Carrie Hill, on the scene at SES!

[Ron Callari]

Do you know the way to San Jose? Carrie Hill does. I will be posting some of Carrie Hill's observations as she attends SES this week in San Jose.(see more details pertaining to this event at EVENTS on the home page). Members, feel free to ask any questions or add any of your thoughts about SES.

[Carrie Hill]

Hi All - I'm copying and pasting from the hotelseo.ning.com forum - no time to write unique thoughts for both - but I hope you all find something useful here!

HI everyone,

Just a few minutes to post some takeaways from ses the last 2 days:

Consider long tail keywords and variations. Someone looking to come to a conference in your town may actually start by searching the name of the conference. For example you could assume that a majority of people who searched for "search engine strategies san jose" in the last 6 months would probably need a hotel room in San Jose. Are you that hotel?

Harvest brand advocates from review sites. Can you offer them something to entice them to continue to be a brand advocate? You need to be careful as "paying for reviews" is a "so-so" practice, but it can be okay in some cases

Make your content easy to share. Look into AddThis.com - a social media sharing toolbar that allows sharing via email, facebook, myspace, etc.

Video is the next 'sales tool' and amature "real" videos are the best conversation starters. Guests having a blast in your pool, beachwalkers exploring shells, etc. Watch carefully when you host them on your site, can really bog load time down. Instead consider hosting at youtube and embedding on your video pages.

Viral Marketing can work beyond brand awareness. Jen Laycock of searchengineguide.com has 3 rules
* know thy customer
* be remarkable
* try try again
know what your customer wants, offer them an experience they cant find anywhere else, you wont succeed everytime - so try try again.

"Landing Page Optimization is the 'last frontier' of Search Engine Optimization" - Tim Ash - author of "Landing Page Optimization"

WHO should design your landing pages? Your VISITOR should

COnsider building seasonal landing pages.

These are just some rough notes - if you have any questions or want any further info - just let me know and I'll try to elaborate.