters of the web can be daunting -- especially for companies that are unsure of how to properly measure search, display, email and social media. This session will arm you with the information you need to know about migrating budget to digital without impacting your brand awareness or the equity you have built up in your brand. If you attend, you will learn from companies that have started moving significant resources away from TV, radio and print and into search, social, display and email. Lessons learned will be discussed as well as the metrics and tools need to gauge the success of a balanced digital marketing program.

Finally, the C-Suite track wraps up on Day 1 of SES San Jose 2009 with a session entitled, "Performance Pricing Models: What Every CMO Must Know!" With many marketing organizations feeling the pain of financial pressures, pay for performance pricing models are gaining popularity in search today. At this stage of the game, chances are that you've either thought about trying this type of pricing model but held back because you were unsure of what's involved or perhaps you tried to pursue it in the past, but had trouble making it work for you and your vendor. Designed to maximize results, a performance based compensation model can truly be a win/win for you and your search engine marketing partner. Not only will it help to drive results and bring your partners' goals in alignment with your own, it will also allow you to reward your search partner for superior performance while keeping your overall ROI in mind. In this session, the panelists will cover the keys to developing a successful pay for performance pricing model including a thorough overview of the concept, how it can be applicable to both PPC and SEO, the chief benefits it offers, and why marketers should consider it. In addition the panelists will delve into what marketers need to know before adopting a pay for performance model, including how to assess if it's right for you, popular misconceptions, and the common problems that can arise along the way. If you attend, you will be provided with actionable advice on the critical success factors needed to make a pay for performance model work, including the role of goals, benchmarking, performance metrics, historical data, scenario analysis, and tracking.

So, what's the marketing ROI of attending the first day of SES San Jose? Well, ask yourself this question: What's the cost of skipping this event?

Now, if you've done the risk benefit analysis of attending SES San Jose for a day, what are the incremental costs and benefits of attending for two days?

Take a close look at the SES San Jose agenda overview for Day 2 and you'll see lots of sessions that a CMO who is making the move to digital should attend.

Here are a few that I would recommend:

Igniting Viral Campaigns: Leveraging Consumer-Generated Content -- How can businesses leverage social platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and more to break through and create buzz, encourage word of mouth, and establish relationships with potential customers? This session unveils the secrets of Web 2.0 techniques and technologies that enable companies to stand out and be talked about.

Facebook Ads: Reaching Prospects Earlier In The Decision Cycle -- You know how powerful search marketing ads are. They get in front of consumers who are already raising their hands for more information about your business. But wouldn't it be great to influence that decision earlier to a much larger target audience? With over 200 million active users sharing authentic information, you can precisely reach the right people before they start searching. Learn how to target your exact audience, create compelling ads, optimize for the greatest ROI and generate demand for your business on Facebook.

Afternoon Keynote -- Nicholas Fox, a business product management director on Google's AdWords team, is giving the afternoon keynote. Fox leads product management for Google's ads quality efforts, focused on optimizing the end user experience with ads displayed through Google's AdWords program. He is responsible for the development and improvement of the algorithms that determine the display, ranking, and pricing of AdWords ads on Google and its partners. Fox also leads product management for AdWords bidding features, which enable advertisers to maximize their ad performance and simplify their bid management. Prior to joining Google in 2003, Fox was a consultant with McKinsey & Company in Palo Alto, Calif., focusing on corporate finance and strategy for technology companies. He studied economics at Harvard College, from which he graduated magna cum laude.

Four Paths to Success in a Tough Travel Economy -- Travel marketers discuss the challenges of smart search marketing in tough economic times, when leisure travelers are hard to come by and businesses slash budgets. Experts in four key areas of travel search marketing - Organic, Paid, Social and Local/Mobile - share successful strategies and creative campaign ideas to attract and increase traffic, proving that it is possible to generate positive ROI with limited resources.

The BuyerSphere Project: Understanding B2B Buyer Patterns -- A major B2B research initiative, conducted by Enquiro with input from Google, Business.com, Covario, Marketo and DemandBase, showed that most marketers aren't effectively leveraging online assets to their best potential. Among other things, the notion of a strictly followed, traditional buying funnel is simply not accurate in many instances, risk dictates buying behavior, search is incredibly important as an integrator across online and offline channels and face-to-face persuasion is still necessary in many high risk, complex purchases. The BuyerSphere project looks at how online strategies became artificially separated from traditional best practices, how they can be more effectively integrated and the part search plays as a major influencer. This panel will review the research from over 100 face-to-face interviews, hundreds of eye tracking sessions and over 3,000 survey responses in total. The project represents a major step forward in understanding B2B buyer patterns and the part online marketing can play in influencing them.

Okay, if you are in for a penny, are you in for a pound? What is the marketing ROI of attending SES San Jose for a third day?

Again, take a close look at the conference agenda and decide for yourself. Nevertheless, here are some sessions that you might want to consider attending:

How to Prepare for the Future of Search -- The morning keynote will be given by Charlene Li, an influential thought leader on emerging technologies, with a specific focus on social technologies, interactive media, and marketing. She is the co-author of the business best-seller, Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies, published by Harvard Business Press in May 2008. Named "one of the most influential women in technology" by Fast Company, Li is the founder of Altimeter Group, which provides speaking and consulting services to organizations looking to understand and thrive in a new economy driven by social media tools and techniques. She is one of the most frequently-quoted industry analysts and has appeared on 60 Minutes, The McNeil NewsHour, ABC News, CNN, and CNBC. She is also frequently quoted by The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, Reuters, and The Associated Press. A sought-after public speaker, she has presented frequently at top technology conferences such as Web 2.0 Expo, SXSW, and ad:Tech. Most recently, Li was a VP and principal analyst at Forrester Research. She joined Forrester in 1999, after spending five years in online and newspaper publishing with the San Jose Mercury Newsand Community Newspaper Company. She is a graduate of Harvard Business School and received a magna cum laude degree from Harvard College.

SEO Through Blogs & Feeds -- Not yet running a blog? Not syndicating your content through web feeds? Then you're missing out on an important area that can help your overall SEO efforts. Learn more about the unique advantages blogs and feeds offer to search engine optimization.

The New Search ROI: Measuring More than Conversion -- Search marketing has a great advantage over other forms of marketing: It is extremely measurable and actionable. Advertisers have access to detailed click and conversion data about their campaigns, so they know which keywords are leading to the most sales. But smart search marketers today realize it's not enough to simply measure conversion to get an accurate picture of the overall ROI of their paid search programs. Internet sales typically account for 5 to 20 percent of a company's revenue (depending on the industry), but influence as much as 40 percent of sales. Therefore, measuring paid search ROI in relation to only online transactions significantly underreports SEM's overall contribution to company revenue. Also, remember that paid search conversions are influenced by more than just the last click; many times a conversion happens a few hours, days, or weeks after a series of clicks and searches. This practical and informative session will focus on best practices and practical techniques that marketers can use to get started with "multi-conversion" measurement. If you attend, you will walk away with actionable strategies for using industry-tested approaches that can help you effectively analyze key performance metrics of their campaigns -- whether a click results in a purchase online, a purchase offline, a call to a call center, or another conversion metric. You'll learn how to use freely available techniques to make sure you're measuring the real effectiveness of every click, to make better, more accurate keyword buying decisions, and more accurately gauge the real ROI of search programs.

Advanced Keyword Research -- Mark Twain famously said that the difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug. When it comes to effective keyword research, nothing could be more true. Carefully tailored keyword research not only helps determine the success or failure of your entire search marketing campaign, but it can also provide a way of better understanding your visitors and their intentions. This in-depth discussion will move beyond the basic keyword research tools to zero in on advanced tips and techniques for taking your SEO or PPC campaign to the next stage.

Extreme Makeover Live! Why Am I Not Making Enough Sales? -- There are many companies out there for which traffic is not a problem. Are you one of those companies that gets plenty of visitors but only about 2% of those that visit convert into a sale or a lead? This session takes volunteers from the audience and examines their websites live to show you why you aren't making enough sales. Do you know the main issues holding your website from converting visitors? The panel of experts will make sure you walk away from this session with a great deal more insight about the factors that cause your website to act like a leaky bucket and what to do about them.

Okay, spending three days at a search engine marketing conference is a serious investment of your time. And measuring the marketing ROI of attending SES San Jose isn't trivial.

But that's why CMOs get paid the big bucks. And with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke seeing signs of an economic recovery, now is the time for you to chart a course to the digital world that is reshaping marketing as we know it.

So, if you are going to attend SES San Jose 2009, then register by Friday, July 24. Save up to $200. But that's small potatoes compared to the even bigger benefits to be gained from learning how to navigate through the ever-changing search engine marketing industry.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 21, 2009

Marketers and Optimizers and Videographers! Oh, My!

Imagine a room full of internet marketers, search engine optimizers, and professional videographers! Oh, my!

And I'm not talking about the room where Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody, will give his opening keynote on the first day of the SES San Jose conference, which will run concurrently with the Social Media & Video Strategies forum on August 11, 2009.

No, I'm talking about last night's meeting in Dedham, MA, of the National Professional Videographers Association of New England. It featured a presentation on social media by Tom and Reiko Beach of TRB Design, Inc., followed by a sneak preview of YouTube and Video Marketing: An Hour a Day by me.

Tom and Reiko talked about how they doubled sales of gymnastics training videos and DVDs on their Gym Smarts website by creating a GymSmarts Community blog, a GymSmarts Community - Gymnastics page on Facebook, Thomas Beach and Reiko Beach profiles on LinkedIn, GymSmart's and The Gymnastic Minute's channels on YouTube, and a GymSmarts account on Twitter.

After their presentation, I talked about my new paperback book, which is being published by Wiley next month. Mike McDonald of WebProNews Videos asked me to reveal the secrets of online video that can be found in YouTube and Video Marketing: An Hour a Day earlier this year at SES New York 2009.

Greg Jarboe - Mysteries of Online Video

At last night's meeting of National Professional Videographers Association of New England, I also talked about some of the topics that I'll be discussing during: (1) How to Optimize for Search & Engage the Community at the SES San Jose conference on Tuesday morning, August 11; (2) What Works: Best Practices / Case Studies for Online Video at the Social Media & Video Strategies forum on Tuesday afternoon, August 11; (3) News Search SEO at the SES San Jose conference the Thursday, August 13; and (4) YouTube and Video Marketing Workshop at the SEM Training San Jose on Friday, August 14.

It doesn't take a whole lot of complex market trend analysis to see that professional videographers are just as interested in learning more about social media and search engine optimization as search engine optizers are in learning more about social media and video marketing. Why? As last night's audience learned from Tom and Reiko, you can double your business by combining all of these digital marketing tactics into an integrated marketing strategy.

Now, it might seem frightening at first to get out of your comfort zone and explore new categories. Perhaps there are wild animals over there -- even ones that know...SEO.

Lions and tigers and bears! Oh, my!

But, that's the only way you are going to get to the Emerald City -- which is the only way you are ever going to get back home to Kansas.

Let me put it another way.

Recently, Scott Kirsner of The Boston Globe wrote an article entited, "Where the jobs are in anxious times." He talked with some local recruiters who focus on the innovation economyu, specializing in sectors like technology, life sciences, and energy. He asked them about specific jobs and industry clusters where they've been seeing demand lately -- as well as jobs and industry clusters where demand has died off.

Clark Waterfall of the Boston Search Group told Kirsner, "engineers and salespeople are always perceived as must-have team members, but marketers and PR and business development can tend to be nice-to-haves in times like these."

Kirsner also heard that a new role being created at many companies is a social media expert, who can help the company communicate with customers and prospects using new channels like Twitter, Facebook, and blogs.

"Sometimes that job is called 'community manager' or 'community rep,'" Tom Summit of Catalyst Recruiting Corp. told Kirsner, adding, "But the people who can get hired are the ones who can relate online activities to quantifiable metrics. What are you doing for the company, aside from just starting a blog?"

What Kirsner didn't address in his article is where this new community manager's position fits in the org chart. In other words, does this new position report to the marketing director, the public relations director, or the digital media director? And is this new community manager position being created in addition to or instead of more search engine optimization jobs?

If the community manager is helping a company to communicate with customers and prospects using Twitter, Facebook, and blogs, who is responsible for using YouTube, Flickr and Digg? If the community manager is supposed to relate online activities to quantifiable metrics, will he or she have access to the company's web site analytics?

For answers to these questions, you'll want to attend The View from the CMO's Office at the SES San Jose conference on Tuesday morning, August 11, and Integration: The New CMO Imperative on Tuesday afternoon.

The SEM training workshop, Getting Fluent in Search Marketing: A Fast-Track for Senior Managers, which will be taught by Amanda Watlington of Searching for Profit on Friday afternoon, August 14, also tackles these questions.

Oh, and don't even ask who the professional videographer reports to in the org chart. As Michael Kolowich, the President and Executive Producer of DigiNovations, said during the Q&A part of last night's meeting, corporate videography is generally assigned to the marcom manager, who often sees it as an isolated marketing tactic and not part of a broader integrated marketing strategy.

So, it looks like we're going to have to bring back the broomstick of the Wicked Witch of the West before we get where we want to go. Don't you hate it when that happens?

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 11:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

July 20, 2009

All Work and No Play at SES San Jose? Not!

I know, I know, I've been focused on what you will learn by attending SES San Jose 2009 from August 10-14, the Social Media & Video Strategies Forum on August 11, and/or the Local Search Summit:09 on August 13. You'd think that I was some kind of Puritan from New England!

Well, there will be a number of special events, too. For those who want to be certified in search marketing, there's a Live Certification Gauntlet on Tuesday, August 11 at 4:30 p.m. And for those who believe (correctly) that all work and no play make Homer something, something, there's WebmasterRadio.FM's SearchBash on August 11 at 8:30 p.m.

WebmasterRadio.FM will be throwing its largest, wildest and most dazzling SearchBash ever! At least, that's what I've been told. Even if this turns out to be hype, SearchBash San Jose'09 will be the premier party event of Search Engine Strategies San Jose -- at least on Tuesday night. But, hey, it's all inclusive and always fun.

Now, for those first time SES attendees who want a preview of SearchBash, click on the link above and check out the photos from other events around the country. Or, play the video below -- which doesn't show people at SearchBash, but it does capture the Zeitgeist of WebmasterRadio.FM's event at SES New York earlier this year.

The SearchBash 2008 Jim Hedger of Webmaster Radio

And if you don't get enough networking done at SearchBash, then check out the hottest networking party for internet marketers on Wednesday, August 12: The IM Charity Party at SES SJ, which gets underway at 6 p.m. Most of the conference speakers and top internet marketers will be there and all the money raised goes to charity! So, make business connections, have fun, and help save the life of a sick child.

And if you look a little beat up when you get back to work, just tell your boss that it happened while you were running the Live Certification Gauntlet.

Get it? Got it? Good!

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 18, 2009

Thousands Turn Out for NACA's Save the Dream Event in Cleveland

Back on July 3, I posted "Search and Community Track at SES San Jose: NACA's Save The Dream Tour." The story resonated with many of the readers of this Search Marketing News Blog, because it generated 75 tweets over the following 24 hours.

Well, I want to update you on the story as it unfolds. As Jeff Maynor of WKYC-TV, Channel 3 in Cleveland, reports, thousands turned out for NACA's Save the Dream event.

Accordiing to Maynor, "Everywhere you looked in the arena at the CSU Wolstein Center downtown, there were cheers. And there were tears. People facing foreclosure on their homes learned that their mortgages were being modified to something they can afford, and they will not lose their homes."

Check out his news video, which is embedded below.

Cleveland: Thousands turn out for NACA 'Save the Dream' event

So, yes, I plan to feature this case study in my solo presentation at SES San Jose 2009, "How to Optimize for Search & Engage the Community." But, the story doesn't end in Cleveland.

If you go to the NACA home page, which has been updated to make it easier to find information about the nationwide Save the Dream Tour, you'll see there will be more Save the Dream events in Chicago, IL, July 24 - 27, at McCormick Place; St. Louis, MO, July 31 - Aug 3, at Chaifetz Arena; and Atlanta, GA, Aug 7 - 10, at the World Congress Center. And NACA is still working on locations and dates for Save the Dream events in nine more cities around the country.

And there are lessons here for attendees of SES San Jose 2009 as well as attendees of the Social Media & Video Strategies Forum and Local Search Summit:09.

The biggest lesson is that NACA didn't rely on just SEO, or video, or press release optimization, or blog outreach to generate these kind of results. They used a combination of marketing tactics -- in what can be called "an integrated marketing strategy."

Search engine marketers, YouTube directors and entrepreneurs have always demonstrated a talent for out-of-the-box thinking. Well, the top out-of-the-box thinkers may be speaking at one of the other three events being held in San Jose August 10-14, 2009. It won't hurt to look beyond the McEnery Convention Center to check out what's being presented at the San Jose Marriott.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 11:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

July 17, 2009

Local Search Summit:09 Joins SES San Jose and Social Media & Video Strategies

Right after I posted Optimized Schedule for SES San Jose Plus Social Media & Video Strategies I discovered that there's going to be another event that week. It's was like hearing Ron Popeil tell me, "But wait! There's more!"

That's right, I just found out that Local Search Summit:09 will be held on Thursday, August 13, 2009, at at the San Jose Marriott. To put this in context, SES San Jose 2009 will be held next door at the McEnery Convention Center from Monday, August 10, to Friday, August 14. Meanwhile, the first Social Media & Video Strategies Forum will be held on Tuesday, August 11, at the San Jose Marriott.

Get it? Got it? Good!

The featured sponsors of Local Search Summit:09 are Localeze, which powers some of the most successful Internet Yellow Page companies on the net, and Citysquares, one of the premier local community sites on web. Other sponsors who made the event happen include:Search Influence, Universal Business Listing, David Mihm, and eLocal Listing.

The speakers at Local Search Summit:09 include: Atif Rafiq from Yahoo! Local, Steve Stukenborg from Google TV, Steve Espinosa from LocalSearchNews, and Jason Calacanis of Mahalo. Other featured speakers include: Greg Sterling, a local search analyst and blogger, Andrew Shotland, former VP of Product of InsiderPages and former head of Showtime.com, and Court Cunningham, CEO of Yodle.

The agenda for Local Search Summit:09 kicks off at 9:00 a.m. with a keynote by Stukenborg. At 10:30 a.m., there is a session entitled, "Local Search Ranking Factors." At 11:05 a.m., there is a session entitled, "What Kind of Online Products do SMBs Need?" At 12:45, there is a panel discussion entitled, "Q&A: Google Maps, Yahoo! Local, and Bing." At 1:30 p.m., there is a panel discussion entitled, "Using Facebook and Twitter to Drive Local Leads." At 2:15 p.m., there is a session entitled, "LBS and Mobile: What to Realistically Expect." At 2:50 p.m., there will be a conversation entitled "Up Close and Personal with Yelp!" And at 3:45 p.m., the final session is entitled, "Local Search: Where Are We Today?"

Okay, so there's going to be a lot going on in San Jose that week. Earlier this week, I joked about getting a Segway Personal Transporter in order to ride back and forth between the co-located events. Well, now I'm actually looking into renting one!

But, if you think about it for a moment, the multiple events reflect both the growth and segmentation of the market. We've come a long, long way since my first Search Engine Strategies, which was held in Boston in the Spring of 2002.

Back then, everything you needed to learn fit into one keynote and 27 sessions, organized into three conference tracks over two days. Today, SES San Jose 2009 consists of three keynotes, 65 conference sessions, and 12 training workshops organized into five conference tracks over five days. Add to that the Social Media & Video Strategies Forum, which consists of a shared keynote and six conference sessions, plus the Local Search Summit, which consists of one keynote and seven conference sessions.

Yes, this makes optimizing your schedule even harder, but it also reflects the expansion and specialization of our industry. What it really drives home is this message: You can't do it along anymore.

Let me try to put this in human terms: A team of three people could attend Search Engine Strategies 2002 Spring and learn everything an organization needed to know in two days. Now, a team of seven people could attend SES San Jose 2009, the first Social Media & Video Strategies Forum, and Local Search Summit:09 and learn everything an organization needed to know in five days.

Frankly, I think this is a good thing ... even if it means that I have to start looking for a Segway PT.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 3:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

July 8, 2009

YouTube Biz Blog Touts Social Media and Video Strategies Forum

How cool is this? On Monday, I posted "Social Media & Video Strategies To Be Held With SES San Jose:. It broke the news that ClickZ, YouTube and Google will be holding an event on August 11, 2009, in conjunction with SES San Jose 2009.

Then on Tuesday, the YouTube Biz Blog posted "Join Us at the SES Social Media & Video Strategies Forum." Kristin Kovner, the Industry Marketing Manager at YouTube, said, "We're excited to be a part of this first-time ever event. SES is one of the best places for businesses to learn about search; now that YouTube has millions of searches each day, it's only fitting that ClickZ and SES are expanding the agenda to include a full day dedicated to video and social media."

Just as importantly, the YouTube Biz Blog embedded the featured video on the SESConferenceExpo's Channel on YouTube. Views of the video, which was uploaded four months ago, shot up immediately. You can see the video for youself below.

Search Engine Strategies Conference & Expo

This illustrates the link between search and social media that I mentioned on Monday and Mike Grehan writes about in his cover story in the latest issue of SES Magazine.

Additional evidence can be found in research conducted by TubeMogul entitled "How do people discover videos online?" Here's the gist of what they found:

-- 45% of all videos are found on a video site, i.e. going to YouTube and doing a search or clicking around featured and related videos. -- 44% of all videos are found embedded in blogs. -- 6% of all videos are found with search engines, like Google. -- 2% of all videos are found in social networks, like Facebook. -- 2% of all videos found in social bookmarking sites. -- Less than 1% of all videos are found with video search engines, like Google Video.

So, optimizating the title, description and tags of your YouTube video is half of the success formula. But the other half is engaging what Google calls "the buzzing blogger community."

I mentioned this a year ago at SES San Jose 2008 during a video interview with Liana Evans, who was then with KeyRelevance and is now with Serengeti Communications. Looking at it again a year later, I wouldn't change a word. (And I can't anyway.)

VSEO - Video Search Engine Optimization - with Greg Jarboe at SES San Jose 2008

So, stay tuned. Because this year's events -- as you can see in the SES San Jose 2009 agenda and the Social Media and Video Strategies agenda -- are likely to demonstrate the link between search and social big time.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 11:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

July 7, 2009

SES Webcast with Charlene Li, Co-Author, Groundswell, Tomorrow

Interested in finding out how to integrate social media into your business strategy? Sign up for the SES Webcast with Charlene Li, the co-author of the best-selling business book "Groundswell" and founder of the Altimeter Group. The Webcast will be held Wednesday, July 8, 2009, at 1:00 PM EDT/10:00 AM PDT.

