Online Marketing Blog

I’ve been attending WebmasterWorld’s Pubcon conference in Las Vegas for at least 6 years although I didn’t liveblog that first one for some reason. In fact I first interviewed Pubcon founder, Brett Tabke, in 2005.  By no means am I an “old timer” since the show has been running for a lot longer than I’ve been attending but I do have some history with it.

When people ask me about great conference options to learn practical SEO and PPC, Pubcon is always included in my recommendations.  Being held in Las Vegas lends a certain flavor to the event, as in there are plenty of after-event networking opportunities.  Sessions are great, but its the in person connections you make and develop that yield tips, tactics that aren’t always forthcoming during the day.

From the perspective of some, it seems like Vegas was late to participate in social media (according to the PubCon panel description).

However, the prominent brands on the strip have stepped up to the plate and are actively engaged in social web participation.  They’re leveraging digital platforms for a variety of purposes – from customer service to promotion.

This open-format panel at PubCon 2009 analyzed how Vegas marketing departments are using SM as part of their overall marketing plan and featured some of the largest names on the strip.  Brands represented were:

• Brad Goldberg, Vice President of Marketing, Luxor
• Brandie Feuer, Director of Interactive Marketing, Planet Hollywood
• Peter Arceo, Executive Director of Casino Marketing, Las Vegas Hilton
• Michael Perhaes, Assistant Vice President of Marketing, MGM Grand

Zappos has grown gross merchandise sales from $1.6M in 2000 to over $1 billion in 2008 by focusing relentlessly on customer service – a potent digital marketing tool. Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, kicked off day one of PubCon 2009 with a keynote on the importance of delivering happiness through service.

Founded in 1999, Zappos has grown to 1,400 employees and is listed at #23 in Fortune Magazine’s “100 Best Companies To Work For.”

Zappos is “Powered by Service.” Its goal is to provide the best online shopping experience possible.

Customer service in action:

#1 driver of Zappos’ growth is from repeat customers and word of mouth. Put a focus into the customer experience, create something that is worth talking about. Let customers do the marketing for you through digital (and physical) channels.

Another year in the Search Marketing world, another WebmasterWorld Pubcon in Las Vegas.  Pubcon was one of the first search marketing conferences I attended and where I first met a number of highly talented SEOs in person.

TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog has been liveblogging the Pubcon conference since 2005 and includes a mix of content ranging from interviews with Pubcon owner Brett Tabke to Google’s Adam Lasnik. Also videos (Neil Patel giving interesting tips), photos (see the 2006 Yahoo Party in the Playboy Suite and many, many posts from the sessions offering strategy and tactics of the day.

What I like about Pubcon is that the conference organizers don’t try to be the same every year.  For example, they mix up the keynote speakers from a variety of backgrounds including people from outside the search marketing industry (Author Malcolm Gladwell, Craig Newmark of Craigslist and this year Tony Hsieh from Zappos).

The Pubcon South conference sessions have wrapped up and my whirlwhind 3 session speaking journey as well. I made it to Austin Wednesday night, re-did my Twitter session Thursday morning and presented at: noon, 2pm and 4pm. During that time I was still able to take a few candids of the good people attending Pubcon South. Here are a few of my favorite photos and links to blog coverage of the sessions I spoke on:

Super Session on Social Media for Business - Wayne Sutton, Lee Odden, Chris Brogan. Unfortunatley, Chris brought, but did not decide to wear, his pirate hat. Wayne was awesome. Chris brought the “tell it like it f-ing is attitude” also awesome. Watch WebProNews for a their video coverage of Pubcon South including a video interview with Chris and I about, what else, social media marketing.

Editor note: In order not to overwhelm readers with posts during Pubcon, we’ve saved a few additional sessions for posting this week. Enjoy!

Content is king. In spite of all that has changed in the online sphere since its inception, content is still the critical element to a compelling website. Providing relevant, fresh content on a regular basis can increase site traffic and improve search engine rankings, which in turn increases ROI. Yet delivering well-structured content of interest to your audience can be difficult. In Real-World Winning Tactics for Content Creation, three content experts gave their tips and advice for effective content creation, from blogs to mobile websites.

