Great News! Massimo Burgio, Co-Chair of the SEMPO Global Committee sent me an article last week that I would like to share. Despite the latest rant from our well respected chairman, Gord Hotchkiss on how Ontario Tourism is not fully utilizing their search marketing potential, another research was reported in the Global Mail stating that online advertising is expected to grow faster in Canada than anywhere else in the world over the next five years. As such, PricewaterhouseCoopers predicts that Internet advertising in the country will reach $2.03 billion (US) by 2011, representing an annual growth rate of 23.5 percent – well ahead the global average of 13.4 percent and the US 16.1 percent growth rate. Canadian online ads are driven by the country’s high percentage of broadband users, but countries like India and China are expected to gain a lot of ground on North America in the coming years.

If you find any other online advertising research like this, please feel free to send it to us.

SEMPO.ca arrives at SES Toronto which in my opinion lived up to expectations. This year’s edition of Search Engine Strategies offered a wide range of informative speakers from all over the industry which included SEMPO’s own Ken Jurina and Gord Hotchkiss.

With an atmosphere which was always friendly, the conference offered a great opportunity for SEM’s to rub elbows and bounce ideas off some of the top players in the industry. SEMPO.ca even helped to push the networking along offering out free drink tickets at the networking cocktail reception in the Expo Hall after the end of the first day of sessions. Also during SES Toronto, Ken Jurina from epiar.com hosted his very own private party. Check it out, arriving with the long limo:

As for the sessions themselves, with three different search tracks being offered at the same time it was a difficult decision choosing which session to attend. Depending on the speaker I tended to switch between the ‘On the cutting edge’ and ‘Let’s make some money’ tracks. With plenty of information being dished out, I started to see an underlining theme develop in both of these tracks which basically revolve around two things that are important for any SEM.

1. Get an Analytics package if you’re not already using it.
2. Start testing your website using a multivariate tester such as Google Optimizer.

Now while most of us already know the value of these two tools, the importance of using them was continually emphasized as you listened to the different speakers throughout the two day event.

With all the great speakers including a fantastic keynote presentation by Seth Godin, SES Toronto winded up being an excellent experience.

Author: Ken Moss

The main event of the year in Search Engine Marketing: Search Engine Strategies (SES) Toronto is coming back again soon on June 12-13 2007. Ken Jurina will be there representing SEMPO Canada along with all representatives of the Canadian Search Marketing Industry. During SES, Ken Jurina & a few other members will host a mixer on day 1 of the SES Show. As such, this session will present the first year of accomplishments within SEMPO Canada and presents the plan for our next fiscal year. For those who may not know, Search Engine Strategies is the premier event about Search Marketing (SEM) technologies and tactics and we are proud to have this show coming to Canada once a year. Organized by two of the world’s leading search authorities, SES Toronto Conference Chairman, Andrew Goodman and SES Programming Director, Chris Sherman, this show can help you learn:

* How search engines list Web sites for free and through paid placements;
* How to get free “organic” traffic by building a site that pleases search engines and your visitors;
* How to efficiently purchase listings guaranteed to rank your company at the top of search engine results;
* How to calculate the ROI of your search marketing efforts by tracking your visitors from the time they hit your site until they buy? and get tips on improving conversion if they don’t;
* How to build links that generate traffic to your Web site, and how to avoid the penalties of “spamming” the search engines;
* What’s coming next in the constantly evolving world of Web search, and how you can profit from those changes.

Search Engine Strategies Toronto will be held on June 12-13, 2007 at Metro Convention Centre, 255 Front Street West, Toronto (Ontario).