Li presents a wealth of data accumulated while she was at Forrester Research as well as original research in Groundswell: Winning In A World Transformed By Social Technologies. She explains how to turn this social media threat into a new business opportunity. More importantly, she specifies what companies can do to turn the social media trend into a competitive advantage.

This one-hour webcast will cover breaking social media trends, discuss how to create customers who "evangelize" for your company, and how to establish and support relationships between and among your customers. Li will give Webcast participants opportunities to ask her their most burning social media trend questions!

One other note: Li will give away 10 copies of her latest book to the best questions fielded during the Webcast. So, register for the Charlene Li Webcast today.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 8:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 6, 2009

Social Media & Video Strategies To Be Held With SES San Jose

The cover story by Mike Grehan in the latest issue of SES Magazine is entitled, "Is there a link between search & social?" Well, there's a new link -- with the posting of the agenda for ClickZ's Social Media & Video Strategies Forum.

This forum, which is brought to you by ClickZ, YouTube and Google, will explore "the successes and failures companies, celebrities, and politicians have had in the social sphere online and will deliver actionable tactics and strategies so that you can prosper from them." This one-day event at the San Jose Marriott on August 11, 2009, is taking place in conjunction with the Search Engine Strategies San Jose Conference & Expo, which is being held at the McEnery Convention Center August 10-14, 2009.

Being side by side will enable attendees of both events to hear the keynote speech by Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations.

It also enables attendees of both events to visit the grand opening of the SES San Jose exhibit hall.

Then, attendees of Social Media & Video Strategies can attend sessions on: -- Marketing in a Social Media World; -- Going Social: Effective Advertising via Social Networks; -- In the Now: Conversational & Real Time Marketing; -- What Works: Online Video Advertising Made Easy With Google & YouTube; -- What Works: Best Practices / Case Studies for Online Video; and -- A Social Visit: CMO Fireside Chat.

So, the link between search and social just got stronger.

I've just finished writing a book entitled, "YouTube and Video Marketing: An Hour A Day," which will be published by Wiley in mid-August. No, I didn't know that Social Media & Video Strategies would be held in conjunction with SES San Jose 2009 when I started writing last fall. But I did know that YouTube.com was on its way to being the destination where 107.1 million Americans went to watch 6.8 billion videos each month, according to comScore Video Metrix. I also knew YouTube was on its way to becoming the #2 property where search activity is observed, with 3.2 billion search queries a month in the U.S., behind only Google, with 9.8 billion search queries a month.

So, it appears that I've been fortunate to skate to where the puck's going, to borrow a line from Wayne Gretzky. But, it also appears that I'm not the only one headed in that direction. Obviously, Clay Shirky anticipated this move, too. And so did Mike Grehan, SES Advisory Board Co-Chair & Global KDM Officer of Acronym Media, and Stewart Quealy, the other SES Advisory Board Co-Chair & VP of Content Development for Incisive Media. And so has ClickZ, YouTube and Google.

And I know others who are also looking closely at the link between search and social. For example, Byron Gordon of SEO-PR interviewed Jeff Quipp of Search Engine People at SES Toronto 2009 about social media's impact on search, and more importantly, about social media's ability to create awareness of great content.

Jeff Quipp, SearchEnginePeople, on the past, present and future of SEO

John Mulligan of SEO-PR interviewed Eric Qualman of EF Education at SES New York 2009 about the future of search and social media.

Erik Qualman, EF Education on the future of search and social media at SES New York 2009

Li Evans of Serengeti Communications interviewed me at SES London 2009 about the spike in views that the SESConferenceExpo's Channel on YouTube saw when Matt Cutts of Google embedded my video interview with him on his Gadgets, Google and SEO blog.

Greg Jarboe of SEO-PR discusses YouTube and Video Marketing at SES London 2009

So, now all of us can find the link between search and social in the same place at the same time. Sweet.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 8:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 4, 2009

New Members Join SES Advisory Board

Three new members are joining the Search Engine Strategies (SES) advisory board, joining 11 current members to guide the future direction of the search marketing conference series.

The new advisory board members are: Brett Crosby, group PPM at Google; Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank Online Marketing; and Stewart Quealy, VP of content development at Incisive Media.

Quealy, the senior person responsible for creating conference program content for the SES events, will also take over as co-chair of the board, along with Mike Grehan, global KDM officer at Acronym Media and SES London conference chairman.

"I'm proud to have been a primary speaker with SES for many years -- and even prouder to be taking on this new role with the global advisory board," Grehan said. "I'm working together with people in the industry I have great respect for. I'm confident we'll continue to maintain Search Engine Strategies' reputation as the leading global search marketing conference series well into the future."

"As a longstanding and dedicated member of the SES content team, I'm happy to play an expanded role in the evolution and continued success of the event series. I look forward to working closely with Mike Grehan and the rest of the advisory board in shaping the future direction and ongoing growth of SES," Quealy said.

The remaining advisory board members include:

• Matthew Bailey, president of SiteLogic
• Ron Belanger, VP of Worldwide Agency Sales at Omniture
• Bryan Eisenberg, co-founder of Future Now, Inc.
• Jeff Ferguson, senior director of online marketing at Local.com
• Andrew Goodman, principal of Page Zero Media and SES Toronto conference chairman
• Anne Kennedy, managing partner at Beyond Ink
• John Marshall, CTO of Market Motive
• Pauline Ores, senior marketing manager, community and collaboration strategy, global small & midmarket business, IBM
• Erynn Petersen, senior manager, advertising platform evangelism, Microsoft
• Randy Peterson, search marketing innovation manager at Proctor and Gamble

"We want to thank three of our original advisory board members, who are now rotating out of the lineup, as well as welcome three new members who are joining the SES Advisory Board as we chart our way in this ever-changing industry," said Matt McGowan, VP and publisher for Incisive Media.

The members of the SES Advisory Board who are rotating out are:

• Chris Henger, group product manager at Google
• Jeff Levick, head of global advertising and strategy at AOL
• Kevin Ryan, CMO of WebVisible, Inc.

"I enjoyed the years spent with SES and SEW, yet the demands on my time are tremendous with WebVisible and the companies I advise," said Ryan, the outgoing SES Advisory Board chairman. "I am so pleased to be passing on the baton to Mike Grehan. SES has a bright future."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 8:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 12, 2009

Search Engine Strategies SEM and SEO Training Comes to New York

On June 16, 2009, Search Engine Strategies (SES) will hold a workshop, "SEO Training: Basic to Advanced," in partnership with DM Days at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York, NY. The hands-on training workshops are being led by Matt Bailey, the president and founder of SiteLogic by day, who is a Star Trek fan in his spare time.

Matt has been training businesses about website marketing since 1997 and his speaking style has been described as conversational and entertaining. Previous seminar attendees have praised his ability to explain high level search marketing concepts in a way that even "non-techies" can understand. He's a Buckeye from Ohio and I'm a Wolverine from Michigan, so he can't get any higher praise from me.

Attendees can choose the full day workshop or participate in one workshop in the morning and one in the afternoon. The fee for the full day is $895, the fee for the half-day basics workshop is $295, and the fee for the half-day advanced workshop is $745. For complete workshop details and registration information, visit http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/training/newyork/ Matt McGowan, Vice President, Publisher at Incisive Media, says, "Anyone who's been to our training workshops in the past can attest to the sheer amount of practical information provided to our attendees in such a short amount of time." He adds, "And the attendees who have never heard Matt Bailey speak are in for a real treat. I learn something new every time I hear him, and I've been in this business a long time."

The morning workshop, which covers SEO basics, runs from 8:30 to 10:30 AM and consists of four topics:

"Website Programming Obstacles" explains what you must know about the importance of programming, information architecture, and on-page factors as related to search engines, all critical to a successful SEO campaign.

"Understand Keyword, Understand Visitors" demonstrates how keyword research is the most effective and low-cost research you can perform to understand the mind of your customers.

"Linking Strategies that Increase Rankings" explores the critical marketing activity of gaining links from other websites.

"Get the Buy-off" will show you how to get the buy-off from other departments or executive level approval for making changes to the website.

The afternoon workshop, which covers advanced SEO, runs from 1:00 to 5:00 PM and consists of three topics:

"Engines vs Visitors - Which comes first?" focuses on shared human and search engine factors to build rankings and increase success.

"Social Media + SEO = even bigger results" will cover the uses of social media in your marketing efforts and will help marketers develop a social media plan which takes into account both the potential positive and potential negative effects of social media on their websites.

"Analytics for Marketers - Stats are not for the geeks anymore" reviews the importance of statistics in an SEM campaign and can help marketers differentiate between crucial information and information that can be ignored.

For complete workshop details and registration information, you can visit http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/training/newyork/ Or, if you think my mention of Star Trek was a lame attempt at keyword stuffing, check out the video interview below. My business partner, Jamie O'Donnell, interviewed Bailey at SES San Jose last year -- about Trekkie lore and web anlytics. Hey, this was long before the current reboot of the Star Trek franchise. Hey, I couldn't make this stuff up.

Measuring Web 2.0 with Star Trek - & SiteLogic's Matt Bailey

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 7:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

April 22, 2009

SES Brings SEM, PPC and SEO Training Workshops to Atlanta

On May 5, 2009, Search Engine Strategies (SES) will hold four search engine marketing (SEM) training workshops at the Omni Hotel CNN Center in Atlanta, GA. The hands-on workshops cover a range of topics, including search engine optimization (SEO) and pay per click (PPC) advertising.

Have you ever wondered why the search engine marketing industry uses the three-letter acronym (TLA) so frequently? Were we trying to squeeze too much information into the 25-character limit for a Google AdWords headline or secretly preparing for Twitter's more generous 140-character limit?

Anyway, attendees can choose one workshop or participate in one workshop in the morning and another in the afternoon. The fee for two workshops is $1,345, and the fee for one workshop is $745. For complete workshop details and registration information, visit SEM Training Atlanta.

There are two morning workshops, which are being held from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m.

Using the conditions outlined by the popular search engines, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Workshop demonstrates how to build a user-friendly, search-friendly and persuasive website that converts visitors into buyers. The instructor is Shari Thurow, founder and SEO director of Omni Marketing Interactive. Thurow is a pioneer in the area of search-engine friendly website design and has a 100% success rate for achieving top search engine rankings for her clients.

Link Building Tactics, Tools & Techniques demonstrates how to better understand and manage link building campaigns by providing information about proven, practical and creative link marketing campaigns. The instructor is Debra Mastaler, president of Alliance-Link. Mastaler is a speaker at industry events and a guest columnist for industry publications, who offers a common sense approach to link building by combining traditional sales and promotional strategies with effective online search engine marketing tactics.

Everyone can always use link building tips and Mastaler recently spoke to WebProNews Reporter Abby Prince at Small Business Marketing Unleashed in Texas. Mastaler explained that one should begin their link building campaign by establishing their credibility. She also discussed tools that she recommends using.

More WebProNews Videos Small Business Marketing Unleashed: Debra Mastaler

There are two afternoon workshops, which are being held from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Advanced Keyword Research explores the tools available for identifying, researching and zeroing in on the right keywords for an SEO or PPC campaign via theory and real world examples. The instructor is Ron Jones, an Internet marketing consultant, trainer and owner of Symetri Internet Marketing. Jones provides strategic consulting and Internet marketing solutions to a variety of companies.

Jones was interviewed recently by John Mulligan of SEO-PR about the case study Jones presented at SES San Jose and how to improve your quality score.

Symetri case study on improving quality score Finally, How to Effectively Use Social Media for Search Marketing Campaigns reviews the entire realm of social media environments and how to use them effectively as part of a holistic marketing campaign. The instructor is Liana "Li" Evans, the director of Internet marketing at Key Relevance. Evans is well-versed in all avenues of search marketing, with a particular focus on natural search optimization, vertical search, social media and word-of-mouth marketing.

I interviewed Evans about her social media panel at SES Toronto 2008. In her session, she talked about winning social media strategies from companies such as Dell, Houlihan's, and Loblaw's. Loblaw's, for example, actively participated in social media conversations not only by creating a YouTube channel to promote its product, but by taking to heart user feedback gathered from that channel and changing their product to reflect the needs expressed by their consumers.

Li Evans on Social Media Success and BBQ Sauce

For complete SES training workshop details and registration information, visit http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/training/atlanta/

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 7:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)

April 8, 2009

Get On Board the OMS and ClickZ Regional Whistle Stop Tour

The Online Marketing Summit (OMS) and ClickZ have teamed up to launch a "whistle stop tour" of internet marketing seminars, SEO workshops, and educational events, under the OMS brand. OMS will also be offering thousands of marketing professionals in 17 cities across the U.S. who attend one of these local events the opportunity to participate in the Online Marketing Institute's new "Essentials of Online Marketing" Certification Workshop.

The 2009 OMS Whistle Stop Tour starts in Boston on May 5, 2009, and will be stopping at New York on May 7, Philadelphia on May 8, Washington, D.C. on May 14, Austin on May 18, Houston on May 20, Dallas on May 21, Chicago on May 27, Milwaukee on May 29, Minneapolis on June 2, Denver on June 4, Atlanta on June 10, Charlotte on June 12, Orange County on June 16, San Francisco on June 25, Portland, OR, on June 2 and Seattle on July 1.

With daily posts, tweets and video at each stop, "The Whistle Stop Tour" can be followed at http://blog.onlinemarketingconnect.com/ and http://www.clickz.com. At each stop, leading experts in online marketing will share best practices through hands-on classes, thought leadership panels, and credit-worthy workshops. No vendor pitches and no sales-folk will be allowed!

The 2009 OMS Summit includes sessions on: -- Social Media Business Strategies -- Search Engine Marketing in-depth education -- Website Usability Primers -- Customer Experience Best Practices -- Web Analytics & ROI Tracking -- Planning & Budgeting for Online Success -- Email Marketing & Landing Page Tactics -- Website Strategy Thought Leadership -- Behavioral Targeting & Testing

During SES New York 2009, John Mulligan of SEO-PR interviewed Aaron Kahlow, founder of Online Marketing Summit. That was when there were only 15 cities on the tour. Since then, two more have been added.

Aaron Kahlow, Online Marketing Summit, on the ClickZ 15 city tour

To register, visit https://www.onlinemarketingsummit.com/registration/. For more details on the Online Marketing Summit event and other ClickZ events including free online marketing webinars visit http://events.clickz.com/.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 16, 2009

Come To IM Charity Party During SES NY

There will be a great charity event on Monday night March 23rd during SES NY. All money goes to charity and there is an open bar for 4 hours at the Heartland Brewery in Union Square. All are welcome.

Here is a creative video Greg Niland of GoodRoi did - he gives me too much credit since he really is the one that does all the work for this.

Posted by Frank Watson at 11:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 7, 2008

SEW Experts: SES Chicago 2008 Invitation and Primer

An exciting agenda, several SEM experts, great speakers, and plenty of networking opportunities await in Chicago for the Search Engine Strategies Conference and Expo. In today's Search Marketing Crossfire column, "SES Chicago 2008 Invitation and Primer," Chris Boggs and Frank Watson run down some reasons to go to Chicago in December.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 3, 2008

SEW Experts: Charity Events: Search With a Cause

Our industry affords us a pretty good living -- the people are friendly and helpful for the most part -- and the work is interesting. We should have no problems digging into our pockets occasionally to give to charity. In today's SEM Crossfire column, "Charity Events: Search With a Cause," Frank Watson and Chris Boggs share your next opportunity to do so: next Monday in New York.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 22, 2008

Search Engine Strategies Builds Up Programming Team

We here at Incisive Media, home of Search Engine Watch and Search Engine Strategies (SES), are pleased to announce a few promotions within our event programming team.

First off, Stewart Quealy has been promoted to VP of content development. Stew has been programming the Search Engine Strategies events since 2001, most recently as senior conference program director. He will become the senior person responsible for creating conference program content for all events in the group and will be involved in the overall strategic development of our conference business. That includes the SES conferences, webcasts, and training courses.

Marilyn Crafts has been promoted to senior program director. She's been programming our SES events for the past 8 years. She will continue to work closely with Stewart, Jackie Ortez, and the rest of their team in program development, speaker selection and event strategy.

"Anyone who's spoken at or attended an SES event has seen the hard work and professionalism of Stewart, Marilyn, and the rest of their team," said Gary Lynch, managing director of the Interactive Marketing Group in North America for Incisive Media. "We're happy to be able to recognize and reward that hard work, and continue to produce top-quality events."

Kevin M. Ryan, who has been serving as VP and global content director for SES, will transition to the role of chairman of the SES Advisory Board. He will continue to have an active and visible presence at our events, and to advise Stewart and his team in their programming efforts.

"A little over a year ago, Kevin took on the assignment to stabilize and build the SES brand during a critical transition phase for the business. A year later our events, including the global SES conference and expo series, are still the dominant brand in the industry with a strong global presence," Lynch said.

Kevin plans to return to his roots on the agency side of search as CEO and founder of Motivity Marketing, a strategic consulting firm focusing on search and interactive marketing. He will also continue to write his weekly column here at SEW, "Searching For Meaning."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 9:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

July 3, 2008

Get smart at universal search SEO training class in Seattle

Greg Jarboe: Search Engine Strategies (SES) is asking us to teach a full-day SEO training class about “Optimizing for Universal Search” on Thursday, July 17, 2008, at the Renaissance Seattle Hotel, 515 Madison Street, Seattle, WA 98104?

Amanda Watlington: I don't believe you.

Greg: Would you believe SES is sending us to teach a Google universal search engine optimization training workshop in Microsoft's backyard?

Amanda: No.

Greg: How about going to Seattle to get a proper cup of coffee?

Amanda: I demand the Cone of Silence!

Greg: Okay, if you insist. I'll download the Cone of Silence blog widget. So, now that our conversation is enshrouded in a transparent sound-proof shield, what's the problem?

Amanda: Who in Seattle wants to learn search engine optimization strategies from a couple of SEO experts from Boston?

Greg: Well, our “Optimizing for Universal Search” workshops at SES London and SES New York were well attended. And if British Red Coats and New York Yankees didn't mind that their SEO classes were taught by a couple of search engine optimization experts from Boston, why should Seattle companies?

Amanda: True, we haven't dumped their tea in our harbor or faced them in the ALCS. But, give me a couple of specific examples of companies in Seattle that would benefit from sending their search engine optimization specialists, public relations professionals, and corporate video producers to a full-day SEO workshop on universal search taught by a couple of SEO experts from out of town.

Greg: Good idea Amanda – although a comprehensive list would include every member of the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce. But, conduct a web search using Google for the term, Steve Ballmer, and you'll see an example of a company in Redmond, Washington, that needs help optimizing for universal search.

Amanda: I see YouTube videos and websites integrated into a single set of results. So, who is responsible for managing this special blend?

Greg: No one is which means anyone could be. I'd hate to be on the receiving end at Waggener Edstrom when one of their largest PR clients calls to ask, “What do you know about blended search?” But, they are not alone. Google the term, Seattle Mariners, and you'll see that there are a lot of media companies in the Seattle area that have dropped the ball, too.

Amanda: I see news results blended in with the web listings above the fold. But the news sources displayed in the universal search results are from The Associated Press, SportingNews.com, and The Canadian Press, not the Seattle Times, Seattle Post Intelligencer, KING5.com, KOMO, or KIROtv.com.

Greg: Right, and according to Steve Lohr of The New York Times, search engines are “delivering 30 percent or more of the traffic on some newspaper, magazine or television news Web sites. And traffic means readers and advertisers, at a time when the mainstream media is desperately trying to make a living on the Web.”

Amanda: So, we've seen YouTube videos and news results blended into universal search results. What about images?

Greg: Ah, the old leading question trick. That's the second time I've fallen for that this week. Well, Google the term, Starbucks logo.

Amanda: I see three images at the top of the search engine results page. Don't tell me that clicking on any one of the Starbucks logos doesn't take you to a page in the Starbucks Coffee Company press room.

Greg: Clicking on any one of the Starbucks logos doesn't take you to a page in the Starbucks Coffee Company press room

Amanda: I asked you not to tell me that. You realize you'll be facing every kind of danger imaginable if you show this example to Starbucks coffee drinkers?

Greg: And loving it! But wait! There's more! Use Google to search for the term, Seattle hotels downtown.

Amanda: I see two pushpins on Google Maps. Hold on, the Renaissance Seattle Hotel is missing! Greg, the location of our SEO training class about “Optimizing for Universal Search” isn't on the map!

Greg: It's a shame that they didn't use local SEO instead of web SEO.

Amanda: Okay, you can invert the Cone of Silence. I'm ready to use it as a loudspeaker.

Greg: This is the Search Engine Watch Blog. We don't "loudspeaker" here.

Amanda: Never mind. I'll use YouTube. Their slogan is “Broadcast Yourself.” So, where's the video interview that we conducted about our upcoming SEO training class?

Greg: Missed it by that much!

Amanda: Then, how are we supposed to provide more information about our universal search engine optimization training workshop? Oh, this is utter KAOS!

Greg: Sorry about that Chief! We could try image optimization.

Amanda: That just might work. I hope I wasn't out of line with that crack about utter KAOS.

Greg: I don't mind, 99. Let's just hope that business professionals in Seattle “get smart” and attend our universal search SEO training class.

Greg Jarboe of SEO-PR and Amanda Watlington of Searching for Profit will teach “Optimizing for Universal Search” in Seattle on July 17, 2008.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 8:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

May 28, 2008

SES San Jose: Speaker Deadlines

Search Engine Strategies San Jose is fast approaching, and as Kevin Ryan outlined earlier this month, the SES San Jose speaker deadlines are coming up:

Deadline for new session pitches: May 31, 2008.Deadline for speaker pitches: June 15, 2008.

To submit your idea for a session, or your services as a speaker, use this online form. For more details, check out Kevin's post to the Search Engine Strategies Blog.

Remember, even past speakers will need to submit a pitch, so if you're sitting around waiting for your invitation, you'll be left out in the cold.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 1:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 5, 2008

Cinco de Mayo: The 411 on 212 Interactive Cinco de Mayo Bash

What is Cinco de Mayo? It's the best reason to party (May 5th) at the Cinco de Mayo bash hosted by 212, NYC's interactive advertising club. Sure there will be lots of Cinco de Mayo activities in New York and Cinco de Mayo food (margaritas!)

