Online Marketing Blog

My first time in Toronto did not disappoint. It was brief but very busy with plenty of sessions to choose from during the day. Here is a collection of my favorite photos taken during SES Toronto this week:

Matt McGowan, Joe Dolson and Todd Malicoat enjoying some pre-conference conversation

Kevin Ryan getting the most out of Google’s Bill Tighe during the Advanced Paid Search Panel

Chris Silver Smith really gave up the goods during the Web 2.0 and Search Engines Panel.

SEO myth-buster Jill Whalen tells it like it is as Matt Van Wagner thinks, “Damn, she’s giving away my secrets!”

Lee and Rob at PRSA International 2007

On the marketing conference circuit, online reputation management is a hot topic now more then ever. Whether it’s search marketing, public relations or direct marketing, companies are trying to make sense of how to monitor and manage the brand impact of online conversations and their visibility in search results.

Last Thursday I did a national PRSA teleseminar with Kami Watson Huyse, “Reputation Management in a Google World” and tomorrow in Orlando, Florida the DMA’s ACCM conference is hosting: “Reputation Management: Protecting Your Brand in the Search Engines“, a session with myself and Rob Key of Converseon presenting. Moderater duties will be handled by Heather Lloyd Martin of SuccessWorks.

The first session for me on day two of Web 2.0, “Creating a Coherent Social Strategy for Business” with Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li of Forrester, was one I’ve been looking forward to since I first read Groundswell. See my previous interview with Charlene Li on Groundswell.

In this session, both Li and Bernoff emphasize the importance of not jumping into social technologies and applications just because the competition does, but to have specific objectives and measurement. With defensible results, a social technology will be in a much better position to survive slimming budgets. The focus is on people, not technology with social technologies and applications.

Yesterday proved to be an interesting kickoff to this year’s Search Engine Strategies conference here in New York. The Organic Listings panel was entertaining and informative as always and the Build Investment Interest in your SEO/SEM firm was an early indulgence for myself that offered great tips for those looking at the future liquidity and monetization for their agency.

Jolina weighed in with her posts on excellent sessions, Four Ways to Redfine the Customer and Three Tips for Successful Analytics. There was also a spontaneous goofball interview with Mike McDonald of WebProNews offering a few insights about the future of SES/SMX.

Here’s a roundup of photos from day two of Search Engine Strategies London 2008:

Anne Kennedy and Bryan Eisenberg

Jim Sterne and Andy Beal

Audience

Massimo does his magic as Amanda looks on

Competitive Intelligence panel

Blog SEO session

Lisa Ditlefsen and Rob Kerry

Chris Leggett and Jon Meyers

Post conference activities

Here’s a day SES London day one wrap up video from Incisive:

And here’s a wrap up of day two SES London blog coverage, images and video on Search Engine Watch

Coming up fast (February 19-21) is the 2008 Search Engine Strategies show in London. It will be my first time speaking at an event in London and luckily I’ll be involved with 3 panels that are spot on with the marketing consulting work we do at TopRank.

The two panels that I am presenting on are concurrent Wednesday, Feb 20 with “News Search SEO” starting at 10:30 a.m. followed by “Blog and Feed SEO” at 11:45 a.m. I will also be moderating the “Brand and Reputation Management” panel on Thursday at 3:30p.m. Below are more details on those sessions.

Later this afternoon Thomas and I will fly out to Search Engine Strategies in Chicago where I’ll be covering some sessions, doing more video interviews, taking lots of photos and the best parts: learning and networking. I will also be sitting in on the Social Media Optimization panel with Neil, Rand, Andy and Todd.

The session topics I am most interested in involve social media (of course!) as well as video optimization, B2B, big site SEO/SEM, regulated industries and conversions/analytics.

The DMA06 conference is getting rev’d up with pre conference sessions Satuday and Sunday. The new search engine marketing certification program started on Saturday with Jeannette Kocsis, VP of Digital Marketing at Harte-Hanks, presenting on “Introduction to Search Engine Marketing” and I followed up with “Search Engine Basics”.

Unfortunatley, I was not able to sit in on Jeannette’s session, but Amanda Watlington said there was great feedback. Here’s the description of the module:

The Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association annual Summit starts in about an hour. This year’s event is sold out and there’s an excellent mix if speakers. With lots of sponsors this year, there are a ton of giveaways as well.

One of our pr firm clients, The Web Marketing Association and Web Award will have their CEO, William Rice start things off with the morning keynote presentation. Bill has run the Web Award competition for 10 years and the program has reviewed over 9,000 web sites in that time. His presentation will offer insight into what makes an award winning web site and he’ll also present industry vertical data compiled over the past 10 years.

That time of year is here again and the annual event held by the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association called “The Summit” promises to be even bigger and better.

There’s a fantastic lineup of speakers and sessions including two keynote presentations: One from William Rice of the Web Marketing Association and Michelle Collins, a blogger for VH1‚Äôs, Best Week Ever. Other sessions include:

• Web Writing
• Web Analytics
• Brawny Academy
• Making the Grade
• Ask the Email Experts
• E-Commerce Opportunities
• Site Architecture
• Consumer Generated Media
• Paid Search
• Online Advertising

Monday morning I’m off to New York for the DM Days conference. I will join several other members of the DMA Search Engine Marketing Council including: Heather Lloyd-Martin, Amanda Watlington, Detlev Johnson, Kevin Lee, Mike Moran, Jeanette Kocsis and Matt Bailey as well as John Marshall in presenting two sessions that provide a wide range of specific recommendations for a DMA member site.

Topics include: creating a business case for search marketing, web site evaluation, technical optimization, user-experience, content optimization, web analytics, pay per click, online pr and integrating web marketing with other media. I guess it’s sort of a SES “pimp my site panel” but without the hats and it occurs over two sessions.

I made it over to the monstrosity, McCormick Place yesterday am and navigated the labyrinth of halls to finally find the search marketing room for ACCM. It was nice to see some familiar faces. The FMI and 4 other food shows were occurring in the bigger part of the McCormick so people were everywhere. Cabs were not.

The 15 Sizzlin Hot Search Marketing Ideas session debuted to a standing room only crowd I’m happy to say. After I don’t know how many back to back sessions, Heather Lloyd-Martin bubbled with enthusiasm and insight as moderator. I don’t know how she does it really. There was literally zero time between sessions.