SEO Today - Search Engine Optimization / Marketing News

Online marketing conference review by Todd Malicoat

Mar 09, 2004

Being I am not normally a roving journalist, and I lack both the professionalism, experience, and expertise that it takes to create a non-biased report on an event such as Publishers Conference, I can only provide you with a first-person account of my first PubCon. That being said...I must say that in my own humble opinion...PubCon kicked butt! I have never come across a group of people that were more friendly and willing to discuss their businesses, careers, and ideas and so willing to help others. I havent been so inspired to create new websites since I saw my first No. 1 Google result. 

The new layout for the more organized seminar was great for explaining to my company why I needed to fly to Florida for a weekend, but the original spirit of PubCon seemed very much intact. There were 700+ extraordinary webmasters willing to discuss website issues at nearly any hour of the day or night. More about the seminars in a bit, but I must make mention of those who made this lone traveling webmaster feel so excited to be a part of something like this conference. In one of the final seminars, the founder of webmasterworld.com, Brett Tabke, mentioned that he thought of PubCon as a more organic conference than other similar conferences in the industry. Despite never having attended Search Engine Strategies (SES) myself, everyone I spoke to about other conferences echoed Tabkes exact sentiments. I have never been to ANY type of gathering where I was made to feel completely accepted no matter which group of people I sidled up to. There was not a single individual who snubbed me out of a conversation, even when I didnt have much to add, or had just butted in. I left with a feeling that I had been a part of something very special, and despite being a trip for business, I had definitely had one of the best times of my life.   

Having been a pretty active member of the forum for nearly the last two years, I must say that I had pretty high expectations going in. I was very excited to meet the people who had provided me with such great information in the past via the web (and even helped me find information for writing my college thesis). I wasnt sure they would be willing to openly discuss issues with so many potential competitors within earshot, but that couldnt have been further from the truth. The abundance attitude was prevalent, and everyone was given the feeling that there was a piece of pie for everyone around. This abundance mentality contributed to open discussions of tactics, business models and future ventures.  I was overwhelmed with the amount of information that was provided, and the willingness of everyone to share. I can only guess that a portion of the reason for this is that the people in this industry truly love what they do, and have difficulty discussing it with friends, family and acquaintances around them in their daily lives. I heard it said many times that we all speak the same language here, which is especially surprising since there were many different countries represented at the conference. I was very impressed with the abundance mentality that everyone had, that there is plenty of business to go around, and it should not be hoarded. Needless to say, my expectations were exceeded. 

Having learned my lesson on the way to Orlando, not to take the great round-trip ticket deal on an overbooked flight, I did not get to the hotel about 1 am Thursday morning, missing the first day of networking.  Registration was slotted for 7:30 8:30 the following morning, so I decided to bypass the webmaster conversations I heard going on in the lobby when I arrived and just get some rest. When I awoke the next morning, I was incredibly nervous when I realized that I would be venturing into three days of networking all by my lonesome. Being I was blessed with above average intelligence and computer skills, I have to admit being dealt less than exceptional social skills. When the idea of just approaching people hit me as I went to get some breakfast, I have to say I was a bit overwhelmed. After taking a deep breath, and scooping my eggs, I decided to sit down at a table with an older gentleman who looked a bit overwhelmed himself. After a short discussion, Ken and I realized that we had actually e-mailed each other back and forth in the past! Still a bit nervous after excusing myself, I joined the line for registration, and another one of what would turn out to be several dozen friendly conversations over the course of the three days.

During the opening ceremonies, I was star-struck in a bizarre geeky sort of way when I said to myself... Thats Matt Cutts of Google, and Brett Tabke, the founder of Webmasterworld! After all, these guys are the Michael Jordan and Magic Johnsons of the Internet marketing world. I later got a chance to shake both Cutts and Tabkes hands during different points of the conference. After sputtering out a few sentence fragments of thanks and praise, I listened to their conversations with others while, of course, hanging on every word. It then dawned upon me that they were, in fact, humans just like me!

The first day of scheduled events included two separate seminars for different types of interests. It seemed that most individuals at the conference had evolved past the point of just website designer or developer, and to the point of Internet Marketer, SEO Consultant, Affiliate Marketer, or even Google Reverse-Engineer (*cough* spammer). Some came from business or technical backgrounds, and others came from the world of fine arts. What we all had in common was the desire to improve our SEO/SEM skills. The tracks were set for these somewhat different mind-sets, and I had opted for the Pay-Per Click Bid and Spend Maximization seminar, the PFI topics and Issues seminar, and the SEO History and testing seminar for the first day. It was nice to have options, but to someone who probably would have enjoyed each and every one of the seminars it seemed like having to choose between your favorite flavors of ice cream. 

The opening ceremony was done very professionally by Tabke, welcoming those of us who were new and those returning. Tabke discussed the fact that WW members are very lucky to have a forum where we can discuss issues with representatives from search engines that actually LISTEN to what webmasters have to say. I couldnt agree with you more, Brett.  

