The 7th International Internet Marketing Conference & Expo in Montreal on April 5th, 6th and 7th is shaping up well and promising to be the best yet. Never before have so many people signed up in advance. Never before has the list of internationally renowned speakers been so long and never before have so many sponsors supported the event. Come and join us in Montreal, April 5th 6th 7th at The Palais des Congres for an experience of a lifetime.
This is my 5th year as a conference producer and I must say that I love every moment, more and more. Each conference has been a fantastic opportunity to learn more about this exciting business market, to renew old contacts, to make new contacts and to do more business. If you are an Internet or marketing professional, there's no better place to learn, meet, and get more things done than in Montreal from April 5th, 6th and 7th.
Montreal has it all; beautiful architecture, a thriving business community, an exciting cosmopolitan culture - and fabulous restaurants and nightlife! Montreal is also a gateway between Europe & North America, making it an ideal place for an International conference, as well as a great place to look for new market opportunities.
Internet Marketing celebrates 10 years and IMC celebrates 5 years
Internet Marketing is still a very young subject. It was 1994 that the World Wide Web came into existence and it was 1999 that IMC saw the first light. What better way to celebrate the richness of a new science than being in Montreal?
Internet Marketing is a science that depends upon Three Cornerstones™
Domain Names
Search Engines
Homepages
Learn how to master each of these three cornerstones and you can become a King of Internet Marketing.
Internet Marketing is a never-ending evolving subject.
To facilitate the subject you need to learn more about the Ten Methods of Internet Marketing™:
Domain Name Strategies
User and Search Engine Friendly Web Design
Copywriting for the Web
Linking Strategies
Search Engine Positioning
Online Advertising
E-mail Marketing and Newsletters
Customer Relationships and Interactivity
Affiliate Programs and Network Marketing
Traffic Analysis
Learn about all of the above and more from many of the leading experts at IMC
The Topics of Internet Marketing on the agenda: Search Engines, Directories, Crawlers, Pay-per-click, Search Engine Optimization, Home pages, Web design, Usability, Content Management, Links, Banners, Rich Media, Contextual Advertising, Affiliate Programs, Browsers, Email, Opt-in Email, Auto-responder, Spam, News Letter, Copy Writing, Domain Names, Branding, Trademarks, Traffic Analysis, Security…and much more.
By learning the Three Cornerstones, applying the Ten Methods and gaining up-to-date knowledge
of the topics of Internet Marketing, you too can become a Master in Internet Marketing.
IMC 2004 Montreal, April 5-7: POWER LUNCHES!
If you haven't already booked your flight to Montreal for IMC 2004, now's the time!
And if you are already coming, don't forget about our special networking events this year.
Each day at 12:00 we have a special "Power Lunch" speaker who will share their in-depth knowledge of the present state of Internet Marketing, and show you the business landscape and the trends, tricks, and tools, you need to make it work. The luncheon schedule is as follows:
MONDAY, APRIL 5
Geoffrey Ramsey CEO, Co-founder, eMarketer Online Retail Trends and Strategies
TUESDAY, APRIL 6
Laurie Dillon -Interactive, IBM Services Establishing Customer Channels and Performance Metrics
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 7
Gay Gaddis, President and Founder, T3 Interactive Healthcare Marketing Solutions
*Admission is $45 for each talk (includes lunch)
WIN 1 YEAR OF THE ESTAT DATABASE - A $5,000 VALUE!
One lucky IMC 2004 attendee will win instant access to the eMarketer eStat Database for one full year - with over 28,000 charts, tables and articles aggregated from over 1,500 research sources worldwide!. Compilments of IMC 2004 sponsor, eMarketer, the leading independent source for statistics, trend data and original analysis covering every aspect of the Internet, e-business and emerging technologies.
The number of Internet users in the United States expanded much more slowly during the past two years compared with previous years, but many of the 126 million people who are online are becoming more attached to the Web.
>>>>> Search Engine Advertising Blocker Hits the Market
First we had spam filters, then pop-up blockers, and
recently spyware removal tools have become popular. Time to add
one more to the list which has the potential to hurt the search
engine marketing industry even more than a Google update, search
engine sponsored listing blocking.
The InterMute, Inc. company announced today the latest version
of its best selling Internet ad blocking software which gives
users the option to block paid or sponsored Search Engine results,
the fastest growing segment of the online advertising industry.
Accoding to InterMute’s CEO Ed English "Search Engines
have lost their way and tarnished their credibility. Instead of
first displaying the most relevant search results, most Search
Engines now show the highest paying ad-sponsored results."
One of the most controversial Web services of 2003
will be back in action in 2004. Despite anti-trust complaints
and threats by regulators, VeriSign, the company controlling the
servers that hold the addresses of more than 26 million Internet
domains that end with .com or .net, says it is only a matter of
time before it relaunches its SiteFinder redirection service.
On November 21st the Internet Marketing Conference
site for the first time in three years wasn't no 1 on the Term
"Internet Marketing Conference" in Google. It turned
out that we've been hit by what now is called "The Florida
Update". The name cames apparently from a forum called WebmasterWorld
who have started to name Google updates in the same manners hurricanes
are named in USA.
I can gladly report that IMC is again no 1 for the
term Internet Marketing Conference however what actually have
happened at Google that affected million of pages ranking is of
big concern to the Internet Marketing Community.
