Continental Breakfast

Search Engine Optimization Workshop

Shari Thurow, Omni Marketing Interactive

Search & Analytics Workshop: Using Analytics to Increase Search Effectiveness

Matt Bailey, SiteLogic

Getting Found in All the Right Places

Greg Jarboe, SEO-PR
Amanda Watlington, Ph.D., APR, Searching for Profit

Lunch Break

Think Global, Act Local: The Ins and Outs of Local Search in the PPC World

Sage Lewis, SageRock.com
Greg Habermann, SageRock.com

How to Effectively Use Social Media for Search Marketing Campaigns

Liana Evans, KeyRelevance

Landing Page Testing Hands On: Developing Your Action Plan

Tim Ash, SiteTuners.com
Participants receive a free copy of Tim's new book.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Workshop

SEO Training

Friday, December 7, 2007

Spaces Limited

8:00am-12:00pm

A search-engine friendly Web site is a user-friendly, search-friendly, and persuasive site that converts visitors into buyers.

In order for a site to be search-engine friendly, it must meet the terms and conditions set forth by the search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN Search, Ask, etc.) Additionally, the site must satisfy the needs of site visitors. Ultimately, the site must be profitable for the Web site owner. Can a single site satisfy all of these groups?

This presentation will how these skills are essential for building a user-friendly, search-friendly, and persuasive site that converts visitors into buyers.

Everyone who promotes Web sites as part of their work should attend these workshops! Web marketers should understand all parts of a search marketing campaign - optimization, shopping search, paid inclusion, and pay-per-click solutions.

For new and experienced marketers
Whether you are a new marketer or a seasoned veteran, our search engine marketing workshops will help you take your campaigns to the next level of effectiveness.

For new and experienced web designers
Minimize advertising expenses by creating search-friendly and cost-effective site designs. Learn how to avoid common pitfalls early in the design process.

Attendees come from many different industries, including:

• Web site designers and developers
• eCommerce
• Business development
• Web site usability
• Direct marketing
• Media buying
• Affiliates
• Public relations
• Web analysts
• Sales and marketing consultants
• Non-profit agencies
• Or any job that requires site development and promotion.

Many search engine marketing speakers are new to the industry or merely repeat information disseminated by more experienced professionals. Why learn search-friendly design from speakers who do not design for a living? Learn from the leading industry expert on search-friendly and user-friendly interfaces in the field of search engine marketing industry.

• Build a Web site that satisfies your both site's visitors AND the search engines
• Design dos and don'ts
• Successful Web site information architecture - learn what search engine marketers don't know
• Avoid costly copywriting and design mistakes
• Link development research: tips and tools
• Learn proven techniques and strategies for long-term results

Understanding search engines
8:00am-8:50am

• The major search engines and how they work
• Anatomy of search engine results pages (SERPs)
• Types of search engine marketing
• Questions and answers

Break
8:50am-9:00am

Search engine optimization (SEO) process
9:00-9:50 p.m.

• Defining the full SEO process:
• Keyword analysis
• Site optimization
• Submission
• Monitoring - managing expectations
• Web positioning vs. Web analytics software
• Questions and answers

Break
9:50am-10:00am

SEO Process - Site architecture and page design
10:00am-10:50am

• Site architecture vs. page design (interface)
• Why architecture and design are important for search engine visibility
• Components of an optimized site:
  • Site navigation schemes
  • Other types of page links
  • Types of Web pages and how to optimize them
  • Web address
• Questions and answers

Break
10:50am-11:00am

SEO Process - Link development
11:00am-11:50am

• What is popularity?
• Why link development is important for search engine visibility
• Characteristics of effective link development
• Competitive link development strategies
• Submission guidelines
• Questions and answers

Shari Thurow is Founder and SEO of Omni Marketing Interactive. She has been designing and promoting web sites since 1995, and is outsourced to many firms throughout the U.S. The firm currently has a 100 percent success rate for getting client sites ranked at the top of search engine and directory queries.

