Sneak Preview of London PRO Training Seminar

The time has come to register for the London PRO Training Series 2009: Tips, Tricks and Tactics. Building on the success of the recent Seattle event, we have gathered in London some of the best SEOs around and given them strict instructions to make their presentations as actionable and tips-focussed as possible. It’s time to get your ticket for 19th-20th October. Unlike larger conferences, there is no expo hall, no choosing between different tracks and everything is designed to be useful for expert practitioners.

Read on to get a sneak preview of what to expect.

How to book

The essential details you need to know in order to book are:

• When: 19th and 20th October 2009
• Where: The Imagination Gallery (although you have to download some PDFs, it’s worth checking out the great location), Store Street, WC1E 7BL – just off Tottenham Court Road in London’s West End.
• How much: just $599 for PRO members, and only $899 for non-PRO (which currently works out at about £370 or EUR 420 for PRO)

^{The spectacular venue for the London seminar}

Why it’s going to rock

I promised a sneak preview of what you’re going to get at the London event. We are just finalising the exact timings and details, but you should expect to see a schedule something like this:

• “Advanced analytics”
  • Tips for actionable metrics
  • Tips for advanced measurement
  • Tips for dashboards for SEOs, marketing managers and executives
  • Speakers: Will Critchlow
    

• “Getting SEO done against the organisational odds”
  • Tips for SEO in an organisation
  • Team recruitment, management and structure
  • “Managing up” – essential tips for dealing with management
  • Metrics and reporting that work
  • How to write a technical specification
  • Speakers: Richard Baxter from SEOgadget
    

• “ROI from social media”
  • Tips for planning linkbait – idea generation, refinement and execution
  • Tips for how to launch linkbait content
  • How to make the most of linkbait after the spike
  • Using non-linking platforms to leverage linkbait – the Twitter & Facebook effect
  • Speakers: Lucy Langdon from Distilled
    

• “Diagnosing and fixing penalties, understanding guidelines”
  • Website pathology – understanding when you’re penalised and when you’re just not ranking
  • Macro and micro penalties – sitewide and keyword-specific penalties
  • Tips for diagnosing and fixing issues
  • Tips for reinclusion
  • The boundaries of the guidelines – understanding risk
  • Speakers: Jane Copland from Ayima
    

• “Scalable site architecture”
  • Tips for planning large sites
  • Tips for diagnosing site architecture issues
  • How to fix broken site architectures
  • Changing tactics as your site passes size milestones
  • Speakers: Duncan Morris from Distilled
    

• “Expert keyword research”
  • Tips for understanding keyword structures – keyword usage patterns for large sites
  • Trade-offs between accuracy and usability
  • Tips for researching head and tail keywords (and what to do with the knowledge)
  • Tips for evaluating competitiveness
  • International keyword tips – how to research non-English languages
  • Tips for applying keyword research learnings to UGC
  • Speakers: Will Critchlow & Rand Fishkin

• “Live linkbuilding”
  • Two expert SEOs showing details from a real life linkbuilding campaign
    • Strategy
    • Research
    • Execution
  • Speakers: Rand Fishkin and Tom Critchlow from Distilled

• “Conversion rate optimisation”
  • Tips for Designing Landing Pages that Sell
  • Tips for Designing & Pricing Promotions
  • Tips for Building Email-Signup Funnels
  • Tips for Email Marketing
  • Speakers: Ben Jesson from Conversion Rate Experts

• “Head to head presentation-off – the re-match”
  • Speakers: Will Critchlow & Rand Fishkin

• “News site SEO”
  • Tips for dealing with rapidly-published and expiring content
  • Tips for exploiting breaking news
  • How to encourage social engagement with news sites
  • How to target high-value “head” keywords by leveraging unique advantages of news sites
  • Metrics and measurement for news sites
    • Engaging your journalists in the process
  • Speakers: Rob Ousbey from Distilled

• “Reverse Engineering the Competition”
  • Tips for Competitive On-Site/Page Analysis
  • Tips for Competitive Link Analysis
  • Tips for Competitive Strategic Analysis
  • Speakers: Tom Critchlow

• “SEO is Nothing Without Content”
  • Tips for Scaling SEO into Editorial Content Creation
    • How to fit SEO into content brainstorming
    • How to make content that’s produced more likely to earn search traffic
    • How to make SEO part of the content creation tasks
  • Tips for Baking a UGC & SEO Souffle
    • How to get users to do your SEO for you
    • How to maximize/incentivize UGC contributions
    • How to get users to link to UGC
  • Speakers: Rand Fishkin

