Wikio have given us a sneak preview of their list of June’s top UK online marketing blogs, which will be published on Sunday June the 5th. This doesn’t obviously use the same data as the Adage ranking system, and whilst there are still the usual suspects (such as Blogstorm, David Naylor, Hobo Web and Viper Chill) its interesting to see some new faces coming to the fore.

BTW Its good to see Holistic in at position 13.

Before I start, I would like to thank Bas van den Beld, David Harry, Nichola Stott, Judith Lewis, Andy Beard, Andy Redfern, Ben Bisco, Shaun Anderson, Paul Reilly and Will Critchlow for taking part in the Q & A – hopefully the first in a number of these taking place over the course of 2011.

In our final question we asked our experts what their predictions were for 2011,taking the search centric shackles of questioning off for a while – with some interesting results (Paul Reilly in particular must have had one Pinot Grigio too much for point 3 )

What are your big 3 predictions for 2011

David Harry

Well, as I mentioned when you asked me to drop in, I ain’t big on predictions. Just look at all the changes last year no one saw coming. Seems a bit pointless. So let me be a bit more vertical with this…
1) SEO will continue to struggle for legitimacy, moreso with a weak economy
2) The SEO world will see LESS drama than usual *see #1 – we start pulling together
3) Link obsessed SEOs will continue to find their strategies dated.

Ben Bisco

1) A Royal Marriage
2) Google doing even more playing with ‘rich media’ elements in PPC, potentially heralding a convergence of search and display
3) Greater integration between Search, Social and Apps with Mobile at the epicentre

Paul Reilly:

1) The best SEOs, based on proven track record, will become more valuable and more marketable as Google make it increasingly important to be in the top positions, particularly in Travel and Financial Services (especially if Google are allowed to abuse their monopoly power by the Department of Justice)
2) 2011 will be the year of social discovery – when this is nailed and gains mass adoption, the game will change again. New rules, new game!
3) Alien space craft will be seen by the masses above major cities starting with London.

Bas van den Beld

Oh no, not another “year of”. Mobile is already here, so is video, it will just be emerging more, as goes for social. There is no one thing which it will be “the year of”

Nichola Stott

Yes! Video and mobile from the get-go and augmented reality coming to search by the end of 2011. I betcha

Judith Lewis

1) Search engines will move focus back to semantic web and understanding language use
2) Facebook will be listed with search engines due to its importance as a search platform
3) Technology to recognise the content of video and images will mean this content is better indexed and more searchable

Andy Beard

How can I say video, that would be biased as I now for for a video platform.?

I think 2011 will be the year of leveraged syndication of viral content in whatever form, though infographics were only really scratching the surface.

That is possibly even more biased but at least other platforms have a bit of a head start and I have been telling them to do some of what I hope to help uQast achieve for over a year.

Andy Redfern

1) Google Strategy – Google’s current share price of $600 is one of the dominating elements in its 2011 strategy; expect to see a 10% growth of these shares throughout the year. This will mean that Google needs to find other payment mechanism in its search function. I would predict that both Google Local and Google Shopping will have a paid element by the end of 2011. Google will continue to cause even more uproar by displaying more of its own content, i.e.: enhanced links to local listings even more prominent in search listings.
2) Affiliates – 2011 is set to be a difficult year for large-scale content affiliate sites, with Google starting to push bigger brands in the listings. This will be a real boom year for super affiliates with no heavy reliance on Google. For affiliate Networks to be successful in 2011, super affiliates will need to be secured on an exclusive basis. Look to see affiliate networks spending heavily on the employment of exclusive retention teams. Clients will develop multi-skilled affiliate teams to help develop their in-house networks. All will result in three UK affiliate networks going bust this year.
3) Facebook – Facebook’s advertising revenue will see a year-on-year growth of around 72%, pushing them through the $2bn profit barrier. With Facebook and other new PPC mediums available, click fraud will begin to rear its head throughout 2011.

Shaun Anderson

Timewasting – on social media sites – thinking you are doing something useful for your business. I’d go as far to say you should keep social media to non-work hours to get the best out of all your real work efforts. I am at the moment and i feel a lot better anyway. Social media consultants *might* have a slightly different take on this.