Acknowledged as the leading expert on search engine friendly Web sites worldwide, Shari is the author of the top-selling marketing book, "Search Engine Visibility" (www.searchenginesbook.com). The book teaches Web developers how to build a site, from concept through promotion, that pleases both site visitors and the search engines. She also writes a bimonthly search-engine marketing column for Clickz.com.

Shari has been featured in many publications, including USA Today, PC World, Internet Retailer, MacWorld, and Crain's Chicago Business. She has also received numerous design and content awards including top site honors from Lycos, Business 2.0 and Computer User Magazine.

Search & Analytics Workshop: Using Analytics to Increase Search Effectiveness

Search & Analytics Workshop

Friday, December 7, 2007

Spaces Limited

8:00am-12:00pm

Unless there is a goal for the site, there is no sense measuring anything.

• 70% of website owners and managers do not track anything beside 'hits' to their website.
• Most website managers want to track, but aren't sure what or how.

Analytics are a gold mine of information, just waiting to be uncovered. The results of your campaigns, effectiveness of the website, and the efficiency of your rankings can all be measured with a good analytics program.

Unfortunately, many site managers do not make changes to the website without prior measurement, nor do they measure after the changes. As a result, there are many changes to sites that are not based on facts, merely assumptions. Similarly, if changes are not analyzed, then there can be no clear understanding of whether or not improvements made a difference on the site or to the bottom line.

This workshop is for anyone who is responsible for a website or for reporting on website activity, success or failure. Site owners, marketers, managers and SEO firms wishing to add analytics to their services will all benefit from this instruction.

Rather than simply getting a checklist of "How-To's", you will learn the "Why?" Understanding the "Why" will enable you to ask the right questions in order to get the right answers in your analytics program.

Practical lessons include:

• Understanding the differences and common points among web analytics programs.
• Establishing common terminology.
• Establish Key Performance Indicators for your website.
• Establish a regular reporting program.
• Learn segmentation techniques for users, campaigns and keywords
• Establishing primary and secondary conversion rates and for your website.
• How to measure and report the important factors.
• How to report website success 'up the ladder.'

Matt Bailey is the president and founder of SiteLogic, a web marketing consulting firm. SiteLogic specializes in consulting and educating clients in analytics, usability, accessibility and effective web site marketing using search engines, viral techniques, and blogs.

Matt has been in the search marketing industry since 1996. As early as then, he was evaluating websites based on brand protection and ROI. Matt started speaking in the late 1990's at Bed and Breakfast seminars, teaching website marketing and search engine optimization.

For more than six years, Matt worked in development agencies, which enabled him to gain a complete view of the website process, starting from the hosting and architecture. Using this knowledge with his background in marketing, he brings a unique sense of perspective to the entire web marketing process.

A sought after speaker around the world, Matt is a regular speaker at the Search Engine Strategies Conferences, DMA (Direct Marketing Association) Conferences, and the American Advertising Federation. He is known for his fun, conversational style of presenting technical topics in an understandable and clear method.

Getting Found in all the Right Places

News, Blog, Image, Video and Universal Search Engine Optimization Training

Friday, December 7, 2007

Spaces limited

8:00am-12:00pm

Universal search changes everything! The advent of Google's Universal Search has been called "the most radical change to its search results ever."

So, how do you take advantage of Google's new approach that blends listings from news, blog, video, and image search among those it gathers from web search? In other words, how do you get found in all the right places?

Everyone who promotes Web sites as part of their work should attend this workshop. Web marketers should understand how to optimize and leverage their content and its distribution across news, blog, image, and video search engines.

After attending this half-day workshop, you will be able to optimize, distribute and measure:

• Press releases
• RSS feeds
• Images
• Video files

Attendees will also learn strategies and tactics for expanding the audience for their content through Google News, Yahoo! News, Google Blog Search, Technorati, Google Image Search, Flickr, YouTube, Yahoo Video and a growing variety of other sites.

During this workshop, you will learn how to:

• Pick your target keywords for news, blog, image, video and web search engines;
• Position your keywords in crucial locations;
• Create original and unique content of genuine value, including text, images and video;
• Avoid search engine stumbling blocks;
• Build inbound links intended to help people find interesting, related content;
• Just say no to search engine spamming;
• Submit your Sitemap, RSS feeds, and videos to search engines and directories;
• Verify and maintain your listings; and
• Go beyond web search engines to include key vertical search engines.

