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.

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