“Internet Marketing Ninjas, led by company founder Jim Boykin, is the ideal match for WebmasterWorld,” said Tabke. “I couldn’t have asked for a better situation than a long-time member acquiring WebmasterWorld.”

WebmasterWorld is just the latest in a series of forums Boykin has acquired. Other recent pick-ups include Cre8asiteforums, and the Developer Shed Network.

“2012 has been a major year for IMN and I feel privileged to be a part of WebmasterWorld,” says Boykin. “I’ve been a member of WMW for over 10 years, and I’ve learned so much from so many there. I have so much respect for the community members and it gives me the uttermost pride to be able to work with the community to move WMW into the future. I am very humbled and ready to listen to, and work with, this amazing community.”

WebmasterWorld Director of Operations, Neil Marshall, offered the following statement: “I’m delighted to be involved with Jim and his team at Internet Marketing Ninjas. This is an exciting new era for WebmasterWorld and I’m really looking forward to continuing to develop the site for the benefit of its members, and retaining the site’s world-renowned, quality discussion forum for webmasters and their businesses. Thank you to Brett Tabke, for giving webmasters an independent vehicle to meet and to discuss current hot topics, turning the site into a major brand for webmasters. I’m sure the whole team is ready to keep that going forward and to develop new ideas for today’s Internet marketing businesses.”

WebmasterWorld is a place where there is a great deal of discussion from webmasters dealing with Google various algorithm updates. Such discussions often give clues to new major algorithm changes that Google makes before they are officially announced (although there is often a lot of talk that leads to false alarms).

It will be interesting to see how the forum evolves under new ownership. From the sound of it, the community itself won’t be changing much.

Tabke says he intends to invest his future efforts into the PubCon conferences.

Tabke said PubCon had "More than exceeded expectations this year and the buzz has just been fantastic. If you have been following us on Twitter, we are the number one ranking search term."

This year 30 percent of the sessions were focused on search down from last year. PubCon has grown in other areas and has not reduced the number of sessions.

Tabke talked about his 26 Steps thread on Webmasterworld that focuses on how to build a Web site and make it successful.  Tabke said," Anyone can build a one hit wonder but it has to be sustained for 4, 5, 6 years in a row."

Tabke creates the PubCon series by asking people what they would want to talk about. From there they try and mix and match speakers. "It turns out everybody talks from their passion. ‘It’s not just us coming up with this is gonna be hot, that’s gonna be hot you go speak on that, you go speak on that.’"

Tabke says that "Search has matured. It’s part of the whole picture. Google really led the way with Universal Search. They’re pretty much an admission its not just about 10 little blue links anymore."

Tabke said PubCon had "More than exceeded expectations this year and the buzz has just been fantastic. If you have been following us on Twitter, we are the number one ranking search term."

This year 30 percent of the sessions were focused on search down from last year. PubCon has grown in other areas and has not reduced the number of sessions.

Tabke talked about his 26 Steps thread on Webmasterworld that focuses on how to build a Web site and make it successful.  Tabke said," Anyone can build a one hit wonder but it has to be sustained for 4, 5, 6 years in a row."

Tabke creates the PubCon series by asking people what they would want to talk about. From there they try and mix and match speakers. "It turns out everybody talks from their passion. ‘It’s not just us coming up with this is gonna be hot, that’s gonna be hot you go speak on that, you go speak on that.’"

Tabke says that "Search has matured. It’s part of the whole picture. Google really led the way with Universal Search. They’re pretty much an admission its not just about 10 little blue links anymore."

Tabke said PubCon had "More than exceeded expectations this year and the buzz has just been fantastic. If you have been following us on Twitter, we are the number one ranking search term."

This year 30 percent of the sessions were focused on search down from last year. PubCon has grown in other areas and has not reduced the number of sessions.

Tabke talked about his 26 Steps thread on Webmasterworld that focuses on how to build a Web site and make it successful.  Tabke said," Anyone can build a one hit wonder but it has to be sustained for 4, 5, 6 years in a row."

Tabke creates the PubCon series by asking people what they would want to talk about. From there they try and mix and match speakers. "It turns out everybody talks from their passion. ‘It’s not just us coming up with this is gonna be hot, that’s gonna be hot you go speak on that, you go speak on that.’"

Tabke says that "Search has matured. It’s part of the whole picture. Google really led the way with Universal Search. They’re pretty much an admission its not just about 10 little blue links anymore."

Tabke said PubCon had "More than exceeded expectations this year and the buzz has just been fantastic. If you have been following us on Twitter, we are the number one ranking search term."

This year 30 percent of the sessions were focused on search down from last year. PubCon has grown in other areas and has not reduced the number of sessions.

