It took a good long while but I manage to put together a list of great tips from those that attended the 2013 State of Search Conference in Dallas, TX on November 18. A special thanks to DFW SEM for putting this conference together. As more businesses shift toward online strategies, they have to constantly adapt to the changes that occur almost everyday. Take your time and look through the list, you may find it very useful for your own sources.

I also have a link to all of the presenters’ Slideshare presentations to add to your research. Enjoy!

• People use search engines like a confessional: “This is what I want.”
• Think about WHERE the customer is really starting.
• Google+ uses EXIF (geotargeting) data. Doesn’t work on Google Search, yet.
• Meet your customer at the starting point, then walk them into the process. Don’t jump the gun as marketers.
• Rankings do not equal revenue.
• What can you invest in on your site to help you monitor and modify whatever it is you sold those folks?
• DON’T DO IT! Fake awesome person tells other person that they should meet with you. You gain business.
• Pay more attention to the session rather than the query.
• When interviewing, assess whether the candidate’s contributions can solve problems, deliver on time, and scale.
• Dominate your Facebook targeting. There are expansive targeting options.
• Craigslist isn’t cool in Canada, use KIJIJI instead. Insider Tip!
• What the F is content? Everything… Every post has it’s own URL and has a detail page.
• Even if you sell nationally, you still need to pay attention to local SEO.
• How to sell to Canadians? Offer free shipping!
• Don’t let your role define your influence. Let your influence define your role.
• Connect with everyone who wants to connect with you on LinkedIn.
• Even if you sell nationally, your results will always have a local focus.
• Content Marketing Top Goal: Scalable Psychographic Traffic.
• Make sure your LinkedIn profile pic is a clear tight shot of your face only.
• Use persona and audience data from display, push it to FB partner categories.
• To sell to Canadians you should geotarget content to visitors Canadian shipping discount banner.
• Just because Google’s the largest search engine on the planet doesn’t mean they don’t care about money.
• Don’t search & replace. make content completely different for each location.
• Every channel, platform, community, network now charges! Social communities make paid things look organic.
• I want conversion, friendship, and SEO. Content holds everything together.
• Every channel that ever gave anyone valuable information – especially marketers – has found a way to pay for it.
• Every piece of content has a different use, something it needs to do.
• Social does a good job making paid media look organic.
• Device segmentation is key in paid social.
• You can fake Facebook reach by buying a page post ad, but you can’t fake likes.
• Google favors brands because users trust brands. So, build a brand.
• If you amplify content and don’t see reciprocal likes then your content or targeting is bad.
• Local seo tips: create content that doesn’t suck and isn’t spammy! Make it useful and share-able.
• Twitter’s mobile engagement rate is VERY high, but conversion rate is very low.
• Around 60% of Twitter’s traffic comes from mobile.
• Think of ways you can make content to drive people in and encourage them to stay for what else you have to say.
• Don’t let your role define your influence. Let your influence define your role.
• Think campaigns instead of just channels.
• Think of sessions, not searches. People will search on several social sites and search engines before a decision.
• We are psychographics. Make content that matters to what we as people like, do, want, need.
• Use lists of tools, or recommendation, or trends, or local resources, top 10 bars, restaurants, etc.
  1) choose the area to target 2) research with trends and KW planner 3) create targeted content 4) build links 5) wait 6) profit!
• Remember your fundamentals. Like always, but especially when creating social ads and landing pages.
• Think there should be business classes for SEOs. Learn how biz objectives work with SEO.
• A piece of content isn’t a little boat you send off and wish well. It should be part of a campaign, a bigger picture.
• Images have almost always been undervalued as a major online marketing asset.
• Don’t be shy, pick up your phone & call your existing customers, tell them they a great customer ask why they chose you.
• Link building & social effort: sponsor a post on FB, spend a bit on locally-targetingd AdWords
• Make sure your ads / links are tagged in social ads.
  1) straightened up your G+ situation. 2) dig deep on citations. 3) on-site local optimization
