Online Marketing Blog

Yesterday I presented at SES Chicago in a session on SEO Through Blogs and Feeds with Stephan Spencer and Sally Falkow. I went first and presented the slideshow embedded below, a presentation in two parts:

1. Why blogs created solely for SEO purposes will inevitably fail.
2. Tips on how to create a successfully optimized company blog that will last.

My presentation was followed up by Sally who talked about Feeds and distributon opportunities. The final presenter was Stephan, who had 100 or so slides (joking) on WordPress SEO but got through about 20 before the Q/A which was handled by Rebecca Lieb.

TopRank Online Marketing will have two speakers presenting on two panels at SES Chicago this week.  

On Tuesday, Senior Account Manager Jolina Pettice (who recently spoke on a panel with Yahoo’s Ron Belanger and Anne Kennedy at DPAC) will be speaking on a session about how to use Public Relations tactics to improve SEO results.  On Wednesday I will be speaking on a panel about Blog SEO.

Here are the session details. We look forward to seeing you there!

Tuesday, December 9, 2008 - 2:45pm-3:45pm 
“Turning PR Efforts into SEO Results”

Today kicks off another Search Engine Strategies conference, this time in the windy and bleeping cold city of Chicago. 

Change has been in the air for SES with the naming of Stewart Quealy as VP of content development, responsible for creating conference program content for all SES events and training. Also, Marilyn Crafts (whom I like to call “Super Star”) was promoted to senior program director and will work with program development, speaker selection and event strategy.  

Then there’s the really big news of Matt McGowan being promoted to VP/Publisher for Incisive Media’s Digital Marketing Businesses which includes the ClickZ network, Search Engine Watch and the Search Engine Strategies conference.

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

Different regions of the country have very different ways of saying the same thing. Maybe it’s because our country is spread across such a large land mass, because we’re a melting pot or maybe it’s because we all love creating new words and coining new phrases.

Whatever the reason, there are various ways to say the same thing and most often the word chosen is dictated by the region, creating an opportunity for every website to capture more visitors, if they are indeed optimized for the variations.

For example, here are all the different ways one might search for a ‘cabin’ in which to spend some vacation time:
Cottage
Chalet
Retreat
Country house
Camp
Cabana
Shed
Villa
Lodge
Log house

A slew of SES Chicago attendees sat in on the session – Igniting Viral Campaigns – to learn how they just might create the next Burger King Chicken Campaign, in which Burger King was able to increase chicken sandwich sales with a website and a subservient chicken.

Maybe we’re not all looking to sell more chicken sandwiches, but we are looking to take a message and make it viral.

Each panelist provided insight on what they believe to be the keys to making content buzzworthy.

Bill Hanekamp, CEO, The Well hammered home the importance of relevancy to session attendees.

According to Bill, we all need to ask ourselves the following question:
1. With all the content on our websites, does anyone care?

In a morning session, here at SES Chicago, attendees had the chance to learn from and interact with folks from the world of Web Analytics.

In particular, if you’ve been wondering what’s new with Google Analytics, I’ve got the scoop for you.

Kristen Nomura, Sr. Account Manager at Google Analytics briefed us on 3 new features and why they are important.

1. Internal Site Search Now Available
Internal Site Search and reporting is now available. This allows you to gain more insight into:
-what keyword phrase was searched
-who searched
-when did they search and
-from what pages are visitors searching most often

This data can definitely take analytics to the next level, if you’re not already tracking this data, by understanding what the visitor is looking for after reaching the site.

I’m off to Chicago, Illinois (my home state) this week to cover SES Chicago and will be posting session and event coverage here on Online Marketing Blog as the week progresses.

Attending conferences is a fantastic part of working for TopRank. Conferences are a learning opportunity like no other and help spark new ideas, approaches and tactics. I’m particularly excited about SES Chicago as it combines two things I absolutely love: Search Marketing & Chicago.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been asked what I’m most excited about with the conference. Below are a few thoughts on that:

Let’s start with Search: Gleaning ideas to further customize SEO programs to clients both big and small. The two sessions below seem primed to help:

While I am not native to Chicago (regular readers are well aware that TopRank Online Marketing is native to one of the 50 toughest states in the union – Minnesota) – it is a far more local journey than my last two excursions, to SES San Jose and the Bulldog Reporter Media Relations Conference in DC.

My objective at SES Chicago next week will be to both cover sessions for the benefit of our valued readers here at Online Marketing Blog and to learn as much as is possible in a short week about topics such as universal search and marketing with social media – what are best practices, what are the most powerful tactics?

Spotlight on Search: Interview with Kevin Ryan and Kevin Heisler

What we have for you today is a double scoop, double feature and two times our regular interview spunk involving Kevin Ryan, Global Content Director for Search Engine Strategies and Search Engine Watch and Kevin Heisler, Executive Editor of Search Engine Watch. I’ll have to say, there are a few gems in this one, so read on:

(Heisler photo credit, Christine Churchill)

Let’s cut to the chase on SES Chicago and Pubcon happening at the same time this year. I am not sure most people realize it was not intended to happen that way. Do you anticipate there being much of an effect on attendance? How different are the audiences these two events are attempting to attract?

The Search Engine Strategies conference in Chicago is coming up in just a little over a month and I was given the awesome opportunity to participate in a call with Seth Godin and Kevin Ryan of Incisive Media yesterday where Seth discussed in his new book, Meatball Sundae.

What is a Seth Godin Meatball Sundae you ask? Basically, a meatball sundae is “the unfortunate result of mixing two good ideas”. There are abundant opportunities with today’s online mix of tools that include everything from social networking to social media, SEO, blogs, behavioral advertising and viral techniques that have performed well on their own, but combinations without thinking about the consequences can be disasterous. The problem is that many companies try to use these tools without first getting their organization and products in sync with them. The result is what Seth Godin calls a “meatball sundae”, ie a big, ineffective mess.

During SES New York I heard that this year’s Pubcon Conference will be held the same week as the Chicago Search Engine Strategies conference. This wasn’t by choice, as neither conference will benefit from happening at the same time. I believe it had to do with how the Las Vegas Convention Center situation worked with Pubcon and things happened that required the Pubcon event to be moved to a different date than originally intended.

SES Chicago is 12/3-6 and PubCon Las Vegas runs 12/4-7.  This is a really tough call because Pubcon only happens once a year and SES Chicago is in our back yard. However, I do plan on having TopRank staff at both events