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What a High Rankings Search Engine Marketing Seminar is Really Like

By Kim Krause Berg

Category: (Search Engine Marketing)

My favorite impression of the November 2005 High Rankings Search Engine Marketing Seminar, in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, came at the end of it. This is when a Question and Answer session with the seminar’s presenters was in progress and I was in the back of the room observing. This is when it hit me. I really like the way these search engine marketing experts teach what they know to attendees.

They sit in chairs before an audience seated horse shoe style in front of them, at eye level. The Power Point screen is retired, Scottie Claiborne has pocketed her laser pointer, and Jill Whalen, Seminar Host, is just as relaxed as the way she writes to readers of her High Rankings Advisor newsletter. For an hour the audience is offered the chance to ask questions about search engine optimization, get help for their own sites and, yes, a few even dared to ask if some SEO’s work in their pajamas.

If you work on a web site in any capacity, there’s a very good chance you’ve heard of at least of one these people:

Jill Whalen
Scottie Claiborne
Karon Thackston
Deb Mastaler
Matt Bailey
Christine Churchill

Each specializes in an area of search engine marketing or a combination of several skills applicable to making better web sites. For two days, they are accessible to attendees of the High Rankings Search Engine Marketing Seminar. This includes lunch, chats in the hallways or lobby and of course, the hotel pub later in the evening.

Day One

The High Rankings Seminars are offered in various spots around the United States throughout each year. I have attended two of them, one in Boston, Massachusetts and one in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. Sometimes the venue may change. Here is a recap from the King of Prussia seminar.

The professionally planned and directed event started with a day long seminar in which each presenter delivers their topic. Audience members received a huge binder filled with all the information they would see in the Power Point presentations, so they were not forced to take notes of everything they heard. They could take the information home with them.

Jill led off with introductory remarks and began the day’s climb with a discussion on keywords. Continuing with keyword research was Christine Churchill. As the morning continued, Karon Thackston steered the room into learning about copywriting for target audiences and Jill added more to the subject with SEO copywriting. Scottie cut in with usability and SEO and then it was off to lunch.

By lunchtime, seminar attendees were hungry for food and answers to their questions. Everyone had lunch together and the High Rankings presenters sat with them. They like to know where people came from, who they work for, what they’re working on and what they hope to learn during their stay.

After lunch, the discovery phase continues with topics like link popularity, pay per click, and traffic analysis. Time was allotted at the end for a question and answer session, which was good because by now, the attendees were jazzed up and ready to start applying what they were learning.

Socializing is customary for SEM events and this one is no exception. Jill’s Seminar Coordinator, Lee Laughlin, is constantly in the background making everything flow smoothly between the event itself and the hotel. One of her other duties is to put together an evening gathering, in which the whole High Rankings team mingle, chat and socialize with their guests. We were treated to a classy cocktail hour sponsored by Clicktracks.

Day Two

The second day is purposely planned for hands on work so that attendees can start applying the techniques they are learning about. There are two tracks with several workshops in each one. At the King of Prussia event, one track was focused on Traffic Building and the other on Content Enhancement.

For example, for Traffic Building, Matt Bailey woke up everyone at 8:15am with a lively workshop called “Spotting Spam: Cleaning up Search Engine Spam”. Debra Mastaler tackled the hot topic of managing link building campaigns.

Meanwhile, in the Content Enhancement Track, Scottie’s workshop took on web site usability by inviting anyone to let their web site be reviewed by the group and solutions were sought for improvements if needed. Karon Thackston drove home the power of content writing, and how it affects marketing and communicating your message, by having everyone work on a web site. There’s nothing like actually doing something for real to get a point across, and all the workshops are designed for this purpose.

Each Track contained 3 workshops.

Highlights from the King of Prussia High Rankings SEM Seminar

It became clear as the seminar progressed that search engine optimization is not the only thing on everyone’s minds. They wanted to know about search engines. They cared about all of them, not just Google. Many were strongly interested in issues related to their businesses, such as how to handle SEO clients, to how to convince their boss its time to focus on usability, as well as search engine marketing.

Tidbits of information came often. Even for people with some experience in optimizing web pages, the High Rankings team presents so much current information that it won’t feel like a dry refresher course. There’s every chance something will jump out at you, such as:

•  When writing content, remember to make an emotional connection with your customer.

•  Think about what people search for and use those keyword phrases.

•  Usability is about interaction, profits and sales, savings, and return visits.

•  Search engines read text around anchor text and throughout the page, looking for on-topic theme oriented relevance on the page.

•  Longer keyword phrases convert better .

•  Don’t base your bidding strategy on what your competition does because theirs may not be the best keywords for your web site.

•  Hits are not people. These are server requests. It’s better to be jazzed about sales.

•  Analyze “micro actions”. How many does it take to complete a task? Where are your visitors falling off?

Fortify Your Web Site. Take Care of You.

Scottie Claiborne said, during the last Q&A session of the seminar, “If you base your success on beating your competition, you are always following - never leading.” This message is clear to anyone who has to opportunity to participate in a High Rankings seminar. It’s important to the presenter that you leave the event fortified with new ideas and solutions that will make your web site a success.

The next seminar will be held in Walnut Creek, California for March 30 and 31, 2006.

And yes, a few famous SEO consultants claim to work from their home office wearing pajamas.

Bio

Usability Consultant, Kimberly Krause Berg, is the owner of UsabilityEffect.com (www.usabilityeffect.com), Cre8pc.com (www.cre8pc.com), and Cre8asiteForums (www.cre8asiteforums.com/). Her background in organic search engine optimization, combined with web site usability consulting, offers unique insight into web site development.

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