In-House SEO has been a big topic at SMX West. This is because many businesses are moving their SEO in-house to save money because of the economy. With in-house SEO comes training the staff.

It’s not easy to predict changes in the search industry on even a month-to-month basis; divisions get closed, new products are launched, and market shares waver constantly.  But at SMX West, John Battelle discussed the much more distant future and made some interesting forecasts.

How people search and interact with search engines was the subject of the session "Just Behave, A look At Searcher Behavior."

(Coverage of SMX West continues at WebProNews Videos.  Keep an eye on WebProNews for more notes and videos from the event this week.)

Social media marketing can be extremely effective.  Compared to other advertising options, it can be extremely cheap, too, which is perhaps more important than ever.  So a session at SMX West focused on what’s new and how to succeed in this field.

The SMX West conference began today, and Danny Sullivan, its co-chair and the editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land, gave the keynote to truly kick things off.  Sullivan took an all-inclusive look at the search industry, touching on current standings, trends, and also what he’d like to see happen.

The session "Measuring Search & Offline Marketing Success" touched on the importance of tracking offline conversions that start through search.

(Coverage of SMX West continues at WebProNews Videos.  Keep an eye on WebProNews for more notes and videos from the event this week.)

Do you think you are a Search Engine Marketing expert? If so, you will now have a chance to prove it.

Marin Software along with Search Marketing Expo-SMX West has launched the Biggest Search Geek Contest.
 

One of the questions I get asked frequently is “which search conferences should I attend”. Seeing as conferences end up costing you between $3500-$5000 a pop when you include travel, lodging and meals I thought I’d share my experience.

Michael and I had the opportunity to attend the SMX (Search Marketing Expo) last week in sunny Santa Clara, CA.

Shari Thurow, Founder and SEO Director, Omni Marketing Interactive spoke about SEO and usability.

(Coverage of the SMX West Conference continues at WebProNews Videos. Keep an eye on WebProNews for more notes and videos from the event this week.)

Yank out "The Art of War" or just use common sense; either way, it’s plain to see that knowing about your competitors can help your business.  At a session titled "Analyzing the Competition," speakers suggested areas to research and acceptable ways in which you can do so.

I was interested to hear the presentations in the Reputation Monitoring & Management Through Search session at the SMX West Conference yesterday in Santa Clara, and the five presenters didn’t disappoint.

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Day 3 of SMX West kicked off with a group keynote titled Generation Next: Search In The Coming Decade moderated by Search Engine Land’s Executive Editor Chris Sherman and Gord Hotchkiss, President and CEO of Enquiro.

The panel of speakers included representatives from the major search engines – Brad Goldberg of Microsoft, Larry Heck with Yahoo! and Peter Norvig of Google – discussing where they see search going in the next decade.

Will search as we know it will survive?

Holistic. It is what it pretty much sounds like: a focus on the whole, rather than one piece of the whole. At SMX West, the discussion surrounding search is no longer just about securing your place in a same-for-everybody top-ten list of search results. The discussion is about being everywhere; it’s about establishing a case for digital omnipresence.

Fickle yet valuable, traffic from social media sites represents a way of generating lots of page views in a very short, and profitable, period of time.

Managing your organization’s online reputation is no easy feat. It takes a lot of organization and keen eye for strategy. There are lots of people, in-house and out, that are talking. Marketing Pilgrim’s Andy Beal has some tips for knowing who’s saying what about you.

(Coverage of the SMX West Conference continues at WebProNews Videos. Keep an eye on WebProNews for more notes and videos from the event this week.)

When someone searches for the term "dog," they’re very likely interested in our furry friends.  But a few folks might be curious about digital on-screen graphics, and won’t want to dig through stuff about rottweilers and retrievers.  So personalized search remains as important as ever.

Whether you’re looking up a pizza parlor’s address, a picture of J.F.K, or a video of Maria Sharapova’s dog, the big names in search want their main engines to help you out.  A session titled "The Blended Search Revolution" looked at how they’ll do this.