posted by Karl Ribas on Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Last week I was fortunate enough to attend the Search Engine Strategies conference in Chicago, and while the conference itself seemed like any other SES conference I've attended before, this one will certainly stick with me for the rest of my life.
Aside from the normality of a search conference - sessions, exhibit halls, and after-hour networking parties - there was plenty of excitement surrounding the Hilton Hotel this year, mainly because our president-elect Barack Obama was also in attendance. Well, in the hotel anyway.
President-elect Barack Obama uses the Hilton Hotel as his press headquarters while he is in Chicago awaiting to take office in a couple of weeks, and so there were lots to keep an eye out for. I don't think a day went by where I didn't see or hear about an Obama sighting in some fashion - him, his convoy, Chicago swat, and what I would assume was an explosive sniffing German Sheppard on the lower levels. It was very memorable.
As far as the conference goes, I'd say it was fairly average - meaning that nothing really stood out from past SES events. "Typical" is probably a better way to describe it. Nothing ground-breaking or anything like that went down. Microsoft still hasn't purchased Yahoo!, Google still has over 70% of the search market share, links and content are just as important as they were last year, and SES still tailors their sessions towards the small business owner and in-house search marketer, and not the veteran SEM like myself. Oh well, what can I say? I knew all of this going in and still elected to attend. Shame on me.
A couple of other points of interest... first, there were hot-plate lunches. These kicked ass... especially when you compare them to the traditional box lunches we were getting at past conferences. Great addition guys!
The exhibit hall wasn't too bad, but then again it wasn't anything to write home about. However, I did find it very interesting that Yahoo!, Microsoft, Bruce Clay, and even SEOmoz - companies that you'd typically see featured inside the exhibit hall - were all without booths. Strange.
The keynote presentations and "Orion" panels were pretty decent this year. In fact, I've always enjoyed them. I particularly like how these sessions cover an array of marketing topics - not just limited to search - as well as promote an advanced-level of conversation.
Lastly, I just want to comment on the scheduling of this conference. For the past 5 years, if not longer, SES Chicago has been scheduled for the month of December, while every year SES San Jose is scheduled for the month of August. This is true for 2009 as well. My question to the SES committee is why in the hell are these two conference scheduled this way and not the opposite way. To me, it would make more sense to be sporting short-sleeves in San Jose this time of year, rather then treading through snow and battling 20 and below temperatures. I mean we are an industry who prides ourselves as being intelligent Internet geeks, and yet something as simple as re-arranging the conference schedule to avoid being frost bitten is rocket science.
Anyway, I digress. The following are pictures that I was able to snag during the conference. Enjoy!
First of all, let me start by saying that I have always felt a little uneasy when it comes to SMX using an adjective as subjective as the word "Advanced" to describe this conference. My reasoning is quite simple. The word "advanced" insinuates a level of complexity that is without a doubt going to vary, in some cases drastically, from every search marketer that attends. It is these very simple inconsistencies that bother me most. When I talk to the marketer seated to the left of me, his or her goals for attending as well as their knowledge of our industry will almost always differ from mine as well as the person seated on my right. Therefore, where SMX Advanced might be advanced to some, it poses the potential problem of not being advanced for all.
With that said and now out of the way, was SMX Advanced advanced? In my personal opinion (mind you, it is the only one that matters on this blog) yes... yes it was. I for one very much enjoyed the conference. The conversations, as well as the speaker presentations were at a distinctively higher level than those search conferences I've attended in the past. SMX Advanced provided an atmosphere where veteran search marketers could learn, share ideas, and even interact with others as proficient in the industry as they are. I was very pleased with how the conference was scheduled (location, time of year, times of sessions and breaks, etc.), and I very much enjoyed the smaller, close-knit atmosphere that was instilled upon us.
Additional Positive Feedback:
Offered Great Networking Opportunities
A Great Location within Seattle
A Growing Expo Hall
Hot Plate Lunches
New and Faster Q&A Abilities
The only negative feedback that I have to offer regarding the 2008 SMX Advanced conference is that I felt that too many speakers relied heavily on reading their PowerPoint presentations to deliver their content, instead of their public speaking skills. Granted, some material does in fact have to be visual, but certainly not all of it. And the fact that these presentations (essentially the meat and potatoes of this entire conference) will now be made available online and for free completely cheapens the whole thing. Attendees should be asking themselves; aside from the networking opportunities why in the hell did I even bother attending? To have someone read the PowerPoints to me? We could have all stayed home, saved our company a few C notes, and downloaded the presentations free of charge. We would have learned a majority of the information and at the same time saved both time and money.
My suggestion to the SMX crew is to find another way to provide attendees with the same value that you were with offering "slideshow" information online, but without making potential attendees question whether or not to attend or simply borrow the login details from someone who did. The value of your conference lies within your speaker's presentations... and essentially you're giving them out for free. Where's the value in that.
And that's all I've got to say about SMX Advanced 2008. For even more SMX Advanced conference coverage, be sure to check out my earlier conference posts:
I just got back from the "SMX After Dark" party thrown by the fine people at Double Click, Impaqt, and Bruce Clay, Inc. - a great shindig guys, really - and thought I would share it with all of you. The event was held at the Odyssey Maritime Museum - which is located immediately next to the convention center - and featured lots of entertainment, food, drinks, and most of all fun.
I especially enjoyed my time on the pool table, as well as on the Wii and X-Boxes that were provided. In my opinion, Jackie and I totally stole the show with our Guitar Hero efforts. We're unbeatable.
Ready for the #1 reason of why I think attending SMX is better than attending SES? Here goes:
Ok... so it's probably not the single most popular reason, but I'd bet it's in everyone's top 5... guaranteed. SMX's hot lunch completely destroys those crappy box lunches at SES... hands down... and without doubt. And you know, I've noticed that more people actually take part in the hot lunch option here, as opposed to lunch at SES and therefore more people tend to sit down and network with others during lunch. At SES, I know several people who just grab their box lunches and head back to their rooms. I for one am one of them.
Hey all... welcome back to Klog. As promised, I'll be providing you with day-to-day coverage of the SMX Conference - more or less my notes and thoughts of the events as they unfold here in Seattle.
Today was a great conference day for me... the perfect mixture of quality presentations, solid information, laughs, and networking opportunities. It all started with a quick trip to the registration area to pick up my access badge, conference guide, and freebies (a 2008 SMX Advanced Pin and an officially branded SMX backpack), then a pit stop at the continental breakfast for a cup of tea and pastries, and then off to claim my seat for this morning's Keynote presentation with Microsoft's President of Platform & Services Division Kevin Johnson.
To my surprise, I found the keynote to be an excellent Q&A discussion regarding Microsoft's Live Search, and the company's intent to eventually beat out Google, the very heavily trenched-in king of search, in the years to come. In fact just thinking about the possibility of this all happening makes me giggle with disbelief, as I'm sure it does you.
To think that Microsoft, a company with a current industry market share of just 9% - 10% of all Internet searches, will some day rule supreme in an industry where their biggest competitor already has them beat by margins of over 60% market share and is synonymous world-wide with the word "search", is just not likely going to happen. However, in that exact same breath I must also say that I for one would never bet against it either. To me, Microsoft is a lot like the New York Yankees. As much as you hate them, they're still a team to fear and no matter how badly they play you should never bet against them. That's Microsoft.
As one would expect after recent weeks, the topic of Microsoft buying Yahoo! did come up during the interview, but was quickly addressed and tossed aside. Kevin did comment stating that the idea of buying Yahoo! was a strategy for gaining market share and relevant search technologies that would allow them to further compete with Google, but it is something that didn't happen and so they've moved forward. After chatting with my friend Dustin Woodard in between sessions, we both feel that even though it appears that Microsoft is moving forward, that there is still some behind the scenes dealings going on - but, then again, what the hell do we know?
The topic of "brand confusion" also came up - referring to how frequently Microsoft changes the name of their search platform. First it was MSN, then Microsoft Live, and now it appears to be Windows Live Search. Kevin mentioned that this was not a new topic of discussion for them, and that it is something their marketing department will be addressing in due time.
Other highlights from the keynote include the mentioning of Microsoft's new operating system, IE8 beta. Kevin went on to say that he is really excited about the browser and firmly believes that it is an overall better browser than Firefox.
So Jackie and I just got back from the SMX / Microsoft pre-conference bash, and I for one am very tired from all the "work". Who would have thought!
Microsoft rented out the Olympic Sculpture Park for this event - just a few blocks away from the convention center as well as our hotel - to officially kick-off this years SMX Advanced conference. The party featured free drinks and finger-foods, dj music, break-dancers, and lots of art / sculptures. Being a big fan of the arts, I really enjoyed walking around the park, and browsing through all the pieces.
Overall we both had a great time. I was able to catch up with a few of my conference buds before the show tomorrow (that's always good), and at the same time I ran into a few others that I've become acquainted with online but have never gotten the chance to meet in person. It was great meeting you all and I certainly look forward to chatting with you more throughout the conference.
Today just happened to be one of those "bummage" kind of days for Jackie and I - a day where you don't really have anything planned, and you just sort of "putz" around the area. That was so us.
We started the day off early with breakfast at the hotel restaurant, and then pretty much just walked up and down the streets of the Pikes Place Market browsing and shopping. To some of you this may have just seemed like a waste of a day, but after considering that we had pretty much visited all the major tourist hotspots on last years trip (Space Needle, Seattle Aquarium, Harbor Cruise, etc.), and we had already caught a Mariners game, this seemed very appropriate and quite relaxing.
Don't worry though... today won't be all play. I will most likely be checking out the SMX "In the Park After Dark" pre-conference party sponsored by Microsoft a little later on this evening (Greg, I will be sure to tell the wonderful Mr. Bill Gates "hello" for you should I happen to run into him). That should be a few hours of really hard work.