What's the origin of Cinco de Mayo? Whether you spell it Cinco de Mayo, Sinco Demio, Cinco de Mio, or Sinco de Mayo, it's a great Mexican holiday. Here's a very brief Cinco de Mayo history:

In the Battle of Puebla, on May 5, 1862, an underdog Mexican army defeated the massive, well-trained French army, arguably the most powerful in the world (that year). The French lost the battle but won the war. That can't stop us from celebrating Cinco de Mayo traditions, though:

If you're not 21 years old, please click thru to the next post. Cinco de Mayo Bash Dates: May 05, 2008 Times: 6:30 PM - 9:30 PM Where: Touch Night Club, 240 W. 52nd St. (b/w Broadway and 8th Avenue) Event Type: 212 Event Description: Complete madness and good times. Kevin M Ryan will be there with Matt McGowan. Open bar.

A few reasons why you should scrap whatever plans you have on May 5th to party with 212:

1) Touch Night Club (Midtown Manhattan) 2) Hot 97's DJ Camilo on the ones & twos 3) Open Bar 4) VIP floor (more on that later) 5) Dance performance by Tre Armstrong (from “How She Move”) 6) Open Bar (one more time for emphasis)

And there will be more surprises the night of that 212 can't share now but would be a shame to miss.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 11:37 AM | Permalink

April 23, 2008

212 Interactive Advertising Club Tonight: Kevin M. Ryan on Search

If you're in Manhattan tonight (or even in Weehawken, NJ for the SEMPO Board meeting) stop by Ogilvy Worldwide HQ at 6pm and meet up with the 212 Interactive Ad Club. SEW Expert Kevin M. Ryan, VP & Global Content Director for Search Engine Strategies, is the featured speaker on search marketing.

212 is NYC's forum for ad agencies and publishers to interact, network and learn. Some events are for members only; others are free and open to the public. This one's free and open to all marketers and publishers.

Here's an excerpt from the 212nyc.org site promoting the event:

Back by popular demand, Kevin Ryan returns to share his unabashed, unedited and uncensored views on search marketing. In addition to the latest research on blended search results and listing multiplicity, Kevin will cover the differences between Paid Search, Paid Inclusion, and SEO and how to effectively incorporate search into your marketing program.

When: 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM Where: Ogilvy Worldwide Headquarters 309 West 49th St.

Membership in 212 is open to all advertising agency or online publishing professionals, as well as related technology vendors and research companies in the New York area.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 10:37 AM | Permalink

March 24, 2008

Lifetips Escalator Pitch, SES NY 2008

Byron White, the president and founder of LifeTips, helped us launch a new feature at SES NY 2008: The Escalator Pitch. The brainchild of Kevin Heisler, the Escalator Pitch is like an elevator pitch – except the escalators at the Hilton New York moved much faster than the elevators.

Lifetips Escalator Pitch, SES NY 2008

Byron White is the president and founder of LifeTips.com. He is an active speaker at various Search Marketing conferences and co-hosts the weekly LifeTips radio show on WebMasterRadio.FM every Wednesday at 5 PM EST. Byron's entrepreneurial success has been well documented in Inc. magazine, Adweek, The Boston Globe, The Boston Business Journal, Portfolio Magazine and numerous other publications.

Find out everything you need to know about LifeTips, a content design and development company with more than 500 freelancers, in about 30 seconds.

You can find other Escalator Pitches from SES NY 2008 on the Search Engine Strategies conference and expo channel on YouTube.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 3:58 PM | Permalink

Matt McGowan in Times Square, Day 1 SES NY 2008

John Connor Mulligan of SEO-PR interviewed Matt McGowan, the Global Vice President of Marketing at Incisive Media, on the first day of SES NY 2008 – which happened to fall on Saint Patrick's Day.

The interview was conducted at Times Square, where you could see banners promoting the Search Engine Strategies conference. Matt discussed attendance at the event and some of the featured sessions – especially the social search track – that were developed by Kevin Ryan (another son of Ireland) for this show.

Matt McGowan in Times Square, Day 1 SES NY 2008

Matt McGowan oversees all marketing activities for the ClickZ Network and Search Engine Watch in addition to their respective trade show series, ClickZ Specifics and Search Engine Strategies.

There are plenty more videos from SES NY and London on the SES Conference & Expo channel on YouTube.

For full coverage of last week's Search Engine Strategies conference, check out SES NY 2008: Day 1 Coverage Roundup, SES NY 2008: Day 2 Coverage Roundup, SES NY 2008: Day 3 Coverage Roundup, and SES NY 2008: Day 4 Coverage Roundup on the Search Engine Strategies Blog.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 3:31 PM | Permalink

March 20, 2008

Totally Plugged In @ SES New York:  13 Undeniable Symptoms

4:00AM morning outside the New York Hilton: the city wakeup-crowd stirs pre-dawn Manhattan lights. From the 53rd St. lobby the regal doorman guides me to Kennedy International-bound taxi and deli coffee black...impeccable New York service in hand. The cab ride provides the necessary 30 minute Internet-access window to post aimClear Blog conference coverage waiting in WordPress.  Then it occurs to me: “Dude, I must be pretty screwed up to be blogging in a TAXI.”

Search marketing conference attendees seem to be the most plugged-in-public group of techno-comrades on earth. We rove in packs of iPhone and laptop-totting pied-pipers evangelizing link love, holistic patterns, authentic participation, conversion tracking, and good will. These SEMS, SEOs, PPCs, Mr., Mrs. & Ms are such beautiful people. I love the search marketing industry because ya’ll are SO plugged into the grid, running remote marketing machine empires from Blackberries.

We’re a curious and over-stimulated group, resulting in behavior that will have future anthropologists mumbling to themselves. It’s a great time to be alive and so many incredible ways to connect for business and pleasure. Here’s 13 Undeniable symptoms of total communications-grid immersion.  These are not listed in any particular order of severity.

Blogging in a taxi, blogging in the Mens Room, blogging on the bus to the Microsoft Party, in the Thai restaurant, answering comments on my Blackberry, editing POSTS on my Blackberry, blogging instead of sleeping, forgetting to eat, blogging, blogging, Blogging, BLOGGING!

Talking on a cell phone (using an earpiece) in the elevator with other people. I’ve noted that these days such behavior is becoming condoned common place in New York and Chicago. In Duluth, Minnesota it totally creeps out fellow elevator passengers and makes one  feel ostracized, as if it’s bad manners to behave as such a way.

The whole world has become one giant laptop lounge. At SES conferences there actually are places labeled as such. Moving from one seminar hall to another, many don’t even bother to put notebooks away while walking from room to room. The world is always at our fingertips.

Watching Lee Odden and Kevin Heisler’s frenetic inside-Twitter Buzz tick down over shoulder on laptop screen.  Is there any channel these guys can’t leverage?

Having the honor of speaking on the Social Media Track @ SES New York, and afterwards dealing with my 12 year old’s flipping guinea litter pig crises by BlackBerry Facebook.

Transferring YouTube video files for upload from 4 gig thumb drive (worn around the neck) over Shrimp Scampi, raw oysters on the half shell (with Tabasco mmm), perfectly chilled Fume Blanc, and crab puffs.

When “essential travel gear” includes an extension cord, power strip, duct-tape, ground-lift 2-prong adapter, and a Euro AC kit. Backing up my notebook offsite each evening while sleeping.

Sitting in the conference audience snagging a little work time during Q&A, I’ve got simultaneous IMs going with staffers back at the home office (GoogleTalk)in Duluth, coveted London WordPress vendor (MSN Messenger),  design/build firm in Minneapolis (AIM), client in Connecticut,  ISP in Texas, dialog with 2 Stumble-friends, Facebook alerts, and my mom (Voice mail).

Facebook on my phone, StumbleUpon on my phone, Sphinning on my phone, “friending” on my phone, turn by turn navigation to the E-train on my phone…for goodness sake how is there ever time to talk on my phone?

Start recording audio and/or video (you guessed it, on the phone) when your friends speak, for possible editing, transcription and posting to one of 5 blogs. Ask them to turn it off when sharing techniques learned in private from Neil Patel.

You decide that neither the Blackberry OR iPhone feel as “intimate” as the Treo 650 nor Moto Q did. Even thinking that it’s important to have an “intimate” relationship with your phone is pretty messed up.

Twittering Naked in the Bath

Approaching someone I don’t know and saying “are YOU SpostareDuro, my sweet and enigmatic SEM friend from StumbleUpon?” …and being wrong.

Search marketers are modern communications channel gatekeepers, technicians, and salespersons, obsessively plugged into the grid. Millennial behavior chatter permeates our culture as SEMs have steadily become the 900 LB mainstream gorilla.

My sense of is that we wouldn’t have it any other way than total grid immersion. Farewell SearchEngineStrategies NYC 2008.   You’re still the beautiful New York lady, shining city-scene of light and global opportunity. The culture of marketing king-makers, search marketing students and communications-grid pundits rocks my world.

Footnote: Add the measured insanity of "blogging in the airplane isle whilst waiting for the aft cabin bathroom to free up."

Posted by Marty Weintraub at 11:40 AM | Permalink

March 18, 2008

Ken McGaffin of Wordtracker Keyword Research at SES London 2008

Ken McGaffin, the Chief Marketing Officer of Wordtracker, discusses some of the most interesting trends in keyword research at SES London 2008. This includes the movement of SEO and keyword research skills to in-house professionals, which has generated a marked increase in demand for corporate training sessions.

Ken also reveals that journalists are starting to show interest in keyword research, given the necessity of getting their stories and multimedia content found in news search engines, video search engines and web search engines.

Ken McGaffin, Wordtracker keyword research, at SES London 2008

Picking the best keywords is at the heart of any online marketing campaign. Get them right, and you'll get remarkable increases in search engine traffic. But you don't have to guess what the best keywords are – tools like Wordtracker will tell you.

Wordtracker collects search data – the words real people use when they do real searches online. It analyzes and count these search phrases, and give users a variety of tools to use them in creative ways to bring relevant visitors to their websites.

With Wordtracker, you can optimize your websites organically, plan effective pay-per-click campaigns, identify niche markets, generate search engine-friendly content plans, choose memorable domain names, and choose new product and publication names. Wordtracker and other keyword research tools will help you dramatically increase the number of effective keywords in your online marketing strategy.

You can find more information on keyword strategy at the Wordtracker Academy, or by visiting their booth at SES New York 2008.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 10:17 PM | Permalink

Albert Michaels of Moniker at SES London 2008

Albert Michaels, a Senior Account Executive at Moniker, discusses his company's suite of domain asset management services at SES London 2008. Moniker Online Services, LLC is a leading provider of domain name registration, management, and monetization services for individuals and businesses that wish to have a unique address and branded identity on the Internet.

Moniker will also be exhibiting at SES New York 2008. It is also one of the sponsors of the WebmasterRadio.FM / SEARCHBASH. To ensure that you get in the door, stop by the Ask Sponsored Listings, Bruce Clay, Moniker.com, or WebmasterRadio.FM booths.

Albert Michaels, Moniker, at SES London 2008

In addition to getting into the party, you might also want to check out the serious stuff in Moniker's booth. It is the first and only provider of Domain Asset Management, a complete set of business services that provide companies a single-point-of-access to help manage and maximize the value of their domains. These services include name creation, registration, acquisition, portfolio management, appraisal and escrow services, traffic monetization and after-market sales — all backed by unsurpassed customer service and security. With more than a decade of experience, Moniker is a top 10 domain registrar, holds the industry's highest customer retention rate, and pioneered the industry's first domain appraisal formula. It is considered the industry's premier marketplace to buy and sell domain names.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 10:15 PM | Permalink

March 17, 2008

Bryan Eisenberg of Future Now at SES London 2008

Bryan Eisenberg, the co-founder of Future Now, Inc., spoke on the Orion Panel: All Star Analytics Team during SES London 2008. He also spoke at the Converting Visitors into Buyers and Redefining the Customer sessions. After a couple of days, the sessions started blending together in unexpected ways.

Brian discusses the ad-hoc floor meetings he's had as well as the more planned sessions. He is interested in the overlap between sessions and topics, like the Microsoft Yahoo bid and the question of how to most effectively convert visitors.

At the Orion Panel, Brian spoke out on the issue of whether or not to pay for an analytics package, and the potential for privacy issues that he thinks needs to be addressed more openly. He also noted that Google needs to be more transparent.

Bryan Eisenberg, Future Now, at SES London 2008 on SEO

In addition to being a co-founder of Future Now, an interactive marketing optimization firm, Bryan Eisenberg is also a co-inventor of Persuasion Architecture, Future Now's framework for optimizing online experiences to maximize lead generation, subscriptions, and sales.

Brian is also the publisher of Future Now's award-winning blog, GrokDotCom, a columnist for ClickZ and Forbes.com, and has authored several books and reports, including the best-selling Call to Action and Waiting For Your Cat to Bark. His clients include NBC Universal, GE, WebEx, Overstock, and Dell.

Bryan is currently working on his next book, Always Be Testing, which is due in September 2008. He will be speaking at the Redefining the Customer session at SES New York 2008.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 10:16 PM | Permalink

David O. Akande launches PeOKa at SES London 2008

David O. Akande of PeOKa discussed his company's core market and its technology at SES London 2008, where peOKa@p debuted. The core market of PeOKa.com is corporations with large intranet and/or extranet sites, but the company also provides tailor-made "Go Direct" search engine capability for standard Internet websites.

peOKa@p allows intranet and extranet users in corporations and other organizations to get instant and direct access to any information page, data page, or archive documents within their Intranet/Extranet site, using specially developed web tags, thereby cutting out the standard search results listing currently available on most sites.

Better yet, look and listen to what David has to say in the interview below.

David O. Akande debuts Peoka.com at SES London 2008

PeOKa.com will also be exhibiting at Search Engine Strategies Expo in New York. There will be 125 sponsors and exhibitors – from well known companies like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, to newcomers like Peoka. The Expo is only open on Tuesday, March 18, and Wednesday, March 19, so try to find some time to see what's new on the trade show floor.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 10:14 PM | Permalink

Are Search Jobs Recession-Proof? If So, How Do You Get One?

In the past, traditional marketing budgets and jobs have been among the first to be cut whenever the economy hits a rough patch. So what should those marketing folks do this time around? One option is to come join their search marketing brethren, since search is expected to weather the coming economic storm better than most forms of marketing or advertising.

In today's SearchDay, "Finding Recession-Proof SEM Jobs," Greg Jarboe shows that search engine marketing jobs and budgets really are recession-proof, and that going to SES New York this week may help traditional marketers get through the roughest economic times since World War II.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 3:44 AM | Permalink

March 16, 2008

Andrew Weatherwax of Global Strategies at SES London 2008

Andy Weatherwax, a Partner and the Director of Search Operations at Global Strategies Intl., spoke at the Big Site, Big Search session at SES London 2008, which looked at the problems and solutions unique to those running big sites or from big companies and brands.

I interviewed Andy about the session, which tackled tough questions like: "How do you cope with doing search engine optimization for a company with tens of divisions, hundreds of products, thousands of web pages and seemingly no way to bring order to the chaos?" and "Where do you begin with the SEO process?"

Andrew Weatherwax Global Strategies Intl. at SES London 2008

If you don't know him yet, Andy Weatherwax is a founding partner of Global Strategies International (GSI) and has served as embedded search consultant on accounts including Nokia, BP, Cisco and Kodak. A specialist in the area of enterprise CMS configuration and Consumer Intent Modeling, he is currently working with clients and their agencies to leverage search in the marketing mix.

Prior to Global Strategies, Andy was owner of BrainBug Internet Marketing, an award winning digital marketing consultancy providing online marketing strategy for clients including MetLife, Konica Minolta, Pfizer, WebMD and Priceline. In 2003, he was contracted by Position Technologies to develop the user experience design for Yahoo/Overture Site Match and Site Match Exchange.

A frequent speaker at industry conferences, Andy has been involved in online marketing since 1995. He has been the recipient of many prestigious awards for digital design including the Codie Award.

When he is not working, Andy can be found off-shore sailing or playing music. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Jazz Studies from the Hartt School of Music.

You can view other video interviews from SES London 2008 at the Search Engine Strategies Conference & Expo channel on YouTube.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 10:13 PM | Permalink

Mike Grehan of Acronym Media discusses SES London 2008

Mike Grehan, the Global KDM Officer at Acronym Media and Co-chair of SES London 2008, was one of the hardest working people at the event.

He moderated 11 sessions: the Organic Listings Forum; Search Around the World - Part Two: Europe and the Americas; Landing Page Testing & Tuning; Converting Visitors into Buyers; European Search Marketing Case Studies; Linking Strategies; Meet the Crawlers; Dynamic Websites: Beyond the Basics; Search Advertising Clinic; My SEM Toolbox; and Web Analytics & Measuring Success Overview.

Oh, and he also spoke on the Orion Panel about Universal, Blended and Vertical Search, as well as at the Keynote Roundtable on The Changing Search World.

Mike is also an expert SEM writer for the ClickZ Network. No wonder his latest column is entitled, How to Avoid a Crash Landing.

I caught up with Mike while he was taking a short break to catch his breath to interview him about the show and the industry for the new Search Engine Strategies (SES) Conferences & Expos channel on YouTube.

Mike Grehan, Acronym, on SES London 2008

Acronym Media recently announced the appointment of Mike Grehan as Global KDM Officer, as in "keyword-driven marketing." It's a newly-created senior executive position with worldwide management responsibilities. Mike will share his time between New York City and the U.K., guiding development of Acronym's new operations around the globe, with particular focus on Europe and Asia Pacific regions.

Mike was also appointed to Acronym's five-member executive board and given broad responsibilities to drive the Agency's global growth and strategy development for key clients, including SAP, Nokia, BMW, HP, and Four Seasons Hotels.

Mike has executive experience with the industry's leading SEM firms and is recognized as a foremost SEM expert. He is the author of multiple books and white papers on the topic, and his best-selling second edition of Search Engine Marketing: The Essential Best Practice Guide received more plaudits from the industry's leading players than any other book on the subject.

In 2004, Mike was voted one of the U.K.'s Top 100 Influential People in Internet Marketing for the previous decade in a poll of online marketer E-consultancy's 22,000 U.K. members. He is also a sought-after conference speaker, and his own personal newsletter has attracted over 17,000 subscribers.

He will be moderating three sessions at the Search Engine Strategies conference in New York: The Organic Listings Forum; The Orion Panel on Universal Search; and Meet the Crawlers. In addition, Acronym Media will be an exhibitor at SES New York 2008 at Booth #134, located in the Rhinelander Gallery.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 10:12 PM | Permalink

Liana Evans of KeyRelevance at Search Engine Strategies London

Liana "Li" Evans of KeyRelevance spoke at three sessions during last month's Search Engine Strategies conference in London: Images and Search Engines, Social Search Overview, and Search Marketing in Regulated Industries.

When she wasn't speaking, Li was blogging about the event for Search Marketing Gurus, one of the event's 10 media partners, saying, "SES London 08: The Best SES in a Long Time." Oh, she was also taking about 300 photos, winning one of the prizes in our Flickr photo sharing awards for SES London 2008.

Liana Evans, KeyRelevance, on SMO at SES London 2008

If you haven't encountered Li Evans yet, she is the director of Internet marketing at KeyRelevance. Since 1999, Li has been active in the search marketing arena, becoming well-versed in all avenues of search marketing, with a particular focus on natural search optimization, vertical search, social media, and word-of-mouth marketing. She has also become well-versed in areas of the retail industry that are regulated by the FTC.

Li helped to design, plan, and implement an Internet Retailer 500 company's efforts into natural search optimization, totally revamping out-of-date navigation and site architecture, with very successful results. Since 1992 Liana has been active in the technology fields, being both a well-versed programmer and database programmer/designer, which lends well to her technical expertise in dealing with large-scale retail sites and their dynamic natures.

Li will also be speaking at SES New York 2008 about Successful Tactics for Social Media Optimization (SMO) and Images & Search Engines. And she's already shared 9 Networking Tips to Use at SES NYC or Any Conference at Search Marketing Gurus.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 10:11 PM | Permalink

Lee Odden of TopRank Online Marketing at SES London 2008

Lee Odden, the CEO of TopRank Online Marketing, spoke at the News Search Engine Optimization as well as the Blog & RSS Search Engine Optimization sessions at SES London 2008. He also moderated the one that I covered in "Online Reputation Management Requires Cabinet War Rooms."

In his spare time, he did a video interview with Adam Lasnik of Google, posted photos from SES London, and covered the "Beyond Linkbait: Getting Authoritative Online Mentions" session on his Online Marketing Blog.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, he found time to be interviewed for our new SES Conference Expo channel on YouTube.

Lee Odden, TopRank Online Marketing, at SES London 2008

For those of you who haven't met him yet, Lee Odden is a 10+ year Internet marketing veteran and of TopRank Online Marketing. Recognized by MarketingSherpa and topseos.com, TopRank helps Fortune 500 companies with Internet marketing consulting, training, and implementation services.

Lee has been cited in numerous books and industry publications, including The Economist and DM News on the topics of search, social media, and online public relations. He also publishes the Online Marketing Blog, ranked as one of the top 10 marketing blogs online by Advertising Age.

Lee is a regular speaker at Search Engine Strategies, WebmasterWorld Pubcon, DMA Annual Conference, Media Relations Summit, PRSA International Conference, and Mediapost's Search Insider Summit. At SES New York 2008, he's speaking at the session, Beyond Linkbait: Getting Authoritative Online Mentions, and will be moderating the Podcast & Audio Search Optimization session.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 10:10 PM | Permalink

March 14, 2008

Social Media: Find Out Which 50% of Your Budget Is Wasted

The Social Search Track is only one of five choices conference attendees have at SES New York. It's all good.

So to draw a crowd to Social Search: The Next Step panel I'm moderating on Wednesday, March 19th we've added a new panelist. Someone you've never heard before.

That's right: a corporate marketing executive who will cut through the noise and hype about Facebook, StumbleUpon, Twitter, Digg --and tell you what works and what doesn't.

Meet Erik Qualman. Global VP Marketing.

He'll tell you where you need to invest your marketing budget next -- and where you're wasting your money to keep up with the cool kids.

No pitching. No selling.

If you think you're a social media guru--or a novice learning the ropes--you'll have a chance to grill Erik during the extended Q&A.

If you're a brave SMM, SMO, SEO, SEM -- you'd better be there. You may never live to sell another day. Erik''s a Spartan. After this session, you WILL remember the Spartans. As moderator, I'm hoping "mob rule" will take over my SES session SXSW style -- where the audience rules.