Peter Young

1) Bing to take increased market share from Google
2) More blurring of the lines between paid and organic search, particularly on previously untapped sources.
3) Sascon 2011 to be a fantastic success (If initial launch is anything to go by)

Will Critchlow

1) Mainstream media articles predicting the impending fall of Google
2) A major leap forward in search innovation both from Google and startups (not sure what this is or I’d be betting my house on it)
3) Facebook buys Quora (you asked for bold ones)

Other parts in the Experts View series:
Q1 : Do you think a viable competitor to Google will emerge in 2011?
Q2 : Where do you think the growth area in search will emerge in 2011?
Q3 : Do you think Social media’s influence on SEO will continue to increase or fade away?
Q4: With many recent figures suggesting a ‘mini-revival’ – do you think 2011 will be a bumper year for search
Q5: What do you think will be the 3 biggest challenges facing search practitioners in 2011
Q6: With Google appearing to favour ‘brand building’ do you think we will continue to see affiliates struggle in the new year?
Q7: Do you think there is further consolidation within the search engine marketplace?

2011 is shaping up to be an interesting year, and given some of the early goings on looks set to present search marketers with even more challenges. With comparison ads on the horizon,the expansion of local, social media more and more integrated – what do our experts think will present them the biggest challenges during 2011?

What do you think will be the 3 biggest challenges facing search practitioners in 2011

David Harry

Understanding it all. If there was one thing I learned last year, it was that a large portion of the industry doesn’t think beyond simple on site and throwing a shit load of links at things. As search is evolving, this reliance will prove to be many folks undoing. I have long stressed that SEOs understand how search engines work, their evolutionary history and ‘future proofing’ one’s efforts. There were a TON of changes to search last year and many folks didn’t ‘get it’. We really do need to have a deeper understanding and corresponding strategies in place to best utilize the aforementioned budgets. This is part and parcel to the problems we have as an industry establishing legitimacy. So hmmm…

Ben Bisco

Remarketing/Attribution as detailed above

Paul Reilly:

Google Comparison Ads -with Google blatantly stepping on the toes of it’s biggest spending advertisers! #2 will become the new #1 Watch out flight and insurance aggregators, you’re first on their hit list… you know who you are!

Google places – how do you compete, when power is handed on a plate to the business owners themselves, it’s a new ranking algo which needs to be cracked.

Next years forthcoming algo update. Google seem to be rolling a major algo update yearly, based on historic SERP volatility data. I’m expecting fireworks this year! Bring it on!

Bas van den Beld

1. Integration
2. Keeping up with the changes which are going in a rapid speed
3. Figuring out what users really want

Nichola Stott

Google are getting much better at combating poor SEO practise algorithmically as opposed to manually. Don’t think for a second the search engines don’t know what you’re upto or that your linkfarm is beyond detection. Trust me, I’ve sat on data for six months to a year before whilst evidence is documented and compiled, (and in some sectors applying action algorithmically would wipe out the top 10,000 sites pretty much!) When you have as much data as Google, you can spot a gnat fart in the metrics; so 2011 is going to be a challenge for lazy SEOs. I can’t think of any others. It’s all part of the job really.

Judith Lewis

1) Creating services that businesses understand and want to buy. One thing I have encountered again and again are businesses that don’t understand what search or social media can do for their bottom line. If as an industry we do more education and create services that businesses understand from a bottom line then we’ll succeed

2) Ethics/Standards. I think this is possibly *the* biggest challenge facing the industry in 2011 (and every year). We need standards of practices that we all abide by. We need a code of conduct and an industry body that can call us to account and seriously punish us if we seriously breech those codes. We need to stop acting like a bunch of cowboys and children who scream blue murder when someone tries to impose boundaries on us. We need to stop fearing regulations, qualifications and the like. We also need to start acting with integrity, be transparent, educate our clients and derive a legal torture method for those who being the name of SEO into disrepute. OK… maybe not torture but we need something. As an industry we must STOP playing fast and loose and START creating at least a set of standards. Nothing angers me more than when I hear the stories – you know the ones. £10k practically stolen by someone who did next to nothing. Someone charging for Google Analytics. People soaking clients for money and using threats like drops in rankings if they stop paying. If we’re seen as extortionists because of the behaviour of a few rogue individuals then our industry is as good as lost. If we grow up, collectively grow a pair and set in place some standards and get the IAB or something to help us grow this initiative, we can repair the reputation of the industry, filter out the rogues and be seen as the knowledgeable specialists we are. (wow… OK, rant over!)

3) R&D. I think that’s the best word I have for constant resting and research and development of techniques and information against which things can be measured. We can look to newer industries like advertising to see how they measure, how that industry is understood and use that and other measures to try and create a language we can use to demonstrate value. We will convince business of the value of utilising our expertise if we can also demonstrate measurable value.

Andy Beard

Being paid, measuring results and staying ahead of the curve.

Andy Redfern

The rapid fragmentation of our marketing channels and the birth of new ones are going to be search marketers biggest challenges on 2011; here are three challenging areas to our industry this year

1) Tracking – more fragmentation means more tracking headaches – how can you be sure elements are being measured and allocated correctly.

