Get the Spin on SEO Public Relations

Lee Odden

There’ll be a special focus on PR and blogging at Search Engine Room this year.

US expert Lee Odden, who owns both an offline PR agency and a Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) firm, will be delivering two must-see sessions: ‘SEO and Public Relations’ plus ‘Blog Marketing and Optimisation’.

Lee is one of the world’s leading exponents of SEO PR, while his marketing blog is consistently among the most popular of its type in the US.

SEO PR is now an essential skill in a world where irate bloggers can take over search engine rankings on key issues – dominating ‘share of voice’ with researching media and ultimately influencing story content.

Frank Arrigo from Microsoft and Andrew Pascoe, author of Under the Rotunda, will also be presenting in the blogging session.

This year Search Engine Room features hard-hitting interviews with industry leaders alongside sessions detailing the latest website optimisation techniques and search engine marketing practices.

Search is now the fastest-growing sector of digital marketing with Frost & Sullivan estimating total paid search spend will quadruple over the next four years to more than $1.5 billion.

Of this, Google receives around 85%, giving the company extraordinary reach and power – one of the issues that will be explored in an interview with the company’s regional boss, Richard Kimber.

Rivals such as Yahoo!, Ninemsn and Sensis will be grilled about their plans, while emerging search sectors such as Vertical and Local Search will also be examined through industry leaders like Shopping.com and truelocal.com.au. Other highlights include:

• The first live demonstration in Australia of ‘Panama’ – the much-hyped new advertising platform from Yahoo! Search Marketing
• Media Convergence and Search, exploring the relationship between television and the internet
• 50 speakers from Australia, New Zealand and the United States
• Latest research from Hitwise, Frost & Sullivan and Nielsen//NetRatings
• Case studies on a range of sites including Australia.gov.au and Travel.com.au
• An entire conference stream devoted to the Search Engine Optimisation and Search Engine Marketing
• Interviews by leading tech journalists Brad Howarth and Foad Fadaghi

Search Engine Room Director Martin Kelly said bookings are tracking well with delegates coming from as far afield as Bangkok and Singapore, plus every Australian state.