No videos, no cameras, no cellphones. No Tweets.

Only the first 500 people will be let in.

Live bloggers? You may be banned.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 5:01 PM | Permalink

SES NY Foosball Challenge

Come join us at the Stone Temple Consulting "Foosball Challenge". We are giving away a pair of iPod Touch's to the team (one per player) that does the best against us. Each team will get to play one game to 5 against us, and the highest score against us wins (note that if several teams tie for the best result against us we will do a drawing to determine the winner). No player can play on more than 1 team.

Just come to Booth #2033 in America's Hall 2 during the Networking Reception on Tuesday night. We will be there from 5:45 pm until 7:00 pm. If you find us earlier in the day Tuesday we can play then as well, but we may or may not be there and we are giving the iPod Touch's away at the end of the reception so stop by before then!

Fair warning - in 1984 I held a World Championship title in foosball, and my partner, John Biundo, is a better player than I am right now. However, we are going to play to have fun.

It's free to play, it's fun, and you have nothing to lose. Even if you nave never played in a tournament, you could end up winning yourself an iPod Touch. Come on down and give it a shot!

You can see more about the SES NY foosball event here.

Posted by at 1:34 PM | Permalink

SEW Experts: Making the Most of a Search Marketing Conference

If you're heading to SES New York next week, you should be preparing your questions for speakers now. In today's SEM Crossfire column, "Making the Most of a Search Marketing Conference," Chris Boggs explains how being bold, creative, and persistent, will help you get the most you can out of the conference.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

February 21, 2008

Search Engine Strategies London -- Day Three

• Birthdays, Elephants, Tools, & Booze: SES London Day 3, SEOmoz
• SES London 2008 - Local Search, Endless Plain
• SES London 2008: The Wrap Up, Search Marketing Gurus
• Search Engine Strategies - London - Redefining Customers, Online Conversion and Beyond
• SESLondon2008 photos, Flickr
• Search Engine Strategies Conference & Expo, YouTube
• SES group on LinkedIn
• SES Group on Facebook

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 6:00 PM | Permalink

February 19, 2008

Search Engine Strategies London -- Day One

Search Engine Strategies London 2008 is underway. With Day One under our belts, we're happy to share some of the coverage of the event from around the Web:

• SES London 2008 : Day 1 Roundup, Feb 19 2008, YouTube
• SES London, Near-Live Blogging (I), Traffick
• SES London Day One Recap, Search Engine Land
• SES London Day One Pictures, Online Marketing Blog
• Search Engine Strategies - London - 021908, Online Conversion and Beyond
• Search Engine Strategies - London - Auditing Paid Listing and Click Fraud Issues, Online Conversion and Beyond
• Search Engine Strategies - London - Orion Panel: All-Star Analytics Team, Online Conversion and Beyond
• Search Engine Strategies - London - Orion Panel - Universal, Blended and Vertical Search, Online Conversion and Beyond
• SES London 08: Organic Listings Forum, Search Marketing Gurus
• SES London 08: Frederick Marckini Opening Keynote, Search Marketing Gurus
SES London 08: Impact of Universal Search, Orion Panel, Search Marketing Gurus
• Search Engine Strategies Organic Listings Forum Live from SES 2008, Firefly SEO
• 20 Minutes to Mention Paid Links: SES London Day 1, Part 1, SEOmoz
• Analytics and the Future of Search, YOUmoz
• SES London: Click Fraud Issues, Andrew Girdwood
• SESLondon2008 photos, Flickr
• Search Engine Strategies Conference & Expo, YouTube
• SES group on LinkedIn
• SES Group on Facebook

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 6:00 PM | Permalink

Ralph Wilson's Introduction to Search Marketing at SES London

Condensing the essentials of search engine marketing into a one-hour session is a formidable challenge. This morning at SES London Dr. Ralph Wilson, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Web Marketing Today, took on this challenge (In the interest of full disclosure I periodically write for this publication). Ralph provided a clear concise introduction to the lingo and processes for organic and paid search. As with any introduction, there is the challenge of offering enough meat on the bone to satisfy those who are at an intermediate or beyond level without losing the beginners. From the large number of delegates actively taking notes, Ralph's presentation was very well-received and offered plenty for everyone.

All of us who either market or provide search engine marketing services would have benefited from this session, for Ralph offered a clear roadmap just what we must provide clients not yet familiar with our services and processes. There were some nuggets – “be sure to scatter clues throughout the site.” These are essential messages that we deliver to clients, but it is not until it is put in context that is truism comes alive, as it did for the audience this morning.

Posted by Amanda Watlington at 6:43 AM | Permalink

February 15, 2008

Win a Free Pass to SES New York with the SES Affiliate Program

You've seen all the reasons to attend SES London, and you can be sure that SES New York will be just as good, if not better. If you're planning on going, you probably want to tell your clients, readers, and friends. To make that worth your while, we've teamed up with Pepperjam Network to create the Search Engine Strategies Affiliate Program.

We'll supply you with unique SES banners, text links, and pepperjamADS to promote the Search Engine Strategies events. In return, bloggers and affiliates get 5% of each referred sale. To give you an idea of what that's worth, a full-conference pass to SES New York (coming up on March 17-20) costs $1,895. The commission on that would be $94.75.

Need even more incentive to join? SES and Pepperjam have another prize for the top affiliate. Between now and March 14, the affiliate or blogger that generates the most ticket sales through our new affiliate program will get a FREE full-conference pass to attend SES NY, as well as an exclusive VIP ticket to a Pepperjam-sponsored private dinner party, to be held at the Manhattan Penthouse in NYC the week of the show. Get all the details and sign up now for the Search Engine Strategies Affiliate Program from Pepperjam Networks.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 4:50 PM | Permalink

January 15, 2008

SEW Experts: Search Engine Conferences: Where CMOs Meet Social Media

Most companies have little to no understanding about social media optimization and what it can do for their organizations. In today's Big Biz column, "Search Engine Conferences: Where CMOs Meet Social Media," Aaron Shear pins the blame on the outdated SEM education most marketing executives got in business school, if they got any at all.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

January 9, 2008

Choose your Racecourse at SES London

They say that every horse has an ideal course they like to run. In today's SearchDay, "It's "Horses for Courses" at SES London," Greg Jarboe outlines the various tracks available to the many kinds of search marketing horses at SES London, coming to Islington February 19-21, 2008.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 5:57 PM | Permalink

December 4, 2007

SEW Experts: SEMs Get 'No Respect' No More

At Search Engine Strategies Chicago, keynote speaker Don Shultz told search marketers in no uncertain terms that they need to start thinking differently about what they do. In today's Search Engine WarGames column, "SEMs Get 'No Respect' No More," Kevin Heisler shares Shultz's views on talent development, helping traditional marketers understand search, and a range of other topics.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

December 3, 2007

SEMPO Brings Search Engines Together for Education

SEMPO, the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization, is bringing representatives from Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft to its annual meeting for a round-robin discussion of each company's latest issues and initiatives. The event will take place at Search Engine Strategies Chicago, in room Stevens 5 at the Chicago Hilton, tonight from 6 - 7:30 p.m. Attendees will be divided into three groups – agency search marketers, in-house search marketers, and other marketers – and will spend roughly 15 minutes with each engine.

SEMPO is also kicking off the data collection phase of its annual State-of-the-SEM Market Survey. The survey is open to all search engine marketing professionals working in an agency or in-house. Participants do not need to be SEMPO members.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 9:51 AM | Permalink

Online Information Show this Week in London

While many search marketers in the U.S. are headed to Search Engine Strategies Chicago or Webmasterworld Pubcon in Las Vegas this week, our UK readers should not feel left out. This week in Olympia, London, Incisive Media is putting on the Online Information Show, from December 4-6.

The event highlights online content and information management solutions, and features a keynote from Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales. There are three main tracks, covering Web 2.0 issues, information search and discovery, and library and publishing.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 6:59 AM | Permalink

November 28, 2007

What are exhibitors exhibiting at SES Chicago?

A significant number of people will attend SES Chicago next week with an expo only pass (which is free if you get one in advance or $25 if you pick one up on site).

That's right. A lot of people will be coming to see what the exhibitors are exhibiting on the show floor.

But, what will they see?

While I should disclose that SES Chicago is a client, I don't have any inside information to share about what the exhibitors will be exhibiting on Dec. 4-5.

In fact, the lack of advance publicity from exhibitors reminds me of “Silver Blaze”, one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

In the story, Inspector Gregory of Scotland Yard asks, “Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?”

Holmes replies: “To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.”

Gregory: “The dog did nothing in the night-time.”

Holmes: “That was the curious incident.”

In contrast to the curious lack of publicity from exhibitors, you can find half a dozen press releases about conference speakers like the ones below:

Adapt Agency Development Director to Discuss Agency Pay-Per-Click Management Challenges

Engine Ready CEO Jamie Smith to Speak at Search Engine Strategies Conference Local.com to Present at Search Engine Strategies Chicago Red Bricks Media's CEO to Speak at Search Engine Strategies Conference 2007

Think Partnership to Present at Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2007

Where 2 Get It CEO Manish Patel to Speak at Search Engine Strategies (SES) Chicago 2007

So, if speakers are out promoting what they will be saying in the conference sessions, why aren't the exhibitors promoting what they'll be exhibiting on the trade show floor?

Google will have a booth. Will we see Android, the first complete, open, and free mobile platform? It's a mystery.

Microsoft adCenter will also have a booth. Will they open their publisher network, aka ContentAds, to the public? This, too, is a mystery.

Ask.com will also have a booth. Will we see anything new from Bloglines? This is also a mystery, for now.

I plan to spend some time on the trade show floor trying to find answers to these and other questions. If you are exhibiting at SES Chicago and want me to drop by to see your new product, service or research, send me an email at Greg dot Jarboe at SEO hyphen PR dot com.

I'm pretty confident that there will be plenty of news hidden in plain sight on the trade show floor. I'm just curious why the dogs aren't barking about it ahead of time.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 2:59 PM | Permalink

November 14, 2007

SES Webcast Today: How Large Enterprises Effectively Integrate Paid & Natural Search Marketing

There's still time to sign up for a webcast beginning at 1 p.m. EST today discussing the challenges large enterprises face when integrating SEO and paid search. The one-hour session, part of the Search Engine Strategies Webcasts series, features SEW's executive editor Kevin Heisler.

Kevin will focus on what the best and brightest CMOs are doing right – and why no corporations have the answer, yet. You'll learn why CMOs still have "the most dangerous job" in America, and find out which major corporations are on the path to global SEO SEM integration.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:27 AM | Permalink

November 6, 2007

Justifying the Investment in Industry Conferences

Going to industry conferences is expensive, no doubt. But it would cost you more in the end if you let your competition get an edge on you. Actually, if you crunch the numbers, you may find that you could get a five-fold return on your investment in attending and getting to a show like SES Chicago.

In today's SearchDay, "20,000 Reasons to Attend SES Chicago," Greg Jarboe does the math for you, so you can go back to your boss and justify the expense.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 3:57 PM | Permalink

Kevin Newcomb to moderate two panels at ILM:07

Check out the agenda at The Kelsey Group's Interactive Local Media (ILM:07) conference, which will be held November 28-30, 2007, at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza in Los Angeles. One of the keynote speakers is Jake Winebaum, President, RHDi, CEO, Business.com. I first met Jake back in the 1990s when he was the publisher of Family PC magazine.

But, wait, there's more! (I've always wanted to say that.)

Kevin Newcomb will be moderating two panels at ILM:07 -- "Local Link Love" and "Local Keyword Research – Laying the Foundation for Success." I think this is Kevin's debut as a moderator. This is big industry news. And I'm proud to say that I knew Kevin before he became an industry superstar.

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 12:20 PM | Permalink

November 1, 2007

Seth Godin Dishes Out Meatball Sundaes

Today, SES Chicago keynote speaker Seth Godin spent an hour dishing out his marketing wisdom on a webcast with our own Kevin Ryan. He expounded on the ideas behind his new book, Meatball Sundae.

What is a meatball sundae? According to dedicated live-blogger Lisa Barone, Seth described it this way: A meatball is a worthwhile commodity. They are things we need and sold to everyone. The sundae is the hot fudge and the peanuts, the tactics of social media and the MySpace profiles. These things work but they work best when they're not on meatballs, but when they're on an organization designed to work with them.

Seth also offered 14 trends to help organizations avoid ending up with the meatball sundae. Jody Nimetz at SEO-space has a good recap of those.

Specifically for search marketers, Seth advises ditching the reactionary moves to find the latest and greatest tactics to place well in the search engines, and focus on real marketing: What he's trying to say to the search engine optimization world is that SEO has traditionally been a tactical minute-to-minute game. It's been about figuring out what the search engines want right now and tweaking sites to meet that. That's over.

What we want to do now is to change the very nature of what SEOs do so that regardless of what tactics are hot at the moment, the engines will want to find them because the stuff they're doing matches the strategies the engines are always going to have.

You should print that little bit out and stick it on your wall. If this wasn't a free event, that would have been worth the price of admission right there.

If Lisa and Jody's great coverage is not enough, you can also find more insight from Josh Bernoff, David Dalka, and Darren Barefoot.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:49 PM | Permalink

October 24, 2007

Some Loose Connections -- Dave Weinberger Featured Speaker at ClickZ Interactive Marketing Excellence Awards

This evening Dave Weinberger author of The Cluetrain Manifesto and a fellow at Harvard's Berkman Institute for Internet and Society will be a featured speaker at the ClickZ Awards being held at Gotham Hall in New York City. I am seriously looking forward to this gala event and was struck by several coincidences -- loose connections so to speak.

Dave Weinberger is very generous with his time and has been a regular attendee (as regular as a very busy schedule allows) at Harvard's Berkman Thursday Blog Group. This group, which has been meeting for several years, gathers on Thursday evenings to discuss a wide range of blogging-related topics. I try to attend regularly, for the conversation is lively and thought-provoking.

In April 2006, I issued an invitation to attend the Thursday meeting during a speech on blogging at a conference in Boston. Taking me up on the invitation was fellow SES speaker Dixon Jones of Receptional in the UK. Dave Weinberger was in attendance and prompted a very stimulating conversation when he asked why he should give search optimizers any credibility whatsoever, given the premise that the search marketer was out to subvert the publics' perception by manipulating search results. We gave him lots to consider, recapped nicely by Dixon.

Now here is the coincidence and some loose connections – Weinberger will be in New York at ClickZ, Watlington will be in NYC at ClickZ, and Dixon will be conducting a Link and Reputation Workshop for ClickZ's sister event at SES @ a4uexpo in the UK.

Posted by Amanda Watlington at 11:47 AM | Permalink

September 24, 2007

IMNY Charity Event Scheduled for October 15

The Internet Marketers of New York are holding another charity event, so keep the 15th of October open.

The event will help raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. It is scheduled for October 15, between 7pm and 10 pm at the Town Tavern at 134 W. 3rd Street and 6th Ave. Tickets are $40.

The Best Of The Web guys are the sponsors who are covering all costs so that ticket sales money will go directly to the charity.

The group is gladly accepting donations for things to give as prizes for the raffles that will be held at the event. For more information contact Greg Niland.

Posted by Frank Watson at 4:15 PM | Permalink

September 18, 2007

The Key to Getting Answers: Be Prepared

When it comes to getting answers that can directly help your business, industry conferences like Search Engine Strategies can't be beat. The obvious way to learn at SES is to attend the sessions. But you can learn a whole lot more by going in with a plan and thinking like a Boy Scout: Be Prepared.

In today's SearchDay, "Ten Lessons From SES San Jose," John Biundo shares his preparation methods, along with some of the more interesting things he learned at the recent SES San Jose conference.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 4:25 PM | Permalink

August 23, 2007

SES San Jose Coverage

• SES San Jose - media coverage report, Search Engine Strategies Blog
• Search Engine Roundtable
• Bruce Clay Blog
• TopRank Online Marketing Blog
• Search Engine Journal
• SiteProNews
• WebProNews
• aimClear
• UnofficialSEO
• SES San Jose: Top Takeaways Part 1, Web Analytics World
• SES San Jose: Top Takeaways Part 2, Web Analytics World
• SES - The ABT's of Search, Pepperjam Blog
• Are Paid Links Evil? I'm Sick Of The Question, Fathom SEO

Tagged Posts & Pictures

• Technorati
• Google Blog Search
• Flickr
• Google Video Search

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:51 PM | Permalink

August 21, 2007

SES San Jose Coverage, Day 1

General Coverage

• 5 Must Attend Sessions at SES San Jose 2007, Search Engine Journal
• Pre-Event SES San Jose Coverage, Search Engine Strategies
• 50 Things I Love About Search Conferences, SEOmoz
• Things We Hate About Search Conferences, SEOmoz
• San Jose Bait Bait, In Search of Stuff
• SES San Jose: Top Takeaways Part 1, Web Analytics World
• Search Engine Strategies - Google Party, Joe Duck
• Pre-Event SES San Jose Coverage, Search Engine Strategies Blog

Session Coverage

• SES San Jose Coverage Roundup - August 20, 2007, Search Engine Land
• Search Engine Roundtable
• Bruce Clay Blog
• TopRank Online Marketing Blog
• Search Engine Journal
• SiteProNews
• WebProNews
• aimClear
• UnofficialSEO
• Web Marketing Watch
• Getting Traffic from Contextual Ads - SES San Jose, SEOmoz
• Keynote Conversation With Jim Lanzone, Ask.com - SES San Jose, SearchRank
• SES SJ 2007 Session of the Day: Personalization, User Data & Search, SEO-space
• Example questions at SES: Universal Search, Matt Cutts

Tagged Posts & Pictures

• Technorati
• Google Blog Search
• Flickr
• Google Video Search

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 PM | Permalink

August 16, 2007

Optimizing your SES San Jose Schedule

Still trying to figure out which of the 73 sessions to attend at next week's Search Engine Strategies San Jose conference? Let Greg Jarboe guide you with his optimized schedule for paid- and organic-focused search marketers in today's SearchDay, "Schedule Optimization for SES San Jose."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:12 AM | Permalink

August 15, 2007

SES Advisory Board Members Named

As we noted in June, one of the first things Kevin Ryan did when he joined Incisive Media as the new VP and global content director for Search Engine Strategies was to begin developing an advisory board for the SES conferences, consisting of individuals from the industry and beyond, to help Kevin and our programming and operations teams guide the direction of future conferences.

Today, the first group of 15 advisors has been named to the SES Advisory Board, focusing on the U.S. Search Engine Strategies events:

• Anne Kennedy, Managing Partner, Beyond Ink
• Jeff Levick, Director, Global Industry Development and Marketing, Google
• Gregg Stewart, Senior Vice President, Interactive, TMP Directional Marketing
• Jeff Ferguson, Director of Online Marketing, Napster
• Randy Peterson, Search Marketing Innovation Manager, Proctor and Gamble
• Steven Kaufman, Senior Vice President, Media Director, Digitas
• Sandeep Aggarwal, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Oppenheimer & Co.
• Ron Belanger, Vice President of Agency Development, Yahoo Search Marketing
• Chris Henger, Vice President, Affiliate Marketing, Performics
• James M. Lamberti, Senior Vice President, Search and Media, comScore Networks
• Carol Kruse, Vice President, Global Interactive Marketing, The Coca-Cola Co.
• Jeannie Moran, eCommerce Marketing Director, AutoNation
• Erynn Petersen, Senior Manager, Advertising Platform Evangelism, Microsoft
• Jocelyn Griffing, Senior Vice President, Online Media, Icon International
• Pauline Ores, Senior Marketing Manager, Community and Collaboration Strategy, Global Small & Midmarket Business, IBM

The board includes thought leaders from leading packaged goods, automotive, entertainment and electronics brands to augment the efforts of the existing SES faculty in delivering the timeliest information on search and integrated marketing. They will meet regularly to work with event chairs and existing SES contributors to guide content for future events. The initial board members will serve for a year, after which the board may be expanded, Ryan said.

"We were looking for a balance of the old guard with new members with the potential to bring new ideas and thought processes to the show," Ryan said. "Everybody involved is highly steeped in search, and many Advisory Board members have been doing paid search or SEO for more than 10 years."

If you've got suggestions for Kevin or the SES Advisory Board, please share them in the SEW Forums.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 5:00 PM | Permalink

Women of SEO Luncheon Monday August 20

Li Evans at Marketing Gurus is organizing a Women of Search luncheon Monday August 20 during SES. For more details and to sign up to attend visit the Marketing Gurus site.

These have been fun from what I have heard.... a little discriminatory but maybe an invite for DaveN will show him there are a lot of women in our space.

Posted by Frank Watson at 11:03 AM | Permalink

SES: The Benefits of Repeat Visits

Many attendees of search industry conferences attend multiple shows a year. That's all well and good for those who are speaking at the show, or whose companies are paying for the trip. But what about those who are footing their own bills? Is it worth it for them to attend SES and other shows again and again?

According to Craig Paddock, who has attended 17 consecutive U.S. SES events, there are benefits for repeat visitors. Paddock shares his experience leaving SES New York in April in Tuesday's SearchDay, Does SES Convert for Repeat Visitors?

He points to things like new ideas from speakers and fellow attendees, tips on what not to do, new contacts (SEOs as well as search engine reps), and inspiration from immersion as tangible benefits for repeat visitors. He also notes that direct access to search engine reps can by itself be worth the price of admission.

If you're not heading to Search Engine Strategies San Jose next week, and still want to benefit from that direct access in an informal environment, you can take advantage of a post in the SEW Forums, where Frank Watson (Aussie Webmaster) has kindly offered to collect questions and get them answered by the appropriate speaker or search engine rep at the show, or at one of the parties planned around the event.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:25 AM | Permalink

August 13, 2007

Search Engine Strategies Updates

As many of you know, Search Engine Strategies San Jose is just a week away. Everyone who's ready for an intense week of immersion in the latest and greatest thinking in the search industry (not to mention the heroic levels of drinking that seems to always go along with it), raise your hand. Well, I'm not ready for it either, but I'm sure I will be by next Monday.

To get a taste of what to expect next week, you can check out Daron Babin and Brandy Shapiro-Babin's Rainmaker podcast from last week on WebmasterRadio.fm. Daron and Brandy sit down with Kevin Ryan, global content director for SEW and SES, to discuss SES San Jose.

During the show next week, you can of course expect coverage from the SEW blog, WebmasterRadio.fm, and the legion of search bloggers that cover the sessions in live-blogging format. Besides the stellar coverage from Barry, Tamar and crew at Search Engine Roundtable, and The Lisa's coverage at Bruce Clay Blog, you can also expect new perspectives from Lee Odden's team at TopRank, on the Online Marketing Blog.

