Over 7000 marketers and web professionals gathered in San Jose to exchange the latest intelligence on the constantly evolving world of public search engines and web technology at the annual west coast version of Search Engine Strategies. SES itself has mushroomed to 14 conferences in 8 countries in the last 8 years, a clear indicator of the increased demand for expertise in search marketing worldwide. This is the largest conference, anchored by festivities at the Googleplex in Mountain View. Overall, my observation is that the conference has the feel of a Google users group meeting, with participating partners to provide advertising and search services.

Keynote speakers Jim Lanzone of Ask and Marissa Mayer of Google gave an overview of major changes in the search results pages for their companies. Fundamentally, the rules of search changed in May when Google introduced universal search. The ASK 3D engine rolled out in June, and Yahoo has Panama, a new ad engine. These changes are intended to provide better and more relevant "answers" on the first search page, but marketers have to adjust their tactics. Business is brisk for the web analytics firms collecting data on user behavior...... And the big Google booth in the exhibit hall featured Google Analytics.

News, local maps, images, video and blog posts appear together rather than requiring searches in separate repositories. Technically, this required re-engineering the search indexes, a major challenge, even for Google. And as usual, there were winners and losers in the resulting rankings.

Content has become even more critical for effective marketing (a Content track was added this year for the conference!!!). It's no longer limited to text, so effective marketing includes making all digital assets visible. Video and audio need text to be searchable, so this requires investment in good old-fashioned content management and metadata. Blogs and user generated content are yet another form of content to be incorporated into the marketing mix.

Mobile and local search is growing, and the new blended/universal search approach fits well with adding location images. The good news is that separate sites are not required for effective mobile search. CSS should be used to avoid creating problems with duplicate content.

Social networks and social media introduce another dimension of marketing since these are not traditional search engines. MySpace, Facebook, Youtube, Flickr and eBay are huge audiences, representing opportunities for creative marketers.

The concept of "community" is new to search marketers and they need to learn a different set of rules. For example, influencing Wikipedia entries involves the art of influencing the editors. Monitoring and responding to the blogosphere requires a deft touch. Marketers can contribute, but not in an advertising role!

But there are downsides, as the line between public and private blur. What if a questionable video of your CEO is posted on YouTube? Yes, there was a session on Public Relations Train Wrecks in the Interactive Biz. This conference well illustrates the old saying "May you live in interesting times" as marketing basics meets the new technologies.

Labels: SES San Jose 2007