The document summarizes several sessions from the SMX East 2013 conference. Key topics included getting mobile SEO right, diversifying digital marketing beyond Google, scaling search marketing agency efforts, creating compelling content, and ways for in-house SEO and PPC teams to learn from each other. The document also provided summaries of individual presentations on life beyond Google, mobile usability best practices from Google, growing an agency, using neuroscience in content, and takeaways from the conference.

1. SEO Highlights of
SMX East 2013

2. Overview
All SMX East Slides here.
Main Sessions I’ll cover:
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Life Beyond Google: Diversifying Your Digital Marketing
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Getting Mobile SEO Right – Because Now Google Really Cares
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Scaling Your Search Marketing Efforts: Agency Edition
•
Think You Know Good Content? Fuggedaboutit. Here’s What Really
Counts
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In-House SEO And PPC: What You Can Learn From Each Other, Optimally
•
Rock-Your-World SMX Takeaways

3. Penguin-Proof Link-Building
“Google can never devalue relationships”
- Neal Rodriguez, @notifyneal

4. Life Beyond Google:
Diversifying Your Digital Marketing
Interesting Sidenote
•
This was the most packed session I attended, and the attendees were
largely in-house
•
Many marketers must feel over-dependent on big G.
3 solid presentations and slide decks
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Life Beyond Google: Building a Better Marketing Model
by Ted Ives, @tedives
•
Finding and Measuring Success on YouTube
by Matt Ballek
•
Diversifying Your Digital Marketing Efforts
by Brandon Hassler, @brandonhassler

5. Life Beyond Google:
Diversifying Your Digital Marketing, pt 2
The old way is oriented around how you allocate your budget.

6. Life Beyond Google:
Diversifying Your Digital Marketing, pt 3
How Marketers should think about Marketing
•
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Be customer oriented. Think about whole system. Then think channels.
Ask “what are we going to communicate to who?” Then you can ask
“how do we do it?”

7. What Are The Most Important Search
Ranking Factors?
A rehash of 2 must-read (correlation) ranking studies
•
2013 Search Ranking Factors
By Matthew Peters from Moz, @mattthemathman
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•
Link to main page of Moz study here.
What are the Most Important Search Ranking Factors?
by Marcus Tobers from Search Metrics, @marcustober
–
Link to main page of Search Metrics study here.

8. Getting Mobile SEO Right – Because
Now Google Really Cares
•
¼ of searches are mobile
•
Google projects mobile search volume to overtake desktop
•
Good Slides in Why Getting Mobile SEO Right Matters
by Bryson Muenier, (@brysonmeunier)
•
Pierre Far from Google (@pierrefar) was backing Bryson’s stuff up
•
Mobile-specific quality considerations will become a ranking factor
•
Additional articles on mobile best practices by Google:
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Changes in rankings of smartphone search results
Common mistakes in smartphone sites
Building Smartphone-Optimized Websites

9. Getting Mobile SEO Right – Because
Now Google Really Cares, Pt 2
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from Bryson Muenier

10. Getting Mobile SEO Right – Because
Now Google Really Cares, Pt 3
The Big Mobile Mistakes to watch for:

11. Scaling Your Search Marketing Efforts:
Agency Edition
…Or “How to Grow Your Agency”
•
2 Great presentations/slide decks
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Scaling Search Marketing Agency Efforts
by Wayne Sleight, @waynesleight
•
Scaling Your Search Marketing Efforts - Agency Edition
by Phillip Thune, @textbroker

12. Scaling Your Search Marketing Efforts:
Agency Edition, Pt 2
Wayne’s 5 pillars of growing an agency

13. Think You Know Good Content?
Fuggedaboutit. Here’s What Really Counts
It’s all about good SEO Content
• Eric Enge, @stonetemple
–
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Say something unique
and that doesn’t mean changing the words so that it’s not technically duplicate content.
•
Creating Good Content That Really Counts
by Amy Vernon (Digg champion), @amyvernon
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How To Turn Brain Science Into Bucks
by Heather Lloyd Martin, @heatherlloyd
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My favorite presentation
All about how to create more compelling sales copy

