Wake up! The laid back summer is over and the conferences are back! After a slow period in which most search marketers enjoyed a nice holiday many of the ‘hard core’ SEOs gather again for a renewed SES. This time the destination is San Francisco where its SES San Francisco 2010.
In San Francisco SES this year is hosting a conference which is more than just search. To get the most out of the week and to give all the visitors an entire overview of all online possibilities SES decided to join forces with amongst others Connected Marketing Week. There is therefore a lot more to be seen in San Francisco this year.
As you know State of Search is a mediapartner of SES which means that we off course are present in San Francisco. So below you can find a summary of what you can expect from the conference and from us!
The conference
Keynote speakers
The conference takes three days, with three different keynote speakers opening each day: Jeffrey Hayzlett, BJ Fogg and Tim Ash.
Three very different keynote speakers, but together they are the perfect mix to get all the information you want.
Jeffrey Hayzlett, who we interviewed a couple of weeks ago, will be adressing business growth, communications, and marketing. His very ‘American Style’ of re-vamping a business he takes with him in the way he presents. Take a preview look on one of his speeches here.
Hayzlett wrote a book called the “Mirror Test” and that is just what he does, he lets businesses look in the mirror.
The keynote speaker of day 2, BJ Fogg, is the author of “Persuasive Technology: Using Computers to Change What We Think and Do” in which he explains how computers can motivate and influence people. With his university background, he directs the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford University, he will be able to take a different approach than Hayzlett does.
Finally on the third day Tim Ash opens the day. Ash is a more well known name in the industry with his book “Landing Page Optimization” selling successfully. Ash will be showing the audience “how to effectively use the Four Pillars Of Trust and smooth the way to your online conversion goals.”
SEW Labs
A completely new feature at SES San Francisco this year is SEW Labs. As the name might give away, its a cooperation with SearchEngineWatch. SEW director Jonathan Allen will be running around with a white coat and an egghead (seriously!) to keep control over this track which runs trhough all the days.
SEW Labs is kind of an extended version of the site clinics we all know. As Mike Grehan says: its bring your laptop and get to work. In different lab sessions experts will take on site issues and optimization issues on different topics. On day one you can for example go to the “SEO Lab Primer” to learn to understand search engines, or the PPC lab, while on day 2 there is a video lab. A good chance to learn things directly from the experts.
Other not to miss sessions
With no less than five tracks, including SEW Labs, you have a lot of sessions to choose from when you are in San Francisco. Figuring out where to go will be the hardest part. It all depends on how knowledgable you already are. If you are ‘starting out’ be sure to keep your eyes open on track 1 where a lot of basic sessions take place. While if you are more into analytics and metrics, keep an eye on track 3 on day 1.
With the risk of you missing out other great sessions here are five sessions I would probably be going to:
Content Marketing Optimization (day 1 – track 2 – 3pm)
A solo presentation by Lee Odden of TopRank Online Marketing, someone who knows his way around getting the best content out there and promoting it.
Twitternation & Automation (day 2 – track 4 – 3.45pm)
With Twitter being ‘hot’ and a new traffic pusher, automation is being tried out all over. Why not learn from the best: Paul Madden, who we had on as a guest on our radioshow, is someone you shouldn’t miss out on.
How to Become a Link Magnet (day 2 – track 1 – 5pm)
Some people just know how to convert their traffic and to become that link magnet and Rand Fishkin without a doubt is one of them. The CEO of SEOmoz could make linkable content out of each piece of text, whether its great content or crap.
Channel Surfing: Measuring Profit and ROI Across Channels (day 3 – track 2 – 12pm)
Search is not just simply building pages, great content and optimizing it anymore. With the growing web visitors are more critical than ever. And they use more channels than ever. To learn how to take the best out of that is something every marketer should want to.
The Business Value of Social Media (day 3 – track 1 – 4.45pm)
Everybody wants to do something with social media, but not many seem to be able to actually make it profitable. So why not listen to those who have done just that?
What will State of Search be doing at SES San Francisco?
Are you not at SES San Francisco? Don’t worry, State of Search is there. Two of our bloggers, Evert Veldhuijzen (@evertino) and Bastian Grimm (@basgr), will try to cover as much as they can from the conference. They will be writing posts, tweeting, taking pictures and shooting videos to try and give you as much information as they possibly can. And if you are at SES: be sure to follow them to find out what is going on at other sessions and go and say hi to them, they are really nice guys ?.
Special page
We have set up a special SES San Francisco page where all the content will be aggregated. On this page you can find the latest posts on State of Search, a view of the program, the latest tweets, videos, photos and links to posts on other sites than State of Search. If you want to follow SES San Francisco, thats the place you want to be.
Twitter
Also make sure you follow @state_ofsearch where you will find all the latest updates about SES San Francisco. Be warned, we are ‘live tweeting’ some sessions, which means you might just see a lot of tweets come by!
So, we are ready for SES San Francisco. Let the games begin!
