Your inside look at SMX East

Search Engine Land’s SMX® East, the go-to event for serious search marketers, returns to New York City next month — November 13-14.

This year’s agenda, featuring 100+ search marketing presentations and two new tracks devoted to agency operations and local search for multi-location brands, is loaded with actionable tactics you can implement immediately to drive more awareness, traffic, and conversions. It’s the biggest agenda the Search Engine Land experts have ever created.

If you work in SEO, SEM, content marketing, social media or any other customer-facing activity — if you work at an agency or for a brand that managers multiple locations — you can’t afford to miss this conference.

Keep reading for your big SMX East preview… and book your pass now to enjoy up to $300 off on-site rates!

3 Insightful SEO & SEM Keynotes

Rand Fishkin will kick things off Wednesday, November 13 with his keynote, From Everyone’s Search Engine to Everyone’s Competitor. In years past, Google has been the largest driver of traffic to almost every web-based business in existence. Today, that’s still true, but a strange new trend is rearing its head – Google’s becoming your primary competitor. From travel to sports, reference to news, and answers on every topic, the search giant is working harder than ever to keep searchers on Google rather than sending them to your sites. In his keynote, Rand will show, via clickstream data from tens of millions of devices, how the landscape of the web is shifting, and how to compete against Google in a game they control.

Immediately following Rand’s SEO keynote is a special SEM keynote conversation with Microsoft Ads: Smarter Customer Journeys: The ABCs of CX (Customer Experience). The future of marketing is understanding the Customer Experience Quotient (CXQ) that is leveraging all of the data and insights into the customer journey and then applying artificial intelligence and machine learning to optimize the customer experience and improve marketing performance. Join Christi Olson, Head of Evangelism at Microsoft Advertising, and moderator Ginny Marvin, Search Engine Land’s Editor-in-Chief, for a discussion on the ABCs of CXQ and learn how to reduce the growing gap between the 20% of businesses that have managed to achieve a high customer experience quotient.

The following morning, Thursday, November 14, will begin with another SEM keynote — this time from Google: Advance Your Omnichannel Strategy for the Holiday Season and Beyond. With more connected devices and digital touchpoints, customer journeys have become more complex. In order to gain customers and drive results across channels, it’s critical to measure and optimize for both online and offline sales. Join Google’s Zack Bailey, Head of Omnichannel Solutions, and Irem Erkaya, Global Product Lead, together with moderator Ginny Marvin, to discover how machine learning and automation can help you optimize for omnichannel success at scale for the holiday season and beyond.

SEO Sessions

Gone are the days when SEO was about tweaking on-page elements or building links. There’s much more to effective SEO today, especially with the advent and adoption of machine learning and artificial intelligence. We’ve got you covered with two full days of tactic-rich SEO sessions that cover everything from Javascript to penalties, mobile-first to page speed, and voice search to campaign testing:

Breaking Down The Periodic Table of SEO Factors: 2019 Edition
Learning From The Winners of Google Algorithm Updates
Behind The Scenes With Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools
Google and Bing Talk Spam and Penalties
Advanced Tactics For A Mobile-First Indexing World
Conversational Search and The Impact Of Voice On SEO
SEO Tactics That Truly Move The Needle
How To Apply AI & Machine Learning To SEO
Schema and Structured Data: “Hidden” Gold For SEOs
Satisfying The Need For Speed
The Correct Way To Test Your SEO Campaigns
Tackling the Challenges Of Enterprise SEO
JavaScript: The SEO’s Swiss Army Knife
Ask The SEOs

SEM Sessions

The search marketing landscape seems to change every day. At SMX East, you’ll access two days of wide-ranging SEM sessions, including expert advice about must-have reports to big-picture CRO strategies, tips for integrating search ads with emergent marketing channels like Amazon and Walmart Advertising, insights about automation, and beyond. Check out what’s on tap, including the unveiling of the first-ever Periodic Tables of PPC!

