Note: There is plenty more useful information in the videos embedded in this article than the points I have referenced. I suggest watching the interviews in their entirety for some helpful advice.

Chris Boggs of Rosetta talked about digital asset optimization, or optimization of non-text content within web pages, and how they can affect rankings (things like video, images, rich internet apps, Flash, etc.).

"It really becomes a matter of resource allocation," says Boggs. "We’ve found, especially within specific verticals such as consumer product and retail, or healthcare, there’s closer needs that align to the development of such content, whether it’s a video that explains how to replace a printer cartridge, or what the bumps are on your five-year-old son’s arms."

"There’s a lot of reasons that people may look to the Internet and do a type of search that lends itself better to a video result or an image result, or even an interactive application," he adds.

This is essentially why the search engines now deliver blended (or Universal) search results. Marketers should take into heavy consideration, that in addition to the old-fashioned SEO for organic results, that Universal Search not only takes up a good deal of that SERP real estate, but commands user attention. Google has released eye-tracking research efforts on this in the past. What captures a user’s attention on their screen can play a large part in whether or not they click through to a search engine result.

In another conversation at SES, Shari Thurow of Omni Marketing Interactive talked about recent eye-tracking research, which she says, "endorses universal search". This is why you must consider the elements of blended SERPs that are relevant to your content.

WebProNews also discussed eye-tracking with Dr. Susan Weinschenk (aka The Brain Lady), who talked about research from a more biological standpoint:

The information obtained from eye-tracking research means more to marketers and business than simply how you may attract the attention of search engine users. It should also be taken into consideration within your own site (and landing page) design. Google’s own research was basically aimed at enhancing the usability of Google. While Google’s usability is ultimately important to how searchers may find your content from Google, your own site’s usability is  even more important to you.

Ultimately, your goal is to get traffic to your site, and get the conversion. In fact, Tim Ash of SiteTuners.com even started a whole conference based upon this principle. "You really need to consider the efficiency of your landing page first, regardless of how you get traffic there," he tells WebProNews.

While user attention (as highlighted by eye-tracking research) may play a significant role in that efficiency, it is not the only element. As Shari Thurow touched on in her interview above, architecture is also a key. Long time usability expert Kim Krause Berg talked about this more with us as well.

"What happens is, first they design the website, they achieve search engine results and rank, then when the conversions take a nosedive, they come back and they say, ‘I need some help with my usability. Let’s improve the user experience…’", she says. "So the next thing we start to look at is the foundation of the website. We find that there’s a lot of problems in the navigation…"

Search engine rankings don’t mean much if the traffic doesn’t convert. Users must be delivered an ideal experience once they click through to the website. This is why Google is talking about taking site performance (or speed) into consideration as a ranking factor.

It’s about giving users the best experience possible. If that experience is not there, customers will be less likely to convert anyway.

Rushing through something that will have an impact on how you business is seen is probably not the wisest idea, but in terms of ROI, there is a general misconception that video production has to be costly. This is not the case. This is something SEO-PR‘s Greg Jarboe and Mike McDonald of WebProNews recently discussed at Search Engine Strategies New York:

Doug Mack on Adobe’s Scene7 Blog highlights

some suggestions Sucharita Mulpuru from Forrester Research recently made in an Adobe Webinar for getting started quickly with videos:

- Easy, short talking points

- Costs are primarily editing labor and server capacity for most basic executions

Video is not just something people are seeking out. It’s something people are sharing with each other, which is a key thing to remember. Yahoo is even embedding video in its SERPs, and Gmail is offering a feature that allows users to view YouTube videos in their email messages. And of course they can be embedded all over the web and shared across social networks.

Like Jarboe says, videos don’t always have to be viral to serve a purpose, but with so many ways for them to be shared, the opportunities for something to break viral are seemingly endless.

