A Great Day 3 For SES Chicago Conference Expo
Well, today was day three for the Chicago Search Engine Strategies Conference Expo. All in all, the day wrapped up well and I left with a decent amount of information and new way to look at key components of a successful site.To be upfront, my goal for this expo was to become more well rounded in the world of Social Media Marketing and Viral Marketing. Both of which are a necessity in today’s online web success. However as an SEO myself, learning some new key concepts and strategies to take my social and viral campaigns to the next level was well received.I had the opportunity to sit in on four sessions in total for the day. Three sessions out of the four were pretty darn good, I must say.
The first session I attended talked about ‘Social Media Optimization’. The emphasized point, which I agree with whole hearted is that a Social Media needs to have its own marketing plan and strategy. In other words, tying in a Social Media plan into any another strategy such as SEO or PPC just wont work. Just remember that Social Media Marketing is difficult, its time consuming and its an opportunity to build trust with a wide targeted audience.After the Social Media Optimization session, I went to lunch. I know I mentioned the other day in one of my posts (SES Chicago Has Arrived) that I needed to pay more attention the people I sat with at lunch due to a missed opportunity; however today I just sat with the wrong table. Simply stated; I sat with a bunch of duds. I shoveled down my lunch, walked away, went to Starbucks and checked my email.After lunch I sat in on a session discussing how building a ‘brand’ for people and not search engines paid off for one entrepreneur. The session was entitled ‘Design Contrast & SEO’. The topic and description for the session was very interesting seeing how I am a HUGE advocate of SEO. It was an hour and fifteen minutes session however the presenter spoke for about 30 to 40 minutes and then went into a Q&A session. Because I was not necessarily satisfied with the information in the session I choose not to plug the presenters name and business (but you can check out the SES site if you really want to find out for yourself 
Anyway, the presenter was discussing how a site of his launched in 2004 was optimized traditionally for the search engines. In 2006 his company re-launched the site to be visitor optimized not search engine optimized. As an example he used descriptive headlines for the meta title tag and not keywords and so forth. He showed all of these fancy stats on how the 2006 re-launch has increased his ROI and online visibility drastically with the reasoning of optimizing a site for visitors not search engines.
What he mentioned but failed to emphasize was the total use of Social Media used to promote his newer site. In other words; he was Not comparing apples to apples when determining and detailing the performance and visibility of the re-launch site as compared to the original 2004 site. Why is this? Simple… Social Media as we know it today started in the second half of 2006 (oddly enough, the same year his new site launched). What this means is that utilizing Social Media platforms was driving traffic and giving him search engine preference, not his SEO. His previous site in 2004 did not have anywhere near the same level off Social Media Marketing opportunities to grow his site online. Not to mention any SEO knows that a URL longevity holds a ton of weight in the eyes of the search engine (even with a 301 redirect). End of story! He was obviously using non-comparable tactics and giving the credit too the fact that he ’did not use SEO for the search engines’. Anyway, I sure you can tell; I was disappointed in this session.
The third SES session I attended for the day was ‘Blogging For Business’. A Great panel of speakers! Jennifer Laycock with Search Engine Guide delivered yet another great presentation. Here are the top five benefits from starting a blog (from Jennifer, of course) for those looking to get into the game:1) A blog can showcase your personality2) A blog can create a feedback cycle
3) Build community loyalty
4) Create emotional investment for your readers
5) Increase your online credibility
Fulfilling one or all five of these blog benefits can really boost your blogs online presence and online usage. As you can tell, Im still working on some of these highlights myself for the ShockwaveProfits.com blog… lol
And lastly, I attended the ‘Tactical Success Measurement’ session. A great end to a good third day at the SES Chicago Expo. I attended this session because I currently and personally handle 40+ SEO clients on a monthly basis and oversee 130+ SEO clients on a monthly basis; all of whom are focused on the wrong stats.
My clients are all focused on hits, pageviews, bounce rates.. yada yada yada.. In determining online performance and success. I know this is NOT how you analyze SEO success. My hurdle is convincing my clients not to focus on hits and pageviews as the focus should be ROI. Notice how I say ‘convincing’ my clients? Its true, for some reason clients only hear what THEY want to hear and not the truth or facts.
Anyway, here are few items that can help you strategize the measuring of performance in a meaningful way for your own site or for your clients, provided by Jamie Smith, CEO of Engine Ready.1) Identify what’s important and why2) Develop a strategy for reporting
3) Investigate industry benchmarks to use for comparison
4) Failure is just as important as success
5) Evaluate performance via segmentation
6) Do Not discredit outside/external event that can impact the outcome
At the end of the day at the SES Chicago Expo, I walked away with a handful of awesome notes, strategies and concepts I’m going to start using asap.
In closing, Chicago rush hour traffic sucks!
- Robert Greco
How do you see this info in helping your site and online marketing efforts?
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