Give Me Some Feedback On Potential SMX Advanced Sessions

Mar 18, 2010 at 4:11pm ET by

Doing the agenda for our SMX Advanced search marketing conference is always my biggest challenge. The conference, happening June 8-9 in Seattle, is designed for advanced search marketers, so you want something that will really wow them. I’ve got my preliminary agenda coming together to post next week, but I’m looking for a little feedback. Here’s what I’m thinking, and I’d love comments from others.

SMX Advanced will have an SEO track on both days. I know that I’ll be having the sessions below (better titles to come, but you’ll get the general idea):

  • SEO for Google & Bing compared
  • Advanced link building tips and techniques
  • Killer SEO tools
  • Mega Session: Ask The SEOs tough questions

I’ve got three additional spots for SEO-oriented sessions. I’ve got four contenders, which are:

  • Improving site performance/speed
  • Avoiding malware/hacking issues (as these can kill your rankings dead)
  • Tapping into rich snippets
  • Can you build it better — a review of important on-the-page techniques that go beyond the commonly known

Which would you like to see. Or is there a killer SEO panel you don’t see that I should be considering?

We’ll also have two days devoted to paid search issues. Panels I’m considering (all of which will be at a high level/advanced skill set):

  • Keyword matching issues
  • Ad copy testing and techniques
  • Landing page testing and improvement
  • Conversion beyond the landing page
  • Measuring attribution
  • Paid search and mobile
  • Round-up of amazing PPC tactics
  • Quality Score tips

Only seven can make it, and that’s eight. Again, got a favorite  you want to lobby for? Something key that you think should be there? Please comment!

As for our social media track, I’m looking at this:

  • Social media tools
  • Twitter for advanced search marketers
  • Facebook for advanced search marketers
  • Tapping into user generated content

Four slots — four ideas — but think there’s a better social media session I should be considering? Let me know!

We’ll also have a track about business issues for search marketers. More on that when the agenda goes up.

Remember, you can book the pre-agenda rate through this Saturday. Registration is already way up than previous years — over 35% of our available tickets have now been sold. The show has sold out every year, so book early not just to save but also to ensure you get a ticket.

Related Topics: SEM Industry: Search Marketing Expo - SMX

About The Author: is editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land. He’s a widely cited authority on search engines and search marketing issues who has covered the space since 1996. Danny also oversees Search Engine Land’s SMX: Search Marketing Expo conference series. He maintains a personal blog called Daggle (and maintains his disclosures page there). He can be found on Facebook, Google + and microblogs on Twitter as @dannysullivan.

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Read before commenting! We welcome constructive comments and allow any that meet our common sense criteria. This means being respectful and polite to others. It means providing helpful information that contributes to a story or discussion. It means leaving links only that substantially add further to a discussion. Comments using foul language, being disrespectful to others or otherwise violating what we believe are common sense standards of discussion will be deleted. You can read more about our comments policy here.
  • http://www.footinmouthdisease.net footinmouth

    I don’t see anything about Local Search…is that on purpose? Are there no advanced ideas on leveraging local + social + paid search etc?

  • http://twitter.com/Jeff_Martin Jeff_Martin

    Hey Danny – I didn’t pitch a YouTube session due to new client work. However, I would recommend a session here. The wealth of possibilities for visibility is so strong with YouTube:
    top video site
    top search engine (which feeds into the #1 search engine)
    top social media site (although many may not get this)

    There are quite a few advanced techniques, tools and strategies that we just didn’t have time to touch upon in Santa Clara. Right after we wrapped YouTube asked “How did you guys figure all that out? I didn’t think anyone knew that stuff.” We also had some great feedback afterward – some of which I RT ‘ed to you and Chris. If you want to do one let me know and I can help present/mod/get speakers.

    Jeff

  • http://www.googleandblog.com/ Michael Martin

    Gotta have an advanced mobile marketing session perhaps SEO for mobile app awareness since developers complain about visibility in their respective app stores/markets.