2) Reputation Management – Online reputation management will become mainstream this year, and will be increasingly seen as a vital aspect of any marketing campaign. Reputation management will involve reviewing more sources of information that in 2010; only clients with a well automated system operated by trained staff will be able to operate effectively

3) Cross Platform support – HTML 5 will allow for a more strategic view of the web creative, to function over multiple platforms. Having the right staff will continue to be essential.

Shaun Anderson

I think running a business, managing personalities, and keeping new clients happy is more difficult than the challenges search throws up but then again I am not crazy enough to keep up with every new craze. I don’t get paid to consult on the latest squeaks from search news hounds, I get paid to change rankings – so that’s where I spend all my time. I think some search practitioners biggest problem is how much time they are going to waste playing with social media toys and instant messaging their mates rather than get on with work – especially less experienced search marketers new to the game in 2011.

Peter Young

Accountability – still too much ‘smoke and mirrors’ in the industry for my liking. In an environment where many other channels are accountable back directly to ROI, I still find myself coming up against smoke and mirrors, intangible metrics of success and a lack of transparancy. SEO clients are far more savvy these days, and expect more from their search services, whether that be SEO or PPC.

The Variable factor. Personalisation and Local both offer significant challenges in themselves, however the continued expansion of Google’s comparison ads can only serve to muddy the waters, particularly if we look at some of their recent tests and trials. Further to this I can’t help thinking its only a matter of time before we see verticals such as travel come under the microscope of Google’s comparison ads

Integration and Attribution – IMO we still have a lot of growing up to do as an industry – and I think those savvy clients mentioned in point 1 are going to start looking more and more at their ROI from search. Deduplication in particular is something so many people forget about with SEO but with more and more tools coming to the market allowing us to get a truly integrated picture, this has to start becoming a mainstray of any SEO campaign.
.

Will Critchlow

1) Mainstream media articles predicting the impending fall of Google

2) A major leap forward in search innovation both from Google and startups (not sure what this is or I’d be betting my house on it)

3) Facebook buys Quora (you asked for bold ones)

Other parts in the Experts View series:
Q1 : Do you think a viable competitor to Google will emerge in 2011?
Q2 : Where do you think the growth area in search will emerge in 2011?
Q3 : Do you think Social media’s influence on SEO will continue to increase or fade away?
Q4: With many recent figures suggesting a ‘mini-revival’ – do you think 2011 will be a bumper year for search

Its nearly time for all of us here in the UK to see in the new year, so this is really just a short note to all readers of the blog to have a fantastic new year, and best wishes for 2011.

We at Holistic Search have some fantastic plans to take the blog forward during 2011, including some new columnists both veterans in the industry,and those looking to make a mark on it. Further to that Manchester SEO meets and Sascon will be taking place and I personally will be speaking at Search Engine Strategies London in the early part of 2011.

Again to all, Have a great night and hope to see you in the new year

In advance – I will apologise for the shameless self promotion of this post, however as many of you will know I have been involved with the organisation of the Search, Analytics and Social conference on April 28th along with a number of other organisations including Latitude, Pushon, MediaEdge (WPP), Dont Panic (Event organisers), iSpy Search and of Mediavest. As a not-for-profit event this has presented some significant challenges but I am pleased to say we have a number of fantastic speakers now in the offing.

As well as a moderating debut for myself (the speaking cherry having long since gone), the event features some stalwarts from the Search Marketing, Social Media and Analytics fraternity with some of the key highlights being

1) Holistic Search Panel – Jonathan Beeston (Efficient Frontier), Dixon Jones (Receptional and Majestic SEO), Jon Myers (Mediavest) and Neil Jackson (Tamar) discuss how to integrate and optimise your search (thats ppc AND seo) campaigns for maximum performance

2) Running a Pan European Search campaign – Some great speakers from here and across the channel including Andy Atkins Kruger (WebCertain), Guillermo Villoroag and State of Search founder Bas Van Den Beld. With many organisations expanding their services beyond these shores make sure you see catch this

3) Search and Social Media - Well we had to save one with a load of big names, and we’ve gone to town on this one. Joost De Valk (Orange Valley), Massimo Burgio, Anthony Mayfield (iCrossing) and not forgetting the one and only Lyndon Antcliffe (Cornwall SEO). Think we may be booking some extra seats for this one

4) Conversion Rate Attribution – This is one where not all the panel speakers have been confirmed however with Etai Rosen (Kenshoo), Ben Jesson/Dr Karl Banks(Conversion Rate Experts) and James Yancey (Search Ignite) on the panel it should for a very interesting and thought provoking panel

5) Who is best to exploit the Social Media opportunity – Wow this one should be a humdinger. Will McInnes (NixonMcInnes), Judith Lewis (iLevel), Massimo Burgio and Paul Fabretti (Gabba) make up the panel.