So... Jackie and I just got back to the hotel after witnessing a very disappointing Seattle loss to the Detroit Tigers. Well, I guess it wasn't all that disappointing - I am a Cubs fan after all - but it sure would have been cool to see the home team win. Oh well, congrats to all you tiger fans out there - all twelve of you.
Here are a few pics from the game:
As it looks now... we're pretty much content on hanging around the hotel for the rest of tonight. With our travel arrangements scheduled the way they were, we've been pretty much going non-stop since about 4:30am CST. It is now 7:00pm CST, and my good friend Jack Daniels is calling my name down at the bar. If you happen to be in town for the SMX conference as well, you're welcome to join me. I'm shacked up at the EdgeWater Hotel - a tremendous Hotel right on the bay by the way - next to the conference center.
Otherwise, check back later in the week for SMX daily recaps.
I just wanted to drop a quick note to let everyone know that I will be attending this year's SMX Advanced conference in Seattle this coming June. I've scheduled a very early flight out of Chicago on Sunday morning (1st), and will be arriving in Seattle with enough time to catch the Mariners vs. Tigers game that afternoon at Safeco Field. Yeah buddy... I love me some $5 hotdogs and $10 brews.
My fiancée Jackie will be accompanying me on this trip - she's in need of a much needed vacation - and so after the ballgame on Sunday and all of Monday we will be doing some sight-seeing. We did quite a bit of sight-seeing on last years trip, so I'm thinking that this year we'll pretty much be revisiting Pikes Place Market and some of the smaller shops within the city.
Looking ahead to the conference, I'm extremely psyched to be attending SMX this year. I've already reviewed the conference agenda, and am looking forward to several of the sessions and events... specifically these:
SMX After-Dark In The Park (Networking Event)
Kevin Johnson (Microsoft) Keynote
Blow Your Mind Link Building Techniques
Creating Value In Your SEM Businesses
You&A With Matt Cutts
Give It Up
All in all... this is shaping up to be a great trip with just the right mixture of work and play. Last year I walked away with lots of notes and ideas, and met some very cool people. Hopefully, I'll be meeting up with some of my industry buds (Disco, Todd, Li, Lisa, McGee, Taylor, Joe, Greg, Hooley, Balestrino, Rhea, Dustin - any of you guys attending?) as well as meeting some of you new folks, mainly those I've been reading via their blogs (Bill, Barry, Lee, Chris - Any of you guys attending?).
If any of you readers/marketers out there are attending and want to meet up... feel free to drop me a line at: karl [at] karlribas [dot] com. We can set up something then or at least exchange cell numbers. Otherwise, rest assured that I'll be delivering daily coverage and pictures of the conference and it's events as they unfold.
posted by Karl Ribas on Wednesday, December 12, 2007
I know that I promised an in in-depth recap of the Search Engine Strategies conference that I attended last week, but my plans have sort of changed a little bit. I've already written and published a review over on the Search Marketing Gurus, another blog that I participate on, and instead of coming up with second post altogether, I figured that I would just direct you all to the one.
If you're interested at all in knowing my thoughts on the conference, as well as some of the highlights and disappoints of the show... be sure to check out my Conference Recap: SES Chicago 2007 post on the Search Marketing Gurus Blog.
The following are some of the photos I took during the conference.
Brian Eisenberg of Future Now
The Orion Panel
Don Shultz, Professor at Northwestern University
Seth Godin, Author and Speaker
Google Booth
Ask.com Booth
The "Organic Listings Forum" Panel
The "Are Paid Links Evil" Panel
Webmaster Radio Booth
David Wallace of SearchRank
Oh, and if you also attended the conference, be sure to drop me a line. I'd love to hear your thoughts!
posted by Taylor Pratt on Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Today's post is a guest-post from one of my industry buds Taylor Pratt of LunaMetrics. Taylor was fortunate enough to attend the sunny, warm setting of PubCon last week in Las Vegas, while I was in the Windy City battling a small snow storm. Lucky guy! In the post to follow, Taylor has provided a recap of last week's PubCon conference, and has highlighted his favorite sessions, the biggest take-a-ways, and a few of the areas that need improvement.
For additional information on Taylor Pratt, I encourage you all to check out his brand-spanking new blog Gonzo SEO (launched yesterday).
I'm finally home after attending an amazing conference. I've only been to three conferences in my young career, but this year's Pubcon was the best. Not only was there a lot to learn, but the people I met were awesome. It's amazing what a few drinks can do!
Instead of going session by session, I thought I'd wrap up Pubcon 2007 a different way. If you want even more detail about the sessions, head over to the Bruce Clay blog or Search Engine Roundtable to read great right-ups by Lisa and Tamar.
TOP 5 SESSIONS
Social Media 101: the Playing Field. If having an all star panel wasn't enough, I have to give Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz credit: he gave an awesome presentation. Rand, one of the most entertaining speakers, outlined 20 places to get live links in the social media world, 20 domains with strong profile rankings (for reputation management), and 12 unique sites to promote your social media content. At Rand's request, I can't publish them. Sorry guys and gals.
Michael Gray, aka Graywolf, gave great tips on writing content for Social Media. I had the pleasure of hearing Graywolf speak on many panels, and he has a gift for social media content. Some of his great tips, included:
Write short, easy to read, scannable content
Include eye-catching images above the fold
Use a calendar and current events when creating linkbait
Site Reviews with Rae Hoffman and Dixon Jones. I have had the pleasure of attending multiple site reviews with these two, and each of them have been fantastic. Although Rae is often wrongly accused of being to harsh, I think they provide great analysis and fantastic advice for all in the audience. I work on a lot of audits for clients, and it was great to see how these two could perform a well thought out one in only five minutes.
Site Reviews: Focus on Social Media. This site review had a social media all star panel. We were able to pick the brains of Tamar Weinberg, Todd Malicoat, Brent Csutoras, Rebecca Kelley, and Michael Gray. They reviewed many difficult sites to create link bait for, and were able to create multiple great ideas for each of them. They also shared a number of great tips as well:
They talked to us about their favorite link baiting hooks, and gave a tip or two on how to be successful with them (i.e. provide a unique solution when using the attack hook to reinforce your argument).
Don't overlook the social media site mixx.com
When using a video to promote social media, keeping the length of the video under a minute works best. However, if you need to go longer, make sure the first 30 seconds are amazing.
Startup Costs: Getting in the Video Game. This was a very informative session, especially for me because I'm working hard at getting into the online video world (you should too.) The entire panel for this session was great, but one presentation really stood out: Robin Liss of camcorderinfo.com told us everything we needed to know about entering the video world. From tips on which equipment is best, to the most important dos and don'ts, her presentation rocked! Best tips:
Remember: half of the video is audio! Don't overlook the power of having good sound.
The most important accessory is the tripod - no one likes a shaky video.
If you plan on editing your video, tape and HDV cameras are the best to use (instead of hard drive and DVD camcorders).
Search and Blogging Reporters Forum. What made this panel so interesting was that it was pretty much an open floor. You could ask this panel of industry experts just about anything. The panel included Rand Fishkin, Michael McDonald, Lee Odden, and Andy Beal. I asked the panel whether or not it was a good idea to allow comments on a new blog. In my opinion it can hurt your creditability to see 0 comments on every post. Rand said that he has done this before, and it isn't a bad idea. Build up an audience and then turn them on. Alternatively, he said you could get some friends to make sure they comment regularly on the blog to start up the conversation.
BIGGEST COMPLAINTS ABOUT PUBCON
As great as Pubcon was, there were still some improvements that could be made:
Lack of Wifi. For the first two days of the conference there was very limited connectivity. It wasn't until the last day of sessions that we were able to have a connection in every room.
No water in the morning. The breakfast selection was nice, but after being at the Pub all night: I need to hydrate!!
Lack of time in between sessions. At most we would have 5 minutes to get to the next session. This left very little time for restroom breaks, to find a place with internet, and to socialize between sessions.
A small exhibit hall. Brett said it was one of the largest he has ever had, but...I've seen bigger. (That's what she said!)
The biggest issue of any conference is the lack of public parties for everyone to get together. While I didn't get to attend the Microsoft private party or anything like that, I felt there were still a lot of opportunities to socialize with other people. SEOmoz setup a Werewolf game for everyone to play following the public Google party. Once a few of us turned it into a drinking game, it was even more fun (I'm the guy in the Google hat)!
Another favorite event of mine was the first annual SEO Texas Holdem Tournament (somehow I think you would have really enjoyed this too, Karl). This was an awesome night, filled with about 90 entrants and free drinks - after a $200 buy in (some of which went to charity). I ended up finishing in 10th place, 1 place out of the money. It was a great opportunity to network and take advantage of being in Las Vegas.
The best advice I can give anyone who attends a conference: remember, there are many people in this industry who are extremely knowledgeable - and you probably haven't heard of them. In other words, don't hesitate to talk to someone just because they aren't a guru. There are a number of great people in this industry who you haven't even heard of.
Overall, I really enjoyed the conference and meeting a bunch of new people. Thanks Karl for letting me post a recap on your blog, it is one of my favorites!
With Search Engine Strategies and PubCon both headlining next week, in their own respective cities mind you, I figured that now was as good of a time as any to share with you my plans for the upcoming conferences.
I will be attending the Search Engine Strategies conference in Chicago. Why the Windy City and not PubCon in Vegas? Well, for one it is local. With just a little over an hour drive, team All Web and I will be styling and profiling at the Hilton and Towers, home of this year's SES Chicago event. In addition, it appears Seth Godin, one of my all-time favorite authors in the marketing industry, will be doing the keynote... and of course, I'm really looking forward to that.
