Last week, Search Engine Strategies made its debut in Sweden, drawing attendees from all over Scandinavia, Europe and even Africa and India.
Intrepid Search Engine Watch Forums Editor Barry Schwartz (aka Rusty Brick) attended the conference and reported live on the sessions he attended.
This thread also has comments from a number of the speakers who attended the conference.
Among the most interesting panels was the European Search Landscape panel, moderated by Jupitermedia’s Julian Smith.
Another winner was the Search Engine Marketing: Outsource or In House? panel. I always enjoy programming this one, trying to find panelists that can present compelling reasons for one approach or the other.
This time we had Jan Rencke, CEO of Destination Stockholm, and Drew Graham, European Marketing Director for online shopping portal Kelkoo, make convincing arguments for keeping things in-house. By contrast, Bill Hunt and Joseph Morin presented the case for a hybrid model. Both Bill and Joe work as “internal” managers for huge search marketing efforts, but both also maintain roles as independent consultants.
Among the other panels that Barry covered:
- Search Term Research & Targeting
- Successful Site Architecture
- Writing for Search Engines
- Link Building Basics
Bill Hunt covered the Search Marketing in Scandinavia panel, organized and moderated by Mikkel deMib Svendsen.
Christine Churchill took some photos–mostly of the “serious” discussions that took place at the end of each day.
In all, a great event. Many thanks to everyone who helped make it happen–the speakers, exhibitors, and especially the hard-working crew from Jupiter Events, who worked tirelessly and diligently behind the scenes to make everything come together like clockwork.