DFW SEM > Blog > 2009

Our Vision for 2010- A look forward for DFW SEM

December 21, 2009 By

By Sean Jackson
DFW SEM President, 2010

The DFW Search Engine Marketing Association has grown considerably from an informal get together of “black hat” SEOs to a vibrant community of search marketing professionals across all fields of marketing.

From our informal origins, 2009 proved to be a pivotal year in the growth of our organization. Under the leadership of Tony Wright, we made substantial gains in a number of areas including:

  1. Formalized our back-office infrastructure for member information and credit card processing online.
  2. Improved our website with monthly updates and a new look.
  3. Moved our meeting structure from quarterly to monthly.
  4. Held the biggest event in the history of DFWSEM with over 230 people in attendance.
  5. We not only have the return of all of the 2009 board members, we have also elected four new members to the board. These professionals bring considerable passion and expertise in search marketing and compliment our current board members.
  6. We have created and filled a number of new positions within the board including the election of a board Chairman, Vice Chairman and three new vice president slots for programming, membership and communications.

And while 2009 saw considerable strides in our clubs growth, we have an ambitious agenda for 2010.

Starting in January 2010, meetings will be FREE for current members! No longer will members be charged to attending our monthly meetings. This is a major step forward in showing true financial benefit for our members. Non-members will pay $35.00 to attend each meeting.

In addition, we are actively planning our role for PubCon Dallas, April 13-15. As many of your know, PubCon is one of the leading events for search marketing and we are proud to be the organizational sponsor of this national event. Look for more information in the months to come but make sure you plan on attending.

Throughout 2010 we will continue to bring a broad scope of search marketing topics for our monthly meetings – with an increased emphasis on social media and how it affects traditional SEO and SEM activity. With recent announcements by Google and Bing and Twitter, 2010 will see the convergence of social media platforms and search engines. At DFWSEM we will make sure you are informed of how this convergence impacts your role in search.

And finally, we will continue to fine-tune our back-end operations, making it easier to pay dues, process credit cards and to spotlight the work of our community. DFWSEM wants to make it easy for you to participate and to help you grow your connections and showcase the work you do.

As the oldest search marketing organization in the US, DFWSEM is proud of what we have accomplished to date and look forward to the challenges of 2010. We have evolved to be a community of search marketing professionals – regardless of the type of “hat” they wear.

With your continued involvement, we will fulfill our goal of being THE community of search marketing professionals in DFW and continue to grow to keep our members informed and successful.

Sean Jackson
President – DFW SEM

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Filed Under: DFWSEM, Meetings

DFWSEM December 2 Holiday Party

November 20, 2009 By

On December 2 at 6PM DFWSEM and GeekMeet are combining forces for our 2009 end of the year, holiday happy hour and party. The Holiday party this year will be held at the Hyatt Regency North Dallas.

The Hyatt is providing us with happy …hour drink prices and complimentary wings, pizza, chips etc.

Let’s end the year with a great networking event to give thanks for all of those who have helped you this past year and let’s set the stage for a great 2010! I look forward to seeing all of you there.

To purchase tickets, go to http://geekmeet-120209-efbevent.eventbrite.com/

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Filed Under: Meetings

PR Newswire Reaches New Levels of Search Engine Optimization With Ecordia

November 5, 2009 By

Ecordia provides search engine optimization consulting services for the new PR Newswire website

DALLAS, Nov. 5 /PRNewswire/ — Optimizing large websites for search engines can be a challenge, especially if you are one of the largest news platforms in the world with industry-leading volumes in search engine referrals and traffic. This was the challenge presented to Ecordia by PR Newswire.

Ecordia, a search engine optimization technology company based in Dallas Texas, was selected by PR Newswire in June 2009 to provide consulting services for the new prnewswire.com website launched on October 2, 2009.

“PR Newswire’s website represented a number of unique SEO challenges,” said Sean Jackson, CEO of Ecordia, adding, “When you are dealing with a website in the millions of pages and updated with almost 1,000 new pages a day, traditional search engine optimization techniques become difficult.”

From the beginning, PR Newswire’s team considered SEO an important part of the new website redesign and understood the unique SEO issues related to a website of this type. To help achieve their goals, they selected Ecordia for their proven expertise in complex SEO issues.

