Event coordinators: You can update your event information in Google according to these new schema properties for postponed and canceled events.

You can attend digital marketing conferences all over the world, and 2020 has more than ever. For this year’s update of our Digital Marketing Conference Calendar, we found more than 450 events scheduled from Los Angeles to Lebanon!

So where will you go in 2020? Use our list to explore and then plan your year ahead. If you’re into marketing, you’ll find a conference for you whether in search, PPC, content marketing, blogging, social media, analytics, UX or a specialized focus like WordPress, local, or video.

Why go to a conference? Attending an event in person is the quickest way to grow professionally. A live event gives you information plus … inspiration, friendships, confidence, and much more.

NOTE: We add events to this list continually — see ones marked “NEW” for updates throughout the year.

Below you’ll find digital marketing conferences organized in three ways: by geographic region, by topic focus, and by month. You can also download the calendar for viewing in your Google Calendar, where you’ll always see the most up-to-date information. (Click here to skip to the full downloadable calendar.)

Just click a marketing conference name to visit its website, get all the details, and register. Happy planning!

2020 Marketing Conferences by Location:

• U.S.
• Canada
• Europe
• UK
• Asia
• Australia
• Africa
• Latin America
• Middle East

2020 Marketing Conferences by Topic:

• Advertising / PPC
• Affiliate marketing
• B2B marketing
• Blogging
• Content marketing
• Data / analytics
• Digital marketing (general focus)
• Local marketing
• Miscellaneous (specialized)
• Retail / ecommerce
• Search
• Social media
• UX / conversion
• Web development
• WordPress

To see all 450+ digital marketing events organized month by month through 2020, jump down to the full calendar.

We compile this list of marketing industry events to help you plan ahead. Register early, and you can save hundreds on 2020 conference fees by taking advantage of early bird rates!

• 2020 digital marketing conferences by region
• 2020 digital marketing conferences by topic focus
• Download the digital marketing conference calendar

2020 Digital Marketing Conferences by Region

Events are listed below by their geographic region: U.S., Canada, Europe, UK, Asia, Australia/New Zealand, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. Scroll down if you’d rather view events organized by topic focus or on a month-by-month calendar.

U.S. Conferences

Canada Conferences

Europe Conferences

UK Conferences

Asia Conferences

Australia & New Zealand Conferences

Africa Conferences

Latin America Conferences

Middle East Conferences

2020 Digital Marketing Conferences by Topic Focus

Here, you can find events listed by their primary focus, though many cover a wider range of topics. Click the conference links to read detailed descriptions. (See the full calendar here.)

Advertising / PPC

Affiliate Marketing

B2B Marketing

Blogging

Content Marketing

Data and Analytics

Digital Marketing

Local Marketing

Miscellaneous (Specialized)

Retail / Ecommerce

Search

Social Media

UX / Conversion

Web Development

WordPress

Download the Digital Marketing Conference Calendar

FREE RESOURCE: It’s easy to add this Digital Marketing Conference Calendar so you can view it (optionally) in Google Calendar.

Add this calendar of events to your Google Calendar viewing options.

Fast Facts for 2020

• We found 477 conferences in all, making 2020 a banner year for marketing folks. And we’ll keep updating this post and the conference calendar throughout the year.
• This list contains events in 57 countries!
• March is the busiest conference month this year, with 90 events around the world.
• London, UK, tops the list this year with 26 marketing conferences — more than in any other city in 2020.
• South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas, is the longest event at 10 days!

Have an Event to Add? Submit Your Event

If you know of an event that should be included on this calendar, we want to hear about it!

Only in-person conferences associated with digital marketing will be accepted. Meetups and online-only events are excluded from this calendar.

To submit a conference, please email Social-BC[at]BruceClay[dot]com. Give us the name, dates, and a link to the event website. We’ll be happy to add your event to the calendar.

[conference image credit: Marketing Land]

If you like this resource, please share it! And for more news from Bruce Clay Inc., subscribe to our blog.

The post Digital Marketing Conferences in 2020: Calendar of 450+ Marketing Events Around the World appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

• Think of your users as humans. You’re not an SEO optimizing for a user, but a human optimizing for another human.
• We live in a multiscreen world. You never know where someone will be interacting with your content. #ResponsiveDesign
• Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is gaining momentum and regardless of your industry you need to be ready to implement.

The last point about AMP was highlighted in a Q&A with Googler Maile Ohye. Read on to find out what she had to say about AMP and read more from all the speakers!

Googler Maile Ohye’s 3 Key Takeaways

• Do something cool.
• Get AMP or structured data ready.
• Stay relevant.

Q & A with Maile Ohye

Where is AMP going?

Maile Ohye: I cannot disclose that. I would say if you’re wondering, just be ready in general. Start updating. Whether it’s AMP or structured data, there’s more stuff you can do to better feature it. You will get better ROI with these things. And then, when they say they’ve just rolled it out for entertainment, for example, you’re ready.

As far as markup is concerned, what other tools besides schema do you recommend?

Maile: The best place to start is the schema.org blog. Also, try data highlighter in Google Search Console.

How much importance does Google place on progressive enhancement?

Maile: Try Fetch as Google with the rendering. Anytime you use a new JavaScript framework, you can use this tool to see what we see. The progressive part isn’t about doing it for Google, but for doing it for all levels of users.

Should we stop doing responsive design websites and just do AMP?

Maile: No.