Have you considered developing content specifically to drive traffic from social media sites? Have you also considered what you want from that social media traffic, and what to do with it once you have it?

In a session titled, “Earning Big Bucks with Social Media Traffic“, Social Media Marketing advocates including Rank Fishkin, Vanessa Fox, Michael Gray and Alexander Barbara gave some great tips to drive traffic via social media channels and how to monitize that traffic.

Michael Gray kicked off the session discussion how making a connection within the social media world is key to drive traffic to your website. Michael stated that monetizing social media traffic is harder than most other types of traffic and you should only try to make money from this type of traffic if you truly grasp the concept of social media and monetization.

Universal search has been touted as the biggest change to happen to search in recent years. Certainly universal and personal search have altered the search landscape to an extent, however to what extent is up for debate. In Universal & Personal Search: This Changes Everything, panelists moderated by Jake Baillie brought differing perspectives to the adjustments SEOs should make in light of universal search.

Brian Combs of Apogee Search began the session with an overview of Universal search. The biggest change, according to Combs, is that search is no longer just about text. Now images, videos, and local results can all rank, and rank highly, for any given keyword term.

The last regular session of the day I decided to attend was on In-House SEO and PPC which was moderated by Melanie Mitchell and included Jessica Bowman, Dan Perry, Ana Schultz, Allison Fabella and Jill Sampey. The issues that in-house search marketers experience are the same issues that SEO agencies experience when performing enterprise SEO and PPC programs.

I walked in at the start of Jessica Bowman’s presentation who was talking about roadblocks to internal search engine marketing efforts:

• Adds projects to man hours
• Inconsistent with other goials
• Goes against existing progrtamming standards
• Were not technically feasible
• Added to the project timeline and cost

Once you get executive buy in, you cannot stop. Most opposition stems from lower and middle management. Middle managers need to get upper level support.

The first post-lunch session of day 3 of Pucon brought together a great mix of SEO experts including: Todd Malicoat, Rand Fishkin and last minute fill-in for Jessie Stricchiola, Andy Beal. Moderator duties were handled by Joe Laratro.

First up is Todd who covered 30 different tools which are too many to mention here but included tools for: browsers, domain server, keywords, competitive research, ranking checkers, backlink checking, on page optimization, spidering, productivity and tools for fixing duplicate content. but the most interesting included:

• User agent switcher allows you to surf the web as if you were a bot from an engine so you can see sites the way search engine spiders see them.
• Search Status Firefox plugin shows you various time saving information all in one place 

The second day of WebmasterWorld Pubcon didn’t dissapoint with great sessions throughout the day.  In between sessions, I was able to take a few candids and had help from Lisa Barone and Ashley Bruce during the sessions where I was speaking.

Elisabeth Osmeloski and Alex Bennert

Barry Schwartz and Ken Jurina

Jessica Bowman and Heather Lloyd Martin

A taller Matt Cutts and Lee Odden

Lisa Barone and Tamar Weinberg

Andy Beal, Jane Copland and Mike McDonald

Jake Baillie and Eric Enge

Dante Monteverde 

Susan Esparza and Rebecca Kelley

Google Booth

Take a look at all the Pubcon photos from TopRank opn Flickr.

The sheer quantity of different information sources online has resulted in a media circus. The various blogs, tweets and mainstream media outlets are like different acts vying for user attention. Online reputation management amid all the chaos can be difficult. It seems only appropriate that a circus insider, Jessica Berlin of Cirque du Soleil, weighed in with some tried and true advice in Reputation Monitoring and Management.

Andy Beal, Internet Marketing Consultant with Marketing Pilgrim and Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank Online Marketing and primary author of this blog, also contributed their advice for keeping the positive spotlight on your brand in this session moderated by Todd Friesen.

Why Monitor Online?