SES London 2007

Last week I attended Search Engine Strategies for the second year running. Taking place at the ExCel in the Docklands area of London. Apart from being in the middle of nowhere (try popping out for a late bite to eat while in Docklands, not recommended) it was a fairly impressive venue. The exhibition seemed a lot smaller this year, but I was told that there was a 100% increase in seminar delegates. I think we’re back at the BDC in Islington next year, which is a much better venue in my opinion.

There was some great content again this year, a lot of the same renowned speakers and presenters and always something new to discuss. Here is a brief overview of some of the useful seminars which I attended…

Day 1

Search Engine Friendly Design

This session was presented by Shari Thurow, Webmaster at GrantasticDesigns.com. Shari really knows her stuff, and coming from a programming and design background, she packed her presentation with a lot of great information. Shari is the author of the major selling SEO book Search Engine Visibility. This session was Part 1 of a two part session which corresponds with the Successful Site Architecture seminar on Day 2.

The session was mainly suited for beginners, but it was useful for more advanced SEO’s to refresh their knowledge of some of the basics of page structure and internal link structure.

Shari explained that there are 5 basic rules to follow when designing your website, every successful site should be:

• :: Easy to read
• :: Easy to navigate
• :: Easy to find
• :: Consistent in layout and design
• :: Quick to download

Shari discussed the importance of designing for the users as well as the search engines, by making sure that your site visitors know exactly what page they have landed on when they arrive at your site. It is important to use descriptive, keyworded headers and call to actions as well as including compelling content around the subject matter. Image maps should always be backed up with the inclusion of plain text links on the page. You should be able to navigate around your site by clicking links and not using JavaScript or flash menus. If you have to use java menus, make sure there are plain text links to support users who do not have .js enabled.

All sites should have cross links including hierarchical vertical links and related horizontal links…

Breadcrumb trails are great tool for navigation and search engine spiders. Usability studies show that many people like the simplicity of breadcrumbs. You can also keyword your trails to help the search engine spiders find your content.

When using a tabbed navigation menu always highlight the menu item on the page you have landed on. This also helps the user to understand which section of your site they are viewing.

In conclusion, your website should be designed for both the human users and the crawlers; therefore your pages should be easy to read, navigate and find and be consistent in layout and design. By including keyword rich text, sound site and page architecture and continually building inbound links to internal pages your site should not only successfully rank in the search engines but be usable and profitable.

Organic Listings Forum

A highly enjoyable session this one… always good for a few laughs, especially with Dave and Mikel on the panel. Rather than fit the usual seminar format of presentations and questions, this session was a forum based discussion. The panel was made up of three of my favourite SEO celebrities; David Naylor, Mikel DeMib Svendson and Rand Fishkin. Rand being the only white hat on the panel, which caused some amusing discussion.

Does SEO matter?

In response to the recent Jason Calacanis comment about how SEO is bullshit and content will always win in the end. The panel was asked if good content will always get you good rankings …obviously there was a resounding NO! Queue Dave Naylor; using a few chosen words about Calacanis, which I won’t repeat just incase there are any child SEO’s reading this. The general consensus was that all good website’s should concentrate on design and optimisation, which is obviously basic stuff. The panel agreed that SEO is your PR (Public Relations) tool and PPC is similar to the traditional marketing campaign. Both are still extremely important for any site that wishes to generate good traffic and excellent conversions.

Who benefits from the turf wars between SEO’s and the Search Engines?

It was discussed that the algorithms are changed to improve the results that the user receives. At times the changes are made because of the quality in results from spammers and black hat SEO’s. If you are using white hat techniques when optimising your website it can only benefit you; every change to the algorithms means someone’s position is lost and is there to be gained by ethical SEO.

Does the Google Dance still exist?

The original monthly changes to the Google index which would cause the results to fluctuate and de fluctuate is referred to as the Google Dance. Google now updates their index on a daily basis, making subtle changes to the index. Therefore the big shifts are no longer seen. Its now much more of a daily shuffle.

The future of Search

There were plenty of great things discussed, notably where search is headed and whether the inclusion of personalised search is going to have a major effect on the industry. The general consensus was no, it can only aid SEO as users are continually shown varying results when using Google. The major prediction for the future was that Yahoo and MSN will be forced to join forces in a major deal…very interesting!

More to come…

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