With some of the recent changes within All Web's Pay Per Click division, I am now in a position where I once again need to be on top of my PPC game. With that exact mindset, I booked myself in mostly PPC related sessions for this entire conference, as opposed to those of the SEO nature. In return, I am of course hoping to refresh myself on the many Pay Per Click strategies and techniques we employ as a company, as well as learn a few new ones to boot.

With that being said, my first 2 sessions for today were "Compare & Contrast Ad Program Strategies" and "Ads in A Quality Score World", and both were very good. The panelists, who include such gurus as Mona Elesseily, Kevin Lee, Jonathon Mendez, Joshua Stylman, and Andrew Goodman, covered a variety of PPC topics and issues. Those that I especially enjoyed were PPC trademark guidelines, editorial guidelines, and of course a lesson how to improve ones quality score... which if you don't know by know, is a huge part of Google's algorithm for determining paid placement and will soon be integrated into the new Yahoo! Search Marketing platform as well.

Here's an interesting piece of information that was shared by Kevin Lee of Did-It:

The concept does make sense, however I never would have thought to test it. Kudos to you Kevin! So, if you're looking to increase your quality score, give using "negative keywords" a try. Even if the result is a slight change... it's no doubt worth every bit of it.

The following is a snap-shot of the "Ads in a Quality Score World" panel:

I wrapped up my day by attending what turned out to be a half-way decent SEMPO meeting. In addition to the open bar, some of the highlights included:

• Preliminary results of the recent SEMPO Search Survey
  Not much here, but it was fun to take a preliminary look at what the results are hinting too. Future updates should definitely be interesting.



• An introduction to SEMPO educational courses
  The organization is putting the final touches on "certification" program, taught similar to that of a college course, for both Pay Per Click and Search Engine Optimization.



• An update to International SEMPO Launches
  Apparently there's been a huge push to form chapters of SEMPO in various countries throughout the world, and the results have been quite successful thus far.

Afterwards, I attended the Yahoo! Search Marketing Party, which I must say was very fun and well worth the 10 - 15 minute bus ride. Don't get me wrong, it was no Google Dance, but it did have its highlights:

• Free Transportation
• Free Booze
• Very Cool Music
• Bartenders that would put Tom Cruise in the movie Cocktails to shame
• Great appetizer-type food
• An unpleasant Dancer whom eventually ended up flashing everybody and dancing topless. Too bad it was a guy!

Here are some of tonight's Yahoo! Party Photos:

Michael Roebuck and David Burke

That's it for today... be sure to stay tuned for all of tomorrow's notes and highlights.