Avinash keynote speech at SES London 2010

Main points of discussion (Divided into 4 Acts):

Act 1 – Break down data

Analytics has many rows/columns of data and it’s crucial to weed out the the most important data. Top ten rows of branded keyword data is not the majority of traffic, need to focus on the bulk of data (which includes the largest volume) and analyze it.  Most volume lies in long tail. Using tag clouds can help understand keyword relations, and determining if your website is generating a good balance of organice trafic (long tail vs. short tail; branded vs. non-branded).

Act 2 – Outcomes!

Creating goals with economic values can help lead your clients in the right direction, focusing them on what’s important and what’s not.  Actions such as downloads, e-mail signups, clicking on ads, viewing more than one page, should all be turned into goals with a monetary value (even if it’s a relative value).

Act 3 – Think Long Tail (”Impression Virgins”)

The great thing about long tail non branded search queries is that they are made by people who have yet to decide on what website they want to visit. They are still exploring, looking for the most relevant result on the SERPS. It is our job, as analysts and as SEOs,  to have our results displayed and pages optimized. These are visitors that have yet to make branded short tail visits, they are in a much more preliminary phase of the buying cycle.  Avinash gave an example of HMV, and search based keyword tool, which I will write a separate post about in the near future. Stay tuned, priceless info.

Act 4 – Attribution of Clicks

One of the million dollar questions asked by companies and analysts  is:
Which medium should get credit for a conversion? For example, a visitor may view an ad multiple times, visit the website a few times, click on an organic result, later click on a ppc result, then finally click on a newsletter received by e-mail , at last making a conversion. In this process (or buying cycle),  all of the above mediums had a helping hand in the conversion. So who should get the credit? How do we know where to allocate our ad spend dollars? These questions are all very valid… Stay tuned for a separate post on this issue, the answer may save you a lot of time and money.

Overall, I really enjoyed the info and the way that it was presented. And who knew that later that day Efrat and I would get a more up close and personal session with Avinash.

PPC or SEO? The Ultimate Search Marketing Battle

Another session worth mentioning was called “PPC or SEO? The Ultimate Search Marketing Battle.” This panel was manned by some of the most well know personas in the online marketing arena.
On the SEO side: Ralph Tegtmeier, David Naylor, Rand Fishkin.
On the PPC side: Andrew Goodman, Paul Mead

Ralph Tegtmeier, David Naylor, Rand Fishkin, Paul Mead, Andrew Goodman (sitting from left to right)

The discussion was pretty lively, with Rand heating things up and stressing the growth potential and creativity within the SEO world. Naylor and Tegtimeier shared their fare share of wisdom, with Goodman and Mead firing back with substantial PPC efficiency evidence.

Questions Anyone?

When time was up, the audience had a chance to ask questions. I asked if  SEO will still be a part of first page results in the years to come, as Google has been increasingly pushing PPC results, video/image results, real time search results, product search results, and business local results. Naylor replied that he believes that pretty soon all of Google’s first page results will be paid. Rand said that Google is constantly testing, and it seems to me that he believes SEO has a bright future ahead.

Ohad Marom (me) with Rand Fishkin, CEO, SEOmoz.org

Cherry on Top – Up Close and Personal
with Avinash

At the end of the day, Efrat and I were invited by Alan Wrafter from Google to the Google UK office in order to join the GAAC agencies in a more informal session with Avinash. Avinash disclosed some info about the future of Google Analytics and tools that are being developed to help analysts get a better overview of important data.

Efrat Ner-Gaon, Avinash Kaushik, and Ohad Marom

Local Pub with GAAC Forum and Alan Wrafter

The evening was capped off with beers at a local pub with all the GAAC’s and Alan.

Efrat Ner-Gaon, Alan Wrafter (Google), Ohad Marom

A long and fruitful first day… What’s in store for us tomorrow?

Following the success it had early last year SphinnCon is coming back to Jerusalem, on March 7, 2010.

SphinnCon Israel is the premier networking event designed for SEOs, SEMs, SMOs and affiliate marketers to exchange ideas, influence the industry and build their networks.

