The Day 1 at Pubcon took off with the conference introduction by Brett Tabke, CEO, Pubcon Inc. After the 15 minutes overview, it was the time to start the chain of sessions.

Here's a quick look at the Day 1 at Pubcon:

1.) Jason Calacanis on 'State of the Media' – The Keynote Session at #Pubcon Las Vegas Day 1!

The keynote was obviously the most interesting part of the day 1. Jason shared great insights about the State of the Media Business, the ongoing trends, and of course his predictions for Gaming, TV, Books & Magazine, Newspaper, Advertising, Films, and Radio. Jason predicted that Google will buy NFL digital rights, Apple will launch TV & buy Netflix, Crowdfunded newspapers will replace local papers, and Spotify will grow from streaming service to record label. The crux of the session was to make world-class product, design & UX and ensure that the overall execution is done the right way to drive success.

Speaker: Jason Calacanis

2.) Advanced Reputation Management: #Pubcon Las Vegas 2013, Day 1!

A 60 minutes session on advanced reputation management covered every aspect from basics of reputation management to improving online reviews, monitoring the brand, and repairing reputation attacks. The fast paced session at Salon A was replete with case studies and followed by Q&A round. Speakers identified the building blocks of reputation, need to empower employees for engaging customers on social media, and keeping a track of reviews.

Speakers:

  • Erin Jones – Director of Community Relations, Trackur
  • Andy Beal – CEO, Trackur

3.) Schema: Semantic Markup and Search: #Pubcon Las Vegas 2013, Day 1!

This session in Salon H focuses on structured markup in SERPs to optimize click-thru rate. Addressed by four speakers, it explored the ways to increase the site’s presence.

Carrie Hill highlighted how schema can lift a site in SERP above the pack, offer better description of what the page offers and get big bang for your buck. There is an array of choices when it comes to structured data. Although only one product per page can be forgeted, the marketer can put multiple offers on that one product. EBay is a prime example of that strategy. 

One can use Google spreadsheets for marking up a business. Having a few extra items, these markups are a step ahead of other markup tools. These can be copied to Google docs.

Here’s the link to Carrie’s presentation.

Moderator: 

  • Dennis Yu

Speakers:

  • Jonathan Goodman- President, Halyard Consulting
  • Matthew Bey- Head of Operations, TastyPlacement
  • Daniel Schulman- Director of Search Marketing, Donordigital
  • Carrie Hill- Co-Founder, SEO Strategist, Ignitor Digital

4.) Straight Jacket-Free In-house SEO: #Pubcon Las Vegas 2013, Day 1!

The session was a great helpful for in-house SEOs struggling to do their job right. While addressing the pain points of SEO, speakers talked about the importance of knowing your consumers, thinking outside the traditional marketing techniques, and how to make your data stand out of the rest. Creating core team, providing training, setting priorities, goals, and incentives, providing tools, setting internal standards, and measuring & tracking were the 6 main focus areas in the session.

Moderator: 

  • Melanie Mitchell

Speakers:

  • John Marshall – CTO, Founder, Market Motive
  • Simon Heseltine – Director, Audience Development, AOL Inc.
  • Derrick Wheeler – Senior Search Engine Optimization Architect, Microsoft

5.) Developing Audience Personas for SEO: #Pubcon Las Vegas 2013, Day 1!

This session discusses how important it is to get into the psyche of audience before designing a website.  There were two speakers highlighting five key factors of successful persona development.

Dana Lookadoo talked about how website marketing is all about getting the behavioral traits of the audience. All disciplines – writing, developing, designing, marketing – must cater to the user experience. A marketer needs to know the buyer persona to make precise strategy. Interviewing target audience and gathering feedback will enable marketers to understand their psychographic makeup. All content must be written factoring in audience behavior and context. Designing must honor the audience’s desires and must synchronize with goals and conversion points.

Here’s the presentation by Dana

Moderator: 

  • Paul Edmondson

Speakers:

  • Dana Lookadoo – SEO Consultant, Trainer, Yo! Yo! SEO
  • Melyssa St.Michael – Vice President, Search & Emerging Media, Rockfish

6.) Local Tactics, Research, and Strategies: #Pubcon Las Vegas 2013, Day 1!

Local search is gaining momentum. Over a couple of years, it has become an increasingly significant area of search, as a whole. The session on Local Tactics, Research, and Strategies covered points that can help SEOs in dominating local search. Mike Ramsey said that you can never become the king with tactics. Strategy is the king in Local search. Ramsey also shared the local tactics from 1999-2012 in the session.

Here's the link to Mike's presentation

Moderator:

  • Michael Dorausch

Speakers:

  • Mike Ramsey – President, Nifty Marketing
  • Tron Jordheim – CMO, StorageMart
  • Dennis Yu – Chief Executive Officer, BlitzMetrics

7.) Performing an SEO Audit: #Pubcon Las Vegas 2013, Day 1!

An interesting and unusual session topic, Performing an SEO Audit was about the importance of an audit and how to perform forensic SEO audit on website, regardless of the size of the website. Audit helps you get great results and become a sustainable business. The session covered steps to perform SEO audit, information on strategic SEO audit, tactical SEO audit details, getting started tips, and more. 

Moderator:

  • Chris Boggs

Speakers:

  • Alan Bleiweiss – Forensic SEO Consultant, Alan Bleiweiss Consulting
  • Selena Narayanasamy – Director of Strategy Development, Foundation Digital

8.) No Virginia, Link Building Is Not Illegal: #Pubcon Las Vegas 2013, Day 1!

Thanks to Google updates, link building is a hot issue among webmasters and SEO professionals, who waited eagerly for the session. The speakers advised against going on a link building spree as only one or two links usually get you ranked. Webmasters need to build links that drive traffic rather than focusing solely on link building for SEO. Duane talked how internal links help with usability, but you should not get overboard with them. If you abuse link building, be ready to be penalized. You can go for buying links or trading links at your own peril. 

Here’s the presentation by Duane.  

Moderator: 

  • Andy Atkins-Krueger

Speakers:

  • Duane Forrester – Sr. Product Manager, Bing Webmaster Tools, Bing
  • Eric Enge – CEO, Stone Temple Consulting Corporation
  • Michael King – Director of Inbound Marketing, iAcquire
Author

Navneet Kaushal is the Editor-in-Chief of PageTraffic Buzz. A leading search strategist, Navneet helps clients maintain an edge in search engines and the online media. Navneet is also the CEO of SEO Services company PageTraffic which is one of the leading search marketing company in Asia.