Breaking Down The Periodic Tables Of PPC
How To Properly Set Up Testing For Accounts Of All Sizes
Awesome Tests, Profitable Results
Must-Have Reports For SEMs
From Targeting Practice To Targeting Perfection: Your Key To Better Results
Under The Hood With Google Shopping, Amazon and Walmart Advertising
The State of Offline Conversion Tracking
Clarifying The Murky Waters Of Attribution
Conversion Optimization For The Long Run
Roundtable: How Automation Really Works and When To Use It
Ask The SEMS

New! Agency Operations Sessions

New York City is the advertising agency capital of the world. That’s why the Search Engine Land editors built a new, full-day track dedicated to agency operations and management. These in-depth sessions will deliver executive-level education and peer-to-peer conversation for agency principals, executives, and senior leaders:

Profitable Pricing Strategies For Agencies
Managing Clients, Managing Yourself
Handling Client Transitions
Getting Your Agency Services Mix Right
Making The Pitch: Putting Your Best Foot Forward Without Giving Away The Goods

(We’re also hosting an exclusive agency marketers meetup… more on that in the Networking section!)

New! Local Search For Multi-Location Brands Sessions

Search marketers supporting brands with multiple locations face unique challenges: capturing and responding to reviews at scale, addressing spam, boosting rankings, leveraging voice search, and measuring the real-world impact of campaigns, for a start. The sessions on this new track were designed to address these specific pain points and offer actionable tactics multi-location marketers need to know:

Ranking in Google Local and Google Maps
Google My Business From A to Z
Managing Reviews On Multiple Local Platforms
Local Presence Management for Multi-location Brands
Future-Now Local Search: Assistants, Voice, Maps and More

(Psst! Don’t miss the special multi-location brand marketers meetup… keep reading for more details!)

Search Marketing Essentials & Insights Sessions

Modern search marketing extends far beyond SEO and SEM. The Search Marketing Track is a catch-all of must-attend sessions on content marketing, paid social ads, video, storytelling, and much more.

You’ll also find Insights Sessions on this track (and in the SMX Theater)… these sessions feature must-try tactics, nuggets of sage advice, and takeaways that make you more effective and productive. Speakers are challenged to deliver the goods in a limited amount of time (10 minutes or less!), making it a great place to soak up a wide variety of fresh ideas. Check out what’s in store:

Thriving in The New World Of Pagination
Get Off The Content Treadmill: HubSpot’s Playbook For Driving More Traffic From Existing Content
Best Practices For Securing Your Site
Google Analytics Insights Is Your New Best Coworker
How To Estimate The SEO Impact Of Site Navigation Changes
Paid Is A Dirty Word (And Other Lies They Tell You About Marketing)
SEO & Platform Migrations
Paid Social Tactics That Drive Conversions
B2B SEM: Meeting Specific Challenges With Really Smart Tactics
How To Structure Facebook Campaigns For Success
Amp Up Your User Engagement Data with Google Tag Manager
How To Tell Your Brand’s Story Through Video Ad Sequencing
SEO and SEM Data Sharing For Maximum Impact
How Brands Approach SEO and SEM
Refreshing Evergreen Content: How, When and Why
Profitable Content Strategies For Competitive Markets
Essential SEO Reports And How To Leverage Them
The Challenges Of Hiring & Retaining SEO Talent In Today’s Competitive Environment
Managing Search Terms In A New Match-Type World
YouTube Success Stories For Marketers
The Best Of Both Worlds: Reactive & Proactive SEO
The SEO Implications Of Google’s New Nofollow Rules
Want to Win at Amazon? Don’t Forget Organic
Search is the New Shelf: Under The Hood With Amazon & Walmart Advertising

Solutions Track Sessions

All of the sessions you’re read about so far are “editorial sessions,” programmed by the Search Engine Land editors. Speakers are hand-selected because of their expertise and authority on a given topic. No one bought their way onto a panel.

But we recognize that our many sponsors and exhibitors also have great information to share. That’s why we provide a platform for you to learn from them: The Solutions Track. This track gives you the chance to learn from our vendors in an expanded format. They know they’re competing with our editorial sessions for your attention, so they’re highly motivated to deliver great information and value. Here’s a look at some sessions coming to NYC:

How Big is Your Marketing Blind Spot? High-Intent Users, You Might be Missing, with Natural Intelligence
How To Beat Amazon In Search (on a much smaller budget), with Longtail UX
Mastering SEO Silos, with Bruce Clay, Inc.
SEM Breakthrough: How Your Reviews Impact Ranking and Conversions, with Trustpilot
Success Stories in Local Search: How to Boost Online to Offline Traffic, with SweetIQ
Talk, Talk, Talk: A Tech Readiness Primer for 3 Critical Customer Conversations, with Uberall

