The Brits are coming to New York!

It was nice to be asked the other day by the guys down at SEO PR and SES to write a pre event blog about the up and coming SES New York Conference. So thinking about what I could write it on, I felt it was only right to pick my Top 5 sessions next week that involve my fellow UK and European speakers.

This year sees a selection of some top UK speakers flying in to give you some great insight it how search is done the European way. So if you want to pop in to some sessions to hear speakers with different accents here are my top tips of the sessions you need to attend next week in New York.

Top Session 1

It would be only right to start at the beginning and on Day 1 session set one we see a couple of the UK’s top SEO’s in Mike Grehan and Dave Naylor at 9.30am on the:

Organic Listings Forum
Pose questions to our panel of experts about free "organic" listing issues, plus participate in this session that allows the audience to share tips, tools and techniques. There's no set agenda, so this is an ideal session to discuss any major recent changes with organic listings.

Top Session 2

Sticking with Day 1 we see probably the most UK and European orientated session of the conference at 2pm called:

Search Around the World - Part 2: The UK & Europe
Eastern and Western companies are rushing to get a piece of the action internationally, but does anyone really understand the marketplace. In this session, attendees will learn how to separate hype from actionable activity. Leading experts with "feet on the street" in UK and the rest of Europe discuss the marketplace and the impact it's having on the world.

Every panelist including the moderator is from UK or Europe, looks like a good line up with Moderator Marie Dumesnil, Andrew Girdwood, Thomas Bindl, Sebastien Langlois, Joost de Valk, Massimo Burgio

Top Session 3

Well on to Day 2 now and at 1.30 we have for me what should be one of the best panels of the conference on one of the ‘hot’ topics of the minute. From the UK Mike Grehan and Lyndsay Menzies are involved:

Orion Panel: Universal Search
Search result multiplicity is not a new phenomenon, but recent advancements will guarantee the world of search and marketing will be changing forever. Before you attend this week's optimization and best practices sessions, hear from industry gurus about how search, marketing and information seeking is changing the industry that follows the search. Our ongoing series on universal search will include research data available only at SES.

Top Session 4

For this slot I am going with a session involving another UK speaker who lives in Washington DC now but is still English through and through Simon Heseltine who is speaking on Day 3 at 5.30pm on:

Social Search: The Next Step
Social media networking is changing the way people integrate the Web into their lives. Still, this seems one small step for searchers, but a giant change for search media. What do media such as Eurekster, Wikia, Google, Yahoo, ZoomInfo, Jookster, have in store? As Google and Yahoo move into this space will they retain share? What will the evolution of social media mean to marketing as customer behavior becomes nearly impossible to manipulate?

Top Session 5

Well for the last one I am going to pick a panel on Day 2 at 5.45 that I am moderating. The Local Search Marketing Tactics panel is always a good panel in the US and I have two great speakers with some brilliant content shaping up. As well as this we are going to shake up the format a bit to make it very interactive.

Local Search Marketing Tactics
This session looks at ways search marketers are tapping into an audience using local search engines, online yellow pages and other local search methods.

All in all there of some of the best UK and European speakers in New York next week for the conference, which is shaping up to be a great event. See you there next week and feel free to stop any of us for a chat we always appreciate it!

London SES 2008

As a lot of you are probably aware there was a little show last week in London called SES, over the 3 days over 2000 people attended and I was very busy speaking on 5 sessions. Overall the event was a great success with a lot of positive vibes around the attendees that I spoke to before and after sessions. The content was great across the board with strong speakers and my fellow Geordie Mike Grehan at the helm as Chair of the London SES event.

There has been a lot of good session coverage over the last few days and it has been nice to receive some for the sessions I took part in. On Day 1 I had one of my usual SES sessions on Click Fraud, it was my 4th year doing this panel and it has amazed me how much Auditing has evolved. It was good to be on the panel with Shuman G from Google again and Mal Watlington wrote a great coverage of the session here

On Day 2 I had two sessions one as a speaker and one as moderator. First up was "Landing Page Testing and Tuning" which turned out to be a great session with good attendance and great Q+A. There was some blog coverage here to give you an idea of the session content. I also came across a really nice arty picture of the panel in action posted by Greg Jaboe on Search Engine Watch see if you can spot me!



In the afternoon I moderated the "Searcher Behaviour Research Update" this was reference prior to the SES event as one of the "7 Reasons to attend London SES" and the attendance did not disappoint the room was full. Thanks to the panelists Erica, Rob, John and Piers for some great insight and content.

On Day 3 again I had one speaking and one moderating, first up was "Search Advertising Clinic" this was a Q+A where for 60 minutes we invite the audience to give us problems with there campaigns to review online and give advice. I always like these types of session and it was great to do the panel with Christine Churchill, President, KeyRelevance

For my final one of the conference I moderated the 'Local Search Marketing' panel with Simon and Patricia Hursh. This again was a great content session, Simon has posted a good blog about the content of the session here

It was nice to be able to site down and down some video interviews with Dr Ralph Wilson for his internet viewers back in the US. Ralph has a website I have read and received his email news letter for about 8 years now so nice to contribute. And also the SES official coverage with Greg Jaboe on the Day 2 round up in my last post

It was a great but busy 3 days all in all and I am looking forward to getting the customary SES session scores back from the attendee surveys.

SES London 2008

I have been down at Search Engine Strategies London 2008 this week speaking and moderating on some panels, and I was going to write a quick blog to some up the days so far but thanks to Greg down at SEO PR there are some great daily wrap up videos available.

Day 1



Day 2



There are some great tips and insight into what has been a great SES London 2008.

Day 3 to follow.....