SEO Days in London
Earlier this week, Dave and Jen announced that the three of us were launching a new SEO training program called SEODays. And this morning, Dave announced the dates of our first two-day event. Since those announcements, I few people have emailed asking why I hadn’t posted anything about it.
So here’s the scoop:
First off, I am definitely planning on being a part of SEODays. It’s something we’ve talked about doing for a long time. All we really needed was a little push to get us going. That push happened a couple of weeks ago at the London SES. Dave and I were both on the Organic Listings panel. After it was over, we had several people ask us if either of us offered small-group private training. That of course led to Dave announcing to everyone that we would definitely be offering personalized training in the very near future. So later on, in the bar, the three of us agreed that we would definitely make it happen in 2007.
So how did we get from the bar two weeks ago to having our first conference in less than three weeks?
That’s a really good question, and quite frankly, I’m still not sure. All I know is that Dave is the kind of guy that becomes somewhat obsessive once he makes up his mind to do something. And Jen is the kind of person who’s cup is always half full, so between the two of them, they actually came to the conclusion that it was indeed possible to make SEODays a reality before the end of Q1.
Of course, I thought they were completely nuts. So I ended up with some severe scheduling problems and that’s why I haven’t posted about it until now.
The main obstacle I’ve been facing has been the potential for a couple of large projects that have been in the works for awhile both being scheduled to begin in the next couple of weeks. But today, I had a meeting with one of them and was told that everything was good to go. The only thing left was for the contract to be reviewed by the legal department. Now normally, that is painful news because legal departments almost always add a good 3-4 weeks to the process. But in this particular case, it was good news because that should help stagger things enough to let me hop back across the pond for our inaugural event.
I’m hoping that I can work it out because I’m really excited about the additional speakers Dave has lined up. When it comes to SEO, I live and breathe competitive intelligence. So having Heather Hopkins from Hitwise agree to participate is very cool.
And if there is one area that I don’t spend nearly enough time and resources on, it’s improving conversion rates. We do spend time tracking conversion rates, but as long as the projects are making money, we don’t tend to spend a great deal of time trying to improve conversions. Instead, we tend to get fixated on simply ranking better to bring more traffic.
Fortunately, I had an opportunity to spend some quality time in London talking about performance based SEO and conversion rates with Dr. Karl Blanks. I can’t begin to tell you how sharp this guy is. To be quite honest, listening to him talk about the kind of improvements in revenue he’s been able to generate without any kind of increase in traffic volume left me feeling like a complete idiot. Somewhere through the middle of the third or fourth pint, I realized how much cash I’ve probably left on the table because I haven’t dedicated enough time and resources to conversion improvement.
So that’s about it. I’m going to do my best, to make it. But even if I don’t, I’m confident it will be an awesome event. And I will definitely be part of the next one, which should be in the U.S. sometime later in the Spring. Hell, I might even put one together in Los Angeles somewhere around April 20th, and then wait until April 1st to tell Dave and Jen about it…. 
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3 Responses to “ SEO Days in London ”
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Any news on this? Will you be there?
Unfortunately, I’m not going to be able to make it.
Sorry to have missed you Greg. Do you plan to do any of them in the UK in future? Id fly to the US but as a gambling affiliate Im scared theyd arrest me!
Joost - hope you’re luggage turned up - Ive found your greasemonkey scripts from your post above now though!