Greg Jarboe is the president and co-founder of SEO-PR, a search engine optimization firm and public relations agency with offices in San Francisco and Boston. He is also a partner in Newsforce, developer of an integrated suite of press release SEO tools.

SEO-PR has been praised by world-renowned search authority Danny Sullivan for "focusing on search as a public relations tool." SEO-PR is one of 10 companies that Larry Chase's Web Digest for Marketers named to its Who's Who in SEO Experts. SEOmoz.org has put SEO-PR on its Recommended List of SEO Consultants, Experts, Firms and Service Providers.

Greg is a frequent speaker at Search Engine Strategies, WebmasterWorld's PubCon, and public relations conferences. He is also the news search, blog search and PR correspondent for the Search Engine Watch Blog.

Gord Hotchkiss, who writes the Out of My Gord blog, has called Greg "the guru of cranking up web visibility through effective optimization of press releases and leveraging news search." Lee Odden, who writes the Online Marketing Blog, has called Greg "a pioneer in the field of using search engine optimization in combination with press releases." And Matt McGowan, Vice President of Marketing for Incisive Media, has called Greg, "the industry's top expert in press release SEO and social media relations."

Greg has more than 25 years of experience in public relations, marketing, and search engine optimization at Lotus Development Corp., Ziff-Davis, and other companies. He graduated from the University of Michigan, attended the University of Edinburgh, and worked on his Masters at Lesley College.

Amanda G. Watlington Ph.D., A.P.R. Before setting up Searching for Profit, Amanda was director of research for a leading Search Engine Optimization firm. Her consultancy focuses on how businesses can leverage search engines and new media such as blogging, RSS and podcasting to achieve marketing objectives. She has over twenty years of experience as a communications, sales and business strategy consultant, and ten years as a Web marketer.

Amanda has developed award-winning print, web, training and presentation media. She has developed patent-pending language-based analytic tools and methodologies to support search engine marketing campaigns. She is a renowned expert on blogs, podcasting, and the language and psychology of search. The clients she has worked with include Fortune 500 companies, search engines, publishers and e-commerce merchants.

Amanda is the author of two books. Her most recent book is Business Blogs: A Practical Guide. Amanda is a sought-after presenter and a recognized industry thought leader. She appears regularly as a speaker at Search Engine Strategies and DMA's Annual and Multi-Channel Marketing conferences. She serves on DMA's Search Engine Marketing Council, of which she is the past co-chair. She is the chair of the Web Analytics Association's research committee and has served on the search and research committees of IAB.

Her education includes a Bachelors Degree in Classical Civilization from Douglass College in New Jersey, a Ph.D. in Classics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and an M.B.A. in Marketing from Eastern Michigan University. She is a member of the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), the Web Analytics Association (WAA), the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) and has an APR accreditation.

Think Global, Act Local: The Ins and Outs of Local Search in the PPC World

Paid Search Training

Friday, December 7, 2007

Spaces limited

1:00pm-5:00pm

Paid search advertising by local advertisers in 2006 reached an estimated $987 million, and will nearly double that in '07. That's according to the "2006 Local Search Advertising" report from research firm Borrell Associates, which discusses how local advertising will have a transformative effect on the overall search engine landscape. According to projections, local paid search will go from representing around 10 percent of all local online advertising today to over 47 percent in the next 3 years, reaching over $4 billion by 2010.

As advertisers across the web marketing realm learn more and more that this is where a large portion of the future of PPC lies, it is important to understand what this means, what tools are available and what strategies you can use to get the most out of your local paid search campaigns. Whether you are a Fortune 500 company or a Ma and Pa shop trying to reach a small audience, acting locally can drastically increase the effectiveness of your web marketing campaigns.

This interactive training provides a thorough overview of everything from discovering local search and what offerings are available to the best practices of setting up local and geo-targeted PPC campaigns. Additionally it will offer discussion as to reasons behind targeting campaigns locally versus nationally, maximizing your advertising impact by correctly targeting to your audience, looking at local versus national expenditures by DMA, the impact of personalized search on local advertising, local online video advertising, and many other aspects of local search and local paid search advertising.