If you plan on covering the show on your blog, drop me a line and I'll be sure to include your coverage in our daily wrap-ups of SES news next week. In addition, you can tag all of your posts and photos with sessanjose2007, and we should be able to find it. In addition, if you're interested in covering any of the sessions for a post-show SearchDay article, get in touch and we can discuss specifics.

We're not going to be live-blogging here on the SEW blog, but we'll certainly be keeping you informed of any news, interesting tidbits, and other goings-on at the event. You can of course check out the SES San Jose 2007 Party Thread to find all the latest goings-on. The short version: Google Dance on Tuesday, Webmasterradio Search Bash on Wednesday (seems certain search engines that do not begin with "G" are balking at throwing a party this year).

In other SES news, we've announced today that Andrew Goodman, founder of SEM firm Page Zero Media, author, and all-around nice guy, has been named as chairman and host of the 2008 and 2009 SES Toronto conferences. Andrew did a fantastic job organizing this year's event, and it's great to know he'll be back to do it again for at least the next two years.

The SES team today also posted the agenda for SES @ A4U Expo, the search marketing forum that's taking place in London in October in conjunction with the Affiliates4U conference. The two-day program includes a lineup of search and affiliate marketing stalwarts.

If you just can't wait until next week (and you're still reading this), you can check out a few conference-related posts I've seen in the past week or so:

• Secret Benefits of Attending SEM Conferences, Online Marketing Blog
• 10 Not-So-Secret Reasons to Attend Search Marketing Conferences, Searching Beyond the Paid
• Top 14 Lines Overheard at Search Engine Strategies After Hours Parties , Webbed Marketing
• The Search Conference Groupie, Evilgreenmonkey (not new, but worth a read, if you missed it the first time)

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 8:00 AM | Permalink

August 1, 2007

SEW Experts: Taking Off at SES Travel Edition

In today's Searching for Meaning column, "Taking Off at SES Travel Edition," Kevin Ryan returns from the recent SES Travel event in Seattle with carry on, sage advice.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

July 25, 2007

Search and Affiliates Coming to London

How are affiliates using search engine marketing? Search Engine Strategies and Affiliates4U.com will find out at a one-day SES Forum at the A4U Expo coming up in London on October 25-26. The search side of the event will be chaired by Kevin Ryan, global content director for Search Engine Watch and Search Engine Strategies. SES will also be announcing a dedicated Search Engine Marketing & Optimization Training Day on Wednesday, October 24.

Have no fear, the full three day SES London is still scheduled for February 19-21, 2008. In fact, it was just announced that Mike Grehan has been named chair and host of the event.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:30 AM | Permalink

July 16, 2007

Incisive Events Coming This Summer

It's been a busy conference season for search marketers over the past few months, and the pace is finally letting up – but only a little bit. Incisive Media, parent to Search Engine Watch, is planning four more events in July and August, and then we promise to take a break for a little while.

Coming up are three Search Engine Strategies events, and one ClickZ Specifics event which may be of interest to some of our readers:

1. ClickZ Specifics: Online Video Advertising – July 19, 2007, in New York City.Get up to speed on the latest online video formats, strategy, results, and creative in this immersive one-day forum.
2. SES Travel – July 26-27, 2007, in Seattle.Find out about the web marketing tools available to those in the travel industry directly from the experts at this two-day conference.
3. SES Training – August 8, 2007, in Boston.This one-day workshop provides the practices, applications, and hands-on exposure you need to become (and remain!) a top performer in your field.
4. SES San Jose – August 20-23, 2007, in San Jose, California.While SES NY is the agency conference, SES SJ is the high-tech and internet company event of the year. Keynotes from Ask.com's Jim Lanzone and Google's Marissa Mayer highlight this 4-day event. SEM training classes will also be offered on August 24.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 3:49 PM | Permalink

July 3, 2007

Thinking About Innovation

Greg Jarboe recently spoke at a Wharton School conference on innovation. He thought he'd be the one offering the insights on search and blogging, but found that he was just part of conversation. He shares the five questions that helped start the conversation in today's SearchDay, "5 Questions on Innovation."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:01 PM | Permalink

Speaker Openings for SES San Jose

Chris Sherman is putting the finishing touches on the Search Engine Strategies San Jose conference, coming up on August 20-23, 2007. There are currently openings for speakers on four panels: Personalization, User Data & Search; Search APIs; So You Want To Be A Search Marketer!; and SEM Pricing Models.

To be considered for the open slots, first read the guidelines to see if you qualify, and to learn how to get in touch with Chris Sherman for consideration.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:04 AM | Permalink

June 20, 2007

SES Latino Coverage

The Search Engine Strategies Latino conference in Miami this week provided attendees with a wealth of search-related information, including a full track of content specific to the U.S. Hispanic and Latin American markets. As soon as I recover from the storm-induced travel delays on both ends of the conference, I'll be posting more details from the conference. In the meantime, you can see live-blogged coverage from Search Engine Journal and Search Engine Roundtable, as well as some wrap-ups from other sites:

Search Engine Journal

• SES Latino : Talking Search Marketing in Miami
• SES Miami : Search Marketing to US Hispanic & Latin American Markets
• Search Marketing Campaign & Project Management in the Latin Market
• Search Marketing Campaign & Project Management in the Latin Market

Search Engine Roundtable

• Search Engine Strategies Latino '07 Wrapup
• SES Latino 2007 Keynote with Gonzalo Alonso of Google
• Introduction to Search Engine Marketing
• Tapping into US Hispanic and Latin America via Search
• Search Landscapes: US Hispanics and Latin Americans
• SEM Campaign and Project Management
• Search Term Research & Targeting
• The Challenges Of Search Marketing To US Hispanics & Latin Americans
• Converting Visitors to Buyers; Persuasion Architecture
• Targeting Spanish/Portuguese Search Ads by Demographics & Behavior
• Web Analytics and Measuring Success Overview
• Search Marketing with Latinos: Roundtable

Elsewhere

• SES Latino 2007 Wrap-Up, cshel
• Target Latinos through Search Engine Marketing -- Or Let the Competition Do It First, Webmama
• Reaching Latin Americans Through Search Engine Marketing, Webmama
• Multi-Language/Country Targeting Online, Webmama
• SES Latino - Miami. Search Marketing to Latin America and US Hispanics, Think About Search
• US Hispanic Spanish Search Engine Strategies, Ahorre.com
• LiveBlogging! Google Presentation at Search Engine Strategies, Ten Golden Rules
• SES Miami - Search Term Research & Targeting, Ten Golden Rules
• Afterthoughts on SES Latino, Optimize & Prophesize
• Wrap up: Search Engine Strategies (SES) Latino 2007, Miami Ad Guy

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:16 PM | Permalink

June 19, 2007

More Thoughts on SES Toronto

In today's SearchDay, Greg Jarboe tries to put his finger on the many things that made SES Toronto different this year. The content, tone, and players were different, and that's partly a reflection of the state of the industry in general. As Greg quotes Bob Dylan, "the times they are a-changing."

In addition, more reports from SES Toronto have been trickling in as speakers and attendees return home and think about what they learned about both the Canadian search scene and the larger search industry in general. In addition to the coverage we mentioned last week are these reports and reactions:

• SES Toronto and the Canadian Search Landscape, SEOmoz
• Canadian Search Marketing: Impending Hockey Stick?, Traffick
• The cranky Canadian is back from Toronto
• Metamend/Enquisite Fun at SES Toronto, Metamend
• Thinking Search from the outer left-coast, Metamend
• What I learned at Toronto SES 2007, YOUmoz
• Search Engine Strategies Toronto 2007 - Day 1 Highlights, Sweet Mantra
• Search Engine Strategies Toronto 2007 - Day 2 Highlights, Sweet Mantra

SES Latino in Miami is wrapping up today, so we'll share our own thoughts and link to others' coverage tomorrow.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:43 AM | Permalink

June 18, 2007

Latin American Market Poised for Growth

Speaking at Search Engine Strategies Latino today in Miami, Gonzalo Alonso, Google's general manager for Spanish-speaking Latin America, said that Google sees huge potential in the Latin American market.

"When we see Latin America, we see growth," Alonso said. The market is growing faster than any other world market, but some challenges need to be overcome. According to Alonso, these include establishing online payment methods, increasing the number of e-commerce players, getting businesses to build indexable Web sites, and getting the government involved in closing the Internet gap.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 9:40 AM | Permalink

Update on SES Advisory Board

Last week, we asked for input on the future of Search Engine Strategies, and we're thrilled to say we've gotten even more valuable comments and suggestions than we expected. We've also got some great people coming forward to offer their voice on the SES Advisory Board.

But we're still not done. If you've got ideas for ways to improve SES, or just a particular area you think needs to be addressed, please share your ideas in the SEW Forums. If you're interested in getting involved with the SES Advisory Board, get in touch with Kevin Ryan, VP and global content director for Search Engine Strategies and Search Engine Watch, at kevin.ryan -at- incisivemedia.com. Kevin is interviewing candidates for the remaining spots now so drop him a line if you interested.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 8:04 AM | Permalink

June 15, 2007

The End of SEO, or a New Beginning?

At SES Toronto this week, Google's Universal Search, personalization, and the death of SEO were among the hot topics discussed. In her ClickZ column today, "Search Works Harder, So Must Search Marketers," Rebecca Lieb offers some highlights from the show.

For other coverage of SES Toronto, check out:

• SES Toronto 2007: Built By People, for People and Robots, Traffick
• Canada, It's Time To Clue Into Search!, Search Insider
• SES Toronto - Day0.6, Reflections on the Canadian Search Sector, Jim Hedger
• Afterthoughts on SES Toronto, Optimize and Prophesize
• Top 10 Fun Things I Learned at SES Toronto, NLC Internet Marketing
• Commentary on Search Engine Strategies in Toronto Canada (video), Web Marketing Watch
• Canada, Search Marketing and Gord Hotchkiss., Webmama
• Search Engine Marketing Opportunities in Canada, Ten Golden Rules

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:10 AM | Permalink

June 14, 2007

Kevin Ryan on the Future of Search Engine Strategies

Last week, we announced that Kevin Ryan had joined Incisive Media as the new VP and global content director for Search Engine Strategies and Search Engine Watch. Lee Odden interviewed Kevin for his Online Marketing Blog last week, and today, Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz published an interview he did with Kevin, "The New Direction of SES & An Interview with Kevin Ryan."

Kevin spoke with Rand at SES Toronto, which took place earlier this week. He offered some insight into the direction SES may be heading, and shared with Rand Incisive's plan to create an advisory board for the SES conferences, consisting of about a dozen individuals from the industry to help Kevin and our programming and operations teams guide the direction of future conferences.

While we don't have specifics to announce now, you can expect to hear all the details very soon. In the meantime, if you've got ideas for SES, please share them in the SEW Forums. There are a couple of spots remaining on the board, so if you think you have something to offer, get in touch with Kevin at kevin.ryan -at- incisivemedia.com.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:42 PM | Permalink

May 30, 2007

News from SES China

I didn't make the trip to Xiamen for SES China, though I was tempted by the thought of spending at least 24 hours sitting on a plane. Thankfully, there were several intrepid souls from the States that did make the trip last week, and have blogged about it:

• Presentations from SES Xiamen, SEOmoz
• Search Engine Strategies China Recap, Search Engine Journal
• Report From The Field: Search Engine Strategies China, Search Engine Land
• Logging in from China - Part III, Out of My Gord
• Search Engine Strategies - Xiamen China, SEOmoz
• Report From SES China: SEM Strategies For The Enterprise Life Cycle, Search Engine Land

SES Milan took place yesterday and today, so if anyone attended that show, let me know and I'll link to any blog coverage, or feature it here. The next Search Engine Strategies events are coming up in June, in Toronto on June 12-13, and in Miami on June 18-19.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 2:22 PM | Permalink

May 9, 2007

Coverage from SEW Live -- Columbus

Our latest SEW Live event took place today in Columbus, Ohio. Elisabeth has of course been busy running the show, and I'm home in Connecticut, but thankfully, WebProNews was at the event in force, writing stories and continuing their fine event video coverage. I've linked to their stories below, as well as any other posts I've found from people who attended.

If you were there, share your thoughts in the SEW forum, or e-mail me a link to your blog where you've posted about it and I'll add it to the list.

• SEW Live - The Pros And Cons Of Social Media, WebProNews
• SEW Live - Marketers: Digg Is Done, YouTube Won, WebProNews
• SEW Live - Viral Marketing And Link Bait, WebProNews
• SEW Live - Marketing Common Sense, WebProNews
• SEW Live - Accessibility Good For Profits, Karma, WebProNews
• SEW Live - Keyword Advice From the Pros, WebProNews
• SEW Live - Elisabeth Osmeloski on the Future of SEW (video), WebProNews
• SEW Live: Matt Bailey of sitelogic.com on social media (video), WebProNews
• SEW Live - Measuring Social Media, WebProNews
• SEW Live - Link Building, WebProNews
• SEW Live Recap: This Is Getting Personal, WebProNews
• SEW Live: Sage Lewis of Sage Rock on the Good and Bad Social Media (video), WebProNews
• SEW Live! in Columbus Coverage, Cleveland SEO
• Search Engine Watch Hosts Day Long Event in Ohio, Cre8pc
• Search Engine Watch LIVE Columbus - What I learned from the Big Dogs, Learning the Art of SEM

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 9:41 PM | Permalink

May 2, 2007

ClickZ Specifics Events in May: Web Metrics, Social Media

Two ClickZ Specifics events taking place in New York this month may be of interest to search marketers. These aren't directly search-related, but there's some overlap.

The first is taking place today, May 2, and addresses Web Metrics. Speakers include Bryan and Jeff Eisenberg of FutureNow, Sheryl Draizen of the IAB, LeeAnn Prescott of HitWise, and Frank Watson of FXCM.

On May 21, ClickZ will hold an event on Advertising in Social Media. The one-day conference looks at ways marketers can promote brands, products, and services in online social media environments.

Both events are being held at the Hilton New York, in the same hotel where SES NY is held.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 3:42 AM | Permalink

April 26, 2007

The Search Neighborhood is Changing

The search industry is changing at a rapid pace, that's clear. Many people and companies that were relevant just a few years ago are now gone or acquired, and many of the important people and companies of today were not around just a few years ago.

Greg Jarboe compares the changes to gentrification of old neighborhoods, where a working-class area becomes suddenly trendy and all sorts of new folks move in, often pushing out the old inhabitants. In today's SearchDay, The Gentrification of the Search Industry, Greg looks at the many changes in the Search Engine Strategies New York event that have taken place in just the last three years to illustrate that the old neighborhood is indeed changing.

Have you seen similar things going on? What can old-school search residents do to stay relevant amidst their new neighbors? Share your thoughts in the SEW Forums.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 3:47 PM | Permalink

April 10, 2007

SES NY 2007 is Underway!

Search Engine Strategies New York is officially underway. We'll be doing our best to bring you highlights from the sessions, exhibit floor, and after-hours parties. If you're here at the show and plan on blogging or taking pictures, be sure to tag them with "sesny2007," so everyone can find them on Technorati and Flickr.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 7:00 AM | Permalink

April 4, 2007

Need Help Planning Your SES Schedule?

Search Engine Strategies New York is coming up next week, as you know. If you're a first-time attendee, you may be feeling a bit daunted by the 4-day, multiple-track agenda. Fear not, seasoned pro Greg Jarboe has stepped in to help design an optimized schedule for three types of attendees: an executive who wants to understand the fundamentals of search, a director who is focused on pay-per-click advertising, and a manager who is focused on organic listings.

In today's SearchDay, "Optimize Your Schedule for SES NY," Greg has scoured the agenda and given his recommendations on which sessions each of these people might want to choose to get the most out of their week.

If you need more help, head on over to the SEW Forums and ask the crew there for more advice specific to your situation.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 6:27 PM | Permalink

Paid Search Webcast Today

Can't wait a moment longer to quench your thirst for search marketing knowledge? Search Engine Strategies New York is less than a week away, but if you want to get started early, you can listen in on a free SES Webcast today at 2 p.m. EST.

"Overcoming Common Barriers To Successful Paid Campaigns," hosted by Mike Sack, Idearc Media's director of SEM technology & development, is intended to help attendees learn to prepare a Web site for a search advertising campaign, identify conversion points, target the right keywords and phrases, plan bidding strategies and track the campaign.

More details and registration info are available on the Search Engine Strategies Blog.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:42 AM | Permalink

March 29, 2007

NYIM Throwing SES Charity Event

New York Internet Marketing (NYIM) is throwing a charity event on Monday April 9th from 7-10 pm to raise money for the Ronald McDonald House.

The event is open to everyone, but especially to the attendees of the SES conference in NYC.

Town Tavern 134 W 3rd St & 6th Ave. 3 Hour Open Bar Party for $40 donation at the door All money goes to Ronald McDonald House Charity Charity Party is open to everybody Big thanks to Best Of The Web & Text Link Ads for covering the cost.

Posted by Frank Watson at 12:15 AM | Permalink

March 26, 2007

SES Munich Coverage Wrap-up

Search Engine Strategies Munich is underway, and not surprisingly, Barry Schwartz has it covered by live-bloggers at Search Engine Roundtable:

• SES Munich 2007 - Search Marketing for Large Companies, Search Engine Roundtable
• SES Munich 2007 - Successful Site Architecture, Search Engine Roundtable
• SES Munich 2007 - Designing Search Engine Friendly Web, Search Engine Roundtable
• SES Munich 2007 - Blogging, Social Media Marketing & Linkbait, Search Engine Roundtable

Another report on the show comes from Rand Fishkin at SEOmoz, who spoke at the event: SES Munich - Linkbait, Truffles & More Insomnia.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:41 PM | Permalink

February 9, 2007

A Newcomer's Guide to SES?

Rob Kerry, aka evilgreenmonkey, has put together a guide for newbies to search industry events. "The Search Conference Groupie" details the eight categories of attendees:

• The Celebrity
• The Wannabe Celebrity
• The Breadwinner
• The Wanker
• The Suit
• The Traditionalist
• The Newbie
• The Search Conference Groupie

This is a must-read for anyone who's heading to their first search industry event, and rather amusing for anyone who's been around to see these various characters. So if you're on your way to SES London next week, or plan on attending another conference soon, give it a read and see where you fit in.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 2:08 PM | Permalink

February 7, 2007

Rand Fishkin, the SUPER Man

Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz comes clean with a super secret... he was "that guy" who wanted to propose to his girlfriend during a SuperBowl commercial. Yes folks, the blogger behind MySuperProposal.com was in fact Rand Fishkin, and with a lot of help from Joseph Morin, CEO & Founder of Storybids.com, they almost pulled off the best play of Superbowl XLI. And it probably would have had the most talked/blogged about Superbowl commercial of 2007.

When the inital plans to raise money for a commerical slot or find an advertiser to sponsor the proposal fell through, CBS almost stepped up to the plate to air the 15 second proposal for FREE, based on the viral buzz the MySuperProposal blog had created. By the halftime show, (hello, who would have preferred to see this over Prince?) Rand knew it wasn't going to happen during the big game. So Plan B followed: air this simple spot locally during his long time girlfriend's favorite TV show, Veronica Mars, and drop the clip on iFilm.com, followed by a torturous wait for Geraldine's response.

Watch Rand's Video Proposal Now:

So that's not the end of the story, of course - here's the video of Geraldine's exciting reaction, which was also posted on iFilm.com, two hours after the proposal clip:

Danny Sullivan & I also discussed the impending proposal, earlier in the day on the Daily Searchcast, where you may catch me *nearly* letting some of the secret slip!

In addition to the details on MySuperProposal, SeattlePI.comhas much of the local scoop and backstory on how the project evolved, and I'm sure the SEO blogosphere is going to buzzing about this, but let me (and the team at SEW) be the first to say: Congratulations, Geraldine & Rand!

Posted by at 1:49 AM | Permalink

February 1, 2007

A Look at the Next Generation of Search?

I stopped by the AlwaysOn Media conference in New York yesterday, to check out a "next-generation search" session and a panel on keyword advertising. Today's SearchDay looks at the five companies chosen to present in the "CEO Showcase" session in search: Collarity, Eurekster, Mercora, Nexidia, and ZoomInfo.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 4:41 PM | Permalink

January 29, 2007

February Internet Marketing Seminar in North Carolina

Ron Jones of Symetri is organizing an Internet marketing seminar in Greensboro, North Carolina on February 23, 2007. According to Ron, the seminar will be "geared towards less technical people," and will provide high level best practices recommendations on how to "plan, execute and measure a successful Internet marketing campaign."

The seminar will feature speakers from a variety of Internet marketing agencies, and Ron is hoping to secure a representative from at least one of the major search engines. More information is available here.

The seminar will cost $150, including breakfast lunch, and is scheduled to provide a basic overview of Paid (sponsored) Search, Organic SEO, email marketing, and site design. The current session descriptions can be found here.

Ron informed SEW that they plan on having a similar one day seminar in August in Charlotte, NC, followed by future events in Atlanta, GA and Raleigh, NC. Especially for anyone in the Southern U.S. area interested in learning more about Internet and Search Engine Marketing, as well as networking with others in the industry, this could be well worth the time.

Ron intends to ask attendees at this first seminar in the series to give feedback for future, more intensive, breakout sessions that will drill deeper into best practices.

Posted by Chris Boggs at 2:46 PM | Permalink

January 19, 2007

SES Site Re-launch

We've re-launched the site for the Search Engine Strategies conferences, with a clean new look, SES blog and RSS feed, and easier access to any of the dozen upcoming SES events worldwide.

In case you're wondering, the next two events will be our one-day SEW Live Dallas next Thursday, and SES London February 13-15.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:38 PM | Permalink

January 4, 2007

New York: Informal Gathering of Interactive Marketers Next Tuesday

If you're in the mood for sharing drinks with your fellow search and interactive marketers, and you'll be in New York next Tuesday, stop by for the latest Redrum Tuesday.

What's Redrum Tuesday, you ask? It's an informal, no-agenda, buy-your-own-drinks, industry get-together at Nolita House on Tuesday, Jan. 9, from 6 to 8 p.m. It's located at 47 E Houston (between Mulberry & Mott - map).

Rebecca Lieb, executive editor of the ClickZ Network (which SEW is part of) and Dana Todd, EVP of SiteLab and president of SEMPO, have organized a few of these now, but with Dana's impending move back West, this may the last one to be graced by her presence.

