Linking Track
Linking Strategies
How far is too far in optimizing your internal link structure? If you operate a network of sites, can natural interlinking be perceived as link spam? How should you handle affiliate links? Advanced linking issues like these and more will be explored during this session. This session is designed for experienced marketers. Beginners should only attend if they′ve gone through the Link Building Basics session earlier in the conference.
Moderator:
Danny Sullivan, Search Analyst, Calafia Consulting
Speakers:
Eric Ward, CEO, EricWard.com
Mike Grehan, International Search Marketing Consultant
Justilien Gaspard, Principal, Justilien Internet Marketing Solutions
Todd Friesen, Director of Search Engine Optimization, Range Online Media

Measuring & Converting Track
Web Analytics & Measuring Success Overview
How do you know if you′ve been successful with search engines? You can check your "rank" at search engines for particular keywords, analyze log files to see the actual terms people used to reach your web site or make the ultimate jump and "close the loop" by measuring sales conversions and return-on-investment (ROI). This panel explores ways to measure success and what statistics you should really care about.
Speakers:
Laura Thieme, President and Founder, Bizresearch
Matt Williams, Managing Partner, Prominent Placement

Social Search Track
Social Search Overview
Humans are hot again, when it comes to search. But this time, it′s not the old school method of using a small group of human editors to categorize the web. Instead, search engines are tapping into human knowledge more widely through tagging, click through tracking, search history features and other methods. Learn about the social search revolution that′s underway, in this session.
Moderator:
Chris Sherman, Executive Editor, SearchEngineWatch.com President of Searchwise
Speakers:
Tomi Poutanen, International Search Operations Director, Yahoo!
Shashi Seth, Lead Product Manager, Google, Inc.
Vivek Pathak, Infrastructure Product Manager, Ask.com

Beyond HTML Track Firm
Images & Search Engines
Regular search engines can′t understand text trapped within images, and this session looks at strategies to combat this problem for the image-intensive site. It also examines how to generate traffic using your images via image-specific search engines.
Speakers:
Shari Thurow,Webmaster/Marketing Director, GrantasticDesigns.com
Kakul Srivastava, Senior Product Manager, Flickr, Yahoo! Inc.
Liana Evans, Search Marketing Manager, Commerce360
Vanessa Fox, Product Manager, Google, Inc.
Chris Smith, Head, Technology & Advanced Development, Verizon Information Services

Issues Track
Search Arbitrage Issues
Search arbitrage is a long-time tactic getting new attention. It′s when someone makes money by spending less on search ads to attract traffic than they earn from carrying other search and contextual ads on their own sites. Some advertisers dislike the idea, feeling it′s unfair or wrong. Some advertisers don′t mind, figuring they′ll take traffic however they can get it. As for users, some might get turned off from doing a search, seeing ads, then clicking to a page that has the same ads again. This session explores these and other issues with search arbitrage.
Moderator:
Jeffrey K. Rohrs, President, Optiem, LLC
Speakers:
David Szetela, CEO, Clix Marketing
Tim Daly, VP of Marketing Strategy, Sendtec
Kristopher B. Jones, President and CEO, pepperjamSEARCH.com
Frank Watson, Head Search Marketing, FXCM
Jake Baillie, President, TrueLocal

Attendees may choose to attend one of the five sessions offered during this time.

Linking Track
Buying & Selling Links
Links have been bought and sold to generate traffic even before search engines made significant use of them to influence rankings. Nevertheless, today some buy in hopes of getting improved rankings. Meanwhile, some purchases could result in search engine losses, if a search engine deems a link network to be a spamming attempt. This session examines how links are bought and sold with strategies on how to stay out of trouble. This session is designed for experienced marketers. Beginners should only attend if they′ve gone through the Link Building Basics session earlier in the conference.
Moderator:
Danny Sullivan, Search Analyst, Calafia Consulting
Speakers:
Eric Ward, CEO, EricWard.com
Thomas Bindl, SEO Consultant, www.thomasbindl.com
Patrick Gavin, President, Text Link Ads Inc.

