Later this afternoon Thomas and I will fly out to Search Engine Strategies in Chicago where I’ll be covering some sessions, doing more video interviews, taking lots of photos and the best parts: learning and networking. I will also be sitting in on the Social Media Optimization panel with Neil, Rand, Andy and Todd.
The session topics I am most interested in involve social media (of course!) as well as video optimization, B2B, big site SEO/SEM, regulated industries and conversions/analytics.
Thomas from TopRank (see his video on YouTube here) will be posting coverage of at least one session per day here at Online Marketing Blog and I will be posting 1-2 per day plus videos and photos. You can see post conference videos here and conference photos here.
It’s amazing to think I only started blogging conferences about a year and a half ago starting with ad:tech Chicago in 2005. In that time traffic to this blog has increased dramatically right along with networking relationships and our business growth. The industry has changed quite a bit in that time as well and blogging conferences like Search Engine Strategies is a great way to share info with people who are not attending and also a valuable method of documenting some of the fast moving history in the search marketing industry.
Here’s a rundown of the sessions Thomas and I will be attending at SES Chicago:
Monday, December 4
9:00am – 10:30am
- Thomas: Vendor Spotlight – latest trends, tools and technologies shaping the interactive marketplace.
- Lee: Video Search Optimization
11:00am – 12:30pm
- Thomas: Drive traffic to your site with Google
- Lee: Business Issues For For The Big SEM Shop
2:00pm – 3:30pm
- Thomas: Podcast & Audio Search Optimization
- Lee: Putting Search Into The Marketing Mix
4:00pm – 5:30pm
- Thomas: Working With Clients
- Lee: ClickZ Forum: Advertising In Social Media
Tuesday, December 5
9:00am- 9:45am
- Lee: Keynote: Jason McCabe Calacanis
10:15am – 11:45am
- Thomas: Link Building Basics
- Lee: B2B Tactics
1:15am – 2:30pm
- Thomas: Duplicate Content & Multiple Site Issues
3:00pm – 4:15pm
- Thomas: Fun With Dynamic Web Sites
4:30pm – 5:45pm
- Thomas: Successful Site Architecture
- Lee: Beyond The Single Site Mentality
Wednesday, December 6
9:00am – 10:15am
- Thomas: Web Analytics & Measuring Success Overview
- Lee: Social Search Overview
11:00am – 12:15pm
- Thomas: Vendor Chat On Measuring Success
- Lee Speaking: SMO: Social Media Optimziation
2:00pm – 3:15pm
- Thomas: Link Baiting & Viral Search Success
- Lee: Converting Visitors Into Buyers
3:45pm – 5:00pm
- Thomas: Blog & Feed Search SEO
- Lee: Search & Regulated Industries
5:15am – 5:45am
- Lee: Keynote: Search In 2006 Danny Sullivan
Thursday, December 7
9:00am – 10:15am
- Thomas: Big Ideas For Small Sites & Small Budgets
- Lee: In House: Big SEO
10:45am – 12:00pm
- Thomas: Ad Copy & Landing Page Clinic
- Lee: Search Engine Q&A On Links
12:30am – 1:45pm
- Thomas: 75 Minute Search Abs
There are a good number of after conference events, although many of them require invites. It’s just not viable for some of the smaller companies to host parties for several thousands conference attendees. This time SEMPO and Yahoo are having events open to everyone on Monday evening and there are two other events on Monday that are invite only. Tuesday there are two private parties and Wednesday there are two. Joe Morin maintains a thread at Search Engine Watch of post conference events.
For some great tips on getting the most out of conferences, be sure to visit Todd’s posts here and here.
Thursday afternoon we’ll fly back to Minnesota so we can get at least one full day of work in for the week. It should be a great conference!
Tag:
Add to 
Bookmark Murdok:
Lee Odden is President and Founder of
TopRank Online Marketing, specializing in organic SEO, blog
marketing and online public relations. He’s been cited as a search
marketing expert by publications including U.S. News & World Report and
The Economist and has implemented successful search marketing programs
with top BtoB companies of all sizes. Odden shares his marketing
expertise at Online Marketing Blog offering
daily news, interviews and best practices.