As far as blogging goes, I not quite sure what I'll be doing. I've been debating on whether or not to post daily recaps (as I have for past conferences), or if I should wait and write a single post which recaps the entire conference. As of now I'm leaning towards the latter of the two, but you never know. In addition, I am also planning on having a guest post sometime next week featuring a complete recap of the PubCon event in Las Vegas. That should be a real treat for those of us who aren't attending.
If by chance you're going to be attending SES next week be sure to drop me a line. That, or keep an eye for me at the hotel bar. I'll be the guy puffing on a well-lit cigar... that is, if smoking is still allowed in Chicago bars.
Alright folks... I originally planned on posting a really long, well-drawn-out, and detailed review of the recent SMX Advanced conference that took place 2 weeks ago in Seattle, but seeing how I've been uber-busy since my return (bossman's been cracking the whip a little heavily as of late) I've decided to keep this particular recap nice and short. Besides, I have already published 2 different recaps already... one for the Search Marketing Gurus blog and the other for the Yahoo! Store blog. You can check-out both here (respectively):
SMX Advanced: Was it Advanced Enough? Search Marketing Gurus | June 09, 2007 Li asked me to share my thoughts on the conference and disclose some of the differences (if any) between SMX and some of the other search conferences I've attended. I wrote this post with the veteran search marketer in mind, and have explained, in detail, how SMX was positively better than most search conference circuits running today.
Karl Ribas Recaps SMX-Search Marketing Expo Yahoo! Store Blog | June 19, 2007 My man Paul B. asked me to share some of the sights and sounds of the SMX Advanced conference, as he and his team would ultimately have their hands full with the Internet Retailer conference (also going on that same week in San Jose). I wrote this post with Yahoo! Store merchants in mind, and I've "ponied up" several tips geared towards improving one's search marketing efforts.
All in all, I'm thinking that the very first-ever SMX Advanced Conference was a success. The conference provided an atmosphere where veteran search marketers could learn, share ideas, and even interact with others as proficient in the industry as they are. I was very pleased with how the conference was scheduled (location, time of year, times of sessions and breaks, etc.), and I very much enjoyed the smaller, close-knit atmosphere that was emitted.
For even more SMX Advanced conference coverage, be sure to check out my earlier conference posts:
Day 2 (the final day) of SMX Advanced has come and gone and just like the first day, I have some thoughts and pictures to share with you all.
The first session out of the gate was the "Is Bid Management Dead" debate which was held in a very interesting format. Basically there were 2 sides, one for bid management and one not, and each had to pitch their case to the audience. Each side also had chance to make a rebuttal argument on what the other side had mentioned. For me personally, I went into the session with the opinion that bid management was dead. I ended up leaving with that same idea. Pay Per Click is much, much, MUCH, more than adjusting bids and so forth. With quality score and the mystic black box taken into consideration, managing paid campaigns is no longer a process any more... it's an art form. And therefore the days of bid management are over.
My thinking was later validated in the next session, "Pump Up Your Paid Search". This was a pretty decent run-down on "advanced" PPC management, and included talks of day-parting, bidding on trademark terms, and a break-down on each of the engine's Keyword Insertion tools (KWI). I have a few take-a-ways from it, but instead of just throwing them down in this post I will address them in a couple of future posts... they do merit their own posts.
Lunch, again, was tremendous. If you didn't read my day 1 notes, we were served a superb hot plate buffet-style lunch. I only make a big deal about this because the past conferences I've attended distributed boxed lunches... crappy ones at that.
My last two sessions, "Better Ways" and "Give It Up" were both organic related sessions and featured all-star line-ups of our industry's best.
"Better Ways" was a non-slideshow session that featured 75 minutes of Q&A. A couple of take-a-ways included:
Ideal linking partners are those that can offer links on pages with a bunch of quality links pointing to them. For instance, its best to have a link coming from a page that has 1,000 or so links pointing to it as opposed to a link from that person's link page... which ultimately would have no-one pointing to it.
The "Give It Up" session, as described in the conference guide, is a session where a panel of noted SEOs would all share some of their favorite and largely overlooked SEO tips. That's exactly what it was. Even Google's Quality Control Engineer Matt Cutts stood up and shared an interesting story that highlighted one spammy way to get a large amount of inbound links. It was freakin' awesome! Unfortunately, I and the others in the audience took a vow of silence and promised that we would not publish any of these goodies... and I for one plan to stick to that promise. Sorry.
And that's that. I'm planning on doing a small overview of the conference a little later in the week (with my final thoughts on the show), but for now I'm going to relax and enjoy the rest of my trip.
I am so dragging ass today... it's not even close to being funny. I guess my weekend as well as the events from yesterday's (day 1) SMX Conference is finally starting to catch up with me. In any event, my day yesterday kicked off with a quick visit to the registration booth (I would have registered on Sunday as most people did, but for some reason when trying to I found that my badge was not printed - no biggie), followed by a continental-style breakfast on the conference floor.
My first session of the day was "You&A (Q&A) with Matt Cutts" in which the audience fired many algorithmic search-related questions spanning multiple areas at Matt, and he would address each specifically. I was actually impressed by this session. Going in, I thought Matt would be pleading the 5th on almost half of everything that was asked, but he didn't. He did a tremendous job of addressing near every question.
A couple of take-away from this session include:
Matt would not confirm nor deny the use of click-throughs (from the SERPS) as being apart of the metrics used in their ranking formula. I, for the longest time, have always thought that Google not only takes in consideration the user's click-through when deciding relevance, but also whether or not that user returns to the SERPS immediately following that click-through... essentially meaning that the user did not deem the website as being helpful and has moved on to find a better one.
Another interesting piece of info that was shared (but again was neither confirmed nor denied by Matt) is that Google's SPAM technology checks to see what other websites a specific webmaster owns (and ultimately whether or not those sites have been flagged for SPAM) when reviewing over a site. The example used at the session was if a site was questionable and a quick check-up showed that the same owner owned 200 flagged websites that probably this 201st website should be flagged as well. Which in my mind makes a lot of sense.
My second session of the day was the "Duplicate Content Summit". This session was paneled by representatives from each of the major search engines... Ask, Microsoft, Yahoo!, and of course Google. Personally speaking... I thought that this session could have been a little more advanced than it was, but overall it wasn't a bad session.
One take-away was the mention of using a "Robots No Content" tag to mark low value content such as copyright information and other repeated (non-value) pieces of content. This tag is currently supported only by Yahoo! and is a great way to help the search engine determine what your primary content is for each page.
Another blurb worth sharing is that Ask, Microsoft, Yahoo! and Google all support the sitemap attribute in the robots.txt file. I originally thought it was just Google that supported this feature, but that isn't the case. Simply list the URL of your Google Sitemap in the robot.txt file (using proper protocol of course) and all engines will crawl and take note of it.
My next two sessions were those in the Advertising track (paid search) and included the "Paid Search & Tricky Issues" and "Inside the Auction Black Box" session. Honestly, I didn't get too much out of either session with the exception of a re-rundown on many of the same old theories as to what Google's (and other search engines respectively) black box algorithm includes. Actually, at one time the topic was side-tracked a little when the panel and audience began discussing their own conspiracy theories as to the amount of data Google collects from multiple locations on a daily basis. That was a pretty interesting and humorous conversation.
The exhibit hall is very small compared to that of several of the past SES exhibits I've attended. I guess that's about right though, a small conference equals a small exhibit sesstion. I took a quick tour through it, and will no doubt make a second trip later on today.
Lunch was absolutely fabulous. I was so expecting the traditional boxed sandwich lunch that SES provides, and was very much happy to see a hot-plate buffet.
The last part of the day featured a Keynote conversation between Danny and Satya Nadella, the Corporate Vice President of Microsoft's newly-created Search & Advertising Platform Group. I thought this went over really well. In the past Microsoft has been pretty much non-existant at search conferences, and so I, for one, am glad to see that they made an effort to be well represented at this conference (and why shouldn't they... Seattle is their backyard). The keynote conversation addressed many of the Microsoft's past and more importantly future goals as a major player in the search industry.
Here is a video I took of one of the questions addressed during the keynote:
The night ended with a Yahoo Search Marketing Networking Session and an SMX After Dark: Google Dance NW where I ran into such celebs and Jim Boykin and Chris Hooley. It was great meeting you guys. All in all, both parties were fairly decent... however they were nowhere near their SES San Jose counter parts. They got the job done though and that's all that matters.
As I mentioned in my earlier post, tonight Microsoft adCenter threw a little gathering at the Bell Harbor convention center as a way to help kick-off the SMX conference. The party featured free drinks and finger-foods, live Jazz music, videogame sessions (I totally destroyed all on Guitar Hero 2... you don't want any of this McGee), and give-a-ways in the form of a Microsoft Zune, Vista OS, and an Xbox 360. Needless to say, I didn't win any of them.
Overall I had a stellar good time. I was able to catch up with a few of my conference buds before the show tomorrow (that's always good), and at the same time I ran into a few others that I've become acquainted with online but have never gotten the chance to meet in person, such Matt McGee, Rhea Drysdale, Jessica Bowman and Dustin Woodard. It was great meeting you all and I certainly look forward to chatting with you more throughout the conference.
Now, as promised, here are a couple snapshots from the event:
Hey all... just thought I would take a few moments to check in from Seattle and share some of the sights and sounds of my trip thus far. As most of you know, I'll be attending the first ever SMX conference this upcoming week and so my girlfriend and I decided to fly out a few days early and take in a much needed vacation.
Seattle is a great city, and I'm having a killer time. Aside from having a very early flight out of Chicago and staying at a... let's just say not-so appealing hotel, my time here has been great! A lot of the amenities that were said to be included with the hotel aren't and probably the most disappointing one being no in-room internet connection. It's been hard, but so far I've been able to survive just fine without it.
