I’ve been thinking a lot about this since I saw Avinash Kaushik give the keynote at SES…in jeans. It’s bothering me so much that we discussed it a bit about it during dinner at Counselors Academy and, based on the reaction I received there, I know it’s going to ruffle some feathers. But it’s important to begin the conversation…

Wearing jeans for public speaking – keynote, breakout, panel, whatever it might be – is not appropriate OR professional.

Continue Reading »

Today is the last day of SES New York, my brain feels like it’s going to explode, and I still have my presentation this afternoon (which Molli will blog about tonight for all of you wondering what a communication person is doing at a search conference – I’m still trying to figure it out!).

This morning’s keynote speaker was Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president of the online audience business at Bing. As you know, I like the personal stories, so that’s where I’ll begin.  Continue Reading »

This session was fun because it was all Q&A, but you could only get your questions answered by using a certain Twitter hashtag.  This sucked for me because the WiFi at the conference is terrible and I wanted to save my phone battery for my walk home (I live in NYC and it looks different at night. Trust me, you’d save your phone battery too).

BUT… I ended up using my phone to post a hashtag tweet.  I admit it, I wanted to see my face on the screen – I carry mace so I’m OK.

Overall, some of the questions/answers were somewhat beneficial.

Question from audience: If you have a client that won’t share their tracking information with you, what would you do to prove your ROI?

Answer from panel: Fire the client.  In this industry and this day and age if you’re working on SEO, you don’t want to get yourself into a situation where you can’t win.  Work on the value upfront and develop benchmarks together. Continue Reading »

Besides the free stuff, I already have some good take-aways, in terms of ideas and concepts from the Search Engine Strategies conference 2010, here in New York City.

The day started off with keynote speaker David Meerman Scott, social media pioneer and author of “The New Rules of Marketing and PR“.  His presentation consisted of six rules, but out of those rules I found four trends that really spoke to me, so I thought I’d share those gems with you.

Video.  Video is one thing that I am just now exploring, but according to this keynote, it is the next biggest thing for businesses.  Simple videos on YouTube, on your Web site, or your blog, video is going to be shared more than regular content and a great way to attract new audiences.  Key take away: Buy a Flip camera. Continue Reading »

I am speaking on Thursday at SES (search engine strategies) NY. Part of the package of speaking is I have the opportunity to attend the sessions.

Not being a search person by trade, some of the sessions are really interesting to me and I’m anxious to learn more. Molli Megasko is joining me and we’ll both be blogging from the sessions. Continue Reading »