Here at Holistic Search, being a blog partner for the event we are able to offer readers 12.5% off the current early bird rate by quoting HOLSEA001.

To order tickets to the event, go to the Sascon website or call Nicky Wake at Dont Panic on 00 44 (0)1706 828855

Further to the earlier post regarding the must go-to UK search marketing conferences for 2010, we thought it would be interesting to see where readers will be going this year. Our early front runners appear to be that of SES and SasCon – both of whom strangely are the two nearest events in the current calendar.

For those of you that have met me you will know I am very involved with the Manchester SEO meetup that happens every month along with Ben McKay, David Lindop and Shane Jones.

Given the increasing popularity of the event in only seems right therefore to launch a website for the event – yes a dedicated Manchester SEO website – to keep you up to date with the latest news, events, gossip and more importantly when the next Manchester SEO event is

We have also launched a new twitter account for the Manchester SEO Group (twitter.com/mancseo), and will shortly be adding the Manchester SEO list to the group, so drop us a line if you want to be included

We are always on the lookout for sponsors for the event, so please drop us a line if you are interested in sponsoring an event, getting involved or helping in some way

Looking at spending some of your budget this year attending a conference with a particular focus on learning more about SEO, PPC, Social Media or Analytics. Well look no more. Holistic Search have compiled a list of the must go to search conferences in the UK for 2010.

1) SASCon

Date: 28th April 2010
Well I would put this first (as its one of my little babies))but in all truth its shaping up to be a fantastic conference. Speakers such as Jon Myers, Joost de Valk, Bas Van Den Beld, Fantomaster are already on board and we have a load of good sessions for both client and agency side people – all at half the price of many of the other conferences about.

2) Search Engine Strategies London

Date: 16th – 18th February 2010
Always puts on a fantastic show, and this year is looking absolutely fantastic with Richard Baxter, Mel Carson, Brett Payne, Ciaran Norris and Brian Eisenberg amongst others again showing fantastic support of the event. Always worth a go even if only on a day pass just for the quality of the speakers involved.

3) Think Visibility

Date: 13th March 2010
Dom Hodgson has been responsible for running a very enjoyable conference out of Leeds, which has attracted a range of great speakers from all parts of the country. This year is no different with Judith Lewis, Tom Critchlow, Steven Pavlovich and Sarah Goodwin all speaking at the event.

4) SMX Advanced London

Date: 17th and 18th May 2010
This year part of the Advanced SMX framework, so should be an absolutely immense event. Speakers for this years event are still being put together however don’t let this hold you back if events at previous events are anything to go by.

5) A4U Expo London

Date: 11th – 13th October 2010
One of the Events I was personally gutted to miss out on last year, makes a return to London in 2010. Worth attending if not just for the different angle the conference takes against that of more ‘mainstream’ options such as SES or SMX.

If you are thinking of attending any of the events, let us know and we will add you to the twitter lists for the events.
http://twitter.com/peteyoung/sascon2010
http://twitter.com/peteyoung/seslondon2010
http://twitter.com/peteyoung/thinkvis2010
http://twitter.com/peteyoung/smxadvanced-2010
http://twitter.com/peteyoung/a4u-expo-london-2010

Its Christmas Eve, and its been a fantastic year for the Holistic Search blog, culminating in the BIMA Best blog nomination and a nomination for the Drum Power 100 to boot.

With 2010 looming plans are already afoot to make the Holistic Search Blog even bigger and better in 2010. More posts, more bloggers and more coverage than ever before. If you have a topic you would like to post about, please get in touch, I am always looking for further contributors to the site.

To close, Hope all my readers have a fantastic Christmas – and a hugely profitable 2010.

See you in the new year….

Here at Holistic Search we are proud to be blog partners with Search Marketing Expo (aka SMX) London, which will be running from between the 17th and 18th May 2010. As a result we are proud to be able to offer readers 15% off their SMX entrance fee simply by quoting the discount code ‘PETERY010′.

The 2010 event is as usual taking place at the Grand Connaught Rooms in Covent Garden

To find out more please visit the SMX Advanced London website at http://searchmarketingexpo.com/london

A lot has been made of augmented reality recently, with launches of enhanced street view maps highlighting the fact Google in particular are seriously looking at it as a serious part of their armoury.

