SES San Jose, Here I Come

Hello loyal Online Marketing Blog readers!  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.

What I am looking forward to most about Search Engine Strategies is the educational opportunity. A recent graduate of the University of Minnesota, I am now working in an industry I knew very little about before I started. While I’ve been able to “hit the ground running” working with some very talented search marketing pros and do many things right, I still have more to learn. My main focus for SES is to go to as many sessions as possible so I can absorb details, facts, examples and industry projections like Sponge Bob absorbs water. With all my new-found, or as Lee predicts, “confirmed” knowledge, I’ll be able to better my skills as an SEO practitioner as well as a free-thinking individual.

Many of the people that blog about conferences like SES San Jose are experienced marketers. For people that are new to the industry, I think blogging sessions from the perspective of another new search marketer will give readers a different view.

Some of the sessions I’m most excited attending and blogging about include:

• Searcher Behavior Research Update – Lee says Gord Hotchkiss is “the man” when it comes to search engine research. Knowing how people are actually using search engines is quite possibly the best way to develop your SEM and SEO tactics. A happy user is one that buys and comes back to buy some more. A site may be on page one of a search engine like Google, but if the user isn’t finding what they want, it means nothing.

• The Search Landscape – Learning how the search engines are growing for the future is going to help me understand how my job may change in the future. Staying on top of emerging trends also helps me understand how changes in the industry might affect our clients marketing strategies.

• Link Building Basics – Hey, I have to make sure I have my bases covered, don’t I? I’m looking forward to seeing what a few old school search marketers like Mike Grehan and Eric Ward can teach me.

• Are Paid Links Evil? – Is paying for your links like buying someone drinks just so they are your friend? I don’t think so, but I suppose I’ll find out here!

• The SEO Reputation Problem – Because really, who doesn’t want to hear about a scandal? And sitting there, hearing some negative stuff being said about my industry will just make me work harder to better myself and my work.

I will be attending these sessions and many more, taking frantic notes so I can blog about my experiences at – what I believe is going to be – the most informative, most influential and most exciting conference I will experience for quite a while.