SMX Theater Sessions

The SMX Theater is where you can learn even more from our sponsors in bite-sized bursts. These 15-minute presentations feature case studies, lessons, and demos of exhibitor products and services, including…

Using AI-Powered Conversational Analytics to Improve SEM and SEO, with Invoca
How to Dominate in the Ever-Changing SERP Landscape, with Perficient Digital
The SEM Automation that Beats Google Shopping and DSA, with Longtail UX
Digital PR — What is it, REALLY?, with Exults

… and many more still to be announced!

Q&A Clinics

Bring your burning questions to a panel of experts ready with answers and advice! SMX Clinics are 100% Q&A and your chance to speak directly and openly with the experts you know and trust. There are no presentations. No PowerPoints. No agenda other than to answer your case-by-case queries. So raise your hand, take the mic, and ask your questions. Our panelists will take turns sharing their opinions and advice. Here’s a look at the clinic topics for SMX East:

SEO Sites
SEO Tools
SEM
Google Analytics
Social Ads
Landing Pages
Content Optimization

Classroom Track with Google & Microsoft Ads

Step inside the Classroom for full-day training with experts from Google and Microsoft Ads. These carefully-crafted curriculums deliver hands-on training in an intimate setting. Learn With Google sessions include:

Spark Inspiration & Action With Discovery Ads
Elevate Your Performance With Auction-Time Bidding
Master Google Ads In 2020: Ads & Keywords
Find And Connect With Your Best Customers
Unlock Your Potential: Performance Planner & Optimization Score

Stay tuned for details about Microsoft Ads’ Classroom training!

Immersive Workshops

The SMX agenda offers a ton of valuable learning — but that just isn’t enough for some attendees. That’s why we host full day pre-conference training designed to take your search marketing to the next level.

SMX workshops, held Tuesday, November 12 from 9:00am – 5:00pm, offer a level of immersive training that you won’t find anywhere else. Each course is led by recognized industry experts. Choose from:

Content Marketing for SEO (New!). Struggling to get your marketing team on board with why and how to do content marketing for SEO — in such a way that helps achieve organic growth? This workshop is for you. Speaker, author, and leading expert Michael Brenner will discuss the SEO context and business case for content marketing. He’ll walk you through a roadmap that any SEO expert can use to get their marketing teams on board to deliver the organic reach, engagement, and conversions clients demand. Workshop Presenter: Michael Brenner.
Video for Search Marketers (New!). Video is dominating the content landscape, but because traditional video production is expensive, complicated, and slow, it’s often underutilized by many search marketers. Join marketing and video expert Michael Hoffman for a full-day workshop exploring the best practices and secret hacks for making video a powerful driver of both organic and paid search programs. You will also learn how to leverage new and lower-cost ways to produce video that you can use to quickly scale your video marketing campaigns. Workshop Presenters: Michael Hoffman & Rami Atassi.

In-House SEO Exchange. Join Jessica Bowman for a full-day of “open the kimono” knowledge sharing in the only event designed by in-house SEOs for in-house SEOs. Because attendees are all in-house SEOs, the walls come down and you get to talk to the people actually doing SEO at the big brands, build relationships, and share solutions that you would normally only hear behind closed doors. There is no other workshop with this level of sharing! Workshop Presenter: Jessica Bowman.
Advanced SEO Training. Spend a day with a master SEO and come away with cutting-edge SEO techniques – tackling RankBrain, voice search, AMP, featured snippets, and more – that can help raise your rankings and visibility in search engines. Workshop Presenter: Bruce Clay.
Advanced Google Ads Training. Even with all of the new marketing channels that have opened up over the years, Google Ads (formerly AdWords) is still the core of many companies’ interactive campaigns. If your PPC campaigns are not running efficiently, it can have a drastic impact on your bottom line. Join Brad Geddes for a full day of advanced Google Ads training and discussion that will teach you not only the best practices but also advanced concepts and strategies that are based on a decade of research and testing. Workshop Presenter: Brad Geddes.
Hardcore Technical SEO Tactics & Techniques. Do you deal with big SEO problems? Do you work in a large enterprise, or have a site with millions (or billions) of web pages? If so, the basic SEO training material is not what you’re looking for. You’re looking for the master class, the one that is loaded with advanced content. Topics include how to analyze and solve a variety of thorny technical SEO challenges, how to create and implement progressive web apps, PWAMPs, how to understand the impact of machine learning and AI on search. Workshop Presenter: Eric Enge.

