Danny kicked off the event with an "I am Canadian" commercial. And got out all of the "Eh's" you could have ever imagined.
Danny started Search Engine Research in 1996 and believed it was something important. He went on to say that people are spending on search. Search volume is up, especially in the mobile world, and it is a fundamental part of any business that wants to remain online.
People are searching because they want something now. They are interested in something, and want to either research it a bit more before buying, or buy it now.
Search Engine Marketing is device independent. Messages are put in front of people when they want it, and based on what they want, in 2.5 words or less.
Search Engine Marketing is a mixture of Public Relations, Organic, and Paid Search
Search is a reverse broadcast medium. Broadcast is trying to broadcast unwanted materials. Reverse broadcast is listening to, and casting exactly what people want, which is far more effective.
Search is not an auction, PPC, or Contextual.
Search is a result based on a term.
There is more of a move towards vertical search markets in the Search Engine Marketing world.
Generations of Search:
- Generation 1 - Words on pages. Human Directories
- Generation 2 - Link Analysis
- Generation 3 - Moving into more vertical and personalized search
Why Vertical Search? Vertical search is more targeted, thus provides more effective leads, and means of communicating with customers.
Personal and Social Based search is changing the way users are searching. It is reshaping search, and making it much more personal. This will result in less content spam.
Google has a form of Google Personalized search that will target sites that you frequently visit, and provide you results to your most commonly visited websites.
Yahoo lets you add personal notes to your yahoo searches.
In order for success in the 3rd Generation of web search, you must understand vertical search, have great content that users want, and titles and descriptions must be outstanding, and highly targeted.
All marketing mediums will continue to shift to accountability through solid metrics.
Search is here to stay. It is a fundamental medium.
The future of Search:
- It is part of an overall campaign.
- Search is here from the beginning of the campaign. And maybe even a driver of the particular campaign.
- Search will continue to take money from other areas of the ad spending budgets.
- There will be more complicated demographics to deal with.
- More complication will equal more job security for Search Engine marketers.
- Search will become more vertical, and more personal.
- There will be more lawsuits.
- And trademark issues.
Canadian SEM is a lonely party, and a great indicator in the search world.