There are two methods to implement HREF lang: by page-level or XML sitemap level. Per developer tools you can use either one. Which one is more successful?

Maile: Yes. In the short term, if you have a lot of languages that you’re trying to map to, use a sitemap. For rel canonical or pagination we cut off at the head so no one can alter anything. But for sites that evolve a lot, their head is closing way sooner than their other elements. But if you do it in the sitemap you don’t have to care about what developers are doing with their code. The sitemap is more foolproof in that way, but in the long term, the sitemap is also harder to debug. Also, always check for errors in Search Console.

WordStream Founder Larry Kim’s 3 Key Takeaways

• It’s a paid social world — we’re just living in it.
• Don’t ever forget social media marketing.
• Find your unicorns (unicorns = 100X better content)

Microsoft’s Kevin Henrikson’s 3 Key Takeaways

• Have skin in the game.
• ROI is everything.
• You need a quota.

Ant Farm President Melissa Palazzo’s 3 Key Takeaways

• Humanize the brand.
• Be about the people.
• Contribute to the world.

Circle Click CEO Anne Ward’s 3 Key Takeaways

• Speed is king. Do the work and reap rewards.
• Don’t build an app just for the sake of it.
• There is no dominant platform. Always consider the myriad screens.

Googler John Brown’s 3 Key Takeaways

• Prevent against ad blocking.
• Focus on the user.
• Write simple, compelling relevant content.

Disney Senior SEO Manager Jeff Preston’s 3 Key Takeaways

• Launch your app in the Australia app store before launching it in the U.S. to see how the app fares among reviewers.
• Optimize your app store description!
• When you update the app, review the keywords and update those that need it!

LinkedIn Product Manager William Sears’s 3 Key Takeaways

• Look at your site performance through multiple lenses.
• Build a strong network of people by reading blogs, going to conferences, getting out and thinking differently.
• Share your knowledge at conferences — we all have something to share.

Tweets about #SEJSummit from:BruceClayInc

Want to attend an SEJ Summit? SEJ Summit comes to Chicago on June 23 and New York City on Nov. 2! Find out more.

The post Digital Marketing Keynotes from Google, Microsoft, LinkedIn & Disney #SEJSummit appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

Note: If you’re a Seattle local, you may be able to snag a seat at Bruce Clay’s SEO Workshop on Thursday, June 4, and save 10 percent with our discount code: SMXA15BRUCECLAY.

If you’re looking for next-level search marketing education and networking, SMX Advanced is the conference you don’t want to miss. Industry elite gather in Seattle to share advanced technical knowledge and tactical tips for search engine optimization, paid search and social media marketing. I’ll be on the scene liveblogging. Here’s where you’ll be able to meet Bruce, or, if our news coverage of the event is what you’re after, jump straight to the liveblog schedule here.

Speakers at SMX Advanced 2015 include:

• Google Vice President of Product Management Jerry Dischler
• Google Webmaster Trends Analyst Gary Illyes
• Moz Founder Rand Fishkin
• Microsoft Senior Data Scientist Lin Huang
• Stone Temple Consulting CEO Eric Enge
• aimClear CEO Marty Weintraub

See the full SMX Advanced agenda to discover the rest of the speakers and the sessions they’ll be speaking in.

Where to Find Bruce Clay at SMX Advanced

• Bruce Clay and Mindy Weinstein will be in booth No. 29 in the Expo Hall throughout the conference.
• Stop by the SMX Meet & Greet at the Bell Harbor Rooftop Plaza at 6 p.m. on June 1. It’s a great opportunity to mix and mingle with your fellow search marketers. Drinks are free, thanks to Bruce Clay, Inc.’s sponsorship. Come have a drink on Bruce — literally!
• On June 3, catch Bruce giving a Solutions Spotlight presentation at 10:45 a.m. during “The Latest in Advanced Technical SEO” session.
• Attendees at every conference can sign up for Bruce’s all-day SEO training workshop on June 4. Did you know Bruce has been the official SMX SEO training provider since 2008?

SMX Advanced Liveblogging Schedule

Here on the blog we’ll be providing coverage of sessions and happenings of SMX Advanced. If you’re not attending, or if you’re looking for copious session notes to supplement your attendance, check back on the BCI Blog all week long for liveblog coverage. I’ll be liveblogging or livetweeting the following sessions in real-time!

Day 1: Tuesday, June 2

Day 2: Wednesday, June 3

See you in Seattle!

The post Your Pass to #SMX Advanced: The Year’s Most Technical SEO Conference Is Here appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

With 100-plus speakers presenting about SEO, SMM, and SEM in 60-plus sessions, keynotes and clinics, the amount of insight and tactical information you can take away from an event like SMX — that’s the awesome part. Now, imagine having to choose only 15 out of the 60 sessions to participate in. And imagine having to absorb all the goodness that 15-plus hours of training has to offer.

That’s where the intensity factor comes in.

There’s a lot going on at conferences and it’s simply not possible for one person to catch it all.

For that reason we’ve decided to share with you our 30 greatest takeaways from the 21 sessions we were able to attend at SMX West this year.

And, since there were 30-plus sessions we physically were not able to attend (life is all about decisions, right?), we’re asking for your help! We’d love to add what you learned from SMX West this year to our list of takeaways.

What Was Your Biggest SMX West Takeaway This Year?