Jackie and I caught the Mariners vs. Rangers game at Seattle's Safeco Field on Friday... and what a great game it was. We had tremendous seats (only a few rows up from the backstop behind home plate), and were able to partake in the normal ballpark activities... hotdogs, peanuts, brews, and the 7th inning stretch. Even though the Rangers ended up winning 9-8, it was very cool to see such MLB stars as Inchiro Suzuki, Richie Sexson, and slugger Sammy Sosa.
On Saturday, we started our day early and headed on over to the city's most recognizable attraction... the Space Needle. There we rode a 41 second elevator to the observation deck (that space ship looking deal) and viewed the buildings, harbors, and mountain tops that is Seattle. A very beautiful sight.
Afterwards, we made our rounds through the city visiting several tourist attractions. We visited the Pacific Science Museum, Pike Place Market, Seattle Aquarium, and took an Argosy harbor cruise. All in all, we both had a very enjoyable time.
A little later, I'll heading up to the Bell Harbor convention center for a pre-conference SMX bash. The party is said to be sponsored by Microsoft, and so I'll be sure to snap a few pictures here and there and jot down a few comments a little later tonight or sometime tomorrow.
Next week kicks off the very first ever Search Marketing Expo (SMX) show in Seattle, a conference for advanced search marketers, and the Klog and I will be among those in attendance. Actually, it's more like a dozen or so Klogs and I will be in attendance, but who's counting. Yes, I'll be handing them out so please, please feel free to ask for one. :)
Unlike other marketing conferences, SMX is designed for the experienced search marketer as it skips right over the "beginner" sessions and moves the conversation right to an advance setting. Each day is scheduled to feature two tracks of sessions, one focused on organic SEO issues, and the other on paid search advertising.
I for one am very excited about attending this conference. Aside from my girlfriend Jackie, I'll be attending this show solo and look forward to meeting up with a few of my industry buds (Disco, Todd, Lisa, Li, David, Rob, Balestino, Bailey, Joe, David - any of you guys attending?) as well as meeting some new folks, mainly those I've been reading via their blogs (Bill, Barry, McGee, Hooley, Ray, Lee, Chris - Any of you guys attending?).
In addition to the work aspect of this trip, I've never been to Seattle and definitely look forward to the first few days where we've committed ourselves to a bit of sight seeing.
Just a quick overview of my itinerary:
June 1st (Friday) - June 3rd (Sunday) We'll be flying in early on Friday. Thus far, our plans for the weekend include a Seattle Mariners game on Friday (vs. Texas Rangers), a trip on the space needle and observatory deck on Saturday, and a variety of other sight-seeing destinations such as the Woodland Park Zoo, Pacific Science Center, Seattle Aquarium, Pike Place Market, Argosy Cruises - Seattle Harbor Tour, and The Museum of Flight on Saturday and Sunday.
As of now, I'm also planning on finding my way over to the conference hotel and bar on Sunday night (I'm actually staying a bit down the road) where, if this conference is like any of those I've attended in the past, there is likely to be a pre-conference gathering. However, depending on how tired I become from my sight-seeing extravaganza, this may be cut short or postponed until Monday or Tuesday night.
June 4th (Monday) - June 5th (Tuesday) These are conference days and as you might have guessed... I'll be attending sessions for most of each day. I'll also be on the look-out for any post-conference parties and events. However, I have yet to hear of anything thus far.
June 6th (Wednesday) Jackie and I fly back home to Chicago.
All in all... this is shaping up to be a great trip with just the right mixture of work and play. If any of you readers/marketers out there are attending and want to meet up... feel free to drop me a line at: karl [at] karlribas [dot] com. We can set up something then or at least exchange cell numbers. Otherwise, rest assure that I'll be delivering daily coverage and pictures of the conference and it's events as they unfold.
eComXpo, the 3-day online marketing tradeshow and exhibit, went down this past week. As I mentioned in my last post, team All Web and I were in attendance and handling our business (as little as it was) on the exhibit room floor.
To be honest, my perception of the tradeshow has changed a bit since the last time we exhibited back in October. It seems to me that many of the people in attendance this time were affiliate marketers and were looking for companies to partner with. We, on the other hand, are obviously in a different mindset and looking to speak with marketing and design prospects. I noticed that as a group our conversations and engagements were very low when compared to the previous show, and that the conference itself lacked in providing "quality" leads. Pending on how well our after-conference marketing efforts go, I'm thinking that this will be the last time we'll be exhibiting. Don't hold me to it though; I have yet to hear from the powers that be.
On a flip side, I did hear that the day seminars went well. Those I did happen to communicate with, including some my industry chums, had nothing but good things to say about the conference portion of the show.
How about you? Did you attend or exhibit? What is your opinion of this past week's eComXpo conference and exhibit?
I just wanted to give everyone a quick heads-up that we (All Web Promotion) will be exhibiting at next week's eComXpo, a 100% virtual tradeshow and conference. The conference will begin on Tuesday morning and end early Thursday evening.
For those of you unfamiliar with eComXpo, it's an online virtual tradeshow specifically for eCommerce marketers... meaning that there is no need for flight or hotel accommodations, just simply login and participate. The conference covers all variations of online marketing, including email, search, affiliate, regulatory, branding, and advertising, in addition to an overview of technology trends and challenges.
Here's a snap-shot of our virtual booth:
If you look hard enough, you can see our goldfish "webber" in the fish tank in the front.
We'll have representatives from our Search Engine Marketing, Yahoo! Store, and Email Marketing divisions on-hand, and so if you happen to be attending (or are one of the few to receive a free pass from me) and have questions regarding our services be sure to drop on by. Or, if you just want to stop by and say "hi"... feel free to do that too. We'll be giving away a FREE Email Marketing Campaign (valued at $400) at the end of the show, and registering to win is fast and easy to do.
I was flipping through the latest Search Marketing Standard magazine (the Spring 2007 edition for those of you keeping track at home) and came across back-to-back advertisements for this April's Search Engine Strategies (SES) conference in New York City and for June's Search Marketing Expo (SMX) in Seattle. Seeing them both together like that really got me thinking... can our industry really support yet another major search marketing conference, or is one ultimately doomed to fail?
I guess only time will tell, but I'm interested in knowing what you all think.
My thoughts are simple and rather straight forward on the subject. Honestly... my perception of Search Engine Watch and of the Search Engine Strategies conference has changed slightly now that Danny isn't going to be chairing future events. I'm not sure why... it just is. I think as his SMX brand continues to gain top-notch sponsorships and attract our industry's elite speakers that eventually industry folks will need to make a choice... and that choice will be Search Marketing Expo.
Why will the industry need to make a choice? Well, for now I think sponsors and speakers are ok with shelling out the money and time in order to support both conferences, not to mention other industry conferences such as WebmasterWorld's PubCon or Ad:Tech. However, there will come a time when SMX will end up doing 5 - 7 shows a year and pulling in 1,500 - 2,000 attendees per show. It will begin to run in a similar rotation as the SES conference. With that, I think traveling back and forth to all these shows and spending all that money in either sponsorship fees or conference passes will catch up to most individuals and companies... and thus they'll need to make a choice.
Why will the industry choose Search Marketing Expo? Two words... Danny Sullivan! He is no doubt the Dali Llama of the Search Engine Marketing industry, and as Greg Boser once said, "where the Dali Llama goes... the industry will follow". I certainly believe that.
Anyway... that's just my 2 cents. What are your thoughts?
Ahhhh... it sure does feel real good to be back in the office today. I know how weird that must sound seeing how most people would love to be away from their day-job, but just like the saying goes... "There's no place like home". And with that, I found myself returning to a mountain of work that all seemed to be screaming out for my immediate attention. That's not how one should be ending their work week, but what am I going to do. I guess that's why there are weekends.
Overall, I thought the show went quite well. I was able to jot down a few worthy notes, as well as pick the brains of some of the SEO industry's brightest minds. I'm sure like everyone else who attends these conferences... I have my likes and dislikes:
On a side note, I took about 25 - 30 or so pictures while at the conference, and was able to get them up on my Flickr account. I am hoping to get them up on my site here really soon. If it suits you, please have a look.
I hope you've enjoyed the four day coverage that I provided of this year's Search Engine Strategies Conference in Chicago. If you didn't catch my daily notes, you may do so here:
posted by Karl Ribas on Thursday, December 07, 2006
Today was a light day for me as I was able to sleep in much, much later than any of the previous days this week... and to top it all off, I only attended 2 sessions the entire day. Hehehe, but shhh... no need to tell boss-man that I was slacking off.
My first session was the "Ad Copy & Landing Page Clinic" which featured Joe Agliozzo of BetterPPC and Brad Geddes of LocalLaunch.com. Together the two examined actual ads and landing pages offered up by volunteers from the audience, and suggested changes that may improve click-through rates and conversions. Overall, I'd say this was a good session; however, I did hear some suggestions that conflicted with what others had been saying on other panels, as well as with what I know to be true, but that's to be expected I guess.
My second and last session of the day was another "Site Clinic" which again took volunteers from the audience and examined their websites live to provide them with general feedback on how to gain more traffic from search engines. Why another "site clinic" you ask? Well, in addition to being SEO related, this session also featured my good-friend and Yahoo! Store Guru Rob Snell. Maybe you've heard of Rob? He is the author of a Yahoo! Store Design and Marketing Book and also offers Yahoo! Store Seminars every now and then. Aside from being entertaining, Rob and his partner on the panel, Derrick Wheeler of Acxiom Digital, provided some great tips and tricks to those with and without e-commerce websites.
And that's that... the end of the conference. Tomorrow, I'll probably be doing my normal summary of the show including my likes and dislikes and so forth and will hopefully have all of my pictures published on my website, as well as my Flickr account.
Thanks for hanging with me this week. Hope you've enjoyed it!
posted by Karl Ribas on Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Looking back at my notes today, I found that I made it to and through all of the various sessions that I set out to attend. As you'll see from my notes below, the sessions were very, very different from one another which, unlike previous days this week, made attending easier and much more fascinating.
