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 both your 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.

Link Building Tactics, Tools & Techniques

Link Building Workshop

Monday, April 9, 2007

Spaces Limited

8:00am – 12:00 Noon

Need links? In order to rank well and successfully promote your online business, you need an effective link building program as part of your over-all SEO strategy.

This link building workshop will help you understand and manage your link building campaigns by providing you with the knowledge to create a proven, practical and creative link marketing campaigns. You’ll walk away understanding why you need certain links, how to find them, and how to effectively use links to promote your brand and your search engines rankings.

This workshop is for anyone responsible for website promotion… SEO’s, SEM’s, bloggers, web designers, and/or business owners. This workshop will provide information on the most successful and current link building “tips and tricks” out there.

After attending this workshop, you will be able to:

• Understand why search engines value links and
• How link popularity and Page Rank works
• Weather shifts in the search engine algorithms
• Learn which linking schemes the search engines frown on and
• Which linking tactics provide the most relevant one-way links
• Learn how to attract links through content generation and how to
• Use the new social media sites to gather links
• Leave with clear link building methodologies and online resources to help you in your future marketing endeavors.

1. Why Links are valuable
   1. Definitions and concepts
   2. Why the search engines value them
   3. Page Rank facts and fiction
   4. Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI), Trust Rank and other link analysis papers
2. Engine Buzz
   1. what they’re saying and how to use it
3. Link Spam and What To Avoid
4. How to Conduct a Link Analysis
   1. What to look for
   2. Free and paid tools to help
   3. Finding those authority sites
5. Optimizing Your Internal Links
6. Linking Tactics
   1. Reclaiming Links
   2. Competitive Linking
   3. Understanding RSS
   4. Authority Linking
      • Finding authority sites
      • Becoming one
   5. Content Generation
      • Using Blogs and Wiki’s
      • Writing articles
   6. Directories & DMOZ
   7. Reciprocals
   8. Working the Media/Press Releases
   9. Trust Links
   10. Social Networking Sites
       • Digg, Delicious
       • The Answer Sites, Etc.
7. Paid Links
   1. Text ads
   2. Hosted content

Debra O’Neil-Mastaler is President of Alliance-Link, an interactive marketing agency based in Williamsburg Virginia and focused on providing custom link building campaigns and link training.

In business since 2000, Debra offers a common sense approach to link building by combining traditional sales and promotional strategies with effective online search engine marketing tactics.

In addition to client projects and link training for Fortune 500 companies as well as a number of top SEO firms in the USA, UK and Canada, Debra is a featured guest speaker at the Search Engine Strategies Conference, has been a session presenter at the High Ranking Seminars, guest blogs on Search Engine Land and frequently contributes articles and interviews to many SEO/SEM related websites

Ms. Mastaler holds a B.A. in Business Administration/Marketing and worked for over 15 years as a Sales and Promotions manager for a Fortune 50 company prior to starting her own marketing firm. In addition, she has written widely on search engine marketing for publications including her link building blog The Link Spiel.

In October 2005 Debra was elected to the Board of Directors of the Search Engine Marketing Association of North America as Secretary/Treasurer where she served until August 2006.

Using Analytics to Increase Search Effectiveness

Search & Analytics Workshop

Monday, April 9, 2007

Spaces limited

8:00am – 12:00 Noon

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, Social, Image, Audio and Video Search Engines

Monday, April 9, 2007

Spaces Limited

1:00pm – 5:00pm

According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 50 million people get news online on a typical day. Yahoo! News and Google News are in the top 10 US news and media websites. Millions view videos or listen to podcasts daily. According to Pew Internet & American Life Project more than half (55%) of all online American youths ages 12-17 use online social networking sites. Technorati reports that 100,000 new blogs are created daily, and 65,000 new videos are uploaded daily to YouTube. Astute marketers and public relations professionals combine these media in their media relations and marketing efforts. They are getting more attention for their news and creating additional traffic-driving sources for their websites. Are you leveraging the value of your digital assets across all of these opportunities? If you are not, you may be missing potential traffic.

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, social, image, audio and video search engines.

Participants should bring a wireless laptop computer. The hands-on portion of the workshop will also be more valuable if each participant can access the Internet.

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

• Press releases
• RSS feeds
• Social bookmarks
• Images
• Audio files
• 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, MySpace, Digg, Del.icio.us, Flickr, Podzinger, YouTube and the growing variety of other sites.

In this workshop, you will learn how to create optimized press releases and social media press releases, distribute them to news, blog and social search engines, and measure your results.

During 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;
• Optimize image, audio, video and other multimedia content to include with your releases and on your site
• Create and optimize RSS feeds to distribute your news, audio and video content
• Conduct keyword research that will yield the most relevant tags for your content and how to use them
• Use press release distribution service crawled by Yahoo! News and Google News; and
• How to get others to carry your message in blogs and social media

Measure results of your campaign – whether your objective is to build brand awareness, increase web site traffic, generate sales leads, or sell products online.