So what is augmented reality, according to Wikipedia augmented reality could be described as:

Augmented reality (AR) is a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are merged with (or augmented by) virtual computer-generated imagery – creating a mixed reality. The augmentation is conventionally in real-time and in semantic context with environmental elements, like for example sports scores on TV during a match. With the help of advanced AR technology (e.g. adding computer vision and object recognition) the information about the surrounding real world of the user becomes interactive and digitally usable. Artificial information about the environment and the objects in it can be stored and retrieved as an information layer on top of the real world view. The term augmented reality is believed to have been coined in 1990 by Thomas Caudell, an employee of Boeing at the time.

Current augmented reality however does seem a lot more advance than earlier incarnations of previous modelling platforms and technologies, one that springs to mind is VRML -and the commercial opportunities that this brings appear to be quite significant. Even more encouraging is the number of good commercial examples already being used:

Even more encouraging is the apparent portability of augmented reality as technology within mobile devices increases. Mashable recently posted the top 6 augmented reality apps – which I would highly recommend a read of and a play with should you have the applicable hardware which include the following example for ‘local tube stations’ for London

Theres no doubt its early days yet, however the examples above highlight the huge potential available particularly for search marketeers, if one considers both product and local search targeting. Its not there yet, but its certainly one to watch.

Update: David Lindop from BurndownEasy just highlighted this great use of Augmented Reality as well

Twitter has become the new bloggers playground, with Andy Murray (Tennis Player) and even Obama twittering on a fairly regular basis (although I would suggest the Obama postings may become slightly less frequent ). However it has also become a commercial tool recently with brands like ComScore, Dell and even the likes of Oracle and IBM getting to grips with the Twitter phenomenon.

However, why do so many brands suck at Twitter?

Size

As many of us know, large organisations often have more defined rules and regulations than smaller organisations and individuals. This lack of flexibility often restricts brands from either

• Responding quickly to potential issues
• Corporate guidelines can sometimmes restrict the level/tone of response particularly in larger organisations
• Senior decision makes sometimes don’t have the familiarity with new technologies and can sometimes be wary of new technologies, and thus slow to adopt

Late to the show

As highlighted on the above point, larger organisations in particular are often slow to react to new technologies, and thus often can be beaten to the punch by competitors or just keen admirers. For example @disney is owned by Cherie Thomas from Los Gatos, California – https://twitter.com/Disney

Those that do adopt, come in two guises

1. Those that embrace, brands such as Dell and Comscore are perfect examples of this and…
2. Those that merely sit and do nothing, reserved with little or nothing to say, unsure on how to deal with the new guest to the party – such as Microsoft – twitter.com/microsoft

Intention

Lets face it, nearly all of us hate being preached to. Thats one of the beauties of the web. We invite who we want in, in particular search. Twitter is a very personal channel, if people don’t like you they will just stop following you – and thus your Twitter activity will go unnoticed. This lack of direct business return, can often restrict just what activity occurs – and for those that do go down the direct sales channel, can often end in disappointment unless done correctly (The Dell outlet example being a reasonably good example of this.

The Big Brother aspect

There are a number of brands out there following individuals, some as a direct response to previous follows (Starbucks for example returned in kind a follow for me), however others go out directly and follow indivuals in the hope of getting a follow recipricated. However there are a lot of Twitterers who do not like bing followed by corporate followers, and thus such tactics can fall on deaf ears.

Lack of familiarity with brands

With some brands such as IBM and Oracle, individuals have created so called hybrid profiles, such as RichardATDell. Whilst Dell do actually have a brand persona, there are a number of brands out there where hybrid accounts operate, and where these operate without brand compliment, can potentially mean a disassociation with the brand.

The other potential issue can be job migration. People don’t stay in jobs forever and these hybrid accounts can often become obselete very quickly – OracleJulio being one such example.

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound

With big brands it is likely that people will naturally search for that brand, however this isn’t often the case with smaller brands. For this reason, active commercial use of Twitter in these instances can merely result in lots of effort with little or no return.

Lack of buy-in

Whilst brand monitoring is become more popular by the day, there is still a long way to go. Many brands do not follow what is being said about them online, even by simple devices such as Google Alerts. Without knowing what is being said, it is unlikely some brands will have a justifiable reason to operate in the Blogosphere, let alone Twitter.

There is no doubt the effect Twitter has had within search circles, one only has to look at the people using it (most of the UK and US search welebrity circuit (term coined from Ciaran Norris) are on there including Matt Cutts, Jill Whalen, Jason Calacanis, Danny Sullivan, Lee Odden, Will Critchlow and Richard Scoble,

As an individual, are you on Twitter – if not, why not?

If you are a brand – what are you doing on Twitter. Its not for everyone, however if you are going to enter the brave new world, take your time, do your homework and enter it with your eyes wide open

I, like many have been following the recent events in the US election, with the fight for the White House. It was therefore interesting to see the influence online has played in the campaign. Two recent articles have really struck a cord as a result.

