Live Blogging SMX Israel 2013 with Kahena Digital

FINAL POST: Check out our wrap-up of the day’s presentations with 10 key takeaways here: http://www.kahenadigital.com/wrap-up-of-smx-israel-2013/

See everybody next year!

If submit reconsideration request from wmt account that shares with other accounts will i flag google to the other sites? John- no each site is viewed differently

Should you use disavow even if you didnt rec’v wmt notice? John- yes if you think there are things negatively affecting your site. It can take weeks or months until it is recrawlled

Great que mark ginsberg- how much space on the serps will seos have in the future? John- it is changing but it wont change to a single result. Lots of things are changing. Things will benefit the user

Google hangout with john mueller of Google

How to deal? -menachem

What is the problem? Serps see it as separate pages And links get diluted across various pages – menachem

Next up menachem rosenbaum on paginetion

rel=prev rel=next

Google vs bing not everything lines up! Thanks bonnie!!

If rel=can is wrong google won’t honor it

some reasons youd want to use it 

Some options before rel=can :

301 redirect

4 must know rules for rel=canonical usage by bonnie stefanick . Go geek crowd

How to rank videos on page 1 everytime! – barak hullman

5. Backlinks fromplaces like fiverr to the youtube video

4. Upload video to youtube with info filled out

1. Keyword research 2. Create video 3. Save to desktop and fill out meta data – akiva ben ezra from ben-ezra marketing

What is important for video?

1. Entertainment

2. Don’t make it too long. Stay short

2. First impression is important

Gilad from nekuda.co.il on youtube optimization

is video important? Yes!

Test test test! – roi ben ami

Female pictures help sites convert better. Go women power

Help users paint what happens after they make the decision – roi

Which is better with or without icon? With icon was 8 % better conversion! (Dell example)

A/b testing with roi ben ami from world wide optimization. Needs 2 things testing and research

landing page is bridge

-gab

Lightbox has low conversion rate (tactic #1)

Game time “one of these things is not like the others”  - gab

Gab goldenberg (seo roi)  creating dating site. Wonder what that conversion rate will be

Mobile search is broken – it’s like Alta Vista in 1997. CLASSIC!

Now up: Ariel Hochstadt, former Googler.

Choices are a WAP site vs a mobile app.  Each has various pros and cons – research and choose carefully!

1 in 5 users bought something using a smartphone over Thanksgiving 2012! #mindblown

On to Mobile SEO tchniques.  First up is Paul Vesely of SEO Web Live going through some crazy stats about the importance of mobile.

Delicious lunch is over.  Was too busy eating and shmoozing to remember to take pictures, but you can find them searching for the #smxisrael hashtag on Twitter.

Conversion optimization: one of the most under utilized techniques. – Amir yarkoni of seperia

Alex moss: mark up everything! And check using structured data tools and google webmaster tools

Video thumbnails get traffic and it is the biggest thumbnail shown by google. Can also submit video sitemp to google

Rel=author!! (Rachel- I am a big fan) helps increase (almost double Ctr)

try out different pics and backgrounds

Star ratings, concert dates all help give us more information

Alright, well it’s  lunch time now that Yehoshua is done.  I’ll take many pics of my lunch stash for yall

Next up – Alex moss from 3 door digital:

why should we implement these rich snippets?

Low engagement isn’t necessarily bad – if you land on a relevant product page, you might just buy!

Amazon push with schema review formatting.

google data highlighter

-both good wp plugins

Yehoshua Coren is now up! #geekcrush

He’s speaking about Goal Configuration and Advanced Segmentation in Analytics. I have a feeling hes’ going to melt some faces

Schema for WordPress from Barak hullman:

schema creator by raven and you can test it out in webmaster tools

Now up: the world famous Yehoshua Coren, the Analytics Ninja. I’m excited, are you?

Without attribution, might abanadon a mode of attracting visits based on it not being the last touch but could be a key part of the process!

bit.ly/TQTPO4 – Google Analytics attirbution modeling tool beta

Ophir Cohen is speaking about about attribution modeling – so many different ways a source of traffic (and keyword/campaign, etc) can be attributed.

Last Click
First Click
Custom
Decay
Linear
Position Based

Get the beta here: http://bit.ly/TQTPO4
AWESOME. I’m very happy – As many of you might know, attribution is a dear subject to me.

Can give more credit to first touch rather than last (default), split credit between touches, or give more weight to those closer to the end – very cool!

Attribution distinguishes between converters (branded terms are best in general) and initiators.

Avoid:

All of those steps may have contributed to the purchase, but only one/some get credit.  This is where attribution modeling comes in.

tips:

It doesn’t usually take one search to purchase: “vacation ideas” to “hotels in Vienna” to “Ambassador Hotel Vienna” to purchase!

Ophir’s “typical day” flow chart seems to imply he texts ppl from 10 am to 4 pm

Make sure you know your site focus- kalman

Schema brings a 50% increase in traffic

Next up is Ophir Cohen, CEO of Universal McCann Search, talking about attribution modeling in analytics. Don’t know a lot about that, so should be good!