We know you have a legal page (or more likely a Drive or Evernote account) full of session notes. What were your biggest SMX West takeaways this year? What’s on your post-conference to do list? What’s the once sentence you heard in a session that shifted your mindset and changed the way you think about online marketing?

SMX is truly a community event and we don’t think there’s any reason why the sharing that happens between sessions and in elevators has to stop just because the conference is over.

Below is our list of 30 actionable SMX West takeaways.

What can you add to the list? Share yours in the comments section below!

30 Online Marketing Tips from 21 SMX West Sessions

1) The key to mobile Big Data: Collect as much data as you can; get permission; monetize it; and then decide how to merge it, mine it, share it, or sell it. (http://bit.ly/1queSUs)

2) Stop griping about content marketing and how much you hate having to become a “media company.” Media first is not a chore! It’s an opportunity to do above and beyond what you ever thought you could accomplish. (http://bit.ly/1gj7WoS)

3) If you’re ever arguing about whether a link is a good link, the conversation is already over. It’s not a good link. If it’s a good link there shouldn’t be any questions. (http://bit.ly/1pgszTL)

4) If your content matters your audience has to matter even more. If you’re building content, you have to also be building audience. Content marketing is inclusive of audience development. (http://bit.ly/1oKveot)

5) The problem is that our C-Suite stakeholders don’t think of audience as an asset. They still think of marketing as a cost center. We need to make our stakeholders understand that marketing is an asset hub. It’s all about the rise of audience development and a consistency of thought, purpose and action. (http://bit.ly/1oKveot)

6) Twitter is about human communication. Any brand that has an audience they want to connect with can excel on Twitter. It’s all about finding the community, using the tools they’re using, and engaging your community with content that adds value. (http://bit.ly/1lTWTWT)

7) Twitter community coordinators, sales people, and brand managers need to be asking themselves: Can I help five people out per day? Can I join three (or however many) TwitterChats per week? Can I host a meet-up? The trick is to always be thinking of opportunities to engage and participate, and to set goals that help you make that ambition reality. (http://bit.ly/1lTWTWT)

8) Presenting big data to a stakeholder? Make sure you practice your presentation on a nontechnical volunteer to make sure your presentation is easily understood and stakeholder-ready. Seriously. Another approach is to pretend that you’re giving your presentation to your mother, or your neighbor; will they understand what you’re saying? (http://bit.ly/1g6OxTu)

9) The difference between a good analyst and great analysts – getting buy-in to continue analysis! (In other words, communicating with clarity in a way that motivates and conveys impact to stakeholders.) (http://bit.ly/1g6OxTu)

10) Don’t get a case of Audience Assumption Disorder where you put 99% of your effort into creating amazing content and apps and then only 1% into nurturing an audience that will want to see your content. (http://bit.ly/1oKveot)

11) Spend time focusing on proprietary audience development. This means you are not only building an audience, but you are building a proprietary audience that you and you alone can reach. Remember your audience is an asset with predictable downstream value! Don’t forget to invest in that asset as needed. (http://bit.ly/1oKveot)

12) Consider your paid search person (in-house or contract) as a partner; a fellow brand strategist. They need to have a clear picture of the brand’s social, UX and big-picture businesses goals. If you are a paid search person remember you need this information; part a search optimizer’s job is to aggressively find out what success looks like for the business they’re optimizing for. (http://bit.ly/1pgh12B)

13) When clients are seeking out a paid search person they don’t just expect to work with someone who knows keywords and quality score, they want to work with a brand advocate. Someone who can offer perspective, unbiased advice and the ability to explain why things are important. (http://bit.ly/1pgh12B)

14) Wondering how much content you should be creating? According to Rae Hoffman (CEO, PushFire; @sugarrae), there is no cut and dry answer. In 2014 it’s just not as simple as “create four posts a day.” So what do you do? Don’t publish crap just because the calendar says to, publish only when you actually have something to say, and don’t create any content that is mediocre. However much content you can create under those guidelines is enough content. (http://bit.ly/1pgk3nL)

15) Considering working with a new client, or negotiating a contract? Remember these two things: 1) In 2014, your job is more about audience development and business management than “SEO” as we once understood it, and 2) Don’t ever take money if you don’t think you can provide someone with the ROI they deserve. (http://bit.ly/1pgk3nL)

16) Don’t forget to always be looking for exposure opportunities off domain. For instance, Intel looks at the SERP and thinks After someone performs this search, where are they likely to land? If it’s the Best Buy website (because Best Buy is high up in the SERP for a specific keyword phrase), they consider whether it’s smart for them to put an Intel asset (like an ad) on that page to get in front of the consumer after the SERP click. Remember marketing is largely about exposure and the means you can utilize to gain it. (http://bit.ly/1pgk3nL)

17) Keep your URL structure clean. Start down the right mental path; sit down with engineering and make sure everyone who has hands on the site structure understands the whys behind site structure and URL requirements. (http://bit.ly/1pgoj6x)

18) Remember that rel=canonical is not your savior and that it should really only be used 5 or 10 times across your site. (http://bit.ly/1pgoj6x)

19) Duane Forrester’s priorities for search marketing in 2014: (http://bit.ly/1pgoj6x)
1. Content
2. Usability and user experience
3. Social media (driver of conversation and customer satisfaction)
4. Links (for traffic, not for rankings boost)
5. Basic SEO on-page best practices

