I really enjoyed spending some time this week down at the London SEO pro seminars, run by Distilled and SEO Moz, and thought it would be worthwhile pulling out a few high points and some disappointments.
Surprisingly for me the seminars at that more businesses end of the conference is what I found more interesting, applicable and useful. Some of the more technical sessions either told me what I already knew, confirmed what we were already thinking or focused on elements of minutia which I believe will be of little effect.
Highlights
Stephen Pavolich
Really interesting field, great approach, definitely someone who majors on majors and knows about the bottom line Also from talking to him later a really nice guy. This has really pushed me to look at the whole area of CRO more and more.
Alex Craven
Steeped in experience, good practical day to day advice on getting things done and working with external development teams which can really louse a project up for you. Lots of application in many environments.
Russell Smith
I loved his insights into the BBC’s new linking policy, and since doing some work for one of the big newspapers I have always held a strong interest in this sector and fins it fascinating.
Caitlin Krumdieck
The session on the application of sales processes to was great practical and Applied both to SEO and the sales of SEO, and as often happened was very useful not only in what Caitlin said, but also in the thought process and ideas that he talk set going in my head.
Lowlights
Dave Naylor – Google vs SEO
This isn’t a downer of Dave I actually loved all of his other contributions to the first day, and feel he had a lot more to give than we got.
I just felt there was much more interesting stuff he could have told us and I disagreed with his conclusions.
I would summarise his view as ‘in effect he was suggesting that Google would become a portal delivering its own content and its own comparison engine, pushing natural search results to the margins of what it does and hurting SEO’s whilst it does that.
Jon Hunter is an SEO Consultant who has been working with the internet for 10 years and has been working as an SEO operative for the past 5.