Measuring & Converting Track
Vendor Chat On Measuring Success
Vendors from major web analytics services each cover different metrics challenges plus answer questions about measuring success and their tools in general.
Moderator:
Alex Bennert, Director of Client Services, Beyond Ink
Speaker:
Paul Botto, Head of Analytics for North American Sales, Google Analytics, Google, Inc
Karen Hudgins, Marketing Manager, Unica Corporation - Web Analytics Group
John Marshall, CEO, ClickTracks.com
Chris Knoch, Principal Consultant, Omniture, Inc.
TBA, WebSideStory
Jason Palmer, Vice President of Marketing & Product Management, WebTrends

Social Search Track
SMO: Social Media Optimization
Community-built web sites, the popular Wikipedia and new sites allowing content being shared through "tagging" can be a great way to tap into links and search-driven traffic. This session looks at some social media services and strategies to tap into them in an appropriate manner.
Moderator:
Chris Sherman, Executive Editor, SearchEngineWatch.com President of Searchwise
Speaker:
Andy Hagans, Strategist, Text Link Ads
Neil Patel, co-founder, Advantage Consulting Services
Rand Fishkin, CEO, SEOmoz.org
Todd Malicoat, Independent Search Engine Marketing Consultant, stuntdubl
Lee Odden, Online Marketing Blog

Beyond HTML Track
Flash & Search Engines
Crawler-based search engines are primarily designed to index HTML text. Because of this, content built with Macromedia Flash can make life difficult for those wishing to be found in search engines. Discover workarounds to give your Flash sites a fighting chance!
Speakers:
Shari Thurow, Webmaster/Marketing Director, GrantasticDesigns.com
Gregory Markel, Founder/President, Infuse Creative, LLC
Massimo Burgio, Co-Chair, Global Committee, SEMPO
Jonathan Hochman , Founder/President, JE Hochman & Associates LLC
Dan Crow, Product Manager, Google, Inc.

Issues Track
Dealing With Affiliates
Affiliates can be a love ′em or hate ′em situation for search engine marketers. Affiliates can send plenty of traffic to your web site, but they can also drive up the cost to purchase terms if you decide to maintain your own direct sales channel. This session aims to help you strike a working relationship with your affiliates and the search engines themselves ­­ that everyone can live with.
Moderator:
Jeffrey K. Rohrs, President, Optiem, LLC
Speaker:
Anton E. Konikoff, Founder and CEO, Acronym Media
Kristopher B. Jones, President and CEO, pepperjamSEARCH.com
Mark J. Rosenberg, Esq., Sills, Cummis, Epstein & Gross P.C.
Chris Henger, Vice President, Affiliate Marketing, Performics

       Networking Lunch –
Birds of a Feather Seating Available

Bird Of A Feather Tables: Looking to meet those with common interests, such as people who work with non-profit sites, retailing sites, who are in the B2B space or those who run SEM firms? The Birds Of A Feather tables at the networking lunch offer an opportunity for this. Some tables are premarked with networking areas of interest. Just grab a seat, and you′ll be among kindred spirits. Did we miss a topic? Sit at any unmarked table, then use the provided materials to set up your own birds of a feather area.

Linking Track
Link Baiting & Viral Search Success
What better way to get links than by doing something that makes people feel compelled to link to you? That′s link baiting -- coming up with an idea, a service, even a controversy -- that gets people talking and linking your way. A viral campaign is similar -- a program, a system or an encouragement that gets people linking to you over time. This session is designed for experienced marketers. Beginners should only attend if they've gone through the Link Building Basics session earlier in the conference.
Moderator:
Detlev Johnson, VP, Director of Consulting, Position Technologies
Speakers:
Chris Boggs, Search Strategist, Avenue A | Razorfish
Rand Fishkin, CEO, SEOmoz.org
Cameron Olthuis, Partner, Advantage Consulting Services
Jennifer Laycock, Editor-in-Chief, Search Engine Guide

Measuring & Converting Track
Converting Visitors Into Buyers
Getting visitors to your web site is only half the battle. To be victorious, you need them to convert into customers by making purchases, signing up for services or fulfilling whatever are your goals. Learn about making this conversion. The latter part of the session takes volunteers from the audience and examines their web sites live to provide general feedback about changing them to improve visitor conversion.
Moderator:
Allan Dick, General Manager, Vintage Tub & Bath
Speakers:
Michael Sack, Director, SEM technology & Development, Idearc Media Corp.
Howard Kaplan, Vice President of Strategic Development, Future Now, Inc.

