SMX West 2013 Liveblog Schedule & Where We’ll Be was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

Holy heatmap have you seen the SMX West agenda? This is some next level content. Getting to attend an educational series like the one going down next week in San Jose is truly one of the perks of the job. Of course it’s not all fun times and smart insights while at SMX; I earn my keep by liveblogging. And with an agenda like this, picking the sessions to attend has been the hardest part! But I did it, and after the fold down you’ll see the SMX West sessions you’ll find on the blog next week. Ad retargeting, YouTube PPC, Google Knowledge Graph, Facebook Graph Search, authorship and online identity — it’s all here! Before that, some details you should know if you’re lucky like me and will be at the conference!

How to Meet with Bruce Clay, Inc. at SMX West 2013

If you’re attending the conference, let’s connect. Here’s where we’ll be next week.

• If you’re getting into town Sunday, have a drink on us! BCI co-sponsors the Meet & Greet this Sunday from 6-7:30 and we’d love to see you there, get pumped for the conference and nerd out marketing style.
• The team will be stationed at booth #406 in the expo hall. Visit us to enter to win a free seat in our 3-day SEO training course in Simi Valley, CA. We’ll also be giving away $ 400 off the cost of our 3-day SEO training in 2013 for you and 6 friends, so stop by!
• Bruce will be in Theater A explaining Google ranking penalties and how businesses can get back in Google’s good graces on Monday at 12:00.
• Register for the SEO Workshop on Thursday, March 14 for a search optimization intensive you can use to take your business’s optimization efforts from 0 to 100. The last two SEO Workshops Bruce presented at SMX conferences last year sold out. If you have any questions about SEO, Bruce answers any questions in face-to-face workshop and equips you with a comprehensive and fundamental understanding of SEO. (P.S. You can deduct the cost of the workshop from our full SEO training course in Southern California if one day isn’t enough!)
• If you decide to go to SMX, save yourself 10% with code SMXW13bruceclay.

Liveblogging SMX West

Day 1: Monday, March 11

Day 2: Tuesday, March 12

Day 3: Wednesday, March 13

Bruce Clay Blog

Creep-Free Retargeting and More with SMX West Speaker Susan Waldes was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

If you’re already investing in PPC, retargeting is a logical next step. Retargeting, or remarketing as it’s sometimes called, allows you to keep track of your visitors and serves up your ads as they browse the Web to remind them of your products and services. But there’s an art to remarketing, and today, as part of our interview series with SMX West speakers, Susan Waldes of PPC Associates discusses why you should do it, what makes a great campaign and how to serve up ads without giving off the creepy stalker vibe.

Jessica Lee: Why do online businesses need to consider retargeting?

Susan Waldes: Visitors to your site (or YouTube videos, or email opens) not only have expressed an interest in your offerings, but also in your brand. As such, this is usually the most valuable segment of people you can target. The ROI is almost always there with the right gentle reminder.

Beyond that, smart retargeting campaigns also look at increasing lifetime value of users, increasing loyalty, driving social engagement with the brand and increasing average order sizes.

What are some of the aspects of an effective retargeting campaign?

Creative is often the focus of retargeting, but retargeting can be successful even with your standard creative. The two things that advanced marketers focus on in retargeting campaigns are:

• The right cookie length
• The right impression cap

Are people seeing your ads at the right time in the purchase cycle and with the right frequency to drive re-engagement but not become weary with over-saturation?

What are some elements of great ads for remarketing?

Great remarketing ads are smart about providing gentle and compelling reminders while being mindful not to overdo the “creepy” factor and make users feel they are being stalked.

They acknowledge sensitivities, and offer some value-add to customers that re-engage, like a promo or free shipping offer that encourages people to pull the trigger.

They target people at the right time and with messaging that aligns with where they are in the funnel. They use the brand and logo prominently in the creative and appear in the right places.

Thanks for the insight, Susan. You can stay connected with Susan Waldes on Twitter @SuzyVirtual. If you’re headed to SMX West next week, don’t miss Susan in the session, “Ready, Aim, Fire … Then Retarget!” on March 11 at 10:45 a.m.

Bruce Clay Blog

SMX West + SEO Workshop with Bruce Clay – Rates Go Up Friday! was originally published on BruceClay.com, home of expert search engine optimization tips.

