SES NY Recap - SEO In House

I spent two days at SES NY this year. It was my first Search Engine Strategies conference since Danny Sullivan left. I was very impressed with how well the conference is run, the quality of the speakers, topics, expo hall, and attendees.

Most of my time was spent at the Pubcon booth and the University of San Francisco booth where they were playing some of video lectures (did I mention I am humble and it made me a little uneasy seeing myself on the screens?).

SES from my point of view had more of a marketing executive crowd of attendees versus the more hands on technical attendees that attend Pubcon. I think mixing the groups and cross marketing will be valuable to both shows.

I sat in on two sessions. Avanish's Keynote - great insights on Search, using Analytics for Search, and the challenges of keyword assists / conversion attribution models. I also sat in on Jim Boykin's sponsored session on organic link building - this is a full time job, can be successful with quality content and serious strategies.

Lastly, I spoke on SEO In House. Building SEO Departments was a focus of Tandem Interactive's four years ago. It seems this is a really hot topic right now. You can check out the SEO In House Presentation at Slideshare. I will be posting more on this topic in the near future. I see some core mistakes when building these departments that are easily preventable. I did like how the panel supported third party audits and advisory services working with the in house SEO departments.

Google Content Network University - March 2010

Tandem Interactive was invited to Google's Content Network University in their NY offices. At first I thought I knew everything there was to know about the content network and did not really need to be there. But then I figured it was worth my and Chris's time to head up there for the day to see what Google was teaching about.

I do not know anywhere near what I thought I knew about the content network. Google did a really nice job with the training. There was time spent on targeting clients, new functionality, display ads, placement targeting, search retargeting, video, Youtube advertising and more!

There were some of my key take-aways:

• On average, Adwords advertisers get 20% of their conversions from the Content Network
• Display advertising online is on the verge of a revolution
• Content can equate to Brand Lift
• Ad Planner has been expanded to research the Adsense Network and the Doubleclick Network (http://www.google.com/adplanner)
• Check out what Google thinks you like: http://www.google.com/ads/preferences
• "Point in Time Products" typically do not perform well in content
• Opt out of Mobile targeting if your site does not look well on mobile devices
• Use the "Google Wonderwheel" for Keyword Themes
• Split Text vs. Display Ads in content targeting
• Use ALL Display Ad sizes
• Video can create a marketplace
• Amazing Youtube / Video Ad targeting tool http://www.google.com/videotargeting
• Let Auto Optimization do the work for you with Conversion Optimizer
• Search Retargeting (Search Remarketing) is the NEXT BIG THING!