My first session happen to be "Web Analytics & Measuring Success" which has been a hot topic in our All Web office as of late, and so I was pretty eager to sit in on this one. The panel consisted of Laura Thieme of Bizsearch and Matt Williams of Prominent Placement, both of which I felt did a great job in explaining the importance of measuring website conversions and unique monthly visitors. In fact I thought Matt did a stellar job in presenting, and actually influenced me to begin monitoring and measuring much of the activity that takes place on this site and Blog. Thanks Matt!
The next session I attended was "SMO: Social Media Optimization". This was by far the best session that I attended today as it featured an all-star panel, including Andy Hagans, Neil Patel, Rand Fishkin, Todd Malicoat, and Lee Odden. Together the group outlined countless ways one can use social media sites, such as Wikipedia, Digg, Del.icio.us, and YouTube, to reach a very targeted audience and to improve their own search results in the process.
Immediately following the lunch break, I hit the "Auditing Paid Listings & Click Fraud Issues" session, which was very similar in a lot of ways to the previous one that took place months earlier in San Jose. Much of the conversation was heated (as sessions featuring a clash in opinions typically are), but on the flip side the panel provided some great information as well as a little bit of entertainment. Ok, it provided a lot of bit of entertainment. The main issue as to why these sessions do sometimes become heated comes down to methodology. One person / company believes and uses one tactic to do something, and another person believes and uses another tactic to do that same something... which of course leaves both sides having to defend why their process is better.
The following is a a quick 2 min video that I took with my digital camera during the Click-Fraud session. However I'm afraid I missed out on the REALLY good heated discussions that had taken place minutes early. This one's not bad though.
My last session for today was "Usability & SEO. Two Wins For The Price Of One", headed up by Shari Thurow and Matt Bailey. Aside from being quite humorous, they both provided some great examples of what to and not to do as far as building a user-friendly and search-friendly website. This too was one my favorite sessions for today.
I did happen to get a little bit more Exhibit Hall time in today. Here are some of the pictures I took:
Tomorrow is the last day of the conference, so be sure to stay tuned for those notes as well.
posted by Karl Ribas on Tuesday, December 05, 2006
After reviewing my notes tonight, I noticed that I really didn't have too much to mention... which is about right seeing how I only attended 2 sessions the whole day. However, that is in direct correlation of what my schedule allowed.
My day kicked off with the "Bulk Submit 2.0" session which included a small panel existing of Amanda Camp of Google, Todd Friesen (Oilman) of Range Online Media, and Eric Papczun of Performics. The group covered the basics of the Google Sitemaps and Yahoo! Site Explore products, and of course the new Sitemaps.org project which is currently in place.
During the lunch time-slot, I attended a live demonstration / review / Q&A of Yahoo!'s new and upcoming Pay Per Click platform, which is codenamed "Project Panama". Panama will be a mandatory system update for all Yahoo! Search Marketing advertisers, and will feature such additions as:
A New User-Interface.
A Time-Zone Setting.
An Extremely Enhanced and Better Geo-Targeting Feature.
A/B Testing Options.
Budgeting on Both an Account Level and Campaign Level.
Alerts and Customizable Alerts.
A New Ranking Algorithm Based on an Ad's Performance.
Some other highlights concerning the Panama release:
US upgrades to the new system have begun.
Sign-Ups to move forward one's upgrade date will soon be available.
Random invitations to upgrade will continue to be sent over the next few months.
Data will not be backwards compatible. Accounts will begin a new set of stats.
After lunch, I, along with fellow All Webber's Michael Roebuck, Jessica Guadiana, and Kelly Wilson, made our rounds through the exhibit hall, which had opened up at around 10am today. To be perfectly honest, I wasn't completely impressed with this year's exhibit hall. It had seemed smaller than past years, and really didn't feature many new vendors, or at least any that I really wanted to meet and chat with.
Jessica Guadiana, Kelly Wilson, and Myself
That's it as far as search goes. I did happen to go out to a great Chinese Dinner at the Pacific Bistro located up and around North Lakeshore Drive. Apparently, the building which houses this restaurant and a few other specialty stores and offices is the old Playboy Building in Chicago. Here's a photo of a sign I came across.
That's it for now... stay tuned for more updates as the SES conference continues.
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:
"Using 'negative matches' increases your quality score"
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!
I know its not even the first day of the Search Engine Strategies (SES) Conference here in Chicago, but I thought I would post some of my highlights for today.
I arrived at the Hilton Hotel around 3ish, checked in, and almost immediately began working on some recent KR.com changes. Over the past few weeks, I've been rewriting much of the content on my website, as well doing some other things, and needed to tie-up a few loose ends with all of that.
Somewhere around 8pm I decided it was time for a drink and so I headed down to hotel bar. Shortly after, I ran into David Burke and his wife Sally, fellow Yahoo! Store Developers and had a drink or two with them.
On my way out of the Bar, I ran into Todd who had immediately introduced me to Lisa Barone, the infamous author of the Bruce Clay Blog (there's your link Lisa :) ). The Bruce Clay Blog is among the few that I do read religiously and for what it's worth I'd definitely recommend it to anybody who serious about search marketing. Her views and opinions are not only educational, but she also ads a twist of humor in her writing. It was great to meet you Lisa, and to finally put a face to the name.
Pictured from left to right Todd Malicoat (aka Stuntdubl), Justilien Gaspard, Neil Patel, and Lisa Barone .
That's it for now. Be sure to stay tuned for more SES updates live from Chi-Town.
I just wanted to give everyone a heads-up that I'll be attending the Search Engine Strategies (SES) conference in Chicago all next week, and will obviously be out of the office during that time. As of now, I am planning on Blogging through most of the conference as a way to share some of the highlights and my experiences. However, I'd expect a day or two delay between posts.
In the spirit of the Search Engine Strategies conference, I've compiled a small list of tips for those of you who are planning to attend. These tips are more so for first-timers of SES Chicago, and not conference veterans.
Bring Business Cards. This may seem like a no-brainer, but I can't tell you how many times I've been to a conference where someone I knew or someone I'm meeting for the first time had forgotten their business cards. Exchanging business cards is a huge part of networking, and having them assessable at all times is a great way to ensure that you'll be remembered after the conference. This is of course unless you gave one to Kid Disco. He tends to loose his in his state-of-the-art rolodex... aka the floor of his hotel room. Just kidding disco!
Attend Parties. After a long day of attending back to back sessions and meeting up with vendors in the exhibit hall, the very last thing you're going to want to do is attend the nightly parties. However, I encourage you to do so. In addition to having a good time on someone else's dime, sponsored parties (those typically from Yahoo!, Google, Ask, and Webmaster Radio) are feeding grounds for making new business acquaintances. Everyone that you'd ever want to me or chat with will be attending these parties, and unlike at the sessions, the information they share will be a bit more personal, as well as valuable.
Buy A Round. If you find yourself sitting around the bar chatting with a group of people, I encourage you to buy a round of drinks (especially if I'm among them). The friendships / business relationships you'll attain, in addition to the very enlightening conversations, will certainly be worth the few "C Notes" you drop on the bar tab.
Dress for December. Out of all of the tips I could ever provide, this is probably the most valuable one there is. Here in Illinois, December tends to be a bit on the cool side... and just so that I'm clear, I'm not referring to a breezing day in San Francisco. Instead, Chicago will either be very windy, rainy, or snowy or any combination of the three. Prepare for a freezing-cold wind that will be blowing off of Lake Michigan, in addition to temperatures ranging from zero to below-zero.
As it looks now, I'll be arriving Sunday evening and staying through Thursday. If you happen to see me at a session, in the exhibit hall, at the bar, or at any one of the few sponsored evenings, please be sure to stop me and say "hi". I'm always interested in meeting new people in this industry, especially if they happen to be Klog readers.
I've got a lot going on today, so instead of preparing an ultra, uber-long and thoughtful post... I figured I could get away with just doing a quick recap of this week's eComXpo conference and exhibit hall.
The show started off on Tuesday morning and went non-stop until late Thursday night. During that time attendees could visit with over 450 exhibitors, watch over 40 keynote and panel presentations, and network with over a whopping 7,000 attendees... which by the way is an incredible turn-out for any conference, virtual or non-virtual.
Team All Web and I took turns manning our booth, which to be honest, was a bit of fun. I enjoyed chatting with the many different people who dropped by, even if they weren't at all interested in our services. There are tons of people who are very passionate about what it is they do, and I enjoyed hearing many of their stories.
If I had to choose a favorite and least favorite aspect of the show I'd say the following:
My favorite part of the entire show is the fact that there is no need for travel. There's no need to wake up early to board a plane, no need to stay away in a hotel, no need to miss work, no need to miss after-work activities, and most importantly no way that I could loose my wallet, license, credit card, and phone and have to worry about being stranded in a far-away state... again!
My least favorite part of the entire show was how virtual people tend to ignore you A LOT more than if they were right there in front of you. I'm not sure how many times I would initiate a chat with a booth guest, and simply be ignored. It was frustrating! And I am in no way a pushy sales-person type either... I was merely interested in what these people did on the net and whether or not they were enjoying the show.
Overall, I think the show was a success, at least as far as we're concerned. We were able to attain several solid leads, in addition to a whole spreadsheet of contacts we can now solicit... and you thought we were giving away a free iPod with no-strings attached. Sorry guys, but that's the nature of the biz. If you didn't get a chance to attend, eComXpo will be putting on another conference in March. Admission will most likely be free (as was the case this time), and I'm fairly certain that All Web has already made plans to exhibit again. I'm certainly looking forward to it.
The eComXpo Conference and Exhibit Hall will be going on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of next week, and I'm happy to announce that All Web Promotion will be among the many who will be exhibiting at the show. For anyone that's interested, All Web has generously given me several free eComXpo show passes to share with my readers, and all you have to do to get yours is simply comment to this post and tell me so. Pretty easy right?