  use “Link to Post” in G+ with a link shortener. This lets you push the content across multiple networks
• 70% of consumers search the web prior to purchasing.
• Buy bit.ly link ads directing people back to a Google Plus Page. Whatever works!
• Great content wins with good distribution.
• 70% of U.S households now use the Internet when shopping locally.
• Inconsistencies will kill you. don’t confuse Google.
• Amplify. Manipulate media. Stack your campaigns.
• So the first thing you must do is solidify your NAP. Audit all of your business info.
• Consumers today aren’t tied to a brand; their tied to a moment.
• You need to be able to test and measure what the brand power of your campaigns are.
• 2014 is the year that mobile will take over desktop traffic.
• Know who you’re targeting. Communicate precisely, and sell with integrity.
• Analytics isn’t about the creation of reports. It’s understanding WHY traffic went up/down. It’s about the action.
  Re-marketing is a story – each time you get in front of the audience you can start a new chapter.
• Retargeting is the equivalent of doing a brand search.
• Boosted Post on FB? Don’t do that. It’s just wasting money.
• Testimonials on YouTube for cities you desire are effective for targeting locations you struggle with or aren’t present in.
• Most of the revenue you’re getting from Facebook is not going to show up in Google.
• Use Tag Management to get the correlations between online campaigns and end actions.
• Start with content, then targeting, then marketing automation.
• Move your campaigns from the audience to engagement to conversion.
• Reviews and star ratings on local results are important.
• Content and SEO at root are the same thing.
• Use a flat site architecture to minimize click depth to any page you want to do well in search.
• Avoid meaningless URLs. Make them semantic and use keywords in the URLs.
• Make your anchor text meaningful. If you’re selling shoes, include “shoes” in the anchor text.
• Use reviews as a feedback tool to find ways to improve and raise customer satisfaction.
• Breadcrumb navigation provides easy context for users and for search engines.
• If you’re on social and doing more than just posting cat pictures, you’re probably doing content marketing.
• Content marketing is like farming — controlled environment with a surer harvest.
• Don’t forget internal/cross-linking! It provides additional context, crawl paths and shopping ideas.
• Relevant social can be a great SEO tactic and create velocity.
• Relevant social media can be an excellent SEO tactic: backlinks, authority, velocity, reputation.
• Be careful when responding to reviews who don’t have a legitimate complaint. Some people just love the drama.
• Protect yourself from Panda. ALWAYS put content on product and category pages.
• Duplicate content is REALLY annoying. Invest in unique product descriptions, proper paginations, canonical, etc.
• We (marketers) are all storytellers but don’t tell yourself stories about your own data.
• Quality of reviews are now most likely impacting the carousel results.
• Search is an ally for social by providing a tactical road map and helps prove results
• Use Semantic Markup to define your content. If you’re in eCommerce this is a good investment to help your SEO.
• Use historical analytics & Google Insights to predict seasonality.
• Rich Snippets may improve CTR by 15-50%
• Issue is not creating the content, it’s distributing the content.
• Google+ is the social spine that improves the user experience across Google.
• Most relevant local tactic: Author Tag! Adds the picture icon with search results and draws attention.
• Someone blogs about a product you sell: send them one. Don’t ask for anything- you’re building a relationship.
• Think about the customer, as opposed to the website.
• 56% of brands are unable to link social media to business outcomes.
• Have a purpose to everything you do in the social space. Don’t do it to do it.
• 47% of Americans say FB is their #1 influencer when it comes to making purchases.
• Social is the direct avenue to your customers, your peers, and your competitors. Tell your brand story.
• Facebook is one of the driving forces of customer trust for your brand.
• Understand who is telling your brand’s story. it’s not always just you. It’s your customers, fans and peers.
• Data makes your content harder to replicate, better than the competition’s, faster to create and stronger than your opinion.
• Quality content is when people interact, engage with it…not keywords.
• Wall posts or tweets must have links! They are perceived as more credible and useful.
• Search engines can’t see photos. Mark them up so they know what it is.

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