The nearly sold out SMX Advanced conference is taking place in Seattle on June 3 and 4. I've been asked to coordinate two sessions for the show, and have been receiving sparse speaking pitches and content, so I'm enlisting your help. Here's what I'm planning:

Bot Herding:

My intent with this session is to address these topics:

  • "White-Hat" Cloaking - applications and methodologies for showing unique versions of content to search engines vs. users, including how, why and when to do it.
  • PageRank Sculpting - using nofollow, javascript or other non-spiderable link methodologies to herd your link juice effectively for rankings and traffic.
  • 301 Redirects - Advanced uses for redirecting content, including a discussion about the recent claims that 301s may/may not be effective depending on how they're used (content matching, domain matching, cross-site, etc.)
  • Duplicate Content & Duplicate Sharding Controls - specifically, it would be interesting to address this matter for blogs, publishing and e-commerce sites, who frequently suffer with these issues. I'm assuming a high level of knowledge about dupe content from the audience here, so making a presentation that talks tactics and specifics would be more valuable
  • Opposing Viewpoints - having a speaker who rejects the use of bot control and has an intelligent presentation and rationale for dismissing the use of tactics like PR sculpting, "white hat" cloaking, dupe content control, etc. would be fun. I think the audience might find it valuable to hear both sides of this debate.

Analytics Every SEO Needs to Know:

This is NOT the standard analytics panel, but rather, focuses on uncommon metrics specifically for organic search engine optimization. Pitches could include:

  • Advanced Search Engine Metrics - things like domain mentions over time, advanced link searches, blog data and other site metrics from the engines (Yahoo! linkdomain and Google site searches do not apply)
  • Third Party Tool Data - Information garnered from non-engine sources that help to inform decisions around keyword targeting, link building, site strategy, etc. from any source on the web (however, I'd prefer these remain non-promotional, so if you're from a specific company, I'd ask that you find and mention alternatives/competitors)
  • Uncommon Visitor Tracking Information - not things like visits or page views, or even page views per visit. I'm seeking truly unique metrics that might not even be available in standards analytics packages

One requirement I have for the panel is that speakers not only mention how to obtain the data, but why it's important and how to use it in real life SEO campaigns.

For both of these panels, I need help with two items:

  1. Pitches: If you think you can contribute the content above intelligently and present in an engaging, confident manner, please fill out this speaker form (don't email me directly).
  2. Content: If there are topics around the two session subjects above that you feel are missing or would really like to see at the show, please mention them in the comments here and I'll be sure to evaluate and see about getting them included as part of the session.

Thanks a ton for your help - I'm looking forward to seeing you all there! We'll have more news about events during and around SMX Advanced. Since Seattle is SEOmoz's hometown, you can expect us to put together something cool :)

p.s. We're also going to have a booth at SMX Advanced, where you'll be able to demo our latest stuff including the new multi-site tracking version of SEO Analytics and three brand new tools and, of course, get SEOmoz t-shirts and sweatshirts :)

p.p.s. I've been getting a lot of pitches that begin with "Advertising on the Internet is of growing importance to businesses worldwide. So-and-so has been at the forefront of such-and-such for 12 years, and will answer questions about blah blah blah." I'm rejecting these out of hand, so please don't have your PR person submit your pitch - do it yourself, make it intelligent and speak to the subject at hand.