Barry Lloyd, one of our featured speaker at IMC Montreal
2004, has written an article which in details describes what happened
where he writes "Google are trying to redress the balance
by trying to eradicate obvious search engine manipulation from
their most competitive results."
Our own experience at Digital Marketing Partner of
the Florida update gives by hand that reducing the amount of keywords
in your body text is one way of improving the result. Another
effect of the Florida update is that pages in other languages
than English can now be found high up on search results for competitive
search terms like Internet Marketing (both Russian, Italian and
German pages are included in the first 50 results).
One of the most speculative theories comes from the
JimWorld Forums which basically says that the changes of Algorithm
at Google is due because Google is not the owner of the Page Rank
patent. The Page Rank patent is by many considered to be the foundation
that Googles success builds upon. The Page Rank patent is owned
by Stanford University and Google is trying new ways of finding
good ranking methods without being dependent on the Page Rank
patent.
Andy Langton, Receptional, whose company speaks about
Linking Strategies during the IMC Conferences gives the following
recommendation if you're results are no longer in good position
at Google: “Content, content, content” has been the
mantra of successful Google SEOs for some time. Update Florida
simply reinforces this idea. The importance of large numbers of
content pages, reinforced by quality incoming links has never
been greater, as well as avoiding very competitive terms and targeting
larger numbers of less popular keywords. The algorithm might be
different, but the strategy remains the same."
Mr Robert Swick, Strategy Internet Marketing
and Director of IMC Conference sessions concludes: The Google
Florida update or "FU" is a red herring. But there is
a good lesson to be learned. In each case the sites that have
been hurt by it have been hit on their strongest term. Just as
its dangerous for a business to over-rely on one client, those
that rely on search ranking need to broaden their vision. My practical
advice is this: focus your SEO on a variety of phrases, not just
one or two. This includes titles, text, links - everything.
The last word on what is happening at Google
is far from here yet. Stay tuned for upcoming Right On The Spot
Issues to be informed.
>>>>>This
month’s Right On the Spot is – Stratton Sclavos
The CEO of Verisign, Stratton Sclavos, have said in
an interview: “SiteFinder will come back. A group of 200
technical zealots were against it and they got all the headlines.”
Sitefinder is a service that gives users the option of searching
after they have failed to type in a correct domain address. Today
the result is either a screen that says #Error or a similar search
service from example Microsoft if you are using the Microsoft
Browser.
In the interview Mr. Sclavos continues "It is
time for the industry to grow up. The Internet is the infrastructure
running the economy for the next three to four decades. We should
not have ICANN volunteers running the policy of the Internet naming
scheme.”
The award of being Right On The Spot goes to Mr Sclavos
for the courage of standing up against a group who is starting
to be conservative - the technicians in charge of Internets Infrastructure.
The technicians laid the foundation for the Internet but in order
for the Internet to mature it's natural that other groups with
better competence in governing takes over the responsibility.
The issue of spam in emails is another sign that the
technicians role over the Internet is being reduced. So far every
technical solution to spam has failed. Politicians is starting
to take over the role with attempts to make it illegal sending
spam.
Yes, we think the trend to make online searching for local businesses is becoming very strong. In fact, it always was, but the online Yellow
Page-type sites did a very poor job of:
Providing usable tools for the
users
Getting searcher traffic to use their sites
Educating local area businesses
The locally-focused "City Search" sites do not handle a full range of sites and businesses, nor can they integrate true web search. Meanwhile, the search engines and the big directories have basically been only focused on global/national site listings.
Q: What are the obstacles to providing an effective local search?
Even if the technology problems are solved, online search is still priced in ways that make it difficult for smaller businesses to use it as a marketing tool. It is crazy to expect a local business supply house that sells paper shredders locally to go into Overture and bid up to US$6.00 per click to get ranked on the term "paper shredder", when perhaps 98% of its clickthroughs would not be local prospects.
No business can afford an average lead cost of US$250 to $500 or more on a product with a total margin of less than that! Our first version of www.vivante.com addresses all of these problems. The second version, due in mid-1st quarter 2004, will add several major additional capabilities that Google AdWords, Overture, and the rest cannot offer - not without major technical revamps. We will be the first national search site to offer listings for local area events, for example.
Q: How will you launch Vivante?
Our marketing for the first year is focused on North America. The keys are:
Reaching the smaller sites who have been priced out of search marketing by Yahoo, LookSmart, Overture, and Google's AdWords.
Reaching the approximately 1 million local-area businesses and services who have websites, but do not know where to list them or how. We plan to reach many of these "naturally" through various web channels, but the more important thrust will be through local web designer/consultants.
Reaching the 10 million North American businesses and professional services who do not now use the web at all to promote their services. We will reach these (after 2004) mainly through local reps. Our products and services are ideal for sale by those with experience in selling local radio ads or commercial newspaper classifieds ads. As the web continues to erode those channels, we will find many good selling candidates to make the switch to our products. We also may be able to land a partnership with a Yellow Pages or other established supplier.
Feedback &
sponsorship
Thanks for taking the time to read Right On The Spot.
If you have any feedback or are interested to sponsor this publication,
please send it to us through lennartsvanberg@lennartsvanberg.com.
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