Hosted by Barry Schwartz, it will be held at the Jerusalem College of Technology. Make sure you register early and not be among those who couldn’t get a seat last time.

During this one day event you will be able to join sessions on SEO, PPC, Web Analytics, Social Media and much more. With both global and local experts in search marketing, including representatives from Google, Search Engine Land and other well-known companies – there is nothing like this event anywhere.

Sponsored by the Jerusalem College of Technology, the tickets are only $50 per attendee, but space is limited to 200 attendees.

Compucall Web Marketing is among the sponsors, and Mr. Ophir Cohen, CEO, will be speaking at the event.

Don’t miss out, follow this link to find out more details and book a seat.

Then something happened. I came across a post on Outspoken Media written by Lisa Barone that talked about personal branding in SEO and the race to  follow the SEO Stars. I suggest you read it and read the comments too. Very worthwhile. I even learned a new word: Scoble. In any case, where it took me was what I took back from SMX West 2009 in Santa Clara and how it turned out to be much more rewarding than I thought because of the personal branding.

So when I flew off to SMX my expectations were mixed and completely unclear. I’d read about SES, SMX, PubCon, Adtech and to tell you the truth, I couldn’t tell you which one I could take more from. Then something unexpected happened, my pitch to be a speak on Up Close with Google Maps & Local was accepted and I found myself booking a 22 hours flight to Santa Clara.

My time at the convention was great, the panels were strong (most of them), I got to meet some great people and finally introduce myself after I’d been sending them various comments on Twitter. Before I knew it I was back in Tel-Aviv at work playing catch-up.

I didn’t bring back any clients, I didn’t brink back any big contacts (although I did make some relatively strong connections with some affiliates vendors). I did get to speak to Matt Cutts about a problem which mysteriously worked itself out 2 weeks later (If it was you Matt then thank you).

So what did I come away with? Great contacts in the SEO field. David Mihm, of getlisted.org, held a little local networking get together followed by burgers at In-&-Out Burgers (Yes Matt they were really good) and later on we crashed in the bar area of the Hyatt hotel (The permanent fixtures were Lisa Barone, David Mihm, Matt McGee and Eric Lander a bunch more just rotated in and out) . In that space of time between the get together and the Hyatt bar, I literally reached out and managed to finally introduce myself properly to all the people that make the SEO/SEM information bubble flow. We laughed, we drank, we smuggled beer out of the lame radio party and we laughed some more. That was the best quality time I had “branding” myself in the entire 3 days that SMX was held.

So yeah, I learned great things at the panels and I really enjoyed speaking at SMX as a first timer, but what really did it for me was the ability to connect with the people that really have been keeping me in the loop about what’s going on 7-10 hours back in the SEO world. The people who still keep me in the loop and magically respoond now when I message them on Twitter .

Should you go to one of the shows? Absolutely! If only to mingle and mix it up a little and get a feel for who and what your peers are about, it’s worth it. It also helps that they can finally see who you are.

Props go to Barry Schwartz of Rusty Brick for the picture. Thanks Barry.

To make a long story short, I realized that in order to properly SEO Wordpress, then what you really need to do is keep it simple. Have a sound platform or theme, research and write great content, and share it with the community relationships you’ve developed and are actively developing.

Here’s the presentation I gave, Wordpress & SEO, slides only. If you have any questions, please share them with me. I’ll be uploading the video later on when tech gets it done.

Finally a relevant professional affiliates conference in Israel. For years, me and my colleagues have been flying abroad to attend professional conferences in various cities in the States, London, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Beijing, Shanghai and Sydney. We are all used to spending $5000 and more to attend each one of these conferences where 50% of the attendees are speaking Hebrew. Affilicon, the Affiliates Conference is planning to attract 100s of vendors and affiliates and the agenda leads me to believe that the planned conference will be as good as the ones I have attended abroad.  There is no reason why the land where Empire Online, 888 and Playtech were born and where some of the largest affiliates exist will not be where the best professional conferences will not be held. I hear that around 100 attendees are due to arrive from abroad.

I strongly recommend you to attend the seminar. Look to www.affilicon.com.

See ya there