Search Engine Strategies New York (#SESNY)

What an incredible first day at SES – and for none of the reasons I expected. The day started off with Guy Kawasaki telling us how he spams everyone, yet people love him. The woman 2 seats over from me fell asleep in her chair and was snoring loud enough for 4 rows over to hear. 30 minutes later I found out that she was the lead speaker in the next session I sat in on! Then the first three session breakouts I attended talked about Twitter twice as much as they did search strategy (I proposed a name change to TES over lunch – but the conference went on as SES). I watched a panel on Universal search that included Ask, Yahoo, Live Search and more – but Google was no where to be found. The final session I sat in was incredible – and it was led by CMO’s discussing do’s and dont’s of search…

If you aren’t following me on twitter, you can do so at http://twitter.com/mediatwo and I’ll be live tweeting Day 2 as well. But here’s a few more details on first and last sessions I sat in on:

SES NY Key Note: Guy Kawasaki
Guy kicked off the day with the keynote speech. As he was speaking I was twittering and noticed that he was too… Only he wasn’t near his computer??? As he spoke deeper, he revealed that he spams people, he uses ghost writers, he doesn’t pay attention to anyone that follows him unless they D or @ him. He also revealed his ultra scientific way of coming up with his “non-automated” post-topics: randomly grab links that sound interesting from a couple sites (one being Alltop.com – his own). With all of this information in the palm of my hand – I still choose to follow him on twitter (as do 90,000+ others). I know – it sounds crazy – but you know what – he’s a very likable guy. That, and he revealed some very useful tools that I re-tweeted earlier in the day including:
• www.Twibs.com helps you monitor companies
• www.Retweetist.com Good gauge of how many people are RT you.
• www.epenis.nl. Check out that site! It's your twitter penis size!
• www.adjix.com it shows stats for your links
• www.Twirl.com allows you to monitor multiple twitter accounts in the same window.
• www.cotweet.com is for multiple tweeting companies.
• www.Tynt.com quotes the original source when copied.
• www.Twitterhawk.com "the ultimate spamming tool". Looks for keywords and auto tweets content.
• www.twitterfeed.com allows you to post to others twitter - huge opportunity to build affiliates. It is a custom feature "beg Mario"

Dozen most common search engine mistakes that CMO's make
I must admit, I was pleasantly surprised by this panel. My objective from this conference was to get a pulse on what CMO’s thought of search and interactive. As immersed as I am personally in interactive strategy, I sometimes find myself talking over clients – and in particular, C-Level types. I went to this session because the panel consisted of top-level marketers from brands such as Ameriprise, World Travel Holdings, Constant Contact, and more – and I felt like this would be a great representation to CMO’s everywhere. Well – if it is – then congratulations CMO’s – you get interactive! The reality is, this was a group of seasoned veterans that understood their marketing mix, and there is a lot that can be learned from them. Below are the 12 mistakes that they pointed out during their session:
1. Failing to set measurable goals.
2. Failing to assign monetary values to each action
3. Assessing the SEM success Solely on a direct marketing model
4. Treating SEO as a project rather than a process
5. Making a #1 ranking your most important objective
6. Focusing on big keywords and forgetting the long-tail
7. Engaging in paid or natural but not both
8. Using your language and not that of your customers
9. Optimizing your web site but not other digital assets
10. Integrate SEM with your other marketing initiatives - don't silo it
11. Failing to bid on terms for which your site already organically ranks high
12. Bidding solely on branded terms

All-in-all – I’m looking forward to day 2! I’m not sure what to expect, but I’m looking forward to it…

“Full Service” Search Marketing

For a couple years now, I have seen a pattern of business/site owners focusing solely on Google AdWords. There are even firms out there (who call themselves a “search engine marketing agency”) that only do Google PPC. If you only manage AdWords accounts, then you can’t really call yourself or your agency a Search Engine Marketing professional(s).

A true search engine marketer understands the value of making sure your business is visible across the major search engines (Google, Yahoo and MSN) both organically and paid. Google AdWords is not the end all be all. Now, I do understand is it between 70-80% of the market; however that 20-30% that is made up of Yahoo and MSN still contains millions of searches per day…and quality searches at that…I’ll bash Ask, Looksmart and the other 2nd & 3rd tier engines regarding their click fraud in a later blog maybe ;-)

What marketer would ever say, “I don’t feel like being visible to everyone who actively looks for my products”? Well, if you only run AdWords, that is exactly what you’re saying…that the Yahoo and MSN consumers aren’t worth your time. Assuming you run campaigns across the engines, a benefit is that you could even pick and choose which campaigns you run on which engines. You may find that some product campaigns perform differently on one engine than another…you can then take that information and run search engine-specific campaigns…that is when you have true search engine marketing strategy running on all cylinders.

Also, I realize that along with Google being the leader in the industry, they also have tools for PPC managers that make researching, implementing and optimizing campaigns MUCH easier than their competitors. For that I highly recommend using Google as your sandbox for new campaigns or test initiatives; however don’t just stay inside Google’s world (no matter how bad they are trying to rule it)… once you have the campaign structure set up, move right on into launching on Yahoo and MSN as well. You won’t get the same amount of traffic you get from Google but you’ll ensure your market coverage. Never put all your eggs in one basket…with search engine marketing, you always want to diversify. We preach keyword diversification…so why not preach search engine diversification.