Hope to see you there, Kevin

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:57 AM | Permalink

December 28, 2006

Overlooked Search Marketing Opportunity: Image SEO

Most search marketers focus their efforts on optimizing the text on web pages. That's great, but there's a huge opportunity that's overlooked by most: Optimizing images. It's easy to do, and there's virtually no competition, writes Grant Crowell in today's SearchDay article, Optimizing Images for Search Engines.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 11:23 AM | Permalink

December 27, 2006

Are Contextual Ads Worth the Hassle?

Even though the contextual ads offered by search engines aren't search advertising, in the strict sense, they often become the responsibility of search marketers. Some advertisers love contextual ads, while others find they offer second-class and aren't worth the trouble. A panel of experts debated the merits of contextual ads at a recent Search Engine Strategies conference, as Sara Holoubek reports in today's SearchDay article, Contextual Search Ads: Boon or Bust?.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 12:20 PM | Permalink

December 26, 2006

Mobile Search: Time to Start Optimizing?

Mobile search is one of those areas that's going to be huge, but for now, is tiny compared to other search markets. Is it time to jump in and be a pioneer in this fledgling marketplace that will likely explode? Yes, argues guest writer Shari Thurow, and here's how to do it, she writes in today's SearchDay article, Meet the Mobile Search Engines.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 2:03 AM | Permalink

December 20, 2006

Wanted: Passionate Users. Pay: Much Less than Founder Money!

Danny Sullivan's approach to his "keynote conversations" with top executives at Search Engine Strategies conferences draws from Lord Nelson's favored strategy: "Never mind maneuvers, go straight at them!" His conversation with industry gadfly Jason Calacanis was true to form, both informing and entertaining the audience. Andrew Goodman attended the keynote and offers his always acerbic observations on the conversation in today's SearchDay article, A Keynote Conversation with Danny Sullivan and Jason Calacanis.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 2:26 AM | Permalink

December 19, 2006

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of CSS, Ajax and Web2.0

The buzzwords in the title of this post are transforming web design, letting web sites offer slick new interfaces with lots of interactivity and sizzle. But they can also have an impact on the visibility of a site to search engines, potentially impacting rankings. Today's SearchDay article, Web 2.0 Technologies and Search Visibility, covers a recent Search Engine Strategies panel that focused on these issues.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 2:22 AM | Permalink

December 14, 2006

Not Your Father's Oldsmobile Campaign

Social media is hot, and offers many tempting venues for online advertisers. Social media is also a virtual mine field, and advertisers need to step carefully to avoid blowing up. This was the topic of discussion in the "Advertising in Social Media" panel at last week's Search Engine Strategies conference, and Sara Holoubek was on hand to cover the panel; her writeup is today's article, Interactive Marketing and Social Media.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 2:24 AM | Permalink

December 6, 2006

SES Chicago After Hours

Okay so we have all been to our share of panels... and I have one to do at 9 am tomorrow -yet did not rush to my room to get a goodnight's sleep - so where is the real benefit of this event? The after hours networking...newbies and seasoned attendees we all learn so much more in those moments between loud noises in the bars and clubs where things become more relaxed. Step up to the bar and order a drink and the guy or girl next to you works for Google, Yahoo or MSN or spends large amounts of money with them and will tell you their stories.

The night before last Yahoo threw a fun event - even though I hate disco - drinks flowed and the food was good and everyone had a smile on their faces as they talked to an ear explaining what they did while partnerships formed over the noise of a band or DJ. Have you tried this.... I have explained ways to succeed and have heard others tell me things that work for them.

We love what we do... or so the consensus seems to be the last couple of days. Embrace it.... there is no need to feel as if you have to hold those cards that close to your chest... relax the grip and you can walk away with friendships and information that you may never grab at the panels. This is an event... a place to learn and develop relationships. Don't get me wrong the panels are another vital source of information and if you want to know where various parts of the industry are - they are invaluable. But the after hours events are a great source of networking. People like Jake Baille of TrueLocal embraces that belief and his event last night at a small but really fun Blues club shows the understanding of this principle.

Google, on the otherhand seems to be stepping away from their customer based roots and moving to a more corporate approach - hey the party last night was fun and the drinks and food were in abundance - but I have heard they had a close vote about discontinuing the Google Dance (not wanting to get people full of liquor and launching them in to the night - somewhat responsible) but the impact it could have on Wall St. and stock prices convinced them to continue their event.

Guys wake up - forget about Wall Street - it is the people that attend your event that oversee the PPC spends... and beyond a short impact in your stock value the people that impact your numbers are at the Mountain View events every year.

I will add my views of the exhibitors tomorrow... but grab me anytime if you need some help!

Discuss the SES networking events in our forums.

Posted by Frank Watson at 3:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 4, 2006

Search Engine Strategies Chicago Kicks Off!

The luminaries are here...the snow is on the ground...it must be SES Chicago! I am very exited to be joining SEW for conference blog coverage this week, and according to Frank Watson, we are going to be revealing to you "what really happens in Vegas" this week. Is that a faux-pas? We hope not.

Sunday night saw a veritable "who's who" catwalk at the Irish Pub in the Chicago Hilton, with Danny Sullivan holding court in one corner, Mike Grehan at the other end, and many spammers in between. I heard on more than one occasion that "I don't really go to Chicago, but I thought it was going to be Danny's last show." So it seems that we will enjoy a great crowd and hopefully get plenty of scoops.

Tonight, SEMPO, the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization, is holding a meeting and revealing some of the first insight from the annual state of the market survey. If past history indicates, this data will serve 2007 as a resource for countless articles about the state of the search engine marketing industry. If anyone has not yet had a chance to fill out the survey and help SEMPO present an accurate prediction for SEM/SEO activities among the US market this year, you can still participate here.

Keep an eye out for blog coverage of SES Chicago this week, available at a variety of outlets including the Search Engine Roundtable and the Top Rank Blog. We will follow up as we learn of more blog coverage available to those not braving the Chicago cold. Stay tuned for more news!

Posted by Chris Boggs at 10:53 AM | Permalink

December 1, 2006

Blog Coverage During SES Chicago 2006

I'm happy to announce that two of our long-time Search Engine Watch forum moderators, Chris Boggs and Frank Watson (aka AussieWebmaster) are stepping up to provide headline and conference coverage on the Search Engine Watch blog during SES Chicago next week. In addition to being SEW forum moderators, both are regular speakers at SES events.

Posted by Elisabeth Osmeloski at 5:24 PM | Permalink

November 22, 2006

SEM Certification & Training Courses

The move toward offering certification and training in search marketing is accelerating. Here's a rundown on some new courses and developments I've heard of recently.

• Kalena Jordan's Search Engine College has launched "Certification Pathways," a bundle of courses designed to get people up to speed in the space.  
• Wondering if you should even be in search marketing? SEMPO's got a webinar designed to help, Starting a Career in Search Marketing, happening on November 30 at Noon Eastern time.  
• SEMPO is also offering the SEMPO Institute, a distance learning program designed to provide search engine training. The group says it will go live in January 2007 with a course on fundamentals, followed by an advanced SEO and advanced paid search curriculum. Do the training, and you get a certificate.  
• My DMA Offering Search Marketing Certification Program post from September covers how the DMA was going to offer their own training and certification course. Why We Need Search Standards from iMedia Connection provides a bit of an update on that. Courses are to launch in January -- more information can be found here.  
• Incisive is offering training courses following the SES Chicago 2006 show. This page outlines what's being offered. You can attend these classes in addition to the show (more info on the entire show here) or separately, if you want.  
• Training courses from Bruce Clay aren't new, but he's been offering them longer and more consistently than anyone I can think of. So you might want to check those out here.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 1:58 PM | Permalink

November 16, 2006

More on the Intersection of Local Search, Mobile & WiFi

Today's SearchDay article, Coping with Convergence: Local Search Meets Mobile and WiFi, Part 2, continues the coverage of the SES Local Edition conference, describing the unique opportunities that are emerging for search marketers as local search becomes more ubiquitous for web users on the go. Didn't see part one? It's Coping with Convergence: Local Search Meets Mobile and WiFi, Part 1.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 1:05 PM | Permalink

November 15, 2006

The Intersection of Local Search, Mobile & WiFi

"Convergence" is one of those buzzwords that's been around forever, loosely used to describe the blending of media and technologies into one unified platform. Until recently, search marketers could safely ignore the hype, but no longer: convergence is finally real enough to pose both a threat and new opportunities for search marketers. This was a hot topic at the SES Local Edition conference, and guest writer Grant Crowell offers key takeaways on the issue of convergence in today's SearchDay article, Coping with Convergence: Local Search Meets Mobile and WiFi, Part 1.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 2:35 AM | Permalink

November 1, 2006

Video from Search Engine Strategies AdSense Booth

If you have yet to go to a Search Engine Strategies conference, the Google AdSense team will let you see it in action with a video they just released. While the focus of the video is publisher testimonials (I was one of those interviewed), you also get a nice peek at the conference as well, including how jam packed the keynote was when Danny Sullivan talked with Google's CEO Eric Schmidt. You can view the video here.

Posted by Jennifer Slegg at 1:46 PM | Permalink

New Conference: "Elite Retreat" With ShoeMoney & SEOBook

ShoeMoney, aka Jeremy Schoemaker, has informed me of an event he is co-running named Elite Retreat. The two-day event is will cover topics on SEO, Monetization, Arbitrage, SEM, PPC, and Blogging. The event is open to a maximum of 35 people in San Antonio on December 18th and 19th. Jeremy, Aaron Wall (SEO Book), Dave Taylor, Lee Dodd and Andrea Schoemaker will be the individuals running the conference. The agenda is posted here and it looks pretty exciting.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:53 AM | Permalink

October 12, 2006

Selling Information in a Free Web World, Part Two

Today's SearchDay article, The Ongoing Struggle of Free vs. Fee, Part Two, continues the coverage of the ASIDIC Fall Meeting and what the traditional information industry needs to do to survive in the world of increasingly free content available on the web.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 9:46 PM | Permalink

October 11, 2006

Selling Information in a Free Web World

The web has disrupted virtually every business model that relied on packaging and selling information. But is the information found on the web "good enough" to seriously compete with services that sell authoritative, reliable information, especially when it comes to "crucial" content used for making consequential decisions? In today's SearchDay article, The Ongoing Struggle of Free vs. Fee, SEW Managing Editor Elisabeth Osmeloski and guest writer Todd Malicoat report from the ASIDIC Fall Meeting on this contentious issue facing the traditional information industry.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 12:38 PM | Permalink

September 28, 2006

Fun and Profit with Search Ad Arbitrage

Clever (some would say evil) search advertisers are taking advantage of price differences in search advertising programs by buying comparatively inexpensive paid links in search results that drive users to pages with contextual ads with higher payoffs. While this search arbitrage is profitable for those who do it properly, it also aggravates other advertisers who complain that it drives costs up. And searchers aren't always happy with the practice either. The subject of search arbitrage was the focus of a lively debate at a recent SES panel, and guest writer Cat Seda covered the fireworks in today's SearchDay article, Search Arbitrage: Good or Evil? .

Posted by Chris Sherman at 2:53 AM | Permalink

September 27, 2006

What's Cooking in Search Engine Labs

Many of the major search engines showcase the projects they are working on in their respective research labs. Want a peek behind the scenes? Read on in today's SearchDay article, Behind the Scenes in the Search Engine Labs.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 2:25 AM | Permalink

September 26, 2006

Exploiting the Differences in Search Ad Programs

The major search engines pay-per-click programs all have similarities, but also have their own unique features and nuances. Crafting your campaigns to take maximum advantage of each program requires understanding the subtle differences in each program. At a recent SES conference, a panel explored the different programs and offered suggestions based on experience using them. Read on for more on these differences in today's SearchDay article, Compare & Contrast: Search Ad Program Strategies.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 12:27 AM | Permalink

September 21, 2006

Mining for SEO Gold in Search Engine Patents

The major search engines are all frequent filers of patent applications. While most of these documents make for fascinating reading, do they offer any useful clues for optimizing web pages that might give search marketers an edge? Maybe, maybe not, said a panel at a recent Search Engine Strategies conference. Shari Thurow was there and has more on the session in today's SearchDay article, Do Patents Point to SEO Gold?.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 7:07 AM | Permalink

September 14, 2006

SEM For Drugs, Booze & Other Regulated Things

If you're doing a search marketing campaign for a pharmaceutical company, alcoholic beverages company or any firm that falls under the purview of a regulatory agency, you must operate under a completely different set of rules than for unregulated firms. Not following these rules could get both your client and your own firm in potentially serious trouble with the authorities. What should you watch out for, and how should you work with a client operating under these restrictions? Read on in today's SearchDay article, Search Marketing in Regulated Industries for insights from search marketers that have successfully navigated the shoals of tricky regulated waters.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 2:03 PM | Permalink

August 30, 2006

Don't Get Caught With Your Contracts Down

Even if you've got great search marketing chops, you need to cover your bases with clients with both pricing and contracts. In today's SearchDay article, Pricing Models for the Small SEM Shop, guest writer Christine Churchill has coverage of a recent SES conference where a number of experienced pros shared tips and insights on the mechanics of running a successful search marketing shop.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 2:55 AM | Permalink

August 24, 2006

B2B Case Studies: Good to the last drop

How are business-to-business companies tapping into the B2B audience via search? For those who stayed to see the last session on the last day of the Search Engine Strategies Conference in San Jose, there were plenty of lessons to be learned and examples to examine in the B2B Case Studies session moderated by Anne Kennedy, Managing Partner at Beyond Ink. Greg Jarboe was there and covered the session for today's SearchDay article, Search Marketing Works for B2B, Too.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 2:42 AM | Permalink

August 21, 2006

My Q&A With Eric Schmidt In Video & Transcribed

Via Google Blogoscoped, news that Google's now posted a video of my Q&A two weeks ago with Google CEO Eric Schmidt that covered a wide range of topics. I've embedded it below, if you don't want to click through to Google Video. No time to watch? Don't worry, they've also posted a written transcript. There was also a Q&A with press after the conversation, and you'll find a transcript of that here. Can't watch but wish you could listen? You'll find a podcast of the conversation here. That page also has a round-up of press and blogger coverage of the conversation, which is fun reading to see the angles different people came away with.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:24 AM | Permalink

August 16, 2006

The Inside Scoop from Search Bloggers

The major search engines all have unofficial bloggers talking about what's going on in their respective companies. At a recent SES session, search-blog stars Jeremy Zawodny, Gary Price, Matt Cutts and Niall Kennedy all revealed their modus operandi, and guest writer Sara Holoubek was there to capture their insights for today's SearchDay article, Expose: Search Engine Bloggers Tell All.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 7:44 PM | Permalink

August 15, 2006

103 Links About SES San Jose 2006 (AKA The Big Recap)

Couldn't make it to last week's monster Search Engine Strategies show in San Jose? Well, maybe next time! In the meantime, I've compiled a list of coverage from across the web, even somewhat organized into topic areas.

Our San Jose show is always tough for me, as I arrive a week earlier to visit with the various major search engines out there. That means two weeks of news and email to dig out from, since you can never get it all done on the road. All that digging out means I know I don't have everything listed below. But you'll find plenty to keep you entertained.

General Recaps

• SES 2006: Google à Go-Go, ClickZ
• SES 2006 Videos, V7N
• Our Baby is Growing Up, Search Engine Guide
• SES San Jose 2006 Coverage Round Up, Search Engine Lowdown
• Google search ads find momentum, USA Today
• Surviving SES San Jose, Internet Search Engine Database
• SES 2006 Week in Review, WebProNews
• The State of Search Marketing: Observations from Search Engine Strategies San Jose 2006, Publishing 2.0

Eric Schmidt Appearance

• Daily SearchCast, August 9, 2006: Special Edition, A Conversation With Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Search Engine Watch
• A Conversation With Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Search Engine Roundtable
• Google CEO Eric Schmidt at SES San Jose, Marketing Pilgrim
• Google's Eric Schmidt at SES From The Search Perch, Search Engine Journal
• Schmidt: Google Closer to The Perfect Answer, InternetNews.com
• Google says it won't pull an AOL, News.com
• Google's Schmidt Extends Hand to Advertisers, ClickZ
• Q&A With Press, Marketing Pilgrim (very good write-up on things the press asked Schmidt after his talk with Danny on stage)
• Top 5 Strange Things Google's CEO Said Today, Google Watch
• Google CEO Eric Schmidt: 'all world's information includes personal information, ZDNet
• Eric Schmidt, Measurable Advertising & AJAX, ClickZ
• Google CEO Eric Schmidt Tackles Net Neutrality and AJAX, AJAXWorld
• Why Doesn't Google Create a Unified Interface for Its Apps?, Google Watch

Eric Schmidt & Search Privacy

• Google to Keep Storing Search Requests, Associated Press
• Google sees privacy threats, Reuters
• Google's Schmidt on AOL Debacle
• Will Google Keep Minority Report from Happening? Eric Schmidt's Chat with Danny Sullivan, Natural Search Blog
• Eric Schmidt on Enabling Google Users to Monetize Their Own Click Stream Data, Search Engine Lowdown
• Your Life as an Open Book, New York Times
• AOL Is Caught in Its Own Long Tail, Information Today
• Google vs. government, San Francisco Chronicle

Click Fraud Panel & Related Coverage

• Auditing Paid Listings and Click Fraud Issues, Search Engine Roundtable
• Yahoo & Google Commit To An Other Independent Click Fraud Audit At SES, Search Engine Watch Blog
• Click Fraud: What does Google fear?, ZDNet
• Google claims click fraud audits flawed, BtoB Magazine
• Google to Eventually Disclose More Click Fraud Data, Google Watch
• Google's Questionable Clicks, Forbes
• Google Claims Auditors Overstate Click Fraud Problem, Information Week
• SES on Click Fraud: Industry collaboration, or vested interests?, ZDNet

Yahoo's Panama Ad Platform Preview

• Yahoo Shows Off New Ad System At SES, V7N
• Yahoo! Maps Out 'Panama' with SES Preview, SearchViews
• Yahoo's Project Panama, Slated for Q4 Launch, Unveiled at SES, Search Engine Lowdown
• Yahoo Unveils New Ad Platform Features, Google Watch
• Yahoo Demos New Ad Platform, Red Herring

Social Search & Related Topics

• Social Search Overview: Yahoo!, Windows Live & Eurekster, Search Engine Roundtable
• Social Search: Up Close With Yahoo!, Search Engine Roundtable
• Marketing with Social Media, WebProNews
• Leveraging Social Media (MySpace, YouTube, & Other Social Networks), Search Engine Roundtable
• Social Search: Up Close With Google (Google Co-op), Search Engine Roundtable
• Improvements to Google Co-Op Coming Soon, Google Watch
• SEM Via Communities, Wikipedia & Tagging, Search Engine Roundtable
• Notes on the ClickZ Track at SES, ClickZ

Organic Listings Sessions

• Can You Please Them All? (Google, Yahoo!, MSN & Ask.com), Search Engine Roundtable
• SES: SE Algorithms: Can You Please Them All?, WebProNews
• SES 2006: Importance Of Quality Scores, WebProNews
• Duplicate Content and Multiple Site Issues, Search Engine Roundtable
• Blog and Feed Search SEO, Search Engine Roundtable
• The Bot Obedience Course - New Yahoo! Site Explorer Tool Announced, Search Engine Roundtable
• Yahoo Releases Updates To Site Explorer, Search Engine Watch Blog
• Search Engine Q&A On Links (Ramez MSN Search, Kaushal Ask.com, Adam Google & Rajat Yahoo!), Search Engine Roundtable
• Organic Listing Forums (Danny Sullivan In Costume), Search Engine Roundtable

Search Advertising Sessions

• Compare & Contrast: Ad Program Strategies, Search Engine Roundtable
• Does Demographic Targeting Matter?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Domaining & Address Bar Driven Traffic, Search Engine Roundtable
• Search Arbitrage Issues, Search Engine Roundtable
• Search Algorithm Research, Search Engine Roundtable
• Linking Strategies, Search Engine Roundtable
• Link Baiting & Viral Search Success, Search Engine Roundtable
• Search and Branding, Search Engine Roundtable

Issues Sessions

• Search Engines: Friend or Foe?, Search Engine Roundtable
• From the Halls of SES West: "Search Engines: Friend or Foe", SearchViews
• SES 2006: Search Engines, Friend Or Foe automated blog and ping, Tagslammer
• Blogging for the search engines, Searchblog

News, Blogs & Public Relations

• Reputation Monitoring & Management, Search Engine Roundtable
• News Search SEO, Search Engine Roundtable
• SES 2006: Optimizing Your Feed, WebProNews
• SES: Blog/Feed SEO: Watch Out For Bullets, WebProNews

Big Sites/Budget Sessions

• Big Site Big Brand SEM, Search Engine Roundtable
• When Search Engines Do Search Marketing (AOL, Business.com, Yahoo! & Local.com), Search Engine Roundtable
• The Vice Presidents Of Search Marketing, Search Engine Roundtable

Small Sites/Budget Sessions

• Big Ideas For Small Sites & Small Budgets, Search Engine Roundtable
• SEM for Non-Profits & Charities, Search Engine Roundtable
• Pricing & Contracts For The Small SEM Shop, Search Engine Roundtable

Conversion & Metrics

• Vendor Chat on Measuring Success, Search Engine Roundtable
• Usability & SEO - Two Wins for the Price of One, Search Engine Roundtable

Other Sessions

• Searcher Behavior Research Update, Search Engine Roundtable
• Communicating With Customers, Search Engine Roundtable
• Searchonomics: Serious & Fun Stats, Search Engine Roundtable
• The Search Laboratories, Search Engine Roundtable
• Search APIs (Yahoo! Developer Network, YSM API, Google AJAX API & AdWords API), Search Engine Roundtable
• Balancing Organic and Paid Listings, Search Engine Roundtable

Google Dance & Parties & Pictures

• On Fire at SES, The Ask.com Blog
• Google Dance V Photos, Online Marketing Blog
• My Bet on WebmasterRadio, SEOmoz
• Googledance 2006, Google Blogoscoped
• Google Dance Photos 2006, V7N
• All Jim's SES San Jose 2006 Pictures - where's yours?, Jim Boykin
• Google Dance Photos and Google Food, Search Engine Journal
• Google Dance 2006 Photos, ClickZ
• Search Engine Strategies Photos, Marketing Pilgrim
• SES San Jose 2006 - Yahoo and Ask Party Pics, Jim Boykin
• My SES San Jose 2006 Photos & Videos, Danny Sullivan
• SES San Jose 2006 Pictures, Search Marketing Gurus
• Drue at Google Dance 2006 - Googleplex was Hopping, Drue Kataoka
• Google Dance 2006, Google

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 4:50 PM | Permalink

August 10, 2006

Search Engine Strategies San Jose 2006 - Day Four

The show is now over, and we at the Search Engine Roundtable does have a few sessions covered for you. But, if have to see one session, it shows you a sign of Danny you thought you would never see. The session is named Organic Listings Forum, which I really didn't cover much of, but I did snap some pictures of Danny that may make you chuckle.