Firstly, Sage Lewis highlighted the importance of online (and in particular Search and Social Media) played in Obamas rise to the White House. In his article, Sage mentioned a number of interesting statistics, namely:

• There are nearly 2 million links to Obama’s website, nearly twice as much as those pointing to John McCains website.
• According to statistics released by Rubicon Consulting, “Democrats are more active online than Republicans. Democrats are more likely to participate in online communities, and say they’re more heavily influenced in their voting decisions by information they find online.”
• Obama’s campaign had social media at its heart, not just in terms of the site itself, but also in terms of the personnel involved. The involvement of Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, shows the importance of social media within the strategy.

The second article of particular interest to search was Kate Kay on Clickz. In the article, Kate highlighted that Obama’s campaign spent nearly $8 million through October to Google, Yahoo, Facebook, news Web sites, ad networks, and in-game ad firm Massive (which I talked about at the recent Interactive Marketing show in Manchester). In particular it is interesting to see where the money was spent.

• Just over $4 Million on Paid Search – roughly broken down $3.5 Million to Google, with Yahoo accounting for about an eighth of that, with $673000.
• Nearly $8 million spent on online ads.
• Interestingly, the spend on Social Media comes to the fore. Nearly three quarters of the social media budget used in September alone, with Facebook taking the lions share.
• The use of MSN owned Massive Incorporated (well worth a look) was interesting alone. The campaign placed ads pushing an early voting message in EA games, including a racing game called “Burnout Paradise,” targeting them to players in 10 battleground states.
• Ad networks were a particular focus with more than $600,000 was paid to a variety of networks throughout the year, including AOL’s Advertising.com, Collective Media, Undertone Networks, Burst Media, Quigo, DrivePM, Pulse360, Specific Media, and online video networks Broadband Enterprises and Tremor Media.
• Local online media targeting also saw significant spend with around $100000 being spent.

Politics is an area many people have an opinion about, and it is therefore suprising it is often not integral to modern day political campaigns, however it is encouraging to see more and more focus given to Online. In particular key channels such as Search (inc Online PR/Blogging), Display Online Brand Management (and monitoring in particular), should be a fundamental part of any modern day political framework.

Given the noise that has been generated on Twitter by many of my search colleagues with regards to the US Elections, it is suprising that McCains camp didn’t use online as a bigger battleground, and I personally think this is the first of a more digitally focussed policital landscape moving forward, as even we in the UK start using online as part of the political juggernaut.

It has always been one of my goals to start getting more and more on the speaking circuit – something I havent been able to do previously due to the volume of work in previous roles. I was fortunate (some would say unfortunate) to get the opportunity to open my account at the recent Interactive Marketing show held here in Manchester, something Jon Myers was meant to be doing, but was unfortunately not able to do.

Having got the first one out the system, I have to say I have the bug. Watch this space…

Further to my post last week regarding a busy week for many search marketeers, it seemed appropriate to follow it up with a beginners guide to getting the most out of whatever conference you are attending. Most conferences these day are not cheap affairs, so heres my guide to getting the most out of them.

Have a clear motive.

There is no point in attending any of these conferences without a clear objective. It doesn’t necessarily need to be the attendance of a key speaker, it could just as easily be:

• New Business – This obviously depends on which conference you are attending however many of these conferences provide a wealth of new business ops whether they be:
  • Speed Dating sessions – For example Business NorthWest at the GMEX in Manchester is providing a number of speed dating sessions for potential new business or business partnerships
  • Interaction with key decision makers – This will depend on show to show however these events can be great for making contact with a key new business target – for example SES tends to more industry focussed, whereas AdTech/InternetWorld show often see a higher number of client types in attendance
  • Displays – Many of these conferences allow vendors to highlight their goods and services. Certainly the likes of InternetWorld can be a great place to get your suppliers into line – whether it be your 3rd party bid management tool, analytics or even recruitment.
• on that note – Recruitment. SES and some of the other more focussed conferences and shows can be a great place for recruitment. Whilst this is sort of unwritten, there is no doubting it goes on – and it can be a good time for getting the foundations in place for potential collaboration at a later date. (Just look what happened to me )
• Learning – Probably why 90% of us go to manyof these conferences. If you learn one good thing from the conference it can often be worth the attendance fee alone. Certainly there are some conferences that are better than others, certainly I was very impressed by the level and tone of the presentations at SES in London this year and the SMX line up is looking very good too. On that note I would highly recommend the following speakers
  • Bryan Eisenberg – FutureNow Inc
  • Jon Myers – MediaVest Manchester
  • any of the ComScore/Hitwise stuff – Normally some good titbits in there
  • Kevin Ryan
  • Matt Cutts or any of the other Google lot tbh – Mylie at SES was very good
  • Dixon Jones (Receptional)
  • Dave Naylor – never seen him personally but many people seem to talk very highly in terms of speaking
  • Erica Schmidt – Isobar
  • ….and please feel free to suggest any others below….

