Finding SearchLove in Boston

Dave, Katie and I were lucky enough to spend two information-packed days at SearchLove in Boston last week. It was a lot of fun. We learned some new SEO tricks, we met and hung out with some smart people, and (let’s be honest) we nerded out. It was a great way to start the week. We’ve all got a list a mile long full of things to try, tools to test and new ideas to put into action.

To say the least, these conferences are energizing. You’re learning new things, gaining fresh insight, collecting all kinds of nerdy tools… Also cool? Knowing that you’re already doing a lot of what’s being talked about. After all, it’s a crazy, fast-moving digital world out there. And there’s so much to keep tabs on. I’ll be writing more blogs on a few of these things this summer.

While it’s impossible to recap everything in one blog post, we figured we’d pass on the love by sharing a sampling of some of our favorite takeaways.

Don’t Forget to Measure ALL Your Campaigns

And that doesn’t mean PPC and online banner ads.
Your paid marketing efforts are important, but don’t forget to measure the effectiveness of social, email and other important content marketing channels. Content marketing plays an important role in SEO and it was woven in as a theme throughout the event. Annie Cushing talked about campaign tagging in Google Analytics to effectively (and easily) track attribution back to all content marketing channels. She also shared some great tools and resources to make it painless. Being the Analytics nerd that I am – she spoke to my heart. For my fellow nerds, she has some great SEO analytics tips and tricks on her blog.
Jessica Wallace, Digital Marketing Analyst

Think Differently

How to accomplish big goals for your business.
Developing a strong online marketing plan is no easy task. Mack Fogelson from Mack Web Solutions posed the question, “How the heck do I get buy-in, change perspective, measure results, un-silo teams and get consensus?” As the person working with clients to shape their strategy, it was refreshing to hear that some of the same steps we take here at Hall are used in her approach. I also left with a number of really great tips for applying a content generation process and internal and external communication.
I look forward to applying these to help everybody produce #RCS (Really Cool Sh*t). Which is another thing these nerdy SEO types say…
– Dave MacElhiney, Director of Client Services

Keep an Eye on Local

From Local Search results to Google Glass – we are already in a new universe.
SEO is a field that we all know operates in flux. I was lucky enough to grab Mike Blumenthal‘s ear for lunch one day to geek out on Local Search. We discussed the local search industry and it’s place in internet marketing since its birth back in the ’90s. The Local Search Algorithm is now becoming such an integrated part of search that we hardly realize it, especially when used on mobile devices. Optimizing for local is not only crucial for small businesses, but for online reputation, now more than ever. CitySearch is Google’s best friend, even though it is a third party review site that gets little mention compared to Goliaths such as Yelp and Urbanspoon. CitySearch has been in a long term relationship with Google since the beginning.
– Katie Conroy, SEO Analyst and Local Search Specialist
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