The Search Engine Strategies Toronto conference was held in Toronto, Canada on June 12-13, 2007 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. As always, it was a tightly-run event that was jam-packed with valuable information.
Here are some of the highlights from sessions I attended on Day 2:
Session: Seth Godin Keynote Presentation
- "Search didn't become a business until the yellow pages." - Seth Godin
- In the battle between SEO tricksters and search engines, "the search engines are really winning" because they are becoming much better at determining relevance.
- "Search engine advertising is a classic example of permission marketing."
Session: Perfecting Paid Listings
- "The interaction [with search engine ads] is very quick." - Gord Hotchkiss, Enquiro Search Solutions
- Effective search engine ads provide "a bridge of relevance" to the user. - Jonathan Mendez, OTTO Digital
- Brands matter: using a brand name as a keyword (e.g., "Sears") will have no influence on traffic, but will increase the conversion rate and significantly increase the revenue per visitor.
- Perfecting your search engine ads is important; doing so can have a 36% increase in overall lift.
- "Get the site right, then try to grow [by doing paid search]" - Andrew Goodman, Page Zero Media, on the importance of making sure your Website will convert well before you begin advertising it
- "You can buy a lot of 15 cent click in Toronto and Montreal." - Andrew Goodman on what a "bargain" search engine advertising still is in Canada
- Even national advertisers should consider regional targeting and campaign differentiation because searchers in different parts of Canada behave differently.
- "If Canadian advertisers don't step up, US advertisers and affiliates will come in and take [search engine advertising in Canada] over." - Gord Hotchkiss
- "You really want your brand in the ad, including the display URL." - Bill Tighe, Google Canada, on the importance of leveraging your brand
Session: Linking Campaigns and Beyond: Getting Authoritative Online "Mentions"
- A link "is a vote." - Mike Grehan, Searchvisible
- "It's absolutely NOT about more [links] is better." - Eric Ward on the importance of soliciting links from relevant, niche topic sites
- "I ignore [Google's] Page Rank; I use the internal algorithm in my head." - Eric Ward on how he focuses on the content and the user when he's researching sites to solicit links from
- "The people who are getting the most link love are the in the news biz." - Greg Jarboe, SEO-PR, on the power of links from mainstream news sites like CNN and The New York Times
- Soliciting links is "not a begging process, [it's] a PR process." - Greg Jarboe
Visit www.searchenginesstrategies.com for more information about this and future conferences.
Domain name expert Bill Sweetman is the President & Lead Ninja of Name Ninja, a boutique domain name consulting firm that helps companies acquire, manage, protect, and profit from their domain names. Bill has provided strategic domain name advice to major companies around the world for over 20 years.
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