20) For your brand and competitors you don’t need to know keyword referral data to succeed. What you really need to know is your unpersonalized rank; your competitors trending unpersonalized rank; how to calculate CTR potential based on rank; and how to calculate SEO competitive traffic share. (http://bit.ly/1pgrawh)

21) If consumers have a negative Google Maps experience they’ll connect that negative association with your brand. It’s important to make sure your brand’s local data is right on maps and mobile. (http://bit.ly/1pgrpr8)

22) Being small doesn’t mean you are unable to succeed with big business competition. If you are marketing a small business, you need to think of your small business as a smaller business that can 100% compete with bigger companies. (http://bit.ly/1pgrLOH)

23) It’s essential to break down the barriers between your QA, UX, HR, Engineering, PR, Customer Service and Marketing departments. When everyone works together with targets in mind the improvement can be staggering. (http://bit.ly/1pgszTL)

24) Once you’ve broken down your internal department barriers, make sure, as an SEO, you are over-communicating at every step. Offer guidance; instead of just saying “make the title this,” explain why the title should be that. Every SEO question should be followed with an explanation. (http://bit.ly/1pgszTL)

25) It’s important that your brand is building a genuine, earned reputation that is based on realized value proposition. If you are trying to build your reputation by any non-organic means, this is faux reputation and it will only end up hurting you. (http://bit.ly/1pgszTL)

26) Be sure to make calculated optimization changes and then always be prepared to talk about those changes (with stakeholders and CEOs) in the light of unforeseen traffic drops. Ranking fluctuation is natural but you never want to be caught without a proactive response when a CEO asks you about a sudden SERP plummet. (http://bit.ly/1pgszTL)

27) Don’t just focus on engagement with influencers! Make it a priority to give back to the larger community and to interact with the people in it based on the value they bring to the conversations, not the value they can bring to your résumé. Make yourself be seen as open and available (and actually be open and available). (http://bit.ly/1pgszTL)

28) If you are marketing an app make sure your app has a dedicated landing page on your website. Most apps don’t have dedicated landing pages and, according to research performed by Justin Briggs of Getty Images, this small change can result in a significant increase in app revenue year-over-year. (http://bit.ly/1jhXKfv)

29) According to Google SVP in charge of search ranking Amit Singhal, social signals from external networks like Facebook and Twitter are still not being used as ranking factors because they are considered “unreliable.” That said, signals from Google+ are different – and trust signals from G+ are considered – because the data available from Google+ is reliable. (Google owns it; of course it’s a reliable source of information from Google to Google.) As such, searchers won’t see Facebook or Twitter affecting SERP rank, but they may see a great impact based on Google+ social signals when they’re searching logged in. (http://bit.ly/1pgwGiw)

30) Pro tips for writing promoted tweets: Start organically; avoid optimizing direct response tweets with hashtags, mentions or images; include a call to action and a relevant, compelling offer. (http://bit.ly/1pgyEQ4)

Your Turn

What were your biggest SMX West takeaways this year? Add to our takeaways list below in the comments section below!

The post 30 Smart Online Marketing Tips from SMX West appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

• Do you feel like screaming “Nobody understands me!” like a teenage girl every time your coworkers eyes gloss over in the middle of your conversation about the latest algorithm update?

  

• Do you love the conversations you’re having with industry leaders in Google+, but often think of the left arm you’d give to actually have a face-to-face conversation with them?

• Do you wish you could walk into a giant Ikea-like store that only carries search marketing tools and casually browse the aisles of options, stopping to ask attendants for demos and help as needed?

If you answered yes to any of the three above questions, stop procrastinating and opt into attending a conference in March! There are two conference opportunities coming up right around the corner: SMX West March 10-13 and PubCon South March 17-20. Register for PubCon before February 28 to get the Early Bird rate, or use discount code BRUCECLAYSMXW14 to save 10% on any SMX pass and/or workshop.

Need more persuasion? Here’s a deep dive into how attending a conference offers a solutions to each of the above listed qualms.

3 Reasons to Attend a Search Marketing Conference Plus 10 Pro Tips to Help You Get the Most Out of The Event

1. Exit “Nobody Understands Me” Land and Start Learning from Your Peers in the Magical World of SERP Nerdery

Imagine being magically whisked away to a place where everyone you meet is equally as excited about Excel shortcuts, semantic markup, longtail keywords, and persona research as you are. Imagine yourself walking up to a total stranger, starting a conversation about Danny Sullivan, or how social signals affect the search algorithm, and imagine that the person you’re talking to knows exactly what you’re talking about, doesn’t gloss over, and actually responds with their own opinions. It’s magic! And if you’ve never experienced it, this sensation of ethereal belonging alone is 100% worth the conference registration fee.

Attending a search marketing conference is like having your favorite WebProNews forum, and all of its participants, come to life for a face-to-face discussion over coffee.

This kind of in-person interaction is really unique to the conference environment, and it can be an excellent way for you or your search team members to use conversation with peers to connect strategy dots. (Sometimes you just need to talk out the pros and cons of an idea and it’s impossible to do that when everyone you talk to looks at you like you’re speaking Pig Latin translated into German. Note: At search conferences like PubCon, everyone speaks Pig Latin translated into German.)

How to Get the Most Out of Your Peer-to-Peer Conference Time:

• Talk to people in elevators and sit next to strangers at meal times.
  Elevator rides and meals are great times to catch people in moments where they may have a minute to talk. An elevator chat, if done right, can turn into a walk n’ talk, which can turn into breakfast if the chat gets rolling. You both have to be there anyway, why not get to know each other?

