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SES Chicago: SEM Small Business Blitz


(Guest Post)

Among other sessions, on Tuesday of Search Engine Strategies Chicago I attended SEM Small Business Blitz.

This session was a quick list of (often) free and easy tips for small business to compete in the social and search media.

The session was moderated by Matt Van Wagner, President of Find Me Faster.
Jennifer Laycock started off the session discussing social media marketing.

Some of her key points were:


  • Don’t be a Social Media Jackass
  • Listen to Trusted Advice
  • The Conversion is the Goal
  • It’s Not the Budget, it’s the Attitude

Be careful of the Marketing’s Wheel of Misfortune

Amber Naslund, President of Altitude, spoke next on ways for small business to compete in social media. Amber stressed that it’s important in social media not to be afraid to fail
6 Ways to Get a Foothold in Social Media:
  1. Get Educated
  2. Listed
  3. Find Your Personality
  4. Define Success
  5. Participate
  6. Measure
Carrie Hill with Blizzard Internet Marketing spoke last about Search Engine and Conversion Optimization for small businesses.
Some of Carrie’s SEO tips for successful management
  1. Crawl Your Site, with sites like: GSiteCrawler.com.
  2. Export data to Excel file.
  3. Sort URL’s.
  4. Assign 1 keyword to optimize per page.
  5. Write tags based on findings.
  6. Use and update spreadsheet routinely to keep accurate records of changes

John Ellis is a Senior Online Marketing Manager for ResortQuest Vacation Rentals

SES Chicago: Igniting Viral Campaigns

(Guest Post)

My favorite session from Day 1 of SES Chicago was Igniting Viral Campaigns

Moderated by Elisabeth Osmeloski, Founder, AdventuresinSearch.com, the session went into examples of great viral marketing campaign.

Chris Winfield, of 10e20, started off the session discussing “How can social media ignite your viral marketing campaign?”

Chris discussed the differences and opportunities with various online avenues:

  • Forums (example: rankings.bigboards.com)
  • Social Networking / Bookmarking (Digg, StumbleUpon)

Ideas for Good Content:

  1. List
  2. How To’s
  3. Surveys
  4. Tools and Calculators
  5. Video
  6. Badges / widgets

Chris was followed by Fionn Downhill, CEO & President Elixir Interactive.

Fionn explained that viral marketing is not expensive.

  1. The basic elements of Viral Marketing
  2. Give Away Items
  3. Effortless transfer to others
  4. Scales Easily
  5. Exploits Common Motivations
  6. Utilize Existing Communication
  7. Takes Advantage of other’s reasoning.

Tools like AddThis.com and TubeMogul.com are good ways to get started.

Jennifer Laycock, of Editor-in-Chief Search Engine Guide, spoke last. As always, Jennifer had some great viral success stories to share with the group.

3 Commandments of Viral Marketing

  1. Thou Shalt Know Thy Customer
  2. Thou Shalt Be Remarkable
  3. Thou Shalt Try, Try Again
** John Ellis is a Senior Online Marketing Manager for ResortQuest Vacation Rentals



SES Chicago 08: My Agenda

(Guest Post)

Search Engine Strategies Chicago is just around the corner. As I prepare for my session, Getting Vertical Search Right, I am also preparing my agenda.
SES events are always a great time to catch up with fell SEM friends and meet new ones.
As always, I find it best to have an action plan going into the conference. Thanks to the use of Twitter and other social media efforts, we are able to quickly get a feel for how well a session is going.
You can find me in SES Chicago at the sessions bellow. However, I plan to keep a close eye on the Twitter buzz as well.
Day 1 – Monday, December 8
10:30am-11:30am – Universal & Blended Search
11:45am-12:45pm – Social Responsibility in a 2.0 World
3:00pm-4:00pm – Igniting Viral Campaigns
4:30pm-5:30pm – Semantic Search: How Will it Change Our Lives?

Day 2 – Tuesday, December 9
10:30am-11:45am – Advanced Keyword Research
2:45pm-3:45pm – Google Site Search: Fast, Relevant, Customized Search Results for Your Website
4:15pm-5:30pm – Advanced Link Building

Day 3 – Wednesday, December 10
10:30am-11:45am – SEO Through Blogs & Feeds
12:45pm-2:00pm – Getting Vertical Search Right
2:15pm-3:30pm – Storyteller Marketing
4:00pm-5:15pm – Advanced Paid Search Techniques

** John Ellis is the Senior Online Marketing Manager for ResortQuest Vacation Rentals