Kate Morris

Remember at SMX Advanced when I was all psyched about the new Ask.com and it’s look and integration? At SES, they have annouced some results from that new look. (Via BruceClay)

How has this changed user behavior?

Ask has seen a huge jump in user satisfaction, a 30 percent drop in users clicking through to the second SERP, 15 percent drop in users sessions with more than one search. Users really are coming and getting what they want in that first page of results.

Just what I thought would happen. Things are getting better for the searcher, but harder for us as search marketers.

Personalized Search. This is what everyone is talking about after the show. Duplicate Content? Nay. Personalized Search is where it’s at right now. Here’s my run down:

Danny Sullivan started with a review of personalized search. Basically, influencers like Google Personalized Home Content (iGoogle), Google Bookmarks, Search History, and Web History all play into what Google knows about you. They then use that to figure out what you like, and what your searches might mean.

For example, a search for ‘dolphins’ might be for the mammal or the football team. Your other searches may give the engine a better idea what you are looking for, serving you better results.

You can opt out of any of this at anytime. And as much as American’s hate being tracked, this is totally opt in. Most people will probably never notice, just think the search engine is just that good.

Yahoo started to do this with Yahoo! MyWeb, but went away to be developed further. Ask MyStuff is in progress as well.

Gord Hotchkiss - Enquiro

• Pre-personalization-everything revolves around the keyword
• Personalization revolves around the user
• Buzz-sites will be an SEO tactic *this could be useful*
• people are going to build sites with content - comparison wizards, content aggregation, research available
• Engines will developing profiling tools to be used by SEO
• Google/Yahoo will purchased social sites

Michael Grey - aka Greywolf

• You don’t need toolbars to gain rankings as some SEOs try to sell you. Can’t dupe people anymore on this, everyone gets the toolbar and can see their site rank REALLY HIGH if they cant to
• With the combination of Data Centers and Personalization - you can’t guarantee anything anymore (I have been staying this since I heard about it)
• PPC is safe aka Google did not do this to create more PPC money but it will happen
• People are addicted; Google is “dumbing down” the user buy not making people do specific searches. The more they trust google, the less they will use other engines.
• Fix it:
  Stop hiding that we are logged in
  be clearer in the results on what is personalized and what isn’t
  make it easy to turn off personalized search
• How to spam personalized search - use social networks

Tim Mayer

• Session based personalization - results based on queries in a session
  problem:(when does the session start and end?)
• Interest based personalization - interests given or searched for
  problem: (people sometime search outside of their interests (amazon marachi)
• Queries are going to get shorter (current average is 2.7)
• SEO Impact- more and better content and results
• Yahoo is investing in social media
  Helping people find and store what they like

Matt Cutts

• The Idea with Personalization: We want to make results better for our user
• Monty Python reference: knights just magically appeared aka personalized search should not be a surprise

Is Personalization the death of SEO? NO (no one raised their hands)

QA

1. Shared computers and personalization
Matt - Google session-izes everything

2. Calling matt out - opting out of personalization maybe unclear
Tim - you could use another search engine

3. Why is the add to my web button on Yahoo so ugly?
Tim - we’ll look into it

4. Will Google co-op be used in personalization?
Matt - I don’t know for sure. Later on down the road things like that and Google Reader will influence personalized search as well.

This session was in a much nicer room than the organic sessions. That was noted many times in the organic side. Danny begged us not to come over here and see the cushiness that the paid side gets. Then justifies it by calling organic the “tough marketers.”

To the session:

Yahoo
Stewart from Yahoo starts out by talking about Panama — blah, blah, we’ve heard about it, we are living it. Move on.

There were some points about Yahoo now revealing invalid clicks (yawn) and domain blocking. But the real news here was the quality based pricing that everyone is now talking about. Apparently advertisers will get discounts for poorer quality clicks. I’d be fascinated to hear what they mean by that. LINK DEAD

More news was about the new API program. There are levels, some more cool stuff … not my thing right now. But you can read more here if need be. Yahoo APIs

MSN
Doug from MSN then started. He focused first on their new guy. The model in all of their new campaigns. He’s supposed to be “marriage material” … “attractive but scrawny” and “not high-matienance.” MSN’s idea here, or that of their marketing team is to get us (webmasters) to propose to them. He is to be the “McDreamy of paid search, just more faithful.”

The most fascinating thing about this section was MSN noted that they need more clicks and quality based ranking. There will be bulk managing, full text search for campaigns (finding things within the platform), campaign import, and favorites.