Tabke talked about his 26 Steps thread on Webmasterworld that focuses on how to build a Web site and make it successful.  Tabke said," Anyone can build a one hit wonder but it has to be sustained for 4, 5, 6 years in a row."

Tabke creates the PubCon series by asking people what they would want to talk about. From there they try and mix and match speakers. "It turns out everybody talks from their passion. ‘It’s not just us coming up with this is gonna be hot, that’s gonna be hot you go speak on that, you go speak on that.’"

Tabke says that "Search has matured. It’s part of the whole picture. Google really led the way with Universal Search. They’re pretty much an admission its not just about 10 little blue links anymore."

Moderator:

• Brett Tabke

Speakers:

• Brett Tabke,
• CEO,
• WebmasterWorld.com

Brett started out with some stats on the famous ’26 Steps’ Webpage. Some of his Webpage’s achievements:

• 29 million page views.
• 5 million uniques.
• 200 copies over the web.
• 290 cease and desists have been issued so far.
• It is the first chapter in Google Hacks. The post is owned by O’reily now.
• Total income generated is $500 paid by O’reily for Google Hacks Book.
• The webpage features 10,000 thousands back links.

One by one, Brett went over all of the points he wrote in the webpage back in 2002 and discussed over the same with the audience. Back then, Brett had written that it was enough for the initial document to have 100 pages. However, he said, now the number should be around 500.

The posts are not really supposed to be about SEO, but more about content, traffic and building a sustainable website. On asking the audience regarding their experience with website having less that 100 pages, most say that they (the experiences) haven’t been satisfactory.

Regarding the domain name, Brett said that the domain name game is now much more complicated than ever and one can have a TLD (Top Level Domain) of his own.

About Site design, Brett stated that the criteria was and still is that the simpler the better. The advent of the iPhone has further confirmed on the notion. It is imperative that now every website is designed keeping the compatibility with mobile devices in mind. One has to adapt all current designs to iPhones.

Static sites are seemingly going extinct and there’s simply no point in building up sites in HTML. But the most important thing was, is and will continue to be content. Content should have its purpose and not be there just for the sake of existence. Quality content cannot be substituted.

Matt Tuens added here that content was the main reason that Search Engines were created. One should ensure a certain degree of stickiness in their websites since people are too busy to go to twenty different sites. You can do the same by simply creating one site that could be the ‘go to’ site.

Brett moved on to the topic of user generated content. The reliance on UCG is a thing of past now. Back in 2002, outbound links were considered a delicate issue since each site was as good as to the ones they were linked to. Even now, Search Engines judge on the same criterion. One could practice cross linking to boost up PageRank on lesser value pages.

Shared hosting is unthinkable now for the simple fact that costs have dropped drastically and everyone can have a server of their own. About regular log tracking softwares, Brett stated that his team uses one they have created on their own and displayed the wide variation it shows from the results of other packages.

Many CMS (Content Management Systems) are still not spider friendly and this can be a major bottleneck in your SEO objectives. Ensuring that you are in the right directories is still a good way to enhance traffic. With the users becoming more web savvy than ever, gimmicks are still a hit. People tend to negate the importance of options, such as ‘e-mail a friend’. These are still as valuable as they were earlier.

Targeted content is the key now. Smart content can get your business places. Matt Tuens goes on to elaborate on ‘smart content’. You have to understand that everyone is trying to criticize and judge your content. Give information that your demography is looking for instead of irrelevant garbage just to get a good ranking, otherwise you will incur losses on sales, credibility and overall business in spite of a good ranking.

Comments

There are many options for companies and agencies to train digital marketing teams and to keep tenured employees up to date including conferences such as: this week’s WebmasterWorld Pubcon, Search Engine Strategies, Search Marketing Expo, numerous regional and niche events and an increasing number of web based offerings including SEMPO Institute and the DMA Search Engine Marketing Certification program. I would be remiss not to mention the upcoming "Social Media Smarts" workshop in NYC covering all aspects of social media marketing including a strategy exercise and tips on building a business case for a social media effort in your organization.

Attending conferences is not cheap when you factor the increasing price of travel and hotels as well as pre/post and conference training fees, meals and taxi. Attendees and their companies are paying $2500 – $5000 per person per conference as well as the cost of time away from the office performing billable work. It’s easy to see why webinars are on the increase and why those who are fortunate to attend these events need to get the most out of them.

The most important thing that conference attendees can do to get the most out of their time at events is to set goals. Managers sending individuals to conferences should be clear about expectations. Company staff should be sure to talk with others within the organization or team that have attended the same or similar events to gain their insight.