For those of you unfamiliar with eComXpo, it's a 100% online virtual tradeshow for eCommerce marketers... meaning that there is no need for flight or hotel accommodations, just simply login and participate. The conference covers all variations of online marketing, including email, search, affiliate, regulatory, branding, and advertising, in addition to an overview of technology trends and challenges.
Here's a snap-shot of our booth:
We'll have representatives from our Search Engine Marketing and our Yahoo! Store divisions on-hand, and so if you happen to be attending (or are one of the few to receive a free pass from me) and have questions regarding our services be sure to drop on by. Or, if you just want to stop by and say "hi"... feel free to do that too. We'll be giving away a new 1GB iPod Shuffle at the end of the show, and registering to win is fast and easy to do.
Ahhhh... it feels so good to be going home. Despite all the extra security issues at the airport (which really isn't all that bad in San Jose), today's trip has thus far gone smoothly. In fact, because of a certain someone, who I will keep nameless (did you see the link), we arrived at the airport super early, and so I have plenty of time to get today's post written and hopefully published.
Before jumping into my SES wrap-up, it's important for readers to understand how huge, in terms of importance, the San Jose Search Engine Strategies conference really is. Even though SES is a traveling search marketing trade show and can be found throughout the year in Chicago, New York, Toronto, Paris, London, and many other places, no other venue is as important as San Jose. Care to wonder why? It's because San Jose is in the "Silicon Valley". Know what else's in the "Silicon Valley"? How about the home to IBM, Apple, Adobe, Google, Yahoo!, a Microsoft office, eBay, Pay-Pal, MacAfee, and so many other major Internet brands.
With that said, many of the major industry announcements take place at or during the week of SES San Jose. Don't get me wrong... stuff is announced at SES conferences all the time and all over the world, but in San Jose it just seems like there is more to announce. It almost seems as if Internet companies use the SES conference as a stage to trump each other for the biggest announcements, and use search-industry experts, followers, Bloggers, PR people, article writers, and other authoritative news-people that are in attendance to spread the "buzz".
I guess it works because here are some of this past week's SES highlights:
"Google Sitemaps" Changed to "Google Webmaster Central".
New Studies "on Searcher Behavior" Have Been Released.
Google Finds Faults with Major 3rd Party Click-Auditors.
Yahoo! Did a Live Demo of Their Upcoming Ad-Platform.
The Exhibit Hall Was Big and Featured Many New Vendors.
The 5th Annual Google Dance Wins Best SES-SJ Party.
Danny Sullivan Interviews Eric Schmitt, CEO of Google.
A Yahoo! Store Developers Meeting Took Place.
Overall, my experience with the conference and the trip is a pleasant one. I attended numerous sessions and sponsored events, had plenty of time to meet up with some old acquaintances and introduce myself to many new ones, visited Fisherman's Wharf, The Winchester Mystery House, and Alcatraz Island, and to top things off I took a lot away, in an educational sense, which can be used to improve on my efforts as a Search Engine Marketer and All Web's efforts as a provider of Search Engine Marketing services.
If you've never been to an SES show, I encourage you to go. Even if you're one who believes they know all there is to know... I can guarantee you'll come home with something new to test and/or implement.
Here are some "Behind-The-Scenes" highlights which made this trip even more than interesting than can be imagined:
I Lost my License 3-Days Before Going to San Jose.
I Recovered my License a Day Before Going to San Jose.
I Had Problems with Re-Charging My Cell Phone
I Lost my Wallet in San Jose.
I Cancelled my Credit Card for Obvious Reasons.
I Recovered my Wallet 1-Day Before my Flight Home
I Ran Out of Money and Had No Active Credit Card.
I Sat in Front of Dave Naylor on my Flight Back to Chicago.
I Left my Phone on a Bench at the Chicago O'Hare Airport.
My Phone was Found and Will Be Mailed Back to me Soon.
Talk about problems... I had many. Can you imagine how hard it would have been to board a plane without a Government issued Photo ID or any other proof of who I was... especially with the latest terrorist attack and all the extra security in place. I'm just glad I didn't have to find out.
I am hoping to get all of my photos from this past trip published sometime in the next week. When i do... you can view them here and here.
Here is a list of links to all of my San Fransico / SES posts:
The conference today was a lot like yesterday, mostly in the sense that I attended my scheduled sessions but really don't have much to report... at least anything that qualifies as absolute "ground-breaking".
I did, however, join up with team All Web and several other very prominent Yahoo! Store developers to visit Yahoo's Corporate Headquarters for what has become our yearly "developers meeting". Although I'm not at liberty to talk specific details... I will comment that I found the round-table chit-chat, regarding the Yahoo! Store / Merchant Solutions current and future products, very educational and enjoyable. "Thank You" Yahoo! for such an eventful evening. I had a blast!
Because I have to board a plane semi-early tomorrow morning and because of the fact that I have not yet packed, I will cut this post short. I will, however, leave you with some photos from tonight's Yahoo! Store Developers meeting.
posted by Karl Ribas on Wednesday, August 09, 2006
So I'm checking my notes and realize that I didn't write anything down today... meaning I really don't have anything to which I feel is Blog-worthy to pass along. Now don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that I didn't learn anything from today's sessions or find the information presented valuable. I'm merely stating that I don't have anything to share with you as far as new updates or statistics, such as I have been doing all week long.
I did, however, happen to catch the Danny Sullivan, head-honcho of this conference, and Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, interview which took place earlier this morning. To be honest... I really enjoyed seeing Eric in person, but I didn't learn or take away anything of value from the whole deal. The questions that Danny had asked seemed to be pre-scripted (as one would expect) and they had seemed to be a bit too safe... meaning that the answers were pretty much "Google is great because".
Other than that, the sessions today were pretty normal... with the exception of the Webmaster Radio's Search Bash Party to which I'm just now getting back from. The party was a GREAT time in case you were wondering.
The following are some pics that I happened to snap today:
Today was indeed a busy day for me, and I'd have to admit that I'm pretty tired as I'm writing this. With that said, please excuse any typos or bad grammar usage that you come across as I just don't care enough at the moment to triple check things. I just got back to my room from the Google Party... thank god tomorrow is a late start. I'll touch more on the actually Google party a bit later, but for now... on to the good stuff.
My day kicked off with the "Auditing Paid Listings & Click Fraud Issues" session, which happens to be one that I typically try and attend each time. The session covers how to spot abnormalities and follow-up with search engines if you should suspect a competitor or someone else is creating invalid clicks on your accounts. Personally speaking, this session is a great way to keep up with the latest on click-fraud class-action lawsuits, as well as what the engines are doing to combat malicious click activity.
Lori Weiman, Director of KeywordMax, shared a very interesting statistic today. According to her and the research that she and her team have done:
"8% - 28% of PPC Clicks are Invalid"
Now to be fair to Lori and the statistic she provided (and because I spoke with her personally about it after the session) the 28% mentioned is 1 or 2 extreme cases that she's come acrossed and it certainly does not represent the large majority of her clients. Another thing to keep in mind is that an "invalid" click doesn't necessarily mean click-fraud.
Also, during this same session, Shuman Ghosemajumder, Business Product Manager of Google, announced that a report had just been published (we're literally talking hours before the session) which claims to find fault in how 3 major 3rd party click-auditing companies, and potentially all auditing programs using JavaScript solutions, count their clicks. The report is titled "How Fictitious Clicks Occur in Third-Party Click Fraud Audit Reports" and actually featured Tom Cuthbert's company Click Forensics. The interesting thing here is that Tom just happened to be a panelist on this very session.
Now I have not yet read this report, and doubt that I will anytime soon, but I do encourage you all to take a look as Google's findings. You can check it out here.
A quick shot of the Click-Fraud Panel.
I happened to catch a special lunch session with the Yahoo! Search Marketing team where they showed off a live demo of their new, soon to launch, PPC Ad Platform. The new platform seems to be tons better than their current platform, and from what I've seen today it appears that Yahoo! is definitely moving in all the right directions. Here are a couple of major updates highlighted in today's presentation:
A New User Dash-Board.
A Time-Zone Setting.
An Extremely Better Geo-Targeting Feature.
A/B Testing Options.
Budgeting on Both an Account Level and Campaign Level.
Alerts and Customizable Alerts.
A New Ranking Algorithm Based on an Ad's Performance.
Plus tons more TBA.
This new platform is available now to a select few, but will hopefully be up and running completely by 4th Quarter of this year or by 1st Quarter of next year. The YSM mentioned that the delay is due to the fact that they'd like some time to beef up their customer service staff and ensure that they're indeed ready to assist advertisers when the time comes. Not a bad idea if you ask me.
A quick shot of the Yahoo! Search Marketing Panel. Sorry about the camera guy!
The exhibit hall opened up today as I found myself spending a great deal of time in the hall. There are tons of booths to cover and tons of people to look-up, and only 2 days to do it in... which validates my time on the exhibit hall floor. Here are a couple of pics that I was able to take:
The Google Dance kicked-off in similar fashion to other years... boarding a bus at the convention center which takes attendees to and from Google. Upon arriving at Googleplex, we were greeted by members of the Google staff and were shortly after introduced to a bunch of great freebies, including food, beverages, and entertainment. As always this was a super great time!
The Google Dance
And that's it for now. Be sure to stay tuned for all the fun and excitement still to come.
The conference kicked off nice and early for me this morning as I needed to register, grab all the freebies that go along with antending, and get myself prepared for the upcoming sessions.
The Front of the San Jose Convention Center.
My first session was the "Searcher Behavior Research Update", with speakers Bill Barnes, Rob Murray, David Williams, and Anne Frisbie. For the most part, this was a good session as the speakers highlighted their latest studies and findings regarding how searchers interact with search engines.
