5 Things I learned at SMX West

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  1. Twitter Works For Publishers: From Adam Sherk, 0.7% of traffic for folks like the NY Times comes from Twitter…now, 0.7% may not sound like a lot, but when you think about the huge numbers that NYT puts up (19.5ish million per month) that means over 130K visitors monthly from Twitter. That is HUGE. Twitter is a REAL traffic driver.
  2. Video is a Key to Page 1 Listings: According to Danny Sullivan, it is 50x harder to get a traditional web page on to page 1 than it is to get a video on page 1. I am going to guess that this is going to change soon.
  3. Search Optimization is Search Engine Marketing: I had several discussions with folks who were pretty clear (misinformed, but clear nonetheless) that paid search was real marketing and search engine optimization was largely an IT lead endeavor. Organic search optimization is search engine marketing. Creating content that is well constructed by search engine standards and is valuable enough to link to is truly a marketing activity.
  4. I Did Not See Anything NEW at SMX West: I work at an SEO agency and we are always looking for new partners and new ideas. I saw very little at SMX that was NEW. There were a thousand variations on paid search bid management, but I did not see anything cutting edge in the SEO or social side. The world of search is exploding in images and mobile and geo-location…and I didn’t see any new ideas. (I have a bunch that we are working on, but I haven’t seen anything that was really cutting edge in a while…who is going to wow me and make me want to partner with them?)
  5. Search (Wrongly) Lives in Silos: There is this very artificial wall between paid and natural search. Paid search is on one side, living by its own rules, managed often by a different client team. Organic search is kept by itself too. Organic and paid search need to have clear interdependence. They aren’t different. They are all search marketing, finding the right match between searcher and product. Paid search and natural search are two sides of the same coin. The walls aren’t real and marketers (and search providers) need to understand that.
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