Summary from SES Chicago

Following is a summary of the key findings taken away from the Search Engines Strategies conference in Chicago last week.

• Social Media and Video dominated the conference; as search marketers move forward from traditional key phrase, text-based search into making sure they can be found in the so-called Web 2.0
• Content is once again confirmed as being king; it’s crucially important as the core source for all search marketing, social media exposure, viral propagation, and web-based public relations. Quality content serves as the basis for user interaction as well as the technical indexing aspect of all search engines.
• Local-type clients need to take control of their exposure in Local Search (i.e. Google Maps/Local, Yahoo Local). They should maximize representation on a variety of channels, including Flickr, YouTube, and Facebook/MySpace whenever possible.
• Keyword-driven search is still important but the paradigm is shifting. Companies need to monitor, and optimize, their exposure in the broader social media scene. They need to periodically scan blogs, Facebook/MySpace, social tagging engines (i.e. Digg, delicious, etc.) and reviews/comments on local search engines to see if they are being discussed, either positively or negatively.
• Universal Search combines web pages with video, blog, etc. entries to list on Search Engine Results Pages. Thus those non-web page elements are very important to maximize exposure for your key phrases and categorizations.
• Optimizing any web page but especially landing pages is easier with free tools like Google Optimizer. One should consider implementing a more rigorous protocol for testing pages to see what is most effective in achieving your conversion metric.

Specific tactics we might recommend for clients:

• Monitor social media, blogosphere, etc.
• Optimize client exposure in the broad interactive space by implementing or disseminating good quality content, such as press releases, white papers, blog posting, etc.
• Optimize local search engine listings for appropriate clients
• Check and take control of local listing
• Create product or service reviews
• Post videos of any kind on You Tube/Yahoo Video
• Post photos on Flickr
• Create Facebook pages
• Create opt-in communication programs
• Test landing/interaction pages and iterate for better conversions