SMX Advanced 2010 Recap: Built For The User

Settled back in from 2 full days at the SMX Advanced 2010 search marketing expo in weather-schizophrenic Seattle (hmm, sounds like another city I know) . The jet lag is fading back to my normal everyday loopiness, the withdrawal from 24/7 search marketing conversation is waning, and it’s time to recap a few takeaways that I think our readers would particularly like.

Now, while some debate always occurs at these conferences about the level of information (is it truly “advanced” SEO info?), the fact remains that our job here is to help the clients of EIM stay in the know enough to make smart decisions about their businesses’ online presence (and lean to us for the advanced details! ). So this recap is for you. Our user. It’s not necessarily to gain points with the SEO community (although I do love thee).

So here goes…by the way, if you haven’t already noticed it, keep an eye out for one very conspicuous theme:

Google Caffeine and Mayday—one more quick overview of what you need to know:

• Google analyzes a TON more data now, and quicker. As soon as your well-built webpage gets crawled, it gets indexed. (This is in contrast to the every-30-days or very segmented indexing they used to do, which sent businesses and SEO pros into a mass frenzy. It also promises users that they’re being delivered the freshest content on the web.)
• Soon, Google will start looking at video sitemaps more (Methinks because: surprise, surprise, users like them!)
• It was confirmed that Google does not consider a site’s bounce rate—or any Google Analytics data—when ranking it. So no need for SEO pros to freak out over this.
• Of course, much speculation still surrounds this last point, which leads to one of the greatest quotes (paraphrased here) of the conference: Who cares if Google factors it into the algorithm; if your bounce rate is high, people are leaving your site.

User generated content and the social experience are not going away

This just needs to be included quickly. It’s been popular to suggest that certain social media outlets are just fads, but no matter what your personal feelings are towards Twitter and the like, they’re sticking around, and can even prove to be one of the most critical tools for your business.

Links, links, links – they will continue to be a vital component of SEO

• Probably the most important ongoing factor: diversity of links
• Link building doesn’t mean you buy them, seek out link farms, or try to bulk up on a mass quantity of them from one strong, relevant site. (These are the classic no-no’s!)
  1. Instead, cultivate relationships to build links and furthermore, to maximize ongoing link opportunity.
  2. Complement people. And help people. Just like in real life, they like that. What they like, they link to.
  3. Develop content that is easy to link to (consider images that are easy for a site owner to embed in their website).

It’s about user experience, silly

• Aha! Our theme! While SEO professionals find this frustrating because it doesn’t reveal any secret tips, it really is the biggest takeaway. It’s something any online marketer should always have in mind, but especially lately, as we’ve been hearing it more and more from the horse’s (Google’s) mouth.
  1. Really: Much of Google’s and Bing’s algorithms are built and modified based on what the user wants and likes.
  2. And speaking of Google’s mouth, here’s one more popular quote of theirs, and from the week: Don’t chase the search engines, chase the user.

This is not to say that the whole industry’s revamping and “SEO” (search engine optimization) will now be renamed “UEO” (user experience optimization). It’s all just a big, fat, important reminder that every effort to strengthen your website and get in good with Google (and Bing!) should be made with your user in mind.

That’s a wrap on my user-focused recap. More on some further SMX details next week…