Social Search Track
Reputation Monitoring & Management
Good news! When someone searches for your company by name, you'll probably be listed in the top results. But you won't be alone. And the bad news is, some of those other listings may be negative about your company or service. Knowing your search reputation is crucial when millions rely on the opinions of search engines each day. In this session, how to stay on top of what people are saying about you on the web via search. It also covers how you can influence paid and unpaid listings to ensure the right message about your company is getting out, especially if others are employing them to hurt your image.
Moderator:
Barbara C. Coll, CEO, WebMama.com Inc.
Speakers:
Andy Beal, Search Marketing Consultant, Marketing Pilgrim
Nan Dawkins, Partner, RedBoots Consulting
Rob Key, CEO, Converseon

Beyond HTML Track
CSS, AJAX, Web 2.0 & Search Engines
As the web moves into its second generation, sites are making more use of CSS, AJAX and other advanced and interactive design techniques. But how are the largely Web 1.0 search engines reacting to these, from an SEO perspective. This session explores issues and solutions.
Moderator:
Andrew Goodman, Principal, Page Zero Media
Speakers:
Shari Thurow, Webmaster/Marketing Director, GrantasticDesigns.com
Jim McFadyen, Senior Web Developer, Critical Mass
Scott Orth, Executive Director, Selytics, Inc.
Amit Kumar, Engineering Manager, Yahoo! Inc.
Dan Crow, Product Manager, Google, Inc.

Issues Track
Auditing Paid Listings & Click Fraud Issues
Did you really get that much traffic from paid listings last month or is something funny going on? Reviewing your paid traffic is an essential task any serious search engine marketer should undertake. Discover how to spot abnormalities and follow-up with search engines if you suspect a competitor or someone else is creating clicks just to drive up your costs. Also discover the proactive things paid listing providers already do to protect advertisers.
Moderator:
Jeffrey K. Rohrs, President, Optiem, LLC
Speakers:
John Slade, Senior Director of Global Product Management, Yahoo! Search Marketing
Shuman Ghosemajumder, Business Product Manager, Trust & Safety, Google Inc
Jessie Stricchiola, Founder, Alchemist Media Inc.
Lori Weiman, Director, KeywordMax
Tom Cuthbert, President & CEO, Click Forensics
David Jakubowski, General Manager, MSN Search

Linking Track
No Session

Measuring & Converting Track
Usability & SEO: Two Wins For The Price Of One
Build a user-friendly site and chances are you′ve also built a search engine friendly site. Learn how good usability can help your human visitors plus bring in the search traffic.
Moderator:
Alex Bennert, Director of Client Services, Beyond Ink
Speakers:
Shari Thurow, Webmaster/Marketing Director, GrantasticDesigns.com
Matthew Bailey, President, Site Logic Marketing

Social Search Track
Blog & Feed Search SEO
This session explores how specialized blog and feed (RSS/Atom) search engines gather content and provides tips on tapping into these growing forms of traffic.
Moderator:
Detlev Johnson, VP, Director of Consulting, Position Technologies
Speakers:
Amanda Watlington, Ph.D., APR, Searching for Profit
Stephan Spencer, Founder and President, Netconcepts, LLC
Rick Klau, FeedBurner

Beyond HTML Track
Site Clinic
This interactive session takes volunteers from the audience and examines their web sites live to provide general feedback about improving them to gain more traffic from search engines. It happens at the end of Day 3 and twice on Day 4. Attend whatever session is most convenient!
Moderator:
Elisabeth Osmeloski, Managing Editor, Search Engine Watch
Panelists:
Jake Baillie, President, TrueLocal
Christine Churchill, President, KeyRelevance

Issues Track
Search & Regulated Industries
Involved in pharma? Gambling? Alcohol sales? Run a medical site? Offering legal advice? Even just selling retail? Chances are, you have to deal with regulations from the government, from search engines or from your own company about what you can and cannot say on your site and in your ads. How can you stay within the rules yet not compromise your search marketing campaign? This session explores the issues.
Moderator:
Jeffrey K. Rohrs, President, Optiem, LLC
Speaker:
Heather Frahm, co-founder, Catalyst on-line
Ward Tongen, Senior Online Marketing Analyst, Medtronic eMarketing
Martin Murray, Chief Executive, Interactive Return
Liana Evans, Search Marketing Manager, Commerce360

Keynote: Search In 2006
Danny Sullivan, Founder and editor-in-chief, SearchEngineWatch.com