SearchFest 2014, Portland, Oregon - Feb. 28, The Governor Hotel

Check out our exciting agenda & line up of speakers for our 8th annual SearchFest conference!

Register Now for SearchFest         SearchFest 2014 Speakers         View SearchFest Overview

Time Old School Track New School Track Social & PPC Track Deep Dive Track
7:30am – 8:30am

Registration & Breakfast

8:30am – 9:20am

Opening New School Keynote:
Today’s Consumer & The Paradigm Shift
Joanna Lord – BigDoor Media Inc.

Moderator: Mike Rosenberg – SEMpdx / Veracity

9:30am – 10:45am

Hardcore SEO

Audience: Intermediate
Do you understand the basics of SEO? Have you gone through the proper steps to optimize your website, but are now hungry for more? This session will focus on hardcore SEO tactics, and we’re not talking mainstream tactics that everyone and their brother are using. This session will cover both the technical aspects, as well as how to utilize content and link building to achieve your business goals. Be prepared to learn about redirects, schema, identifying personas, creating content, link building and more.

Speakers:
Kate Morris – Distilled
Simon Heseltine – AOL

Moderator:
John McPhee – Anvil Media

Using Video to Build Your Brand

Audience: Intermediate
What’s the closest thing to a conversation with your customer? Video. Learn how to use video to scale that personal connection with your audience while strengthening the identity of your brand. Mack and Elise will discuss some rock star examples (even in so-called “boring” industries) and communicate specific key performance indicators that will help you determine the ROI of using video to build your brand.

Speakers:
Mackenzie Fogelson – Mack Web Solutions
Elise Ramsay – Wistia

Moderator:
Ben Lloyd – Add3

How to Get Your Content Marketing Up & Running

Audience: Beginner
Leading businesses know that in addition to standard web pages describing their products and services, one of their best online marketing tools is useful content. So you totally buy in to the fact that content IS the new marketing, but how do you get your organization engaged and started down the content marketing path? In this session, you will learn how to get organized, create your plan, generate great ideas for content (even if you think your business is boring), and consistently create content your market will enjoy.

Speakers:
Arnie Kuenn – Vertical Measures
Mike Corak – Ethology

Moderator:
Nathan Issacs – Seven G Media

Need Attributable Conversions, Links, Social Signals & Community Building?

Audience: Intermediate

For years aimClear speakers have been preaching, “Sure as SEO practitioners MUST buy search PPC, social marketers must buy paid-organic content amplification ads. Next year, everyone in the world will be using these techniques.” This reality has come true punctuated by Facebook’s bold announcement that organic distribution has waned marketers need to buy social ads. Plan on reliving this in other channels. Twitter, LinkedIn are already following suit.
Attendees will learn:
• How to easily dominate social distribution against serious marketing KPIs
• To use Internet-wide targeting hacks. Facebook Ads, as we think about them, are nearly EVERYWHERE any user goes.
• How to field semi-organic & paid-organic social amplification to FB, Twitter, LinkedIn & Google+ page posts for marketing benefits. This is absolutely massive.
• Using editorial calendars for programmatic content amplification for traffic, sales, content & SEO KPIs
• Using FB as the analogy for successful marketing in other social channels

Speaker:
Marty Weintraub – aimClear
Merry Morud – aimClear

Moderator:
Lisa Williams – Search Discovery

10:45am – 11:00am

Morning Break

11:00am – 12:15pm

Website Analytics

Audience: Advanced
This session will explore how search marketers can use analytics to make better strategic and tactical decisions. In addition to smart tracking and tagging, learn ways to deal with life in a world of (not provided).

Speakers:
Mike Pantoliano – Ookla
Tim Resnik – Moz

Moderator:
Mike Arnesen – SwellPath

Structured Data for SEO: Which Markup Matters?

Audience: Intermediate
The improved ability of computers to uncover and understand the meaning of things described on the web has had a profound impact on not just search, but social media, advertising and publishing as well. Aaron and Marshall will shed light on which flavors of markup are important for search engines and other consumers to best make use of your data, and will lead to increased visibility for your website and content.

Speakers:
Aaron Bradley – Airshock
Marshall Simmonds – Define Media Group

Moderator:
Matthew Brown – Moz

Trending Visual with Instagram, Pinterest & Twitter

Audience: Beginner
This session will explore how digital marketing has become increasingly visual; including case studies and tips for business owners and marketers to capitalize on these trends to grow their business within these communities.

Speakers:
Matt Siltala – Avalaunch Media
Megan Rivas – aimClear

Moderator:
Kent Lewis – Anvil Media

SEO for eCommerce

Audience: Intermediate

Learn best practice SEO methods for eCommerce including handling product variations, versions, colors, sizes and models. Having product variations compete for rankings is a big issue for many eCommerce sites. Get advice on addressing duplication, cannibalization and crawl inefficiencies. Leverage analytics, tooling and experience to create a more effective SEO approach and ultimately better results.

