He explained that when he originally gave keynotes he had search engines involved. But people want to be inspired by keynotes. So he decided to start with some "rosy view of our industry". He posted a link of a guy in a spam guy (jason duke, in the spam suit). He quoted Seth Godin's quote that SEO is worthless. Then quoted Anil Dash, who won that contest. Quotes as criminals and cockroaches by others. He then put up a slide, to:
"blame the black hats!" You should see this picture he used. Blog spamming, keyword stuffing, scum sucking lazy content thieving no goods ruining the industry with their cloaking actions!!! But now, NPR and other companies can cloak, without being black hat. Hijack victims have largely the black hats to thanks for raising awareness of the problem. Large, respected publications selling links. Web site of respected blog software hosting doorway pages stuffed with AdSense. Bloggers fretting that nofollow ruins the trackback link love they "deserve."
But really "blame the white hats!" slide, with an angelic like cartoon image. "Algorithm ignorant, simple tips overselling, non competitive industry best practices excuse giving naive goody two shoes..." The simple tips are not really simple to those outside of the industry. Working with designers and others to do content SEO is not easy. There are differences and degrees between content driven tweaks and aggressive methods.
Blame the Organic! Black arts dabbling, unclear line walking, low margin grubbing, whiny unpredictable depending small fry drivers of the search industry that bring down the real driving force (PPC). But, paid search is boring, the relief that finally there's something other then search (WOMMA), and that successful organic puts people in the prime position that money still cannot buy.
"Blame Search Advertisers!" Machine driven, money rules all thinking, getting all the search engine attention and swag for selling the less important search results page real estate..." Paid gang isnt whining about the latest Google update wrecked their business. Without paid, search might not be able to offer the organic results. Paid can instantly start generating results today!
United By Search!!!! - We're all very different people - Black, white organic and paid -- we mostly do mix, some do paid and organic, etc. - But we have one thing and common; we are stupid enough to be in search.
Who Loves Ya Baby? - Anecdotally, search of all types in demand - Recent articles talked about the difficulty in hiring good search people (its not just the search engines fighting for the talent, also SEM firms - Search was born in the depths of the ad downturn, so todays not a bubble. Search is now a fundamental ad medium. Search will be everywhere!
Communities & Community - We all have our handouts - Mailing lists: I Search, SEM 2.0, Search Return - Conferences: SES, PubCon, Ad:Tech - Forums: WebmasterWorld, DigitalPoint, SEW Forums, HighRankings - Blogs: SE Roundtable (thanks Danny), SEO Book, ThreadWatch - Organizations: SEMPO, SMA, Dallas, Atlanta - But we grow across our cliques; he brings up an example of ian turner missing and uses it as example of how we all came together to help find him. We all came together to act. - Yahoo Search Blog, Google Blog, the search engines posted about Ian! - SEs Part of our Ecosystem (they like us).
- He posted my marriage proposal on the screen, via Ask Jeeves. Wonder how red I turned. :) But he explained how the search engines are friends with the search marketers...
- Friendly Rivals - another first, Yahoo! made fun of Google for running out of beer at the Google Dance (ses party rule)
Community Rewards - Weather reports from the engines - Nofollow - love it or hate it - we got more control - Google Sitemaps - Yahoo Site Explorer - Google Sitemaps Stats - Google Base
Love it But Want More - Blogging community can monitor all their new links in Google Blog Search - Why cant the longer established SEM community get more important web search info - Maybe further indexing control to come - Yahoo Site Explorer gives some but needs to give much, much more info - Time to go past the URL feeds and into content feeds for all, esp. with rogue spider issue - Ad reps as friends, not foes.
Outside Recognize Community - The focus is not only on the search engines so much, anymore - Search marketers are getting the spotlight - Quotes in Wired, etc. - Shows Bruce Clay's photo, about him in Wired
Search Not Odd, Unusual - He is a tech entrepreneur, not simply an SEO - Martha's apprentice, before the seo was fired, he said, when i search for "recipes" i dont get marthastewart.com.
But Rep Problem Remains - Despite gains, many will still see us as the used car salespeople of the Web - Two challenges; scummy companies (the law will sort them out) and trespassing content (it has to stop, but it wont).
End to Comment & Link Spam - I'd love to see it become deemed unacceptable, frowned upon, downright rude behavior... - Posted up a forum poll (t=7872)
It's The Right Thing Not to Do - If not because it's just wrong to trespass, consider the consequences - Google PageRank Lunacy by Mike Grehand - He shows examples of sick guestbook comments (its rude and wrong)
Foot Soldiers / Fuel - I've spoken before of search marketers as the foot soldiers that have built search - More to the point, you're what fuels the search engines. - He puts up a theme song we can sing - He shows a Google Maps plot of the SEMs in the world from SEW forums
In Conclusion: - Add yourself to the map - Be pumped up; 2006 will be great - Please pick a day for Search Marketing Day (and its search week, coming to NY) - Next Time, let's see a search marketer win the apprentice (no we want the apprentice to be one of us, running the show). Fredrick Marckini is the poster child of success in our industry.
