All the organizers of SphinnCon Israel deserve a big pat on the back, including Search Engine Roundtable; it was a terrific event. I’m guessing there were around 170 attendees all together, and I heard through the grapevine that a lot more people were turned away over the last few days. Organization was very thorough, with excellent food & drink (and lots of it) and it all ran smoothly. A few glitches with mics made a couple of speakers a little difficult to understand, but other than that a good time was had by all.
Barry started with a bang: The big announcement of the day was the possibility of a two-day SMX Search Marketing Expo in Tel Aviv, scheduled for January of 2009. That was greeted with loads of applause, and judging by the responses to SphinnCon, it’ll be a big hit.
Three panels followed, interspersed by networking and more food and drink. (Look, it’s a largely Jewish crowd; we like to eat, what can I say?) Here’s a brief summary of the three panels.
Session 1 – SEO Panel: Paid Links & Penalties
A short presentation by Branko Rihtman (who is clearly in a league of his own – obviously just a brilliant guy) led into a Q&A with the other panelists, Ophir Cohen, Sam Michelson, and Gilad Sasson. Branko outlined the history and importance of links; recent penalties for paid links; the recent controversy over those penalties; and some linking tips for 2008.
The last section introduced what became the recurrent theme of the afternoon: Create good content that’s worth linking to. Of course, it’s not quite that simple, but that’s where it all starts. You need to know the likes & dislikes of different crowds before you aim at them (Reddit isn’t Digg, which isn’t Stumble Upon, etc). Experiment, experiment, and experiment some more. He also highly recommended getting involved in off line activities that will incidentally create good links; sponsor events, speak at colleges (good source of .edu links) etc.
A couple of standouts from the questions that followed:
Q. Does link farming still work in Israel (and by extension, other non-English language markets)?
A. Yes, but it won’t for long; Israel’s about three years behind the US in many things, including the dos and don’ts of SEO. Build your business for the long-term.
Q. What should I do if my keyword disappeared from the SERPs?
A. Immediately, nothing. Wait for a few days; maybe it was a glitch. Use those days to do some analysis, see if you can see what may have caused it if there was no glitch. If you decide it’s really gone; bail, and get a new domain. Yes, there are things that you could do, but they’ll all cost more money than just starting over.
(My personal favorite)
Q. Do you have limits as to which clients you’ll take? Or will you all just whore for anyone?
A. (After a stunned silence, and some giggling.) Decide what sort of business you’re building. In the long-term, you may want to steer clear of certain markets as you build your reputation. But in the short-term, some of these markets are fun, lucrative, and can teach you something. It’s possible to work both long-term and short-term strategies simultaneously, so long as you know that’s what you’re doing.
Session 2 – PPC Panel: Will the PPC Model Hold Up as Click Prices Rise?
Opened by Avi Wilensky, perhaps not the most comfortable speaker I’ve ever heard, the initial presentation (available for download here) addressed the reasons for click price rises over the last year or two. In a nutshell … more players in the market, including some who will over-pay for branding goals rather than sales; limited inventory of advertising; and simple inflation.
Avi went on to a Top Ten list of ways to keep your prices down, including long-tail terms, geo-targeting, and landing page optimization. Two suggestions that I plan to look at more closely, since we’ve done little with them so far; demographic bidding, and day-parting.
Others on the panel included Itai Levitan, Alon Sheafer, Tal Cohen, and Michael G. Samet.
Some of the questions from this session included:
Q. Should I buy direct from publishers, rather than using the content networks?
A. A guarded “maybe”, with the proviso that tracking and reporting will be more difficult.
Q. With a marketing budget of $5,000 how much should go to PPC, and how much to SEO?
A. Lots of answers to this one. One of the two best was from Tal Cohen of Google Israel, who pointed out that with only $5,000 you obviously need revenue quickly. Spend it where you’ll see the best, and fastest returns.
And if I remember correctly, the other good answer was from Itai Levitan of EasyNet, who suggested a very small-scale PPC campaign for research purposes. Once you know which terms are converting for you, then put the balance into SEO for those terms.
Session 3 – Social Panel: Should You Social?
Eli Feldblum opened the final session with a presentation of the what, why, how, should, and whether of social marketing. It was a bit dense, and rather challenging to read some very detailed graphs, but he nevertheless gave a very thorough and well-documented breakdown of how to do social marketing, and how not to.
He was joined on the panel by Tzvika Avnery, Roi Carthy, and Lior Hener. This was arguably the most opinionated and heated of the panels, although it took a while to get rolling. There seemed to be only a few questions, largely since each one got a thorough going-over. One stood out however:
Q. How can social media negatively impact link equity? Can you actually get hurt by a rush of links (the Digg , or TechCrunch effect) that come & go?
A. No. Not if your product is any good. If it isn’t any good, you could get buried.
And that was fundamentally the message of the afternoon. Create good content, content that’s worth linking to, content that’s viral-worthy (a term that’s been copyrighted by Roi Carthy I believe).
Once again, kudos to the organizers of SphinnCon Israel; you did a great job. Looking forward to seeing you all in Tel Aviv next January.
