Think Visibility

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The Think Visibility conference in Leeds is fast establishing a reputation as a ‘must go to’ event for those involved in online marketing in the UK. So, for the second time this year Paid On Results sent a member of staff – of which I was the lucky ticket holder, who made my way down to Leeds for the 4th Think Visibility conference last Saturday.

Think Visibility is a one day conference which features many well known speakers from SEO, Affiliate Marketing and generally those involved in making money online.

This time round, many of the speakers on the day focused on SEO, which no doubt helped attract a large number of SEO attendees – agencies, consultants, etc to the event. Since, SEO is something that everyone involved in online marketing needs to be on top of, the event also attracted a number of affiliates and merchants – such as Childrens Rooms and travel agent Sunshine.co.uk – which recently launched an affiliate program with Paid On Results.

Pre Party

Many of the attendees booked into the City Inn hotel in Leeds. On the Friday night before the conference, I met up at the hotels Skybar for drinks with a few of them including Fraser Edwards, Jason Brockman and Chris Calitz. We then headed over to the ‘Squares’ pub where Think Visibility hosted a pre-party which included a pool tournament. It was an excellent networking opportunity at which I met some familiar faces as well as meeting lots of new people. There were lots of experienced industry types to get some tips from, but also a number of newbies which was good to see. It was an informal, fun evening which saw Al Carlton win the pool tournament.

Conference

Early next morning, led by Elaine & Dave of Childrens Rooms, a group of us from the hotel walked along the Leeds canal to the Think Visibility venue – the Alea Casino.

It was an excellent venue – with all the required facilities including a bar and two large rooms where the talks were held at various times throughout the day.

Lunch was included in the ticket price and there were a number of very good restaurants nearby and in the casino itself.

Talks

The conference started at 09:20 with 10 minute introduction by Think Visibility organizer Dom Hodgson of www.hodgetastic.com.

Sponsors were thanked www.caboodledesign.co.uk, www.bronco.com, www.majesticseo.com, www.gadgetglamour.co.uk and www.abwellan.com.

There were a total of 12 talks, each lasting approx 45mins with a Q&A at the end. Many were on at the same time, which made it difficult to choose between them as I wanted to go to them all.

The talks I went to are listed below. I won’t detail their contents, as many of the speakers presentations will be made available online. If interested see the links at the bottom of the page for more info, slides etc

  • Learning & Earning through Social Media – Mel Carson (Community)

“The Community team at Microsoft Advertising, have been engaging with advertisers and marketers all over the world using social media since 2006. This is their story of why the team got set up, how they’ve evolved, how they measure success and their theories on social media best practice.”

  • Keyword Domains and Mini-Sites – Gary Taylor (Domain Names)

“Find out how to create a self-sustaining domain name portfolio, using an efficient and scalable model. Learn how to choose the right domain name, monetise your site and replicate the success. Discover the best tools to use from the domaining community and the greatest resources for you to research your next domain purchase.”

** This was my favourite talk of the day – particularly helpful for affiliates, especially beginners.

  • Using Social Media for SEO – Lisa Myers (Social Media)

“Find out how to utilise Social Media techniques to profit your SEO efforts. Lisa will be going through some real examples on how you can utilise Social Media techniques to generate links and traffic that in turn helps your organic search engine rankings.”

  • Submit your site for review with SEO, Design and CRO – Panel (Site Clinic)

4 industry experts included Dave Naylor, Kieron Donoghue, Karl Blanks and Michelle Pilcher. This was a great opportunity for attendees to submit their websites and get free advice from highly experienced professional. The re-designs by Michelle @ Caboodle Design were very impressive and if you’re looking to re-design your website then she is worth contacting.

  • Linkbuilding In Real Life: A Practical Guide to Dominating the SERPS – Jaamit Durrani (Link Building)

“instead of giving the usual ‘broad brush ideas + a few examples’ talk, I am going to turn this around and go from the specific to the general and talk about the actual execution of linkbuilding in real life, which is 80% of the puzzle, in my experience”

“Paul takes us on a journey into the mindset of the spammer. Using examples from real life of what ‘some people do’ and some war stories from his misguided youth attendees will get a crash course in the approaches taken by those for whom a moral always has a price.”

** Paul is certainly no idiot – he’s a sharp operator who can spot an opportunity before most people realize what’s going on. It’s rare that you get a chance to go to a talk like his. I’ll never look at Twitter the same way again….

  • How to Gain Ranking Dominance in Any Market Sector – Dave Naylor (SEO)

“we’re going to look at how to dominate the SEO space in almost any market. From keyword choice, daily management of your SEO campaign, to big strategic questions and the importance of personal relationships, Dave will take you on a journey from the bottom to the top of the SERPs in 30 slides.”

Drink Visibility

After dinner the networking continued at the Alea Casino bar. Al Carlton arranged a charity poker tournament. I started well (with some assistance from Jason Brockman and made it to the last 9 but ended up going all in and lost to the eventual winner Kev Strong aka Goosh. A very enjoyable evening with good company – I just need to brush up on my poker skills.

Conclusion – Get Yourself To The Next Think Vis…

Think Visibility was an excellent experience. It was a fun, informal conference where I met loads of interesting internet/SEO types. The speakers were of a vey high quality and I learned a lot – I just need to put it into practice. In fact I already know of attendees who are already benefiting from the expert advice – SEO and sales wise.

So if you are interested in internet marketing, SEO, improving your website conversion, affiliate marketing, etc then get yourself to the next Think Visibility conference on 6th March 2011. It doesn’t matter if you are new to this industry – a complete beginner looking for advice or an experienced professional, Think Visibility is well worth attending. At only £119 to meet & learn from industry experts it’s a bargain!

A big thanks to Dom Hodgson for organizing the conference – yet another great success! (In fact he’s so great it was decided to make two of the Hodge.

Speakers Slides:

P.s. such was the quality of #ThinkVis that I missed out on going to the talk by Karyn Fleeting my boss Clarke Duncan was not impressed as he got a name check and was used in her slides. You can view Karyn’s excellent slides here. The PR’s Guide to World Domination.

Photos:

Think Visibility Photos on Facebook

Review written by Jonathan Cannovan, you can find me on Twitter @Cannovan.

Paid On Results is also on Twitter @PaidOnResults as is one of our directors @ClarkeDuncan.