There are more tools than ever before available for marketing with video. Take YouTube Insight, which an analytics tool that gives you all kinds of analytical data regarding your videos. They just recently added more features to show you how people are engaging with your videos, and there is plenty of useful data to be gleaned from the tool. I suggest reading my interview with YouTube Product Manager Tracy Chan who discusses not only the tool, but many other ways businesses can use YouTube to their advantage.

If you’re looking to break into online video, don’t rush it. Do some research and use the tools that are available to you. You may find that you can spend a lot less than you think and find new ways to market your business that you didn’t realize you had in you.

Stay tuned to WebProNews and the WebProNews Video Blog for continued coverage of the Search Engine Strategies New York event.

Cindy Krum of Rank-Mobile talked about making your existing website work for mobile. Why is mobile important? According to Krum:

- Mass mobile convergence -  Cell phones can do a lot more than just make calls: Games, search, web, etc.

- Most personal marketing mediu – You always have it with you

- More interactive marketing opportunities – more potential for varied responses

How is mobile different? Krum notes:

- Mobile bots – Mobile algorithms are different

- simplified rendering

- smaller screen

- more sophisticated users – changes the demographic

- more specific searches = mobile users aren’t browsing, they are generally searching with a specific intent

Why Now?

Real mobile web browsing – Krum says the iphone has set the bar and now carriers know that it’s not ok to have a crappy mobile browsing experience. 75% of mobile search is done on iphones.  "In the next 2 years we’re going to have a mass entrance of people on mobile search" due to more companies having more browser friendly phones.

Flat rate data pricing – As Krum notes, it’s cheaper. There isn’t the fear of data overages.  Download speeds are going up. Processor speeds are increasing.

"We are on a tipping point for mobile search," says Krum. The mobile web is not a fad. It’s here to stay, she says. There’s a need and an opportunity to master the medium before your competitors.

Road Map

There are hurdles in mobile marketing. There are too many browsers that render things differently. "In terms of browsers, the mobile web is like the regular web 10 years ago," says Krum. "Some sites look fine in some browsers, and not so good in others." This is improving and standardizing, but right now it still has to be taken into account.

Handsets – Different handsets have different screen sizes, processor capacities, etc. So similar to browsers, the devices can affect the appearance of your site.

Download speeds – 3G is not widespread enough, Krum says. Speeds and coverage are spotty. This will improve with time, but for now, streamlining your message for mobile is essential.

Mobile Search – 3 Considerations

On-Deck Search

On deck search is also called carrier search. This is a walled or semi-walled garden from the carrier – kind of like AOL in the old days. It typically consists of monetized content and downloads. Carriers have huge targeting power, Krum says. This type of search is preferred 38% of the time because users feel like it’s more convenient, but a lot of times this is because carriers make off-deck search more difficult to find and use. She says off-deck is gong to diminish over time for the same reasons the old AOL evolved – people want to access and search the whole web.

Off-Deck Search

This is is like regular web search – not controlled by the carriers. Handsets and browsers can impact results. Off-deck search is not location aware (yet), Krum says, but is preferred 68% of the time. Yahoo has a larger percentage of off deck mobile search in the US than in other countries. This is because Yahoo has deals with several carriers to offer their logo for search.

Basic Demographics

Krum says the highest demographic is 20-29 years old. The second highest is 30-39. The highest has an income of 75k+. Males outsearch females by about 10-12%, but more recent studies suggest this gap is shrinking.

What is Being Looked For? In order of search frequency:

- Maps, directories
- Weather
- Local info
- News
- Entertainment
- Sports
- Finance

Apps
Major search applications in your niche (like urbanspoon) can be heavy drivers of traffic – in excess of search engines in some cases, Krum says. Mobile search apps have to be looked at on an individual basis. Find out where they get their data and make sure you’re listed in their datasources.

Mobile SEO

Krum says mobile SEO as an industry is still in its infancy. Many of the best practices for mobile are the same as traditional SEO though:

- There are different crawlers and bots – The result pages are very different

- Slow download speeds and connectivity issues can be an issue if your site is slow to download and your bounce rates are very high as a result.