• Claim your seat in a session early and have a chat with the person who pulls up next to you.
  Before you even start talking you know you have one common interest – whatever the session topic is. Use this time to ask a peer’s opinion, get to know someone who you might be able to work with in the future, or simply just to talk geek shop with someone who cares.

• If you have a specific question you want to address, make sure to go where you think the experts in that field will be.
  For instance, if you have a nagging PPC question, go to the PPC sessions, visit the PPC tool booths in the vendor village, and talk to the PPC session presenters.

2. Keep Your Left Arm and Have a Face-to-Face Conversation with Your Industry Idol

We all agree, getting feedback from experience peers is invaluable. Now imagine getting this same feedback from your industry idols; the niche experts that write the online marketing books you read, and manage the blogs you visit daily – like Search Engine Land and Moz.

Casual interaction with industry experts is common at search conferences like SMX and PubCon, and it’s awesome.

4 Ways to Get Some Idol Interaction:

• Attend a workshop, like Bruce’s SMX SEO Training or a PubCon Masters Group workshop, for personal time with niche experts.
  While these workshops add a little extra to your total conference cost, the small class size and individual attention you will receive in workshops like this offer an elite, custom learning experience that will end up paying for itself.

• Prepare questions pre-session to be locked and loaded for Q&A time.
  Nearly every session will have an ample amount of time set aside for questions and answers. Pro tip: If you have specific questions you want to ask panelists, one way to take advantage of this Q&A time is to draft relevant questions you want to ask panelists before the session. This bit of planning ahead can help you keep your full attention on the session without missing the opportunity to get your question in front of the experts.

• Attend an interactive site review session for a chance to get your site (or social page) analyzed granularly.
  Both SMX and PubCon offer interactive clinic sessions that analyze a volunteer’s website or social profile as a learning experience for all in attendance. Of course competition is high in these sessions and everyone’s page can’t be the one (or two, or three) selected to share with the crowd, but just by showing up with a volunteering spirit there’s a good chance your site could be the one getting the free, incredibly public (but also incredibly free!) professional audit.

• Meet industry leaders at lunch, social events and after sessions.
  During conference events you’ll see industry “celebrities” everywhere, just co-mingling like you and me and every other everyday Joe. I fully encourage you to walk up to your favorite industry celeb, say hello, introduce yourself, and maybe even spark a conversation or ask a question. Pro tip: Approach these idol meet n’ greets with care! Just like you would approach introducing yourself online with care (think how much time you spend crafting a spam-free Twitter bio, or writing a Google+ comment to Mark Traphagen) make sure you’re also taking care to put your best foot forward in real life situations. In other words, think about how you’re presenting yourself before you just spew something you wish you could take back; and try to, at least in a miniscule way, come prepared with something of value to say — something that contributes to a conversation. Believe it or not, you can actually spam someone in person, and no one wants that to be the impression they make on their niche idol.

3. Get Tool Recommendations from Pros and Browse Aisles of Marketing Tools in a Baby Ikea-esque Vendor Village

What if you could get an industry expert to tell you exactly what tools they are using and why they love them? Or if you could browse the aisles of a super market that only lines its shelves with online marketing tools? Sounds like two magical scenarios that would make your job much easier, doesn’t it?

To find both look no further than your nearest SMX, PubCon or other search marketing conference event. If you’re in the market for a tool that will make your life easier, search conferences are truly the place to be.

3 Places to Find Tool Recommendations at Search Conferences:

• Tool recommendations are integrated into the majority of sessions.
  Even if the session you’re attending doesn’t have the word “tools” in the title, expect lots of tool discussion to happen organically as part of the “how” portion of most presentations.

• Sessions dedicated 100% to tool discussion and recommendation.
  Both SMX and PubCon offer a series of hour-plus sessions that exclusively cover SEO, SEM, PPC and social media tools, how panelists use them, and why they were selected over alternatives. You can also look forward to dedicated sessions that discuss in-house marketing tools and Excel as a search marketing tool.

• Vendor village of tool retailers looking to discuss your problem and prove they can solve it.
  Half the trouble of selecting a new tool is finding a new tool. The vendor village is a great tool discovery aid; just peruse the aisles, listen in on conversations the vendor’s are having with other attendees, tell the vendor exactly what features your dream tool will have, and watch demos of tools that meet your criteria. You may even stumble upon an amazing search marketing tool you didn’t even know you needed.

Go Forth, Learn and Commiserate With Your Peers!

It can be lonely living in a world where the majority of folks immediately zone out when they hear the words “algorithm” or “Excel.” It’s hard trying to explain to your husband who Matt Cutts is and why he matters. And it can feel downright isolating always having to turn to online peers for strategy feedback because the people sitting around you have no idea what it is you do.

All that to say, there’s real value in spending three whole days immersed in a world where everyone understands you.

For comic book fans it’s Comic-Con; for roller derby girls it’s RollerCon; for search marketing professionals it’s industry events like SMX and PubCon.

Go be a part of the community this year! Register for PubCon before February 28 to get the Early Bird rate or use discount code BRUCECLAYSMXW14 to save 10% on any SMX pass and/or workshop.

