SES Chicago 2010 Secrets

The search marketing industry is an exciting place to be, and it truly showed at SES Chicago. From super star SEMs like Avinash Kaushik and David Szetela to lesser known up-and-comers, the presentations were pouring search marketing knowledge all over us.

I was able to capture some of that knowledge and I’m going to give you the advanced highlights. There was a large amount of basic information given too. But it was good to hear even the basic things, just to reassure things we use every day.

Try to follow along; I’m going to give a quick rundown of solid tips, as I would to an internal search team. Google the ideas and learn on your own from here. I’m planting seeds, not opening a super market. I lied, they are not secrets…but it is pretty valuable info.

Attribution: You NEED to give credit where credit is due. If you drive traffic to your site from more than one channel or source, you need to figure out how many channels get credit for the conversion; NOT just the last click. Research this, hire a mathematician, and look at tools from ClearSaleing and Acquisio. Look at your number of visits to conversion in analytics. Higher means longer buying cycle and a greater need for attribution.

PPC Analysis Tip: Report on Net Profit by Match Type. Blow the minds of your clients and blow away the competition by focusing on your most valuable PPC match types.

eCommerce PPC: Measure the economic value of a conversion. Consider the profit margin of the product. Don’t forget about the COGS (cost of goods sold). ROI is the metric most business owners want to see. This is a no-brainer for me since I have been working with and for eCommerce sites for 6 years. But apparently some e-marketers still report on traffic and hits.

MCU Strategy: A lot of search engine marketers use this and it makes me sick when I see it. The Make Crap Up Strategy is rampant in the industry. As a business owner, you need to hold your agency or in-house marketing employees accountable for their numbers and reports.

Remarketing: I’ve bashed Google remarketing and retargeting in the past, but I am now a believer. Conversion rates 2-3 times higher and cost per conversion lower just makes sense. The Nagging Effect really works. Learn about

Content Network: Never have your CN and Search networks in the same campaign! Display is NOT search. People are NOT searching for display or content network ads. It is your job as a marketer to distract the visitor and make them click your link. Match Types do NOT matter. Individual keyword bids do NOT matter. Keep the keyword list from 2-10 words and be Very careful of using negatives.

Content Network Ad Copy: YELL! Do not try to make a hard sale, but DO get the attention of the viewer. Write compelling or shocking copy. Use moving images and high contrast. Soft and competitive offers are the winners.

Quality Score: Very high percentage is based on CTR. New campaign? Start the bid very high on targeted keywords and write amazing ad copy to get a very high “audition CTR”. Smooth sailing from there. If you have low QS in the first day or so – give it a few weeks to work itself out. QS usually creeps up as time goes on for new words and accounts.

Global Websites: Hyper Local wins the race! Have a local country domain name, setup local hosting, and get inbound links from local websites. If I own a .com hosted on a Rackspace server in Arizona with 1000 links from around the US, but sell products in the UK, a local UK site with fewer links will probably outperform me. Local, Local, Local!

More: I’m tired and drained from the conference and trying to do a full week of normal client management, SO I’m not covering everything. If you want to reach out and ASK or Discuss about any of the above or soon to follow topics, let me know. More topics: Ad Copy tips, YouTube SEO, tips, and insight into their search algorithm, Video Sitemap, WordPress Video SEO Plugin, App Store SEO (AEO), Mobile marketing and SEO, SEO UX and Card Sorts, Cookie length based on internal sales cycle, Landing Page Quality Score…and probably a few other things I could go on about.

Overall, I really liked the conference. By writing this out, I see that I did bring a ton of new knowledge back to Milwaukee from Chicago. I don’t think the Midwest gets the credit it deserves for our search marketing efforts. The misconception gives us a greater opportunity to ninja our way into the large markets and to dominate the search world. Any questions…just ask. Happy Bidding!