Education and professional self improvement are works in progress and it’s never too late to start. However, they say the early bird gets the worm, and in the case of next month’s SMX West in San Jose, that worm is a discount on registration. Early bird pricing for the conference ends this Friday. Add to that 10% discount code SMXW13bruceclay and the justification for this investment is overwhelming.

Just be sure not miss the SEO Workshop Bruce  presents at SMX West to take full advantage of this opportunity to learn from search and social thought leaders.

Pass Options (See what you get)	Early Bird Now – Feb 1	Conference Rate Feb 2 – Mar 10	On Site
All Access Pass	$ 1,495	$ 1,595	$ 1,695
All Access Pass + Workshop	$ 2,395	$ 2,595	$ 2,795
All Access Pass – One Day	$ 795	$ 895	$ 995
Workshop Only* (Workshop Descriptions)	$ 995	$ 1,095	$ 1,195
SMX Boot Camp (Learn More)	$ 399	$ 449	$ 499
Pass (Learn More)	Free	Free	$ 50

If you’re planning to go to SMX West, jump on it. If you’re not sure SMX West is for you, consider this…

The BIG SMX West Preview: Why You Should Attend

• Keynotes from Facebook and Google promise revealing insights about the company’s missions and the future of marketing on these powerful platforms.
• There are sessions devoted to SEO, paid search, social media, microformats and semantic search, in-house marketing, content, mobile search and a brand new track called SMX Summit — proclaimed “no-holds-barred Q&A.”
• On Thursday, Bruce presents the rave-reviewed SEO workshop in conjunction with SMX. Think of this as a sanity booster and concept solidifier after the 3-day marathon of the SMX conference. In this workshop, Bruce places everything you learned over the week in a framework that fits all the Internet marketing pieces back together after the conference sessions broke them down into laser focus. Bruce gives you the knowledge and tools to use your website as the anchor of your online presence, around which you can develop a robust Internet presence for your business.

Who Should Come to the SEO Workshop at SMX West

Attendees of the SMX conference SEO workshop come in with all roles and marketing experience levels. In one survey last year, attendees reported job titles including:

• marketing coordinator
• social marketing manager
• manager of an online business
• company owner
• ecommerce product manager
• SEO specialist

Basically, if you care about your business’s visibility online, you’ll benefit from the workshop.

What Past Attendees Say

To totally toot our own horn, this workshop is highly praised by past attendees.

One said: “I found the one-day training from Bruce Clay to be extremely eye-opening and helpful. The course takes a holistic look at SEO and how to make website better for both the search engines and the users. Bruce is very knowledgeable on the subject matter and conveys it well.”

Another said: “I came into this course knowing very little about SEO and when it was done it created a whole new perspective for me and my company on what needs to be done to get in the top 3 organic SEO positions on the search engines.”

And one more for good measure: “If you are interested in learning SEO, Bruce Clay is the one to learn from. He is an excellent teacher, with years of experience and he can get you going in the right direction.”

What You Get in the SEO Workshop at SMX West

One last thing you’d probably like to know is what to expect from the SEO workshop:

• Course materials, of course, but in a form that you can continually reference in your day-to-day work. Along with Bruce’s slide presentation, you also get the For Dummies All-In-One SEO Desk Reference, a modular handbook for all things SEO. Just search the index and dive-in to the stand-alone topic that you need right now.
• Future savings on a week of SEO training education with Bruce. If you’re an SEO workshop attendee and it looks like the one day isn’t enough, we’ll deduct the cost of the workshop from the price of our 5-day SEO training course in Simi Valley.
• A relationship with Bruce Clay, who I’ll honestly say is one of the most generous educators in SEO. Bruce doesn’t really end his workshop at the end of the day. Business consultant Steven Hume attended the SEO workshop with Bruce at SMX Advanced last year, and says, “The staff and even Bruce himself has taken time out of his schedule to speak with me on very simple questions that I really didn’t understand. I appreciate that greatly!” When you come to our SEO training or an SEO workshop, you’ve just opened a door to a great resource in Bruce and our organization that we hope will serve you for a long time.

Register for SMX West by Friday to save with the early bird rate. Use the code SMXW13bruceclay for an additional 10% discount. And we’ll see you in San Jose soon!

Bruce Clay Blog