The post Should You Attend a Search Marketing Conference in 2014? appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

Keynote

SEOs Get Social – Wappow Hawaii 
Speaker: Bruce Clay

Top Takeaways:

• The evolution of search has progressed from being 10 blue links on a search engine results page (in the beginning) to behavioral and personalized search for a better user experience. Google now tries to determine the most relevant results based on prior search history, and social search is the next wave of personalization.
• It’s becoming harder as SEOs to report rankings when behavioral search comes into play. Bruce Clay, Inc. has found the Google API to be inaccurate. Predictions are that Google is going to dominate the SERPs at an individual level, personalized to each searcher, and confuse the user to the point where he/she will not know whether it’s organic or paid results.
• In the social search world, there are many factors that remove fear, uncertainty and doubt in shoppers and make people accountable for the content they share. Review sites move shoppers to buyers; social sharing of content makes a person more careful with what they endorse – bad content does not get links, good content does. If we are socially involved, and do it right, the links will come.
• Social media communities feed people better than just “alerts”; there’s an increase in people who prefer social media for information consumption over browsing. Almost half of the people who access social media sites do so via mobile. And it’s not that people are spending more time on mobile; it’s time they wouldn’t spend on a computer that they are now spending on their phones.
• Some social media signals for ranking include: authority of the sharer, how quickly and how often the content is shared; the share text (what it says); what personas are doing what sharing; and the concept that Facebook“ likes” are the new links in search.

Video shared at the Wappow Hawaii keynote:

Understanding Audience

Top Takeaways:

• When building a social media community for a brand, listen to the community and the customers before coming up with a strategy. They might want something totally different in a community than what is being provided. It’s important to do an assessment of the brand, the industry and the conversation surrounding it first.
• For search and the U.S. Hispanic audience, blend offline efforts with online search marketing; studies show more than 75 percent of the U.S. Hispanic audience searches for more information from something they saw on TV – with Google being the favorite search engine. And mobile search is big within this community. Use Google Insights to compare Spanish queries to the general market to find opportunities.
• Analytics tips for the Latino audience includes using needs-based segmentation – security, power, esteem, change, for example – which is harder and less obvious to target than language segmentation. Use psychographics profiles for online purchasing segments to figure out who the real decision makers are and reduce assumptions about the audience. Allow for Web navigation and ads in both Spanish and English to reach this market.
• Personas are an important part of the search marketing process; there’s a difference between a searcher persona and a product persona, and one person can morph into different personas throughout the cycle of a search. Personal data mixed with keyword data (how the person searches online) creates the ultimate persona. Know what your business goals are before the SEO strategy in order to best tap into personas.

Best of Conference Posts on Understanding Audience

Building Communities – Wappow Hawaii
Speaker: L.P. Neenz Faleafine
Focus Latino – SES New York
Keynote speaker: Mark Lopez
Analytics for the Latino Markets – SES New York
Panelists: Fernando Rodriguez, Paul Lima, Armando Rodriguez
Use Searcher Personas to Connect SEO to Conversion – SMX Advanced
Panelists: Tamara Adlin , Vanessa Fox, Dennis Goedegebuure

Holistic Marketing

Top Takeaways:

• Don’t chase the newest, shiny toys in search marketing. You need a mix of tactics, but content is where you need to put your efforts to be successful. Approach search, social and content with the audience’s needs and preferences in mind to secure wins. Produce content that fulfills all areas of the buy cycle that any given audience goes through so no opportunities are missed. Start thinking like a publisher to be good at content marketing.
• The evolution of Internet marketing has left us to believe that it’s not about what’s happening on websites anymore – it’s what’s happening outside of them in social networks that matters. But, not everyone has time for social media upkeep, so apply an 80/20 rule – 80 percent automation and 20 percent personalization. You can do this with the right tools and strategy.
• Facebook use spans international borders, with 70 percent of Facebook use outside the U.S. This presents a vast opportunity for marketing globally through Facebook. Other tips for sharing information and content in a social world includes creating a digital cloud around your connections, then your connections’ connections and so on, and use this to create the strategy to help decide what headlines, language and images to include, for example.
• In mobile search, trends uncover opportunities for mobile marketing, including what people are looking to accomplish when using their mobile devices to do something online. This includes marketing for the location of the user and the time of day for relevancy; allowing the user to complete a task easily; and giving the user opportunity to save money through mobile offers.

Best of Conference Posts on Holistic Marketing

The Convergence of Search, Social and Content Marketing – SES San Francisco
Speakers: Aaron Kahlow, Arnie Kuhn, Lee Odden 
Facebook, Twitter and SEO – SMX East
Speakers: Horst Joepen, Jim Yu, Michael Gray 
Global Opportunities in PR, Social Media and Mobile – SES San Francisco
Speakers: Anne F. Kennedy, Kristjan Mar Hauksson 
Mobile Apps and How They’re Revolutionizing Search – SMX West
Speakers: Andy Chu, Anil Panguluri, Angie Schottmuller

Online Reputation Management and Branding

Top Takeaways:

• Use search to protect a brand’s presence online by applying what’s called search engine reputation management. This includes using traditional search marketing tactics to create strategies that will create an online experience that’s synonymous with the brand.
• SEOs and user experience engineers now have to work more closely than ever before to survive Google’s mission to make search better for users. To figure out what metrics matter to Google, put yourself in the shoes of Google, this likely includes things like the Google G-Bounce rate (return to the search result and then the following actions as well), query behavior after a G-Bounce, average time before a G-Bounce, click-through rates and repeat visits.
• To create a social media program that works and protects the reputation for large companies, there needs to be a training and on-boarding process that starts with defining what social media is to that company and how it fits into the brand, and refresh the training annually, ensuring it goes to employees, partners, vendors and execs.
• White Hat SEO builds marketing value because it’s aimed at creating a strategy that fulfills intent. Many Black Hat SEO tactics can be transformed into White Hat tactics; it just takes some fresh perspective to eliminate the risk factor and turn it into something that provides lasting value.

