I recently attended this year’s coveted Search Engine Strategies in San Jose, which is praised as the whole grail of internet marketing events for search engine marketers. My business partner Reza Sarmadi and I drove from sunny Los Angeles on a journey through the desert, hills and scenic routes of California from So Cal to No Cal to our very first SES event.

We reached the epicenter of tech, San Jose, in the early morning, checked into our hotel (10 miles away from the event) and headed to SES. Before entering the expo and conferences, we picked up our badges and we became official. As a black hat, it can feel good to be official sometimes.

Expo Summary:
The expo were filled with up and comers and the big boys, Google, Yahoo, Omniture. Of course everyone was trying to sell something, or scan your badge so they can send you a quick email. The most promising company I met was Blogvertise.com. We met some great people with some great search engine products. I am still scratching my head at the web design companies at the event. I mean they were practically laughed at and passed by most of the attendees, because who needs to find a web designer at an event expo these days?

It’s quite interesting when you are in a room of internet marketers. Everyone is on the basis of getting information without telling anyone who they are or what they do. I mean the last thing you want to do is talk about your latest and greatest idea in front of people who do exactly what you do. So you can imagine a crowd of people all trying to be modest.

Seminar Summary:
The conferences and seminars in a nutshell were quite bland and dull. Mostly young, mid level employees of the big companies who were speaking about technologies that I was already familiar with. I really felt a lack of seminars that were catered to search marketers by search marketers. I mean, being around before these guys jobs even existed puts me at a disposition, but many others shared the same opinions, so I’m not the only one.

The one discussion board that I found quite intriguing was Black Hat vs. White Hat SEO. A new friend, and colleague Tom Friesen a.k.a Oilman, who was a speaker at an SEMforSMB, in which I was speaking about Online Reporting and Analytics, was on the panel. The panel also consisted of Bruce Clay, Jill Whalen and one other SEO expert from the UK led. The energy was intense. A room packed full of SEO guys, all open eyed and ears waiting to hear what the gurus of search marketing were going to say. Everyone wanted to know who was black hat and who was white hat. Interesting enough, Bruce Clay and Jill Whalen both were wearing all black.
No one gave up the juice and admitted to be black hat. They had the audacity to ask the audience to raise their hands to see who was black hat or white hat. I’m sure you can guess what everyone did.

They must of saw Matt Cutts in the audience and maybe it spooked the speakers and the audience. The panel talked about various efforts in the black hat arena, and the summary was that black hat will always be king, but its all about evolved black hat and smart black. And of course; stay away from Indian link farms.

Partying it up, Search Marketing Style:
With every good conference comes interesting after parties. The first night Google threw a party at their headquarters. I think they had a very smart concept. They invited the whole conference to “Google Dance” and like the title; we danced the night away with free drinks, good music and a bunch of young engineers running muck on the Google campus. Felt like senior year at high school all over again.

Intermixed between the fun were the marketing leads for each of Google’s services showcasing the new advancements and features of each service they offer on laptops. This was very interesting, because it is the search marketing community that really can give constructive criticism on Google’s new products and they get it for free from drunken and, most of the time, blunt internet marketers. We left early, took our free t-shirts and headed to the hotel.

The second night, WebmasterRadio.fm threw a party. It was sponsored by Bruce Clay. The party consisted of semi quality food, a good crowd of internet marketers, contortionists and a few hot chicks who were obviously after the rich internet entrepreneurs. The look on Bruce Clay’s face when the contortionists were bouncing around summed the whole night up. The look on his face said something like “I can’t believe I paid for this”.

Domain Auction (Moniker Style):
While at the event, I had the privilege of attending a domain auction led by Moniker. This was interesting. They had some great domains for sale. I put a bid on a few domains, felt the adrenaline rush, but a guy with a turbans sitting at the very front of the room all by himself kept beating me out. To the guy with the turban: I’m going to outbid you next year. ReZ won the prize giveaway a Bose noise reducing headset and I left with the thought “What would I have done with yet another domain name in my portfolio?”

All in all the event was great. My two critiques were 1) they needed more seminars / panels targeted toward advanced SEO and link building and 2) they needed something more to liven up the otherwise dull atmosphere at the event.