This half day training session provides practical real-world solutions and techniques to help you get the most from your paid advertising regardless of your level of expertise, budget, or scope of business. Think Global, Act Local will help you broaden your visions by narrowing your targets.

Anyone involved with marketing and sending traffic and leads to a website and has an interest in making local, personalized connections with their potential customers will likely benefit from this training workshop. Marketing Directors, search professionals, Internet consultants, CEOs, Advertising Executives, Media Directors, Product Managers, Creative Directors, Webmasters, as well as business owners who want to learn more about local opportunities in paid advertising. Search managers will gain new insight and ideas on how to improve and better target campaigns they manage.

This is a comprehensive training session that includes real-world information for users and managers. The practical advice and best practices taught in the session will help attendees create and run more efficient, local targeted campaigns and online business strategies.

• Enhance your knowledge base about paid search and its many local, regional and geo-targeting options;
• Learn proven techniques to select and evaluate keywords and strategies that speak directly to your regional consumers;
• Acquire tips on developing effective local ads and landing pages that build a relevant connection with their audience;
• Gain new insights into where local paid search comes from and where it's going in the future;
• Better understand how to approach local audiences through search and convert them from visitors into customers;
• Evaluate local search opportunities on the web (Yellowbook, Google business listings, local search engines, Local Google Groups, Craigs list);
• Compare the pros and cons of Local versus National Search;
• Learn the recent trends in local search, why it's growing and why it's important to use;
• Tips to setting up a local paid search campaign;
• Compare geotargeting and regional keyword qualifiers;
• Using geotargeting and regional keyword qualifiers to cover the broadest range for the smallest areas;
• Compare and contrast DMA versus ZIP codes and cities.

Greg Habermann the head of the Paid Search division at SageRock.com. He is a Google Certified PPC Professional and an experienced paid search manager. He has been integral in creating PPC management business systems that ensure clients are regularly and proactively involved with the improvement and optimization of their accounts. As someone heavily involved in his local community and organizing online local groups in the various social outlets, he understands the importance, relevance, and many facets of highly targeted regional advertising.

Sage Lewis started SageRock.com in 1999 during a time when most Internet companies were failing. SageRock, however, has thrived under Lewis' direction -- growing an average of 30% every year, while also being recognized as one of the top rated search engine optimization firms in the U.S.

Regarded as a web marketing expert, Lewis speaks regularly to business organizations like NEOSA and COSE, serves as a resource for press about industry trends, teaches a recurring class on search engine optimization at Cleveland State University and is also a founding member of ClevelandSEO.com - an organization dedicated to highlighting the world-class search engine marketing talent we have in Northeastern Ohio. He is also an expert columnist at SearchEngineWatch.com in the Link Love area.

How to Effectively Use Social Media for Search Marketing Campaigns

Social Media Training

Friday, December 7, 2007

Spaces limited

1:00pm-5:00pm

Over the past year social media has exploded and become a major piece of the search marketing puzzle. Companies are amazed by the influence social media is having and want to understand how to use it effectively. From capturing traffic and links, to effectively converting the traffic there are many aspects to know about with social media. Figuring out which social media is right for your business is another factor in the search marketing mix. Do you sacrifice your steady customer base for a 1 day hit of traffic from Digg or do you focus on a more targeted blog or forum audience and educate them about your services or products. How do you combine this with you PPC and SEO efforts? All of this and more is covered in this course.

Beginners in Search Marketing to experienced Search Marketers looking to understand more about social media and how to use it effectively.

This session will show you the entire realm of social media and how to use it effectively as part of a holistic marketing campaign. Most people think of "Digg" as the big player in social media that they need to be working with. Digg is just one of many facets of Social Media, from social communities to social photo sharing, blogging to forums there's a world of opportunity out in the internet waiting to be explored. You'll come away with great ideas how to effectively leverage your brand, services and products in different social media environments.

