NOTATIONS GUIDE

4 STAR RATED sessions are those that were evaluated as good or excellent by attendees at previous conferences.

NEW! are sessions not previously held at Search Engine Strategies or ones featuring substantially new content or changes from previous shows.

FRESH CONTENT! are sessions held at previous SES events but ones where the content constantly changes, covering new and different aspects of the session topic. If you've been to one of these sessions before, a second time won't be the same thing!

FOCUS: Search engines have both "organic listings" that are generally free in nature and "paid listings." Sessions with an ORGANIC focus are designed for those who wish to do better in "natural" or "organic" listings. Sessions with a AD focus deal especially with paid ad listings.

SKILL: BASIC sessions are especially suitable for those new to search engine marketing, though even advanced people might find them helpful. ADVANCED sessions are for those who already have some experience with search engine marketing. They are not designed for beginners. ANY sessions are those suitable for any skill level. They generally feature some introductory presentations, with more advanced topics covered during Q&A.

SESSION DESCRIPTIONS

75 Minute Search Abs
Give us 75 minutes, and we'll give you a bunch of fast, easy tips to pump up your SEO and search marketing.

Ads In A Quality Score World
More and more, ranking well in paid search listings is less about how much you pay and more about the "quality" of your ad campaign. But what goes into making up your quality score? In this panel, a closer look at quality factors and tips on increasing the perceived relevancy of your campaigns.

Ad Testing: Research & Findings
Have you been doing deep testing of your ad campaigns? Fear not -- the panel in this session has and will be sharing tips you might want to try yourself. How important are headlines, descriptions and other elements in your control? How do consumers interact with the ads?

Ad Copy & Landing Page Clinic
This clinic will examine actual ads and landing pages offered up by volunteers from the audience, suggesting changes that may improve clickthrough and conversion.

Auditing Paid Listings & Click Fraud Issues
Did you really get that much traffic from paid listings last month or is something funny going on? Reviewing your paid traffic is an essential task any serious search engine marketer should undertake. Discover how to spot abnormalities and follow-up with search engines if you suspect a competitor or someone else is creating clicks just to drive up your costs. Also discover the proactive things paid listing providers already do to protect advertisers.

Beyond The Single Site Mentality
Old school SEO typically was about building all your traffic to point at a single site. But having multiple sites, each with their own legitimate purpose and role for your company, can be helpful. Learn about the reasons you might consider adding a blog or microsites to your online presence.

B2B Tactics
Forget consumers. You want only the business-to-business audience! This session explores options and issues in targeting B2B.

Big Ideas For Small Sites & Small Budgets
Have little or no money for search marketing efforts? Fearful you'll never get found since those with large advertising budgets can spend their way to the top? This session provides strategies and advice for small businesses and others looking to be found in search engines without breaking the bank. It also examines search marketing efforts you may have been neglecting.

Blog & Feed Search SEO
This session explores how specialized blog and feed (RSS/Atom) search engines gather content and provides tips on tapping into these growing forms of traffic.

Bot Obedience Course
Bandwidth burdens from "good" search engines and rouge spiders alike are causing some site owners to ponder if they need to ban all bots to regain control of their web sites. Yet ban the bots, and you kiss traffic from the major search engines goodbye. How can you teach good bots to behave better and send bad bots away for good? This session provides tips and advice.

Business Issues For The Big SEM Shop
Should you do rev share? Bill on percentage of ad spend? How do you deal with existing ad agencies? Should you expand to cover more than search, if there's client demand? How do you keep good employees from leaving? This session explore these and other issues facing the medium-to-large SEM firm.

Business Issues For The Small SEM Shop
It started out small and slow, but now your business is ramping up fast. An email agreement for work no longer seems safe. Is it time for formal contracts? If so, what do you put in them? And does billing hourly still make sense as you better understand the long-term value of your service? What do you do when a client wants in house training? In this session, advice from those who've dealt with these and similar questions and come through to success.

Bulk Submit 2.0
Years and years ago, submitting all your pages to the search engines through Add URL forms or automated mechanisms was all the rage. Excitement dimmed when bulk submit was no longer effective. Today, new forms of bulk submit and spidering tools have emerged. Come learn more about them.

Buying & Selling Links
Links have been bought and sold to generate traffic even before search engines made significant use of them to influence rankings. Nevertheless, today some buy in hopes of getting improved rankings. Meanwhile, some purchases could result in search engine losses, if a search engine deems a link network to be a spamming attempt. This session examines how links are bought and sold with strategies on how to stay out of trouble. This session is designed for experienced marketers. Beginners should only attend if they've gone through the Link Building Basics session earlier in the conference.

Compare & Contrast: Ad Program Strategies
The major search ad networks all operate differently, sometimes radically so. This session looks at some of the key differences between them and how to make these as painless as possible or even work to your advantage.