14. Think You Know Good Content? Fuggedaboutit.
Here’s What Really Counts, Pt 2
To drive action, get emotional

15. Think You Know Good Content? Fuggedaboutit.
Here’s What Really Counts, Pt 3
Heather’s Top Tips:
• TAKE TESTIMONIALS TO THE NEXT LEVEL
–
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Social proof
Match testimonials to different verticals/audience segments
• WE CAN LEARN FROM INFOMERCIALS
–
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USE THE POWER OF THREE TO YOUR ADVANTAGE
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Stories sell
3 word headlines, 3 bullet points, 3 copy blocks, etc…
(thought this was reminiscent of Dale Carnegie’s, "Tell them what you going to tell them, tell them,
then tell them what you just told them.”)
LET’S GET TEXTURAL
–
“Use vivid, sensory, emotional adjectives to engage the brain” - Roger Dooley

16. Conversation: Where’s SEO Going In
2014?
Main Takeaway =
The SEO Industry is Friggin INSANE

17. In-House SEO And PPC: What You Can
Learn From Each Other, Optimally
What In-House SEO and PPC Teams Can Learn From Each Other
by Mark Munroe (@markmunroe) and Evan Waters (@ppcbro)
• …Or “SEO + PPC: living together in perfect harmony”
• Contrary to popular belief,
– When both PPC and SEO listings are in SERPs, CTR for both typically goes up

18. In-House SEO And PPC: What You Can
Learn From Each Other, Optimally, PT 2
Ways PPC can help SEO
(Mark & Evan)
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Split Testing
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Keyword Research
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–
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Infrastructure and proces
Tips from past A/B Tests
Especially for long-tail content
Especially to help understand what converts
Improving CTR in SERP listings
–
Successful PPC ad copy can be used in Meta Descriptions and Titles

19. In-House SEO And PPC: What You Can
Learn From Each Other, Optimally, PT 3
Ways SEO can help PPC
(Mark & Evan)
• If CPC is too expensive to be profitable for important keywords
–
•
Then, consider attacking those keywords with SEO
Helping with negative keywords
–
Ideas and quality data from organic data
•
Helping with geo-targeting via organic data
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Boosting quality score via SEO-informed landing page optimization

20. In-House SEO And PPC: What You Can
Learn From Each Other, Optimally, PT 4
Ways SEO and PPC can help each other at same time
(Mark & Evan)
•
Controlling SERPs for banded search
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Understanding what’s the best landing page for branded searches
–
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To improve CTR (when there’s competitor ads)
For reputation mgmt
Sitelinks and keyword-use
Conversion-rate optimization on landing pages

21. Rock-Your-World SMX Takeaways
Multiple speakers summarizing key takeaways
Session slides in one deck here.
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Eric Enge, @stonetemple
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Author Rank: not here yet, but coming
Think strategically, not tactically
Rhea Drysdale, @rhea
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Diversify your marketing
Don’t take what you hear at face value
All about that ROI - focus on what matters
Develop content that helps your audience
Secure search not going anywhere
SEOs are behavioralists
Entity search and knowledge graph is big
–
Hopefully link building will die
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Be a legitimate business/brand

22. Rock-Your-World SMX Takeaways, Pt 2
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Jim Yu, @jimyu
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Embrace mobile.
At the end of this yr, more mobile devices than people.
Optimize mobile landing pages
Content expectations are different for mobile
Elizabeth Marsten, @ebkendo
– Mobile matters – a lot
– If you need to convince a client (or boss), there’s so much data available, that there is no
excuse not to do mobile right

23. Rock-Your-World SMX Takeaways, Pt 3
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Matt Van Wagner, @mvanwagner
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Annalise Kaylor, @annabelleblue
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Google Display Network is all about finding “perfect placements”
Social media is a tactic, not a strategy.
Social media isn’t 100% of one person’s job. It’s 1% of everyone’s job.
Targeting is your friend
Alistair Dent, @periscopix
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Enhanced Campaigns (AdWords) rock ->