Online Marketing Blog

Originally written by Burt Bacharach, the song Do You Know the way to San Jose, la la la la la… didn’t actually come to fruition until the lovely Dionne Warwick won her first Grammy for Best Contemporary Pop Female Vocal in 1968.

Although I wasn’t around in 1968, I understand the anticipation Burt must have had waiting for this song to hit the main stream. I have been chosen as a TopRank blogger at the upcoming SES conference in San Jose, CA, (and yes, I have been singing the song for days now ) and the anticipation has got me on the edge of my seat!

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.

This weekend completed a successful wrap up of MediaPost’s second Search Insider Summit show for 2007. TopRank’s participation with the event involved both speaking (moderating actually) and serving as a media sponsor.

The Stein Eriksen Lodge in Park City, Utah was an excellent location for a winter event, especially for those that participated in the snowshoeing, skiing and snowmobiling activities. Next year the two SIS event will be held in May (down South maybe?) and another Winter event in December. Below is a wrap up of blog posts, images, video and even a few PowerPoint presentations.

Blog Posts and Live Coverage:

• Search Insider Summit Utah – TopRank
• Search Insider Summit Day 05 Photos – TopRank
• SIS Opening Remarks Gord Hotchkiss – TopRank

Despite the snowy, blowy mountains outside it’s going to be hot inside at the Search Insider Summit conference with the following sessions on my plate for attending and some for blogging:

8:00am-8:45am
VIP Breakfast: Compete, Inc. – “Carving Up the Market in Park City – Your guide to segmenting the marketplace for better ad targeting”

8:45 am:
Opening remarks: Gord Hotchkiss, CEO & President, Enquiro —Emcee of the Search Insider Summit

9:00am:
Keynote address – FaceOff: Will Agencies Ever “Get” Search? with Gord Hotchkiss, CEO & President, Enquiro and Mike Margolin, VP, Interactive Marketing Director, RPA

9:45am:
Managing Search in an Uncertain Economy with:
LeeAnn Prescott, Director, Research & Communications, Efficient Frontier
Roger Barnette, President, SearchIgnite
Brian Boland, Director, Microsoft adCenter
Joe Charlson, CMO, EDMC

Next week offers one of the most significant opportunities for those in the search marketing world to up their knowledge, industry networks and have a great time doing it. WebmasterWorld’s Pubcon conference in Las Vegas has acquired a certain gravitational pull that’s impossible to ignore. There are many reasons why this is true, so I’ve pinged a few Pubcon veterans to share why they love Pubcon and why it’s something search marketers should seriously consider getting involved with.

We don’t have 100 reasons just yet, but that’s our goal, so please be sure to leave yours in the comments. Not only is this a great collection of reasons why search marketers appreciate Pubcon, but it’s also a great list of some of the top search marketing talent and blogs in the industry. The list is in order of replies received.

If you’re one of the bazillion people that get Jill Whalen’s High Rankings Advisor newsletter, then you already know, but in case you don’t, here’s the scoop in the upcoming High Rankings Seminar coming to Minneapolis next month:

Since there hasn’t been a “how to” SEO/SEM seminar in Minneapolis anytime recently, we wanted to make sure everyone in the Twin Cities web development and marketing community had the chance to hear about and sign up for the High Rankings Seminar.  So Jill has agreed to extend the early bird discount ($200 off) for registrations placed by February 22nd.

We’ve reached out and connected with a variety of local organizations to promote the event including:  MIMA, local AMA, local DMA, IABC, MHTA, JJ Hill Library, NAWBO and several others with a great response.

Despite a cancelled flight, re-route through Detroit and 2 hours on the tarmac before taking off, I was very happy to make it home by midnight yesterday from New York. I know some folks ended up staying overnight at JFK and flying out in the morning.

For the majority of the Search Engine Strategies conference, I covered sessions for Search Engine Roundtable with Barry, Ben and Chris and it was a good time. Since I picked what to cover last, I sat in on sessions that I might not normally cover. And you know what? I am very glad I did.