SEOh My F**cking God!

Session: SEO Rehab and Intervention

This might have been the most refreshing session at SES.  Toward the end, far after the exodus of uninvolved marketing ladies during the session’s awkward but poignant opening, a lot of valuable conversation pursued that gave some fascinating insight into the minds of many of the top players in the SEO industry.

Luckily for those in attendance the dry-witted Kevin Ryan moderated the session.  Not that Anne Kennedy, the “listed” moderator, couldn’t have done the session justice.  But there couldn’t possibly have been a better moderator than Ryan; his knowledge of the panelists and their strengths and weaknesses, along with his eagerness to keep everything light yet topical, was exactly what a knowledgeable-yet-fresh SEO would draft up for an ideal convention session.

The recurring joke was that Michael Gray loves to twitter about his fancy for chocolate cake at parties; yet, the takeaway was extraordinary.  Through twitter, Gray has connected with a vast network of people (nearly 8,000 followers) who vigilantly follow him, asking for advice or tweeting back and forth with him about whatever his current (and opinionated) predicament might be.  Based on the feedback he receives, he uses Twitter as a vehicle to connect with potential clients.  Further, with these short-text interactions, he employs selection and filtering techniques to determine which clients will fit his model for success.  Why work with a client that doesn’t believe in what you know you’ll recommend?

This session had it’s moments.  For the sake of posting, Andy Atkins-Krüger first presented a deck describing the SEO 12 Step Program - Sanity Escaped Organically.  It led to a couple interesting tangents.  Here are his 12 steps, with some notes in italics:

1. Take care choosing KPIs - don’t rely on rankings
2. Set realistic objectives
3. Employ people who know what they’re doing
4. Build your web site for SEO from the bottom up
5. Only work on projects which deserve to rank
6. Only work on projects where there is a market
7. Be different - ideally unique - in the market place
    Do something that creates a viral impact - something remarkable
8. Get good training
    Go to conferences and get good training and good knowledge
9. Understand the mechanics
    Know how the search engines work
10. Don’t try to be an expert in every SEO technique - focus on your strengths
     A lot of the best SEOs use different techniques
     ** Greg Boser disagrees with this point — his addiction is being an expert across all areas
11. Be patient
12. Enjoy your addiction

The presentation was a great primer, but once it was over Andy was pretty much done speaking for the remainder of the session.

When Greg Boser stepped in to speak during the 10th point, the tone was set for the remainder of the session.

Will the real SEO please stand up???

Near the end of the session, an attendee asked the panelists to offer a domain that they use to monetize traffic.  What a funny question — I’ve done tons of searches in competitive markets trying to find these types of sites, and I’ve come up pretty empty for the most part.  I just don’t know the markets, because they’re niche markets and the people monetizing them aren’t going to tell you what they are.

This goes back to a theme of the afternoon: “If you’re a good SEO, you’re not getting caught.”

The response to this inquiry was Greg’s humorous quip (paraphrased), “You see that guy in the back with glasses and a goatee?  Don’t ever mention one of your domains to anyone.  Next thing you know, you’ll get an email from him asking, ‘What’s the deal with these 500 domains?’ and you’ll be wondering, ‘How did he find out about those?’”  He was obviously speaking about Matt Cutts, who was nestled in the back row.

Another fantastic clip from Boser, when discussing black hat tactics that were discoveredby Google: “It’s because some idiot posted it on a stupid blog.”  There’s a lot of give and take with SEOs, but in general, revealing secrets to the public isn’t a great way to gain favor among the innovators of the industry.

…………….

David Naylor’s deck was actually very refreshing.  Essentially, his point was to automate everything.  It’s possible and it’s really, really, really efficient.  He doesn’t spend his time worrying about what has happened — he gets an email when things deviate from expectation and he reacts accordingly.  With this type of automation, he and his staff are afforded the opportunity to spend their time determining what is happening next in the industry, not dissecting what has already happened.  Hmmm, what a huge competitive advantage.

Later in the day, I had one of the more eye-opening moments in my young marketing/entrepreneurial career: Greg Boser mentioned, just in passing, that he analyzes patents.  And with certainty, he’s not just analyzing Google’s patents; he’s taking a deep dive into everything that he can get his hands on to determine what he can use to propel his unknown brands and those of his clients.  And all of the best SEOs are doing this.  It boils down to a matter of resources and some very keen insight. 

As was discussed in this session: Sequoia didn’t see how Google could possibly be profitable when they were infants in the wild world of search, and now Google is the brand of Earth.  So, how is Twitter going to be monitized?  Those who aren’t already using it as a vehicle like Michael Gray have a lot to figure out.  But, it’s figure-out-able, and once they find their monetizing model it’ll simply be another tool for SEOs (even moreso than it already is).

…………….

One final shout for Boser: toward the end of the session when some white/black hat stuff came up, he bluntly stated, “You’re not a real SEO unless you’ve been torched.”  Talk about getting the juices flowing shortly before the Black Hat/White Hat session begins.

=george

Tags: black hat, SEO, SES San Jose 2008