Best of Conference Posts on Online Reputation Management and Branding

Protecting Your Brand Online – SES San Francisco
Speaker: Andy Beal 
Google Survivor Tips – SMX East
Speakers: Mark Monroe, Alan Bleiweiss, Micah Fisher-Kirshner
Socially Satisfied – Wappow Hawaii
Speaker: Becky Carroll
Black Hat vs. White Hat SEO – SMX Sydney
Speaker: Rand Fishkin 

The Cutting Edge

Top Takeaways:

• Mobile barcodes (QR codes) present an opportunity to track things we may not have been able to before, like print media, and it also gives opportunity to blend online and offline efforts. A good QR campaign serves a business objective, creates a valuable user experience and provides contextual assistance around the campaign, so users know exactly what to do and how.
• This year, Bing rolled out adaptive search, which is essentially behavioral search on crack [those are my words – Jessica]; it learns from a user’s behavior beyond just one search session. But personalized search does not mean SEO is dead. On the contrary, it makes the SEO’s job easier. See, a business doesn’t have to be the “best” at one thing; it just has to be the most relevant for the query and who is looking for it.
• The main language of the Web is HTML. With the advent of HTML5, it goes hand-in-hand with what people are doing, seeing and wanting from the Web. And search engines like Google are totally behind it. HTML5 is usable, but don’t be afraid to experiment and fail – it’s still a work in progress – but there are many benefits to implementing it.
• Daily deals companies are growing in numbers, but they aren’t as profitable as one might think. In order to make a daily deal offer work as part of the marketing plan, there are some things beyond the deal that should happen. Because the purchase is at a low margin by the customer initially, it requires high customer lifetime value to make up for that initial purchase. To help this along, offer a quality product people will want to come back for, and use aggressive social marketing to retain those customers.

Best of Conference Posts on Cutting Edge Topics

Search on Mobile Devices, QR Codes, Mobile and Social: The Next Frontier – SES San Francisco
Speakers: Terry Rodrigues, Angie Schottmuller 
The Current State of Personalize Search – SMX East
Speakers: Jack Menzel, Stefan Weitz
HTML5: A Cowpath on a Cliff – SES San Francisco
Speaker: Karl Dubost
Doing Offers Right – SMX East
Speakers: Dan Hess, Jim Moran, Prashant Puri, Benny Blum 

Live Conference Episode of SEM Synergy

Search and Social Converge – Wappow Hawaii
Host and co-host: Bruce Clay, Jessica Lee
Guests: Gillian Muessig, Ian Lurie 

Top Takeaways:

• Social media signals allow for the greater personalization of search, and the confusion surrounding ambiguous queries has been alleviated, as have many ad-targeting problems.
• Rankings in the search engine results pages are affected by social signals as well as click-through rates, with reports showing Google +1s displayed alongside results have been shown to impact it.
• Google will be using social media as part of an ever-developing way to make sure results are becoming more and more relevant to users.
• While many Web marketers have been using social media marketing for some time, the understanding and adaptation of it across big and small businesses alike still has a ways to go. The good news is, social media marketing used to be considered a soft science, but is now measured in terms of ROI with hard-number values assigned to it.
• Looking at social media as if it were something totally new and unmanageable can make it seem more intimidating than it needs to be. The truth is, social media is just an evolution of the way people have been marketing for years, but now allows a two-way conversation between a business and its audience.

The post Best of Search Conferences 2011: Day 3 appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

Blended search:

• Paid search
• Social media
• Images
• News
• Etc.

Real-time search: She is talking about Bing real-time search, and that’s it’s in beta. She worked for Microsoft for years and still doesn’t understand the criteria for showing up in real-time results.

Personalized search: A searchers social graph.

Social search: How branded are you in Facebook and Twitter?

How social is your website? Make it as easy as possible by adding share buttons. The question of where you put them depends on what you’re doing. A home page would put it in a different place than a blog or product page, etc.

People share content online. Open Graph Protocol defines how your page and content will be represented on a social media site. You can use OGP to create the tags in your posts. This gives more visibility.

This last F8 conference changed the Open Graph Protocol dramatically. Look at these changes and learn them. Get this content at:

• https://developers.facebook.com/docs/opengraph
• https://developers.facebook.com/docs/beta

Christi is going over some slides that talk about the recent F8 changes. This includes things like the timeline, recommendations, bars, boxes, activity feeds and more.

Key components to SMO:

• Basic understanding of SEO concepts
• Keywords, keywords, keywords
• Admin access to social media profiles/accounts

SMO process:

• Research and planning
• Recommendations
• Implementation
• Management, reporting, optimization

Social search audits:

• Visibility in search engines – are you ranking in Google and Bing?
• Visibility in social engines
• Technical usability and indexability
• Social content
• Link structure

Facebook best practices for optimization:

• Keyword-rich text: Leverage free-text areas.
• Cross-channel integration: Static links to all owned media channels.
• Optimized profile URL: Vanity URLs.
• Digital assets to optimize photos.
• Brand-relevant URLs.
• Value of HTML: Ensure custom Facebook tabs, etc.
• Keyword density: Craft posts with keywords.
• Drive content sharing: Create content that drives shares – experiment.
• Content relevancy: Fresh, relevant content to build authority.