Don’t just focus on what happens during the day.

Think Rob Kerry put this best in his post “The Search Engine Groupie”

The majority of conference pass paying punters that attend these events are purely there to learn; many unaware of what’s happening in the background. The quiet whispers of idea exchanges over pints of black gold, and games of business card top trumps. For beginners, Search Engine Strategies offers a valuable selection of sessions to learn more about search marketing. For those who have reached the next level up though, such an occasion is even more valuable.

Thousands of Black Hats, White Hats, PPC Pink Hats and “Suits” gather in one place to get drunk together and network. I’ve still learnt things at the sessions of each SES I’ve attended (such as Video Search SEO tips at SES Chicago); but casually discussing new ways to build links, harness social media and further our part in keeping Matt Cutts’ team busy (Black Hat SEO = Googler Job Security) is worth the price of a conference ticket alone.

At many of these conferences many of the attendees will often congregate in the same places, certainly SES London and Hilton are always synonymous – however I would add dont just go harrasing who ever it is you want to talk to – be focussed, brief and polite. Certainly you will knmow if they want to continue the conversation further.

Be Prepared

Maybe its just the Boy Scout in me coming to the fore, however it certainly helps to be prepared at the conferences. This will help you get the best out of the conference and help you reach whatever objectives you may have

• Random attendance probably isn’t the best approach – knowing which speakers you want to see, when you want to see them is probably a better course of action, and will ensure your trip doesn’t end in disappointment.
• If you can try and leave a days grace either side of the conference dates when booking a hotel and flight. The best networking events tend to be on the day before the conference and on the last day.
• Check the forums and blogs regularly and well in advance. Each major conference event will usually have an official thread or even Twitter trail detailing what parties are happening and where.
• Mingle with major and niche search engines in the expo hall, they may have an invitation-only party for existing and potential clients that you could attend – (thanks rob)
• Enjoy it – These conferences are not all business.

You may (or may not have noticed) a change in the look of the Holistic Search Marketing site over the last couple of days. This has co-incided with the migration of the site from its original wordpress.com shared hosting to a dedicated box – in order that we can add further functionality  and social media bits and bobs to the site itself,  something which was rather restricted on the original platform.

It also gives us the opportunity to provide a simple site migration overview over the next couple of days.

Just been looking at events in November, and noticed a huge logjam of events round the first week of the month.

For us UK search marketing profs, there is Danny Sullivan’s SMX London, running from the 4th to 5th of November 2008 at the New Connaught Rooms in Covent Garden, London (with the (in)famous LondonSEO party wedged inbetween. One for both search marketing bods and potentially clients alike, its always good for a bit of Search Marketing celebrity spotting if nothing else (MediaVest’s very own Jon Myers will be there and is always worth listening to, but there is also the likes of Bigmouthmedia’s Andrew Girdwood, Key Relevance’s Christine Churchill, Alltogether Digital’s Ciaran Norris, Broncos Dave Naylor and (SEM’s serial Mr Fixit- sorry Dixon), Receptionals Dixon Jones – full SMX London agenda here.

For those further up north – there is also the option of the Internet Marketing Show at Manchester’s GMEX on the 4th and 5th of November. Whilst this is a bit more broad in terms of subject coverage it promises to be a superb function with the likes of Steak, MediaVest and MediaEdge all in attendance.

However it is a shame that there is also a big US function on in the same week which I can’t help has affected the potential turnout of some of the US ‘welebrities’. The Ad-Tech New York show takes place from November the 3rd to November the 6th 2008 and includes the likes of Kevin Ryan on the speaker list.

Whichever conference you are attending or thinking of attending – Enjoy.

Yes, we are looking for you to contribute content to the Holistic Search blog. Whilst this will not be an opportunitity for an unashamed linkfest and plug ofyour latest product or service, it will be an opportunity for the lucky contributors to share the views with the wider public.

I will be approaching a number of prominent search marketeers to try and get their views, however we are not just looking for the Andrew Girdwood’s and Danny Sullivan’s of the world on this, but also some budding up and coming bloggers.

If you are interested in contributing to the cause, drop us a line, dm or email with an outline of the topic. Thanks and happy writing….

