What Happens at PubCon Shouldn't Stay at PubCon

Over a year ago (August 2006 to be exact) I hired a young girl from a Craig's List ad to join my staff at Hostway as an Online Marketing Analyst. She was straight out of college and green with experience related to the search industry. Well recently I received a blog that she wrote for the South Florida Interactive Marketing Association titled, "What Happens at PubCon…shouldn’t stay at PubCon: The Top 10 Takeaways " She was invited to go to one of the most popular conferences of the year PubCon. I should have been there this year and actually speak on a Pubcon panel but I decided to move my family to a new state for a new and exciting opportunity.

Back to the subject, Stephanie Faskow is her name and she wrote a blog about what happened at PubCon, while I wanted more and hope to soon hear from her all about it in more detail, I thought I would share with you her Top 1o PubCon Takeaways:

10. Some SEOs still use black hat techniques– you shouldn’t.

9. Sub domains will soon be treated the same as sub directories in Google.

8. A directory that provides listings to all websites that submit to the directory is not a one that you want to be in. Human editors are the key to a good directory.

7. Everyone should have a blog. Corporate or personal, just remember that there is a fine line with transparency. How much do you really want people to know about your personal life?

6. According to Webuildpages’ Jim Boyken the best way to gain entry into DMOZ is prayer…and to closely follow all of the guidelines provided. Don’t spam and use the real title of your website.

5. Do NOT buy links – at least not openly.The ultimate goal of the search engines is to have the results be (or at least look) natural.

4. Find small and relevant directories: they may not bring the most traffic, but they are more likely to convert.

3. The ‘No follow’ tag is one of your best friends.Especially when you are using paid advertising, or feel that one of your links may be connected to a bad neighborhood.

2. Linkbait: Create it. This was one subject that was discussed over and over again throughout many of the sessions. Create articles and contests (or top 10 lists): any sort of content that will attract other users to link to you.

1. Do not expect to be successful on all link bait attempts. If you fail, try try again.
Hint: Diggers are techies; write for them and your target audience.

Well if she passes me more information about this event I will certainly return the favor! Thanks Stephanie you make me proud! :)