Online Marketing Blog

SES New York kicks off on Tuesday March 20, 2012, and I for one cannot wait.  Along with TopRank CEO Lee Odden who is speaking at the event, myself as well as one of our rockstar Account Managers Brian Larson will be attending and live blogging many of the scheduled sessions.

Based on the speaker lineup this years conference is sure to be filled with stories, tips, and tactics that any online marketer can put to good use.  This post is a combination of the sessions Brian and I  plan on attending as well as a little bit about our take on the Big Apple.  Hope to see you all there!

Ashley Zeckman: #SESNY Session Highlights

Tuesday March 20, 2012
Business Optimization in a Digital Age
Avinash Kaushik, Digital Marketing Evangelist, Google

Closing out day 1 at SES New York was a panel discussion on vertical search moderated by Incisive Media’s Kevin Ryan and Rebecca Lieb and featuring panelists Bill Tancer GM Global Research at Hitwise, Jason R. Finger CEO Seamless Web, Paul Forster CEO Indeed, Steven Krein CEO Organized Wisdom.com and Joshua Stylman Managing Partner Reprise Media.

While very important and certainly a hot topic, I felt this session was lacking a certain “umph” to get the audience involved and engaged (myself included).

I have to say I’m a bit surprised as I’m usually partial to SES conference “end of day sessions” for their ability to empower industry folks, like myself, and give me a warm fuzzy feeling about being a part of something special. This ‘something special’ feeling is what makes me pick up the phone and try to explain, again, to my relatives what it is that I do for a living.

Jolina and Mike had a great time at the Search Engine Strategies conference in Chicago. Not only is it the windy city, but a festive, cold and snowy one too by the sounds of it.

Here is a recap of the SES Chicago posts in case you missed any:

• Meet the Web Analytics Players
• Igniting Viral Campaigns
• Keynote Speech – Rodney Dangerfield School of Search Marketing
• Keynote – Seth Godin & 14 Trends to Avoid a Meatball Sundae
• Big Site, Big Search
• Actionable Social Media
• Usability and SEO
• Are You Ignoring the Power of Images?
• Snowy & Festive at SES Chicago
• SEO and Development – Get It Together
• Personalization, User Data & Search

Susan and I made it to Sydney, Australia early this morning and go to watch the sun rise over Eastern Australia during the descent. After a few hours getting through customs, then getting our bags x-rayed on the way out and then getting checked again to get into a line to get to the exit of the airport, we made it outside for the line to the taxis. It might have been a lot of hurry up and wait, but we were just thankful to be outside in the fresh air.

Tomorrow I’ll be doing a presentation on SEO and Public Relations. The buzz about SEO and PR has been strong the past few years, especially with Greg Jarboe, Jamie O’Donnel, Sally Falkow, Amanda Watlington and many others including TopRank making significant headway into developing new strategies and tactics for clients.

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.

Barry has posted the quadruple coverage for SES San Jose with Barry, Ben, Chris and I covering quite a few sessions of the conference for those that cannot attend. It’s also a good read if you’ve been to the conference and want to compare notes.

The sessions I’m covering include: Branding & Search, Blog & Feed Search SEO, News Search SEO, Big Site/ Big Brand SEM, Usability & SEO: Two Wins For The Price Of One. You can find more information on all of the sessions at the SES San Jose 2006 page. There’s a thread on the conference at Search Engine Watch forums and of course, the party info.