The rest of the coverage includes:

+ Search APIs (Yahoo! Developer Network, YSM API, Google AJAX API & AdWords API) + Vendor Chat on Measuring Success + Search Engine Q&A On Links (Ramez MSN Search, Kaushal Ask.com, Adam Google & Rajat Yahoo!) + Balancing Organic and Paid Listings + Organic Listing Forums (Danny Sullivan In Costume)

Big thanks again to those Benjamin Pfeiffer of Rank Smart, Chris Boggs of Avenue A | Razorfish and Lee Odden of Top Rank Results.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 6:13 PM | Permalink

Daily SearchCast, August 9, 2006: Special Edition, A Conversation With Google CEO Eric Schmidt

Today's search podcast covers Search Engine Watch editor-in-chief Danny Sullivan talking with Google CEO Eric Schmidt live before an audience at Search Engine Strategies San Jose 2006 on topics ranging from search privacy to Google's expansion into all aspects of daily life. Tune-in by listening to this MP3 file, via our Odeo channel or through iTunes via this link (or use alternative iTunes instructions explained here) or though our Yahoo Podcasts channel. Prefer not to listen? Ah, darn. But that's OK, here's a rundown of what was covered:

General Write-Ups

• A Conversation With Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Search Engine Roundtable
• Google CEO Eric Schmidt at SES San Jose, Marketing Pilgrim
• Google's Eric Schmidt at SES From The Search Perch, Search Engine Journal
• Schmidt: Google Closer to The Perfect Answer, InternetNews.com
• Google says it won't pull an AOL, News.com
• Google's Schmidt Extends Hand to Advertisers, ClickZ
• Q&A With Press, Marketing Pilgrim (very good write-up on things the press asked Schmidt after his talk with Danny on stage)
• Top 5 Strange Things Google's CEO Said Today, Google Watch
• Google CEO Eric Schmidt: 'all world's information includes personal information, ZDNet
• Eric Schmidt, Measurable Advertising & AJAX, ClickZ
• Google CEO Eric Schmidt Tackles Net Neutrality and AJAX, AJAXWorld
• Why Doesn't Google Create a Unified Interface for Its Apps?, Google Watch

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 2:32 PM | Permalink

Search Engine Strategies San Jose 2006 - Day Three

Day three is now complete, it was kicked off with a conversation between Danny and Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google. Of course, the podcast is or will be live shortly. Danny & Eric surprised the audience with some live Q&A from the audience at the end. So what else happened today? Here is the live coverage from the folks at the Search Engine Roundtable:

+ A Conversation With Google CEO Eric Schmidt + Big Site Big Brand SEM + Linking Strategies + Big Ideas For Small Sites & Small Budgets + When Search Engines Do Search Marketing (AOL, Business.com, Yahoo! & Local.com) + Link Baiting & Viral Search Success + Usability & SEO - Two Wins for the Price of One + SEM for Non-Profits & Charities + Pricing & Contracts For The Small SEM Shop + The Vice Presidents Of Search Marketing

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 1:01 AM | Permalink

August 8, 2006

Search Engine Strategies San Jose 2006 - Day Two

The Google Dance is later tonight, I will be going to that. But what happened on day two of the SES San Jose show? Well, Ben, Chris, Lee and I covered 10 sessions. Here is the recap, plus also make sure to check out some of the pics at Flickr tagged with sessanjose06, it is really filling up with images. Just posted some funny ones with Danny and some unusual clothing (make take an hour to show, posted at 9PM (EST)).

Sessions Covered:

+ Can You Please Them All? (Google, Yahoo!, MSN & Ask.com) + Auditing Paid Listings and Click Fraud Issues + Reputation Monitoring & Management + Search Arbitrage Issues + Duplicate Content and Multiple Site Issues + Blog and Feed Search SEO + The Bot Obedience Course - New Yahoo! Site Explorer Tool Announced + News Search SEO + Search Algorithm Research + Search Engines: Friend or Foe?

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:58 PM | Permalink

August 7, 2006

Search Engine Strategies San Jose 2006 - Day One

This morning, when walking towards the conference area, you can smell the excitement in the air for this SES event. San Jose is believed to be the SES event of the year. The conference center is very fitting for the event, the distance from the hotel lobby is very close, the rooms are large enough to fit the large crowds and the search engine companies live just around the corner. Today, the volunteers are the Search Engine Roundtable provided next to real time coverage of the event. Below are links to the 14 sessions Benjamin Pfeiffer, Chris Boggs, Lee Odden and I covered during the day.

+ Social Search Overview: Yahoo!, Windows Live & Eurekster + Compare & Contrast: Ad Program Strategies + Searcher Behavior Research Update + Social Search: Up Close With Yahoo! + Leveraging Social Media (MySpace, YouTube, & Other Social Networks) + Does Demographic Targeting Matter? + Social Search: Up Close With Google (Google Co-op) + Communicating With Customers + Searchonomics: Serious & Fun Stats + Search and Branding + SEM Via Communities, Wikipedia & Tagging + The Search Laboratories + Domaining & Address Bar Driven Traffic

I have also posted my images under the sessanjose06 tag at Flickr.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 11:27 PM | Permalink

August 4, 2006

SES Local Edition Speaking Openings Posted

Interested in speaking at our first SES Local Edition conference in Denver on September 28th? The show focuses exclusively on local search marketing, and we've already got a great lineup of speakers, including representatives of the major local search services and online yellow pages groups, as well as some expert search marketers with lots of experience in local search marketing. Want to join us and share your expertise? Check out the speaking openings, read the guidelines carefully, and send me your pitch. Openings are limited, so act soon to let me know you're interested.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 12:05 PM | Permalink

August 1, 2006

A Financial Analyst's View of the Search Industry

Jordan Rohan is a financial analyst who specializes in internet stocks. He's been covering the industry since 1998, and has developed a reputation as a penetrating thinker who's not afraid to tell it like he sees it. Rohan was one of the keynote speakers at the Media Post Search Insider Summit held in Keystone Colorado last week. His talk was wide-ranging, covering competitive trends, the importance of international markets, and of course, Google's dominance—and whether anyone has a chance of knocking them off the search throne. More on Rohan's views of the search world in today's SearchDay article, Rohan: "The Job of an Analyst is not Easy".

Posted by Chris Sherman at 12:01 AM | Permalink

July 18, 2006

Search Marketing in Latin America

Latin America is a tempting market for search marketers, with more than 80 million users and ever increasing broadband penetration. But this market also poses unique challenges that need to be addressed for campaigns to be successful. A panel of experts discussed the search landscape in Latin America at last week's Search Engine Strategies Latino conference, and guest writer Sara Holoubek has excellent coverage of the session in today's SearchDay article, Search, The South American Way.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 8:17 AM | Permalink

July 11, 2006

Search Engine Strategies Latino, Miami, Florida - Day Two

The conference has officially ended, it was a really great event. Huge congrats to Nacho for running this. I am writing this quickly, because they are breaking down the room as I type this. Here are the sessions I covered today.

+ Translate Or Create: Strategies For Those With English-Language Sites + Domain Issues - Latin American Version + Spanish / Portuguese Language Ad Issues + SEO & Spanish / Portuguese Language Issues

Again, pictures of the event tagged with seslatino at Flickr.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 4:11 PM | Permalink

July 10, 2006

Search Engine Strategies Latino, Miami, Florida - Day One

Day one of the first ever Search Engine Strategies Latino edition is pretty much complete. The networking cocktail is taking place now, there is a Google party tonight and also some Yahoo boat thing. I have managed to cover the Landscape & Tactics tracks, so here is the roundup.

+ The Opportunity: Tapping Into US Hispanics & Latin America Via Search + Search Landscape: US Hispanics + Search Landscape: Latin America + The Challenges Of Search Marketing To US Hispanics & Latin Americans

I also took pictures of the sessions and outside of the hotel, you can see them here.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 5:44 PM | Permalink

July 7, 2006

Conference Coverage: SES Latino 2006

The first ever Search Engine Strategies Latino will be taking place this Monday and Tuesday in Miami, Florida. Danny will be moderating some sessions and I will be covering the Landscape & Tactics tracks at the Search Engine Roundtable.

Nacho Hernandez from iHispanic is hosting the event. You can view the conference schedule by clicking here.

Want to discuss? Join our Search Engine Watch Forums thread.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 1:38 PM | Permalink

June 26, 2006

The SEO Event Google Calendar

Aaron Wall posted a very useful SEO Event & Conference Calendar using the Google Calendar platform. The conferences on this calendar include Search Engine Strategies, WebmasterWorld's PubCon, Ad Tech, Affiliate Summit, Gnomedex, Search Bash, SEO Roadshow, SXSW Interactive, Webmasters in the Sun and Web 2.0 Conference. I think I will create something similar at the Search Engine Roundtable to give people an idea how what conferences you can expect us to cover (I may update this post when my schedule is posted).

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:59 AM | Permalink

June 20, 2006

Google CEO Eric Schmidt In Featured Session At SES San Jose 2006

I'm very pleased to announce that Google's CEO Eric Schmidt will be in a featured session at our upcoming Search Engine Strategies San Jose 2006 show this August.

"A Conversation With Eric Schmidt" will happen from 10am to 10:45am on August 9, the third day of our four day show. During the session, I'll be talking with Eric about how Google is growing and dealing with challenges and issues in search, especially given its stature as the leader in the space.

Eric's session hasn't yet been posted to the conference agenda, but that will change shortly. You'll find full details about the event at the SES San Jose 2006 web site.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 2:41 PM | Permalink

June 16, 2006

SEO Roadshow Copenhagen Sept. 23rd

Dave Naylor just announced the dates for the next SEO Roadshow. The event is to take place on Saturday 23rd of September 2006 in Copenhagen, Denmark. The hotel is called First Hotel Vesterbro, and the start time of the event is at 1PM until the crowd breaks down. These events are always nice, even though I can never make it to them. I believe Danny has attended some in the past and he enjoyed them :)

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:49 AM | Permalink

May 17, 2006

Last Day for SES London Early Bird Discount

SES London is coming up in two weeks, and it's shaping up to be the best U.K. show yet. We've added a third day to the conference, and also an additional track focusing on search marketing for financial services firms. Ask, Google, MSN and Yahoo all have speakers on multiple panels, along with the more than 100+ other first-rate speakers we've lined up. To get the early bird discount, be sure to register for SES London today.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 11:55 AM | Permalink

May 9, 2006

When Over-Optimizing Becomes a Problem

One of the most common mistakes newcomers to search optimization make is to go hog-wild and use every so-called "technique" in the book. The nearly universal outcome of this SEO overkill is reduced rankings, penalties and tears. How do you know when too-much is too-much? Anne Kennedy reports on a recent Search Engine Strategies panel that covered that very topic in today's SearchDay article, Curbing SEOs Who've Gone Wild.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 8:54 AM | Permalink

May 3, 2006

The Importance of Measurement to Successful SEM

Anyone running a search marketing campaign and not taking advantage of the wealth of analytics tools available to track and measure results is literally driving blind, writes Shari Thurow in today's SearchDay article, Multichannel Metrics: Managing the Sea of Data. What to measure? How to best use the data without getting overwhelmed with numbers? Read on.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 8:14 AM | Permalink

April 26, 2006

Search Engine Strategies Toronto - Day Two

I covered three of the five sessions today, Google made one big announcement with an enhanced Google Sitemaps feature. Other than that, please review the following sessions I covered, listed below:

+ Targeting Search Ads By Demographics & Behavior + Meet the Crawlers + Fun With Dynamic Sites

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 3:34 PM | Permalink

April 25, 2006

Reports from Search Engine Strategies Toronto: Day One

I am currently up in Toronto, Canada at the Search Engine Strategies Toronto conference. The sessions are now over for day one and I wanted to provide for you a list of the sessions I have covered over at the Search Engine Roundtable.

+ Danny Sullivan's Keynote + Search Marketing in Canada: Roundtable + Search Engine Friendly Design + Searcher Behavior Research Update + Ad Agencies & Search

Nice hotel, nice conference - and it is only two days! I will post the sessions that I cover tomorrow, tomorrow afternoon.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 5:36 PM | Permalink

April 20, 2006

Conference Coverage: PubCon 2006 & SES Japan 2006

PubCon has been happening out in Boston, while Search Engine Strategies is going in Japan. Here's a round-up to some coverage on search-related sessions:

• PubCon Boston: WebmasterWorld  
• Malcolm Gladwell - Pubcon Boston Keynote: Online Marketing Blog  
• Pubcon Keynote Address: Malcom Gladwell: Vinny Lingham  
• Google Webmaster World/Pubcon Session: Vinny Lingham  
• Blogs RSS, Podcasts - Pubcon Boston: Online Marketing Blog  
• Blog Optimization + Q/A With Matt Cutts and Jeremy Zawodny: Search Engine Lowdown  
• Optimizing for ENORMOUS Clients: Search Engine Lowdown  
• Meet the Super Bloggers of Search: Vinny Lingham  
• PPC Engines & Programs: Vinny Lingham  
• Contextual Program Session: Vinny Lingham  
• YPN Party - Boston Pubcon: Online Marketing Blog  
• Big Mouth Media Banned for Excessive Hidden Text Spamming - Google's Matt Cutts Confirms Hand Job: Threadwatch (see also our forum thread on this)  
• Matt Cutts Confirms Media Bot Crawling For Big Daddy: ShoeMoney  
• Google's Matt Cutts Confirms AdSense Bot Helping Googlebot With Indexing: Search Engine Watch Blog  
• Boston Pubcon 2006: Day 1: Matt Cutts  
• Search Engine Strategies Tokyo & Yahoo Search Marketing: Search Engine Journal

Want to comment or discuss? Visit our SEW Forums thread, PubCon Boston 2006.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:35 AM | Permalink

April 19, 2006

Chris Pirillo Search Podcasts From SES NY & Googlefasting

I'm belated in getting a link up to Chris Pirillo's many podcasts he did out of the Search Engine Strategies show last month. He talked with a ton of people on a huge number of topics, which you'll find listed here. I really enjoyed talking with him about his Googlefasting project, where he found he could live without Google, but he didn't want to. We discussed how people can get into a habit of using any service, and they don't necessarily want to "kick" that habit if the service works well and they trust it. That's the big challenge for any search engine to win users away from another service. As I've long said, it's not that you have to be better. You also have to hope the other search engine is doing noticeably worse or bad by its users.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:48 AM | Permalink

Search as a Brand Enhancer

Until recently, marketers haven't considered search to be an effective channel for branding, but that's changing. In fact, search can be used to simultaneously enhance brand awareness and increase conversions, as advertisers like SONY, Danskin and others have found. More on using search for branding in today's SearchDay article, Branding through Search: Strategies & Tactics. A longer version of this story for Search Engine Watch members offers insights on recalibrating your search efforts to support your branding goals, tips on protecting your brand's use by other search marketers, bugeting and measuring results for branding rather than traditional metrics, and more. Click here to learn more about becoming a member.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 8:07 AM | Permalink

April 10, 2006

Danny Live at SES

Anyone who's ever attended SES knows one of the most fun sessions is Danny's evening forum, where he fields questions and comments from any and all in an entertaining, informal session. Ian McAnerin captured the highlights of the evening forum at the New York SES, and offers them in today's SearchDay article, An Evening with Danny Sullivan, along with a link to the full Webmaster Radio recording of the session.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 12:45 PM | Permalink

April 7, 2006

SDForum To Host GeoSearch & Mapping Session With Google, Yahoo, MSN, & Ask.com

Search SIG announces that Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask.com will be on a panel named MapOFF! to take place at Yahoo headquarters on April 11th. The panel includes Jeremy Kreitler of Yahoo, Thai Tran of Google Maps, Alex Daley of Microsoft Virtual Earth and Andy Yang of Ask.com, moderated by Brady Forrest of Microsoft. More information on the event here.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:54 AM | Permalink

April 4, 2006

Ask's Jim Lanzone To Keynote SES Italy

Search Engine Strategies is having its first SES Italy show later this month, and Jim Lanzone, Senior Vice President & General Manager of Ask, is set to keynote. Jim will be speaking on Wednesday, April 26 at 10am -- so check him out, if you're heading over!

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:08 AM | Permalink

March 28, 2006

Speed Dating Meets The SEO Business World With Speed Pitches

Chris Ridings of SearchGuild.com and Denise Russell (aka Gurtie) have launched SpeedPitches.com, a service that enables SEOs and prospective SEO clients to be pitched by SEO companies, ummm, really quickly. This concept is similar to Speed Dating, a service that places singles in a room, the singles go from table to table, in seven-minute intervals (I think), and chat with another single. If there is a match, the two can continue their dating experience outside of the seven-minute time frame. SpeedPitches.com does the same thing but for the SEO business industry. The first even takes place May 18, 2006 in London, for more information visit http://www.speedpitches.com/.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:19 AM | Permalink

March 17, 2006

Reports from Search Engine Strategies China: Day One

Marc Hil Macalua is currently reporting live at the Search Engine Roundtable on the SES China 2006 conference. You will be able to find all of his coverage here, but for a list of this morning sessions see below.

+ SES China Day 0 + Johnny Chou Keynote Address + Jack Ma Keynote Address + Introduction to Search Engine Marketing: A Global Perspective

At the current time the other sessions are not posted. I am not sure of the stability of the Internet connection in China, so I hope the others go live soon. I will update you in this entry or you can visit the Search Engine Roundtable to track the updates yourself.

Want to discuss at our forums? Join the thread named SES China 06 Coverage.

PostScript: Spoke with Marc, he is having issues connecting to certain SEO related sites. He hopes to finish them up and if he can not post them himself, email them to me, so I can post them on his behalf. Sorry for it not being as "live" as I would have liked.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 3:24 PM | Permalink

March 14, 2006

Revisiting Diller On Search

Shari Thurow has her ClickZ article on Barry Diller's Keynote from SES NYC live under the title Barry Diller on Search. Her summary, along with the recorded podcast, Search Engine Roundtable live coverage, and CNN's commentary all make for a good roundup of the keynote session that took place a couple weeks ago.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:33 AM | Permalink

Battling Search Advertising Competitors

Search advertising can seem impersonal, but behind every ad is a living, breathing search marketer, and if they're competing against you for particular keywords, the competition can get intense, ugly or downright bizarre. What do you do if your competitor launches a surprise attack, overruns your position, and pins you down in a bloody bidding war? In today's SearchDay article, Winning a Search Advertising Bid War, our "war correspondent" Greg Jarboe recounts the strategies and tactics suggested by battle-scarred veterans for achieving victory in search advertising campaigns.

A longer version of this story for Search Engine Watch members offers specific strategies and tactics for engaging in and winning a search engine advertising bid war, including powerful approaches such as ROI-based bidding, bid jamming, bid surfing, and bid shadowing. Click here to learn more about becoming a member.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 6:30 AM | Permalink

March 10, 2006

Google to Keynote SES China

We are excited to announce that Mr. Johnny Chou, President of Sales and Business Development for Greater China, Google China, will be our other keynote speaker at Search Engine Strategies China, coming up next week.

As Google's president of sales and business development for Greater China, Johnny Chou leads the search for new partners in the region, and takes responsibility for building up the company's sales there. He will work alongside former Microsoft executive Kai-Fu Lee, recruited by Google to create a Chinese research and development center.

Chou spent the last nine years at telecommunications company UT StarCom, where he was most recently president of Chinese operations.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 3:47 PM | Permalink

March 8, 2006

SES New York 2006 Coverage Recap

Missed last week's huge Search Engine Strategies show in New York? Here's a rundown on ways to read and listen to what happened.

Live Coverage

Barry Schwartz and team (see a photo of the gang here) were busy semi-live blogging many of the sessions. Here are pages with links to everything they did:

• Reports from Search Engine Strategies New York: Day One  
• Reports from Search Engine Strategies New York: Day Two  
• Reports from Search Engine Strategies New York: Day Three  
• Reports from Search Engine Strategies New York: Day Four

Podcasts

For the first time, we had podcasts coming out of the show. The links below will let you listen to session highlights, as well as the full keynote with Barry Diller.

• Daily SearchCast, Feb. 27, 2006: Special SES NY Edition, Barry Diller Keynote  
• Daily SearchCast, Feb. 28, 2006: Special SES NY Edition, Pundits On Search Panel  
• Daily SearchCast, March 1, 2006: Special SES NY Edition, Linking Strategies Panel  
• Daily SearchCast, March 2, 2006: Special SES NY Edition, Search Advertising: Now & Future Panel  
• Daily SearchCast, March 3, 2006: Special SES NY Edition, Evening Forum With Danny Sullivan

Tagged Content

I encouraged everyone writing about the event to tag their stories so they could be found. Some people actually did, though, I wish more had to make it easier to point you at them. Here's the rundown:

• Technorati: sesny2006 and ses ny 2006 will get you blog reports from across the web.  
• Flickr: sesny2006 gets you photos people have shared.  
• Del.icio.us: sesny2006 gets you bookmarked pages.  
• Yahoo My Web 2.0: sesny2006 gets you saved pages.

Out Of The Corner Of My Eye

I've been battling through something like 1,000 feed items and 400 emails that built up after the show, but here are some additional things I spotted as I was digging out:

• SES NYC 2006 Wrap-Up: Jeremy Zawodny's guide to various reports.  

• Will SEMs Become "Metrics Marketers"?: From ClickZ, covers what I thought was one of the biggest takeaways from the show.  

• Matt Cutts & the Cuttlets: Another important take-away, not that Matt doesn't deserve his Cuttlets.  
• SES NYC 2006, Day 2: Probably Matt Cutts's biggest recap out of the show, but he did other blogging you can find via his blog home page.  
• SES Dreams For The Future: Just out from David Berkowitz, I like his express schwag suggestion :)  
• SES - Pimp My Site: Our third time for this session, and it gets a mini-Mardi Gras parade as the team helps a specialty confetti company who's manufacturing plant was destroyed during Hurricane Katrina. They provided the confetti showered upon attendees during the opening, which you can watch in this video clip.

