Search Engine Strategies 2004 London Archives

Barbara Coll welcomed us, well there are not too many of us here. She started with SFO Regions (Search/Find/Obtain) is just starting, search is really early in the stage. She explains that Search marketing, to be taken to the next level requires education of corporations, consumers and channels. SEMPO has educated the media publishers, the press, the members, and the advertisers. SEMPO does it providing a "huge" amount of materials on the site. Recognition for search marketing this year was huge; Google IPO, MSN Investment, Large Agency Adoption, Advertisers expected to spend 39% more on search marketing in 2005. SEMPO Recognition; large membership, worldwide participation, representation at key industry events, elite SEMPO Advisory Board, volunteer activism, partnerships with associations, key sponsorships, key partnerships, relationship with key industry analysts. Future of SEMPO in 2005, expanded influence, SEMPO.org the destination for selling material for search, more interaction between members and sponsors, expanded member communications & Support, and a more mature stable SEMPO.

Rick Bruner and his primary research report. The objectives of the project were; understand the size of the search marketing industry, understand where marketer spending is going, identify key industry trends, and identify key industry issues SEMPO should address. The research methodology included extensive secondary research, conducted detailed interviews with 31 leading industry experts and did a very detailed survey filled out by 288 people. 2/3rds were agencies. 69% were US based, 8% UK. The bottom line is that over 4 billion dollars was the $ amount of spend by advertisers. (this is live at SEMPO's Web site). He broke out the figures by paid placement, paid inclusion, organize and SEM technology. Nacho tells me the data looks a bit skewed, I agree and so does Greg Jarobe who is nodding his head in front of me based on Nacho's statement. Key Research Highlights include brand awareness is advertiser's top objective, ROI is outpacing inflation, SEM is poaching budget, Senior executives consider SEM a high business priority, Advertisers plan to increase their SEM spending 39% and most advertisers plan to manage the majority of their SEM spending in house. Some really good slides were shown next, but I can't type that fast, if your a member, I guess you can get those reports (should be a 122 page report). Key research conclusions include; inventory of keywords is not yet a critical problem, most advertisers are replying on both paid and organic search, and SEO abuse seen as more of a problem then click fraud.

Dana Todd was next up, she is discussing the committee reports. Marketing committee goals; drive industry growth overall, increase market demand for professional SEM services, increase SEMPO membership base. Education Committee Goals; provide support materials for site visitors, and education of general public via web site, press release, research and events. Marketing Committee; 1st phase of ad campaign completed, SEMPO event activity with ad tech, WMW, SES and Kelsey Group, Promotions, and New ad campaign will kick off in Q1. Education Committee; web site gets 4,000 uniques a week, new materials posted weekly, great new research and case studies, and need more business support documents.

Next up was Neg Norton, President of Yellow Pages Association a non profit member based organization and represents a 14 billion dollar industry and a SEMPO Advisory Board Member. He spoke shortly and I have the press release in my email if your interested. There is a free directory in the www.localsearchguide.org Web site.

New management team is coming in, Virtual Inc will be taking over the company. This company manages 15 other non profit organizations. So this company will take over the management of SEMPO. They updated lots of governance documents on the site. Member communication and benefits. Only 55% open the emails they sent. They have member benefits; growing in numbers and subscriptions, tools, events, and papers. Board elections are up, and 5 of the current board members are on the list and she listed other people up for election. 13 open positions, you vote probably in January and by proxy (email). She then thanked those board members who are stepping down.

Mike Grehan asked for his SEMPO calculator, he was denied, sorry Mike. Dan Theis asked who took the survey, we do not know for sure. Mike then asked, "should I tell my customer that they spend for branding?" The results of the report showed that most people show that brand building was the most important thing. Of course, you and I would think that lead generation and sales were the most important areas. But again, the sample collected is not certain.

Laura asked why are the leads on the SEMPO web site so poor. Why should she rejoin at the $2,000 level if these are the types of leads? Barbara said the membership levels need to be redefined and Virtual will do that. You really signed up to contribute, and lead generation is secondary. But as the Web site improves, you can expect more leads for you. Noel adds that promoting SEMPO as a lead generation tool is against the law, for a non profit organization.

Yesterday I summarized Alan Web''s SES London review, today I want to throw a link to a thread at Cre8asite where Ammon Johns and friends discuss their experience at SES London. Ammon's friends include; Jill Whalen, Alan Webb, Danny Sullivan, and Amjid.

Check out Ammon's SES Review at Cre8asite Forums. Here are some quotes:

"Anyway, the point is that ROI isn't just a buzzword (as it was just a couple of years ago) but a genuine metric that performance is being held to. That's a huge change, and a very welcome one."