Tabke was followed by a keynote address from Cutts of Google. Cutts gave a great speech about what Google is doing and what they are planning to do. Some of his speech touched on improving the algorithms for search, saying that Google would be employing half a dozen or so different algorithms EACH month! The most enjoyable part of Cutts several speeches over the conferences course of events were that they put a friendly face with the hugely popular, highly profitable, multi-national corporation. It really reminded me that not too many years ago Google was just a couple curiously inspired geeks in a garage. 

The other representatives for Google, Yahoo!, Overture, and the rest of the search engines and companies were just as pleasant. I had previously thought that these giant corporations were under the telekinetic secret control of Dr. Evil from his clandestine underground lair only to conspire for more money and power, or sacrifice my sites in the name of spam-protection. These were really just geeky people that had webmaster concerns in mind and a propensity towards the same types of things as the rest of us at the conference. This fact truly hit home when I had the pleasure of speaking with Googles PR rep. We discussed what life was like at the plex (even though he has probably done so thousands of times already at the conference alone), talked a bit about some silly Google idea I had, and discussed how worthwhile I thought their regional search was to the service-based industries. We also discussed the famous Dont Be Evil mantra, that he truly made me believe is upheld by G employees, and those two now famous curious garage geeks.

Unfortunately, being immersed in the fascinating conversations kept me from most of the presentation on SEO history, Theory & Testing, which got very good reviews from other attendees. Fortunately, I did get to chat with some of the very friendly speakers in that group on Saturday at the pub.  One interesting thought that I did manage to catch from the doorway near the end was the idea of assessing naturally-occurring high-ranking sites to garner SEO ideas. An example of this would be studying back links and other factors for sites such as ESPN.com or CNN.com (My apologies for not giving credit for the idea, but I had a very poor view from the doorway of a VERY packed session). 

The PPC Bid and Spend Maximization program was a good introduction to the weekend, getting the mental juices flowing about potential new ideas. Some of the information would have probably been more beneficial to a potential SEO client rather than someone familiar with Internet marketing, but there were a few gems within the discussions. One of the more important reoccurring themes throughout this presentation was that focus should be placed more on customer experience rather than bid strategy. Essentially, if your site sucks, so will your PPC advertising campaign. If you build your campaign around good quality content on your site, you will be happy with the return from your relevant campaigns. Adam Jewell also had an interesting point regarding realizing the differences in benefits for both brand-able and non-brand-able keyword phrases. Jewell claims that brand-able keywords may offer higher conversion, but that non-brand-able key-phrases may be a good way to attract new customers. Its truly amazing how profound simplicity can be sometimes.

There was also an interesting tidbit regarding the amount of commercial keywords that were not yet being bid upon. Dan Boberg of Overture claimed that 35-40\% of keyword phrases were deemed commercial ones, and approximately 80\% of those commercial words were yet to have been bid upon. This sure explains a bit more of why SEOs have an abundance mentality. Emily White, the representative for Google AdWords discussed topics including how AdRank (positioning of Google AdWords) is determined by cost per click times click-through rate (CPC x CTR). She also touched upon the new beta regional targeting features of AdWords, which offer distinct targeting of the 210 Direct Marketing Areas (DMAs) of the United States. It is also expected that these areas may be even more locally targeted in the future. Similar sentiments of better regional ad-targeting was expressed by John Moran of Findwhat.com. Moran discussed the new superpages.com offering that is being driven by Findwhat.com technology and funded by Verizon. 

The second session that I attended was on PFI topics and issues hoping to get a hint on what Yahoo! may have planned for the future. Tim Mayer did a good job of diplomatically dispelling some questions that probably didnt need to get asked, but didnt explain what the new pricing structure will include. He did, however, explain that all current subscriptions to Inktomi search submit will be offered a trial on Yahoos new service until April 15, 2004. Mayer also mentioned that there will be additional features added to Yahoo including an Add RSS to MyYahoo, an RSS submission form, and free indexing for non-commercial sites. These sites can be submitted to: webmasterworldfeedback@yahoo.com .There was also mention that Yahoo will be attempting to keep its results much more fresh, relevant, and spam-free. For more discussion on Mayers comments please visit his post in the WW Yahoo forum here: www.webmasterworld.com/forum35/1790.htm  The opening speakers, Warren Duff, and Joe Laratro did a nice job explaining the types of companies that PFI is geared towards, and the types of sites that would not benefit as much from PFI. It seemed everyone was pressing Mayer for more information, but his response was insistent that the answers would be coming soon. His opening remarks on day two reflected similar sentiments, and helped to somewhat clarify how Yahoos new technology will be implemented (just not what the price structures will be).

This conference left me with a feeling that I truly cannot spell out in words.  I have a mind full of thousands of whirring ideas, and I feel like I did the first time I saw a competitive top free listing in Google. I will be trying to write a report on the second day of this conference if I can tear myself away from working on all my new ideas. Many of the Powerpoint presentations should be posted on Webmasterworld.com shortly when they obtain the rights to do so (Dont miss them!). If you want to know what happened on day three during the networking sessionIll see you there next year!

For more information on the conference, check here:
www.webmasterworld.com/forum19/1863.htm

Signing off,
Stuntdubl (webmasterworld.com Screenname)
P.S.  For those at the conference, I did catch some fish, and werty DID wrestle an alligator.