“Search engines play a vital role in driving readers to press releases, whether the intended audience for the message is journalists, bloggers, consumers, investors or any combination thereof,” said Rod Nicolson, vice president, web properties of PR Newswire. “We viewed the rebuild as an opportunity to more fully leverage our news content to deliver even better results for our customers. Ecordia worked with PR Newswire to understand the requirements for our Optimized News Platform, and delivered recommendations that helped us achieve a high level of optimization for our customers’ news releases”

Through a series of meetings, site architectural reviews, and testing Ecordia developed a number of search engine optimization recommendations that met PR Newswire’s goals of providing an Optimized News Platform for their customers.

“We broke down the entire site architecture into small logical pieces of information and began to thread together the pieces from a search engine crawler’s perspective,” stated Jackson, describing the process.

With the comprehensive recommendation report provided by Ecordia, the PR Newswire development team began the process of aligning the new website’s technical architecture with the SEO recommendations. After a four-month development process, the new PR Newswire site was successfully launched on October 2, 2009.

While the new website continues to evolve, the results of Ecordia’s efforts were well received by PR Newswire.

“Ecordia is a delight to work with; proactive, customer-focused, knowledgeable and passionate about making search engine optimization work for their customers,” stated Nicolson.

About Ecordia

Ecordia is a search engine optimization company based in Dallas Texas. The company specializes in the design, creation and implementation of advanced search engine optimization solutions for complex SEO challenges. In addition to SEO consulting services, Ecordia offers two online applications for enterprise-class SEO efforts. The Ecordia Content Optimizer is a predictive content analysis application that verifies the SEO qualities of content. The Ecordia Content Hub is a comprehensive SEO landing page system. For more information on Ecordia visit our website at http://www.ecordia.com

About PR Newswire

PR Newswire is the global leader in innovative communications and marketing services, enabling organizations to connect and engage with their target audiences worldwide.

Through its multi-channel distribution network, audience intelligence, targeting, and measurement services, PR Newswire helps corporations and organizations conduct rich, timely and dynamic dialogues with the media, consumers, policymakers, investors and the general public, in support of building brands, generating awareness, impacting public policy, driving sales, and raising capital.

Pioneering the commercial news distribution industry 55 years ago, PR Newswire connects customers with audiences in more than 170 countries and in over 40 languages through an unparalleled network of offices in 16 countries across North and South America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, and via unique affiliations with the leading news agencies across the globe. PR Newswire is a subsidiary of United Business Media Limited (UBM.L), a leading global business media company that serves professional commercial communities around the world. For more information, go to www.unitedbusinessmedia.com.

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Filed Under: News

The State of Search – November Meeting

October 22, 2009 By

On November 10, 2009 at 11:30 a.m. at the DoubleTree Hotel – Campbell Center, the Dallas Ad League and DFW Search Marketing Association will be hosting a joint luncheon on “The State of Search – a forward look at search marketing for the year to come”. Representatives from Google, Microsoft Bing and Yahoo will be presenting their views and insights on search marketing for 2010.

Search engines have become the de-facto gateway to all information online. Over 50% of online advertising is focused on this unique media – and it’s continuing to grow.  Are you ready for the future?

On November 10th that DAL and DFWSEM organizations will be hosting a joint luncheon to discuss the future of search engine marketing – addressing the issues that every advertising professional needs to know for 2010. This comprehensive overview will give you the insights that you will need to be aware of as you plan your 2010 online marketing. Tickets may be purchased online.

This luncheon will feature senior representatives from the three major search engines, including:

  • Mark Lively, Agency Lead from Google
  • Robyn Raybould, Manager ASG from Microsoft
  • Kimi Henry, Strategic Account Director from Yahoo! Search Marketing

Moderated by Shelley Ellis, founder of Shelley Ellis Consulting and a leading expert in search marketing, these three panelist will each provide a 20 minute overview of the future of search engine marketing and the innovations their platforms are providing to meet the changing marketplace.

Tickets for this event  on November 10th can be purchased online at the Dallas Ad League website. Pricing and event information below. Note: DFW SEM members will receive MEMBER PRICING at the event.