Depending on the purpose for attending a conference, goals may vary. Here are some common goals based on the various reasons for attending any kind of marketing conference:

• Knowledge - How many sessions will you attend and how will you capture the information? Notes, photos, video (where allowed) When meeting new people, discuss the sessions with them. Compare notes with other attendees, it’s a great way to network and to get other opinions. Before the conference, make a grid or a plan for which specific sessions you’ll be attending. Often times, there is not much time between sessions and the difference between getting a good seat and standing room only can be a matter of minutes.

• Networking - How many qualified prospects, marketing partners, vendors to outsource to and job candidates will you meeting? Each day, tally them up and plan how you will follow up.

• Content - how will you leverage your conference experience to create new content for your company blog, articles, or process documentation? Set goals for how many you’ll create each day. The content you capture and create can supply a company blog with numerous posts and show clients, staff and prospective clients that you are on top of what’s happening in the industry. At TopRank, our staff are required to publish at least 3 blog posts for each day of conference attended. Set goals for how many blog posts, articles or other types of content will be created each day of the conference. It doesn’t have to be all text, you can take photos of people, and presentation slides. Take videos where allowed.

• Knowledge transfer - How will you pass on the information youâ’ve acquired to the rest of the team? At TopRank Online Marketing, our staff take the highlights and any specific tactics of use and create presentations which they share with the rest of the TopRank team. Knowing you will be required to present the information you are gaining with the team back at the office helps focus on takeaways and practical interpretations of the new information.

• Socialize – Where there’s a conference, there’s a party. After hours events are exceptional opportunities for conference attendees to relax, network and share information. Make no mistake, post session networking can be an art form. Make a point to relax and have fun, but be clear about objectives and make a goal of attending a dinner each night of the event if possible. Some dinners are a tradition amongst long time friends, some are sponsored by vendors and some are at hoc events that occur as a result of like minded individuals wanting to continue the day’s discussion.

As you can see, there are many more opportunities to get value from marketing conference participation than keeping up to date with an industry. Pre conference goal setting and planning, well defined processes as well as follow up and post event knowledge sharing can all multiple the value organizations realize by sending employees to educational events.

Not all organizations are positioned to take full advantage of these insights, but through simple analysis, it can become clear pretty quickly how much is being left on the table or to competitors who are sending the same numbers of people and incurring the same costs.

Understand the conference offerings, set goals and make the time to pre-plan conference involvement. Leverage content creation, networking, recruiting, competitive intelligence as well as prospecting opportunities and industry conferences can move pretty quickly from an expense with an uncertain effect to an investment with multiples of return.

Comments

The program was launched as beta in the US just last month, see: Microsoft Launches adExcellence, the adCenter accreditation

The moderator, Receptor says “ I got an invitation to join "adexcellence" which is the new parallel to Google’s university / adwords professional exam.”

If you would like to sign up for the UK program you can register here.

The discussion continues at Webmaster World.

Comments

I’d like to thank Lawrence Coburn for moderating, and Chris Winfield and Liana Evans for doing a great job with the “Social Media and Search” panel. I’m sorry I had to cut it short, but I had to speak on another panel. If you missed this panel I’ll be adding some additional notes about social media and search this week.

I’d like to also thank Jake Baillie for moderating, and Todd Malicoat and Andy Hagans for putting on a great show on the “Link Baiting – 96 Different Strategies” panel. There were a few questions from the audience during Q&A and if you missed the social network I talked about during “Q and A” it was Skirt. I also will be adding some more info about linkbaiting this week, so stay tuned.

It is always great to see old friends and make some new ones and learn a bunch of new tips and tricks. Yes, there are still plenty of tricks out there.

One of the most interesting tips I learned that I cannot possibly repeat too many times: add pics to your blog.

Well, here are a few “shout outs” that might as well be considered “shameless plugs” for people who deserve a link:

Ash Nallawalla
Tamar
Mark Ashworth
Matt Stoddart
Suresh Babu
Shoemoney
Lee Odden
Mike
Michael Dorausch

There’s a lot of other people talking about Pubcon Las Vegas 2007, and here are a few other great posts you should check out:

Blogging Pubcon Las Vegas 2007
Pubcon 2007 Recap
Link Baiting – 96 Different Strategies: PubCon Las Vegas Dec 2007, Day 1
SEO Texas Holdem Poker Tournament Big Success

Comments

Through the efforts of Brett Tabke and the community, it has grown into one of the finest search marketing conferences with thousands of attendees, major corporate sponsors, top notch speakers and a spirit like no other event. There’s a real sense of community and “co-opetition” amongst participants that makes it a great place to learn and network.

Here are my final favorite photos from Las Vegas Pubcon and a few with friends from iEntry afterwards.

Wynn Las Vegas

Sport coating the BOTW colors

Danny Sullivan and Melanie Mitchell

Greg Boser and friends

Search Engine Land on Mike’s dome

Rich, Tiffany and Mike from iEntry

Ceiling at Blush

Shadow Bar

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