These workshops include breakfast, lunch, and refreshment breaks. Bundle your workshop with an All Access pass for maximum value and $300 off on-site rates.

New to the industry? Our Search Marketing Boot Camp is perfect for beginners looking to get a foothold on the basics. Fundamental sessions include:

Keyword Research & Copywriting For Search Success
Paid Search Fundamentals
Essential Google Tools
Search Engine Friendly Web Design

If you want to brush up on SEO and SEM basics, now’s the time to take the leap. In addition to the workshop sessions, you’ll get access to breakfast, lunch, refreshment breaks and a Certificate of Completion if you attend each individual Boot Camp session. Upgrade to an All Access pass to unlock the complete SMX experience:

Invaluable Networking

SMX East brings together the most accomplished search marketers in the world. You’ll share stories, exchange advice, and talk shop during meals, refreshment breaks, and the Expo Hall Reception, sponsored by Perficient Digital.

We’re also hosting four interactive meetups on the evening of Wednesday, November 13, where you can connect with like-minded marketers in a welcoming environment:

Agency Meetup
Technical SEO & Developers Meetup
Multi-Location Meetup
Professional Development for SEOs & SEMs Meetup

After the meetups, join fellow attendees at Microsoft’s Open Perspectives to explore principles of diversity, inclusion, and inclusive marketing. Discuss deep and relevant issues and challenges that we all face with a focus on the experiences of underrepresented groups and their allies. This is an open event where all are welcome and can contribute to the conversation.

Birds of a Feather tables elevate lunchtime small talk to guided, valuable discussions based on your professional interests. Once you register, you’ll receive a list of table topics! (Only available to All Access pass holders.)

And don’t forget to submit a request to join our SMX Facebook Group once you register. You’ll be able to chat with fellow attendees before, during and after the conference.

Exhibitors & Sponsors

Last but certainly not least, explore the Expo Hall to meet with and learn from 30+ market-defining vendors setting up shop. Tinker with marketing technology and tour an array of products and solutions that can save you time and money.

Don’t Take Our Word For It…

You’ve just read nearly 3,000 words on what you’ll get at SMX East and why it’s a worthy investment for your company and your career. Now, check out what some of our past attendees have to say about their SMX experiences:

Good speakers, and the ability to learn more about areas I don’t specialize in from the experts.” – Kamilla Dynia, SmartPak Equine

It was a well planned conference, engaged presenters and small; I found great the fact that there were clinics for the participants to ask questions.” – Ana Aguilar-Hauke, One Pica Space

The content is always solid. And the direct interaction with speakers and brands makes getting the worth out of the visit very easy.” – Joe Martinez, Granular

Pick Your Ideal Pass & Register Now

SMX East kicks off in just three weeks but there’s still time to secure your pass. Choose the option that best suits your goals and budget and register now to enjoy up to $300 off on-site rates. (Remember, if you need a hotel in NYC, book your lodging through SMX to secure special room rates!)

All Access Pass: The complete conference experience — all sessions, keynotes, clinics, networking events, and amenities, including WiFi, speaker presentations downloads, breakfasts, lunches, refreshments, and the SMX Mobile App.
All Access + Workshop Pass (best value!): Maximize your time by adding a full-day post-conference workshop to your agenda.
Expo+ Pass: Perfect for meeting marketers and connecting with vendors. This free pass gets you the Expo Hall and exhibitors, Solutions Track Sessions, SMX Theater presentations, Q&A Clinics, select networking, WiFi, the mobile app, refreshments, and more.

I hope you’ve found this preview useful and that you’ll join the search marketing community in NYC for an unparalleled training experience.

Register now and I’ll see you soon!

About The Author

Lauren Donovan has worked in online marketing since 2006, specializing in content generation, organic social media, community management, real-time journalism, and holistic social befriending. She currently serves as the Content Marketing Manager at Third Door Media, parent company to Search Engine Land, Marketing Land, MarTech Today, SMX, and The MarTech Conference.

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