Wil Reynolds Wil Reynolds

February 25, 2008

SEO Presentation in Las Vegas at Affiliate Summit 2008

Hey everyone who took time to stop by, say hello, share a story, etc!  I just wanted to say thanks, I sincerely apologize for the AV issues…it was 100% my fault, I used my own laptop.

I had fun, and hope that you all took something away from the time you spent today.

A few things I am noticing on the blogosphere, most notably the comments from Jason Calacanis on twitter, I had a friend let me know he was posting thoughts about it there, and a few things are worth clearing up the record on because they can be taken out of context.

You all will hopefully see the video, so you can see for yourselves, here were some tweets from Jason, who I think gets a bad wrap because people can’t separate what her is saying from how he delivers it.  I liked the challenge though.

3 things I wanted Jason to clear up that found its way onto his twitter page.  I hate twitter.

 1 – Wil Reynolds says SEO could go away if Google Knol, and other publishing tools, come out. Google Knol is controversial for publishers.

I never once referenced Google Knol I didn’t even know what it was really.  Right now it doesn’t seem to have an impact on anything I am seeing, but that doesn’t mean we should not be preparing for the day when it starts showing up.  Then again in my presentation I showed how Google tests including things all the time that never stick.  I spoke more about Google Co-op.

I doubt SEO will go away, it will morph, but right now and for the forseeable future, it is here to stay.  Everything morphs…it will be a fun ride.  What I did mention is that Google hasn’t figured out (from what I can see) how to even show the most relevant results for a singular or plural query.  I think SEO as we know it is going to stick around for some time.
2 – Wil Reynolds the SEO is telling folks to pay for links even though Google says don’t…. interesting debate. 

The other part of that is I was saying that people come see speakers to hopefully get some real actionable stuff that works, while I know that buying links is NOT a good long term strategy, I advocated  looking at the people who out rank you and seeing if you need to do it to compete with them, while at the same time building as many legit on topic links as possible, when I mention paid links I mean low/average quality directories.

 3 – SEO Wil Reynolds says Google users Google analytics to impact search results. True you think? I think that sounds church and state to me

I didn’t say they DID I said it makes sense for them to use it eventually and why wouldn’t they to create a better user experience?

Just wanted to clear up those points. It was great having someone there to really challenge me a bit.

Thanks to Joel Ownby who asked some great questions and kept priming me! (please 301 redirect the non www version of your site to the www version, it helps make sure you get maximum value for your inbound links).

joelcomm – thanks for the boxed set!

Jason thanks for the challenge.

James, thanks for the positive feedback!

Thanks to Shawn & Missy for letting me GO WAY over time, and thanks to whoever cared enough to stick around late to hear me blather about SEO :)

Ok, so blow it open…what did I do well, what could I have improved on?  If you leave feedback it will help me do a better job next time.

Gracias, and good luck in Vegas – hope to see many of you at the party.

9 COMMENTS

  • Israel says:
    February 25, 2008 @ 10:49 pm

    I enjoyed the time you took to explain things. While I knew most of what you were saying already, it was engaging enough to stick around.

    Peace.

  • ms danielle says:
    February 27, 2008 @ 9:38 pm

    i appreciated the fact that you were being realistic about what may need to be done to be more competitive. it’s the reality of the industry that no one wants to admit they do out of fear of google. i’d love to see a debate on why google doesn’t return the most relevant search results. :D and what could make for better results

  • Gary Lee says:
    February 28, 2008 @ 1:51 am

    I saw calacanis typing away in the right side of the room and knew he might be up to no good :) . . . . but I’m glad you put him in his place with your “I’m not an accountant” response to his seo/tax questions . . anyways . . great presentation!

  • Dave Ashley says:
    February 28, 2008 @ 8:24 pm

    I am mainly in the PPC game but wanted to learn more about SEO and found your lecture great. As for jason, who I don’t know but was sitting right behind, I found your answers to his questions great. When you spoke of paying for clicks you made it clear, to me at least, that this was only to jump start a new site and not a long term strategy. I remember your lecture well and you certainly weren’t saying it was going away but changing. This was actually a welcomed message for me as the old totally technical point of SEO seemed dull(not that ppc isn’t) but your point of moving towards a more marketing approach sounds great and makes sense. Well great lecture and i’m glad they let you keep talking.

  • wil says:
    February 29, 2008 @ 10:39 am

    @ Israel, thanks!

    @ ms danielle – It was great finally meeting you! Hope to see you in Boston!

    @ gary lee – It is not my desire to put someone in their place, but I hate it when people try to stir controversy only.

    @ Dave – Lies, Damn Lies! I don’t know why Jason would say those things,m they were false…oh that’s right the C in Calacanis stands for controversy…if he ever said…hey Wil’s got some honest points and good advice he wouldn’t be “him” LOL!!!

  • Google, stop making me lie at conferences!! says:
    March 2, 2008 @ 4:56 pm

    [...] I recently got back from a great show at the affiliate summit, my session on building search strategies for the long haul, was packed, went about 45 minutes over time (thanks to those who stayed) and was just FUN, who would have thought that I could talk about SEO solo for almost 2 hours? [...]

  • Will Affiliate Summit Make Me Money? — Affiliate Whispers says:
    March 2, 2008 @ 10:58 pm

    [...] Best Breakfast of the Week I was running late on Tuesday morning, dashing in to grab breakfast before heading to the “Ask the Experts” session when I saw Andrew Wee, Amit Meta, and Wil Reynolds having a late breakfast together. I quickly decided to skip the session and grabbed a seat at their table. I had missed Wil’s SEO session the previous day, here is a recap by Ms Danielle and a video clip, and wanted to meet him in person. Having gone through Amit’s Super Affiliate Accelerator and a regular reader of WhoIsAndrewWee I thought I’d probably learn more from these guys in a small group breakfast than at the session. [...]

  • Graeme Eastman says:
    March 6, 2008 @ 1:27 am

    Hi Will,
    Thanks for the great session. I enjoyed it very much. Thanks also for sending me the SEO bookmarks, however I thought there was going to be a list of directories you thought were worthwhile submitting to. Do you have such a list?

  • wil says:
    June 13, 2008 @ 1:38 pm

    Hey Graeme, I am just seeing this one buddy, sorry – I sent that out a while ago, did you get it?

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