Greg Jarboe is the president and co-founder of SEO-PR, a search engine optimization and public relations firm specializing in press release SEO. Danny Sullivan has praised SEO-PR for “focusing on search as a public relations tool.”

SEO-PR’s clients include The Christian Science Monitor, Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO), Southwest Airlines, SuperPages.com, and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. SEO-PR has won the Golden Ruler Award from the Institute for Public Relations for “using new media and new techniques to tie public relations to sales.”

SEO-PR is also one of companies developing Newsforce, an integrated suite of press release SEO tools. Newsforce combines a keyword research tool, press release SEO tool, link building tool, and news search engine ranking report.

Greg Jarboe is a frequent speaker at Search Engine Strategies and a guest writer for Search Engine Watch. Mike Grehan’s E-Marketing-News named Greg to its “Search Marketing Dream Team.” And Gord Hotchkiss called Greg “the guru of cranking up Web visibility through effective optimization of press releases” in MediaPost’s Search Insider Blog.

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. He lives in Acton, Massachusetts, is a former Chairman of the Acton Board of Selectmen, and won two New England Press Association awards as editor of The Acton Minute-Man. Contact: Jamie.odonnell@seo-pr.com 415-643-8947

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.

Contact: amanda@searchingforprofit.com 617-242-0328

Viral Marketing & Link Baiting

Viral Marketing Workshop

Monday, April 9, 2007

Spaces Limited

1:00pm – 5:00pm

In this workshop, you will gain a better understanding of the concepts, ideas and implementations that are required to launch a viral marketing or link baiting campaign. You’ll learn why the Internet has created a unique environment that allows for rapid, inexpensive word of mouth marketing and how you can harness that environment to promote your own products and services.

The workshop will give real life examples of both good and bad viral marketing campaigns as well are sharing insight on how your business can capitalize on your competitor’s viral disasters. This workshop will also focus on how you can make use of consumer generated media environments like social media outlets, blog marketing, discussion forums and more to both monitor and expand your company’s online persona.

Consumer generated media (the very core of viral marketing) is the fastest growing form of media online today. It’s only a matter of time until someone online talks about your business. This course will not only help prepare you in the ways to respond to the conversation, it will help you learn how to shape that conversation to your advantage.

This workshop is for marketers and business owners that want to learn more about harnessing the power of viral marketing to build buzz about their business online. It also covers the topic of link baiting and explains how unique and creative content development can help launch both viral and link baiting campaigns

After attending this half-day workshop, you will have a solid base level understanding of concepts that are vital to viral marketing and link baiting including:

• Why viral marketing is such a cost-effective endeavor
• How to Take Advantage of Competitor’s Viral Missteps
• Creating the Ideas That Market Themselves
• The Dangers of Viral Marketing Gone Bad
• The Impact of Social Media and Consumer Generated Media
• The Importance of Managing Your Online Reputation
• Tracking the Impact of Viral Marketing or Link Baiting Campaigns

During this workshop, you will learn:

• How the growth of consumer generated media on the Internet has created the idea environment for rapid word of mouth marketing.
• What defines a good viral marketing campaign
• How (and where) to plant the seeds of a viral marketing or link baiting campaign so that it begins to spread on it’s own
• What products and services are available to help start and manage the buzz
• How to identify the ideal target audience for your campaign
• How to take advantage of blogs and other forms of consumer generated media to generate positive buzz about your company

Jennifer Laycock is the Editor-in-Chief of Search Engine Guide, an online publication aimed at educating Small Business owners about search engine marketing, viral marketing and online reputation management. Jennifer also operates as an independent online marketing consultant specializing in organic search marketing and viral marketing. Her clients have included companies like Verizon, American Greetings, Highlights for Children and Option-Line, a national crisis-pregnancy hotline. She is also the author of the popular e-books “The Small Business Guide to Search Engine Marketing” and “Zero Dollars, a Little Talent and Thirty Days.”

Known for her down–to–earth style of teaching and a special focus on educating small business owners, Jennifer focuses on inspiring companies with new ideas without leaving their heads spinning with techno-talk.

Jennifer is a requested speaker and has served as both a panelist and a moderator at Incisive Media’s popular Search Engine Strategies conferences, the eComXpo virtual trade show, Microsoft’s Small Business Summit and several local search marketing training seminars. In 2005, Jennifer delivered the keynote presentation at the MIVA Small Business Conference. She has also been interviewed and quoted by a variety of publications including The Financial Times, USA Today, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and Entrepreneur magazine.

Creating an Effective Social Media Strategy

Social Media Workshop

Monday, April 9, 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.