Attendees will:

• Enhance their knowledge base about paid search and its many options
• Understand the components of a good paid advertising strategy
• Learn proven techniques to select and evaluate keywords that produce results
• Acquire tips on developing effective ads and landing pages that convert visitors to buyers
• Discover ways to measure paid search performance and learn techniques to optimize campaigns
• Gain new insights into bidding strategies and campaign management
• Increase their skills and comfort level working in the paid search field

PPC Agenda:

• Different classifications of social media, what exactly their focus is and how to use them effectively. (photo sharing, forums, news, messaging, blogs, video, communities, etc.)
• An understanding of the "rules of engagement" when working with social media
• Affect of social media on your site - traffic / conversions (what to prepare for)
• The difference between traffic driving social media and converting traffic social media
• What to use social media for
• More visitors to site
• More sales
• Links to website
• Brand Awareness
• How to leverage Social Media with your other online marketing pieces
• Tracking Social Media

Liana "Li" Evans is the Director of Internet Marketing at KeyRelevance. Since 1999 Liana has been active in the search marketing arena, becoming well versed in all avenues of search marketing, but having a particular focus on natural search optimization, vertical search, social media and word of mouth marketing. She has also become well versed in areas of the retail industry that are regulated by the FTC. Liana helped to design, plan & implement an Internet Retailer 500 company's efforts into natural search optimization, totally revamping out of date navigation and site architecture, with very successful results. Since 1992 Liana has been active in the technology fields being both a well verse programmer and database programmer/designer, which lends well to her technical expertise in dealing with large scale retail sites and their dynamic nature.

Landing Page Testing Hands On: Developing Your Action Plan

Landing Page Optimization and Testing Training

Friday, December 7, 2007

Spaces limited

1:00pm-5:00pm

Changes in landing page efficiency can dramatically improve the profitability of your online marketing programs. This fast-paced and practical hands-on training will provide you with a crash course in landing page optimization and testing. It will also allow you to develop a personal action plan that is tailored to your specific business.

All participants will receive a detailed workbook and lecture slides based on Tim Ash's upcoming book Landing Page Optimization: The Definitive Guide To Testing & Tuning For Conversions. Short lecture segments will alternate with practical hands-on work. Participants will complete structured workbook exercises to apply each module to their situation. By the end of the session you will have a complete action plan that can be immediately implemented.

All workshop participants will receive a free copy of Tim's upcoming book, "Landing Page Optimization" (availability date January 2008).

This workshop is designed for people who want to quickly turbo-charge their company's landing page performance. You should ideally already have an established online marketing program with significant web traffic.

• CMO's
• Marketing directors
• SEM/SEO campaign managers
• Online media buyers
• Webmasters & web designers

• How to define mission-critical parts of your website
• Segmenting your online audience
• Defining and measuring the appropriate conversion action
• Modeling the financial benefit of landing page testing
• Understanding the psychology of your audience
• How to select the proper traffic sources for your test
• Critical steps in the visitor's decision process
• Uncovering problems with your landing page
• Deciding what page elements to test
• Picking the right testing method
• Properly analyzing your test results
• Avoiding common testing pitfalls
• Gathering the required team and resources
• Setting up and running your test

Tim Ash is recognized expert in field of landing page optimization. He is the President and co-founder of SiteTuners and its parent company Epic Sky. SiteTuners improves the conversion rates of website landing pages through state-of-the-art scientific testing. Tim has worked with American Express, Sony Music, American Honda, COMP USA, Coach Bags, HomeGain, Harcourt Brace & Co., Universal Studios, Scan Alert (Hacker Safe), Eaton, RealAge, Guidant, TrizecHahn Centers, SAIC, Pyxis, and B.F. Goodrich Aerospace to develop successful Internet initiatives. He has chaired Internet conferences, and spoken at numerous industry events including PC Expo, Search Engine Strategies, the Affiliate Summit, EcomXpo, Casino Affiliate Convention, and Internet World. Tim has written several articles on harnessing the power of the Internet for business and is a contributing columnist for industry publications. He is the author of the book Landing Page Optimization: The Definitive Guide to Testing & Tuning for Conversions (John Wiley Press 2007).