SMX 2013 Initial Feedback

by Amit Ramani/ @anterikinc

SMX Initial Feedback

This was my first SMX conference. In fact, it was my first technical conference of any kind. While $2400 is quite a steep price to pay for the full conference (including the workshop and all sessions), the idea is that you get upto speed on the latest happenings in the SEO, PPC, Social Marketing world. That I think is the perceived goal of SMX.

Towards that goal, I think SMX fared reasonably well. The sessions span a wide variety of different topics from SEO, PPC, Social Media, Semantic, Entity Search. However, the depth of these sessions is questionable, as is the quality of some of the speakers.

The Good

I found the following sessions and workshops the most useful.

  • Bruce Clay SEO Workshop
  • Learn with Google Sessions
  • What are the most important Page Ranking Factors?

Bruce Clay SEO Workshop

The best part about the conference for me was the full-day SEO Workshop by Bruce Clay Inc. In all honesty, the workshop delivers on its promise. Bruce Clay spoke about SEO like second nature, he has the smarts, he keeps up with the industry and does not hesitate when faced with difficult questions. I thought the entire audience of the Bruce Clay Session engaged very actively throughout the workshop. That is always a sign that the audience is grasping at what the speaker has to offer.

SEO All In One For Dummies is included in the class as is the SEO Training binder. Bruce goes over the important aspects of SEO, answers even the most simplest of questions. Add to that, his staff is very pleasant. (shout out to @ChelseAdams)

Learn with Google Sessions

This was kind of unexpected as it was not on the official agenda. In my opinion, these sessions were a hit. Not only was their presentations more clear, it was coming straight from the source. No ambiguity and guesswork whether or not to follow their suggestions and advice. I can not say the same about some of the other speakers in the smaller sessions.

The Bidding Strategies for PPC session by Google was especially useful in that it focused on how to get the most of your campaign if you are squeezed by budget limitations.

Another very useful presentation was how to get your site working smoothly across multiple devices. The speaker presented clear and specific tips instead of generic advice., like “make sure it works on iPads”.

I will post more specifically about each of these sessions with the key takeaways for me. In the meantime, cheers to the organizers of SMX and all the contributors. It has been a very enjoyable experience and I will return in 2014!

Did you attend SMX 2013? What are your thoughts?


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