Creating sites and pages that are device independent is key, she says. Ideally, you want a page that loads and performs equally well in mobile as well as regular web browsing. With mobile SEO, the click thru is not always necessary.  Often the information the user is looking for will show up right in the result (addresses phone numbers, hours of operation etc.). Avoid these:

- embedded images
- flash
- scripts
- frames
- flash
- mouse over events
- objects
- pop up windows

Coding

Krum says traditional browsers are more forgiving than mobile browsers. Clean code is far more important in mobile. She says to code in XHTML because it has rigid accessibility standards, which make it better for mobile. External CSS is ideal for mobile. It separates content from design, maximizes code, and decreases download time. She says to develop a handheld stylesheet as well as a screen stylesheet=1 set of content with 2 display variants. This way there are no duplicate content issues (screen.css and handheld css). Use ‘display none’ to selectively hide elements in either rendering.

Reasons not to use .mobi

- .mobi not preferred in mobile search

- not universally accepted

- cumbersome development standards

- no unique assets or features

- limited useful life

- bad for seo — duplicated content

- confusing for customers

Krum says the best option for most webmasters is probably the mobile/traditional hybrid pages (like the multi css example).

Mike McDonald Contributed to this report. If you have any more thoughts on mobile marketing, please share them with WebPronews readers. Check out Krum’s lists of mobile search engine submission pages and Mobile Web Directories.

Mike will interview personnel from Facebook, Google, MSN, etc. He’ll be talking to plenty of online marketing experts about specific trends and tactics that can ultimately lead businesses to more profits. You can see plenty of examples of our past coverage here.

Of course like all SES shows before it, there will be a lot of sessions on such trends and tactics as well. Mike will be attending a number of these and sending WebProNews staff writers back some takeaways so we can share helpful tips and discussion with our readers. Sessions include many sub-topics of search marketing, social media marketing, branding, improving conversions, etc.

There is also a great possibility that WebProNews will be breaking some big industry news from the conference as we did at some other recent shows like with the Canonical Link Element, and the launch of the Google Friend Connect API.

WebProNews will be at SES from Tuesday to Thursday, so expect a good amount of coverage during those days, with more interviews for an extended period of time after that.

Year 1
if you’ve absolutely never been to search conference before start with one of the smaller shows like SES Chicago, or SES Toronto. Sometimes the big shows can be a bit overwhelming for a newcomer.

SMX East or SMX West – These shows are solid places to start learning what you need to know and need to start networking. OK there hasn’t technically been and SMX East yet, but I’ve got a hunch it will be similar to SMX West.

SES NY or SES San Jose – These shows are much bigger than the smaller SES shows, they also have different speakers, and are a completely different conference experience.

Year 2
SMX East or SMX West – Whichever show you went to last year go to the other this year.

SES NY or SES San Jose – Again which ever one you went to last year go to the other one this year

Pubcon – Pubcon has a much more in the trenches feel than the other shows. The majority of the speakers at Pubcon are actively involved in owning, running, or managing sites, their knowledge is much more hands on, as opposed to “agency” folks at the other shows.

Year 3
Ok by this point you are conference veteran and probably have your favorite shows. You also have seen most of the speakers more than once and you know who gives new presentations each time and who … umm … recycles.

SMX Advanced – By this point you know enough to make the most of what you can learn here, and you can also network with people who are just unreachable at the big shows.

Then I’d go back to your two favorite shows, Either of the SMX, SES, or a Pubcon show. Once you’ve been more than once you’ll really have good idea how much you can learn.

Year 4+
Ok this is the year where you can get the most out of the niche shows. Shows like SMX Mobile, SMX Social, or SES Travel, whichever makes the most sense for you.

If your budget can support two shows pick the two you liked the from SMX, SES, or Pubcon. The next year go to the show you skipped last year, working with a rotation.