Buy Tickets

http://guest.cvent.com/i.aspx?4W,M3,98ae8410-7f41-4de9-b8ae-77fb353fbd76

Location

Doubletree Hotel Dallas – Campbell Center
8250 N Central Expy
Dallas, TX 75206

Date/Time

November 10, 2009 from 11:30am – 1:30pm

 

Fee

Corporate Member $35.00
Corporate Member Table of 8 $280.00
Member $40.00 (DAL and DFWSEM Members)
Member (Under 30) $35.00
Member Table of 8 $320.00
Non-Member $55.00
Non-Member Table of 8 $440.00

 

Shelley Ellis

Shelley Ellis
Founder, Shelley Ellis Consulting

Shelley is a 19 year veteran of online marketing and a frequent speaker and presenter on search engine advertising. She is currently a board member of the DFW Search Marketing Association. Her background and experience includes working hands on with several hundred different search engine accounts across a variety of industries. Her clients have ranged from tiny companies where every penny counts to Fortune 500 (Coca Cola, Hallmark, Kimberly-Clark, Ritz-Carlton, USAA, Mary Kay, Avaya, etc.) where the annual budgets ranged in the hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars.

 

Mark Lively

Mark Lively
Agency Lead, Google

Mark Lively began his career in media working as an announcer and sportscaster for local stations in Waco, TX while attending Baylor University.  He continued working on air at KZPS / Dallas while earning a Masters Degree in Communications from Southern Methodist University.  Mark’s career includes stints in local and national radio sales / management, with tour stops in Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, and West Palm Beach.  He joined Google in the Audio Ads division in 2006, transitioned to his current role as Agency Lead in 2007, and recently relocated with his wife Beth and 9-year old daughter Kathryn to Chicago.  Mark’s interests include golf, his beloved Dallas Cowboys, and family vacations.

Robyn-Raybould

Robyn Raybould

Robyn Raybould, Manager-Premium Account Service Group- Bing
Microsoft Corporation

As Manager of the Premium Account Services Group, Robyn leads a team of Senior Account Managers who provide support and strategy to top tier Bing search clients. She joined Microsoft’s New York offices in 2005 to launch adCenter to the US Market and during her tenure there she has worked with some of the world’s largest retail, telecommunications, and travel search clients.   Before joining Microsoft, Robyn was the Manager of Marketing for YellowBrix, a web content aggregator in Washington, D.C. where she managed all aspects of marketing, including paid search. Originally from Northern Virginia, Robyn holds a Bachelor of Science in Marketing from New York University.

 

 

Kimi Henry

Kimi Henry, Strategic Account Director
Yahoo! Search Marketing

Kimi Henry is a Strategic Account Director with Yahoo!’s North American Sales Team.  She joined Yahoo! 6 years ago through the acquisition of Overture and works strategically with a variety of advertisers, from small business owners to Fortune 500 companies and their digital agencies.

She is currently responsible for developing key partnerships with top Search Engine Marketing and traditional advertising agencies to help integrate and maximize search into their broader marketing campaigns. In this role, she drives shared initiatives, from innovation to digital education, and spearheads integration across Yahoo! search and display advertising.

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Filed Under: Meeting Information, Meetings

10% off AdWords Seminar for Success – Dallas 2009

October 1, 2009 By

10/13/09 AdWords 301: Advanced Account Optimization focuses on best practices for Keywords, Ad Copy, and Landing Pages in addition to a deep dive into Quality Score, the Content Network, and Geographic Targeting. This day is jam-packed full of tips and techniques you can functionally use to improve your accounts overall performance.

10/14/09 AdWords 302: Advanced Conversion Optimization concentrates on how to increase your conversions and your profits! Topics include Bidding Types and Strategies, Tracking Conversions, Split Testing, and Account Organization. The information included in this session can have a positive, dramatic impact on your bottom line – this is a must attend event!

You can choose to attend only one day, or receive a $50 discount if you choose to register for both days! Plus, if you register today, you will also receive:

* $100 AdWords Credit ($50 if you register for a single day) **Must Register 7 Days in Advance

* 2 USB Thumb Drives with Presentation Materials (1 for each day)

* Other Google Goodies

* Bonus Presentations:

Day 1: Marketing in a Down Economy: Superior Profits on a Minimal Budget

Day 2: Actionable Items: Step-by-Step: How to Maximize Results for Your Limited Time

DoubleTree Hotel Dallas Market Center
2015 Market Center Blvd
Dallas, TX 75207
8:30 am – 5:00 PM

Use dfwsem for 10% off when you register at: http://www.bgtheory.com/adwords-seminar-for-success-dallas-2009/

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Filed Under: News Tagged With:
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