Search Engine Optimization Workshop
Shari Thurow, Grantastic Designs
SOLD OUT

SEO PR 2.0: From Press Release SEO to Blogger Relations and Beyond
Greg Jarboe, SEO-PR

Lunch Break

Search & Analytics Workshop: Using Analytics to Increase Search Effectiveness
Matt Bailey, SiteLogic

Creating an Effective Social Media Strategy
Nan Dawkins, RedBoots Consulting
Rob Key, Converseon

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Workshop

SEO Training

June 11, 2007

Spaces Limited

8:00 am.–12:00 noon

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
8:00 – 8:50 a.m.

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

Break
8:50 – 9:00 a.m.

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
9:50 – 10:00 a.m.

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

• 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
10:50 – 11:00 a.m.

SEO Process – Link development
11:00 am to 11:50 am

• 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 a sought–after speaker and trainer on the topics of search engine–friendly Web site design and Web site usability. A popular speaker at Search Engine Strategies, web site design, and online marketing conferences worldwide, Shari´s sessions are very popular and four–star rated.

Shari is the Webmaster and Marketing Director at Grantastic Designs . She has been designing and promoting Web sites since 1995, and is outsourced to many firms throughout the U.S. She has a 100% success rate for getting client sites ranked at the top of search engine and Web directory queries.

She is the author of Search Engine Visibility and a regular columnist for Clickz and SearchDay. Shari is currently a graduate student at University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, specializing in human/computer interfaces for the Library and Information Sciences Department.

Grantastic Designs, Inc. has designed and successfully marketed Web sites for a wide variety of industries. Clients include Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo, HSBC, National Cancer Institute, WebMD, Reader's Digest, and many other well–known brands.

SEO PR 2.0: From press release SEO to blogger relations and beyond.

Search engine optimization and public relations training

June 11, 2007

Spaces Limited

8:00am – 12:00pm

News search engines like Google News, Yahoo News, and AOL News have changed the way public relations impacts the public as well as the media. According to MarketingSherpa, “The days of journalists picking up releases directly are largely over.”

However, the press release has evolved into an entirely different kind of tool – one with significant impact thanks to what has been called SEO PR, press release SEO, and news search SEO. But, whatever it is called, this tactic has generated 1.2 million searches on SuperPages.com, $200 million in qualified leads for Symmetricom, and $2.5 million in online ticket sales for Southwest Airlines.

As a result, awareness of the importance of SEO PR has shot up. In August 2006, a MarketingSherpa Search Marketing Benchmark Survey found 74% of search marketers were writing press releases to emphasize keywords in the headline and body text, more than double the 2005 figure. However, only 24% deployed RSS feeds and even fewer used other, more sophisticated SEO PR tactics.

Measuring the success of press release SEO is also changing. While 52% of search marketers are monitoring press mentions, only 24% are monitoring blog mentions. This could be a major mistake.

According to Technorati, the total posting volume of the blogosphere about 1.3 million postings per day, which is about double the volume of this time last year. And the impact of the blogging elite, which represents more than 4,000 bloggers, is increasingly dramatic.

As MarketingSherpa notes, “In certain categories blogs are becoming the de facto industry press, and their ability to generate traffic, buzz and referred coverage shouldn’t be underestimated.”

If you want to take your SEO PR campaigns to the next level, you will want to participate in this search engine optimization and public relations training class.

This workshop is for executives, managers and professionals in search engine optimization firms and public relations agencies as well as search engine marketing and corporate communication departments.

After attending this half-day workshop, you will be able to use more sophisticated press release SEO tactics and blogger relations techniques that will help you generate:

• Higher ranking of releases in major news search engines;
• More blog mentions;
• Additional press mentions;
• Increased site traffic after announcements;
• Better conversion rates to leads or sales.

In this workshop, you will how to optimize press releases, distribute them to news search engines and influential bloggers, and generate measurable results.

During the first part of this workshop, you will learn how to:

• Conduct keyword research to find 2 to 3 relevant news search terms that your target audience is likely to use;
• Make sure your release actually includes your target terms – particularly in headline and first few sentences;
• Add hyperlinks intended to help people find interesting, related content, when applicable;
• Use press release distribution service crawled by Yahoo! News, AOL News and Google News;
• Measure results of your campaign – whether your objective is to build brand awareness, increase web site traffic, generate sales leads, or sell products online.

