Online Marketing Blog

Gone are the days of the whole family, ages 6 up to 50, sitting around in the evening watching the same television show, focusing in on the same characters and - consequentially - the same advertising messages. What a typical family evening looks like these days is the elementary age child playing hand-held video games, the teenager finishing homework online, and the parents reading the evening paper. And all of this is going on while each individual person is sitting in front of their own television set watching whichever show or video they want.

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The TopRank team arrived in San Jose about noon and it was the first time I’ve been on a flight in six months where there wasn’t some sort of delay. Luckily, we scored exit row seats for everyone on the way here, hopefully it will be that way going home as well.

After getting settled at the Fairmont, THANKS JOE MORIN!, and bumping into Mike McDonald from WebProNews, we headed over to Gordon Biersch for lunch. As usual the outside courtyard was very nice as was the food. Bumped into Mike McDonald from WPN again. Is he stalking us?

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We all know networking with other smart search marketers, prospective clients, marketing partners and candidates is one of the biggest benefits of attending search marketing conferences. Many times, this comes in the form of parties, some of which have been pretty fun in years past, especially anything involving WebmasterRadio.FM.

However, the trend regarding post conference events has shied away from big extravaganzas and more towards exclusive, invite-only private parties. Matt Cutts from Google had some thoughtful things to say about this at last year’s Pubcon.

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Greetings Online Marketing Blog readers! In just one week I’ll be attending my first Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose! After reviewing the week’s sessions, I am thrilled at the opportunity to learn about what’s new in the industry and to finally meet (in person) some of our clients from the bay area!

I am most excited about Day 1’s session on “Searcher Behavior” moderated by Enquiro’s Gord Hotchkiss who has been interviewed here before. As some of you may know, based on Lee’s introduction in a previous post, I was to pursue my PhD in the field of psychology. Needless to say, I am fascinated by psychological as well as sociological interactions as they relate to searcher behaviors and am eager to see what insights this session will bring.

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Hello Online Marketing Blog readers! My name is Mike Yanke and I am an Account Manager with TopRank Online Marketing.

Regular readers may know me as the guy who won the TopRank challenge with the blog post on Stephen Colbert’s marketing strategy, “Fish Wavers & Bridge Namers - How the “Greatest Living American” Reaches Unique Groups by Creating Unique Groups”. Regular lookers may know me as the guy who looks a bit like Brad Pitt in his sunglasses.

(Note from Lee: Everyone who meets Mike at SES, get a photo with him wearing sunglasses and post it on your blog with a link to this post. I will link back to you in a round up post!)

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Hello loyal Online Marketing Blog readers! Dana Larson here, joining you straight from TopRank. I am the aspiring linking guru around these parts, trying to learn as much as possible while still kicking butt for our clients. It has been an educational and thoroughly enjoyable time with the TopRank team so far.

In just over a week, I will be heading to SES San Jose with my colleagues, Mike, Melinda, Thomas and our CEO Lee Odden. I cannot even begin to describe how excited I am for this conference. Finally, I get to put faces to the names I have been hearing every day since I started. I will get to network with seasoned SEO and SEM professionals and probably take in more information in three days than I did during one semester of college.

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I wasn’t sure we’d be able to pull all the pieces together, but you should see five of our TopRank team at the upcoming Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose blogging sessions, networking and bringing a new perspective to the event coverage.

The TopRank bloggers will include a mix of of perspectives and experience with search marketing including myself, Thomas McMahon, Melinda Cayetano, Mike Yanke and Dana Larson. The newest addition to our Search Marketing team, Anthony Bloch, will just have to wait until SES Chicago or Pubcon (haven’t decided yet).

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While moving some of the material from my home office to our Lake Minnetonka office, I recently came across the SES San Jose 2004 Conference Handbook (dust and all) which was the first SES conference I ever attended. Paging through my notes was a trip down memory lane (in internet time). People talk about how things change so quickly with search marketing, but looking at the content from this event 3 years ago was tangible evidence.

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Our plan is to bring multiple TopRank team members to SES San Jose next month and each will be blogging different sessions. This will free me up significantly to do video interviews, take photos and other more creative conference coverage. Everything will be posted here at Online Marketing Blog so be sure to tune in August 20-23rd if you’re unable to attend SES San Jose.

So, my question to you dear Online Marketing Blog readers, is what search marketers would you like to see text and/or video interviews with? What are the top 2-3 questions you’d like asked?

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Yesterday I sat in on two sessions: Leveraging Social Media (not posted yet) and Branding and Search and did an interview with Eurekster CEO Steven Marder. There were also two excellent announcements: Newsforce and the PRWeb acquisition by Vocus.

After all of that it was off to the Yahoo party at the DeAnza Hotel in a sort of outdoor/indoor courtyard. It started out pretty small but gained steam with lemony “Yahootinis” and an array of finger food. Yahoo chose to get rid of the remaining Yahoo logo’d martini glasses that were left over from the 10th anniversary party they threw at SES New York in 2005. Lots of people left with one or two white boxes.

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There’s an excellent article in USA Today 08/01/06 featuring Danny Sullivan, “Got a search engine question? Ask Mr. Sullivan“. It covers very nicely, how he became involved with search marketing and also how he’s able to command his empire of expertise, mostly involving Silicon Valley companies, from a village 4 hours south of London.

There’s abundant kudos in the article for Danny from Matt Cutts of Google and Tim Mayer of Yahoo and it’s a great introduction for the uninitiated to the Search Engine Strategies conferences. Next week Search Engine Strategies meets San Jose in what may be one of the biggest SES shows to-date. Google CEO Eric Schmidt will keynote and that alone is worth going.

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