expertSEM

I got a little bit of a late start today and I have to head out early to catch a flight, so I’ll only be doing this one post today. I attended the “Conducting an SEO Audit to Troubleshoot Problems & Tune Up Performance” this morning with Vanessa Fox, Derrick Wheeler and Adam Audette. Unfortunately, I was running out of juice on my battery, so I couldn’t take great notes for a recap. And while I’m usually a huge advocate of pen and paper, I wasn’t up for the furious scribbling that would have been required of all the amazing info they provided. So I decided to sit back and enjoy and try to soak it all in.

Essentially, the panelists offered a number of useful tools for conducting site audits and discussed how to go about “battling the beast” we all know as a large, disorganized website. The nofollow debate came up again, which was another beast mentioned at the You & A with Matt Cutts yesterday evening. It seems this issue could go round and round with little hope of resolution. From a site structure basis, it’s best to block links that you really could care less if the engines rank–shopping cart and other nonessential links. When the debate turns to link juice strategies, that’s where it gets hazy and heated.

We broke for lunch then on to the last session for dear old Angie–“How Much Do I Charge for SEM, Especially Now: Search Agency Pricing Models.” The session was moderated by Chris Elwell of Third Door Media; panelists included Matt Walker (Best Rank), Marty Weintraub (aimClear) and our very own Andrew Beckman. The panelists shared real world experiences and anecdotes about their businesses and the various pricing models that they have used with their companies.

Matt — Matt shared the good and bad that he’s seen develop out of the current recession. Some of the bad includes clients shopping around more and taking longer to pay. On the other hand, he’s found a great deal of talent out there looking for jobs that are willing to work for much less than before. Matt went on to discuss how he made Best Rank’s pricing model more competitive and beneficial for both his agency and the client.

Marty — Marty flippantly read off his official bio from the web, stating that he’s tried to get it off numerous times because he thinks it’s awful. But I disagree–he has an extremely interesting background and it was fun to hear how he went from cover band to search agency owner. Anyway, Marty discussed the campaign model that he’s adopted since the economic times started to get tougher. He strongly advocates shorter contracts, as they ease client jitters and show that you are confident in your abilities.

Andrew — Due to the diverse services offered at Location3, there are numerous pricing models that we employ. They vary for paid search, SEO, social and local search offerings. They vary across clients and verticals; and sometimes they even vary across a single client’s numerous campaigns. Andrew discussed all of the pricing models we’ve used over the years, the ideal campaign for that model and the pros and cons of each.

Andrew discusses the various pricing models utilized at Location3 Media.

All in all, SMX Advanced was a great event. I met a ton of people, soaked up so much info and had a great time. But my brain is full from learning and my fingers are tired from blogging. Now it’s off to the airport and, hopefully, a nice nap on the plane. Check our Facebook page in the next few days for more photos.