Search Engine Watch Blog

I've been attending SES San Jose every year since 2003. And each year a healthy proportion of attendees are attending their first search engine marketing conference ever.

This is healthy because it expands the number of marketers who "get it."

I can't tell you the number of times when prospective clients mistakenly assume that search engine marketing (SEM) isn't rocket science. Or they mistakenly believe that search engine optimization (SEO) is something their information technology (IT) department took care of years ago. Or they mistakenly think that a pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaign takes 15 minutes to set up. Or they mistakenly hope that their public relations (PR) people have a good handle on social media marketing.

So, I'm delighted to see the large number of first time attendees at Search Engine Strategies conferences -- because after they've sat in on a dozen sessions over three days they come away knowing how much more there is to learn.

Hey, if it were easy, we'd all rank #1.

So, with SES San Jose 2009 coming up Augus