The search engine marketing scene is robust in Portland — creating jobs, building local companies and drawing national talent to the city during SearchFest09.
Portland, Ore. – February 13, 2009 – While prominent industries flounder, regretfully leaving an abundance of job losses in their wake, one industry — search engine marketing (SEM) — continues to thrive. Encompassing components such as search engine optimization (SEO), paid search marketing, social media marketing and online reputation management, SEM is a 10 billion industry and predicted to grow to 18.6 billion by 2011. Since June of 2007, SEO employment has increased by twenty-two percent, with social media employment increasing ninety-eight percent. Compare that to a sad overall decrease in employment in industries across the board, from finance and retail to accounting and manufacturing. .
Being home to the only nonprofit professional SEM organization in the Pacific Northwest, SEMpdx, Portland is at the forefront of this phenomenon — proving once again to be a major hub for creative and technical talent. Even larger cities such as Seattle and San Francisco have been unable to create a similar organization, lacking the necessary talent required to support it.
“Portland is a hotbed for top SEM companies. Roughly twenty employ local Portlanders and create commerce with other businesses throughout the city,” said Kent Schnepp, vice president of strategy for EngineWorks, a Portland SEM company and SEMpdx board member. “Portland outranks most cities in the sheer volume of SEM companies and talent it draws.”
On March 10, 2009, thirty-five well-known industry experts will converge in The City of Roses for the opportunity to present at SEMpdx’s annual SearchFest event — fully aware that attendees are among the best and the brightest in the industry. SearchFest’s presenting lineup rivals nationally-recognized SEM conferences as heavy-hitters with Microsoft, The Wall Street Journal, Yahoo! and Google will be represented.
This year’s headliner, Danny Sullivan (editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land, the leading news and analysis blog for search marketing professionals), made time in his demanding national speaking circuit to stop in Portland.
“Portland has a thriving tech community that’s well known, but less known is that there’s also a thriving search marketing community focused around the city,” said Sullivan. “Not only do local search marketers gather regularly to meet and advance the industry, but SearchFest is an example of how that community has made Portland one of the capitals of search marketing.”
Widely considered a leading “search engine guru,” Sullivan has been helping webmasters, marketers and everyday web users understand how search engines work for over a decade. To further explain Sullivan’s regard within the search community, it has been said that he is to SEM what A-Rod is to baseball or what Richard Branson is to investing.
Other noteworthy presenters at SearchFest09 include:
- Joanna Lord, creator of TheOnlineBeat.com, an online job searching and coaching site. Not only does her website compile all the listings from every major job board, it also provides job seekers with advice on how to make their strengths more visible online — such as maximizing social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter, using SEO tactics to hide any negatives and monitoring online reputations.
- Dawn M. Foster, local Portland online community manager, consultant and author of Fast Wonder Blog. She is also an organizer for the Portland BarCamp event, helps organize Ignite Portland, serves as the community evangelist for Shizzow, a new Portland startup, and is a co-founder and Chair of Legion of Tech. As a consultant, Foster guides companies in engaging online communities through various social media technologies including discussion forums, blogs, wikis, podcasts and more.
- Neil Patel, co-founder of three internet companies: ACS, Crazy Egg and KISSmetrics. Patel has helped large corporations such as AOL, General Motors, Hewlett-Packard and Viacom use the internet to increase profits. By the age of 21, not only was Neil named a top 100 blogger by Technorati, but he was also one of the top influencers on the web according to the Wall Street Journal.
- Marshall Simmonds, chief search strategist for the New York Times and About.com, CEO and co-founder of Define Search Strategies.A pioneer and leading expert in the search marketing industry, Simmonds was named chief search strategist for The New York Times Company in March, 2005 and is responsible for maximizing traffic and search engine exposure by implementing strategic marketing techniques for NYTimes.com, Boston.com, IHT.com and About.com.
- Rand Fishkin, founder and CEO of SEOmoz, a search marketing consulting firm based in Seattle, WA. Last year’s keynote speaker, Fiskhkin is best known for his work on SEOmoz.org, a resource that serves tens of thousands each month in the field of SEM. SEOmoz is regarded as one of the most visible companies in the search marketing world.
- Laura Lippay, director of technical marketing at Yahoo! Media, where she and her team are responsible for determining SEO opportunities across dozens of the top internet properties in their verticals. Lippay conducts regular SEO training at Yahoo! Prior to working at Yahoo!, Laura was the SEO specialist at CNET Networks and the manager of interactive media at The Linus Group, a Bay Area marketing firm. Before entering the online space, Laura traveled the country as a performer for The Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus.
- Derrick Wheeler, senior SEO architect at Microsoft. Wheeler responsibilities as senior SEO architect for Microsoft include developing and driving the in-house SEO strategy for the fifth largest site on the planet, Microsoft.com. With over a decade of agency-side search engine marketing experience, Wheeler has consulted with such clients as American Express, Capital One, General Motors, T-Mobile, Kaiser Permanente, Expedia and hundreds of other websites of all shapes and sizes.
Portland’s premier search engine marketing conference, SearchFest09, will offer attendees the newest in strategy and technological advancements within the online search marketing industry. Industry experts will offer rare insight on Tuesday, March 10, 2009 beginning at 8 a.m. at the Oregon Zoo, in the Cascade Crest Banquet Center. Hosted by SEMpdx (a Portland-based, non-profit dedicated to nurturing the development of the search engine marketing industry in the greater northwest), ten percent of the event proceeds will benefit the Police Activities League (PAL).