I’m still waiting for something new …

Google

The part we all wanted to hear, Frederick from Google. I try not to be a psuedo Googler, but they come up with such great things! My favorite is the SMS Notifications he announced. That way if your account is down you know immediately, not just when you next check your work email. Wait, that can have some drawbacks too. I can see it now … “hold on guys, I have to go fix my campaigns” … (leaving a theatre).

And a new one on me. AdWords Editor! You can use this tool to find duplicates, identify poor performing campaigns, and export all the new data into spreadsheets. Loving it! There are also searches now for negative keywords and negative exact! Don’t want just a specific keyword, but want the varitations from it? You can do it now!

And yes, there is more. Now there is a search query report in the report center. you can move around keywords and exclude keywords based on the results of some query. That’s going to be fun to play with.

Ask.com
It’s Ask.com’s turn. Just a boring as the others. I was sad about this, there was nothing of note. And I was looking forward to hearing from Ask.

QA
This was difficult and not really worth it because the people asking questions were in very specific industries and situtations. Not applicable to everyone.

Recommendations for larger clients that want to keep an eye on reputation
Just educate them and assure them that you will be on top of it.

Work with brand evangelists on other sites.

Don’t expect it to get any better.

Blog sponsored by the company instead of by the company. Get an outside person to write it and fund it. **I like this idea**

How would you scale getting back links (link bait)? Is there an easy way?
Get awards and links from those. Long term kind of link building.

Interns with directory submissions and link buying (he then asks “Is Matt here? Crap, he knows all my clients” … which is bad)

No pain no gain. Got to do it by hand. Need to offer value for those linking to you. “The days of pressing buttons is over.”

Offer incentives in affiliate contracts for specific links. *I love this idea*

Get sued.

Anyone have a way of logging into multiple social networking sites at once?
Session manager in Firefox

Accurate Keyword Research Tool
Check out Microsoft’s new tool, Microsoft Ad Labs (funny note, Google changes it to Microsoft Ad Libs … in the past few weeks.

Run AdWords on the keywords to test (eh)

Keyword Discovery
WordTracker

Linkbait: Addthis.com is what was used in the past. But what is too much on a page.
Don’t do that.

Are the links you get from submitting to Digg or Del.ic.ious good?
Yes, because whoever picks it up should be into your topic. It’s the best thing.

It’s the definition of viral marketing. People find it interesting and pass it on. It’s the best form of marketing.

You want a variety of sources for your links.

Linkbait and social media are great for trust but not for keyword link building. In special media you have no control over the anchor text.

How many targeted links do you go after a month without getting in trouble?
Depends on your industry and what others are doing. Are the links shifty? Does it look like you are paying for them?

It’s not a number scheme, its about quality as well.

Editorial writing, the company is locked into the AP style but isn’t SEO friendly. And graphic designers that want to build pretty Flash sites, but again, spiders don’t like. How do you get them to change?
Just explain to them don’t use “footwear” to describe “running shoes.”

This boring headline was written for Google
Article about how newspapers are having to reteach their writers to write for search engines. Many newspapers have also had issues with indexing paid content as well. Their business has had to change. Designing for the various browsers is cool. Take that to the next level, everyone searches no matter what browser, so the site needs to work for the engine.

Freshness of a page?
Google will try to bring in fresh stuff. They test things, but it doesn’t always work. But yes, you do need fresh material to work with.

Danny Says:
Pay attention to the verticals! Google News, Google Local, etc. With Google Universal, you now have those results taking over the natural placements.

Favorite Tool
Project Mayhem
Search Status (Firefox extension)
Web Developer Toolbar (Firefox Extension)
Serph (inhouse tool, can get externally)
SEO for Firefox (Aaron’s tool)
Xemu Link Sleuth (title tag, levels deep, etc.)
Web Bug
Groowe
Search Status

This is a debate, real live debate, so the posting might seem a little weird. I am going to to to update it more when I get slides.