Contextual Ads & AdSense Clinic
This interactive session takes volunteers from the audience and examines their web sites live to provide general feedback about improving them to do better from Google AdSense and other contextual ad placements.

Converting Visitors Into Buyers
Getting visitors to your web site is only half the battle. To be victorious, you need them to convert into customers by making purchases, signing up for services or fulfilling whatever are your goals. Learn about making this conversion. The latter part of the session takes volunteers from the audience and examines their web sites live to provide general feedback about changing them to improve visitor conversion.

Creating Compelling Ads
Getting clicks on your paid listings can be a challenge. You need to compel the consumer to click through, yet your ad must also comply with editorial standards controlling what you can say and even the punctuation you can use. You also want the RIGHT type of click. Choose your words poorly, and the wrong audience will come, costing you money and offering no hope of conversion. This session looks at ways to get the right clicks. NOTE: The session is designed for those who are already familiar with how paid placement works. If you are new, be sure to have attended Search Advertising 101 on Day 1.

CSS, AJAX, Web 2.0 & Search Engines
As the web moves into its second generation, sites are making more use of CSS, AJAX and other advanced and interactive design techniques. But how are the largely Web 1.0 search engines reacting to these, from an SEO perspective. This session explores issues and solutions.

Dealing With Affiliates
Affiliates can be a love 'em or hate 'em situation for search engine marketers. Affiliates can send plenty of traffic to your web site, but they can also drive up the cost to purchase terms if you decide to maintain your own direct sales channel. This session aims to help you strike a working relationship with your affiliates -- and the search engines themselves -- that everyone can live with.

Domaining & Address Bar-Driven Traffic
Plenty of people are searching for things by typing in words into their address bars, slapping on a .com and figuring they'll get to a relevant site. More and more, domainers are ensuring they don't draw a blank. Domainers purchase popular generic domain names and populate the sites with ads from the major search networks. Learn how the business is growing, how it can deliver relevant traffic to advertisers, as well as issues with typo domains and opt-out issues.

Duplicate Content & Multiple Site Issues
More and more site owners are concerned that they might get penalized accidentally or overtly because of duplicate content. If you run mirror sites, will search engines ban you? If you have listings that are similar in nature, is that an issue? What happens if you syndicate content through RSS and feeds? Will other sites be considered the "real" site and rob you of a rightful place in the search results? This session looks at the issues and explores solutions.

Earning Money From Contextual Ads
This session looks at the way publishers can generate revenue by carrying contextual ads offered by major networks. Learn about some programs out there and tips on getting more from the ads you carry.

Evening Forum With Danny Sullivan
The audience is the panel for this session, which lets those in the search engine marketing industry share thoughts, knowledge and ideas among themselves. The session is moderated by Search Engine Watch editor Danny Sullivan, and the audience sets the agenda. Come take part in this informal, popular "after hours" discussion.

Flash & Search Engines
Crawler-based search engines are primarily designed to index HTML text. Because of this, content built with Macromedia Flash can make life difficult for those wishing to be found in search engines. Discover workarounds to give your Flash sites a fighting chance!

From Direct Marketing To Search Marketing
You know direct marketing but now you're thinking about search. This session looks at what direct marketing skills you can apply to search marketing and what habits and mindsets you'll need to change, to be successful.

Fun With Dynamic Web Sites
Web pages or product listings stored in a database or a dynamic page assembly system can be "invisible" to crawler-based search engines. Discover solutions to this problem and the other unique issues that need to be considered by those running dynamic web sites. In addition, discover why dynamic sites needn't be a problem but a benefit when dealing with search engines.

Getting Traffic From Contextual Ads
You know about search targeted listings, where your ad shows up based on the keywords someone enters into a search engine. But what about contextual ads, where paid listings show up based on the content of what someone is reading? Programs exist to let you easily move search ads into a contextual environment. But should you? This session offers tips and advice for those coming at these offerings from a search marketing perspective.

Images & Search Engines
Regular search engines can't understand text trapped within images, and this session looks at strategies to combat this problem for the image-intensive site. It also examines how to generate traffic using your images via image-specific search engines.

In House: Big PPC
You're in a bidding war, and it turns out you're bidding against yourself. Or more accurately, your department in a big company is going up against another department in the same company. Civil war! Come learn how to approach such situations and others so everyone within your company is a winner, when dealing with paid search.

In House: Big SEO
How do you cope with doing search engine optimization for a company with tens of divisions, hundreds of products, thousands of web pages and seemingly no way to bring order to the chaos? Where do you begin with the SEO process? This panel looks at problems and solutions unique to those running big sites or from big companies and brands.

