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It is always great to visit New York City, particularly in the Fall. This trip to the Search Marketing Expo (SMX East) was no exception. Before I forget what I learned, I wanted to get it down on paper and share with anybody interested.

Best of the Tradeshow

Best Pens

1. Bing – Cute, short, colorful
2. Compete – Nice squishy rubber thing for your pinching fingers
3. Trellian – Black and gold pen that came in a black velvet slip

Best T-Shirts

1. Acquisio – I Report To No One
2. PearAnalytics – I Scored at SMX

Coolest Business Cards

1. 15 Miles
2. NVI Solutions
3. PR Web
4. Pear Analytics

Coolest brochure

• MediaWhiz – SEO Takeoff Safety Tips inspired by airline safety brochure

Coolest toy/giveaway/handout

• Magnetic balls – by LinkWorth Search Engine Marketing

Most Fascinating SEO Sessions

1. PageRank Sculpting – nofollow is dead, stop using it
2. Increase conversions through better usability – make it a great user experience
3. Universal and blended search – YouTube provides great branding and SEO opportunities
4. Facebook marketing tactics – Facebook is one the most cost-effective bargains right now
5. Twitter marketing tactics – Real-time search may be the next big thing
6. Social media and reputation management – Own the home page of Google!

Neatest tools that I discovered

1. Acquisio – Pay Per Click (PPC) management for agencies
2. Pear Analytics – SEO analysis tools for metrics and insights
3. Topsy – Real-time search for Twitter

Tools and Services worth investigating

1. Brafton custom news feeds for websites
2. Trellian KeywordDiscovery tools
3. Compete Pro Enterprise Digital Intelligence
4. Card sorting – a technique used by information architects to use as an input to the structure of a web site
5. OptimalSort – card sorting
6. Prototype testing using clickable wire frames (MS Visio)
7. Google Wave – real-time communication and collaboration

Other cool websites worth visiting

• BzzAgent – Word-of-Mouth (WOM) Marketing Network
• SiteMaps.org – inform search engines about the pages on your site
• SearchMonkey by Yahoo! – use structured data to make Yahoo! search results more useful, visually appealing and drive more traffic to your site (increase the click-through ratio)
• Google site wiki – free and easy way to create and share webpages
• Google Conversion University – lessons in Google Analytics
• OutspokenMedia.com – Internet marketing services
• ionInteractive – Landing page software and services
• Do the Test – Can you see it?
• Brian Solis – PR 2.0
• HitWise – competitive intelligence, e.g., invasion of privacy

Quotes that continue to ring in my head

• NoFollow throws away link juice but does NOT give link juice to remaining links
• If you want to rank higher, get more pages ~ Leslie Rohde, The SEO Innovator
• Improving the user experience should be your number #1 goal – Adam Audette
• Develop an information architecture early – Shari Thurow, Omni Marketing
• SEO is about the people who use search engines – Shari Thurow, Omni Marketing
• Use open standards and microformats for business cards, calendar, location
• Focus your content on converting traffic
• A great landing page evokes this user response, “That’s exactly what I was looking for!” – Scott Brinker, ionInteractive
• Highly targeted ad campaigns may require dozens, perhaps hundreds, of unique landing pages – Scott Brinker, ionInteractive
• Your website should be your best sales person – Ryan Kelly, PearAnalytics
• Real-time search is the pulse of the web. It’s about conversations, talk and buzz
• Typical Google key word search phrase consists of 2.6 key words
• Authority, relevance, popularity, trust, frequency and followers contributes to higher quality and better signal : noise ratio
• OLD: Content is King, NEW: Conversation is King

Tips directly from Google & YouTube

• Embed your YouTube video into your website to make it viral
• Duplicate Content – link rel=canonical is what Google recommends
• Google announces support for cross domain rel=canonical
• Google prefers a slash (/) at the end of a directory name
• Your YouTube playlist is searchable

Books that I want to buy or read

• Beyond PageRank
• Groundswell by Forrester Research

Coolest viral marketing videos

1. Never Hide – Guys Catches Sunglasses
2. Wonderbra girl on drums
3. Cadbury Gorilla drums to Phil Collins
4. Will it Blend … an iPhone?
5. Did You Know 3.0
6. Is Social Media a Fad?
7. How I harnessed the wind

Gorilla drums to the beat of Phil Collins

Never Hide Films: Guy Catches Glasses with his Face

Did you Know 3.0

Is Social Media a Fad?