I was fortunate enough to be able to speak at the latest Think Visibility conference at the Alea Casino in Leeds over the weekend. Once again it was a great conference that is very different to others that I’ve been to, also the fact this was my first ever speaking slot at a conference made it even more interesting (scary!) for me.
Think Visibility focuses on “the items that usually get left out of the web process” and attracts a wide range of attendees from SEO companies, design and development companies, as well as self-employed affiliate marketers. It is different from a usually conference in that it is held on a Saturday – so you tend to attract a crowd who are genuinely interested in their work, certainly enough to get up early on a Saturday!
The Presentations
The conference started on Saturday morning with an opening from Dom Hodgson who was the event organiser. We got straight into the talks with Tom Critchlow from Distilled starting with a talk on Google Local Search.
Tom Critchlow - Google Local
Tom went through the factors that contribute to your business being listed on Google Maps. One of the key takeaways was the fact that many businesses do not claim or verify their own listing, this can lead to a number of problems such as multiple listings or listings that aren’t accurate. It immediately had members of the crowd searching Google to see if their own businesses were verified – by the way ours is! :)
Judith Lewis - SEO Case Studies
Judith Lewis immediately got the crowd on her side as she handed out chocolates at the start of her presentation. I can’t actually write about her exact content as she asked for everyone not to as she revealed a few exact clients she’d worked on. But it was a great presentation covering all the basics of on-site issues as well as bearing in mind other avenues of getting traffic such as image search.
After lunch time the room was split into three smaller rooms with different topics being covered. Well done to Dom on getting some great speakers together which made it tough deciding which one to go to.
Sarah Carling - SEO Project Management
I opted for Sarah Carling who was talking about SEO Project Management. Sarah made a very good point in that the mindset and nature of an SEO doesn’t lend itself well to being organised. SEOs tend to come up with loads of ideas, not always focusing on one of them and generally being distracted by other ideas from SEO blogs etc. Sarah recommended the use of Intervals for time management and tracking which looks like a good piece of software.
A key point she made related to my own presentation on link building. When it comes to link building, you can’t just say to someone “you’re doing link building today” as it is too broad. I couldn’t agree more. Sarah made the distinction between a Task and a Project, “link building” isn’t a task so it can’t just be given to someone. It is a project and needs to be broken down into separate tasks which is more effective.
Patrick Moogan - Getting the Links that Matter
Next up - me! :)
I don’t mind admitting that I was very nervous before my presentation, it was my first “proper” presentation, the last one being in front of about 10 people at University!
The title of my presentation was “Getting the Links that Matter” and covered three main areas – how to come up with a link building strategy, how to get difficult links and a few link building techniques. I’ve been to a few link building presentations and noticed a pattern, most speakers told you about great places to get links from or how to research this, but they don’t tell you the vital part which is actually getting them.
I hope I did it a good job and my nerves didn’t show too much! If anyone came along and has any feedback feel free to drop a comment below. Also for those who asked, he is the link to my slides –
Al Carlton - Outsourcing and Automation
After my presentation, I went to see Al Carlton present on outsourcing and automation. I loved the fact that he’d actually outsourced his presentation design! Although the content was aimed more at affiliates looking to outsource, there were some good points that were applicable to most businesses and Al shared some good websites where you can find freelancers etc.
John O'Donovon - When the BBC met SEO
The final presentation of the day came from John O’Donovan who is the Head of Architecture for the BBC News and Sports sections of their website. It was very interesting to get a small insight into how the BBC website works and the challenges faced by running such a large website.
A specific example of how the BBC website had leverage on-site SEO to increase traffic, was changing the titles of their news stories. The change itself was just as much for usability and best practice rather than for SEO, but it led to a 15-20% increase in their traffic from search engines. They simply made sure that they put the most interesting part of the story first, sounds simple but John gave some examples of how it had been done wrong.
John also got a few laughs from the audience when he said that a certain page was only a PR5 - it definitely highlighted the differences between the BBC website and the rest of us! One of the best quetions was also asked here which was "Have you got the easiest SEO job in Britian?".
The After Party
Arguably the best part of any conference is the networking at the after parties. After the conference we had a short break to go and get some food which thanks to Dom, was Pizza Express with a 20% discount. Then we headed back to the Alea Casino where we had a private room with a free bar and poker tables :)
I met some great people here, chatted to some friends I’d made at other events. Overheard a lot more shady practices than I knew about before, there was even a table of “sploggers” at one point comprising of a few well known blog spammers who were deep in conversation!
Overall it was a great conference, a marked improvement on last year and I’m looking forward to the next one with is in September. Thanks to all those who came to see my presentation, especially those who stood up for the entire time!
Presentations to Download
Sarah Carling - SEO Project Management
Other Resources
Sorbet Digital - 5 Reasons Why Think Visibility Rocked
Review from Zoe Piper - Think Visibility March 2010
Sk8geek Photos from the Day - Think Visibility 3 Photos
Azam Marketing - Think Visibility Conference
Live Blogging by David Towers - Think Visibility Live Blogging
Live Notes from David Wharton - Think Visibility Notes
Jaamit from Fresh Egg covered everything live on Twitter - Jaamit on Twitter
Dan Harrison - 7 Things I Learnt from Think Visibility