Panel Members:
Misty Locke*
Peter Hershberg*
Robert Ashby
Chris Zaharias

*Bid Mangement is Dead Team

Misty:
“My theory … that I have, that is to say which is mine …”

Not saying its completely dead, but that search marketing is better and can be better.
Three Principles
1. Basic Build and fundamentals of a bid tool

1. Can’t bid to position
2. Uninformed bid decisions (ex. time, CTR, other campaigns, etc.)

2. Simplistic Tunnel Vision

1. Not just about keywords … about demand when it happens
2. Influencers are not taken into account (outside referrals)
3. optimizing online and search programs
4. Not about last Click to Conversion

3. Consumer Intent Can’t be Managed by a Tool

1. Marketing is an art improved by science, not an exact formula

Robert Cross Exam
How can you expect humans to manage several thousand keywords at the same time?
I don’t think they don’t have a place, they just aren’t the end all be all. There has to be a human. One size does not fit all.

How would you characterize better click0thru unless there is better SEO (influencers)
My point is that you can’t set a big management tool and leave it be.

Chris: Bid Management is alive and well
Starting with history of bid management
1st Proof: Too many things to do in a bigger account setting
2nd: Search Engine API Usage
Lost the rest of it due to company email … I’ll pick it up from someone else later.

Cross Exam
Traditional PPC was pay for position, and bid was the only issue.
Can changing ads, landing pages, and keyword have an affect on cost?
Yes
How can I beat you out for one keyword? My minimum and max are different than yours.
Portfolio theory: React to the campaign as a whole

Closings

Peter:
Bid Management is not dead, its just not part of search marketing anymore. Back when, your entire thing was bid management, you could guarantee placement with a bid. But you can’t anymore. Now it is about relevance and what your product is. There are too many factors now. So its not dead, its just a variable now, its not a monster, its a pet bunny.

Robert:
It’s tough to manage 5 million keywords. You want to spend your time with your customer, not with AdWords. Bid management is the foundation … its what zaps your resources if you don’t pay attention to it. Bid management allows you to focus on other aspects of the business.

Chris:
It’s about the metrics. Bid Management allows you to make better decisions. The role of bid management is to do what we can’t.

Misty:
You do need tools to get your job done. It’s not humanly possible to touch 5 million keywords. But SEMs don’t just rely on technology, it changes a lot and so does the industry. But as SEMs we sell the time to mange your campaigns. The keyword is just as important as the TV spot. Technology must be used with human influence to work the best. It’s not just science, its art and science.

Peter:
Quality Score has put the M back in SEM. We are not just doing math anymore.

My conclusion: Bid Management is not dead, its just not necessary for the small-mid market companies.

I personally love social media and its impact on the search world. I think it had and will change a lot in marketing and the way we do business. It puts us in charge, the people, the customer, and that is the way it should always have been. MySpace, YouTube, and many others have paved the way for a new kind of world. Consumer Targeted.

Alas in the B2B world, there really isn’t a place for this. Traditional consumers could care less about a time and attendance software breakthrough, or new courses for Real Estate Professionals in North Carolina. Social media as we have found at SMX Advanced still hasn’t really made its way in.

Regardless there was some good talk int he “SEO, Meet SMM” session. Rand Fiskin at SEOmoz started out first with my favorite quote so far (this was said after he got done telling us about translation in the SES China show)

I hope you all speak English, and more importantly, I hope you speak SEO”

He procceeded to run through over 45 slides, most listing out great places to start your SMM campaigns:
YouTube, Wikipedia, Yahoo Answers, Yelp, LinkedIn, Flickr, Craigslist (or the Best of listings), Facebook, Amazon, MySpace, Technorati, Judy’s Book, Newsvine, Twitter, City Search and WikiHow.

For Viral he suggests: Digg, Reddit, Stumble Upon, Del.ic.ious, netscape, TEchcrunch, Newsvine (yes, he mentioned it twice), Boing Boing, Fark, Engaget, Techmeme, LifeHacker, and Yahoo Picks.

Neil Patel of ACS gave us rules for social media sites

The Don’ts
1. Pay for votes
2. Open Multiple Accounts
3. Submit Illegal content

Neil’s Golden Rules
1. Add tons of friends
2. Participate in the Community
3. Become a Top User
4. Use their features against them
5. Create a Social Brand

Conclusion
• Do what is ethical
• Don’t jeopardize your brand
• Think Long Term

There was more, but not as interesting.

I am going to get to my blogs from yesterday later today. Blogging while learning is rough though, especially without a place to plug in the laptop. That is going to be one of my “next show we need …” comments.

The real news though comes from the Google Dance NW last night. It was a great party put on by Google, with glow in the dark cups, Google SMX shirts, and glowy necklaces. But again, not the real news.

I ran into a nice gentlemen while getting into the elevator. He took one look at my tag and exclaimed “Kate I’ve been looking for you.” That worried me. Who in the hell knew me at this conference? I just started blogging (though I am planning to continue) and have very little personal presence on the web.

