Online Marketing Blog

Keynote Day 2 of Search Engine Strategies with Danny Sullivan

Danny says keynotes should be inspiring.

How are we (search marketers) viewed?  Shows photo of guy wearing spam shirt and drinking a beer.

Shows quotes from various sources characterizing SEOs as:  Worthless, shady, criminals, cockroaches

Who to blame?  

Blach Hats:
Blog spamming, keyword stuffing, content thieves, cloaking

But consider some contradictions:

• Some news sources are allowed to cloak
• Large respected pubs selling links
• Web site of respected blog software maker hosting spam pages

White Hats:
Algorithm ingnorant, simple tips overselling, industry best practices

Consider:  

• Simple tips aren’t simple to people who don’t know
• Working with designers and others to do content SEO is a skill

Organics
Black arts dabbling, unldear line waslking, low margin grubbing, non paid search practitioners

Consider: 

• Paid search is boring with no creativity
• There’s something other than search such as WOMMA
• Successful organic puts people in the prime position that money can;’t buy

Search Advertisers
Machine driven, money rules all thinkging, getting all the search engine attention, new to the market,

Consider:

• Paid search isn’t fickle about algorithm changes
• Without paid search, search engines might not be able to offer organic for free
• Paid search is so measurable

United by Search:
Gives example, movie "Stripes" - audience doesn’t get it

We’re all very different people:
Search is made up of black hats, white hats, organic, paid, and subsets of that

It’s a good time to be in search

• Search in all forms is high in demand
• Search marketers are having difficulty in hiring search marketing staff
• Search marketing popularity now is not a bubble:
• Search is a fundamental advertising medium like TV, radio, print and outdoors
• Search will continue to evolve and become more and more pervasive - which means

Increasing opportunies for search marketers
Search is not going away, it’s just going to get bigger and bigger

Communities:

• Mailing lists:  I-Search (dead now), SEM 2.0, Search Return
• Conferences:  SES, Pubcon, Ad:tech
• Forums, WMW, Digital Point, SEW, HighRankings
• Blogs: SE Roundtable, SEO Book, Threadwatch
• Organizations: SEMPO, SMA, Dallas, Atlanta

Cites Ian Turner who went missing at an Atlanta Pubcon. People responded en masse to act. Cross community effort.

Who else is part of our community:  Yahoo, Google

Shows example of Barry Schwartz who asked his giflfriend to marry him via Ask Jeeves.

Community Rewards:

• Weather reports are getting more regular
• Things like nofollow to give more control over our pages
• Google sitemaps
• Yahoo site explorer
• Google sitemaps stats
• Google base

Danny loves all this, but he wants more:
Blogging community can monitor new links in Google blog search - why isn’t that possible in regular web search?

• Yahoo Site Explorer should allow export of more urls
• URL feeds are fine, but expand into content feeds
• Ad reps should be friends, not foes - Ad Reps taking accounts away.

How Outsiders Recognize the Community

Shows example of Bruce Clay - looks like a mug shot. Article "hawking" seo
Another example of Lucas Morea as a successful entreprenuer. SEO different, but unusual

Search Engine Ad Rep Problems Remain:
Despite gains, some will still see search marketers as "used car salespeople"

Two challenges:  

• Scummy companies
• Trespassing content

End to comment and link spam - not just blogs, but anywhere adding a link does not add value. Say no to FFA, guest books, etc
- Google page rank lunacy article by Mike Grehan

Shows example:  memorial guestbook viagra

Search Marketers are the Foot Soldiers of Search
You are search marketers, hear you roar, in numbers too big to ignore

Conclusion:

• Put yourself "on the map"
• 2006 is promising
• Pick a day for "Search Marketing Day"
• NYC SES is "Search Week"

Danny thinks there should be a "SEM Apprentice" - names Frederick Markini as the "Donald Trump of
Search" Need to raise the reputation of search.

Tags: SES, SES Chicago 2005, SES Keynote, Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Strategies