In House: Building The Team
You're serious about search marketing, to the point you want to bring some or all of it in house. This panel looks at strategies to build up the internal resources and buy in from various departments to make it happen and keep it successful.

Introduction To Search Engine Marketing
What are the major search engines? How can their editorial listings send you "natural" or "organic" traffic for free through search engine public relations or search engine optimization efforts? How can you purchase top rankings or placement through search engine advertising opportunities? This must-attend session for beginners provides an overview of key concepts.

Landing Page Testing & Tuning
Getting someone to click on your search ad is only half the battle. Once visitors arrive, the landing pages you display to them are a crucial component in converting them into buyers. This session looks at ways to test and tweak your landing pages to get that conversion. NOTE: The session is designed for those who are already familiar with how paid placement works. If you are new, be sure to have attended Search Advertising 101 on Day 1.

Link Baiting & Viral Search Success
What better way to get links than by doing something that makes people feel compelled to link to you? That's link baiting -- coming up with an idea, a service, even a controversy -- that gets people talking and linking your way. A viral campaign is similar -- a program, a system or an encouragement that gets people linking to you over time. This session is designed for experienced marketers. Beginners should only attend if they've gone through the Link Building Basics session earlier in the conference.

Link Building Basics
Discover how search engines rely on link analysis as an important component for rank web pages. Learn also how to increase traffic to your site by building quality links in an appropriate manner.

Linking Strategies
How far is too far in optimizing your internal link structure? If you operate a network of sites, can natural interlinking be perceived as link spam? How should you handle affiliate links? Advanced linking issues like these and more will be explored during this session. This session is designed for experienced marketers. Beginners should only attend if they've gone through the Link Building Basics session earlier in the conference.

Local Search Marketing Tactics
This session looks at ways search marketers are tapping into an an audience using local search engines, online yellow pages and other local search methods.

Meet The Crawlers
Representatives from major crawler-based search engines cover how to submit and feed them content, with plenty of Q&A time to cover issues related to ranking well and being indexed.

Meet The Mobile Search Engines
Learn more about mobile search, how it operates and where it may be going during this panel of representatives from video search engines.

Meet The Podcast & Audio Search Engines
Learn more about podcast and audio search and pose questions to this panel of representatives from podcast and audio search engines

Meet The Search Ad Networks
Representatives from major search engines that sell paid listings and other search advertising discuss new aspects to their programs and answer questions in general from the audience.

Meet The Video Search Engines
Learn more about video search, how it operates and where it may be going during this panel of representatives from video search engines.

Mobile Search Optimization
New search products for our cell phones and PDA are coming out and existing ones maturing. This session looks at how to ensure your content is optimized for these mobile search tools

Organic Listings Forum
Pose questions to our panel of experts about free "organic" listing issues, plus participate in this session that allows the audience to share tips, tools and techniques. There's no set agenda, so this is an ideal session to discuss any major recent changes with organic listings.

Podcast & Audio Search Optimization
More and more people are "podcasting," on-demand radio-like shows people can listen to on MP3 players or their computers. This session looks at various search engines specifically for podcasts and how to best get your audio content found through them.

Putting Search Into The Marketing Mix
Search marketing should be considered as an essential part of any overall marketing campaign, online and off. In this session, we look at successes from considering search from the very beginning, failures that result if this is not done and how other marketing can also help search.

Retailer Forum
This is a PowerPoint-free zone! Rather than presentations, we've got a panel of online retailers to take questions and provide answers specifically about the intersection of retailing and search marketing.

Reputation Monitoring & Management
Good news! When someone searches for your company by name, you'll probably be listed in the top results. But you won't be alone. And the bad news is, some of those other listings may be negative about your company or service. Knowing your search reputation is crucial when millions rely on the opinions of search engines each day. In this session, how to stay on top of what people are saying about you on the web via search. It also covers how you can influence paid and unpaid listings to ensure the right message about your company is getting out, especially if others are employing them to hurt your image.

Search & Regulated Industries
Involved in pharma? Gambling? Alcohol sales? Run a medical site? Offering legal advice? Chances are, you have to deal with regulations from the government, from search engines or from your own company about what you can and cannot say on your site and in your ads. How can you stay within the rules yet not compromise your search marketing campaign? This session explores the issues.

Search Advertising 101
Paid placement is a form of search advertising that provides a top ranking in return for payment. Every major search engine offers a paid placement program. Learn what's available in this session that is especially geared toward beginners, with details on programs from major providers and advice on how to succeed.

Search Ad Buyers Forum
What's new in the world of paid listings and other search advertising programs? Get an update from our panel of ad buyers, with plenty of time for Q&A and audience participation in sharing tips, concern and solutions. NOTE: This session is designed for those experienced in buying search engine advertising. If you are new to search advertising, be sure to have attended Search Advertising 101 on Day 1.