Turns out he knows someone I work with, one of the executives (later I find he has met everyone: Jeff, Ed and Al). So I spent the night talking to Jason Robey and his crew from Gardner Publications.

The nights events included two things: seeing the new Ask.com launch live and talking with Matt Cutts in person.

Ask.com
We ran into Patrick Crisp, PR from Ask.com, sitting in a corner typing furiously. After we mistook him for someone else, we got to talking about what he was working on. Apparently Ask had just launched their new site, but stuff wasn’t working. So he showed us around. I must admit I was impressed. The new site is very well laid out, navigation options to the left, content and paid in the middle, and cool stuff that changes based on the search on the right.

Since he was kind enough to do that, we let him in on a few secrets on how Ask can do better. High points:

• Tell us more, talk about yourself, we are rooting for you!
• Talk to the webmasters; Google is great at that and no one else. Pick that up!
• Get a face for Ask like Google has Matt Cutts
• Take share away from MSN, it’s going to be so easy (yes I said that)

Matt Cutts
Poor guy was being cornered by this very pretty lady from Webmaster.fm who had a few too many Google drinks (she admitted it!). So my new friends and I pulled him away. I must say, Matt is a very easy guy to talk to. Even though I am an adoring fan. He was very interested in what I had to say, what I was interested in, etc.

The highlight though was seeing a guy in a kilt (Seattle loves kilts apparently) and telling Matt that it would make a great picture for his blog of him in a kilt. He laughed and smiling (devilish if you ask me) and said “Okay. So what will you do for me? I double dare you.” So now I have to come up with something so that Matt will find and wear a kilt to work some day.

I left the party, said bye to Matt and everyone else with on guy noting “You are one of 10 woman here [Not true] and you’re leaving, that’s sad.” That made me feel better.

It was called a You&A - a wonderful sit down with Matt and Danny Sullivan to start the morning.

It all started with Danny stripping down to his … casual outfit. He took off his coat, then his tie … then his shirt … talk about love of SEO Men. But alas, there was a Disneyland T-shirt underneath. Then the pants went — to reveal shorts underneath. Nice socks Danny!

Highlights

• The QA started with supplemental versus main index results. The conclusion was Matt would like the “supplemental” label removed due to all the unnecessary heartache!
• Geotargeting and how close we are to seeing where people really are. Matt responded that he thinks with a 90% accuracy, we see where people are. Interesting. There was some debate about that in the next paid section.
• Google guidelines might need to be rewritten soon, but were developed to be a broad look at what to do and what not to do.
• Paid links are still bad but getting more popular. But Note: It’s STILL NOT GOOD!
  Matt “Do what you want as a webmaster, I support that idea. But as a search engine we get to do what we want to get relevant results for our searchers.”
• Outbound link good for results? Matt says what is good for your audience is good for you, but has not bee discussed just yet.
• Indexing of SERP pages - on a site by site basis, but probably not going to happen. Use Categories.
• Impact of click thru - only on personalized search - metric is too irrelevant in most cases
• Google + Wikipedia= Love?
  “Regular people like Wikipedia. it’s meant for them, not you guys.”
• Your other domains can have effect on your results - if your other domains are blacklisted.
• Mahalla? Spelling? Matt is not commenting on this new search engine. Too early to tell.
• Page Rank=Playdoh You get a set amount and it goes from there. If you spread it too thin, it doesn’t work as well.
• Google Bomb detection is algorithmic, not human

There was more said, but this was the most relevant. A great session. Now off to the Paid Search Roundtable.

I’m here finally. I now have an extra bag, one shoulder type of thing. Really nice, but its an extra bad I get to carry around all day. I have enough crap as it is.

Breakfast is good this morning. Wide variety of things including pastries, lots of coffee, fruit (going to have to steal some later), cereal, yogurt, the works. I am kind of impressed.

As I am looking around I wonder who I’m looking at. I’ve heard from Matt Cutt’s posts last night (lots of stuff to make me laugh this early in the morning) that there will be a LOT of Googlers here. It’s nice to see so many women here too. I don’t feel as out of place, but I really didn’t think I would. Just nice to see I was right about that.

Other than that, nothing much has happened. Caught up on my morning email, chatting with employees back at home and abroad, and some blog posts. I have a feeling I will learn more in a few hours here than all the starred blog posts I had planned to read in my “downtime.”