More Coverage

The show's PR team also assembled a list of coverage they spotted each day. Here's the rundown they provide me. Did you do coverage that got missed? I can't go back and amend this because of time constraints, sorry. But you can let them know by contacting them (ses AT pancomm.com), so they can watch you in the future. They might also compile a longer list to go up on the Search Engine Strategies Blog, so there's a chance you might still get included there.

• CNN Money, 2/27/06: Diller Takes on Google  
• Business Week Online, 2/27/06: Click Fraud Gets Smarter  
• Washington Post, 2/28/06: Jeeves, You?re Fired; Humanized Search Now as Passe as the Butler Himself  
• Financial Times, 2/28/06: Ask Seeks Answers Without Jeeves  
• DMNews.com, 2/27/06: Local, BTB Search Services Debut at SES Show  
• WebProNews.com, 2/27/06: Ask Wipes Jeeves Away With Ajax  
• WebProNews.com, 2/27/06: Teoma Teominated   
• SitePoint.com, 2/27/06: SES NYC: Does Barry Diller Get Search?  
• San Francisco Chronicle, 2/27/06: Ask Jeeves Closes Door on the Butler  
• WebProNews.com, 2/27/06: SES NY: Today is Ask com Day  
• BtoBOnline.com, 2/27/06: Click Fraud of Growing Concern to Search Marketers  
• WebProNews.com, 2/27/06: Casting a Net For Podcasts  
• ClickZ.com ? Barry Diller: ?Be Evil? More Realistic ? February 27, 2006  
• Networkworld.com ? IAC?s Diller Bids Adieu to Ask Jeeves? ?Fat Butler? ? February 27, 2006  
• Ad Age - CLICK FRAUD DEBATE HEATS UP SEARCH ENGINE CONFERENCE ? February 28, 2006  
• WebProNews.com ? The Beautiful People on Search ? February 28, 2006  
• Cheaphostingdirectory.com ? Search Engine Strategies Conference Launches with Barry Diller - February 28, 2006  
• SearchEngineJournal.com ? Barry Diller Speaks on Ask.com at Search Engine Strategies ? February 28, 2006  
• About.com ? SES Conference ? February 28, 2006  
• WebProNews.com ? The Changing Search Landscape ? February 28, 2006  
• Computerworld.com ? Web Search Evolving, Going Vertical, Say Pundits ? February 28, 2006  
• DMNews.com ? DoubleClick Debuts Search Management Tool- February 28, 2006  
• WebProNews.com ? Duplicate Content Jeopardizes Your Site ? February 28, 2006  
• DMNews.com ? Is the Internet Talking Behind Your Back? ? March 1, 2006  
• DMNews.com - Google Ad Plans, More Relevant Searches Top of Mind at SES ? March 1, 2006  
• Google Blogoscoped ? SES: What?s New for Searches? ? March 1, 2006  
• AmherstTimes.com ? Jeeves, You?re Fired ? March 1, 2006  
• WebProNews.com ? BOTW Does Blog Search ? March 1, 2006  
• WebProNews.com ? DoubleClick DART Search Party ? March 1, 2006  
• WebProNews.com ? SES NY Copyright In the Digital Age ? March 1, 2006  
• Informationweek.com ? Search Engines Are at the Center of Privacy Debate ? March 1, 2006  
• WebProNews.com­­ - The Click Happy Searcher - March 1, 2006  
• Adotas.com ? LookSmart AdCenter Updates API ? March 1, 2006  
• Adotas.com ? Trexy Sees Trails with New Search Tool ? March 1, 2006  
• Informationweek.com ? Security Pipeline ? March 1, 2006  
• ClickZ.com ? Why Media Buyers Must Understand SEO ? March 2, 2006  
• DMNews.com ? SES E-Zines Often Overlooked in Buying Links ? March 2, 2006  
• DMNews.com­ ? Merchants Find Creative Ways to Drive Conversion Rates ? March 2, 2006  
• DMNews.com ? Retailers Search for New Customers at SES ? March 2, 2006  
• ClickZ.com ? Will SEMs Become ?Metrics Marketers?? ? March 2, 2006  
• Media Post ? Yahoo Mulls Images In Search Results ? March 2, 2006  
• Thisismoney.com ? Google in Advertising Row ? March 2, 2006  
• Google Blogoscoped ? SES: The Other 95% - March 2, 2006  
• ClickZ.com ? SES Reacts to Reyes? Comments ? March 2, 2006  
• Red Herring - Google Moves Files From China - March 2, 2006  
• SearchEngineJournal.com - Paid Search Marketing Tactics for 2006 - March 2, 2006  
• DMNews.com - MSN Adding More Advertisers - March 2, 2006  
• WebProNews.com - Breakfast With Feedster's Chris Redlitz - March 2, 2006  
• About.com - SES Update - March 2, 2006  
• WebProNews.com ? SES NY: Bluegrass Boys Bite the Big Apple ? March 3, 2006  
• Publish.com ? SES Roundup: Pimp Your Podcast, RSS Feed, and Blog ? March 3, 2006  
• ClickZ.com - Is Search Shrinking? - March 3, 2006  
• ClickZ.com - Goals Collide as Brands, Retailers Seek Search Success - March 3, 2006  
• TMCNet.com - Showdown for Google Amid 'Click Fraud' Row - March 3, 2006  
• SearchEngineJournal.com - Search Engine T-Shirt Contest Judging Underway - March 3, 2006  
• MediaBuyerPlanner.com - To Boost Coversion Rates, Sites Find 'What's Old is New Again' - March 3, 2006  
• Emarketer.com- Search Engine Expo 2006 Sees Emphasis on the Value of Metrics ? March 4, 2006  
• SearchEngineJournal.com ? Ask.com Drops the Baggage, Can They Compete with Google, Yahoo and MSN? ? March 5, 2006  
• ClickZ.com ? Roundup: Search Engine Strategies ? March 6, 2006  
• DMNews.com ? Morphing Algorithms Keep Search Marketers Spinning ? March 6, 2006  
• DMNews.com ? A Goat Blazes the Trail at SES ? March 6, 2006  
• BestSyndication.com ? Vertical Creep in Search Results ? March 6, 2006  
• WebProNews.com ? Marketing Via Wikipedia ? March 6, 2006  
• ClickZ.com ? Search Engines by the Numbers ? March 7, 2006
• WebProNews.com ? Blogs Consumer Generated Media and Buzz ? March 6, 2006  
• Media Post ? SES Dreams For the Future ? March 7, 2006  
• SearchEngineGuide.com ? Search Engine Algorithms: Understanding the Pinocchio Effect ? March 7, 2006  
• MarketingSherpa.com ? Search Engine Strategies 2006 NYC: MarketingSherpa Wrap Up Notes ? March 7, 2006  
• Isedb.com ? Search Engine Positioning ? March 7, 2006  
• IMediaConnection.com ? Important Doings from SES 2006 ? March 8, 2006  
• NetImperative.com ? Guest Comment: IS Search Still in Nappies? ? March 8, 2006

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 5:22 PM | Permalink

March 5, 2006

Daily SearchCast, March 3, 2006: Special SES NY Edition, Evening Forum With Danny Sullivan

Today's search podcast is the fifth of special editions out of the Search Engine Strategies conference in New York this week. It covers highlights from the Evening Forum With Danny Sullivan session, which you'll find it in this MP3 file. About the panel:

Evening Forum With Danny Sullivan The audience is the panel for this session, which lets those in the search engine marketing industry share thoughts, knowledge and ideas among themselves. The session is moderated by Search Engine Watch editor Danny Sullivan, and the audience sets the agenda.

Want more SES NY 2006 news? Technorati has blog reports here: sesny2006. See shared photos on Flickr here: sesny2006. See bookmarked pages on del.icio.us here: sesny2006. See saved pages on Yahoo My Web 2.0 here: sesny2006. Find live coverage and discussion at the Search Engine Watch Forums here: SEM Events.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 3:20 AM | Permalink

Daily SearchCast, March 2, 2006: Special SES NY Edition, Search Advertising: Now & Future Panel

Today's search podcast is the fourth of special editions out of the Search Engine Strategies conference in New York this week. It covers highlights from the Search Advertising: Now & Future panel, which you'll find it in this MP3 file. About the panel:

Search Advertising: Now & Future What's the state of search advertising now and where's it going, especially as search leaps out of the browser and into places like our TVs, phones and music players? This session with search engine executives explores the topic.

Moderator: Danny Sullivan, Editor, SearchEngineWatch.com

Speakers: Gerry Campbell, VP & GM Search & Navigation, America Online, Inc. James Speer, VP Marketing and Products, IAC Advertising Solutions, Ask Jeeves Tim Armstrong, Vice President, Advertising Sales, Google Inc. David Jakubowski, General Manager, MSN Search Tim Cadogan, VP of Search, Yahoo! Search Marketing 

Want more SES NY 2006 news? Technorati has blog reports here: sesny2006. See shared photos on Flickr here: sesny2006. See bookmarked pages on del.icio.us here: sesny2006. See saved pages on Yahoo My Web 2.0 here: sesny2006. Find live coverage and discussion at the Search Engine Watch Forums here: SEM Events.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 3:12 AM | Permalink

March 2, 2006

Reports from Search Engine Strategies New York: Day Four

Day four has been over for about four hours now. I just got back to my home and I wanted to post the session coverage. I hope the snow does not cause too many delays or cancellations for the record setting number in attendance at this SES NYC 2006.

+ Local Search Marketing Tactics + Organic Listings Forum + Measuring Success Overview + Earning From Search & Contextual Ads + Meet The Crawlers + SEO Overkill + Search and Phone Calls

That concludes the SES NYC 2006 blog coverage. I would like to thank Ben Pfeiffer, Chris Boggs and Lee Odden for helping me out with the coverage. If you want to look at what we look like, if you are curious, you can find a picture of us here.

Want more SES NY 2006 news? Technorati has blog reports here: sesny2006. See shared photos on Flickr here: sesny2006. See bookmarked pages on del.icio.us here: sesny2006. See saved pages on Yahoo My Web 2.0 here: sesny2006. Find live coverage and discussion at the Search Engine Watch Forums here: SEM Events.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 5:10 PM | Permalink

March 1, 2006

Reports from Search Engine Strategies New York: Day Three

Day three of SES NY is about over, Chris Boggs will be posting the Evening Forum With Danny Sullivan any moment now. Last night there was a DoubleClick DART Search Party and I also heard about an MSN Search party, but found no coverage of it.

So what happened today at the SES sessions?

+ Retailer SEM Tactics + My SEM Toolbox + Ad Agencies & Search + SEM Via Communities, Wikipedia & Tagging + Buying and Selling Links + Branding & Search + In House Forum + Search Engine Q&A on Links + Search Advertising: Now & Future + Evening Forum With Danny Sullivan

That covers SES NYC March 1st, 2006. The last day of SES is tomorrow, and it is about half of a day.

Want more SES NY 2006 news? Technorati has blog reports here: sesny2006. See shared photos on Flickr here: sesny2006. See bookmarked pages on del.icio.us here: sesny2006. See saved pages on Yahoo My Web 2.0 here: sesny2006. Find live coverage and discussion at the Search Engine Watch Forums here: SEM Events.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 6:23 PM | Permalink

February 28, 2006

Reports from Search Engine Strategies New York: Day Two

Day two of the Search Engine Strategies New York is over now. I did not post any coverage of last night's Ask.com party, so let me send you to three places that have reviews of it. The first is from the official Ask blog under the title of Code Red Party Recap, the second is from Lee Odden and the third I have found is from Search Views.

Now for the session coverage roundup over at the Search Engine Roundtable.

+ Pundits On Search + Reputation Monitoring & Management + Search Algorithm Research and Patents + Auditing Paid Listings & Click Fraud Issues + Search Ad Buyers Forum aka Search Marketing Style Council + Blog & Feed Search SEO - Blog Optimization Strategies You Need To Know + Practical Copyright & Trademark Guidance for Webmasters and SEMs + Duplicate Content Issues + Who's Watching Whom: Search & Privacy + Advanced Search Term Research Tools + Meet The Blog & Feed Search Engines

Again, I can not personally thank Ben Pfeiffer, Chris Boggs and Lee Odden for helping me out with the coverage.

Want more SES NY 2006 news? Technorati has blog reports here: sesny2006. See shared photos on Flickr here: sesny2006. See bookmarked pages on del.icio.us here: sesny2006. See saved pages on Yahoo My Web 2.0 here: sesny2006. Find live coverage and discussion at the Search Engine Watch Forums here: SEM Events.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 10:07 PM | Permalink

London SES Agenda Now Online

I've completed the agenda for our London SES show, happening May 31 - June 2. We've expanded the show to three days, and there are a lot of new panels and great content on deck for the show. Interested in speaking at the show? See the Speaking at SES London 2006 page for more information. Please read it carefully before pitching me on a panel - I'm not accepting pitches until I post openings next month. Want to be an exhibitor? See this page for all the details.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 11:49 AM | Permalink

February 27, 2006

Reports from Search Engine Strategies New York: Day One

Like Gary did in the past, I will be posting the roundups for the Search Engine Roundtable coverage here.

Day one of SES New York:

+ Keynote: Barry Diller, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, IAC/InterActiveCorp (Other coverage from ClickZ and CNN) + Vertical Creep Into Regular Search Results + Searchonomics: Serious & Fun Stats + Contextual Ads + Multichannel Metrics + Targeting Search Ads By Demographics & Behavior + Blogs, CGM, and Buzz + The Search Landscape + Podcast Search + Rich Media and Video Ads + Winning a Bid War + Searcher Behavior Research Update + Search Head Or Search Tail? Getting The Mix Right + Ads Beyond Search + BtoB Tactics

If I counted right, that is 15 sessions covered today by Ben, Chris, Lee and myself.

Want more SES NY 2006 news? Technorati has blog reports here: sesny2006. See shared photos on Flickr here: sesny2006. See bookmarked pages on del.icio.us here: sesny2006. See saved pages on Yahoo My Web 2.0 here: sesny2006. Find live coverage and discussion at the Search Engine Watch Forums here: SEM Events.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 6:01 PM | Permalink

Listening To Barry Diller's Keynote Live

Can't make Search Engine Strategies in New York today but want to listen to my keynote conversation with IAC/InterActiveCorp chairman and CEO Barry Diller, covering his views and take on search and IAC-owned Ask Jeeves? Here's how to listen live through the internet or how to pick up the podcast of the talk after it ends, plus news on other special podcasts we'll be doing from the show this week.

The talk is being broadcast live by WebmasterRadio.FM at 9am Eastern time, when it begins. To listen, you need to load WebmasterRadio's live broadcast stream into your media player. Instructions for the three major players are below. Just click on the right link, and the stream will begin.

Windows Media Player (any recent Windows PC has this).

• If you're on a modem connection, click on this link.
• Got broadband? Listen in better quality by clicking on this link.
• Got really fast broadband? Get the best quality by clicking on this link.

Winamp

• If you're on a modem connection, click on this link.
• Got broadband? Listen in better quality by clicking on this link.
• Got really fast broadband? Get the best quality by clicking on this link.

RealPlayer

• If you're on a modem connection, click on this link.
• Got broadband? Listen in better quality by clicking on this link.
• Got really fast broadband? Get the best quality by clicking on this link.

Don't want to or can't listen live? Don't worry. Visit our Daily SearchCast podcast home page. There are full instructions on how to subscribe to our podcast feed or listen in alternative ways. If you don't subscribe or use the alternatives, then try this option. The keynote will appear at the top of the archives listed on the Daily SearchCast page. Click through to keynote page, then click on the MP3 file link. That should load the audio into your media player.

After the keynote, we're going to do highlights from selected sessions from the conference all this week, in place of the usual Daily SearchCast. These shows will all be 30 minutes long. You can listen to these at 11:30am Eastern via the live WebmasterRadio feed (though they will have been prerecorded). They'll also play again through the live feed at 2pm Eastern. Just click on any of the links above to tune in to the feed.

Prefer to get the special editions via podcast format? Then visit the Daily SearchCast home page as previously described and sign up. Here's what the special editions will be:

• Tuesday: Highlights from the Pundits On Search panel.

• Wednesday: Highlights from the Who's Watching Whom: Search & Privacy panel.

• Thursday: Highlights from the Search Advertising: Now & Future panel.

• Friday: Highlights from the Evening Forum With Danny Sullivan session.

Want more SES NY 2006 news? Technorati has blog reports here: sesny2006. See shared photos on Flickr here: sesny2006. See bookmarked pages on del.icio.us here: sesny2006. See saved pages on Yahoo My Web 2.0 here: sesny2006. Find live coverage and discussion at the Search Engine Watch Forums here: SEM Events.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 3:07 AM | Permalink

February 24, 2006

Tagging SES NY 2006

I'm sort of known for being dubious about how tagging might help general searching. But I'm pretty positive about it as a way to help people collectively organize information around events. So without further adieu, I'd like to propose this common tag for those wishing to blog, bookmark or photo share stuff out of next week's monster Search Engine Strategies show in New York:

sesny2006

For Flickr, del.icio.us, Yahoo My Web (and most other sites supporting tagging), just use that single word to tag whatever content you want to share about the event.

Also use that word for Technorati as a category for your blog posts. Don't categorize posts or can't use that word because it clashes with your own category system, as is the case with our blog? Then just add this link anywhere in your post:

sesny2006

More on tagging for Technorati is covered here. FYI, Technorati's not reading our posts correctly, so you won't see this or a few others tagged yet. They're aware of the problem and apparently working on it.

Want to find the forthcoming tagged SES NY 2006 content? Here's what we'll be adding to the bottom our own posts about the show next week:

Want more SES NY 2006 news? Technorati has blog reports here: sesny2006. See shared photos on Flickr here: sesny2006. See bookmarked pages on del.icio.us here: sesny2006. See saved pages on Yahoo My Web 2.0 here: sesny2006. Find live coverage and discussion at the Search Engine Watch Forums here: SEM Events.

Just click on any of those links, and you'll get the material listed. And if you like the idea, feel free to copy the links for your own blog or site.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 5:17 PM | Permalink

Next Week's SES NY 2006 Highlights

In a few hours, I'm shutting down the computer, finishing packing, then grabbing a flight to New York tomorrow for our upcoming Search Engine Strategies NY conference. We're well set to be even larger than last year's monster show. The event is literally stuffed with a ton of sessions for search marketers of all abilities and needs. I wanted to share some highlights for those still considering going or for those already on their way.

Barry Diller, chairman and CEO of InterActiveCorp, will be kicking off the show with a keynote conversation with me on the morning of the first day, February 27. IAC owns Ask Jeeves along with a variety of vertical search properties. Not lucky enough to see the keynote in person? Listen to it live at 9am Eastern time at WebmasterRadio.fm. Alternatively, about 15 minutes after the keynote ends, we'll have it up in downloadable podcast form. Just subscribe to our Daily SearchCast podcast, and you'll receive this special edition of the show.

The entire show agenda is online, and over 60 different sessions are offered. We also have a number of cool sessions you won't want to miss, such as:

• Pundits On Search: What do big voices have to say on search issues? Come ask them yourself! I'll be moderating a panel featuring David Vise, author of The Google Story; Zia Daniell Wigder, VP and Research Director, JupiterResearch; and three search blogvangelists, Robert Scoble from Microsoft; Jeremy Zawodny from Yahoo and Matt Cutts from Google.  
• Search Advertising: Now & Future: What's the state of search advertising now and where's it going, especially as search leaps out of the browser and into places like our TVs, phones and music players? This session with search engine executives explores the topic.  
• Searchonomics: Serious & Fun Stats: Get up to speed with stats on the growth of search, then enjoy the lighter side of how we search online.  
• The Search Landscape: Who's winning the search engine wars and how? This session has some of the metrics that help tell the story.  
• Auditing Paid Listings & Click Fraud Issues: Did you really get that much traffic from paid listings last month or is something funny going on? Reviewing your paid traffic is an essential task any serious search engine marketer should undertake. Tips and issues are covered.  
• Practical Copyright & Trademark Guidance for Webmasters and SEMs: Your competitor is bidding on your trademarked name. Some splogger is profiting off of your copyrighted work via RSS ("really simple stealing"). What's a law abiding netizen to do? Come find out from our panel of experts in this highly interactive session.  
• Who's Watching Whom: Search & Privacy: Over the past year, search engines have rolled out or enhanced personalized search and search history features. New search behavioral targeting systems are also developing. Add to that a recent US Department Of Justice request for search query data, and you've got growing search privacy worries. In this session, a lively discussion of the data search engines collect when you conduct a search, how such data is/should be handled, whether the government has any right to subpoena it and other issues.  
• Ad Agencies & Search: As search continues to get hot, are ad agencies missing out on one of the most important online advertising venues going? Some ad agencies are now acquiring SEM firms to enlarge their portfolio of services. Others continue to outsource. Some may still not tap into search at all. This session explores what agencies may need to consider as the search space grows and how to ensure they aren't falling behind.  
• Putting Search In The Ad Mix: Search engine marketing should be considered as an essential part of any overall marketing campaign, online and off. In this session, we look at successes from considering search from the very beginning, failures that result if this is not done and how other marketing can also help search.  
• Branding & Search: What impact does search have on branding? This session look at the role of search in building brand, as well as how branding can support search.  
• Lunch With The Google Engineers - Just confirmed and soon to be posted to the agenda, this will run from Noon through 12:45pm on the first day of the show, Feb. 27. Grab your lunch, grab a seat, get updated on Google web search and lob some questions at the assembled panel of engineers.  
• Evening Forum With Danny Sullivan: No PowerPoints, no set agenda. I just guide the audience into a giant group discussion on topics they are interested, with a lot of fun along the way.

There are many, many sessions beyond those above, in tracks such as:

• Fundamentals
• Stats & Research
• Vertical Search
• Search Advertising
• Search Issues
• News & Blogs
• Organic SEO
• Advanced Organic SEO
• Linking
• Retailer Issues
• Agency & Branding Issues
• In House Issues
• Local Search
• Measuring
• Site Clinics

The Conference at a Glance page gives you a fast look at everything, and from there you can drill down into more detailed information for Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 and Day 4. Whatever your particular search marketing interest or skill level, there are sessions designed for you.

Beyond the sessions, there are events. Our OFFICIAL SES NYC 2006 Party & Events Schedule at the Search Engine Watch Forums keeps you up to date on those.

Can't attend the show? Search Engine Roundtable To Provide Quadruple Coverage of SES NYC Conference covers the live blogging coverage that will be happening.

Want to shout out to others going, looking for advice on hotel deals and so on? See our SES New York