What We Found: Sessions For People Like Us( And Our Readers)

Business, Small Business.

Search engine strategies, the event - why we went: the last time we sent anyone to the search engine stategies conference was in 2001 - i think. Only two of us went and found very little that seemed relevant. Not because we were really interested in that. technical stuff, but because we thought our readers might be.

At the time our readers, established successful mainstream companies, were just getting serious about their Internet presence. - not much. What would we find for them? The focus in 2001 was on the big companies with IT staffs and( relatively) unlimited resources, huge web sites and bulging budgets. I was actually interested in that session for us, not our readers. We did come across a few things, the only one I remember was the session by Heather - Lloyd Martin and Jill Whalen, called" Writing For Search Engines" .

This year, 2006 we decided to return. - all i had to lose was cab fare and a few hours time. After all it was here in NYC and they were kind enough to provide me with press credentials. Halfway through the first session I attended, hosted by Danny Sullivan the editor of SearchEngineWatch. com - I knew I had made the right decision. How many of you are here for the first time? etc. etc. In his warm - up Danny( I don' t know him but you feel like you do after listening to him for a few minutes) asked the audience( probably more people attended that session - one of several at that moment, than attended the entire event in' 01) , How many of you are web marketers? After listening to him for 45 minutes it was clear to me that, we' re all web marketers or we' d better be!

Our readers, want to grow, and probably too their market share. - our serious competitors are and they will be taking our business right out from under our noses unless we begin to pay real attention to our search engine strategies. They want to do more business with each of their customers, and they want to expand their reach( geographically) . How is that possible? And they want to do it 24/ 7/ 365 as cost effectively as possible. That' s what we were there to find out - and we did. Search engine optimization is not just for Internet entrepreneurs and giant companies anymore.

What we found: Sessions for people like us( and our readers) . - it' s for. There were three program tracks from introductory to expert. Main Street companies too. I found some very useful information in each - which I' ll be describing in future articles. I came up with were ideas and strategies our D. What.

There were ideas that caused me to say to myself, "why didn' t I think of that" and others that we' d started using but then lost interest in when there was no instant jump in our traffic. - y. (do it yourself) readers can use to maximize what they already have in place. You know, those, "if I knew then what I know now" sort of things. There' s an SES event coming to a city near you: That' s not literally true - but there are several upcoming during 2006 and I met people from all over the country at the one here in NYC. And we learned how we and our readers can be better buyers of the services they can' t or don' t want to do themselves. At lunch the first day( more about this in a future article) I met two guys from a family owned company in California.

Engine Strategies event in Chicago( I think) and she told them to come to this one. - their boss had attended the search. Their company is a non - Internet as any you can imagine and they were already busy making notes for what to do when they go back to the plant. Time and( very little) money well spent! I called 3 of my colleagues and they attended just the" exhibit only" area the next two days. This article will be posted on our web site complete with links to SES resources. The articles will be posted as soon as they are written.

There will be 6 - 12 additional articles described there. - the bottom line: "we' re all web marketers or we' d better be, because our competitors are! " our objective is to shine a light into the ways that each of you - no matter where you are in the process, can put your business( via your web site) to. work more effectively - to realize your company' s potential.