Search Marketing Expo Toronto
Agenda At A Glance
SMX Toronto April 25-26, 2012
SMX Toronto 2012 – Session Descriptions Sneak Peek
Please note: Final SMX Toronto 2012 agenda will vary from this sneak peek agenda. These descriptions are a sample of what each track will cover, but expect at least some changes. Finally, the agenda isn’t complete – we’re working hard to develop the best content, so make sure to check back in for updates.
| SEO Track | Paid Search Track |
| Social Media & Vertical Track | SMX Advanced Track |
SMX Boot Camp
SMX Boot Camp: Keyword Research Tools & Techniques
The first step to success of any marketing campaign is to know your message. With search marketing, that means knowing the search terms that are being used by your target audience. Understand what they’re searching for, and you can tune-in to their traffic via search engines. This session covers tools and techniques for performing keyword research.
SMX Boot Camp: Link Building Fundamentals
Ever since Google created PageRank more than a decade ago, every good search marketer’s motto has been “I link, therefore I am.” Though linking seems easy, it’s a far more subtle art than most realize, and there are right and wrong ways to conduct your linking campaign. In this session, we’ll look at how to reach out and get quality links, how to craft anchor text to build authority, and how to avoid commonplace mistakes that will hurt your web credibility (and search engine rankings).
SMX Boot Camp: Paid Search Fundamentals
Paid search allows you to generate traffic from search engines by purchasing ads, usually on a cost-per-click (CPC) / pay-per-click (PPC) basis. This session covers the basics of how to purchase placement from the major search engines, including best practices for success with your ads.
SMX Boot Camp: Search Engine Friendly Web Design
“I’m not designing my site for search engines,” is a common designer objection to SEO suggestions. But when search engines collectively have more users than either Internet Explorer or Firefox, how can you afford to ignore how they interact with your site? Search engines are like the third major browser, and if your site breaks for them, it breaks for all those potential visitors. Attend this session and learn how to create search engine friendly sites that are equally appealing to human visitors.
SEO Track
Link Building: Why You’re Doing It Wrong
Face it: even though link building is one of the most important things you can do to achieve search engine visibility, it’s also one of the most mind-numbingly boring SEO tasks. And the truth is, most link building “best practices” are either wrong or don’t work anymore. In this session, our panelists skewer some link building sacred truths and share techniques that actually work, rewarding you with more than a pounding headache.
Ask The SEOs
Some experts say content is king. Others maintain that acquiring quality links is the killer ranking factor. Still others swear by bleeding-edge SEO techniques that run the risk of drawing penalties and having sites banned by search engines altogether. In this no-holds-barred, all-questions-welcomed session, you’ll get a full-spectrum view of cutting-edge thinking and have your own opportunity to ask for SEO advice from some of the most respected and trusted search engine optimizers in the business, including their predictions about the impact on SEO of Google Instant.
The New Periodic Table Of SEO
– The major “elements” of SEO are well known: HTML titles, domain authority, textual content and more, including that most plentiful but elusive “hydrogen” of the SEO word, links. But new elements are being discovered including merchant reputation, user reviews, content quality and social signals such as Google’s new +1. This panel looks at both traditional and new elements that form the “SEO Periodic Table.” What combinations are key to success?
Legal Update: ASA Compliance, Click Fraud, Privacy & More – As if managing the complexities of search optimisation or a paid search campaign weren’t enough, online marketers face increasing challenges on another front: compliance with regulations and policy guidelines. In this session, search marketers and legal experts discuss recent developments you need to be aware of to avoid running afoul of regulators with increasing power to derail your marketing efforts.
Paid Search Track
Remarketing & Retargeting: The New Behavioral Ads
Some call it retargeting; others call it remarketing, but if you aren’t doing it you’re squandering both money and opportunity to build stronger relationships with your customers. Retargeting involves understanding user intent via search, and then subsequently advertising to each individual with a combination of search, display or other online ads beyond search, reinforcing your messaging and increasing the likelihood of conversion. Sounds complicated, but recent developments have made it relatively easy to launch and run remarketing campaigns. Our panelists show you how.
Best Practices For Paid Search Testing
This session centers around the actual process of designing, implementing and measuring the results of paid search tests. Key topics will include what can and cannot be tested, how to design robust tests and identify all the biases and underlying problems of testing PPC campaigns. Our panelists will talk about process; they’ll also illustrate with case studies how to design a test for most effective bid levels, messaging, landing pages and other higher-level business questions that you must have answers for to successfully implement paid search.
