This is the beginning of a four-part series recapping the sessions and major takeaways from Search Engine Strategies (SES) in San Jose. These notes are from the perspective of Jason Barrett. Mind you, I was not the lone TMPDM representative attending this conference, but this is what I saw, heard, and wrote down from the sessions I attended. This is largely in note form, however, further expanded thoughts will be forthcoming and will provide more color around some of these major items.

Day 1 was a good day at SES. There were several good sessions. Here are the sessions I attended.

• Mobile SEO: Death of the “.mobi”
• Semantic Search: How Will It Change Our Lives?
• Orion Panel: How Much Search Is Enough?
• Storyteller Marketing: How the Art of Storytelling Matches Up With the Business of Marketing
• Keynote: Lee Siegel, Author of “Against the Machine”

Notes Worth Noting:

• “.mobi” is not necessary. Stick with “.com”.
• Take a look at the Skyfire browser
• No need for a mobile ad network when mobile devices render webpages like a PC
• 40 million users of the mobile web
• 90% of businesses are small businesses and this is where the majority of the ad spend occurs
• The best way to cater to users of all types regardless of device (PC, iPhone, etc.) is to move all content to one domain, check for browser type, then serve content accordingly
• There are many companies trying to perfect semantic search and help make it mainstream
• Thought is that if you do a query with natural search language then the answer should come back the same regardless of how many different ways the question can be phrased
• One speaker made the point that with semantic search SEOs should recommit their focus to content rather than keywords
• Noted that JP Morgan believes search will be a $30B industry this year
• Search tacticians must be much more saavy when it comes to understanding the overall marketing mix
• 6/10 clicks continue to come through organically
• In terms of search marketing, you don’t have to start big. You just have to start.
• There is a great deal of promise in terms of leveraging storytelling for marketing
• The story is the most powerful form of communication
• Commercials that tell stories are found to be 3 – 4 times more effective
  
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