Robert Murray, President of iProspect, shared a couple of interesting statistics that I thought were worth mentioning. According to his research:
"62% of all Search Engine users never look past the 1st page of the SE results."
"90% of all Search Engine users never look past the 3rd page of the SE results."
This just goes to show how important top search engine placement is. Search users are no longer digging though the thousands upon thousands of search engine results to find a website (frankly... I'm not sure that they ever did). It seems that if the majority of searchers don't find what they're looking for by the 3rd page, they'll either enter a new query or try another search engine all together. Therefore, it becomes extremely important that website owners find their way to the top of the search engines, either organically or through paid-placement methods, for their desired keyword phrases.
Robert also mentioned that:
"41% of all Search Engine users will change their query or search engine if they can't find what their looking for after the 1st page of the SE Results."
"88% of all Search Engine users will change their query or search engine if they can't find what their looking for after the 3rd page of the SE results."
Which again, these statistics certainly say a lot about today's search users and their searching behaviors.
My second session was "Leveraging Social Media" and it focused primarily on how one can use media services like MySpace, YouTube, Friendster, and Flickr to deliver marketing messages without disrupting the diverse audience that exists within each area. Overall this was a pretty decent session and one that provided me with lots to look into and experiment with.
At lunch I sat in on a Google Sitemaps / Google Webmaster Central session. That's right if you didn't already catch it elsewhere... Google announced earlier today that it has dropped the name "Sitemaps" and dubbed the service "Webmaster Central". Personally, I hate the name, but 'what are ya going do'. The lunch / session featured the "Webmaster Central" team as they walked through some of the program's new changes and updates.
A quick shot of the panel (sorry its blurry). That's everybody's favorite Googler Matt Cutts on the big screen.
My last session of the day was a jam-packed, standing-room-only "SEM Via Communities, Wikipedia & Tagging" session. This session featured the all-star line-up of Rand Fishkin, Neil Patel, Andy Hagans, Todd Malicoat, and Chris Pirillo. Together they discussed the many services and strategies that can be used to tap into links and search-driven traffic, such as Wikipedia, Digg, Flickr, and Technorati. "Kudos" goes out to these guys for putting on a very entertaining, and yet informative, session.
The All-Star Panel: (L-R) Todd Malicoat, Chris Pirillo, Rand Fishkin, Neil Patel, and Andy Hagans.
Well, that's it for today. There's a party happening later on tonight sponsored by Ask.com, however, I'm pretty sure that I'm going to pass on it for a nice, relaxing cigar down by the hotel pool. Besides... I'm going to need my rest for tomorrow's opening of the exhibit hall and the big Google Dance bash. Stay tuned for tomorrow's updates on the conference and SES happenings.
If you didn't already know... I'm in San Jose, California this week attending a Search Engine Strategies (SES) conference. I flew in on Saturday afternoon with fellow All Webbers Michael and Jessica, and will be here until Friday. For those of you not aware, SES is a week-long event (Monday - Thursday) with several different kinds of search-related sessions, as well as a 2-day exhibit hall where attendees can visit with search-marketing vendors.
After getting settled in yesterday, we decided to take in some sight-seeing and putt around the San Jose / San Francisco area (we did have a 1 1/2 days before the conference).
Saturday afternoon, we visited the "Winchester Mansion and Mystery House" in San Jose. If you never been there, I'll spare you the long background story. The mansion was designed by a wealthy widow named Sarah L. Winchester and features 160 Victorian era rooms, 3 elevators, and 47 fireplaces. We took one of their hour tours, and to be perfectly honest, I had a very good time. Every room has a story to tell, and every story was uniquely odd from the next.
Michael and Jessica at the entrance to the Winchester Mansion.
Sunday we decided to saddle-up and head north to San Francisco where we spent most of the day taking in the sights at Fisherman's Wharf, however, we came prepared to tour the Alcatraz Island... formerly a federal prison. We took the self-guided/audio tour which explained, via a tape recording, the many different areas of the prison as well as the many stories that go along with them. The overall experience, from the boat ride in to the tour itself, was great and one I would definately recommend to those visiting the San-Fran area.
Me inside one of the prison cells at Alcatraz.
Well that's if for now. I will be attending many sessions, the exhibit hall, and several after-conference events, including the annual Google Dance, a SEMPO gathering, and a trip to Yahoo! headquarters to visit with our Yahoo! Store reps. With that in mind, I will do my best to provide daily coverage of the events that take place here as well as any major news and announcements associated with this conference. So... stay tuned!
Oh, and if you're attending the conference this week and should happen to see me walking around make sure you stop me and say "hi". I'll do the same.
Hello everyone. I apologize for the delay in posting my day 4 notes. I planned to do so yesterday when I returned from Chicago, but due to some extremely horrible transportation problems... I stress again HORRIBLE, I arrived at home really late and needed to get some quick sleep before going to the office in the morning. With that said, I've posted my notes below.
In my opinion, this year's Chicago show wasn't as good as was previous SES shows in regards to both content / information and evening networking events / parties, but, in all fairness it was definitely worth attending. It was great to meet up with those who I've not seen or talked to since the last show and it was definitely worth every penny to see the west coast attendees bare with Chicago's chilled and windy weather. Welcome to my world!
As usual, I and the other "All Webbers" were taking pictures at some of the sessions and exhibit hall, and I will be posting them sometime within the next week.
Alas, here are my day 4 notes.
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My first session on Thursday, the "Organic Listings Forum", was headed up by an all-star team of marketers staring Bruce Clay, Todd Friesen (aka Oilman), and Mike Grehan. This was a tremendous session in which the panelist discussed many of today's most popular SEO issues such as the Google Sandbox theory, duplicate content problems, and industry standards.
Bruce said something interesting during the session: "Google has improved by about 95% in their ability to detect if an incoming link is 'good' or 'bad', (based on unknown criteria) and has actually created a list which is referenced before credibility or weight is given to the website." In other words, SEO marketers can go out attain as many links as they desire, but Google may or may not consider them all for when determining ranking... which is actually quite fair if you ask me.
I attended the "Meet the Crawler" session. At this presentation, representatives from Yahoo!, Google, MSN, and everyone's favorite butler Ask Jeeves touched on the similar issues discussed in my previous session and also on their abilities to crawl, index, and present Internet content.
My last session of the day was "Auditing Paid Listings and Click Fraud" which, much like every other time I've attended this session, was a panel discussing (or not discussing for that matter - referring to Yahoo! and Google) the same click-fraud type issues and reporting no new ways of preventing it. Google and Yahoo! representatives claimed that they were not entitled to speak on many of the questions presented because of ongoing legal cases that their respective company's were involved in... which left for a pretty dry session.
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That wraps ups this years Chicago conference. Use the following lings to review my previous notes and my SES picture page.
posted by Karl Ribas on Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Day 3 of the SES conference is just ending for me and I am proud to say that I am still standing and still looking forward to tomorrow's sessions. In all seriousness, these conferences do take a lot out of you and your days can become very long, especially if you are attending sessions at every time slot and "networking" (notice the quotations) in the evenings.
My first session today was one that I enjoyed very much and one that I have attended at past SES shows... it was the "My SEM Toolbox" session. During this discussion speakers Jim Boykin, Paul Bruemmer, Todd Malicoat, and others laid out some of their own personal tool sets and kits for saving time on many common SEM projects. In fact Todd Malicoat, who happens to be the author of Stuntdubl, one of my favorite Search Engine Marketing related Blogs, provided this link to his tool box: http://www.stuntdubl.com/tools. Enjoy.
After lunch I attended the "Converting Visitors Into Buyers" session with Michael Sack of Inceptor and Heather Lloyd-Martin of SuccessWorks. This session had its good elements its bad. I thought that both speakers presented some really great material and case studies, but I definitely have to mention that I found serious fault in Heather's voice. You may ask laughing, what does that have to do with the session? Well actually it has a lot do with it.
A presenter has to appeal to the audience and ensure that they are able to understand the material being presented. In addition, he or she has to present in a way that's entertaining and not distracting to the audience... an area where I felt Ms. Lloyd-Martin failed. I found her voice to be really high pitched and annoying and apparently others felt the same as attendees began to walk out almost instantly after she began to speak. I further noticed that a member of the audio team actually went around to each individual speaker and tuned them down.
I want to further state that my intension is in no way to insult her with this entry, or any other presenter I happen to comment on. Her material was detailed and informative, but this it is my overall opinion of that particular session and you, my readers, want to hear my opinion or you wouldn't be reading this blog.
Afterwards, I attended an evening forum presented by non-other than Danny Sullivan. This was a relaxing and humorous discussion-like session which allowed attendees to pose questions to Danny or directly to the audience. In fact a representative of Yahoo! Search was also attending and found himself on the spot answering many Yahoo! Search related questions.
That's all for tonight. Stay tuned for tomorrow's SES show coverage.
posted by Karl Ribas on Tuesday, December 06, 2005
I started off day 2 of at the SES conference by attending Danny Sullivan's Keynote presentation. As usual he focused his speech on the Search Engine Marketing industry and where it had been, where it is now, and where he foresees it to be in 2006. You've got to give it to Danny... he can draw and entertain a crowd even at 9:00am in the morning and after a long night at the bar for most of the attendees. He is truly a great speaker.
Immediately following Danny's presentation, I moved onto the exhibit hall which at that point had just opened. This year's expo hall was definitely bigger than previous Chicago shows and featured many of the same venders that attended the other SES shows as well as a few new ones. I did my usual quick walk through the expo hall and made mental notes of the booths I was most interested in and wanted to check out a bit later during my free time.
My first session started at 10:15 which was "News Search SEO" with Greg Jarboe and company, and it in its own right was pretty interesting. It offered lots of cool PR info and tips for getting your content in the top news engines.