Ask The Paid Search Buyers
Imagine sitting down with the internet’s equivalent of legendary advertising “mad men” David Ogilvy, Leo Burnett, Mary Wells… Now imagine asking them to describe the secrets of their success – how they create brilliant ads out of a few scant words and calls to action, how they entice searchers to buy with carefully crafted landing pages and appealing “information scent.” Finally, imagine asking them to reveal the tactics and strategies they use when scrapping with sharp-elbowed competitors and strictly-business search engines so they can keep costs low and profits high. Now, stop imagining! And come to this session where you can ask these (and your) questions with some of the most successful paid search marketers working in the industry today.
Tools For The Paid Search Pro
Building great PPC campaigns takes a lot of time, creativity and tools. In this session, we’ll look at free, nearly free and homegrown tools used by expert PPC managers, and examine 15-20 simple tools that solve a particular task and can save hours/days. We’ll also review some fairly unknown tools which help you every step through creating/managing PPC campaigns – from discovering and selecting keywords, building word lists, analyzing competitors, creating and managing both text and display ads, charting, bidding, ad testing and reporting.
How To Create Great Text Ads
The difference between a good ad and a great ad is like the difference between a pair of jacks and a royal flush – the great ad wins every time! In this highly-interactive session, you will learn the new best practices for creating great text ads and how sharpen your copywriting skills to write winning ads. Our presenters will show you their favorite tips and tricks, and will cover all the new text ad formats and extension, too. You are guaranteed to take home dozens of powerful new ideas guaranteed to improve your ad performance and conversion rates!
Social Media & Vertical Track
Facebook, Twitter & SEO
It’s no longer theoretical. Both Google and Bing say that they factor social signals into their ranking algorithms for “regular” search results. Who you are socially, your authority, the authority of those who talk about you (or your company) all play a role. This session looks at how social signals from Twitter and Facebook are currently being used with search.
Google+ & Google +1 – What Every Marketer Needs To Know
Google+ is a new social aspect to Google allowing people to share photos, places they’ve been, videos, links and status updates. Google +1 is a way for people to indicate what they like within Google’s search results, within Google+ or on sites across the web. Both are proving to be valuable tools for marketers, and are likely to influence how Google operates across the board going forward. This session explores both the potential of Google’s new social elements as well as specific tactics for marketers.
Facebook Ads, Meet Search Ads
You know search ads cold. But do you know Facebook ads, and how they can get you into the pre-search cycle? There are many synergies between them. In this session, how to tap into Facebook ads to help your search marketing efforts.
Video Search Success Stories
YouTube is the leading online video destination, which makes it in turn the leading video search engine (and by some measures, the second or third search engine overall). So it’s a given you’ll want to have search optimized videos on YouTube – but don’t stop there. There are many other opportunities for marketers seeking to touch customers via online video. This session offers case studies, tips and tactics for gaining the most leverage from your online video assets.
SMX Advanced Track
Quality Score: The Unwritten Manual For Google AdWords & Bing adCenterGoogle (and now Microsoft) place enormous emphasis on Quality Score, a formula that determines both the display position and ultimate cost of ads. Much has been written about Quality Score, but this session goes beyond common lore, and does more than simply list similarities and differences between Google and Microsoft’s formulas for calculating quality, providing important insights that all advanced advertisers need to succeed.
Beyond Rankings: Actionable SEO Reports Your Boss Will Love
Still doing search ranking reports for your boss or clients, even though you personally think they’re useless? Or maybe you’re not doing them, but you’re still looking for new ways to show that your SEO campaigns are working. In this session, learn new ways to mine and combine data to create reports that focus on what really matters most to your boss or clients, and provide a path for future SEO work.
Real Answers For Technical SEO Problems
Some technical SEO issues can be really tough to troubleshoot and fix. We’ll dive deep into how to diagnose the root cause of issues and how to get them fixed once and for all.
Advanced PPC Analytics
– PPC dashboards provide rich insight into how your campaigns are performing. But it’s possible to dive much deeper into the metrics that show how your campaigns are really doing, teasing actionable insights from data that can boost ROI and squeeze even more performance out of your ads. Speakers in this session show you how.
Extreme Makeover, The SEO Edition
Is it really possible to take a site from nowhere to top rankings in 3 months? That’s the challenge we issued to each intrepid speaker on this panel, who volunteered to work on a small business or charity website, each in a different niche, that was ranking on page 5 (or worse) on Google for the site’s main search term. Each speaker had 3 months prior to SMX East to work with website and improve SEO rankings, traffic and revenue. Our speakers will reveal what advice was offered, the changes made-and most importantly, the end result.
SMX Toronto is co-located with the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit,
April 23-26, 2012
2011 Sponsors
2011 Sponsors
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