During the second part of this workshop, you will also learn how to use new social mapping tools to identify the most influential bloggers in your market and old media relations techniques and engage these bloggers in productive conversations. You will also see case studies featuring blogger relations success stories from:

• The Christian Science Monitor
• ClickTracks
• MarketingSherpa
• WindowsSecrets.com

Greg Jarboe is the president and co-founder of SEO-PR, a search engine optimization and public relations firm specializing in press release SEO and blogger relations. SEO-PR is on the SEOmoz list of Recommended List of SEO Consultants, Experts, Firms & Service Providers. In 2005, Southwest Airlines with SEO-PR won the Golden Ruler Award from the Institute for Public Relations for “using new media and new techniques to tie public relations to sales.”

Greg is a frequent speaker at Search Engine Strategies and the news search, blog search and PR correspondent for the Search Engine Watch Blog. Lee Odden’s Online Marketing Blog has called Greg “a pioneer in the field of using search engine optimization in combination with press releases.” Tad Clarke, the Editorial Director of MarketingSherpa, credits Greg for creating “the tactic known as SEO PR.”

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.

Location:

Contact details: Jamie.odonnell@seo-pr.com 415-643-8947

Using Analytics to Increase Search Effectiveness

Search & Analytics Workshop

Monday, June 11, 2007

Spaces limited

1:00pm – 5:00pm

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.

Creating an Effective Social Media Strategy

Social Media Workshop

Monday, June 11, 2007

Spaces limited

1:00pm–5:00pm

Companies no longer own their brand. It is being challenged and re-created continuously by countless people online using simple web publishing tools to share opinions and ideas, to discuss their perceptions and experiences, to praise and criticize, and to influence other people who trust their peers more than anything. With an estimated 50 percent of online content being generated by consumers in the next 5 years, social media is changing the way we work, communicate and live. The power of social media, together with its increasing visibility in search engines, has made it incumbent for brands to engage in these "Web 2.0" environments, including blogs, social networks, wikis, and more. But take heed: effective and ethical social media strategies require thoughtful and innovative planning. This session will explore why your organization should have a social media strategy, how to create an effective one and how to get senior management on board.

CMOs, senior management, communications, online acquisition, development directors, media, affiliate marketing and search.

Companies today face a stark choice. They can ignore the online social media conversation that is defining their brand, or they can choose to effectively join the conversation. Social media strategies can build brand and visibility, help manage reputations, drive sales, boost search engine results, generate links and engage with customers in ways far beyond the more traditional “one too many” communications tactics

You will learn:

• What does today’s social media landscape look like?
• Is a social media strategy right for us?
• How do we develop a compelling social media strategy?
• What are the ethical issues and how will we address them?
• Does social media belong to PR, advertising, direct marketing...or all of the above?
• What are the pitfalls to avoid?
• How do we secure internal buy in?
• How do we track and report social media?

The workshop will also cover common problems NPO’s encounter in creating a search marketing program such as legacy content management systems, intra-organization competition and duplicate content issues, balancing engagement versus development goals, and developing organizational buy-in.

Nan Dawkins is an online communications strategist with over twenty years experience in marketing and public relations. She is the founder of RedBoots, an interactive marketing agency specializing in search engine and word of mouth marketing, Blogs and RSS, digital PR, and online media & advertising. She is a frequent public speaker on topics of interest to her wide range of clients (from advocacy organizations to national retailers), and is a regular panelist at the Search Engine Strategies conferences. Nan is an Ironman triathlete, raising money each year for RedBoot's nonprofit clients by competing in extreme endurance sports events.

Rob Key is the CEO of Converseon, a leading “web 2.0” communications agency that helps clients “join the conversation” to manage brands, build buzz/visibility and drive sales. Converseon utilizes a range of cutting edge services – including search and word-of-mouth marketing, blog, enterprise-generated and social media strategies, micro-community development, Search Engine Reputation Management (SERMA™) and more – to help companies manage and protect their brand, build buzz, drive sales and more effectively engage target audiences in the digital environment. Converseon’s proprietary technologies include Conversation Miner™, designed to mine sentiment within consumer-generated media to inform communication strategies, and SERP Sentiment Analyzer™ which helps manage perception and sentiment within top search engine listings. Rob was formerly head of the Innovations Group at a public relations division of Young & Rubicam and member of the WPP.com board.

Founded in 2001, Converseon provides innovative digital communications solutions to a variety of leading brands including Hilton Hotels, Paypal, Dow Chemical, Coldwell Banker, among others.

Rob’s twenty years of marketing experience spans public relations, reputation management, search marketing, affiliate marketing and online media/advertising, which has convinced him that markets clearly are “conversations” that require new ways of communicating. He has been involved in digital marketing since 1995.

Rob is a frequent speaker at a range of leading industry conferences, including Affiliate Summit, Ad:Tech, Igniting Buzz, WOMMA, Conference Board, Syndicate and the Search Engine Strategies Conferences (SES), to help evangelize his message of creative communications innovation. He can be reached at rkey@converseon.com.