Back to the Future… And Beyond

There were no flying cars at SMX Advanced, just a lot of great ideas

In 1962, Seattle was the home of the future. Among the exhibits at the Century 21 Exposition was a family home-of-tomorrow sporting, among other miracles, a “vast electronic library.” Other futuristic wonders of the fair included Ford’s six-wheeled, bubble-toped Seattle-ite XX concept car which featured an “onboard-computer with an automatic rolling roadmap,” a rocket ship simulation ride that gave you a glimpse of your vacation among the stars, the famed monorail which would make traffic jams “a thing of the past” and, of course, the Space Needle itself, Mighty Symbol of Progress.

Then reality intervened. The monorail failed to supplant the freeway and dreams of jet packs and rocket ships gave way to crowded airbuses with take-your-shoes-off security. In general, utopian fantasies took a back seat to dystopian ones (Soylent Green is People) and Seattle became identified more with Frasier than The Future.

Still, today, nearly every household has access to a “vast electronic library,” though of a type that few in 1962 could have foreseen. And it’s in the black box of that vast electronic library—now called the Internet—that our little story comes full circle. SMX Advanced, the new conference by Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Watch and Search Engine Land fame, was held last week in Seattle. It showed just how the vast electronic library can be a “golden land of opportunity and adventure,” provided you know where to search.

And that’s what made the conference so different and special: Its laser-like focus on how to draw more users and customers. Tips literally abounded. My highlights included:

SEO, meet SMM
Short for Social Media Marketing, SMM’s the hot new ticket in town for those wanting to get their messages across using social media—i.e., services that let people share their own content, like Flickr, Yahoo! Answers, Wikipedia and so forth. The panel of experts included Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz, Cindy Krum of Blue Moon Works, Stuntdubl’s Todd Malicoat and Neil Patel from ACS/Pronet Advertising.

Among the many nuggets was using Yahoo! Answers to become an expert in your field and draw links at the same time. Neil Patel talked about the do’s and don’ts of SMM (do add lots of “friends;” don’t try to spam the home page by tagging your own content over and over). Cindy Crum finished up by giving a great talk on how to build up your brand via social media and noted that customers and potential customers today are demanding a higher level of interaction with brands.

Bottom line: If you’re not marketing through social media now, you need to think about starting. For more, check out Search Engine Roundtable’s notes and Bruce Clay’s blog.

Better Ways
“Better ways to do boring stuff” is how MC Danny pitched this session. It was an all around Q&A with a bevy of search marketing experts (too many to name them all here). Among the more interesting questions for both publishers and advertisers:

• What tricks or tactics get you a lot of backlinks (without having to do much?)
• There are companies who want to build Flash-heavy sites that aren’t easily read by spiders. Have you had any success stories on getting them to change their minds?
• How many targeted links would you go after per month without penalty?
• How relevant is page freshness to ranking?

For the answers, take a peek at Search Engine Roundtable.

Paid Search Roundtable
It was here that our own Stewart Easterby announced the new Yahoo! Search Marketing open API program, which we talked about on the blog a few days later. This news won some pretty rave reviews at in Seattle and around the SEOsphere. Learn more from Bruce Clay.

Pump Up Your Paid Search
Those using paid search naturally want to get the most out of it. This panel focused on just that. Among the tips:

• Proper set-up is important
• Invest in tangential keywords carefully
• Consider geo-targeting
• In “Panama,” make use of the Alternate Text feature

You can read more about it here, here and here.

More Coverage:

• SMX Blog
• Search Engine Land
• Flickr Photostream
• Technorati
• Video coverage from WebProNews

Granted, there were no pavilions promising the Wonders of Tomorrow, but in all, SMX Advanced was a great kickoff to what promises to be a worthy conference series. Oh, and if you do happen to be in Seattle and find yourself in need of a little future boost, be sure to visit the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame, at the foot of the Space Needle right next to the monorail.

—Michael Mattis