Search Arbitrage Issues
Search arbitrage is a long-time tactic getting new attention. It's when someone makes money by spending less on search ads to attract traffic than they earn from carrying other search and contextual ads on their own sites. Some advertisers dislike the idea, feeling it's unfair or wrong. Some advertisers don't mind, figuring they'll take traffic however they can get it. As for users, some might get turned off from doing a search, seeing ads, then clicking to a page that has the same ads again. This session explores these and other issues with search arbitrage.

Search Engine Friendly Design
How can you build a web site from the ground up that pleases both crawler-based search engines and your visitors? Discover how "search engine friendly" design can tap into free traffic from search engines. This session is especially suited for beginners who need an overview of important design issues to keep in mind. More technical design issues are covered in the Successful Site Architecture session on Day 2.

Search Engine Q&A On Links
Have questions about links? In this session, search engine representatives provide answers to the audience. Be sure to have prepared yourself by attending other link-oriented sessions earlier in the conference.

Search Term Research & Targeting
The bedrock to success with search engines is understanding which search terms to target. Fail in that and your audience may never find you. This session covers ways to undertake search term research that is crucial to succeeding with your search engine marketing efforts, whether that be via free or paid listings.

SEM For Non-Profits & Charities
Can search drive donations to your cause? What special strategies and tips should non-profits and charities consider when approaching search marketing? Are there any benefits or freebies open to you in the search world, based on your status? Learn more at this session.

SMO: Social Media Optimization
Community-built web sites, the popular Wikipedia and new sites allowing content being shared through "tagging" can be a great way to tap into links and search-driven traffic. This session looks at some social media services and strategies to tap into them in an appropriate manner.

Shopping Search Tactics
Learn how content from your ecommerce or merchant site can -- and should! -- be included in shopping search engines.

Site Clinic
This interactive session takes volunteers from the audience and examines their web sites live to provide general feedback about improving them to gain more traffic from search engines. It happens at the end of Day 3 and twice on Day 4. Attend whatever session is most convenient!

Social Search Overview
Humans are hot again, when it comes to search. But this time, it's not the old school method of using a small group of human editors to categorize the web. Instead, search engines are tapping into human knowledge more widely through tagging, click through tracking, search history features and other methods. Learn about the social search revolution that's underway, in this session.

Successful Site Architecture
Learn to successfully architect your site for search engines and how specific page elements and design technologies may impact your ability to gain good organic listings. Covers topics such as directory and file structure, server-side includes (SSIs), 404 error trapping, JavaScript, robots.txt use, frames, secure area usage, and much more. Toward the end of the session, volunteers from the audience will have their sites examined to see how changes could be made to their site architecture and design to increase search engine traffic, as time allows It's highly recommended for those new to search engine marketing to have previously attended the "Search Engine Friendly Design" session on Day 1.

Usability & SEO: Two Wins For The Price Of One
Build a user-friendly site and chances are you've also built a search engine friendly site. Learn how good usability can help your human visitors plus bring in the search traffic.

Vendor Chat On Measuring Success
Vendors from major web analytics services each cover different metrics challenges plus answer questions about measuring success and their tools in general.

Video Search Optimization
Producing video content? There are video search engines that specialize in gathering up your video and making it available to searchers seeking such content. This session looks at how to make your video more visible in these specialized services.

Web Analytics & Measuring Success Overview
How do you know if you've been successful with search engines? You can check your "rank" at search engines for particular keywords, analyze log files to see the actual terms people used to reach your web site or make the ultimate jump and "close the loop" by measuring sales conversions and return-on-investment (ROI). This panel explores ways to measure success and what statistics you should really care about.

Working With Ad Agencies
Despite the acquisitions, there remain plenty of pure play SEM shops that stand independent from traditional ad agencies. This session looks at how SEM firms can survive and thrive in the ad agency world through partnerships, coexisting and other means.

Working With Clients
Clients come to you for SEM advice then have a litany of reasons for why the can't implement even the simplest of search engine friendly recommendations. Or, if they do take your advice, the department you're working with gets into a standoff with another one. Or, it turns out the goals they thought they wanted to achieve were the wrong ones. This session looks at issues like these and others, with the aim on how to help you help your clients better. It's also a good opportunity for anyone outsourcing for SEM work to understand how to be a great partner in the process.

Writing For Search Engines
To please search engines, you need to be using the keywords you want to be found for. However, you also need to write in a way that pleases human visitors. Learn how to do both, a winning combination that brings you visitors and converts them into customers. Toward the end of the session, volunteers from the audience will have their sites reviewed to see how copy could be better crafted to please search engine ranking algorithms as well as human visitors, as time allows.

For more information regarding exhibit space or sponsorship opportunities contact our Sales Department by completing this form or call Frank Fazio at 203-295-0052.