    Social media should be more forward focused as well with location based social media such as FourSquare as it builds off the SXSW momentum – this is a rich advertising opportunity tied to mobile.

  • http://searchengineland.com/ Danny Sullivan

    Footinmouth, I did leave off local search. It’s important, but we cover it plenty at our SMX West and East shows, and there’s only so much room. But I’ll give it some more thought.

    Jeff, yeah, I was wondering about adding something on YouTube. Maybe….

    Michael, I do have the mobile ads/app session but will look at that more.

  • http://www.twitter.com/olivier_amar Olivier Amar

    Hi Danny I agree with Footinmouth, with Local taking up so much of the above the fold real estate in the results, I don’t understand how it’s not there. I understand it gets tons of coverage, but for the advanced marketer, there’s more. It would be great if it was actually done as a clinic with LBC accounts open. We could see the how the local people go about optimizing. We all have our own methods.

  • http://www.bgtheory.com Brad Geddes

    Are you skipping analytics on purpose?

    Something about using analytics & ppc together or
    how to use analytics to increase your seo efforts could be useful

    It’s also easy to add a analytics speaker to the landing page session to balance out the tools and examples.

  • http://searchengineland.com/ Danny Sullivan

    Brad, I saw analytics as part of the attribution, landing page and ad creative panels, definitely. You gotta have analytics to do any of that. But maybe a standalone one. Adding one on the SEO side may make sense.

    Olivier, local is very important, absolutely. It’s just my sense that the marketers who deal with local at this particular event are smaller in number than at our other shows. But I’ll still consider it.

  • dmelick

    Danny,

    A couple thoughts.

    1) – I think a session about how to effectively measure your campaigns, either individually (just SEO) or integrated (SEO, PPC, Social, and maybe display) would be really valuable. What should you measure, what is the data telling you, and what should you do about it. Also maybe something about what should be communicated to the exec suite. To me this is a critical issue that most of us don’t have a handle on.

    2) – Optimizing Social – I think it would be really useful to hear how folks are taking advantage of the Social marketing train and driving traffic, or brand awareness for their business, utilizing SEO as an integral part of their strategy.

    3) – Monetizing Social – I’m not sure this is the conference for it, but I’m sure there is interest in understanding how the executive suite is evaluating social campaigns. How are folks driving value for the business? Reach, views, site visits, etc. And how did they sell the concept to get the budget in the first place?

  • http://seogadget.co.uk/ richardbaxterseo

    I have a strong preference for link building and front end development best practices (build a better site, rich snippets). I’m ok with or without a local panel, and least excited about the social media ideas in the comments. Hope that helps!

  • http://www.alexlcohen.com digitalalex

    My vote is for:
    Keyword matching issues
    Round-up of amazing PPC tactics
    Quality Score tips

    Thanks,
    -Alex

  • http://www.verticalrail.com Lynbat

    I would like to see advanced training for e-commerce marketing, possibly with a line of Data Feed Optimization and Comparison Shopping Engine Management.

    Would be interesting and useful to bring to the conversation the array of different shopping cart platforms that are geared towards shopping engine account management and those that are not.

    Google Product Search should be of major focus.

    I could see at LEAST a half day of specialization on this topic with 4 or 5 sessions.

  • Duane Forrester

    Planning & Futurproofing around SEO – specifically what the future of search looks like an dhow businesses need to cover multiple areas to succeed…

    FWIW, in your keep/drop list – drop rich snippets, keep the others. Time left yet to crack the rich snippet nut down the road.

  • http://www.netmagellan.com/ Ash Nallawalla

    I will probably not get the budget to fly across the Pacific to any of the US SMX events but I’ll add my vote for Local Search as it’s relevant to SMEs anywhere. If you count all the conferences where it could get a guernsey, you’ll find it under-represented.

    On the other hand, a “very important” topic such as “advanced link building” is more likely to leave attendees with a “well, I knew most of that” feeling afterwards.