• “Vertical and universal search”
  • Tips for local search
  • Tips for image and video search
  • Tips for blog search
  • Tips for universal
  • Speakers: Tom Critchlow and Patrick Altoft from Branded3

• “The limits of automation”
  • The hottest tools and how to use them
  • Tools of the future: what no-one’s built yet
  • The limits: tips for when you have to use computers to make humans smarter
  • Speakers: Dave Naylor from Bronco

• “The right strategy for your organisation”
  • SEO tips for startups
  • Tips for competing when you are established but not a household name
  • Tips for dominant / large site improvements
  • Speakers: Will Critchlow and Duncan Morris

The breaking news is that we are hoping to be joined by Ben Hendrickson from SEOmoz revealing the results of the in-depth research he has been doing recently into ranking models – a technical-sounding way of saying that, with access to the vast amounts of data gathered by Linkscape, Ben (one of the smartest people I’ve ever met) has has been mathematically quantifying the value of SEO techniques in the rankings equation.

^{The seminar rooms at the Imagination Gallery}

And once the hard work is out of the way, your ticket gets you access to the exclusive event on the Monday night at the Charlotte Street Blues Bar. I can personally vouch for their cocktails, food and spectacular range of bourbons (what? Someone had to try it out). There will be at least three of the following:

1. Cocktails / finger food
2. Live music
3. A chance to chat informally with the fantastic speakers and other attendees
4. Copies of Google’s algorithm lying around

Don’t take my word for it

In a survey of attendees of the recent Seattle conference, 90% said they were “extremely” or “very” satisfied with the seminar. They loved Ben Jesson’s and Tom’s presentations (both of whom are presenting in London) and previous attendees have had these things to say:

An excellent high level seminar with substantial advanced tactics. Having attended numerous SEO conferences, this had a much greater ROI.
-Greg Patterson, President, Mojo Juice Inc.

Chock full of detailed strategies, theories and practical explanations of very advanced search optimization methodologies. It was worth every penny (and more, but don’t tell Rand I said so!).
-Marty Martin, Director of Web Strategies, Leisure Publishing Co.

Better than any other SEO conference I’ve attended and the price was less.
-Mike Perez, President, High Ranking Websites, Inc.

Book now

If you’re still not convinced, my top 5 reasons to book a place at the SEOmoz / Distilled London PRO training are:

1. Get unparalleled access to Rand Fishkin, the whole Distilled crew, Jane Copland (ex-SEOmoz – now at Ayima), Richard Baxter (in-house SEO supremo turned consultant), the ever-hilarious Dave Naylor, Ben Jesson (whose recent presentations have blown me away every time) and Patrick Altoft’s quietly spoken genius.
2. Hear the top two presentations from the Seattle seminar, a bunch of never-heard-before presentations and hopefully be among the first to hear the results of Ben Hendrickson’s in-depth ranking models work – the largest and most comprehensive quantitative study I know of into exactly how much each factor affects rankings.
3. Last time Rand challenged me to a presentation-off, I scraped in ahead. Chastened, bruised, he came back to win a similar event at the Seattle seminar the other week. I can’t believe he is going to come with anything less than his A-game this time around. If you want to see us going head to head, this is your chance.
4. It rains in Seattle all the time (Rand claims this isn’t true but it’s rained on me every time I’ve been there). In London, by contrast, it only rains some of the time. But in seriousness, London’s a great city. If you live here, you should come because the seminar’s local and easy. If you don’t live in London, come learn SEO in the greatest city in the world (TM).
5. It’s not all work and no play. We have organised a fantastic evening’s entertainment for the Monday night when you’ll be able to relax and chat with all the people you’ve met during the day. For the seriously hardcore, there are also rumours of a LondonSEO event on the Tuesday evening to talk even more SEO.

If you have any questions, leave them in the comments, otherwise book your ticket and we’ll see you there.

What would you like to see for the head to head?

Last time Rand and I had a presentation-off, it was on the relatively boring subject of analytics. We were chatting on the phone yesterday and haven’t yet decided what our big show-down should be about. We are considering keyword research, but are still open to other ideas. If you are coming (or are going to buy the DVD) then leave us a note in the comments about what you’d like to see for the big rematch.

Oh, and just in case I haven’t said it often enough yet, don’t forget to book your place. If you have any questions about it you can drop me an email.