So I’m back in the land of Vuvuzela’s after a prosperous trip to Seattle for SMX Advanced. I could not exactly face the 30 hours travel time back home too soon, so decided to enjoy a bit of sightseeing in San Francisco and see what Silicon Valley is all about at the same time.

It was great to be fortunate enough to attend an international search conference and mingle with some of the greats that I’ve been following for years online, such as Matt Cutts (oh yeah! ;P) and Danny Sullivan amongst others!

I’d been toying for a few years with which conference to attend as there are so many search conferences internationally. (Something that has always irked me that we do not offer anything like this locally? If you’re a conference organiser and want to put something like this together – please email me! I have some great ideas :p )

SMX Advanced Recap
I’m very split-minded regarding the actual event in terms of calling it “advanced” specifically. The organisation was glitch-free. The conference rooms, sound, lighting, line of sight was great. The food was good. Even the wifi was surprisingly good. The reason I chose SMX Advanced was that most of the other search conferences topics seemed to cover very basic subjects. Advanced held the promise that I might learn something I did not already know. Don’t get me wrong; even after being in this industry for 10 years now, I still learn something new often.

Yet at SMX Advanced, I do not feel that was the case. The speakers were excellent and for those that have been in the industry for only a few years and know the basics, it would have probably been quite eye-opening. Even at the advanced-advanced session I heard a few murmurs and saw a few tweets in agreement with my view.
Having said this, 90% of attendees were first timers.

The most interesting session to me was that of Matt Cutts’ discussion of the Google Caffeine update – but even that held no surprises for me. We have been optimising in such a way for years, so the bonus to all our SEO clients is that they have an advantage (And again I can happily warn those that partake in link buying that they are in for a hard fall soon!) I also found Yusuf Mehdi’s session (of Bing) really intriguing with what their latest updates to the Bing algorithm is. And found it equally amusing that during his session Matt tweeted “but Google’s already doing that” !

On the other hand it was really valuable and great to realise just how far I, and AlterSage have come, and that in terms of results and delivery on campaigns, we rub shoulders with the best out there internationally.

SMX Advanced Session Recap

Of the sessions, these are the ones that I attended:

1. Paid Search Track: How’s your QSO? Quality Score Optimisation for Pros
2. SEO Track: Twitter, Real Time Search and Real Time SEO
3. Paid Search Track: Pump up Those Conversions
4. Paid Search Track: Test That Ad
5. SEO & Vertical Search Track: Location Services: The new local Search?
6. SEO & Vertical Track: Build it Better: Site architecture for the advanced SEO
7. SEO Track: Mega Session: SEO Vets take all comers


Unfortunately, or fortunately as it turns out, I was not allowed to attend the workshop as I represent an agency, and not an “in-house SEO”.


For any interested parties, I am considering hosting a one-off informal SMX Advanced recap of the sessions above (pending interest). If you are interested to attend please RSVP to Carla.

On Search in the USA compared to South Africa
If you have not travelled to the States before, I doubt any South African can understand the variety and multitude of choice that people that live there have: From the smallest product to the largest corporation you are faced with a few hundred to choose from that all provide the same function or service. It all truly comes down to the efficacy of the marketing at the end of the day. Consumers have the power.

I was also quite surprised by how similar the US is to our own industry ito having to inform even the majority of their clientele of the power of digital marketing. The irony being that 8/10 people shop online there.

The choice between companies offering search marketing there is enormous and tends to be quite a minefield if you don’t know what to look for. This seems to be the only industry that is not as transparent as the rest. In South Africa we are really lucky that most SEO companies are willing to be transparent with their services. Also I feel that the majority of South Africans understand the importance of querying the service value upfront. I encourage any potential SEO clients to always ensure that they compare apples with apples and know exactly what it is that they are going to be getting and that it aligns with their marketing goals before choosing a company simply because the price seems right.

Another noteworthy point was that few of the US search marketing companies that I spoke with focus on ROI, nor multi-channel marketing. (Or those that do seem to have different teams running each channel and lack holistic communication between them.) Many still seem largely focussed on traffic instead of utilising the best channels for ROI and not solely traffic alone.

In conclusion I am very pleased with my findings: the assessment of AlterSage’s measurement on international standards, my own knowledge on the subject matter, and lastly the undeniable value our clients receive from our campaigns.

If you’re not feeling it yet…where are you hiding?  It is here. Vuvuzelas have been blasting since early this morning in the Cape Town CBD and the atmosphere is electric.  The online sphere is going crazy too. Six out of the ten trending (world-wide) topics on Twitter are World Cup or South Africa related.  “Nelson Mandela” is currently trending at #1 after the news broke of Madiba’s 13-year old great granddaughter tragically dying in a car accident after last night’s kick-off concert in Soweto.  Our sincere condolences go out to her family.

Earlier this week South Africa was featured on the Big Picture, if you have not seen the photos go take a look, it’s breath-taking!

Have you seen what your friends are saying about the World Cup on Facebook? Take a look at some of the World Cup photos on Twitter here, here and here.

Where are you watching the opening game? Let us know in the comment section. There are a number of hash tags for the World Cup on Twitter with the most popular being #worldcup and #wc2010 – use them.  It is here and we’re proud to be South African!