NMM SEO Training Review

I was fortunate enough to be able to attend New Media Manitoba's 'Master Search Engine Optimization' seminar today with speaker Drew Bischof.

To start off I just wanted to say how AWESOME New Media Manitoba is (in general and...) for bringing such a capable and captivating speaker to us lowly Winnipeg tech gurus, Drew Bischof. New Media Manitoba constantly out does itself in supplying our Provence with a solid place to learn, network and grow as a community on the cutting edge of new media and technology. Drew and his Mentor Perry Marcial are the ones doing the cutting in the SEO world these days.

Drew is from Texas and braved the streets of our fine (and freezing city) to teach a room full of developers more about SEO. Now everyone I'm sure has an idea of what SEO really is and there are different theories and best practices scattered all over the net

The group that was there of had a wide age range, knowledge base and reasons for using SEO. Drew managed to prepare for this variety of knowledge hungry gurus and run a successful full day teaching session where I am sure everyone took something useful away. I know I have a new bag full of tricks from him. His way of enageing the audience and casual speaking really connected to the room, he didn't just read off his slides (thank goodness) or give any real 'text book' answers to what SEO /should/ be. Drew handed us tested facts.

Facts? On the internet? No way!

Way. Get to know the experts in what you are researching no matter what it is online, odds are very high that they have tried and tested the things you were vaguely thinking about doing. Saves you the time and trouble. But how to know who is the experts and what is misinformation?

His way of talking casually and sometimes going off in tangents was still interesting and entertaining enough to keep me fully engaged in what he was saying. Now this is an accomplishment in itself as my college instructors will attest to that keeping the attention of a generation y mind for any length of time is difficult if not impossible.

The main things he insisted needed to be done to better organic SEO are things that I have already heard from from this source or that. He just confirmed it to me that these techniques have been tested and are the way SEO and Google (the SEO god) are evolving. Your site has to be part of this wonderful web connections and need to evolve with it too to survive.

An example is anchor text. Anchor text was first brought to my attention in Web Development 1.0 at RRC. NEVER use the work 'click here' for a link. ALWAYS use a word or words that describe the link as the link. Make sense? No? I can explain it more to you if you contact me.

Example: Instead of writing 'To read about Smashley's awesome blog post click here.' It would be 'Please Read Smashley's Awesome Blog Post.'

It's something I do naturally now but not all people do and it drastically effects SEO.

However, on the flip side I have also come across other "best practices" that according to Drew (who understands the Google search algorithms) are totally baloney.

Thank you for making the what could be considered a very dry topic a great and educational presentation and for not lulling me to sleep and drool drips into my laptop keyboard, really saved me embarrassment in front of colleagues.

An added plus of the day was meeting face to face a twitter contact I had made a few months ago Lori Dyck of Wildfire. Another GIRL GEEK! I feel I instantly connect on several levels with geeky girls and had a great chat with Lori about new experiences and owning your own business and of course girly stuff (yes... like babies and puppies).

Another great contact David Wowchuk from Artisan Media.ca. A friendly hello that turned into a very educational (for me) discussion on truth, transparency and just 'being real' with clients and advertising. He has been in the design biz for over 14 years and the transparent and truthful talk has benefited him greatly. Great to know that this 'no smoke and mirrors' business practice really works. He recommended a book called All Marketers are Liars by Seth Godin.

Also at these workshops I find I get the most inspired and energized from not just from the speakers but from the other participants. Today I had some great ideas to implement on some of my projects and decided to follow through on a few ideas that I was humming and hawing about. Like the decision to finally vlog and use video as a way to really connect with people online.

In the end I just want to connect relevant information to you, the user.

Food was great and healthy, the 'plastic' cups where made from corn actually and biodegradable made by a company called Eco Products, who has a FANTASTIC website. Something I had read about but never seen till now, way to go NMM. Also I always enjoy Kevin Hatnik whom I've dubbed the Dumbledore of the new media tech wizards and his ability to articulately satire everyday life for a few shared laughs.