I think anyone who has ever attended a conference before, whether it be trade/industry related or online related, probably has a pretty good idea of what the event was like… as for the play-by-play, you’ve come to the right place.
For starters, the first thing that hit me was the complete and utter lack of signage - Dave and I traveled by train and took the infamous “skyway” walkway from union station to the conference center itself, and upon entry we were surrounded by
The sign-in process went quite smoothly, and I was impressed by the professionalism of the staff - however, I was slightly disappointed at the level of free swag given out. I can’t complain too much, since our tickets were free, however those who shelled out the big bucks didn’t seem to have received anything different. Considering a full conference pass costs almost $2000, I would have expected to see some impressive giveaways, contests or just some plain old t-shirts. Instead, we got a notebook and Seth Goodwin’s book “The Dip”, which I’m looking forward to digging into later this week.
Unfortunately due to a mix-up, we arrived too late to attend the keynote speech (there was no keynote speech on day one - Dave) and the first panel discussions, so we managed to slip into the expo area as soon as it opened at 10am for a quick look around. As Dave mentioned, we were both a little surprised by how few businesses were represented here, and I can honestly say it was maybe 1/8th the size of any other convention I’ve ever attended. There were probably no more then 20 companies represented including the big search engines, however a ticket to the expo floor is only $25, and I should point out there were plenty of free drinks (soda & coffee) - and if you came during lunch, there were plenty of boxed meals available. Mine was a tasty grilled veggie sandwich, so if you shelled out the $25 I don’t think you would have been overly disappointed, and many of the vendors were very open to setting up demos or trials for us to review their products. As a blogger, it would be a good way to make contacts without spending a lot of coin.
When it came to the panel discussions, I left with very mixed emotions, mostly because we received free press passes which makes it difficult to consider the event from the perspective of someone who paid the full conference price. After all, if I learned 1 or 2 small things it was worth the train fare, but if I paid $2000 it would be a different story - so I will do my best to remain objective.
At 10:45am I attended the Keyword Research panel: Purpose, Tools, and Tactics. This panel discussion was perhaps the biggest disappointment for me of the entire day, not that the speakers didn’t speak well or there were any technical issues, it just seemed to me that they took the “Purpose” in “Purpose, Tools, and Tactics” a little too much to heart, and ultimately spent most of their time telling us why keyword research was important. The “Tools” discussion was pretty basic, covering the common tools of overture, word tracker and keyword discovery, along with a single slide showing a list of 10 or so names of tools. Unfortunately, nowhere along the line did anyone tackle the really big issues in keyword research - I’m not the only one to feel this way either, as I spoke with several others who attended the same panel and they also felt let down.
What really touched me, however, was how all 4 panelists seemed mostly there to advertise their own company’s services. Of course, Microsoft did a full 15 minute talk about how great adCenter is, and Ken Jurina did an interesting discussion on how to use keywords to find unexpected trends in people and products. However, when asked how he actually came up with his lists, he responded along the lines of “proprietary products and api’s”. If I had walked into this discussion as a total newbie, I could perhaps have walked away having learned something, but for anyone who has attempted keyword research before, there really was nothing useful presented at all.
My suggestion for future events would be to continue having Christine Churchill do her excellent presentation on why keyword research is important, and then have some attendees give ideas for industries or niches to research - and then have the panel go over their ideas of using tools that anyone can access to do actual research… and then keep companies like Epiar (who was showing us something we can’t use anyway) or Microsoft (who was obviously selling their own product) out of the panel altogether. I hate saying it, because I actually really enjoyed Epiar’s presentation, but I just don’t see how it was relevant since we can’t actually take what was said and apply it.
After lunch, I attended the “Search Engine Friendly Design” panel; this discussion was perhaps the best of the entire event for me. I can’t say I actually learned anything, but Google’s representative, Adam Lasnik, kept the talk rather interesting. His title of Search Evangelist at first sounds funny, but when you hear him speak he reminds me of some of those southern pastors I occasionally used to see on TV - his presentation itself was pretty standard, but he added a lot to the Q & A. Afterward, unfortunately it was at this time when my question about our Ip filtering on the classified sites ended up misunderstood by a number of the audience as anti-European and anti-American, which garnered me a few looks and comments in the later events I attended.
Overall, the biggest confirmation I walked away with was that our Ip filtering very well could be the cause of our banning problems - and that in the case of our fan sites, we need a 2nd form of navigation due to the graphic buttons in the design. Neither idea was really new, but it was nice to be able to ask questions and get answers from someone from Google, instead of in a forum where you never can be sure how accurate the information is.
One interesting note, I never considered how much trouble French Canadian companies were having branching out. Because their customer base is mostly another language than the areas they are expanding to, and language selection splash screens essentially kill their ability to get spidered, I could almost feel the frustration coming from several company rep’s as they pleaded for help, since their bosses won’t allow them to launch separate websites or make any fundamental changes.
Things seemed to improve in the afternoon with a pretty interesting presentation on converting visitors into buyers. Up until this moment I had been somewhat curious about Google’s new website optimizer program, and while I’m not sure how useful it would be to our business, it’s definitely an interesting idea and Tom Leung spoke very well.
Essentially, you give Google a set of changes (title, text and images.. oh my) and it randomly displays the changes to your traffic, all the while tracking if the changes accomplish certain goals, be it newsletter sign ups, or purchases, etc. I can definitely see affiliate marketers loving this program.
Holly Buchanan also did an excellent presentation on the different buying mindsets, and how different images, etc., appeal to different people. I will have to dig into my notes and write a post on her ideas later!
Dustin Rideout also had some interesting things to say on how RIM is accomplishing its online marketing goals, however his presentation was geared more towards corporate views and not really something the little guy can put to use. Still, congratulations on being so young and accomplishing so much!
The most interesting panelist however was Nigel Ravenhill - he initially came across as rather geeky, but the facts he presented showing the effects of trust badges on sales definitely warrants an article of its own, so great job Nigel.
The final presentation I attended was Linkbaiting and Widgets: Viral Bag o’ Tricks.
Dave and I have very different views on how good this panel was. Guillaume Bouchard talked about French social media networks, and while he spoke well, I was left asking “why?” The sites discussed had so few members and traffic, and were so susceptible to spam, that I was constantly writing ‘SPAM ME!!’ on my notes.
Definitely, Rebecca Kelley was the biggest highlight for me. Though I wasn’t too impressed with her case-study type of presentation, I continue to have an odd desire for muffins ever since.
I did learn something interesting about Seomoz though - as popular as they are, they game the system to some extent, giving their social marketing pieces a boost by using “friends” with very influential digg accounts to help their stories get on page 1. Obviously the stories still have to be good, however it ruined the magic finding out they use something the average guy can’t replicate.
Greg Jarboe’s presentation was definitely the most informative; quite possibly the first really, really useful panelist I saw all day, and once again he truly deserves an article all his own. Essentially, he was the first person to really sit down and lay out how the average person can try.
Overall:
Taken at face value, the event is a waste of time, however it really depends on your situation - if you are attending to network and make contacts, then it could very likely be worth every penny and then some. But, if you just go to check out the presentations, hoping to learn something from the panelists, your time and money would be better spent on buying SEObook from Aaron Wall and reading it carefully.
