Search Marketing Day

Dan and I spent a few days in Poznan to attend the Search Marketing Day conference. We spoke three times during the two day conference and you can find our slides below.

Things I learned in Poznan

I learned how modern mass scale cloaking campaigns are made that are designed to dominate entire first page SERP of a keyword until busted. Of course, we’ll never use these black-hat techniques with our clients, but it’s good to know how it’s done to be able to notice it.

I learned a lot more people use black-hat techniques than I thought, especially in Poland, and some of them are very proud of it.

I learned an average small business website in Poland has like at least 60 000 backlinks.

I got to see how different tools work. I was very impressed by SearchMetrics, you should check it out if you didn’t so far. It has a way of calculating the search traffic market share in different niches.

I learned some new things about big data from Dixon of Majestic and how Majestic can use the data it gathered for some very non-SEO related predictions like companies rise and fall, election results and future in general.

Was it worth the trip?

Yes. Yes it was. If not for all the knowledge I gained and I think I learned quite a few new tricks, and all the people I met and I met quite a few big shots in the industry, then for the amazing organization that treated us like kings for a few days we were there. I really enjoyed our stay and would recommend the conference to anyone in the industry looking to learn something new or find smart people to talk to about their problems.

Slides from Search Marketing Day are now available:

Keynote: Automating SEO while staying whitehat [Dan  Petrovic] Workshop: Taking your SEO to the next level [Deyan P] Workshop: eCommerce SEO [Toni Anicic]

Location: Poznan, Poland

Date: 27-28 June 2013