Speakers:
Adam Audette – RKG

Moderator:
Lisa Williams – Search Discovery

12:15pm – 1:15pm

Lunch

1:15pm – 2:30pm

Harder-Core SEO

Audience: Advanced
Google’s rush to launch new features can be challenging and traditional organic is getting less and less real estate, but each of these new features represent new opportunities. The latest on how to capitalize on on in-depth articles, Knowledge Graph, answer boxes, carousels, and more.

Speakers:
Dr. Pete Meyers – Moz
Dennis Goedegebuure – Airbnb

Moderator:
Michael Cottam – Visual Itineraries

Local Search: More Than Location, Location, Location

Audience: Intermediate
The fragmentation of searches for local businesses across traditional search engines, social networks, apps, and technology platforms is a double-edged sword. For companies that embrace a holistic local marketing strategy, the rewards can be huge, but this fragmentation also makes it difficult to focus your energy and resources on strategies and tactics that matter. Internationally-renowned experts Dana DiTomaso and Andrew Shotland help you gain your footing in this shifting landscape, with special attention paid to Google Places and Apple Maps.

Speakers:
Dana DiTomaso – Kick Point
Andrew Shotland – LocalSEOGuide.com

Moderator:
David Mihm – Moz

#FAIL Free PPC

Audience: Intermediate
This session will give your PPC campaigns a real kick in the rump! The first part of the session will cover the biggest PPC mistakes related to the campaign settings tab, keyword selection/strategy, ad copy & landing pages. The second part of the session will cover awesome PPC strategies/tactics that you can use to take PPC account performance to the next level. All tactics/strategies discussed are easy to implement & can be rolled into PPC accounts the very next day!

Speakers:
James Svoboda – WebRanking.com
Mona Elesseily – Page Zero Media

Moderator:
Todd Mintz – 3Q Digital

Big Ideas for Big (and Little) Data – How to Creatively Crunch Numbers to Maximize Your Search, Social, and PR Campaigns

Audience: Intermediate

Big Data has so much more potential than just being a buzzword, so in this session the might of Microsoft and Majestic SEO combine to get your creative juices flowing with a smorgasbord of ideas and case studies that will
show you how to quickly and easily get ahead of the competition with a little bit of lateral thinking.

Speakers:
Mel Carson – Majestic SEO
John Gagnon – Bing

Moderator:
Anne Kennedy – Outlines Venture Group

2:30pm – 2:45pm

Afternoon Break

2:45pm – 4:00pm

REPORT ALL THE THINGS!

Audience: Intermediate
Whether you have one site using Google Analytics or several enterprise sites using Omniture, Jon and Todd will show you how to find the metrics that matter, and will showcase tips and tricks that will have you reporting like a boss …to the boss.

Speakers:
Jon Henshaw – Raven Tools
Todd Friesen – Salesforce

Moderator:
David Portney – Portent Inc.

Wrapping Your Brain Around the Mobile Opportunity

Audience: Beginner
Mobile search might just be the bloodiest of all bleeding edges in online marketing. And with nearly one in four searches now performed on a mobile device, it’s no longer an area which any company can ignore. In this session, Zeph Snapp will first help you identify and maximize your best opportunities for mobile content–including eye-opening ideas around Spanish-language content. Aaron Weiche will then follow up with insights and case studies from Spyder Trap clients about optimizing paid campaigns on mobile devices, with special attention paid to conversion of mobile visitors.

Speakers:
Zeph Snapp – Altura Interactive
Aaron Weiche – Spyder Trap

Moderator:
David Mihm – Moz

Beyond Thunderdome-When You Run Out of PPC Fuel

Audience: Intermediate
There’s a bigger, madder world outside keywords and text ads on Google.com proper. Learn about new Google offerings such as RLSA and Companion. Check out social channels like Twitter’s new cookie pool offering, Reddit, Instagram and more. What is Bing Ads up to? How about Yahoo stream ads and general retargeting best practices? Fuel up your PPC efforts with greatly increased volume AND respectable ROAS, come and find out how. We don’t need another hero, just more volume!

Speakers:
David Rodnitzky – 3Q Digital
Elizabeth Marsten – Portent Inc.

Moderator:
Dan Sundgren – Add3

Link Building, Content Marketing & Content Strategy: What’s Right for your Business

Audience: Advanced
The past dozen years have seen link building continue to evolve. What works today might not work tomorrow, and what you did in 2007 can get you punished. So what’s left? Where are we now and what should your strategy and tactics include, to give you the upper hand?

Speaker::
John-Henry Schreck – SEOgadget

Moderator:
Scott Hendison – Search Commander Inc.

4:10pm – 5:00pm

Closing Old School Keynote:
Taking a One-Time Visitor and Turning Them Into a Life Long Customer
Jeremy Schoemaker – ShoeMoney Media Group

Moderator: Mike Rosenberg – SEMpdx / Veracity

5:00pm – 6:00pm

Cocktail / Happy Hour

7:00pm – 10:00pm

After Party – Punch Bowl Social
Find Out More about the After Party
Not to be missed!

Event Sponsors:

moz Bing Ads KISSmetrics
Yext ethology Add3
Exults internet marketing Landing Page Experts Page One Power
Build Agency Acquisio PSU Center for Executive and Professional Education
Webfor Linkdex Punch Bowl Social
Migration Brewing Co Mac's List