Twitter best practices for optimization:

• Brand-relevant name.
• Keyword-rich bios with branded and unbranded terms.
• Community following and list inclusion.
• Content frequency: Frequency establishes authority.
• Content visibility: leverage mentions, hashtags, retweets, etc.
• Use keywords that support the brand and business objectives.

Take something you are already doing as a marketer for your clients and make social media optimization the add-on to those services. Apply SEO to the social media aspect; if you’re managing the community, optimize it so those communities get found.

The post Social Media and the Open Graph Protocol: Search and Social Hawaii appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

He starts off by saying it’s about incremental gains and what’s new. How do we get people to take the next steps? Companies tend to get stuck in a maintenance mode [Bruce is sitting next to me and chuckles as he nods his head in agreement].

Why expand best practices – what do we gain? We’re not always sure what we gain. Companies resist things because they don’t know where they are going to go from there. As marketers, don’t make promises, even though they need convincing. Talk about infrastructure. Clients always want the easy win. Instead or proposing big projects, just work the SEO into whatever they are already working on.

• Self-invite yourself into business development meetings.
• Join product teams.
• Constantly watch what’s going on in the company.

[Oh goodie, my netbook just decided to shut down on me in the middle of liveblogging and I lost half of my reports. Let me see if I can remember what he said.]

What moves best practices forward? Make sure you are staying on top of what the search engines are saying in their announcements and such. Oftentimes, marketers and clients don’t implement something until it’s verified and it could be too late. One example is Schema.org. Listen to what the search engines are saying at conferences. Meet with your team weekly to brainstorm the important topics and how it can relate to your client projects.

[OK, now catching up.] Real-world examples of Instagram to add touchpoint: Burberry, Red Bull m—check these out on the Web.

What teams do you work with in the client companies?

• Work with biz dev team
• Work with design team
• Work with engineering
• Work with editorial
• (Whoever else has a stake in the site)

Q&A

Q: Why do you require back links as part of the contract?
[Bruce is questioning the example he gave with the biz dev team and a contract that requires back links. Gillian agrees with Bruce that links are no longer as important and that it’s something we might want to consider over time.]

This is starting a discussion. Bruce says “powered by” links, Google thinks it’s an advertisement. Mike says the “powered by” is an image. Aaron says that sometimes there are contracts that the clients want to see this in. [There was a good debate happening, but all is good in the end and everyone virtually hugs. ;)]

The post Moving SEO Forward: Search and Social Hawaii appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

He says get people excited about playing your game by creating a task list. Gamers love that 100% completeness.

Social media does this well. You have to add certain things on your profile in order to be complete. Time is money but in video games, you give them money and time. And, there are more tractors bought on Farmville every day than real tractors every year.

The game mechanics within social media is social status. The ultimate game in life is school. There are levels that you have to go through, you have tasks and rewards.

Tidbits on game, marketing and conversions:

• Alternate reality games: The New York Public Library drove 500,000 people into their doors by putting together an anternate reality game online.
• Facebook users: 350M per month are accessing games, ads and profiles on mobile.
• Obama did in-game advertising and it helped him win the campaign.

The post It’s All a Big Game — Search and Social Hawaii appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

He starts with a story.

Clients call you up and tell you that you’re a genius because of fantastic rankings or whatever it is. You can’t figure it out. Ian admits that he is the Eeyore of the search industry, so he’s not initially optimistic about it.

He is showing research where the two sites with the most authority were not No. 1 or 2 in rankings for a common keyword, “jeans”. And even the on-page grade was low. Most of the pages aren’t optimized; most of them are images.

Then he looked at brand mentions. Some of them have a lot of mentions, but the No. 3 spot does not have many mentions. He keeps digging. Then he looks at Facebook Likes. He does not see the correlation between the Likes and the rankings either. Some of the pages with more than a million Likes aren’t in the top rankings.

Then he pulled the average number of likes and comments per post for the brands. This is public data, including data that Google and Bing will get. The Facebook performance of the different brands really starts to weigh in. The level of engagement is showing as a factor.

Twitter doesn’t matter as much. But low posts and friends may hurt you. He is showing that Guess Jeans has an imbalance of friends to followers and low posts.

This is not a hard formula, but there is a correlation. The quality of the community matters to Google.

Analogy:

On-page = Supreme Court
Links = President
Quality = Congress
Social media = The voters

You need social media and you need it badly. The data he just showed is that the performance of Facebook and Twitter is every bit as important as the links you would have obtained a few years ago in SEO.

Nofollow links seem like they matter. The easiest way to connect a vote to a brand is a link. They are not going to award authority to the nofollow link but they will trace the link back as a form of citation. Other things Ian wants to look at is G+ but the sample is too small at this point. It’s all marketers at this point.

The fact that Google says it’s a ranking signal scares the bejesus out of him.
The takeaway: If you are not doing social media, you have your head in your rear end. Even if you are a pure SEO, you have to do it.

He has an acronym as a final thought for social:

C.R.A.P.

Curate, Reward, Answer, Prove

The post From Links to Votes: Search and Social Hawaii appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..