After lunch I attended the "Landing Page Testing & Tuning" seminar which turned out to be pretty informative. This wasn't the first time I've attended this session as I've seen it once already in San Jose. As with last time, I found myself learning something new and of value that could be used to improve my client's optimization and design efforts. In fact Tim Ash of Site Tuners, who in my opinion is one of the better presenters at these shows, offered some great slides on what to do and what not to do in your website development. Ash provided ideas and concepts that I never thought about until he pointed them out. He's definitely a speaker that I would encourage everyone who attends these shows to see.
Later on during that same session Matt Roache of Offermatica handed out an Apple IPOD to an attendee for his participation in a survey. I feel that this is something that Danny and Incisive Media should adapt into every session. It sure beats dropping your business card into the fish bowls down in the expo hall for a chance to win an IPOD, a PSP, a computer, or any other cool gadgets. It also beats receiving the spam like emails a week later for doing so. I've attended several of these SES shows and have yet to actually win anything. It's really starting to piss me off. Actually, in all fairness I did win a DidIt frog which if you have never seen one before it is a plush prince frog who belts out "Did It, Did It, Did It" when you push on it. They have become pretty popular in my office.
Later on in the afternoon I attended the "Meet The Blog & Feed Search Engines" session where Scott Johnson of Feedster unveiled their brand new an upcoming website redesign. I thought it was very cool for him to reveal it for the first time ever at the session and if I would have thought about it then I would have taken and published pictures of it. I am not all that familiar with the company or its products, but he introduced a few new search features that even I could appreciate. The new design should prove very useful among its everyday users. Sorry I can't provide you with an exact day for the launch of the new site, but I'd expect it to go through shortly.
The evening hours kicked off with a nice cocktail reception in the expo hall and from there we (I and the rest of the "All Webbers") made our way to the hotel bar where we spent the rest of the evening.
Hello everyone. As I promised, I am going to do my best to post my notes after each conference day in hopes of passing on any of the good stuff that may come this way. My day started off very well considering I was up after 1:00am watching "Bram Stoker's Dracula"... hey, I don't get the premiere movie channels like Starz or HBO at home so I have to take advantage when I can. By the way, the movie sucked. This should go into Matt Cutts' movie reviews and be filed under crap.
After a very fulfilling breakfast with my colleague Jessica Guadiana, one of All Web's top SEO Specialists, (it's a cheap plug, but what the hell) I rolled into the conference session ready to go with pen in hand. My first session of the day was "Searcher Behavior Research Updates" and I just about walked out within the first 30 seconds. Mark Neal of Galleon, the first speaker at this particular session, actually stood at the podium and stressed how important it was to have your website listed on the first page of the search engine results... as if everyone in the room didn't already know that. In fact his whole presentation was just that. He explained the benefits and so forth for being on the first page which is completely mind blowing seeing as though this whole conference is based around that general concept. Obviously we all understand this idea or we wouldn't be at the show. We definitely didn't need Mr. Neal's 15 minute presentation to tell us so.
Just so that I am not completely bagging on Mark Neal, he did provide this interesting statistic: "90% of all visitors delivered from search engines are from the first page". I new that that the percentage would be high, but, never did I think that it would be as high as 90%. An interesting piece of information I thought.
Another statistic that caught my attention during that session was provided by Jon Stewart of Neilson Net Ratings and it was this: "62 million searches typed a website name directly into a search box this year, representing 40% of the online universe". So what does this mean? It means that there is a large amount of lazy search engine users who just type in "www.yahoo.com" or "www.google.com" into their browser's home page search box instead of taking their mouse and clicking in the main URL box. Another interesting piece of info.
My second session was "Search Term Research & Targeting" with Christine Churchill from KeyRelevance and Dan Thies from SEO Research Labs. This was a decent session with lots of good keyword research suggestions and tools.
After lunch I checked out the "Search Engine Friendly Design" session with Shari Thurow. Honestly the presentation itself was enjoyable and informative, but I didn't really like how Shari presented herself and in fact I never do. She comes off as being very arrogant and cocky... maybe it's just me though.
For the last session of the day I attended "Ads Beyond Search" presented by the ClickZ Forum. As the name hints on, the session discusses other marketing ventures and opportunities outside of Search Engine Marketing. Nothing too impressive.
This leads us to the evening hours. SEMPO kicked off Monday night with a cocktail reception, which is a bit different this time around. Usually they have a meeting and talk about the future of the organization... I guess I should be grateful that I didn't have to sit through all that just to get a free drink or two. Kudos to you SEMPO. Actually Michael Roebuck, the General Manager of All Web Promotion and my conference buddy, and I make it our goal to drink as much as possible at the SEMPO events. We feel we need to get our money's worth some how. If you haven't noticed, SEMPO membership fees are outrageous compared to what little we actually get out of being a member.
Tomorrow I look forward to the Expo Hall opening as there should be some really great venders with great tools, resources, and so forth. Check back for day 2 notes.
Hey all, sorry for the delay in my post. As I announced in my last entry, I was attending the Search Engine Strategies conference all last week and am now just getting caught up.
The conference itself, if you haven't already heard, was truly remarkable. This years show featured a couple new tracks as well as several new sessions which ranged everywhere from analyzing search algorithms based on search engine patents to a discussion where panelist shared some of their most valuable search engine related tools.
The expo hall was a real treat as well. It featured more vendors (compared to Decembers show in Chicago) and even a few that I was unaware of until there SES debut. Needless to say that I flew away with mountains of information and ideas to test and plan for future projects... which usually happens with me after attending these types of shows.
Other Highlights of my trip:
Yahoo!'s Search Night Off - Yahoo! declared that Monday night would be "Search Night Off" and even went on to host a fun filled evening with food, drinks, and yes... even roller coasters. That's right, roller coasters! Yahoo! went that extra step and rented out Paramount's 6 flags Great America and invited SES attendees to join in on the fun. I of course could not resist and was one of the many who attended.
Google Dance 2005 - On Tuesday night, Google was kind enough to invite everyone on over to their pad for a little gathering known as the annual Google Dance. Its nothing too fancy... it's just your basic backyard barbeque. Yeah... not really. In my opinion (and that's the only one that counts on this blog), Google not only remains the number one search engine on the Internet, but they also throw the best SES evening parties. Image you average everyday patio party... now imagine it for about 1, 000 or so people and on Google's budget. Very Nice!
Webmaster Radio's Search Bash - As if 2 long nights weren't enough, try waking up on time after a third and after attending the Webmaster Radio's Search Bash. I was a true walking zombie. Webmaster Radio, among other sponsors, hosted a party at San Jose's :Studio 8." This was your basic "club" scene with flashy lights, loud techno-style music, and a full bar and dance floor. If you're ever looking for a good time... take a bunch of Search Engine Marketers, add in some alcohol, throw them into an environment with loud music, and stand back to watch. Very entertaining!
Yahoo! Store Developers Meeting - Just like last year, after the SES show ended on Thursday I jumped into a car with fellow All Webbers Michael Roebuck and Kelly Wilson, along with a few other designers, and headed for Yahoo!. After about a half hour of shopping in the gift shop, we were invited behind closed-doors to get a quick peak at a couple of Yahoo! Stores future projects and then out for a few drinks with the developing team. Truly a great time. YAHOOOOO!!!!
San Francisco- On Friday Michael, Kelly and I took a train up to San Francisco for the day. Nothing to big as it was just your normal tourist-type activities. We stopped by SBC Field (home of the San Francisco Giants) and then moved on to Fisherman's Wharf for a little shopping, sight seeing including a boat ride in the bay, and of course clam chowder.
All in all... a great trip. If your interested, I have created a page with a few of my SES photos. You can check them out here: www.karlribas.com/pictures-ses-aug-05.htm. Enjoy!
This past week, I joined 2,500 other marketers, publishers, and agencies as I attended the Ad Tech conference in Chicago. For those of you unfamiliar with Ad Tech, it's a 2-day marketing conference and expo that captures the insights, tools and techniques that today's business and marketing leaders need. In addition to that... it's just really nice excuse to get away from the office for a few days and interact with other marketers, and that's something I enjoy doing very much.
Ad Tech is by no means a search engine marketing show, like the Search Engine Strategies conference I normally attend. It did, although, offer a few SEM related sessions, but nothing really too advance. It seemed as though they did just enough to inform attendees of the many possibilities that search can have on a website, and left it at that. Nobody really touched on advanced strategies or had updated suggestions to offer. The exhibit hall was exactly how I had imagined it to be... very busy, loud, and most of all exciting. Vendors included Yahoo!, Miva (formerly FindWhat), Kanoodle, ClickTracks, and many other Internet companies. I even walked away with one of those talking Did-it frogs courtesy of the guys at the Did-it booth. I first saw these frogs at the SES show back in December and since then I've really wanted one. When you press on it, it says "Did-it, Did-it" instead of "rib-it, rib-it." A truly classic piece of crap, but one that will no doubt occupy my desk or a long time.
The hotel bars, hallways and lobby were full of people making deals, swapping contact info and planning their next product or campaign launch. I especially enjoyed a keynote session with Guy Kawasaki, Managing Director of Garage Technology Ventures, who shared his ideas and comments on innovation and how industries, such as ours, will continue to evolve and prosper.
Overall, the conference was a big hit with me and it seemed to be that way with many others as well. I left Chicago with a mountain of ideas that I now look forward to testing in the upcoming weeks, most of which have to do with self-branding and internal marketing efforts.
If you ever get an opportunity to experience Ad Tech, or even the SES conference, I would truly recommend doing so. Sure you can get much of the same information sitting at your desk and reading the many blogs, forums, newsletters, or RSS feeds that inevitably take over you inbox, but nowhere will you be able to network with other marketers and visit Internet venders, such as Google and Yahoo!, like you can at these shows. For some of us, this is as good as it gets!
