Search Marketing Blog
Search Engine Strategies San Jose Review
From left to right: Mike Rosenberg, Kent Schnepp, Angela Yost and Sean McMahon
Our EngineWorks team just got back from the Search Engine Strategies (SES) Conference & Expo down in San Jose, California this week. Good stuff going-on in our industry (as anticipated). Check-out our take on all the buzz!
A lot of the buzz was focused around the following four hot topics: 1. the latest controversy surrounding paid in-bound links (now that Google has released its new Webmaster Guidelines, 2. optimization strategies for social media, 3. Google’s latest monetization machination YouTube video PPV ads, and 4. new vertical search engines for Paid Search.
The Search Engine Strategies Exhibit Hall
First, it will be interesting to see how the search marketing industry adapts to Google’s new Web Master Guidelines pertaining to paid in-bound links. Given the number of conversations that took place after the most talked about session, “Are Paid Links Evil?,” companies purchasing paid links will need to be aware of potential risks. According to Google, purchasing links is fine except when those links are used to pass PageRank authority from one site to another. I perceive that we will hear a great deal more about this topic over the next few months. Visit Search Engine Roundtable for a review of the best SES session.
Second, social media is here to stay, and presents a big opportunity for search engine marketing firms. There were several sessions about social media optimization (SMO) and user generated content. Visit the following links to review these sessions:
Next, Google unveiled its AdWords-style pay-per-view video ads on commercially viable YouTube videos. (Note that “commercially viable” means video content that hopefully doesn’t run afoul of copyright and trademark laws!) Pretty cool technology, whereby a thin image ad runs the length of the YouTube screen. When you click on this image at the bottom of the screen, the advertisement opens-up to fill the full YouTube screen, then returns you to the video after you have watched the ad. The video ad, of course, being triggered by the keyword phrase used to find the YouTube video.
Team EngineWorks at the Google Booth
Finally, several search players are rolling-out opportunities for sponsored listings throughout highly targeted vertical search engines. For example, GenieKnows was touting their newly developed search engines for the following verticals: games, local, and health.
The Yahoo! Booth