"The networking was fantastic. Just to spend a few days with folks who's eyes don't glaze over when you start on your favourite topic is wonderful. If you work alone, independantly, this alone provides full value, even if you don't manage to find potential partners, deals and longer-term friendships there."

"Deals were touted, brokered and made throughout the days I was there. Contacts were made. Ideas were gathered and shared."

I was unable to attend the last Search Engine Strategies Conference, which was held in London, but Alan Webb was kind enough to review the conference and post his thoughts at SEO Chat. Alan's review is a little lengthly, so I thought it would make sense to summarize it here. If you want the full version, please visit his post here.

Domain Name Issues:
Alan basically came back from this session learning that it is best to have separate domain names and not separate folders (.com/en/) to provide language specific content to the search engines. Content is important and the originating IP address of the physical server are also important factors.

Search Engine Friendly Design:
Alan's next track was presented by Shari Thurow, a SES speaker elite. He pointed out a computer problem that caused the session attendees to use the paper slides. This was a real basic course but highly recommended to first time SES goers.

Writing for Search Engines:
An other basic course I have attended, presented by Jill Whalen and Charon Matthew. It discusses the proper utilization of keywords in your content. Too many, makes for a weird reading page and lowers your conversion rates. Too little, makes for a poorly ranked page. Finding the balance is what Jill specializes in.

Link Building Basics:
Presented by Matt Cutts of Google, Mike Grehan (my favorite speaker), and Thomas Bindl of OPTOP. In this session Google discusses the fair ways to build links and PageRank, Mike talks about his secrets in obtaining quality links and Thomas's methods of buying links.

Link Building Clinic:
Speakers included Ammon Johns (Propellernet UK) Warren Cowen (Greenlight) and Dixon Jones (Receptional). Alan was very impressed by Ammon Johns presentation, who wouldn't be? Alan decided to ask one question on the value of links from the same c-block. The answers were of course reassuring. He learned an other tip, to offer your testimonials to others for them to post on their Web site. Of course, get them to link back to your site with your name and company name.

Dynamic Web Sites:
Presented by Jake Baillie (Priva), Mikkel deMib Svendson (Marketleap) and Laura Thieme (Bizresearch). Hmm...sounds like the same panel from last time, not that it matters. Most of the talk was on how to optimize dynamic sites, such as sites that use content management systems. The use of mod_rewrite or Windows alternatives was also suggested.

Meet The Crawlers:
This is the session where you get to hear from representatives of the major search engines. The speakers included; Matt Cutts from Google and Ron Verheijen from Yahoo!/Overture. Besides for the simple demonstrations of all the new, cool features of the search engines. Alan learned that "apparently Yahoo understands CSS code". Alan then remarks on questions that received the diplomatic but essentially the "no comment" response.

Advanced Link Building Forum:
Speakers included Matt Cutts (Google), Paddy Bolger (Top-Pile), Warren Cowan (Greenlight) and Dixon Jones (Receptional.com). "It highlighted why forum links, link farm links, guestbook links, off theme links are not weighted as highly as thematic links from authority sites." The sandbox theory was brought up and I will quote Alan here; " The google sandbox was briefly mentioned. One of the panels mentioned it could occur when a site launches and all of a sudden a large number of links point to it with the same link text. So the sandboxing may well just be a filter for those sites that have an exorbitant amount of incoming links on launch. It is the links that are sandboxed not the site. This might explain why only some sites get sandboxed and not others. Matt Cutts on the other hands basically thought there was nothing in it and that there is no sandboxing “I don’t know where this sandboxing theory started from..” In others words there is still no answer to the sandbox question, whether it exists or not. My personal opinion is there is a form of quarantine going on some new sites which is triggered possibly by an unusually fast link development or from cross linking on same ip c blocks or one of possibly many other factors. It is being seen too often, and where there is smoke…"

Alan's Summary:
A very good conference and although I am an experienced search engine marketer, the cost to fly from Germany and the registration fee for 2 days was definitely worthwhile. If for any other reason than to hear what is believed and is posted as fact on forums confirmed or denied by those who know 100%. Sure, there may be some disinformation going on, but if you are good at reading people, you can sort out what is disinformation and what is for real especially when face to face with those who are definitely in the know.

For those not experienced, or with limited search engine marketing/optimization knowledge, the handbook that goes with the conference is worth the two days entry fee alone. You could learn most of what was at the conference for free on forums and in articles, but it would take you literally months to sort out the crap from the real nuggets and even then you wouldn’t know for sure what was really fact or what was just pronounced as fact. I strongly recommend anyone who has not yet been to one of the SES conferences to save up if necessary and do so. The knowledge can literally change your online business around and could potentially be worth a very substantial amount more than the cost of the conference registration fee.

Conference Coverage by Alan Webb.