SERPS want to display your information properly at a cheaper rate.

Serp’s like it! – kalman

Kalman: easy to implement wrong.

Schema and rich snippets with Miriam Schwab of iilluminea

Have to use custom variables to filter out existing customers and get more accurate data.

Didn’t know you could sort traffic by screen resolution! Helpful for optimizing for different devices…

First up is Amir Yarkoni of Seperia talking about the importance of contextual data.

Covering multiple tracks for the pre-lunch session.  I’m on Analytics – hoping to learn some new tricks!

Time for questions! How do you know what update hit you? Jim Boykin: depends whether you have link problems or content problems.

Uri Breitman of TBWA is up now.  Talking about what’s now known as “Footer hell”

Social Media works! Without any link building, can still get tons of (relevant) traffic.

Eli Feldblum: You can still build links, but it’s much harder – theme of SEO in 2012!

Eli feldblum:

Even high quality links can hurt you.  FSAStore.com had banners on every partner page with exact match anchor text, and dropped hard!

Advice from Jim:

Get links from real people.  Google will give more power if they have a good reputation.  Ari Nahmani (our CEO) is freaking out like a schoolgirl over Jim Boykin, his old school SEO hero.

Cleaning up back links with jim Boykin

To clarify an earlier update, a bad bounce is when the user goes back to Google because that tells them you didn’t help the user find what they were looking for.  Good bounce rate is going from your site to Twitter/Facebook/another site.

Ranking #1 for “Plumber” doesn’t work great if you only service Chicago!  That leads to a high bounce rate.

post panda with Jim Boykin

bounce rate: 2 types great and bad Bounce rates.google doesn’t break down bounce rates. People could be finding the information they are looking for.

Jim Boykin up again talking about surviving Panda/Penguin. Important because Barry Schwartz’s survey said 73% didn’t recover a year later!

Time for another short break before session3 kicks off! Gotta go network

Panelists now answering questions about link building to wrap up session 2 in Track A. Very informative!

“Content is King” is only partially true post-Panda.  Now INCREDIBLE content is king!

Link building is out, relationship building is in.  Sounds easy, but it’s hard!

Next up Aaron Friedman (yea Chicago!) : link building is relationship building

Aaron Friedman of Spark now talking about using relationships to build links right.  This way it’s not spammy!

I should take this opportunity to let you know about the Kahena after party tonight.  If you’re reading, come find somebody on the team to get a voucher for a free beer and chaser! Everyone gets the chaser, but the beer is only for those with a voucher… More details here: http://bit.ly/KahenaAfterParty

Disavow tool what to know:

1. Use with caution

2. Can take a long time to work

3. Submitting isn’t enough. Need to see links removed

Link cleanup – mark levy

determine which links are bad

Use more tools than just webmaster tools links listing for cleanup because they can pick up those links at any time.  Do it all at once so you don’t have to again later.

Now Marc Levy of 3 Door Digital is up talking about what to do if you didn’t listen to Jim and got properly smacked by Penguin!

You linking to spam can be more harmful than spam linking to you.

Jim Boykin: Build more on inner pages, too many homepage links send a bad signal.

Jim Boykin up first in session 2 talking about what not to do when link building to avoid the dreaded webmaster tools emails.

Now that the speakers are done, on to the Q&A.  First Q: how does the content spinning work with other languages? Julia says it’s more difficult but she’s done it.

Marty’s screen sharing just backfired when the screensaver went on! Good thing he’s got such a strong personality We’re being redirected to www.facebook.com/aimclear

Scrape box demo with Marty weintrab 

Next up: Marty Weintraub of AimClear talking about the problem with keyword research.  I hope he also mentions solutions!

Ross talking about making sure to analyze various multi-channel efforts to ensure it provides value added to each campaign.

Facebook + Retargeting: “If you have a strong facebook presence already, it’s a very easy thing to take advantage of it”. Turn more users who have visited your website – take retargeting code and place it on your facebook page so that you can continue to retarget them via a FB based audience list.

Ross is a seriously eloquent dude #vocab

Ross from Kahena is now speaking about various Multi-Channel “Recipes”!

Just watched Omri Brill of Podium talking about scaling up SEM efforts. His company AdCore is offering a raffle for a Nexus 7 in the main hall.

Next up Ross Plotkin

I’ve moved over to the Search Retargeting Mix session to watch our very own Ross Plotkin rock the house!

Automated content misconceptions – julia Logan

Julia Logan of Irishwonder – panda changed the attitude towards content. Content can now harm you if duplicate etc.

Listening to mark Ginsberg on keyword research and content development.

Need to shift our research.  Need to look at the long tail potential. Look at google suggest.

Google is going to focus on the writer and author- mark Ginsberg

This is just a test of the live blog plugin. Check back here for ongoing updates throughout the day!