    As for Social Media, the spin I’d be looking for is which SM tools have a direct SEO benefit and which ones are important but have an indirect benefit.

  • http://www.vacationroost.com ryhutch

    I am torn between these two:

    # Tapping into rich snippets
    # Can you build it better — a review of important on-the-page techniques that go beyond the commonly known

    and would love to hear both of them. I think rich snippets is a hidden gem, but would lean more towards important on-the-page techniques (as long as there is something new there that i dont already know. i could easily see this one being a “ya, ya, ya” session if it wasnt crazy good).

    I would ditch the “conversion beyond the landing page” in the PPC. Thats a whole other usability, design, UX discussion that would be too big for one short class/session.

    Also, for the social media, i would like some of the focus to be on how to integrate all this stuff into a website, rather than stand-alone tools. I think a lot of us that manage large sites/networks want to see good, effective ways to integrate social media & UGC to our sites, and find the best ways to do so.

    Good agenda though. I am excited to attend my 2nd SMX advanced. its right up my ally.

  • http://www.google.com/profiles/burkinaboy Jonathon D. Colman

    Danny, to follow up on Duane’s comment above, your list looks pretty, well, tactically-oriented. Site speed, rich snippets, killer tools? Surely these are all important topics, but none of them get at building SEO/SEM/integrated search strategy.

    It seems to me that an “Advanced” conference should focus on ematier topics than what’s covered in your run-of-the-mill SEO blog. Attendees whould be challenged to grow their perception of their work and the industry as a whole by focusing on planning and strategy. Duane really hits the nail on the head here.

    In-house search marketers who control multi-million dollar budgets aren’t so interested in edging up their landing page conversion by a couple of basis points – they’re focused (or should be focused) on achieving double-digit percentage gains in their revenue while spending less due to a strong strategy that focuses on the integration of search programs rather than siloing them out.

    What do you think? Can we add some complexity and long-term vision to this Advanced conference?

  • http://www.REI.com Lulu

    I’m looking forward to this conference so thank you for asking for feedback.

    To echo a couple of themes from above, a session covering the total search experience (SEM, SEO, CSE, Social Feeds) and how to measure/test this mix would be very helpful. Something that hints at broader strategy in appealing to customers.

    I agree that local is HOT. I think a session that makes the case for investing in a local strategy would be a nice twist on the usual mechanics/tactics approach. I want to know just how big of a market this is, what customers are coming to expect and which horses to bet on in terms of in-house infrastructure and platforms/partners. I think something that covers consumer trends here could also tie into the mobile-local connection.

    Thanks – Lulu

  • http://niftymarketing.com/blog niftymarketing

    Man, Lots of good looking sessions. I see the dilemma with local search and the crowd. You need to fill the sessions and filling a room for local could be difficult given all the subjects that need to be covered. Maybe is is time to extend the conference another half day/ full day to fit in more sessions that could have advanced information. Or a social+local track? Might start small, but gather a very large following. As a paying customer, I am more attracted to SMX Advanced (probably for more of an ego boost thinking I can keep up with the big boys), but would hesitate going if I couldn’t get at least one session on local search since that’s my core subject of love.

    Session choices look great though, and I don’t think I would cut anything for a local search option, but it might make a nice addition in the future as local/social strategies continue to intertwine.

  • http://searchengineland.com/ Danny Sullivan

    Jonathon, yes, I was contemplating adding a “big picture” type of session. We do plenty of those at our SMX West and East shows, where there’s more room to stretch out. Doing one at SMX Advanced means less tactical stuff, which is what I’ve tended to feel the advanced audience wants more. But I was concerned myself that I didn’t have a strategic one, so maybe I’ll bring that in.

  • bad_neighbour

    Of the 3 spots left to fill for teh SEO track I would choose

    # Improving site performance/speed
    # Avoiding malware/hacking issues (as these can kill your rankings dead)
    # Tapping into rich snippets

    Yes I am a ticket holder for this event.

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