Should you go to every show? Unless you are speaking or doing some heavy networking that leads to lucrative deals at a certain point it’s hard to justify the expense. But IMHO you should be going to 1-3 shows a year, there are always new topics, and be in the loop with your peers.

If you really want to get the most out of conferences network with people. Really sometimes the information and ideas you get at the parties or bar is just as valuable as what you get in the sessions. Really. I know it’s hard and scary to talk to new people especially if you’re shy, but make the effort it will really make for a better conference. For more on how to network check out SEO Conference Tips and Tricks and 15 Ways to Be a SEO Conference Douchebag by Stuntdubl.

Don’t believe me … sometimes being it the right spot at the right time you can get three people you probably could never afford to hire at the same time who will keep talking as long as you pick up their bar tab.

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You can read the reviews of SEMPO Institute’s “Insider’s Guide to Search Marketing” formerly known as the “Fundamentals of Search Marketing” and the Advanced SEO Course Review by TopRank’s Dana Larson.

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The first battle begins with a match-up between MSN‘s Kelly Thomas and Yahoo’s Jim Lampley. By winning the best two of the three rounds, MSN takes the victory and is ready to take on reigning champion Vanessa Fox of Google, who won the sumo wrestling championship fight at the SES conference in San Jose.

To win this championship round, MSN or Google has to conquer the most of the five rounds. Fox begins confident and strong and takes out Thomas in the first two rounds. MSN strikes back at Google by winning the next two rounds. The score is now tied with one round left to go. As if Google and MSN didn’t have enough butterflies already, the judges made a controversial equipment replacement. The officials made this decision in order to keep the competition fair for the final round.

So, who takes the role as the best search engine of this Rock Em Sock Em fight? We would love to share the results with you, but we want to keep you biting your nails in suspense. Watch the video and find out and let us know what you thought of the outcome below!

After conference events are a great place to network with other like minded search marketers as well as potential clients if you’re on the agency side of things.

Some of the best tactics info is traded at these events since SEO and libations mix together so well.

Since we have an obligation to cover the conference including after-conference events, Online Marketing Blog will do it’s part and humbly suffer for the greater good of the search marketing community and attend at least 1 event Monday, Tues and Wed of the conference.

  Photos and video are to be counted on. 

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Yeah, I haven’t had a haircut since my wedding. I look ridiculous.

Anyway, SES New York takes place April 10-13 at the Hilton in Manhattan, costs like a billion dollars to attend (okay, $800-$1900), and is a ton of fun and informative. The parties should be fun, and this year I promise not to lose the paper with Yahoo’s party’s address (I felt like such a dope missing that one, especially after a cool Yahoo buy invited me). What sessions am I looking forward to?

• Video Search Optimization – Tuesday, 9-10:30 am
• Ads In A Quality Score World – 11am-12:30pm
• Keynote Conversation with Steve Berkowitz – Wednesday, 9-9:45am
• Web Analytics & Measuring Success – 10:15-11:45am
• Meet The Search Ad Networks – 1:30-2:45pm
• Earning Money From Contextual Ads – 3:15-4:30pm
• Contextual Ads & AdSense Clinic – 4:45-6pm
• Search Arbitrage Issues – Thursday, 9-10:15am
• Search & Privacy – 11am-12:15pm
• The Search Landscape – 2-3:15pm
• Wikipedia & SEO – 4-5:15pm
• Link Baiting & Viral Search Success – Friday, 10:45am-12pm
• CSS, AJAX, Web 2.0 & Search Engines – 12:30-1:45

If you are going to be there, or want to suggest somewhere I should be, send me an email or call my cell phone (212.380.7127). Should be a great week!

To prepare for SES, play the Search Engine Smackdown game (via SEL). It tests your knowledge of industry news and events.

Also, Google New York announced the next event in its speaker series. Next Thursday, Luiz Barroso will be talking about “Watts, Faults, and Other Fascinating Dirty Words Computer Architects Can No Longer Afford to Ignore”. Unless I actually pull off the BBQ I’ve been meaning to do, I’ll be there.

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