When you come across a great resource, it seems only right to share it with others. Danny Dover over at SEOMoz (Yes them again), has put together a group of links to key tools and resources every online marketer should be aware of – called the Internet Marketing Handbook.

Good for both beginners, with enough in there to keep the even the likes of David Naylor happy (well Dan anyway), its well worth grabbing five minutes having a look at.

According to the latest IAB figures, spend in online continues to flourish, despite the doom and gloom in many of the financial markets and regular talk of recession. Figures for online showed

• £1.682.5m was spent during H1 2008 – an increase over 348.2m year on year
• Thats a 21% increase on H1 2007
• Despite many markets shrinking (Direct Mail 5.9%, Outdoor 4.2%), Online continued to grow significantly – up by early 20.9%
• Market share up to nearly 19% up fromm 15.9% in H2 2007
• Spend in online was only just below Press Display (1737.7m) and Television (1951.8m)

Such figures only serve to encourage online marketeers many of whom are facing their first real brush with economic slowdown, and it testament to the accountability of the channel as a sales tool. So where has this money been spent.

• Display – 19.8%
• Classifieds – 21.5%
• Paid for Search – 58.3%

If these figures are taken with SEO in mind (estimated to be worth around 330 million according to E-Consultancy), an overview of the market would probably look as follows:

Uk online market including SEO

The above SEO figure has been worked out as a percentage figure based on the 88/12 split from the earlier E-Consultancy report. With the current IAB figures therefore a rough estimate of SEO allocation would be circa 7% of the total spend

The growth in spend, still continues to be fueled with the traditional investors, that is the likes of the recruitment, automotive and property sectors, with finance accounting for circa 6.2% of totlal spend

So can this continue, only time will tell. Some forecasters are still seeing significant growth in the industry, others like the lads over at Marketing Pilgrim are seeing times ahead that are less bountiful than now, however there is no doubting the effectiveness of online, and the fact it is in the marketing mix for the longhaul.

Google is planning to launch a trial of branded search calls in TV ads (ala the recent I am Orange Ads) on the UK marketplace, aimed at increasing both search volumes and revenues.

Google have been approaching agencies to get involved in the new trial, which works by directing browsers of TV ads back to the search engines to type in a phrase rather than the direct URL.

According to the NMA

“It(Google) aims to use the trial to measure the uplift in search volume that’s driven by TV ads and test the effectiveness of search prompts within the ad creative.”

Its certainly an interesting move by Google particularly given the lukewarm rollout of many previous campaigns such as the afore mentioned Orange and others such as the DEFRA  campaign. I certainly think this rationale is worth pursuing for a number of reasons:

• The role of search in the decision making process
• Many people actively ‘surf’ whilst watching television. It is widely accepted that TV has a significant affect on traffic following periods of TV activity.
• The use of search as a branding tool. According to a recent study by Google 71% of people expected top brands to be at the top of the search engines (paid and organic)

Watch this space…

Everyone can relax… Dave Naylor is not going to be relieving himself of his regular updates on davenaylor.co.uk any time in the near future.

For those not in with the story, Dave was considering the future of the (in)famous davenaylor.co.uk blog following some serious issues relating to the pickup of the site in the search engines.

However following some late intervention from Patrick Altoft and Josh from Jaeweb, we can now rest easy in the comfort that things will continue.

May I saw for all us SEOs (apart from some who may have been miffed following the recent Twitter debate), good to hear your carrying on (BTW the offer to blog here anytime still stands)

Its official – well at least according to Matt Cutts. Sergey Brin now has his own blog -  which can be found at:

http://too.blogspot.com/

The name “too” reflects Sergey’s additional life outside work. One of his first posts is about the fact that he might be more likely to develop Parkinson’s Disease when he’s older. That’s based on data from 23andMe, the personal genetics company co-founded by Sergey’s wife Anne Wojcicki. It’s a serious reminder that healthiness is one of the top issues for anyone.

As a fellow blogger – welcome to the club!!!

Finally after months of planning (and minutes) of implementation the Holistic Search blog is now live. In the coming months (and years), the plan is to get a number of high profile industry specialists involved in the blog, as well as share the viewpoints of a couple of seasoned Search Experts, and Dan.

I myself am currently the SEO Manager for Mediavest (the UK’s leading independent media agency), something I thoroughly enjoy. This forum merely allows us to merely talk about my thoughts relating to Search, where its going and how I feel about it, with no holes (well maybe a few) barred. Search is something I am passionate about, and blogging something I thoroughly enjoy, especially following serious blogging time at both E-Gain New Media, Connectpoint/Pavilion/Amaze and my regular pieces over at E-Consultancy.

I have invited a couple of colleagues and industry friends to get involved and will introduce as they come on board.

In the meantime… Enjoy