Danny Sullivan will be delivering the keynote address at SearchFest 09 next week. What would you like to hear him talk about? Leave your ideas in the comments below!

9 thoughts on “Danny Sullivan’s Keynote – What Do You Want to Hear About?

  1. Easy pickings: “the future of search engine marketing” topic. That’s so.. general and it’s been hit on in more conference keynote addresses than Todd Mintz at a SEM Fiction Meet-up.

    Since everything is so economy-focused these days, how about something around his mentality about how search marketers can show the most amount of value for clients? Maybe the godfather has some tried-and-true ways that he has personally used that make his clients say, “We need this SEM stuff,” even with reduced marketing budgets and the like.

    Christians last blog post..Presentation: Capturing Market Share In a Recession with SEM

  2. In order of interest for me:

    Would love an update on the ‘Who Powers Whom’ search engine chart, additionally in regards to who powers whom on the web (Google > AOL, YouTube, Amazon > IMDB etc.)

    Is SMM the new link development (I’m thinking yes, but Danny may have more in depth knowledge, or some interesting perspective)?

    What do you make of all these local search/directories/business info. sites that come up in the first page of search results when you search on a company or freelancer’s name? Worth persuing versus just annoying?

  3. 1. Is SEO plateauing? Salaries (and outrageous consultancy fees) hitting a tipping point? Industry dynamics slowing down and normalizing (to a degree)?

    2. Rebranding SEO to fit it’s britches: SEO really isnt just SEO anymore – it’s marketing strategy, trend insights, social media participation, etc. At Yahoo we renamed our team to Search Traffic Acquisition to get away from the SEO stigma, to get people to bring us in for search traffic strategy rather than ask us to write their title tags the day before they launch.

    laura lippays last blog post..When to hire In-House SEO vs. Contracted SEO: Pt 1 of the Ultimate Guide to In House SEO

  4. Some suggestions: Gartner publishes a “hype cycle” curve where industries/technologies are placed to describe their maturity status… it helps companies decide when it’s too early/early/good/late to get involved with a specific technology. Where do you see SEO on that curve? Paid Search Marketing? Social Media?
    Ref: https://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/18/where-are-we-in-the-hype-cycle/

    john andrewss last blog post..Who’s Watching Google?

  5. Similar to Christian’s note: with the huge pressures a lot of clients are under to spend $ in ways they “know” works, some are going so far (operating from such fear) as to _not_ invest in innovative SEO strategies and stick with basic SEO, or an ad program or something more familiar to them. It doesnt make sense, but may be human nature in some way. Would love to hear thoughts on new tactics to open clients’ eyes, help them have confidence in taking a renewed run at owning their online brand in new ways.

  6. integrating some ideas from Christian, laura, and John:

    do you think that most search consultancies and search-specific agencies are
    going to go the way of the dinosaur?

    as paid search vendors optimize and try to squeeze more revenue out of their
    mature PPC business, i see them taking more services in-house and
    automating activity once left to search agencies and consultants.

    examples of this would include improving self-service PPC interfaces to the
    point that no expertise is necessary, vendors offering staff consultants to
    help customers budget and optimize PPC campaigns, improved spidering /
    indexing capabilities (crawling deeper into the deep web and indexing
    previously opaque documents), and CMS systems that have done a great job of
    automating search-friendly publishing.

    these are all examples of progress in a mature industry, and that progress
    is beneficial to the customer in almost every case — but where does that
    leave consultants & agencies?

    in that context:

    + what is the long-term outlook for search-specific consulting? do you see
    it morphing into something different like laura lippay describes above
    (part of or subsumed by a broader marketing function)

    + what are the emerging (or remaining) opportunities in search consulting?

  7. The general direction SEO is heading and what to do to be on the cutting edge. Information sources like websites, magazines papers etc. Thanks

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